Showing papers in "Administrative Science Quarterly in 1996"
TL;DR: Powell et al. as mentioned in this paper developed a network approach to organizational learning and derive firm-level, longitudinal hypotheses that link research and development alliances, experience with managing interfirm relationships, network position, rates of growth, and portfolios of collaborative activities.
Abstract: This research was supported by grants provided to the first author by the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute, University of Arizona, and the Aspen Institute Nonprofit Sector Research Fund and by grants to the second author by the College of Business and Public Administration, University of Arizona. We have benefited from productive exchanges with numerous audiences to whom portions of this paper have been presented: a session at the 1994 Academy of Management meetings, the Social Organization workshop at the University of Arizona, the Work, Organizations, and Markets workshop at the Harvard Sociology Department, the 1994 SCOR Winter Conference at Stanford University, and colloquia at the business schools at the University of Alberta, UC-Berkeley, Duke, and Emory, and the JFK School at Harvard. For detailed comments on an earlier draft, we are extremely grateful to Victoria Alexander, Ashish Arora, Maryellen Kelley, Peter Marsden, Charles Kadushin, Dick Nelson, Christine Oliver, Lori Rosenkopf, Michael Sobel, Bill Starbuck, Art Stinchcombe, and anonymous reviewers at ASQ. We thank Dina Okamoto for research assistance and Linda Pike for editorial guidance. Address correspondence to Walter W. Powell, Department of Sociology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721. We argue in this paper that when the knowledge base of an industry is both complex and expanding and the sources of expertise are widely dispersed, the locus of innovation will be found in networks of learning, rather than in individual firms. The large-scale reliance on interorganizational collaborations in the biotechnology industry reflects a fundamental and pervasive concern with access to knowledge. We develop a network approach to organizational learning and derive firm-level, longitudinal hypotheses that link research and development alliances, experience with managing interfirm relationships, network position, rates of growth, and portfolios of collaborative activities. We test these hypotheses on a sample of dedicated biotechnology firms in the years 1990-1994. Results from pooled, within-firm, time series analyses support a learning view and have broad implications for future theoretical and empirical research on organizational networks and strategic alliances.*
8,249Â citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the theoretical and empirical relationship between employees' trust in their employers and their experiences of psychological contract breach by their employers, using data from a longitudinal field of 125 newly hired managers.
Abstract: I would like to thank Karl Aquino, Joel Brockner, Daniel Forbes, Matthew Kraatz, Judi McLean Parks, Alexandra Mithel, Lynn Shore, Jon Turner, Linn Van Dyne, Batia Wiesenfeld, Dale Zand, and four anonymous reviewers for their helpful assistance with this manuscript. This paper examines the theoretical and empirical relationships between employees' trust in their employers and their experiences of psychological contract breach by their employers, using data from a longitudinal field of 125 newly hired managers. Data were collected at three points in time over a two-and-a-half-year period: after the new hires negotiated and accepted an offer of employment; after 18 months on the job; and after 30 months on the job. Results show that the relationship between trust and psychological contract breach is strong and multifaceted. Initial trust in one's employer at time of hire was negatively related to psychological contract breach after 18 months on the job. Further, trust (along with unmet expectations) mediated the relationship between psychological contract breach and employees' subsequent contributions to the firm. Finally, initial trust in one's employer at the time of hire moderated the relationship between psychological contract breach and subsequent trust such that those with high initial trust experienced less decline in trust after a breach than did those with low initial trust.
2,898Â citations
TL;DR: Gannon et al. as discussed by the authors explored the executive origins of firms' competitive moves by focusing on top management team characteristics, specifically on team heterogeneity, rather than on the more often studied environmental and organizational determinants of such behaviors.
