Showing papers by "Henk W. Volberda published in 2012"

Management innovation and leadership: The moderating role of organizational size

Abstract: Recent research on management innovation, i.e. new managerial processes, practices, or structures that change the nature of managerial work, suggests it can be an important source of competitive advantage. In this study, we focus on management innovation at the organization level and investigate the role of leadership behaviour as a key antecedent. Due to its prominent role within organizations, top management has the ability to greatly influence management innovation. In particular, we focus on leadership behaviour and examine transformational and transactional leadership. Additionally, as contextual variables like organizational size may influence the impact of leadership, we investigate its moderating role. Findings show that both leadership behaviours contribute to management innovation. Interestingly, our study indicates that smaller, less complex, organizations benefit more from transactional leadership in realizing management innovation. On the other hand, larger organizations need to draw on transformational leaders to compensate for their complexity and allow management innovation to flourish.

Contingency Fit, Institutional Fit, and Firm Performance: A Metafit Approach to Organization–Environment Relationships

Abstract: In this paper, we attempt to reconcile contingency and institutional fit approaches concerning the organization–environment relationship. Whereas prior scholarly research has examined both theories and compared their impacts on organizational fit and performance, we lay the groundwork for a metafit approach by investigating how contingency and institutional fit interact to influence firm performance. We test our theoretical framework using a data set of 3,259 respondents from 1,904 companies, examining task environmental demands and institutional demands on organizational design across a broad range of industries and firm size classes. Our results show that contingency and institutional fit provide complementary and interdependent explanations of firm performance. Importantly, our findings indicate that for firms under conditions of “quasi fit” rather than perfect contingency fit or optimal institutional fit, improvements in contingency and/or institutional fit will result in better performance. However, firms with high contingency fit are less vulnerable to deviation from institutional fit in the formation of firm performance, whereas firms with perfect institutional fit will slightly decrease their performance when they strive to achieve contingency fit.

Offshoring and firm innovation: The moderating role of top management team attributes

Abstract: This study attempts to increase the understanding of how offshoring influences the introduction of new products and services. Focusing on the offshoring of those business functions that provide direct knowledge inputs for innovation (i.e., production, R&D, and engineering), we propose that offshoring has an inverted U-shaped influence on firm innovativeness. Additionally, we provide an upper echelon contingency perspective by considering the moderating role of two top management team (TMT) attributes (i.e., informational diversity and shared vision). Using a cross-industry sample with lagged data, we find that offshoring has an inverted U-shaped influence on firm innovativeness and that this relationship is steeper in firms with high TMT informational diversity and in firms with low TMT shared vision. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

How firms shape knowledge to explore and exploit: A study of knowledge flows, knowledge stocks and innovative performance across units

Abstract: We examine how firms may accumulate and apply knowledge through their units at different locations. To that end, we assess the mediating role of units’ knowledge stocks and disentangle how firms accumulate knowledge stocks through knowledge inflows and how they apply such stocks to innovative purposes at the unit level. Based on a questionnaire administered to branches of a large European financial services firm, our findings confirmed that horizontal knowledge flows develop units’ breadth of knowledge stocks, which in turn positively relates to exploratory innovations. Contrary to expectations, depth of units’ knowledge stocks was not fostered by vertical knowledge inflows, but instead by decentralising units. Depth of knowledge contributed not only to exploitative innovations, but also to exploratory innovations. Based on these results, our study illustrates how firms may create competitive advantage by developing and balancing distinct types of knowledge stocks at the unit level.

The skills base of technology transfer professionals

Abstract: As the importance of technology transfer activities to the growth and survival of public and private organisations has become evident in recent years, researchers have been paying closer attention to the resources and capabilities such organisations will need in order to compete in markets. Yet it is still unclear what skills that individuals who are considering the various activities and contexts they are part of need. This paper investigates the skills that individual technology transfer professionals generally need and how the importance of each of these skills varies by context. It is based on a multiple-phase qualitative and quantitative study of technology transfer skills at the individual level. Results indicate the importance for technology transfer professionals to possess a range of five particular soft and business skills besides having two hard skills such as those related to intellectual property rights and domain-specific knowledge. Our results also highlight the heterogeneity in skills that...

