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Showing papers in "British Journal of Management in 2018"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the early and later phases of co-competitive new product development pose different benefits and risks for the innovation types and develop a series of hypotheses on the role of coopetition in NPD alliances and focal firm's innovation output.
Abstract: Coopetition (collaboration between competitors) can facilitate product innovation, but there is still debate about how it is suited to radical or incremental innovation. This paper argues that the early and later phases of coopetitive new product development (NPD) pose different benefits and risks for the innovation types. Building on the tensions approach to value creation and appropriation, we develop a series of hypotheses on the role of coopetition in NPD alliances and focal firm's innovation output. The hypotheses are tested on a quantitative data set of 1049 NPD alliances in the German medical and machinery sectors. The results show that, while coopetition is advantageous for incremental innovation in both pre-launch and launch phases, radical innovation benefits from coopetition in the launch phase only.

213 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the relationship between corporate governance and organisational performance measured in Tobin's Q in the context of an emerging economy for which, as yet, only a handful of studies have been conducted.
Abstract: This empirical study examines the relationship between corporate governance and organisational performance (OP), measured in Tobin’s Q in the context of an emerging economy for which, as yet, only a handful of studies have been conducted. We employ a System GMM approach controlling for endogeneity, and test it on a newly created dataset comprising 324 stock exchange-listed firms in Pakistan. We find that Board size, number of Board committees and Ownership concentration are positively linked with high TQ ratio, whilst Board independence and CEO duality display a negative relationship. In terms of moderating effects, we find that ownership concentration negatively moderates the relationship between Board independence and OP, as well as that of CEO duality and OP. The relationship between the number of Board committees and OP is positively moderated by ownership concentration. Our findings contribute towards better articulating and applying a more concrete measure of OP—that of TQ ratio—whilst, at the same time, testing the Board composition–performance relationship in the context of an upcoming and increasingly important emerging market. Wider applicability of results and policy implications are discussed. Keywords: Tobin’s Q, Corporate governance, Organisational performance, Board structure, Fixed and random effect generalised least square regressions.

162 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined whether and to what extent CEO personal traits (hubris, in particular) affect firm environmental innovation and found that hubris facilitates the engagement in green innovative projects.
Abstract: This paper examines whether and to what extent CEO personal traits (hubris, in particular) affect firm environmental innovation. Using the overarching theoretical framework of upper-echelons theory, the paper builds on the insights from the corporate strategy, innovation, and corporate social responsibility literatures. We also examine the moderating role of firm-specific features (e.g. organizational slack) and the external environment (e.g. market uncertainty) in this context. Based on a sample of UK companies operating in sensitive industries, we find that CEO hubris facilitates the engagement in green innovative projects. We also find that CEO hubris does not have a uniform effect: its effect on environmental innovation increases with the organizational slack, but weakens with the extent of environmental uncertainty. Our findings suggest that availability of resources per se is not enough to produce environmental innovation. Instead, it requires a stable external environment that enables the CEO with a hubristic personality to make a correct use of them.

154 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide a theory of innovative work behavior at individual and team levels and explain how desirable performance returns occur for individuals and teams, based on theories of social exchange, enactment and trust.
Abstract: Building on theories of social exchange, enactment and trust, we provide a theorization of innovative work behaviour at the individual (IB) and team (IBT) levels and explain how desirable performance returns occur for individuals and teams. We further propose that horizontal (between team members) and vertical (between teams and their supervisor) team trust moderate the relationship between IBT and team performance. The results, based on surveys conducted at two points in time in a large insurance company in the Netherlands, show that employees’ IB is positively associated with perceived workplace performance at the individual and team levels and that the effects vary based on the forms of trust at play. Our findings offer important new knowledge about the consequences of entrepreneurship and innovation in the workplace and the significant role that trust plays in enabling such behaviour to promote perceived workplace performance, particularly in the vital financial services sector.

104 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined whether the relationship between transformational leadership and innovative behavior is mediated by knowledge sharing within and between teams, and they concluded that knowledge sharing mediates the relationship and the indirect relationship is curvilinear.
