Showing papers in "Administrative Science Quarterly in 1989"

Work group demography, social integration, and turnover.

Abstract: The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Blake Frank for his help in obtaining the turnover data for this study and the University of California Institute of Industrial Relations for research support. Using 20 actual work units with 79 respondents, this study explores the relationships among group demography, social integration of the group, and individual turnover. Results suggest that heterogeneity in group tenure is associated with lower levels of group social integration which, in turn, is negatively associated with individual turnover. Models of these effects using individual-level integration measures are not significant. Further, the results suggest that it is the more distant group members who are more likely to leave. Both individual-level and group-level age demography directly affect turnover and are not moderated by social integration. The findings suggest a process by which group demography affects outcomes and support the usefulness of organizational demography for understanding group and individual functioning.'

Mimetic Processes within an Interorganizational Field: An Empirical Test

Abstract: This paper is a revision of a paper entitled "An Approach to the Study of Structural Change" presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, August 30-September 3, 1986, New York, NY. We are grateful to Dawn lacobucci for her research assistance, and we thank Gloria DeWolfe for typing the manuscript. We also thank Marshall W. Meyer and three anonymous ASO referees for their helpful comments. Support for this research was provided by National Science Foundation grants #SES 80-08570 and #SES 83-19364 to the University of Minnesota and #SES 84-08626 to the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. Support was also provided by the Program on Nonprofit Organizations, Yale University. The paper explores DiMaggio and Powell's thesis that under conditions of uncertainty organizational decision makers will mimic the behavior of other organizations in their environment. We add to their discussion by positing that managers are especially likely to mimic the behavior of organizations to which they have some type of network tie via boundary-spanning personnel. Data are presented on the charitable contributions of 75 business corporations to 198 nonprofit organizations in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area in 1980 and 1984. Using logistic regression models, we found that a firm is likely to give more money to a nonprofit that was previously funded by companies whose CEOs and/or giving officers are known personally by the firm's boundary-spanning personnel. Firms are also likely to give greater contributions to a nonprofit that is viewed more favorably by the local philanthropic elite. We also found that a nonprofit is likely to receive more money from a corporation that previously gave money to nonprofits whose directors sitzon the nonprofit's board. We concluded that managers utilize the information gathered through extraorganizational, interpersonal networks to make decisions on how to relate to other organizations in their task environment and achieve organizational ends.'

Predicting Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and Neglect.

Abstract: This paper is based on a dissertation completed by the first author under the supervision of the second. We thank Hugh Arnold, Julian Barling, Carol Beatty, John Dowling, Vic MacDonald, and Don Nightingale for their help at the thesis stage, two very thoughtful ASO reviewers, Dan Farrell and Janet Near for their comments on an earlier version of the paper, Tom Mahaffey for a timely question, and Ted Neave for getting things started. Financial support to the second author was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC 494-88-1015). This paper reports the results of two longitudinal studies we conducted to find out when dissatisfied employees will respond to their dissatisfaction with exit, voice, loyalty, or neglect. We found consistent evidence that exiters were affected by the costs and the efficacy of their responses as well as the attractiveness of their employing organization. Loyalists were primarily affected by the efficacy of their responses, although, unexpectedly, loyalty resembled entrapment in the organization more than it did supportive allegiance to the organization. Neglecters were primarily affected by the costs and the efficacy of their responses, and voicers were very difficult to predict. We conclude by arguing that we need a much better understanding of voice and loyalty in order to predict better how employees will respond to dissatisfaction.'

The Decoupling of CEO Pay and Performance: An Agency Theory Perspective

Abstract: It is common to thank the anonymous reviewers of a paper. In this case, we want them to know that they added in a very significant way to this study. Their comments provided helpful guidance that made a nice study a much better article. Their comments helped both of us learn a great deal about a theoretical domain with which we were unfamiliar. The way they dealt with this project could well be a tutorial for everyone who serves as a reviewer. This paper examines the extent to which monitoring and incentive alignment of Chief Executive (CEO) compensation and influence patterns of various actors on CEO pay vary as a function of ownership distribution within the firm. Based on the reports of 175 chief compensation officers in manufacturing, it was found that the level of monitoring and incentive alignment was greater in owner-controlled than management-controlled firms. For both types of firms, there was a direct relationship between monitoring and the risk level to the CEO of annual bonuses and long-term income, although the relationship was stronger among owner-controlled firms. In the owner-controlled firms, there was more influence over CEO pay by major stockholders and boards of directors. In management-controlled firms, the CEO pay influence was separated from major stockholders and boards. The results suggest that a behavioral approach to measuring agency theory concepts can provide some new insights into the process used to determine CEO pay.'

