This article discusses the research strategy of theory building from cases, particularly multiple cases. Such a strategy involves using one or more cases to create theoretical constructs, propositions, and/or midrange theory from case-based, empirical evidence. Replication logic means that each case serves as a distinct experiment that stands on its own merits as an analytic unit. The frequent use of case studies as a research strategy has given rise to some challenges that can be mitigated by the use of very precise wording and thoughtful research design.

Theory Building From Cases: Opportunities And Challenges

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

This paper reviews the literature on gender differences in economic experiments. In the three main sections, we identify robust differences in risk preferences, social (other-regarding) preferences, and competitive preferences. We also speculate on the source of these differences, as well as on their implications. Our hope is that this article will serve as a resource for those seeking to understand gender differences and to use as a starting point to illuminate the debate on gender-specific outcomes in the labor and goods markets.

/pdf/gender-differences-in-preferences-1wffy691ko.pdf

Gender Differences in Preferences

Companies are increasingly asked to provide innovative solutions to deep-seated problems of human misery, even as economic theory instructs managers to focus on maximizing their shareholders' wealt

Misery Loves Companies: Rethinking Social Initiatives by Business:

Much of the prior research on interorganizational learning has focused on the role of absorptive capacity, a firm's ability to value, assimilate, and utilize new external knowledge. However, this definition of the construct suggests that a firm has an equal capacity to learn from all other organizations. We reconceptualize the firm-level construct absorptive capacity as a learning dyad-level construct, relative absorptive capacity. One firm's ability to learn from another firm is argued to depend on the similarity of both firms' (1) knowledge bases, (2) organizational structures and compensation policies, and (3) dominant logics. We then test the model using a sample of pharmaceutical–biotechnology R&D alliances. As predicted, the similarity of the partners' basic knowledge, lower management formalization, research centralization, compensation practices, and research communities were positively related to interorganizational learning. The relative absorptive capacity measures are also shown to have greater explanatory power than the established measure of absorptive capacity, R&D spending. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3094223.pdf

Relative absorptive capacity and interorganizational learning

This article discusses the importance of the editorial review process and the importance of having a fair and effective means of evaluating submitted works. Editors of journals such as the “Academy...

“Getting on Board” with AMJ: Balancing Quality and Innovation in the Review Process

Because research-supported human resource (HR) practices appear to positively affect organizational outcomes, it is important to understand the factors that impact managers’ agreement with HR resea...

Who Believes Us?: Understanding Managers’ Agreement With Human Resource Research Findings

From the Editors Publishing across Borders: Furthering the Internationalization of AMJ

The article introduces this issue of the journal, discussing the report in this edition, “The Very Separate Worlds of Academic and Practitioner Periodicals in Human Resource Management: Implication...

Academy of Management Journal Editors' Forum on the Research-Practice Gap in Human Resource Management

This AMLE special issue is dedicated to furthering the practice of evidence-based management, and does so by focusing on the how’s, what’s, and wherefores of teaching it. Evidence-based management (EBMgt) is a professional form of managerial practice. It is about making decisions through the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of the best available evidence from multiple sources to help managers choose effective ways to manage people and structure organizations (Briner, Denyer, & Rousseau, 2009). EBMgt has grown out of the movement across many professions toward the uptake of evidence-based practice and away from reliance on tradition and unchallenged authority. Fittingly, the evidence-based movement first began in the field of medicine as a teaching method led by Gordon Guyatt and colleagues (Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group, 1992). In Guyatt’s words, “[T]here was no question that what we were doing was challenging authority, challenging paradigms, challenging educational approaches, challenging what you had to know, challenging how you do practice ultimately” (this issue). Since its origins in medicine over 2 decades ago, the systematic use of scientific evidence—along with evidence from other sources—is on its way to becoming an interdisciplinary professional standard. At the 2003 EBHC International Joint Conference, the term EB medicine was dropped in favor of evidence-based practice (EBP), emphasizing the fact that from medicine to policing, nursing, management and other professions, the basic principles of EB practice are shared (Dawes et al., 2005). At the same time, so are many of the challenges. Foremost among the challenges of systematically using evidence in one’s professional practice is that people need to acquire the content, knowledge, and skills in research and critical thinking to do so. EBP in management, as in medicine, begins with education and training. In fostering this training, management educators will be challenged to structure instructional experiences and develop new materials. This special issue provides insights into how to organize and structure learning experiences consistent with both research-based principles of human learning (Goodman & O’Brien, 2012) and practical teaching experience (e.g., Erez & Grant, 2014; Walshe & Briner, this issue). Teaching EBP has been described as having two sides—push and pull. “Push” refers to courses, textbooks, and other educational media and experiences that help learners acquire research-based content knowledge in substantive areas such as organizational behavior (OB) or strategic management. In this special issue, Steve Charlier’s interview of Gary Latham, Robert Dipboye’s review of Pearce’s (2013) textbook, and Tamara Giluk’s of Latham’s (2009) all provide insights into the push side of teaching EBP. The “pull” side of teaching EBP, in contrast, helps students and managers access and interpret research findings on their own. In a sense, the distinction between push and pull is one of content versus process. While the push side is used primarily to bring research evidence into the teaching of a particular content area, the pull side helps learners acquire skills they can use, whatever the topic, to access practice-related research and principles over the course of their careers. Most articles in this special issue focus on the pull side of teaching EBP (e.g., Gamble & Jelley; Goodman, Gary, & Wood; Trank; and Walshe & Briner). Another article (see Dietz, Antonakis, Hoffrage, Krings, Marewski, & Zender), also exemplifies the pull side, but focuses on helping students and practitioners produce their own research evidence (what Rousseau, 2006, termed “local” or “little e” evidence) rather than the more common approach of teaching how Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2014, Vol. 13, No. 3, 305–321. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amle.2014.0203

Sara L. Rynes

Papers

“Getting on Board” with AMJ: Balancing Quality and Innovation in the Review Process

Who Believes Us?: Understanding Managers’ Agreement With Human Resource Research Findings

From the Editors Publishing across Borders: Furthering the Internationalization of AMJ

Academy of Management Journal Editors' Forum on the Research-Practice Gap in Human Resource Management

From the Guest Editors: Change the World: Teach Evidence-Based Practice!