Abstract: Studies on the effects of transformational leadership on employee innovative behaviour have yielded mixed results. The authors argue that one possible explanation for these mixed findings is that researchers have assumed a linear relationship between these constructs. In contrast, they suggest that the relationship between transformational leadership and innovative behaviour is non-linear. Specifically, the authors argue that the positive effects of transformational leadership on innovative behaviour will be stronger at low and high levels of transformational leadership. Moreover, they examine whether the relationship between transformational leadership and innovative behaviour is mediated by knowledge sharing within and between teams. The authors undertake a constructive replication by testing these hypothesized relationships in two studies: (1) a multi-actor team-level study conducted in the USA, and (2) a longitudinal employee-level study of teachers in the Netherlands. Results of both studies reveal that knowledge sharing mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and innovative behaviour, and that the indirect relationship is curvilinear. The authors link these findings to leader substitution theory, proposing that employees turn to their peers and other parties when there is an absence of effective leadership.

91 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the dual role of internal and external sources of knowledge and information on the adoption of managerial innovations, a type of non-technological innovation deemed essential for organizational effectiveness but not examined sufficiently.
Abstract: Research on knowledge sources and innovation has focused mainly on external knowledge sources and the generation of technological innovations. This study contributes by examining the dual role of internal and external sources of knowledge and information on the adoption of managerial innovations, a type of non‐technological innovation deemed essential for organizational effectiveness but not examined sufficiently. It also contributes to the innovation adoption literature by analysing adoption as a process, rather than a dichotomous choice. We investigate how the involvement of stakeholders for the selection of a new programme, and organizational actions for the implementation of that programme, affect its adoption. Regression analyses of privatization of 64 services in 1,512 public organizations provide empirical evidence in support of the influence of internal and external involvement, and internal, but not external, implementation actions. We also find that while the relative influence of internal and external stakeholders’ involvement on innovation adoption does not differ, internal implementation actions have a stronger effect than external implementation actions. We discuss the implications of our findings for the adoption of innovations in organizations and offer research ideas for understanding non‐technological innovations and their effects on organizational conduct and outcomes.

89 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Li et al. as discussed by the authors identify the enabling conditions and articulate the role played by local government as an institutional entrepreneur in fostering regional entrepreneurship through entrepreneurial public-private collaborative partnerships, and they conclude with some theoretical and policy implications for public management and entrepreneurship.
Abstract: Due to the intertwined nature of private and public interests, local governments tend to use collaborative partnerships involving entrepreneurs to promote regional entrepreneurship. However, there is still a gap in the theory with regard to the mechanisms underpinning these collaborative partnerships. Drawing on institutional entrepreneurship literature, we identify the enabling conditions and articulate the role played by local government as an institutional entrepreneur in fostering regional entrepreneurship through entrepreneurial public-private collaborative partnerships. This paper explicates two distinct mechanisms—the establishment of new institutional arrangements by the institutional entrepreneur, and the advocation of diffusion by other actors—that underpin entrepreneurial public-private collaborative partnerships. Importantly, we underscore the crucial role played by returnee entrepreneurs who interact collaboratively with the institutional entrepreneur in affecting institutional change and fostering regional entrepreneurship. We conduct in-depth qualitative interviews with local government officials, entrepreneurs, and high-tech park managers, in conjunction with performing content analysis of policy documents in a peripheral region of China—areas that have been largely neglected in scholarly research. This paper concludes with some theoretical and policy implications for public management and entrepreneurship.

69 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the linkages between top management tangible competencies, networks and sustainability at organizational level, and found that TMTCs are the key determinants for building relationship-based business networks.
Abstract: Although various studies have emphasized linkages between firm competencies, networks and sustainability at organizational level, the links between top management tangible competencies (TMTCs) (e.g. contemporary relevant quantitative-focused education such as big data analytics and data-driven applications linked with the internet of things, relevant experience and analytical business applications), relationship-based business networks (RBNs) and environmental sustainability have not been well established at micro-level, and there is a literature gap in terms of investigating these relationships. This study examines these links based on the unique data collected from 175 top management representatives (chief executive officers and managing directors) working in food import and export firms headquartered in the UK and New Zealand. Our results from structural equation modelling indicate that TMTCs are the key determinants for building RBNs, mediating the correlation between TMTCs and environmental sustainability. Directly, the competencies also play a vital role towards environmental practices. The findings further depict that relationship-oriented firms perform better compared to those which focus less on such networks. Consequently, our findings provide a deeper understanding of the micro-foundations of environmental sustainability based on TMTCs rooted in the resource-based view and RBNs entrenched in social network theory. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings, and we provide suggestions for future research.