Whether and When? Probability and Timing of Incumbents' Entry into Emerging Industrial Subfields

Abstract: Many people have helped with this paper. The author would like to acknowledge explicitly the assistance of Glenn Carroll, David Teece, and the ASQ editor and reviewers. Part of this research was conducted with financial assistance from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the University of California at Berkeley. This paper examines the probability and timing of entry by industry incumbents into emerging technical subfields. When a new technical subfield of an industry emerges, an industry incumbent faces opposing entry incentives, either to wait until technical and market uncertainties subside or to stake out a strong position early. This paper argues that an incumbent is likely to enter a new subfield if the firm's core products are threatened or if it possesses industry-specialized supporting assets. The greater the competitive threat, the less likely an incumbent is to enter but the earlier it will do so. The predictions are supported with analysis of 30 years of entry data from five subfields of the American medical diagnostic imaging industry.'

). Entrepreneurs in academe: An exploration of behaviors among life scientists

Abstract: This research was supported by the Andrew Mellon Foundation and the Department of Health and Human Services, grant DHHS-100A-83. We thank our colleagues, Thomas A. Louis, Jack Fowler, Stanley E. Seashore, Ronald G. Corwin, James Hearn, and David Wise for their helpful comments on earlier drafts, as well as three anonymous ASQ reviewers. The remaining flaws are, of course, our own. This paper explores entrepreneurship in the research university, a setting in which there has been a marked change over the past half century in norms governing relationships between scholars and the commercial sector. A survey of life science faculty members in research universities is used to distinguish five types of academic entrepreneurship: (1) engaging in large-scale science (externally funded research), (2) earning supplemental income, (3) gaining industry support for university research, (4) obtaining patents or generating trade secrets, and (5) commercialization-forming or holding equity in private companies based on a faculty member's own research. The results suggest models for the different types of entrepreneurship. Individual characteristics and attitudes are the most important predictors of large-scale science and supplemental income, which are more traditional, while local group norms play a more important role in predicting active involvement in commercialization. University policies and structures have little effect on entrepreneurship. Implications for organizational theory and the role of the university are discussed.'

Decline in Organizations: A Literature Integration and Extension.

Abstract: The authors express their appreciation to their colleagues who reviewed earlier versions of this paper and made valuable suggestions, especially to Professors M. Ronald Buckley, George W. England, Thomas A. Mahoney, Daniel A. Wren, and to three unnamed ASO reviewers. This paper reviews current perspectives on organizational decline and integrates important underlying factors into a conceptual framework that refines the definition of decline in organizations. In the model developed here, decline moves through the following stages: (1) the organization is blind to the early stages of decline; (2) it recognizes the need for change but takes no action; (3) it takes action, but the action is inappropriate; (4) it reaches a point of crisis; and (5) it is forced to dissolve. The discussion of this model points to areas in which additional research is needed to develop sensitivity to the conditions leading to decline and a better understanding of conditions that are common to declining organizations.'

Density Delay in the Evolution of Organizational Populations: A Model and Five Empirical Tests

Abstract: This research was supported by National Science Foundation grant SES-8809006 and by the Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Berkeley. An earlier version was presented at the Wharton Conference on Organizational Evolution, December 1988. We appreciate the research assistance of Anand Swaminathan and the comments of John Freeman, Dan Levinthal, and three ASq referees. This paper claims that density at time of founding has a persisting positive effect on organizational mortality rates, net of the effects of contemporaneous density. High density at time of founding results in a liability of resource scarcity for new entrants that hampers organization building. Niches are tightly packed, and entrants must exploit marginal resources. This claim is tested using data on American labor unions (1836-1985), Argentinean newspapers (1800-1900), Irish newspapers (1800-1970), newspaper publishers in the San Francisco region (18401975), and American brewers (1633-1988). As predicted, density at time of founding has a positive and significant effect on mortality rates in all five populations. This finding has potential implications for explaining the fact that the size of organizational populations commonly declines after reaching a peak.'