Abstract: The authors acknowledge support from Columbia University's Management Institute. Warren Boeker, Sara Keck, John Michel, Peter Murmann, Michael Tushman, and Ruth Wageman made helpful suggestions on earlier drafts. We are grateful for access to the airline data base jointly assembled by the third author, Martin J. Gannon, Curtis M. Grimm, and Ken G. Smith. This paper explores the executive origins of firms' competitive moves by focusing on top management team characteristics, specifically on team heterogeneity, rather than on the more often studied environmental and organizational determinants of such behaviors. Arguing that competitive actions and responses represent different decision situations, we develop propositions about how heterogeneity may enhance some competitive behaviors but impair others. With a large sample of actions and responses of 32 U.S. airlines over eight years, we find results that largely conform to our propositions. The top management teams that were diverse, in terms of functional backgrounds, education, and company tenure, exhibited a relatively great propensity for action, and both their actions and responses were of substantial magnitude. Heterogeneous teams, by contrast, were slower in their actions and responses and less likely than homogeneous teams to respond to competitors' initiatives. Thus, although team heterogeneity is a double-edged sword, its overall net effect on airline performance, in terms of changes in market share and profits, was positive.*
1,916Â citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a conceptualization of workflow formalization is proposed to reconcile the contrasting assessments of bureaucracy as alienating to employees or as enabling them to perform their tasks better, and they suggest some ways in which this typology can be extended beyond workflow formalisation to other facets of bureaucracy such as internal labor markets, hierarchy, and the role of staff functions.
Abstract: This research was supported by several companies affiliated with the Stanford Integrated Manufacturing Association. Research assistance was provided by Emmeline DePillis. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1991 Academy of Management meeting. Several colleagues have helped us clarify the argument, in particular, Chris Argyris, Warren Bennis, Ed Lawler, Dick Scott, and Bob Sutton. We owe thanks too for helpful comments from Lotte Bailyn, Daniel Bell, Alan Kantrow, Melvin Kohn, Arie Lewin, Walter Nord, George Strauss, Marcie Tyre, Bart Victor, and Mayer Zald. This version owes much to the insightful comments of Steve Barley and the referees. This article proposes a conceptualization of workflow formalization that helps reconcile the contrasting assessments of bureaucracy as alienating to employees or as enabling them to perform their tasks better. Interpreting formalization as an organizational technology, we use recent research on the design of equipment technology to identify two types of formalization-enabling and coercive. Whether the impact of formalization on employees' attitudes is positive or negative is, we argue, a function of whether that formalization enables employees better to master their tasks or functions as a means by which management attempts to coerce employees' effort and compliance. We identify some forces that tend to discourage the enabling orientation to the benefit of the coercive orientation, as well as some persistent countertendencies that encourage the enabling orientation. We suggest some ways in which this typology can be extended beyond workflow formalization to other facets of bureaucracy such as internal labor markets, hierarchy, and the role of staff functions.*
1,902Â citations
TL;DR: Dooris et al. as mentioned in this paper investigated how top management teams in higher education institutions make sense of important issues that affect strategic change in modern academia and found that under conditions of change, top management team members' perceptions of identity and image, especially desired future image, are key to the sensemaking process and serve as important links between the organization's internal context and the issue interpretations.
Abstract: We would like to acknowledge helpful reviews on earlier drafts of this paper from Michael Dooris, Janet Dukerich, Marlene Fiol, Kristian Kreiner, Ajay Mehra, and Majken Sqhultz. We also acknowledge the assistance of Shawn Clark, David Ketchen, Lee Ann Joyce, and Mark Youndt in the data analysis. This study investigates how top management teams in higher education institutions make sense of important issues that affect strategic change in modern academia. We used a two-phase research approach that progressed from a grounded model anchored in a case study to a quantitative, generalizable study of the issue interpretation process, using 611 executives from 372 colleges and universities in the United States. The findings suggest that under conditions of change, top management team members' perceptions of identity and image, especially desired future image, are key to the sensemaking process and serve as important links between the organization's internal context and the team members' issue interpretations. Rather than using the more common business issue categories of "threats" and "opportunities," team members distinguished their interpretations mainly according to "strategic" or "political" categorizations.'
1,723Â citations
TL;DR: For example, the failure of organizational learning can be understood more readily by examining the typical responses to change by members of several broad occupational cultures in an organization as discussed by the authors, and the attempt to explain what happened to "brainwashed" American prisoners of war in the Korean conflict points up the need to take both individual traits and culture into account to understand organizational phenomena.