Organizing for Flexibility: Addressing Dynamic Capabilities and Organization Design

Abstract: The increasingly dynamic nature of organizational environments has led the research community to study organizational flexibility Although the research literature stresses the complexity of the organizational flexibility construct, it lacks a comprehensive empirical study addressing the relationships among various dimensions of organizational flexibility This chapter develops a theoretical framework specifying the linkages between types of flexibility and organization design characteristics We argue for a hierarchical structure with increasing levels of flexibility and supporting organizational design The theoretical framework is linked to observables based on a dataset of 3,259 respondents and provides strong support for the specified statistical model

How to support sensing capabilities in highly volatile situations

Abstract: In the scholarly debate on how to deal with hypercompetition a dominant logic has become that investing in ‘sensing’, ‘seizing’, and ‘transforming’ dynamic capabilities offers organizations the potential to repetitively initiate business innovations. Actual research into the micro-foundations of these dynamic capabilities has been limited. This study explores whether modular organizing and lateral coordination are typical processes that support an organization’s sensing function. Empirically the study investigates how these two variables help the Netherlands armed forces to deal with its volatile crisis response environment. The findings show that both predictors stimulate the development of a broad knowledge base from which the organization can operationally benefit. Yet, the study has also uncovered that, when modularity’s demand of organizational autonomy is not sufficiently satisfied, the organization becomes preoccupied with its own internal functioning at the expense of its external lateral sensing capacity.

Top Management Team Search and New Knowledge Creation: How Top Management Team Experience Diversity and Shared Vision Influence Innovation

Abstract: This article probes the vital role a top management team (TMT) plays in the coupling of knowledge elements assembled through local and nonlocal search into radically new, exploratory innovations and incrementally new, exploitative innovations It theorizes that the materialization of exploratory and exploitative innovations from a firm's recombinatory stock of knowledge elements is contingent on the interplay between a TMT's experience diversity and its shared vision Multigroup structural equation modeling of data from a large cross-section of firms in the Netherlands supports the theoretical model We find that although greater variation in TMT experiences fosters exploratory innovations, lesser variation promotes exploitative innovations A shared TMT vision moderates these relationships We discuss the implications for research and practice

Strategic renewal in institutional contexts: The paradox of embedded agency

Abstract: markdownThis dissertation uses mixed methods to increase academic and managerial understanding of the drivers and performance effects of institutional entrepreneurship at micro- and macro-levels of analysis. Study 1 is a macro-level study containing a review and typology of different streams of institutional theory. Study 2 is a quantitative macro-level study, examining the conformity between Dutch firms’ internal and external regulatory environment (fit), and linking this to firm performance. The U-shaped relationship between regulatory mis-fit and substantive performance that is found, suggests that for firms that strive for success, deviation rather than conformation may be the key to success. Study 3 examines the framing mechanisms used to maintain a cross-sector partnership (XSP). We carry out a qualitative case study focusing on the use of different frames by diverse actors in an XSP. We find that collaboration in a partnership does not have to result in a unanimous agreement around a single or convergent frame. This implies that resources need not be focused on reaching unanimous agreement among all partners on a single mega frame, but rather be used to enkindle unity in diversity, where several frames are maintained simultaneously. Study 4 uses a macro-level quantitative approach to demonstrate that the existence of individual-level institutional entrepreneurship initiatives within firms is related to the type of exhibited firm-wide innovative behavior. In sum, this dissertation illustrates that the institutions that managers come across in their professional environments can be influenced by individual institutional work carried out to create, maintain, transform or disrupt these institutions.

Technology transfer: the practice and the profession

Abstract: Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a new profession often referred to as the technology transfer (TT) manager TT managers apply various skills to accomplish transfer activities such as legal competencies; marketing and negotiation competencies; team work competencies; innovation competencies; and knowledge management competencies Furthermore, the transfer of technology takes place in various contexts such as universities, business entities and governmental institutions This special issue focuses on the profession of technology transfer In particular, it examines the emergence of the technology transfer profession and the impact on the practice of technology transfer at the individual, unit, project and organizational level