Environments and Strategies of Organization Start-Up: Effects on Early Survival

Abstract: Examines both the separate and combined impact of environmental conditions (e.g., resource availability and competitive concentration) and organizational strategies (e.g., market breadth and market aggressiveness) on the probability of startup survival in the computer industry. It is hypothesized that young firms have a higher likelihood of survival when demand is increasing, competitive concentration is declining, they are specialist rather than generalist organizations, and they are aggressive rather than efficient organizations. It is also hypothesized that when demand is increasing and concentration is declining, startups that are generalist organizations will have a higher likelihood of survival than specialist organizations and that when demand is declining and concentration is increasing, young firms that are efficient organizations will have a higher likelihood of survival than aggressive organizations. Data were gathered from the 10-Ks and annual reports of 108 minicomputer producers in the United States founded between 1957 and 1981. Based on the criteria used to classify these 108 firms, only 44 survived through 1981 and 64 were coded as failures. Results indicate that market demand, both by itself and when interacting with strategy variables, is the primary environmental influence on the probability that startups will survive. It was also determined that when unit sales increase, specialist organizations are more likely to survive as startups than generalist organizations. In addition, aggressive startup firms are shown to have a greater survival chance than efficient startup firms. In addition, when sales are increasing, generalist strategies rather than specialist strategies do improve the likelihood of new firm survival. Finally, when sales are declining, more efficient organizations survive while more aggressive firms do not. (SFL)

Exploring fit and misfit with multiple contingencies.

Abstract: The author wishes to acknowledge Andy Van de Ven for his contribution to this stream of research and his permission to use the data, and Bob Drazin, Nancy Fisher, Mike Tushman, Elaine Romanelli, Blair Sheppard, the anonymous reviewers of ASQ, and especially Gerald Salancik for their insightful comments and suggestions. Bob Drazin, in particular, provided both guidance and inspiration in his role as my dissertation advisor. Portions of an earlier draft of this paper appeared in the 1987 Academy of Management Proceedings. Support during the revision stage was provided by the Fuqua School Business Associates Fund. This paper proposes a multiple-contingencies theory that simultaneously examines the effects of task and dependence on unit design and efficiency. The theory explores and predicts the conditions under which work-unit designs fail to fit their contexts. Findings from studies of one contingency factor (e.g., uncertainty or dependence) have shown that poor performance by units is related to a lack of fit with theoretically prescribed patterns of design, but because such studies do not do justice to the complexities of design, it is difficult to predict misfit. The multiple-contingency approach proposed here specifically focuses on issues such as misfit, conflicting contingencies, and equifinality. The model is tested, using data from 529 work units in 60 employment-security offices. A key finding is that units facing conflicting contingencies are more prone to design misfit and lower performance.

Doing Deals: Investment Banks at Work.

Abstract: Doing Deals is an in-depth explanation of the unique management style of investment banks. Represented are insights drawn from 17 U.S. investment banks, 21 issuing customers, and 10 European financial institutions.

A Semiotic Analysis of Corporate Language; Organizational Boundaries and Joint Venturing

Abstract: Many people deserve recognition for helping me present the narrative semiotic method used in this study. The credit for achieving the present level of clarity is largely theirs: Stephen Barley, Janice Beyer, Janet Dukerich, Roger Dunbar, Jane Dutton, William Guth, James Hoover, Anne Huff, Marjorie Lyles, Frances Milliken, Linda Pike, and the editor and anonymous reviewers of Administrative Science Quarterly. This research was partially supported by a grant from the Tenneco Fund. In an attempt to explain differences in the propensity of organizations to enter into joint ventures, this study uses a semiotic method of textual analysis to examine CEOs' letters to shareholders as they reflect the existence and strength of boundaries separating internal organizational subunits and boundaries separating the company from external environments. These boundaries are linked to the propensity of ten companies in the chemical industry to engage in joint-venture activity. Weak internal or interdivisional boundaries and strong boundaries separating the company from the external environment were prevalent in firms having no joint ventures; strong interdivisional boundaries and weak external boundaries were prevalent in firms having several joint ventures."

In search of rationality: the purposes behind the use of formal analysis in organizations.

Abstract: This paper describes the results of a study that examines how formal analysis is actually used in practice in three different organizations. Four main groups of purposes for formal analysis--information, communication, direction and control, and symbolic purposes--are identified and related to the nature of the social and hierarchical relationships between those who initiate analysis, those who do it, and those who receive it. It is concluded that, far from being antithetical as often assumed, formal analysis and social interaction are inextricably linked in organizational decision making and that different structural configurations may generate different patterns of use of analysis.

