Henk W. Volberda

Bio: Henk W. Volberda is an academic researcher from University of Amsterdam. The author has contributed to research in topics: Competitive advantage & Absorptive capacity. The author has an hindex of 71, co-authored 274 publications receiving 29582 citations. Previous affiliations of Henk W. Volberda include VU University Amsterdam & Tilburg University.

Power and paradigms: the Dutch response to pressures for shareholder value

Abstract: Manuscript Type Empirical Research Question/Issue In recent years, research aimed at identifying and relating the antecedents and consequences of diffusing organizational practices/ideas has turned its attention to debating the international adoption and implementation of the Anglo-American model of corporate governance, i.e., a shareholder value orientation (SVO). While financial economists characterize the adoption of an SVO as necessary and performance-enhancing, behavioral scientists have disputed such claims, invoking institutional contingencies in the appropriateness of an SVO. Our study seeks to provide some resolution to the debate by developing an overarching sociopolitical perspective that links the antecedents and consequences of the adoption of the contested practice of SVO. Research Findings/Insights We test our framework using extensive longitudinal data from 1992–2006 from the largest listed corporations in the Netherlands. We find a negative relationship between SVO adoption and subsequent firm performance, although this effect is attenuated when accompanied by greater SVO alignment among major owners and a firm's visible commitment to an SVO. Theoretical/Academic Implications This study extends prior research on the diffusion of contested organizational practices that has taken a sociopolitical perspective by offering an original contingency perspective that addresses how and why the misaligned preferences of corporate owners will affect (i) a company's inclination to espouse an SVO, and (ii) the performance consequences of such misalignment. Practitioner/Policy Implications This study suggests that, when board members are considering the adoption of new ideas/practices (e.g., SVO), they should consider the contextual fitness of the idea/practice with the firm's owners and their interests.

Longevity in services: the case of the Dutch warehousing companies 1600-2000

Abstract: textIn this paper, we explore the factors that determine the longevity of firms. Five central factors were distilled from the literature: position in the supply chain, the nature of the technology used, structure, culture, and financial policy. We made an extensive case-study of the Dutch storage company Royal Pakhoed and its predecessors from the early seventeenth century to the present. We conclude that all five factors contributed to the longevity of Pakhoed, but to a different degree. Paradoxically, its dependent position in the supply chain enhanced Pakhoed's longevity because it led to a high absorptive capacity. The technology used proved to be surprisingly flexible and versatile. The structure was characterized both by centralized and decentralized features throughout the ages; decentralization enhanced continuity in several cases. The company's culture has been always rather 'open', but it restricted the range of successful diversification beyond storage and warehousing. A conservative financial policy helped one of Pakhoed's main predecessors to survive throughout the nineteenth century, but this factor seems to have been of relatively minor importance after the Second World War.

Rethinking the Dutch Innovation Agenda: Management and Organization Matter Most

Abstract: textIn this essay, we challenge the present dominant emphasis in the Dutch Innovation Debate on the creation of technological innovations, the focus on a few core technologies, and the allocation of more financial resources. We argue that managerial capabilities and organizing principles for innovation should have a higher priority on the Dutch Innovation Agenda. Managerial capabilities for innovation deal with cognitive elements such as the capacity to absorb knowledge, create entrepreneurial mindsets, and facilitate managerial experimentation and higher-order learning abilities. These capacities can only be developed by distinctive managerial roles that enhance hierarchy, teaming and shared norms. Utilizing these unique managerial capabilities requires novel organizing principles, such as managing internal rates of change, nurturing self-organization and balancing high levels of exploration and exploitation. These managerial capabilities and organizing principles of innovation create new sources of productivity growth and competitive advantage. The dramatic fall back of the Netherlands in the league of innovative and high productivity countries of the World Economic Forum-Report can be mainly attributed to the present lack in the Netherlands of these key managerial and organizational enablers of innovation and productivity growth. We provide various levers for building unique managerial capabilities and novel organizing principles of innovation. Moreover, we describe the necessary roles that different actors have to play in this innovation arena. In particular, we focus on the often neglected but important role of strategic regulations that speed up innovation and productivity growth. They are the least expensive way to boost innovation in organizations in both the Dutch private and public sector. Finally, we discuss the implications for the Dutch Innovation Agenda. It should start with setting a challenging ambition, namely the return of The Netherlands within the WEF- league of the top-ten most innovative and productive countries of the world. Considering the under-utilization of available knowledge stemming from technological innovations, managerial and organizational determinants of innovation should receive first priority. These determinants have a high strategic relevance and should receive more public recognition. We suggest to organize an annual innovation ranking of the most outstanding Dutch firms, to develop an innovation audit that measures firms’ non-technological innovation capacity, and to create an overall innovation policy for fast diffusion of new managerial capabilities and adequate organizing principles throughout the Dutch private and public sector. In conclusion, we add five new items to the Dutch Innovation Agenda: 1. Prioritize administrative innovations Investments in management and organization determinants of absorption of knowledge and its successful application (administrative innovation) should have a higher priority than investments in technological innovations. 2. Build new managerial capabilities and develop novel organizing principles For these administrative innovations to succeed, firms have to build managerial capabilities (broad knowledge-base, absorptive capacity, managerial experimentation, higher-order learning) and various management roles (hierarchy, teaming, shared norms) to increase the assimilation of external knowledge and the utilization for innovation. Moreover, they have to develop novel organizing principles that increase internal rates of change, nurture self-organization and synchronize high levels of exploration and exploitation. 3. Set levers of innovation by creating selection environments that favor innovation and by redefining the roles of key actors Management has to create a proper organizational context to foster entrepreneurship and innovation (internal selection environment). Governmental agencies have to focus on innovation and productivity enabling strategic regulations (external selection environment). Moreover, research institutes, business schools, and consulting firms should not only focus on technological knowledge, but also on managerial and organizational knowledge for innovation. In the end, private small and large firms and public institutions have to recognize that they all must contribute to the national goal of increasing innovation and productivity growth. 4. Create a new challenging national ambition: return of the Netherlands within the top-10 The Netherlands has to return to the top-ten most innovative and productive countries in the world as reflected in international rankings such as the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index. 5. Proliferate an awareness and passion for innovation: Create public awareness and recognition of the societal relevance of outstanding managerial capabilities and organizing principles to innovation and productivity growth: o Initiate a Dutch innovation ranking in terms of management and organization; o Develop proper assessment tools for innovations in management and organization; o Enhance reporting on the progress on managerial and organizational innovation as part of modern corporate governance and as part of outstanding annual reports. These issues may contribute to rethinking the fundamental sources of innovation, productivity growth and sustainable competitive advantage of the Dutch economy.

