Showing papers in "Administrative Science Quarterly in 2003"
TL;DR: The authors argue that 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.
Abstract: 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
4,666 citations
TL;DR: It is proposed that social cohesion around a relationship affects the willingness and motivation of individuals to invest time, energy, and effort in sharing knowledge with others and that the network range, ties to different knowledge pools, increases a person's ability to convey complex ideas to heterogeneous audiences.
Abstract: This research considers how different features of informal networks affect knowledge transfer. As a complement to previous research that has emphasized the dyadic tie strength component of informal...
3,319 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the relationship between ostensive and performative aspects of routines creates an on-going opportunity for variation, selection, and retention of new practices and patterns of action within routines and allows routines to generate a wide range of outcomes, from apparent stability to apparent stability.
Abstract: In this paper, we challenge the traditional understanding of organizational routines as creating inertia in organizations. We adapt Latour's distinction between ostensive and performative to build a theory that explains why routines are a source of change as well as stability. The ostensive aspect of a routine embodies what we typically think of as the structure. The performative aspect embodies the specific actions, by specific people, at specific times and places, that bring the routine to life. We argue that the ostensive aspect enables people to guide, account for, and refer to specific performances of a routine, and the performative aspect creates, maintains, and modifies the ostensive aspect of the routine. We argue that the relationship between ostensive and performative aspects of routines creates an on-going opportunity for variation, selection, and retention of new practices and patterns of action within routines and allows routines to generate a wide range of outcomes, from apparent stability t...
3,257 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the relationship between subgroups and team learning behavior, defined as a cycle of experimentation, reflective communication, and codification, and develop the construct of "su...
Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between subgroups and team learning behavior, defined as a cycle of experimentation, reflective communication, and codification. We develop the construct of “su...
722 citations
508 citations
TL;DR: A.P. Walsh as discussed by the authors discusses the path dependency in the evolution of technology, from path dependency to co-evolution, and the process of path creation as a process of mindful deviation.
Abstract: Contents: A.P. Brief, J.P. Walsh, Series Editors' Foreword. Preface. R. Garud, P. Karnoe, Path Creation as a Process of Mindful Deviation. Part I:Path Dependence and Beyond. A.P. Bassanini, G. Dosi, When and How Chance and Human Will Can Twist the Arms of Clio: An Essay on Path Dependence in a World of Irreversibilities. P.M. Hirsch, J.J. Gillespie, Unpacking Path Dependence: Differential Valuations Accorded History Across Disciplines. V.W. Ruttan, Sources of Technical Change: Induced Innovation, Evolutionary Theory, and Path Dependence. Part II:From Path Dependence to Path Creation. M. Kenney, U. von Burg, Paths and Regions: The Creation and Growth of Silicon Valley. R.N. Langlois, D.A. Savage, Standards, Modularity, and Innovation: The Case of Medical Practice. J.A.C. Baum, B.S. Silverman, Complexity, Attractors, and Path Dependence and Creation in Technological Evolution. Part III:Path Creation as Co-Evolution. J.F. Porac, J.A. Rosa, J. Spanjol, M.S. Saxon, America's Family Vehicle: Path Creation in the U.S. Minivan Market. H. Rao, J. Singh, The Construction of New Paths: Institution-Building Activity in the Early Automobile and Biotech Industries. R. Kemp, A. Rip, J. Schot, Constructing Transition Paths Through the Management of Niches. Part IV:Path Creation as Mobilization. J. Lampel, Show-and-Tell: Product Demonstrations and Path Creation of Technological Change. B. Van Looy, K. Debackere, R. Bouwen, Innovation as a Community-Spanning Process: Looking for Interaction Strategies to Handle Path Dependency. J. Mouritsen, N. Dechow, Technologies of Managing and the Mobilization of Paths. T. Pinch, Why Do You Go to a Piano Store to Buy a Synthesizer?: Path Dependence and the Social Construction of Technology.