Abstract: ? 1996 by Cornell University. 0001-8392/96/41 02-0229/$1 .00. Inattention to social systems in organizations has led researchers to underestimate the importance of culture-shared norms, values, and assumptions-in how organizations function. Concepts for understanding culture in organizations have value only when they derive from observation of real behavior in organizations, when they make sense of organizational data, and when they are definable enough to generate further study. The attempt to explain what happened to "brainwashed" American prisoners of war in the Korean conflict points up the need to take both individual traits and culture into account to understand organizational phenomena. For example, the failure of organizational learning can be understood more readily by examining the typical responses to change by members of several broad occupational cultures in an organization. The implication is that culture needs to be observed, more than measured, if organization studies is to advance.
1,510Â citations
TL;DR: Elsbach et al. as discussed by the authors investigated how organizational members respond to events that threaten their perceptions of their organization's identity and found that members made sense of these threats and affirmed positive perceptions of the school's identity by emphasizing and focusing on their school's membership in selective organizational categories that highlighted favorable identity dimensions and interorganizational comparisons.
Abstract: Author(s): Elsbach, KD; Kramer, RM | Abstract: This research investigates how organizational members respond to events that threaten their perceptions of their organization's identity. Using qualitative, interview, and records data, we describe how menebers from eight "top-20" business schools responded to the 1992 Business Week survey rankings of U.S. business schools. Our analysis suggests that the rankings posed a two-pronged threat to many members' perceptions of their schools' identities by (1) calling into question their perceptions of highly valued, core identity attributes of their schools, and (2) challenging their beliefs about their schools' standing relative to other schools. In response, members made sense of these threats and affirmed positive perceptions of their school's identity by emphasizing and focusing on their school's membership in selective organizational categories that highlighted favorable identity dimensions and interorganizational comparisons not recognized by the rankings. Data suggest that members' use of these categorization tactics depended on the level of identity dissonance they felt following the rankings. We integrate these findings with insights from social identity, self-affirmation, and impression management theories to develop a new framework of organizational identity management.
1,064Â citations
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997Â citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an empirically grounded model of technicians' work is proposed to evaluate why some recent trends in organizing are congruent with an increasingly technical workforce, why others may be misguided and why organizations are likely to face challenges that organizational theorists have but vaguely anticipated.
Abstract: The work reported herein was supported under the Educational Research and Development Center program, agreement #R1 17000011-91, CFDA 84.117Q as administered by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. The findings and opinions expressed in this report do not reflect the position or policies of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement or the U.S. Department of Education. This paper has profited tremendously from comments offered by Dan Brass, Mark Mizruchi, Bonnie Nelsen, Christine Oliver, Linda Johanson, and the three anonymous scholars who reviewed the manuscript. This paper lays the groundwork for new models of work and relations of production that reflect changes in the division of labor and occupational structure of a postindustrial economy. It demonstrates how new ideal-typical occupations can be constructed, drawing on a set of ethnographies to propose an empirically grounded model of technicians' work. The paper focuses on two questions: What do technicians do and what do they know? The answers constitute a first cut at the ideal type, technician. The paper then turns to evidence of the difficulties that arise when organizations employ technicians but fail to appreciate the nature of their work. It closes by showing how a contextually derived model of technicians' work enables us to evaluate why some recent trends in organizing are congruent with an increasingly technical workforce, why others may be misguided, and why organizations are likely to face challenges that organizational theorists have but vaguely anticipated. The paper shows that the emergence of technicians' work may signify a shift to a more horizontal division of substantive expertise that undermines the logic of vertical organizing on which most organizational theory and practice still rests.'
TL;DR: The concept of administrative processes must be operationalized and new ones developed or borrowed from the basic social sciences as mentioned in this paper, and available knowledge in scattered sources needs to be assembled and analyzed.
Abstract: concepts of administrative processes must be operationalized and new ones developed or borrowed from the basic social sciences. Available knowledge in scattered sources needs to be assembled and analyzed. Research must go beyond description and must be reflected against theory. It must study the obvious as well as the unknown. The pressure for immediately applicable results must be reduced. At first this sounds like standard visionary boilerplate. On closer inspection, it foreshadows values that stand up well
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine how contests for intraorganizatiowal power affect interorganizational organizations and examine how director experience with increasing or decreasing board control over managemen...