68 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, organizational historians bring their role in the construction of historical narratives to the fore and open their research decisions up for discussion, and provide guidelines to support this endeavor, drawing on four criteria that are prevalent within interpretive organization studies for developing the trustworthiness of research: credibility, confirmability, dependability and transferability.
Abstract: Organizational scholars increasingly recognize the value of employing historical research Yet the fields of history and organization studies struggle to reconcile In this article, we contend that a closer connection between these two fields is possible if organizational historians bring their role in the construction of historical narratives to the fore and open their research decisions up for discussion We provide guidelines to support this endeavor, drawing on four criteria that are prevalent within interpretive organization studies for developing the trustworthiness of research: credibility, confirmability, dependability and transferability In contrast to the traditional use of trustworthiness criteria to evaluate the quality of research, we advance the criteria to encourage historians to generate more transparent narratives Such transparency allows others to comprehend and comment on the construction of narratives thereby building trust and understanding We convert each criterion into a set of guiding principles to enhance the trustworthiness of historical research, pairing each principle with a practical technique gleaned from a range of disciplines within the social sciences to provide practical guidance

62 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a configuration approach to family firm performance that accounts for complex interdependencies among entrepreneurial, innovation and family influence conditions, including entrepreneurial orientation, exploration and exploitation activities.
Abstract: The performance drivers of family firms have spawned considerable research interest. Almost exclusively this research has relied on independent sets of explanatory variables in linear analyses. These analyses mask the complex interdependencies that are likely to exist among key success factors, leading to faulty theory and misspecified implications for practice. As treatment, the authors propose a configuration approach to family firm performance that accounts for complex interdependencies among entrepreneurial, innovation and family influence conditions. Using a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis of a sample of 129 Finnish family firms, the authors identify sufficient conditions with regard to the existence or absence of antecedent conditions to family firm performance. These conditions include entrepreneurial orientation, exploration and exploitation activities that form causal paths towards family firm performance. To enrich the analysis, the authors theorize and empirically analyse how these conditions might differ in family firms with high and low levels of family influence. They deepen the current understanding of configurations that promote the performance of family firms, offer important implications for theory and practice, and set new directions for future research on the strategic management of family firms. The results are also virtually identical and insensitive to change across subjective and objective performance measures.

61 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored the effects of organisational collaboration and tacitness on multiple dimensions of reverse knowledge transfer (RKT) and found that collaboration has a positive influence on both the extent and benefits of RKT.
Abstract: Emerging market multinationals resort to knowledge acquisitions from their overseas subsidiaries to springboard and realise their global ambitions. Drawing from the knowledge-based view and social capital perspective, this study explores the effects of organisational collaboration and tacitness on multiple dimensions of reverse knowledge transfer (RKT). Data were collected through a survey, from senior and middle level managers of parent Indian multinationals, pertaining to RKT from their overseas subsidiaries. The hypotheses are analysed using PLS modelling. The results demonstrate positive effects between the extent and benefits of RKT. Collaboration was found to have a positive influence on both dimensions of RKT. Tacitness also has a positive impact on the benefits from RKT. The implications of the findings and the limitations of the study are discussed along with suggestions for future research.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors integrate complexity science with stakeholder management theory to address the issue of strong stakeholder corporate social responsibility (CSR) orientation can motivate firms to engage better in environmental activities, but when multiple stakeholders are involved, strong yet incongruent stakeholder pressure may not lead to improved environmental performance.
Abstract: Stakeholder studies have discovered that strong stakeholder corporate social responsibility (CSR) orientation can motivate firms to engage better in environmental activities. However, when multiple stakeholders are involved, strong yet incongruent stakeholder pressure may not lead to improved environmental performance. The authors integrate complexity science with stakeholder management theory to address this issue. Using a sample of 149 Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises, they find that the average stakeholder's CSR orientation improves environmental strengths, but generates an inverted U-shaped relationship with environmental concerns. Further, results indicate that the congruence in stakeholders’ CSR orientation enhances this inverted U-shaped relationship, and that the moderating impact of congruence is weaker when entrepreneurial orientation is higher.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors apply regression analysis to data from an original survey involving a sample of 230 innovations introduced by 150 publicly-traded UK and US KIBS firms, and find that cost-oriented firms tend to place more importance on all appropriability mechanisms than do differentiation-oriented ones.