496 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a theory of expertise recognition and utilization in groups that focuses on the critical role of members' status cues as indicators of task expertise is developed and tested, and the theory draws on the concept of status cues.
Abstract: This paper develops and tests a theory of expertise recognition and utilization in groups that focuses on the critical role of members' status cues as indicators of task expertise. The theory draws...
472 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the ecological consequences of initial public offerings (IPOs) and acquisitions, specifically how the spatial distribution of these events influences the location-specific effects.
Abstract: In this paper, we examine the ecological consequences of initial public offerings (IPOs) and acquisitions, specifically how the spatial distribution of these events influences the location-specific...
428 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors theorize that relatively poor firm performance can prompt chief executive officers (CEOs) to seek more advice from executives of other firms who are their friends or similar to them.
Abstract: This paper theorizes that relatively poor firm performance can prompt chief executive officers (CEOs) to seek more advice from executives of other firms who are their friends or similar to them and...
372 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors extend organizational imprinting theory to networks by examining how the social technology available during the establishment of community-based intercorporate networks continues to inflate the network.
Abstract: This paper extends organizational imprinting theory to networks by examining how the social technology available during the establishment of community-based intercorporate networks continues to inf...
329 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used qualitative methods to explore why some employees working in a newly created, non-territorial office environment perceived that their workplace identities were threatened and used particular tactics to affirm those threatened identities.
Abstract: I used qualitative methods to explore why some employees working in a newly created, non-territorial office environment perceived that their workplace identities were threatened and used particular tactics to affirm those threatened identities. Findings suggest that the non-territorial work environment threatened some employees' workplace identities because it severely limited their abilities to affirm categorizations of distinctiveness (versus status) through the display of personal possessions. Categorizations of distinctiveness appeared to be most threatened by the loss of office personalization because of three characteristics: (1) their absolute, rather than graded membership structure, (2) their high subjective importance and personal relevance, and (3) their high reliance on physical markers for affirmation. In affirming threatened identity categorizations, employees chose different tactics, in terms of the amount of effort required and their conformance with company rules, based on the acceptabili...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine what researchers and experts in the field characterize as "intractable" disputes - intense disputes that persist over long periods of time and cannot be resolved through consensus-building efforts or by administrative, legal, or political means.
Abstract: Despite a vast amount of effort and expertise devoted to them, many environmental conflicts have remained mired in controversy, stubbornly defying resolution. Why can some environmental problems be resolved in one locale but remain contentious in another, often carrying on for decades? What is it about certain issues or the people involved that make a conflict seemingly insoluble? This volume addresses these and related questions, examining what researchers and experts in the field characterize as "intractable" disputes - intense disputes that persist over long periods of time and cannot be resolved through consensus-building efforts or by administrative, legal, or political means. The approach focuses on the "frames" parties use to define and enact the dispute - the lenses through which they interpret and understand the conflict and critical conflict dynamics. Through analysis of interviews, news media coverage, meeting transcripts, and archival data, the contributors to the book: examine the concepts of frames, framing, and reframing, and the role that framing plays in conflicts; outline the essential characteristics of intractability and its major causes; offer case studies of eight intractable environmental conflicts; present a body of original interview material from affected parties; and set forth recommendations for intervention that can help resolve disputes. Within each case chapter, the authors describe the historical development and fundamental nature of the conflict and then analyze the case from the perspective of the key frames that are integral to understanding the dynamics of the dispute. They also offer cross-case analyses of related conflicts. Conflicts examined include those over natural resource use, toxic pollutants, water quality, and growth. Specific conflicts examined include the Quincy Library Group in California; Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota; Edwards Aquifer in Texas; Doan Brook in Cleveland, Ohio; the Antidegradation Environmental Advisory Group in Ohio; Drake Chemical in Pennsylvania; Alton Park/Piney Woods in Tennessee; and three examples of growth-related conflicts along the Front Range of Colorado's Rocky Mountains.
TL;DR: The past few decades have witnessed a dramatic expansion of management education, consulting, and the formalization of management practice, with a widespread diffusion of management ideas across sectors and continents.
