This paper differs from previous examinations of organizational learning in that it is broader in scope and more evaluative of the literatures. Four constructs related to organizational learning knowledge acquisition, information distribution, information interpretation, and organizational memory are articulated, and the literatures related to each are described and critiqued.

The literature on knowledge acquisition is voluminous and multi-faceted, and so the knowledge acquisition construct is portrayed here as consisting of five subconstructs or subprocesses: 1 drawing on knowledge available at the organization's birth, 2 learning from experience, 3 learning by observing other organizations, 4 grafting on to itself components that possess knowledge needed but not possessed by the organization, and 5 noticing or searching for information about the organization's environment and performance. Examination of the related literatures indicates that much has been learned about learning from experience, but also that there is a lack of cumulative work and a lack of integration of work from different research groups. Similarly, much has been learned about organizational search, but there is a lack of conceptual work, and there is a lack of both cumulative work and syntheses with which to create a more mature literature. Congenital learning, vicarious learning, and grafting are information acquisition subprocesses about which relatively little has been learned.

The literature concerning information distribution is rich and mature, but an aspect of information distribution that is central to an organization's benefitting from its learning, namely how units that possess information and units that need this information can find each other quickly and with a high likelihood, is unexplored. Information interpretation, as an organizational process, rather than an individual process, requires empirical work for further advancement. Organizational memory is much in need of systematic investigation, particularly by those whose special concerns are improving organizational learning and decision making.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2634941.pdf

Organizational Learning: The Contributing Processes and the Literatures

Factors impacting the organizational structure of firms have been analyzed often utilizing organizations theory. However, several other theories and perspectives have been proposed as potential alternative means of analyzing organizational structure and functioning. While previous studies regarding organizational structure have utilized such perspectives as adaptation and exchange theory, few studies have utilized population ecology theory, thus leading to the current study. Although population ecology theory is most often used in the biological sciences, many of its principles lend well to organizational analysis. Due to internal structural arrangements (e.g. information constraints, political constraints) and environmental pressures (e.g. legal and fiscal barriers, legitimacy) of an organization, the inflexibility of an organization limits the firm's organizational analysis utilizing an adaptation perspective. The challenges and discontinuities associated with utilizing an ecological perspective are identified, including issues related to the primary sources of change (selection and adaptive learning) and related to differentiating between selection and viability. Utilizing competition theory and niche theory, several models for analyzing organizational diversity are incorporated to address factors not encompassed by ecological theory. By compiling elements of several theories, a population ecology model applicable to business related organizational analyses is derived. (AKP)

The Population Ecology of Organizations

Most theorizing on the relationship between corporate social/environmental performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) assumes that the current evidence is too fractured or too variable to draw any generalizable conclusions. With this integrative, quantitative study, we intend to show that the mainstream claim that we have little generalizable knowledge about CSP and CFP is built on shaky grounds. Providing a methodologically more rigorous review than previous efforts, we conduct a meta-analysis of 52 studies (which represent the population of prior quantitative inquiry) yielding a total sample size of 33,878 observations. The meta-analytic findings suggest that corporate virtue in the form of social responsibility and, to a lesser extent, environmental responsibility is likely to pay off, although the operationalizations of CSP and CFP also moderate the positive association. For example, CSP appears to be more highly correlated with accounting-based measures of CFP than with market-based ...

/pdf/corporate-social-and-financial-performance-a-meta-analysis-21bp3gts9c.pdf

Corporate Social and Financial Performance: A Meta-Analysis

We integrate perspectives from the literature on contingency, dynamic capabilities, and the natural resource-based view of the firm to propose how dimensions of the general competitive environment of a business will influence the development of a dynamic, proactive corporate strategy for managing the business–natural environment interface. We also explain how certain characteristics of the general business environment—uncertainty, complexity, and munificence—moderate the relationship between the dynamic capability of a proactive environmental strategy and competitive advantage. We conclude with a discussion of implications for research and practice.

A Contingent Resource-Based View of Proactive Corporate Environmental Strategy

It sounds good when knowing the nature of managerial work in this website. This is one of the books that many people looking for. In the past, many people ask about this book as their favourite book to read and collect. And now, we present hat you need quickly. It seems to be so happy to offer you this famous book. It will not become a unity of the way for you to get amazing benefits at all. But, it will serve something that will let you get the best time and moment to spend for reading the book.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fjors.1974.92.pdf

The Nature of Managerial Work

A hypothesized relationship between environmental variation and organizational actions is central to organization theory. This study shows that conventional summary measures of instability do not capture all dimensions of environmental variation. This problem is addressed with frequency, amplitude, and predictability measures that characterize the pattern of environmental variation. The hypothesis that there is a relationship between longitudinal environmental variation and organizational structures, actions, and outcomes is common to most of the major perspectives of organization theory (Child, 1972; Hannan & Freeman, 1977; Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978; Thompson, 1967). Although there has been little agreement across theories about the causal mechanisms linking environmental variation with organizational characteristics, organizational theorists have generally agreed that there is some relationship between longitudinal environmental change and organizing problems. As a result, environmental variability is a central independent construct in models of processes as disparate as strategic choice, firm failure, and executive turnover. Organizations "experience" longitudinal environmental variation as variation in the availability of the "resources required for organizational survival" (Dess & Beard, 1984: 52). These resources include sales and knowledge about product design and manufacturing processes in private enterprises, budget allocations in the public sector, personnel, and other production factors. Researchers have typically characterized variation in the availability of such resources over time with measures of volatility, dynamism, or instability that attempt to capture total environmental variation with a single dimension. We propose a characterization of the pattern of longitudinal environ

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/256572.pdf

Characterizing environmental variation

Organizational ecology has focused largely on theoretical and conceptual debates, with relatively little attention devoted to integrating emerging research. In this paper, empirical literature is reviewed focusing on the environmental and organizational determinants of the formation of the firm; the liabilities of newness and smallness; the advantages of generalist and specialist strategies; the difficulties associated with organizational life-cycle transitions; and the competitive and demographic structures of industry. This research not only contributes to the basic understanding of organizational demographics, but it also suggests some significant changes in how organizational processes are modeled.

Organizational Ecology: Findings and Implications

Managers as 3rd-party conflict intervenors differ from other, more formal 3rd parties, such as arbitrators and mediators (B. H. Shepperd, D. M. Saunders, & J. W. Minton, 1986 ). The study described in this article was conducted to identify the conflict intervention strategies as recalled by managers in the role of 3rd party. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) techniques were used to determine the dimensions necessary and sufficient to distinguish among the types of intervention strategies described by managers. The MDS procedures revealed 5 dimensions : attention given to stated versus underlying problem, disputant commitment forced versus encouraged, manager versus disputant decision control, manager approaches conflict versus manager avoids conflict, and dispute is handled publicly versus privately. Confirmatory analysis supported the selection of dimension labels. Additional analysis provided preliminary support for the notion that the nature of the conflict and intervenor goals influence manager selection of intervention strategies.

Managerial third-party dispute intervention : an inductive analysis of intervenor strategy selection

A hypothesized relationship between environmental variation and organizational actions is central to organization theory. This study shows that conventional summary measures of instability do not c...

Jack Brittain

Papers

Characterizing environmental variation

Organizational Ecology: Findings and Implications

Managerial third-party dispute intervention : an inductive analysis of intervenor strategy selection

Research Notes: Characterizing Environmental Variation

Union Merger Process and Industrial Environment