Abstract: Building on a problem-solving perspective to value creation and capture, and on the business strategy literature, we argue that the actions that knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) firms take to identify, select and solve client problems will affect their approach to capturing value from innovation. We apply regression analysis to data from an original survey involving a sample of 230 innovations introduced by 150 publicly-traded UK and US KIBS firms. Distinguishing between cost- and differentiation-oriented KIBS firms, we find that cost-oriented firms tend to place more importance on all appropriability mechanisms than do differentiation-oriented firms. Furthermore, the perceived importance of formal appropriability mechanisms, relative to that of all appropriability mechanisms, tends to be higher for cost-oriented than for differentiation-oriented firms. This association is stronger for the case of the introduction of process (rather than product) innovation. These findings contribute to the strategy and service innovation literatures, by showing that KIBS firms’ competitive strategies influence value capture, over and above the role of the innovation-, industry-, and institutional-level factors examined in earlier studies.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article showed that female directors face a much higher risk of dismissal as they approach nine years of service on the board when their long service deprives them of the all-important classifi-ーテーテールcation as "independent".
Abstract: This paper uses archival board data to demonstrate that women who take positions as directors of UK companies have shorter tenures than their male counterparts. We show that female directors face a much higher risk of dismissal as they approach nine years of service on the board when their long service deprives them of the all-important classifi- cation as ‘independent’. At this point, their position on the board becomes precarious. Male directors do not suffer the same increase in boardroom exit. This gender-specific difference is shown to be clearly linked to the independence status. It is argued that these observations are consistent with the notion that female directors are being used in the symbolic management of corporate governance and that at nine years, when the cloak of independence disappears, women directors are then exposed to the biases that arise from role congruity issues.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper used the glass cliff to study the appointment and employment duration of 193 female CEOs between 1992 and 2014 in a sample of large, small and mid-size North American firms and found that women are appointed as CEOs in precarious situations.
Abstract: We use the glass cliff to study the appointment and employment duration of 193 female CEOs between 1992 and 2014 in a sample of large, small and mid-size North American firms. Consistent with the glass cliff, we find that women are appointed as CEOs in precarious situations. However, we find female CEOs are 40% less likely to face turnover at any point after appointment than male CEOs. This conflicts with an implication of the glass cliff and differs significantly from existing research which shows that female CEOs have only a slightly lower risk of turnover than male CEOs. Our larger, more recent sample captures changes in the labour market that explain the departure from the results of earlier studies. We find evidence that the lower turnover rate of female CEOs is related to firms’ desire to avoid the negative publicity that would accompany their termination, and we also show that greater education has a positive impact on CEO job security.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the complex relationship between micro, meso and macro scales, in the context of organizations', managers' and consumers' complicity in the creation and intensification of climate changing conditions.
Abstract: This paper introduces the special issue of the British Journal of Management on 'Scaling Sustainability: Regulation and Resilience in Managerial Responses to Climate Change', providing an overview of the key issues in scaling sustainability, comprising an analysis of the five papers in the special issue. We discuss the complex relationship between micro, meso and macro scales, in the context of organizations', managers' and consumers' complicity in the creation and intensification of climate changing conditions. In networking multiple sites into a 'global' scale, managers and organizations can lose sight of the situated, localised nature of the position from which they perform the global. We conclude that a key factor in the capacity and speed at which local actions can be scaled up is the connection of sustainability-related activities by intermediary organizations that can generate resonance between multiple sites through association or alliance, rather than imposing a single logic. Thus, more resilient approaches, which acknowledge the significance of the interconnection between scales, are required to effectively scale sustainability strategies upwards or downwards.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored self-employment among gay men and lesbians in the UK and found no differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals in their likelihood of being entrepreneurially active.