Abstract: The past few decades have witnessed a dramatic expansion of management education, consulting, and the formalization of management practice, with a widespread diffusion of management ideas across sectors and continents. This book describes and analyzes this worldwide flow of management ideas and the key carriers of these ideas.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider the social process by which the corporate elite may have resisted pressure from stakeholders to adopt changes in corporate governance that limit managerial autonomy and find that the change may have been motivated by profit maximization.
Abstract: In this study, we consider the social process by which the corporate elite may have resisted pressure from stakeholders to adopt changes in corporate governance that limit managerial autonomy. We e...
TL;DR: The authors brings together emerging perspectives from organization theory and management, environmental sociology, international regime studies, and the social studies of science and technology to provide a starting point for discipline-based studies of environmental policy and corporate environmental behavior.
Abstract: This book brings together emerging perspectives from organization theory and management, environmental sociology, international regime studies, and the social studies of science and technology to provide a starting point for discipline-based studies of environmental policy and corporate environmental behavior. Reflecting the book's theoretical and empirical focus, the audience is two-fold: organizational scholars working within the institutional tradition, and environmental scholars interested in management and policy. Together this mix forms a creative synthesis for both sets of readers, analyzing how environmental policy and organizational practices are shaped, spread and contested.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors integrate content-based predictions of transaction cost economics with process based predictions of organizational change to understand adaptation to deregulation in the for-hire trucking industry, and find that firms whose governance of a core transaction is poor will realize lower profits than their better-aligned counterparts.
Abstract: This paper integrates content-based predictions of transaction cost economics with process-based predictions of organizational change to understand adaptation to deregulation in the for-hire trucking industry. We predict and find that firms whose governance of a core transaction is poor (according to transaction cost reasoning) will realize lower profits than their better-aligned counterparts and that these firms will attempt to adapt so as to better align their transactions. Results show that several organizational features affect the rate of adaptation: (1) firms with large investments in specialized assets adapt less readily than firms that rely on generic assets, (2) firms with unions adapt less readily than firms without unions, (3) firms that must replace employee drivers with owner-operators adapt less readily than firms that must replace owner-operators with employee drivers, and (4) entrants adapt more quickly than incumbent carriers. There is evidence of institutional isomorphism in that althoug...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors develop and test theory on when and where a new organizational form will emerge and test the effects of different specifications of organizational and product densities on rates of entry and exit for array producers.
Abstract: This article develops and tests theory on when and where a new organizational form will emerge. Recent theory holds that as the number of organizations using a particular external identity code first increases beyond a critical minimal level, the code becomes an organizational form. Going beyond this formulation, we theorize about how an external identity code is established. We argue that when the identities of individual organizations are perceptually focused, they will more readily cohere into a distinct collective identity. We develop ideas about how two observable aspects of organizations might generate perceptually focused identities in a common market: (1) de novo entry and (2) agglomeration in a geographic place with a related identity. Using comprehensive data from the market for disk drive arrays, we test these ideas and an alternative by estimating effects of different specifications of organizational and product densities on rates of entry and exit for array producers. Overall, the analysis supports the notion that firms with perceptually focused identities aid in establishing an organizational form.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an overview of the relationship between management consulting and Academia in the context of the consulting industry, focusing on three types of experts: Gurus, Editors, and Managers.