Organizational, Institutional, and Societal Evolution: Medieval Craft Guilds and the Genesis of Formal Organizations

Abstract: I would like to thank Howard Aldrich, Graham Astley, Rudi Bresser, Mark Ebers, Wilfried Gotsch, John Langton, Johannes Pennings, and four anonymous ASO reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. A theoretical frame is developed that links the genesis of formal organizations to societal evolution. This theoretical frame lends itself to an analysis of the peculiarities of the craft guilds and the developments that caused their decline and replacement by formal organizations. Medieval guilds were not yet formal organizations but formed important predecessor institutions in the evolutionary process that led to the emergence of organizations.'

The Lid on the Garbage Can: Institutional Constraints on Decision Making in the Technical Core of College-Text Publishers.

Abstract: The two authors participated equally in this paper. Elaine Backman provided extensive comments. Andrew Abbott, Carol Connell, David Garfinkle, Michelle Lamont, James March, Joanne Martin, Laurie Mason, John Meyer, John Newhagen, Linda Pike, Ann Swidler, and anonymous ASO reviewers also made helpful suggestions. In a study of college physics and sociology textbook publishers, coercive, mimetic, and normative forces in the institutional environment are shown to order the decision and access structures of garbage can systems and to account for a uniformity of outcomes that is unexpected from garbage can decision models. Interviews with editors established that decision making in textbook publishing conforms with the garbage can model and helped us determine the ten best-selling introductory texts in each field. Optimal matching, a quantitative technique for content analysis, was used to demonstrate that differences in the homogeneity of contents and sequencing of material in these textbooks are determined by the degree of development of paradigms in the academic discipline. We show that, in contrast to Thompson's (1967) model, organizations with ambiguous core technologies can benefit from opening their technical cores to be shaped by the institutional environment.'

Beyond Garbage Cans: An AI Model of Organizational Choice

Abstract: Part of this research was conducted during Michael Masuch's stay as a scholar of the Dutch National Science Foundation at the Graduate School of Public Affairs, State University of New York at Albany. Thanks are due to faculty and staff of the GSPA, and especially to Ron Hoskins, for all kinds of support, and to Maureen Donahue and Min Yuan for their assistance. Additional support came through grant #500-280-101 of the Dutch National Science Foundation and a Study Contract with International Business Machines Co. This study builds on the simulation methodology on which the metaphor of garbage can decision making was originally based, presenting a new model of organizational decision making that complements the original garbage can model by combining ambiguous choice with decision making under conditions of structure. The new model overcomes important, design-related limitations of previous studies by adopting tools from artificial intelligence (Al). Based on the interplay of actors, skills, actions, issues, and structure, the model represents human decision making as symbol-driven search activity. The results of the simulation indicate that decision making in organized structures may become as disorderly as decision making in organized anarchies, but for different reasons.'

The Development and Institutionalization of Subunit Power in Organizations.

Abstract: This research is part of a larger project on the semiconductor industry under the direction of John Freeman and Michael Hannan and was supported by grants ISI-8218013 and SES-8510277 from the National Science Foundation. The author would like to thank Jerry Goodstein for help with data collection and comments and Ellen Auster, Glenn Carroll, Bob Drazin, Jim Fredrickson, John Freeman, Don Hambrick, Mike Tushman, and three anonymous ASO reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The research reported here examined the effects of founding events on the evolution of subunit importance in the semiconductor industry from 1958 to 1985. The environmental period during which the organization is founded and the background of the entrepreneur starting the organization were shown to create conditions under which particular functional areas come to be regarded as more important. Patterns of influence established at founding are also demonstrated to maintain some consistency over time, contingent on the organization's performance, the organization's age, and the tenure of the entrepreneur. Inertial and institutional arguments are developed to explain the role of past practice in shaping future organizational action. Distributions of power and subunit importance represent not only the influence of current conditions but also vestiges of earlier events, including the organization's founding.'

Managing to Be Fair: An Exploration of Values, Motives, and Leadership

Abstract: ? 1989 by Cornell University. 0001 -8392/89/3402-02 52/$1 .00. This paper explores several issues of distributive justice as they are represented in the thinking practices of managers. The particular focus is on the contrast between equityand parity-based distribution logics, how these are likely to be affected by different value contexts and by personal philosophies of managing, and how justice-related concerns fit into the way managers are likely to approach allocation problems. Empirical data gathered from a sample of practicing managers concerning their preferences and reactions to standardized allocation problems indicated that managers are flexible in their use of equityand parity-based logics and that their concerns about fairness are closely connected to other value considerations. The implications for a more expansive view of justice in the workplace are discussed.

Nonprofit Enterprise in the Arts: Studies in Mission and Constraint.