Abstract: This study examines how contests for intraorganizatiowal power affect interorganizationalities, Hypotheses address how director experience with increasing or decreasing board control over managemen...
TL;DR: It was found that hospitals' characteristics were influential in determining the use of cesareans only when the level of institutional uncertainty was high, that is, when patient risk was at an intermediate rather than a high or low level.
Abstract: The authors thank Rob Burns, Huseyin Leblebici, Ann Flood, and Randy Brown for comments on earlier versions of this paper. This paper has also benefited from the helpful comments of the associate editor, Christine Oliver, as well as the feedback provided by the three anonymous ASO reviewers. The data were generously provided by Ronald L. Williams, Community and Organization Research Institute, University of California. While others have tried to accommodate agency and interests within institutional theory by directly incorporating a strategic choice perspective, we propose here that institutions are primary and exist as the context within which interests operate. We argue that uncertainty provides discretion, implying that organizational influence on practice will be greatest when institutional standards are most uncertain. We examine these arguments in the context of cesarean section surgeries in hospitals with different ownership and teaching structures. As expected, we found that hospitals' characteristics were influential in determining the use of cesareans only when the level of institutional uncertainty was high, that is, when patient risk was at an intermediate rather than a high or low level.*
TL;DR: Fiedler et al. as mentioned in this paper proposed a method that integrates situational components into personnel selection and leadership training, and validated this method with a large number of helpful, critical comments from experts.
Abstract: I wish to express my particular thanks for their helpful, critical comments to Lee R. Beach, Judith Fiedler, Susan Infield, and Chad Lewis. Their suggestions contributed materially to the final version of this paper. Address correspondence to the author at 1250 N.W. 126th Street, Seattle, WA 98177-4343 (e-mail: (fiedler@uu.washington.edu)). The past 40 years have seen considerable strides in our understanding of leadership, which until recently focused on inherited traits and abilities. Although we now see leadership as a complex interaction between the leader and the social and organizational environment, this lesson is frequently ignored in personnel selection and leadership training. At this time, most leader selection and leadership training approaches have not been adequately validated. Further progress in these areas requires that we focus research on methods that integrate situational components into personnel selection and leadership training.'
TL;DR: The authors argue that most occupations are segmented in terms of divisions among workers, among work tasks, and among occupational identities, and demonstrate that workers rely on a variety of occupational rhetorics as resources to define their work and their identity.
Abstract: Occupational rhetoric has been referred to elsewhere, generally with less emphasis on self-identity, as "occupational ideology." Those who speak of occupational ideology typically refer to a worldview or coherent perspective, learned through socialization, that articulates the relationship between the occupation and other types of work. Occupations often have been defined as belonging to a particular class of work, linked to a single occupational rhetoric. In contrast, I argue here that most occupations are segmented in terms of divisions among workers, among work tasks, and among occupational identities. I present evidence from an ethnographic study of restaurant cooks to demonstrate that workers rely on a variety of occupational rhetorics as resources to define their work and their identity. I claim that cooks draw on the alternative rhetorics of profession, art, business, and labor to shape how they think of themselves as workers. The paper shows that occupational identity is socially, temporally, and spatially situated, raising the question of when particular rhetorical strategies will be relied upon.*
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a morality tale about the struggle of students of organizational action to maintain a rough balance between openness and discipline, thus proclaiming both the possibility of a balanced virtue and its rewards.
Abstract: The research has been supported by the Spencer Foundation and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Address comments to the author at the Scandinavian Consortium for Organizational Research, 509 Ceras, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5015 (e-mail: march@leland.stanford.edu). Most theories of adaptation assume that effective learning requires a balance between exploration and exploitation but that such a balance is continually threatened by tendencies for both exploration and exploitation to be self-reinforcing. I tell a morality tale within such a frame about the past forty years in the study of organizations. The tale emphasizes the struggle of students of organizational action to maintain a rough balance between openness and discipline, thus proclaiming both the possibility of a balanced virtue and its rewards-a truly romantic story.'