Abstract: This paper advances contemporary gendered analyses of entrepreneurial activity by exploring self-employment amongst gay men and lesbian women. Within current entrepreneurial debate, heterosexual women have become the visible embodiment of the gendered subject. Our contribution is to queer this assumption when focusing upon the entrepreneurial activity of gays and lesbians. Our core question investigates if ‘there is evidence of differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals in their likelihood of being entrepreneurially active?’ To address this question, we contrast competing notions of gender stereotypes and discrimination whilst drawing on findings from a large-scale population-based study of 163,000 UK adults. We find few differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals; this persists after examining intersectional patterns and considering if gay and lesbian entrepreneurs choose particular sectors, geographies or forms of self-employment. As our discussion highlights, the value of this study lies within its critique of contemporary analyses of gender which assume it is an end point rather than a foundation for analysing gender as a multiplicity.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors bring forward the notion that people flock to social media because they are motivated by a desire for social interaction, and they find that SMEs that put effort into connecting customers on social media, which they refer to as having a social strategy, are likely to reap both customers' involvement in innovation and new knowledge of value for innovation.
Abstract: Taking the knowledge-based view of the firm as its starting point, and acknowledging that knowledge can lie outside the firm, this research extends our understanding of how the growing social media trend can contribute to open innovation. We specifically focus on SMEs, which tend to be resource constrained and might benefit particularly from leveraging social media platforms. We bring forward the notion that people flock to social media because they are motivated by a desire for social interaction. Indeed, our findings suggest that SMEs that put effort into connecting customers on social media—which we refer to as having a social strategy—are likely to reap both customers’ involvement in innovation on social media and new knowledge of value for innovation. Examining differences between social media platforms used primarily for personal purposes and those used primarily for professional purposes, we find that a social strategy is more effective in the first category than the second. This likely reflects differences in the social identities that people adopt on these two types of social media platforms.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the dynamics of labour-management partnership within the context of a British financial services organization over a 25-year period and confirmed the possibility of sustaining collaborative relationships associated with a mutual gains agenda within a liberal market economy.
Abstract: Issues of labour−management cooperation have long attracted the attention of management researchers, practitioners and policymakers. In Britain, the most recent wave of interest has been under the rubric of labour−management partnership, normally concerning the development of cooperative relations between unions and employers. A recurring theme is that cooperative relations can be difficult to develop and sustain, especially in liberal market economies. This paper advances the debate by examining the dynamics of labour−management partnership within the context of a British financial services organization over a 25-year period. Drawing upon empirical case study data collected between 1990 and 2014, we assess the dynamics of the relationship between a building society and the recognized staff union. We confirm the possibility of sustaining collaborative relationships associated with a mutual gains agenda within a liberal market economy as well as the fragility of such arrangements. While we acknowledge that sustaining cooperative regimes can be difficult, we also caution against the tendency towards institutional determinism and underplaying of agency in many of the partnership critiques. Given the lack of a credible alternative, we conclude that labour−management partnership remains an important public policy goal and should not be dismissed as a chimera.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the political contestation over hydraulic fracturing of shale gas, or "fracking" in the UK, based on an analysis of four public inquiries, and showed how both proponents and opponents were divided.
Abstract: This paper investigates the political contestation over hydraulic fracturing of shale gas, or ‘fracking’, in the UK. Based on an analysis of four public inquiries, it shows how both proponents and ...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue for a richer understanding of bricolage by exploring the identity of the bricoleur and highlight its status as an aspirational elite identity in the context of consultancy work, in contrast to its usual treatment as a low status activity.
Abstract: Levi-Strauss’ concept of bricolage has been used widely in a variety of management and organizational studies to highlight creative ‘situational tinkering’. Yet, we know little about ‘the bricoleur’ beyond the assumption of a functional agent responding to conditions of resource scarcity or environmental complexity. As such, studies offer limited possibilities in explaining the occurrence of bricolage in the absence of external demands, or much about who the bricoleur is. Drawing on 136 in-depth interviews with management consultants, this study argues for a richer understanding of bricolage by exploring the identity of the bricoleur. In doing so, the paper achieves three outcomes. First, it uses the original symbolic and cultural insights of bricolage made by Levi-Strauss to detail how bricoleur identities are constructed; Second, it highlights how different organizational strategies enable and constrain the pursuit of bricoleur identities; Finally, it emphasizes the bricoleur's status as primarily an aspirational elite identity in the context of consultancy work, in contrast to its usual treatment as a ‘low status’ activity.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how consumers interested in sustainability are affected by conflicts in caring and scale and demonstrate how scale influences consumption and social reproduction, including consumers' more concrete preoccupations with caring about and for themselves, significant others and, not least the planet.
