According to W. Edwards Deming, American companies require nothing less than a transformation of management style and of governmental relations with industry. In Out of the Crisis, originally published in 1982, Deming offers a theory of management based on his famous 14 Points for Management. Management's failure to plan for the future, he claims, brings about loss of market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to stay in business, protect investment, ensure future dividends, and provide more jobs through improved product and service. In simple, direct language, he explains the principles of management transformation and how to apply them.

Out of the Crisis

The Social Psychology of Organizations.

Typologies are an important way of organizing the complex cause-effect relationships that are key building blocks of the strategy and organization literatures. Here, I develop a novel theoretical perspective on causal core and periphery, which is based on how elements of a configuration are connected to outcomes. Using data on hightechnology firms, I empirically investigate configurations based on the Miles and Snow typology using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). My findings show how the theoretical perspective developed here allows for a detailed analysis of causal core, periphery, and asymmetry, shifting the focus to midrange theories of causal processes.

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Building Better Causal Theories: A Fuzzy Set Approach to Typologies in Organization Research

All Frames Are Not Created Equal: A Typology and Critical Analysis of Framing Effects

The authors thank Rakesh Khurana, Mark Shanley, and Edward Zajac for valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper. The paper has also benefited from the helpful comments of Christine Oliver and three anonymous reviewers for ASQ, as well as the editorial assistance of Linda Johanson. The following groups provided data used in this study: The AHA Hospital Research and Educational Trust, the AHA Data Survey Group, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations, and the Health Care Investment Analysts. We also thank the Baxter Foundation and the Graduate Program in Health Services Management at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management for generously funding this research. Additional support was provided by the A.C. Buehler Chair in Health Services Management at the Kellogg School. An earlier version of the paper received the 1996 West Press Best Paper Award in the Organization and Management Theory Division of the Academy of Management. This study develops a theoretical framework that integrates institutional and network perspectives on the form and consequences of administrative innovations. Hypotheses are tested with survey and archival data on the implementation of total quality management (TQM) programs and the consequences for organizational efficiency and legitimacy in a sample of over 2,700 U.S. hospitals. The results show that early adopters customize TQM practices for efficiency gains, while later adopters gain legitimacy from adopting the normative form of TQM programs. The findings suggest that institutional factors moderate the role of network membership in affecting the form of administrative innovations adopted and provide strong evidence for the importance of institutional factors in determining how innovations are defined and implemented. We discuss implications for theory and research on institutional processes and network effects and for the literatures on innovation adoption and total quality management.*

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Customization or Conformity? An Institutional and Network Perspective on the Content and Consequences of TQM Adoption

Spirituality at work: a conceptualization and measure

Two mistaken beliefs have appeared repeatedly in the organization theory literature concerning application of the systems paradigm to organizations. This paper identifies and corrects these beliefs. Three opportunities for using the systems paradigm to further the development of organization theory have been overlooked. The paper identifies these opportunities and suggests how they can be exploited. Finally, the authors note that recent advances in organization theory could enrich the paradigm, making it more useful for organization research.

The Systems Paradigm in Organization Theory: Correcting the Record and Suggesting the Future

This paper uses a complex adaptive systems view to examine two different organizational responses to turbulent, complex environments. We examined the internal make‐up of eight organizations that saw their environment the same way – as rapidly changing, complex and requiring aggressive change strategies. Half of these organizations chose a complexity absorption response to environmental turbulence, and half chose a complexity reduction response to environmental turbulence and complexity. The organizations pursuing a complexity absorption response outperformed those organizations with complexity reduction responses.

Organizational responses to complexity: the effect on organizational performance

This paper adopts a view of organizations as complex adaptive systems and makes a case for making organizations more complex internally through the use of a fairly simple managerial rule - using participative decision making. Participation in decision making enhances connectivity in organizations, which in turn, gives the organization the opportunity to self-organize and co-evolve in more effective ways than when there is minimal connectivity (i.e., autocracy). The paper uses a specific body of research to support the arguments about why participation can benefit the practice of management in modern organizations.

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What a Mess! Participation as a Simple Managerial Rule to ‘Complexify’ Organizations

Each time managers are faced with a strategic decision they decide how to decide. Specifically, they make choices about who has necessary information and, therefore, who needs to participate in the decision. Such responses to strategic issues are believed to be affected by the way in which decision makers interpret issues. However, organizations develop habitual responses to issues and may be predisposed because of their attention to rules and routines, or because of past performance, to respond to strategic issues in certain ways regardless of how issues are interpreted. We examined the direct and indirect effects of predisposition (rule orientation and past financial performance) and interpretation of strategic issues on the participation of internal stakeholder groups in strategic decision making. Executives in 52 organizations indicated that rule orientation and performance are directly linked to participation in strategic decision making, and that interpretation and rule orientation are directly linked to each other. Implications for managers include the notion that any effort to improve decision-making effectiveness by shaping how organizational members frame and interpret issues will be constrained by the organization's existing routines as well as its past performance.

Donde P. Ashmos

Papers

Spirituality at work: a conceptualization and measure

The Systems Paradigm in Organization Theory: Correcting the Record and Suggesting the Future

Organizational responses to complexity: the effect on organizational performance

What a Mess! Participation as a Simple Managerial Rule to ‘Complexify’ Organizations

Participation in Strategic Decision Making: The Role of Organizational Predisposition and Issue Interpretation*