TL;DR: Gender Power, Leadership and Governance as discussed by the authors introduces the concept of gender power as a pervasive but overlooked force within institutions, particularly U.S. politics, and examines the ideological dimensions of masculinity and its pervasive and reinforcing effects.
Abstract: This groundbreaking collection introduces the concept of gender power as a pervasive but overlooked force within institutions, particularly U.S. politics. It examines the ideological dimensions of masculinity--masculinism--and its pervasive and reinforcing effects. The essays examine gender as a property of institutions, something with deep symbolic meaning, as well as an analytic category importantly distinctive from sex. Theoretically rich, "Gender Power, Leadership and Governance" contributes to understandings of power and leadership as it provides a new perspective on men, women, and their relationships to governance.Essays reveal the multiplicity of ways "compulsory masculinity" is imposed upon female leaders who wish to succeed in a man's world, and analyzes the use of interpersonal means to ensure masculine advantage. For example, only one woman in Congress was able to have a direct effect on any reproductive policy; other women experienced sexual harassment by offensive men, which resulted in their being distracted from performing as leaders.Until now, studies of gender within the field of political science have focused centrally on women. Men have been studied as gendered beings whose thinking has shaped politics in ways advantageous to them, but this volume is unique in crossing multiple levels of analysis and demonstrating the interactive and reinforcing effects of gender power. The book is required reading for political scientists who have frequently been blind to masculinist assumptions and cultural belief systems when gender roles collide with leadership demands for women. It will also appeal to those in public administration and policy, sociology, and business studies."An important book that challenges the ways empirical research is done and the ways social scientists think about gender."--Nancy Hartsock, University of Washington"A very useful book on gender and political leadership that weaves together scholarly research with practical applications and suggestions for change."--Virginia Sapiro, University of Wisconsin, Madison"A very ambitious book, attempting no less than a paradigm shift in social science thinking."--Marcia Lynn Whicker, Rutgers UniversityGeorgia Duerst-Lahti is Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Government, Beloit College. Rita Mae Kelly is Director and Chair of the School of Justice Studies, and Professor of Justice Studies, Political Science, and Women's Studies, Arizona State University.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show how businesses can rethink career paths, management strategies, and the time clock to reap greater benefits for themselves and their employees and how to coordinate work and private life.
Abstract: Most businesses' efforts to coordinate work and private life have been unsuccessful. Now an MIT professor and noted consultant to Xerox, Exxon, Honeywell, and others shows how businesses can rethink career paths, management strategies, and the time clock to reap greater benefits for themselves and their employees.
TL;DR: The authors argue that the initial three-part mandate for organization theory contained study of internal organization structure and process, relations between organizations and environmental actors, and the impact of organizations on the broad social systems in which they were embedded.
Abstract: This essay has benefited from careful reading and comments by several of our colleagues. We want to express our appreciation to Dan Brass, Mark Mizruchi, Keith Murnighan, Christine Oliver, Linda Pike, Bob Sutton, and Pamela Tolbert. We argue that the initial three-part mandate for organization theory contained study of (1) internal organization structure and process; (2) relations between organizations and environmental actors; and (3) the impact of organizations on the broad social systems in which they were embedded. Though the influence of organizations in society has increased over time, the social system component of the field's mandate has faded from the research agenda. This paper proposes that the diminution of this social systems perspective occurred because the increasing complexity of social relations made determination of an appropriate unit of analysis more difficult. In addition, the business school environment in which organization research was accomplished discouraged examination of broad social questions, promoted a particular approach to science, and created specific career incentives. Recapturing a research interest in organizations' effects on society requires recognizing organizational impacts on social issues and accepting a broader range of methodologies. Ideas require greater opportunity for development, and quantity of publications deserves less emphasis. Journals that risk publishing the unconventional paper and providing incentives for tackling larger questions might reestablish the breadth of focus with which organizational theory was initially concerned.*
TL;DR: This article examined the history of tourism institutions at Niagara Falls to illuminate the collective action problems associated with building institutions and the problems of collective action that must be overcome so that institutions can regulate the self-interested activity of organizations and facilitate the production or protection of resources that collectively benefit organizations.