Abstract: This paper investigates how consumers interested in sustainability are affected by conflicts in caring and scale. Contrasting previous emphasis relating scale to production, the paper illustrates how scale influences consumption and social reproduction, including consumers’ more concrete preoccupations with caring about and for themselves, significant others and, not least, the planet. The paper makes three contributions to the nascent management literature in this field. First, it illustrates how scalar logics at urban through to global levels influence seemingly micro‐social routine consumption decisions. Second, it develops an approach that emphasizes the scale‐sensitivity of consumer decision‐making around sustainability and the conflicts inherent in caring. Third, it addresses critiques of current studies preoccupied with processes of production rather than social reproduction and illustrates the critical role that consumption plays in the social construction of scales. Based on these findings, we argue that policy promoting sustainability may be misplaced in that it does not sufficiently acknowledge how people's consumption and caring decisions are nested in relational and spatial contexts.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article explored the effects of team-specific human capital (TSHC) on performance and found that team members' TSHC has a positive and significant effect on team performance, which is positively moderated by managers' TSHC.
Abstract: In this paper we explore the effects of team-specific human capital (TSHC) on performance. We do so by delineating between two dimensions of TSHC, relating to team members and the team manager, and then exploring how the two dimensions may interact in shaping performance. Employing a 10-year panel of football teams from the English Premier League we find that team members’ TSHC has a positive and significant effect on team performance, which is positively moderated by managers’ TSHC. Our results attest to the importance of considering both the team member and team manager dimensions of TSHC, and how the performance effects of team members’ TSHC are shaped by managers’ TSHC. Our results stand in stark contrast to the dramatic reduction in managerial tenure that has characterized the English Premier League in recent years.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a case study of how a management team engaged in technology-enabled strategic renewal in a Danish local government organization was used to understand the temporal and spatial interactions between exploration and exploitation processes.
Abstract: While it is broadly agreed that managers face tensions between exploration of new possibilities and exploitation of existing certainties, there are open questions related to how they can recognize these tensions and distribute resources between the two forms of learning across time and space. The heavily cited 4I Model made significant progress towards addressing these questions, based on the idea that exploration and exploitation unfold differently across organizational levels, with exploration as feed‐forward from the individual towards the organizational level, and exploitation as feedback from the organizational towards the individual level. The authors’ critical application of the model questions this idea, suggesting that exploration and exploitation unfold through similar patterns from the individual level towards the organizational level with iterative feedback loops. This repositioning of the 4I Model affords a detailed understanding of both exploration and exploitation processes as well as the temporal and spatial interactions between them. To demonstrate the utility of this theorizing and to add new insights to the process literature on organizational learning, the authors rely on a longitudinal case study of how a management team engaged in technology‐enabled strategic renewal in a Danish local government organization.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify and explain a potential tension between a firm's emphasis on customer orientation (CO) and the extent to which employees value CO as a success factor for individual performance, and propose that firm CO may represent both autonomous and controlled motivations for CO, but that employees' CO is more strongly linked to individual performance when employees experience solely autonomous motivation.
Abstract: This paper identifies and explains a potential tension between a firm's emphasis on customer orientation (CO) and the extent to which employees value CO as a success factor for individual performance. Based on self‐determination theory and CO implementation research, the authors propose that firm CO may represent both autonomous and controlled motivations for CO, but that employees’ CO is more strongly linked to individual performance when employees experience solely autonomous motivation. Hence, the authors expect a substitution effect whereby the link between employees’ CO and their performance is weaker when firm CO is high. Furthermore, the authors examine a boundary condition for the previous hypothesis and propose that performance‐contingent rewards have a positive effect on the internalization of the extrinsic motivation stemming from firm CO. Two multilevel studies with 979 employees and 201 top management team members from 132 firms support these hypotheses. Against previous research, these findings offer a new perspective on the effectiveness of CO initiatives, propose employees’ motivational states as the theoretical explanation for the heterogeneity in the link between employee CO and performance, and reappraise the role of performance‐contingent rewards in CO research. Managerial implications for the effective implementation of customer‐oriented initiatives within firms are provided.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use the example of community gardening initiatives in a large UK city to critically interrogate the problems facing groups at the local neighbourhood level in pursuing sustainability agendas.