Abstract: Introduction PART I: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE CONSULTING INDUSTRY 1. The Acquisition of Symbolic Capital by Consultants: The French Case 2. The Changing Relationship Between Management Consulting and Academia: Evidence from Sweden 3. Management Consultancies in the Netherlands in the 1950s and 1960s: Between Systemic Context and External Influences 4. The Rise and Fall of a Local Version of Management Consulting in Finland PART II: ORGANIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE CONSULTANCY FIRM 5. The Internal Creation of Consulting Knowledge: A Question of Structuring Experience 6. Knowledge Management at Country Level: A Large Consulting Firm in Italy 7. Collaborative Relationships in the Creation and Fashioning of Management Ideas: Gurus, Editors, and Managers 8. Consultancies as Actors in Knowledge Arenas: Evidence from Germany PART III: RELATIONSHIP PERSPECTIVES ON THE CONSULTANCY PROJECT 9. Managers as Marionettes? Using Fashion Theories to Explain the Success of Consultancies 10. Promoting Demand, Gaining Legitimacy, and Broadening Expertise: The Evolution of Consultancy-Client Relationships in Australia 11. The Burden of Otherness: Limits of Consultancy Interventions in Historical Case Studies 12. Managers and Consultants as Embedded Actors: Evidence from Norway
TL;DR: In this paper, the role of interfirm ties and network status in firms gaining access to customers in newly entered markets, examining whether these network resources are transferable and therefore can be deployed outside the market in which they originated.
Abstract: This study focuses on the roles of interfirm ties and network status in firms gaining access to customers in newly entered markets, examining whether these network resources are transferable and therefore can be deployed outside the market in which they originated. The role of market ties and network status is examined in a comprehensive longitudinal sample of commercial banks' entry into investment banking from 1991 to 1997. Results show that though market ties and network status facilitate market entry, the importance of network status decreases in the presence of market ties, and the value of network status, unlike market ties, decreases over time after market entry and is less important to customers with more market experience.
TL;DR: One is that nursing home chains learned from their own and others' failures, and the second is that the chains learned less from failures when they had a historical investment in the failing strategy.
Abstract: We examine factors leading multiunit chains to adopt a common naming strategy, that is, naming components in a manner that identifies them with each other and the overall chain, rather than a local naming strategy that identifies a chain's components with their locations but not each other. Because chains' naming strategies have been shown to be critical to their success, we examine the effects of component failures on naming strategies. We advance organizational and interorganizational learning processes to explain chains' adoption of local naming strategies, which stress local adaptation, or common naming strategies, which emphasize standardization. In contrast to past research emphasizing learning from success, we focus on learning from the failure of strategy, specifically, the failure of a chain's own and other chains' commonly and locally named components. Two fundamental results emerge from our analysis of Ontario nursing home chains' naming strategies from 1971 to 1996. One is that nursing home ch...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors extended a formal model of cascading organizational change by examining the implications for organizational change of the limited foresight of those who initiate such change about unit interconnections and the normative restrictiveness imposed on architectural features by organizational culture (cultural asperity).
Abstract: Initial architectural change in organizations often induces other subsequent changes, generating lengthy cascades of changes in subordinate units. This article extends a formal model of cascading organizational change by examining the implications for organizational change of the limited foresight of those who initiate such change about unit interconnections (structural opacity) and the normative restrictiveness imposed on architectural features by organizational culture (cultural asperity). Opacity leads actors to underestimate the lengths of periods of reorganization and the associated costs of change, thereby prompting them unwittingly to undertake changes with adverse consequences. Increased opacity and asperity lengthen the total time that the organization spends reorganizing and the associated opportunity costs; and the expected effect of an architectural change on mortality hazards increases with the intricacy of the organizational design, structural opacity, and the asperity of organizational culture. We illustrate the theory with an interpretation of the 1995 collapse of Baring Brothers Bank.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The Insider: Jeffrey Wigand and the Tobacco Industry as mentioned in this paper, and the Insider's Decision to Become a Whistleblower: NASA and Roger Boisjoly Cindy Ossias and the California DOI.
Abstract: Introduction. The Insider: Jeffrey Wigand and the Tobacco Industry. Deciding to Become a Whistleblower: NASA and Roger Boisjoly Cindy Ossias and the California DOI. The Whistleblower as Policy Entrepreneur: Hal Freeman and the OCR Hugh Kaufman and the EPA. An Impact on the Agency: Barbara Moulton and the FDA. Protecting the Whistleblower: The INS and Neil Jacobs. Whistleblowing: A Force for Democratization?