Abstract: Earlier versions of this paper benefited from the comments of Joel Baum, Margaret Brindle, Mark Fichman, John Freeman, Paul Goodman, Amie Yael Inman, David Loree, Victor Nee, Jerry Salancik, and Tal Simons, as well as Christine Oliver, Linda Johanson, and the anonymous ASO reviewers. Earlier versions of the paper were presented at Cornell University and the University of Toronto. This paper examines institution building and the problems of collective action that must be overcome so that institutions can regulate the self-interested activity of organizations and facilitate the production or protection of resources that collectively benefit organizations. We show that the presence of competing groups of organizations is key to institution building because it may allow cooperating organizations to gain relative competitive advantage over other organizations and because the presence of salient rivals facilitates collective action. We use the history of tourism institutions at Niagara Falls to illuminate the collective action problems, and their solutions, associated with building institutions. We propose that (1) institution building in this context was the result of collective action among competitors to solve a common problem, (2) rivalry and competition between hotels on either side of the falls enhanced collective action among locally competing hotels, and (3) the regulation provided by the institutions lowered the failure rates and increased the founding rates of hotels on both sides of the falls. We examined these propositions first through historical analysis to show the motivation and process of building institutions and then through analysis of hotel failure and founding rates to show the presence of interpopulation competition and the influence over time of the institutions on organizational populations. Our analysis of failure and founding rates indicates that Niagara Falls hotels did benefit from the institutions they helped create and that there were two competing groups of organizations, but, surprisingly, institutions helped all Niagara Falls hotels, regardless of which group created them.'
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that to the degree that organizations are systems of exchange, they may be said to be transformed through a process by which the logics of action that parties bring to the exchange are aligned, misaligned, and realigned.
Abstract: The research for this paper was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA 06995-030). Support was also provided by the R. Brinkley Smithers Institute for Alcohol-Related Workplace Studies and the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University. The authors wish to thank Steve Andrews, Edward Lawler, Valerie McKinney, Bryan Mundell, Ronald Seeber, Seymour Spilerman, Pamela Tolbert, and Harrison Trice for their comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. Arguing that current theories of organizational change fail to pay adequate attention to how organizations move from one stable state to another, we generate a model of the organizational transformation process. We argue that to the degree that organizations are systems of exchange, they may be said to be transformed through a process by which the logics of action that parties bring to the exchange are aligned, misaligned, and realigned. Developing the concept of logic of action and drawing on cognitive dissonance theory, we examine how, in the face of a massive environmental shift (in this case, airline deregulation), changes at the institutional level were transformed into changes at the core level. The model is generated from an analysis of qualitative data on the impact of deregulation on labor and management's approach to employee emotional well-being in the airline industry.'
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the opening to the humanities is useful because it helps us understand processes and phenomena that are not well explored in more traditional modes, but the opening is still incomplete.
Abstract: I am indebted to the editors of ASO for giving me the opportunity to write this essay. First, my own academic career is roughly coterminous with that of ASQ: I began research in organizations two years after ASO was born, some of my own early papers were published here, and I have been a subscriber almost since ASO first began. Second, J. D. Thompson became my colleague and friend at Vanderbilt in 1968, and I co-edited his collected essays (Rushing and Zald, 1976). Although administrative science (organizational studies) has made much progress since the founding of ASQ, it continues to be a fragmented field of study. This essay explores one source of the continuing and possibly increasing fragmentation of administrative science-the extensive but partial rapprochement with the humanities that has occurred in recent decades. I argue that the opening to the humanities is useful because it helps us understand processes and phenomena that are not well explored in more traditional modes, but the opening is still incomplete. It has taken place most fully in research using deconstructive, rhetorical, and narrative analysis growing out of literary theory, and there has been some engagement with history and historical analysis. The connection to the traditional topics of philosophy have been most disjointed. An agenda for further research is suggested.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors conducted a longitudinal comparative study of 78 orchestras in four nations and found that the contexts of East German orchestras changed significantly when the socialist regime took power after World War 11, and then again in 1990 when that regime fell.
