What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

We investigate the psychological phenomenon of rivalry and propose that competition is inherently relational, thus extending the literatures on competition between individuals, groups, and firms. Specifically, we argue that competitors’ relationships, determined by their proximity, attributes, and prior competitive interactions, influence the subjective intensity of rivalry between them, which in turn affects their competitive behavior. Initial tests in NCAA basketball support these ideas, indicating that teams’ similarity and interaction histories systematically predict rivalry, and that rivalry may affect team members’ motivation and performance. Implications for the management of employees, as well as for organizations’ competitive strategies, are significant.

http://web-docs.stern.nyu.edu/management/Kilduff/KilduffEtAl%20AMJ%202010.pdf

The Psychology of Rivalry: A Relationally Dependent Analysis of Competition

The current study investigates a central premise of the resource-based view of the firm-that managers are a potential source of value creation for the firm. Using data from professional sports teams, we test theory regarding the effects of managerial ability, human resource stocks, and managers' actions on resource value creation. While results indicate managerial ability affects resource productivity, this effect is less pronounced with increases in the quality of firm resources. Further, we investigate the extent to which managerial actions that synchronize resource bundles account for the influence of managerial ability and resource context on a firm's performance advantage. These results contribute to our understanding of resource management and provide empirical evidence for the importance of managerial ability in the resource-based view.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1321057_code619640.pdf?abstractid=1321057&mirid=1&type=2

Making the Most of What You've Got: Managerial Ability as a Source of Resource Value Creation

The current study investigates a central premise of the resource-based view of the firm—that managers are a potential source of value creation for the firm. Using data from professional sports teams, we test theory regarding the effects of managerial ability, human resource stocks, and managers' actions on resource value creation. While results indicate managerial ability affects resource productivity, this effect is less pronounced with increases in the quality of firm resources. Further, we investigate the extent to which managerial actions that synchronize resource bundles account for the influence of managerial ability and resource context on a firm's performance advantage. These results contribute to our understanding of resource management and provide empirical evidence for the importance of managerial ability in the resource-based view. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Making the most of what you have: managerial ability as a source of resource value creation

Although numerous models of team performance have been articulated over the past 20 years, these models have primarily focused on the individual attribute approach to team composition. The authors utilized a role composition approach, which investigates how the characteristics of a set of role holders impact team effectiveness, to develop a theory of the strategic core of teams. Their theory suggests that certain team roles are most important for team performance and that the characteristics of the role holders in the “core” of the team are more important for overall team performance. This theory was tested in 778 teams drawn from 29 years of major league baseball (1974–2002). Results demonstrate that although high levels of experience and job-related skill are important predictors of team performance, the relationships between these constructs and team performance are significantly stronger when the characteristics are possessed by core role holders (as opposed to non-core role holders). Further, teams that invest more of their financial resources in these core roles are able to leverage such investments into significantly improved performance. These results have implications for team composition models, as they suggest a new method for considering individual contributions to a team’s success that shifts the focus onto core roles.

/pdf/developing-a-theory-of-the-strategic-core-of-teams-a-role-3ripw63gbd.pdf

Developing a theory of the strategic core of teams: a role composition model of team performance.

A number of phenomena of interest to management and organizational scholars have been investigated within the context of sport (e.g., compensation-performance relationships, escalating commitment, executive succession, sustainable competitive advantage). The authors are unaware, however, of any systematic effort to address the rationale, benefits, and potential of conducting organizational research within sport. The purpose of this article is to investigate how studying within the context of sport can contribute to an understanding of management and of organizations with a focus on how such contribution can be achieved with creative and innovative research approaches. The authors present a general overview of the rationale for studying organizational phenomena within sport and provide a concise review of such research. With this as background, the authors discuss a number of organizational phenomena that they have studied within the domain of sport. The article suggests how organizational research might b...

Jessica Simmons Jourdan

Papers

Sport and organizational studies exploring synergy