TL;DR: The work in this paper highlights the practical, political, and ethical dimensions of research in organizations, highlighting the relations between gender and politics in organizational hierarchies, as well as the current status and future prospects for organizational ethnography.
Abstract: Most of us work in or for one, but there are surprisingly few sustained analyses of the problems and peculiarities of organizations. Anthropologists are increasingly turning their attention to the study of western organizations, and this timely collection addresses the pleasures and pitfalls of ethnographic research undertaken across a range of organizational contexts. From museums to laboratories, health clinics, and multinational businesses, leading anthropologists discuss their fieldwork experiences, the problems they encountered, and the solutions they came up with. This book highlights the practical, political and ethical dimensions of research in organizations. Among issues vividly described are the relations between gender and politics in organizational hierarchies. How are sexual politics played out and experienced in health clinics? How does a business manager's personal biography affect the relationships within the organization as a whole? How are language and metaphor used to refigure the way people think about and act in organizations? Institutions often have well-defined procedures for bringing in visitors and guests. When is the anthropologist an insider to the organization, and when an outsider? What ethical issues arise when researchers are caught between observing organizations and participating in their work? In answering these and other questions the authors consider both the current status and future prospects for organizational ethnography. Comprehensive and varied, the book represents an invaluable aid to anyone interested in the politics and complexities of working life.
TL;DR: The kibbutz, once lauded as an exemplar of the Utopian organization, has been criticized recently as yet another illustration that socialist arrangements are inferior to capitalist ones.
Abstract: The kibbutz, once lauded as an exemplar of the Utopian organization, has been criticized recently as yet another illustration that socialist arrangements are inferior to capitalist ones. In this pa...
TL;DR: The Smart Strategies Series Invisible Management as mentioned in this paper presents eleven empirical investigations into managerial leadership based on the frame of reference called social constructionism, which reveal a range of previously concealed aspects of management and leadership, which aim to inspire the practitioner and challenge the theoretician.
Abstract: Smart Strategies Series Invisible Management presents eleven empirical investigations into managerial leadership based on the frame of reference called social constructionism. The theoretical conclusions from these disclose a range of previously concealed aspects of management and leadership, which aim to inspire the practitioner and challenge the theoretician. Invisible Management follows the theme that managerial leadership is an interactional phenomenon, that managers are regarded as one of several important constructors and practitioners of organizational leadership, rather than exclusive helmsmen. The novel approach of Invisible Management revises the agenda for the discourse on management and leadership as currently conducted among academics and practitioners. It introduces three ingredients that are not widely recognised in existing research. These are, small talk, 'invisible' or unrecognised arenas and institutional dynamics. These three themes have been brought together in a deliberate attempt to rethink and reformulate both strategic management and (managerial) leadership theory.
Journal Article•
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors put the man into management and the woman into management, and discussed gender and management gendering, marketing, Masculinity and management politics who delivers the goods and who receives the goods.
Abstract: Introduction Gender and Management Gendering Work Putting the Man into Management Marketing, Masculinity and Management Politics Who Delivers the Goods? The Entrepreneurial Man and The Marketing Man in Computer Systems Getting the Best of Both Worlds: The Practical Man and the Marketing Man in Equipment Manufacturing Paternalism Confronts Prowess: The Insurance Man and the Marketing Man Conclusion Bibliography Index
TL;DR: The Structure of Corporate Networks in Germany and Britain this article and the evolution of French Capitalism are discussed in detail in Section 2.1, Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, Section 6.
Abstract: 1. Introduction PART I: CORPORATE NETWORKS 2. The Structure of Corporate Networks 3. Network Structures in Germany and Britain 4. The Evolution of French Capitalism PART II: ELITE NETWORKS 5. Elite Networks in Germany and Britain 6. Education and Career of Multiple Directors PART III: POST-SOCIALIST NETWORKS 7. Corporate Networks in Eastern Germany 8. Privatization and Corporate Networks in Eastern Europe PART IV: OUTLOOK 9. From Corporatism to Shareholder-Value