Abstract: Portions of the research reported here were supported by the Max Planck Institute for Bildungsforschung and by the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. We thank Larissa Kowal-Wolk, Erin Lehman, and Rebecca Roters for their collaboration on the project; Jay Tucker for help in translating and coding research materials; and Ben Dattner, Adam Galinsky, and Tuck Pescosolido for assistance in library research and data analysis. Helpful comments on this paper were provided by Judith Blau, Hannah Bruckner, Thomas Ertman, Paul DiMaggio, Connie Gersick, Stephan Liebfried, Andy Molinsky, Francie Ostrower, Charles Perrow, Klaus JOrgen Peter, and Aage Sorensen. Assistance in enumerating the population of orchestras and in gaining access to those selected for the research was provided by the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), the American Symphony Orchestra League (ASOL), the Arts Council of Great Britain (ACGB), the European Conference of Symphony Orchestras (ECSO), the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM), and the Regional Orchestra Players Association (ROPA). We give special thanks to Kenneth Baird (ACGB), Brad Buckley (ICSOM), Rosemary Estes (ROPA), Catherine French (ASOL), Ken Haas (Boston Symphony Orchestra), and Lew Waldeck (AFM). Two periods of radical political-economic change in the former East Germany illuminate dynamics of organization-environment relationships that generally are hidden from view. Historical, qualitative, and survey data from a longitudinal comparative study of 78 orchestras in four nations show that the contexts of East German orchestras changed significantly when the socialist regime took power after World War 11, and then again in 1990 when that regime fell. Socialist rule only modestly affected orchestras' institutional features, however; they continued to reflect centuries-old German musical traditions. The collapse of socialism in 1990, by contrast, provoked differentiation among orchestras-some adapted successfully to the new political-economic context, but others floundered. Successful adaptation was found to be a joint function of an orchestra's prior strength as an organization and the kinds of leadership initiatives taken by orchestra leaders and players. Overall, the findings suggest that the size and character of environmental effects depend on the degree to which contextual changes alter (a) the strength of the link between organizational actions and resources obtained (resource contingency) and (b) organizations' latitude to manage their own affairs (operational autonomy).
TL;DR: The past 40 years of organization studies have been reviewed in this paper, and the successes and the disappointments of these four decades are reviewed, followed by some thoughts about what should happen in the future if the field is to continue to advance.
Abstract: ? 1996 by Cornell University. 0001-8392/96/41 02-0262/$1 .00. This essay conveys my views of the past 40 years of organization studies. It is written from a micro perspective, representing my roots in psychology. The successes and the disappointments what I believe the field has accomplished or failed to accomplish over these four decades are reviewed, followed by some thoughts about what I think ought to happen in the future if the field is to continue to advance.
TL;DR: McGregor's group at MIT in the forties and the group at Carnegie's Graduate School of Industrial Administration in the sixties showed the lively, task-obsessed characteristics of hot groups.
Abstract: My thanks to Jean Lipman-Blumen for many helpful ideas and criticisms. This essay describes McGregor's group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the forties and the group at Carnegie's Graduate School of Industrial Administration in the sixties, both of which showed the lively, task-obsessed characteristics of "hot groups." Both totally occupied the hearts and minds of their participants, both held to high standards, and both were extremely productive. While such innovating groups arise in many other places, they have long been suppressed within traditional organizations. Now they are beginning to sprout even in those unwelcoming environments, as the fast-changing world forces organizations to loosen structures and liberate managers. Researchers might well study the conditions supportive of hot groups' growth in large organizations, including our academic institutions.'
TL;DR: The book presents the latest research and theory about evolutionary change in organizations that brings together the work of organizational theorists who have challenged the orthodox adaptation views that prevailed until the beginning of the 1980s.
Abstract: The book presents the latest research and theory about evolutionary change in organizations. It brings together the work of organizational theorists who have challenged the orthodox adaptation views that prevailed until the beginning of the 1980s. It emphasizes multiple levels of change - distinguishing change at the intraorganizational level, the organizational level, the population level, and the community level. The book is organized in a way that gives order and coherence to what has been a diverse and multidisciplinary field. (The book had its inception at a conference held at the Stern School of Business, New York University, January 1992.)