Abstract: Tackling climate change requires a set of deeply intertwined geographical responsibilities whereby actors at and across different geographical scales are intimately connected. Creating effective strategies requires far more than an invocation for individual behavioural change in thinking globally and acting locally, but attention to the multi‐scalar conflicts, tensions and also opportunities to develop the most appropriate collective responses. In this paper, we use the example of community gardening initiatives in a large UK city to critically interrogate the problems facing groups at the local neighbourhood level in pursuing sustainability agendas. We focus on the organizational imperative to create a multi‐scalar food policy partnership at the city level as a way of confronting dominant global neoliberal urban competitiveness agendas. Our results emphasize the critical importance of scalar politics in enabling effective climate change strategies.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluate whether insurers are "rescaling" risk management practices to accommodate the temporal and spatial uncertainty associated with climate change through the application of scale as a vertically nested hierarchy of relationships.
Abstract: Climate change represents a significant financial risk to the insurance industry, but research has yet to assess whether the industry is managing this risk. Through the application of scale as a vertically nested hierarchy of relationships, this paper seeks to evaluate whether insurers are ‘rescaling’ risk management practices to accommodate the temporal and spatial uncertainty associated with climate change. This framework is applied to a content analysis of 178 (183) firm responses to the 2012 (2015) U.S. National Association of Insurance Commissioners Climate Risk Disclosure Survey to detect evidence of rescaling through climate change risk management (CCRM). The results reveal that the majority of companies do not integrate climate change into their risk management practices, but reinsurers are rescaling in a greater proportion than primary insurers. This finding confirms that a nested spatial and temporal scale in the insurance industry creates resistance to CCRM. The use of scale contributes to emerging scholarship on organizations and climate change by offering a framework for measuring organizational responses and justifying a research agenda on rescaling strategies as a means of risk management.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine how the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm growth is shaped by learning orientation in technologically sophisticated environments and find that the ability of entrepreneurial orientation to drive firm growth greatly depends on the joint consideration of technological sophistication and learning orientation.
Abstract: This study examines how the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm growth is shaped by learning orientation in technologically sophisticated environments. We draw upon an information processing perspective that emphasizes alignment between information processing demands and support mechanisms. Using data from 116 small to medium-sized enterprises in the Netherlands, we observe that the ability of entrepreneurial orientation to drive firm growth greatly depends on the joint consideration of technological sophistication and learning orientation. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of how configurations of strategic orientations and environmental considerations work in concert to influence the efficacy of organizational entrepreneurial efforts dramatically.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the extent to which foreign competition affects the innovation performance of domestic firms through imitation, given firms' absorptive capacity, and they found that absorbing capacity moderates the mediating effect of imitation, diminishing innovation gains at moderate and high levels of imitation.
Abstract: This study examines the extent to which foreign competition affects the innovation performance of domestic firms through imitation, given firms’ absorptive capacity. In analyzing longitudinal firm-level data from the U.K., we find a mediating effect of imitation on the relationship between foreign competition and local firms’ innovation performance, and an inverted U-shaped relationship between imitation and the innovation performance of local firms. Our findings further reveal that absorptive capacity moderates the mediating effect of imitation, diminishing innovation gains at moderate levels of imitation and mitigating the diminishing innovation performance at high levels of imitation.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative case study of ten innovation departments of large organizations is presented, which provides evidence that intrinsic rewards trigger innovation radicalness, but the simultaneous presence of extrinsic rewards diminishes innovation speed.
Abstract: Although scholars have independently explored the antecedents of innovation radicalness and innovation speed, this study's focus on combinations of radicalness and speed offers a number of new insights. Drawing on a comparative case study approach of ten innovation departments of large organizations, the authors’ findings provide evidence that intrinsic rewards trigger innovation radicalness, but the simultaneous presence of extrinsic rewards diminishes innovation speed. Further, the authors show that the availability of high levels of non‐financial resources increases innovation radicalness, but the additional provision of high levels of financial resources leads to a slower process of developing these radical innovations to market. The analysis also uncovers the mechanisms by which extrinsic rewards and financial resources slow down the development of radical innovations. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for the literature on innovation management and managerial practice.