Showing papers in "Journal of Management Studies in 1977"

The entrepreneurial personality: a person at the crossroads

Abstract: This paper reviews the concept of entrepreneurship and empirical studies of entrepreneurial behaviour patterns. In addition, it explores the social, economic and psychodynamic forces influencing entrepreneurship. A conceptualization of the entrepreneurial personality is proposed. Finally, the organizational impact of these entrepreneurial behaviour patterns on work environment and management succession is discussed.

Contingencies affecting strategy formulation and effectiveness: an empirical study

Abstract: Recent attempts at clarifying the strategy formulation problem have centred around managerial perceptions of environmental uncertainty (the need for information) and perceptions of the need for internal change. This research empirically tests one such formulation, a four quadrant model incorporating these two perceptual variables. Data sources were sixty-two longitudinal case studies involving a variety of organizations and environments. Characteristics of strategy making in each quadrant and differences between successful and unsuccessful organizations were examined through quantification of nine strategic variables for each case. Results indicated each quadrant differed from the others on a number of important strategic properties including risk taking, role performance of the key policy-maker(s), degree of innovation, extent of futurity in planning, and success of the organization. Second, strategic properties which predicted differences in success within each quadrant included perception of uncertainty, maximizing versus satisficing behaviour, innovation, futurity of planning, and role performance of the policy-maker. Third, successful firms in each quadrant tended to follow a strategic mode appropriate for the conditions. The four successful modes were adaptive planning, planning, adaptive entrepreneurial, and entrepreneural or stress mode. Motivational aspects of these results and implications for future research are discussed.

Decision-Making in Conditions of Extreme Uncertainty.

Abstract: In the last few years management has been forced to take decisions in conditions of extreme uncertainty. One consequence of this has been an increase in the use of formal methods of analysis in major decision problems. This paper describes some observations on how companies were handling decision-making under uncertainty, made during a S.S.R.C. sponsored research project on the influence of computer methods in planning and decision-making, viz. 1 Managers were consciously handling uncertainty by evaluating their major decisions in the light of several possible alternative forecasts. 2 Statistical decision theory was not used because, though in theory it was ideally suited for this situation, in practice management had the following objections to the use of this technique: (a) It assumed an accuracy of subjective probability estimates which was unrealistic in real life. (b) It required the use of artificial criteria of choice which were totally unacceptable to senior management. (c) It over-simplified the decision-making process. 3 In the thirty-two companies visited, management was using a systems analysis approach to decision-making involving the use of decision trees to structure the decision. Thereafter, instead of carrying out a probalistic analysis, a full evaluation to determine the quantitative and qualitative results would be carried out for each feasible path though the tree. This would be followed by an iterative elimination process. 4 Management were also endeavouring to cope with uncertainty by being more adaptive and flexible in their decision-making and are developing contingency or ‘fall-back’ strategies. Plans were not looked on as rigid blue-prints, but more as loosely linked frameworks of decision trees with the actual path through the decision tree dependent on future events.

Training in performance appraisal interviewing: an evaluation study

Abstract: The paper describes a study of the effects of a training course in performance appraisal interviewing. Managers who had attended the course were asked, by means of a postal questionnaire, to compare their pre‐training and post‐training interviewing performances. There were three important findings. First, that the trainees had improved on almost every aspect of appraisal interviewing; secondly, it is not just the skill of interviewing which is important, but also an understanding of the role of performance appraisal; and finally, managers in mid‐career may have most to gain from training of this type.

Managers' occupational histories, organizational environments, and climates for management development

Abstract: Seventeen intact collegiate groups of managers from eight companies and two publicly owned organizations described the organizational climates in which they worked. Their perceptions ranged from highly favourable to highly unfavourable. Did the occupational histories of the 134 managers influence their perceptions? Could the differences in their evaluations have arisen from other features of the environment, for which unobtrusive measures were available? Or was the level of each group in the hierarchy the prime determinant? All of these explanations have some plausibility in relation to the data presented. It is probably impossible to create‘the right climate’for management development by piecemeal strategies which ignore the significance of market success and deal only with the immediate experience of managers. On the other hand, a global strategy which concentrates on external factors and minimizes the importance of the individual's contribution in his particular location is likely to be equally defective. The major moderating variable in this study between the perceived developmental climate of the organization and the manager's occupational history was the salary he was paid.

‘water to spain’: an export decision analysed in the context of organizational learning

Abstract: This paper focuses on various aspects of a decision made by a Norwegian firm in order to export fresh water to Spain. Based on a broad description with various perspectives of organizational learning in mind, the case was analysed and interpreted. It was found that both individual and structural factors attributed to incomplete and biased learning and lack of adequate adaption to the circumstances.

A longitudinal analysis of the context and structure of a large british financial institution

Abstract: This study represents an analysis of the changes in the environment, context and structure of an organization, using the full Aston Interview Schedule.2 The limitations of generalizing from a single case are acknowledged, but the longitudinal analysis provides support for the notion that organizations can and do develop self-evaluative capacities when threatened by external change. The results of the process of self-evaluation on the part of the organization are shown as changes in the organization's scores on the various scales of organizational context and structure developed by the Aston school, at two points in time. These changes provide support for a number of conjectures arising from previous analyses of the relationships among the structural dimensions of organizational form displayed by the Aston methodology; notably the relationship between size/standardization and centralization/standardization. The analysis also suggests that the centralization scale can be viewed as having two components – one related to policy decisions, the other to operational decisions.

Self-esteem, internal-control and expectancy beliefs of white and black managers in south africa

Abstract: The relationship between internal-control, self-esteem and self-respect measures of the effort-performance and performance-outcome beliefs – the two major beliefs of the expectancy model of work motivation – were examined in a sample of forty-two white and thirty-eight black managers in South Africa. The correlations between self-esteem and the effort-performance belief and between internal-control and the performance-outcome belief were both significant in the white group but not in the black group. The white managers were significantly more internally oriented and had significantly higher levels of self-esteem than the black mangers. The white-black differences are explained in terms of features of the current socio-political systems in South Africa. The fact that in both groups the two beliefs correlated significantly together and equally with the self-esteem and internal-control suggests that the two beliefs may not be as independent as is implied by expectancy theory.