Strategic Renewal in Large European Firms: Investigating Viable Trajectories of Change

Abstract: textEuropean firms are confronted with major changes in their business environment because of specific European factors, such as the creation of a single European market, and because of global factors, such as the merging of industries. Firms in Europe therefore need to renew to cope with the changing environment. Renewal is presented as resulting from change processes that take place within organizations. Twenty-four ventures in three large European firms were analyzed to see how such dynamic processes lead to strategic renewal. The findings reveal that renewal trajectories depend on the organizational form, the market, and the strategy.

Coevolution of Firm Capabilities and Industry Competition

Abstract: textThis paper proposes that rival firms not only search for new capabilities within their organization, but also for those that rest in their competitive environment. An integrated analysis of these search processes at both firm and industry levels of analysis shows how their interaction makes industries and firms coevolve over time. To contribute to an enhanced understanding of the concept of coevolution, a dynamic and integrative framework crossing meso and micro levels of analysis is constructed. This framework is applied to a longitudinal study of the music industry with a time-span of 120 years. The first part, a historical study, covers the period 1877 - 1990. The second part, a multiple-case study, covers the period 1990 - 1997. We conclude that search behavior drives coevolution through competitive dynamics among new entrants and incumbent firms and manifests itself in the simultaneous emergence of new business models and new organizational forms.

Absorptive Capacity: A Review, Reconceptualization, and Extension

Abstract: Researchers have used the absorptive capacity construct to explain various organizational phenomena. In this article we review the literature to identify key dimensions of absorptive capacity and offer a reconceptualization of this construct. Building upon the dynamic capabilities view of the firm, we distinguish between a firm's potential and realized capacity. We then advance a model outlining the conditions when the firm's potential and realized capacities can differentially influence the creation and sustenance of its competitive advantage.

Prospering in Dynamically-Competitive Environments: Organizational Capability as Knowledge Integration

Abstract: Unstable market conditions caused by innovation and increasing intensity and diversity of competition have resulted in organizational capabilities rather than served markets becoming the primary basis upon which firms establish their long-term strategies. If the strategically most important resource of the firm is knowledge, and if knowledge resides in specialized form among individual organizational members, then the essence of organizational capability is the integration of individuals' specialized knowledge. This paper develops a knowledge-based theory of organizational capability and draws upon research into competitive dynamics, the resource-based view of the firm, organizational capabilities, and organizational learning. Central to the theory is analysis of the mechanisms through which knowledge is integrated within firms in order to create capability. The theory is used to explore firms' potential for establishing competitive advantage in dynamic market settings, including the role of firm networks...

Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders.

Abstract: A role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders proposes that perceived incongruity between the female gender role and leadership roles leads to 2 forms of prejudice: (a) perceiving women less favorably than men as potential occupants of leadership roles and (b) evaluating behavior that fulfills the prescriptions of a leader role less favorably when it is enacted by a woman. One consequence is that attitudes are less positive toward female than male leaders and potential leaders. Other consequences are that it is more difficult for women to become leaders and to achieve success in leadership roles. Evidence from varied research paradigms substantiates that these consequences occur, especially in situations that heighten perceptions of incongruity between the female gender role and leadership roles.

Clusters and knowledge: local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creation

Abstract: The paper is concerned with spatial clustering of economic activity and its relation to the spatiality of knowledge creation in interactive learning processes. It questions the view that tacit knowledge transfer is confined to local milieus whereas codified knowledge may roam the globe almost frictionlessly. The paper highlights the conditions under which both tacit and codified knowledge can be exchanged locally and globally. A distinction is made between, on the one hand, the learning processes taking place among actors embedded in a community by just being there dubbed buzz and, on the other, the knowledge attained by investing in building channels of communication called pipelines to selected providers located outside the local milieu. It is argued that the co-existence of high levels of buzz and many pipelines may provide firms located in outward-looking and lively clusters with a string of particular advantages not available to outsiders. Finally, some policy implications, stemming from this argumen...