Abstract: Taking the dichotomy of nonprofit "high culture" and for-profit "popular culture" into consideration, this volume assesses the relationship between social purpose in the arts and industrial organization. DiMaggio brings together some of the best works in several disciplines that focus on the significance of the nonprofit form for our cultural industries, the ways in which nonprofit arts organizations are financed, and the constraints that patterns of funding place on the missions that artists and trustees may wish to pursue. Showing how the production and distribution of art are organized in the United States, the book delineates the differing roles of nonprofit organizations, proprietary firms, and government agencies. In doing so, it brings to the surface some of the special tensions that beset arts management and policy, the way the arts are changing or are likely to change, and the policy alternatives "high culture" faces.

Managing public organizations : lessons from contemporary European experience

Abstract: Introduction - Kjell A Eliassen and Jan Kooiman PART ONE: GOVERNING IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR Proliferation of the Welfare State - Hans Keman Public Management and Politics - Hans-Ulrich Derlien Managing the Hollow State - Guy Peters Governance and Public Management - Jan Kooiman and Martijn van Vliet Economic Organization Theory and Public Management - Jan-Erik Lane PART TWO: MANAGING THE PUBLIC ORGANIZATION The Tools of Public Management - Carl B[um]ohret Evolving Public Management Cultures - Les Metcalfe and Sue Richards Public Utilities Management - Jeremy J Richardson Public Resource Allocation - Torben Beck J[o with a // through it]orgensen PART THREE: THE PUBLIC MANAGER Bureaucrats and Other Managers - Torodd Strand Roles in Transition Public Managers in the Middle - Gerard Gerding Managing Human Resources in the Public Sector - Paulus Yntema PART FOUR: REFORMING PUBLIC MANAGEMENT Restructuring Central Government - Brian W Hogwood The 'Next Steps' Initiative in Britain The Efficiency of Public Service Provision - Rune J S[o with a // through it]orensen Public Administration, Regulation, Deregulation and Reregulation - Vincent Wright Budget Games are Ready for Reform - Aaron Wildavsky Conclusions - Kjell A Eliassen

The Movement of Conflict in Organizations: The Joint Dynamics of Splitting and Triangulation.

Abstract: ? 1989 by Cornell University. 0001 -8392/89/3401-0001/$1 .00. This paper examines the sociopsychological processes through which conflicts move around in organizations and become expressed at locations quite removed from their places of origin. This conceptualization draws on two major theoretical contributions: (1) "triangulation" from social psychology and family therapy and (2) "splitting," as developed in anthropology and clinical psychology. With these sociopsychological processes linked, it is possible to understand how conflicts are transported from one location to another. These processes are illustrated with intensive case material from a long-term participant observation study of a public school system in which the relationships between the community, the elected board of education, the superintendent's office, the principals, teachers, and students in the high school were examined.

Domains of State-Owned, Privately Held, and Publicly Traded Firms in International Competition

Abstract: This study has benefitted from the comments of F. Choi, S. Douglas, T. Pugel, P. Shrivastava, I. Walter, and ASQ's editor and reviewers. Hypotheses relating ownership to domain differences among state-owned, publicly traded, and privately held firms in international competition were examined in a controlled field study of the offshore drilling industry. Ownership explained selected differences in domestic market dominance, international presence, and customer orientation, even after controlling for firm nationality, size, and line of business. Publicly traded firms exhibited generalism by operating in many geographic markets and offering a wide product line. In contrast, state-owned enterprises focused on their domestic market with a narrow product line and had a stable customer base. Privately held firms also operated domestically with a narrow product line but had an unstable customer base. The findings suggest that ownership may be a theoretically based, parminonious approach to parsing the international strategic space.'

Power from What? A Reexamination of Its Relationships with Structural Conditions.

Abstract: The author is indebted to Ms. Irith Cohen for her invaluable assistance in carrying out this study. The author also thanks Bob Hinings, Asya Pazy, and the ASQ reviewers for their valuable comments on previous drafts. To examine whether control over structural conditions of the organization is a source of power, an outcome of power, or simply an indication of subunit power, this study investigated longitudinally the relationships between coping with uncertainty, centrality, nonsubstitutability, and subunit power in nine healthcare clinics of three subunits each. The results show previous power position to be the main predictor of subsequent power, whereas control of conditions or intertemporal changes therein were found to have no significant effect on subsequent subunit power. These results cast doubt on the commonly assumed determinant-outcome relations between control over contingencies and subunit power. An alternative interpretation proposed here is that control over certain structural conditions could be regarded as the tangible manifestations of the otherwise abstract concept of power. This conception appears to fit well the findings of this and previous research.'