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Showing papers in "Journal of Management Studies in 2003"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored what leaders of action teams do to promote speaking up and other proactive coordination behaviors, as well as how organizational context may affect these team processes and outcomes.
Abstract: This paper examines learning in interdisciplinary action teams. Research on team effectiveness has focused primarily on single-discipline teams engaged in routine production tasks and, less often, on interdisciplinary teams engaged in discussion and management rather than action. The resulting models do not explain differences in learning in interdisciplinary action teams. Members of these teams must coordinate action in uncertain, fast-paced situations, and the extent to which they are comfortable speaking up with observations, questions, and concerns may critically influence team outcomes. To explore what leaders of action teams do to promote speaking up and other proactive coordination behaviours – as well as how organizational context may affect these team processes and outcomes – I analysed qualitative and quantitative data from 16 operating room teams learning to use a new technology for cardiac surgery. Team leader coaching, ease of speaking up, and boundary spanning were associated with successful technology implementation. The most effective leaders helped teams learn by communicating a motivating rationale for change and by minimizing concerns about power and status differences to promote speaking up in the service of learning.

1,384 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a conceptual framework suggesting that employee silence and voice are best conceptualized as separate, multidimensional constructs, and further propose that silence has differential consequences to employees in work organizations.
Abstract: Employees often have ideas, information, and opinions for constructive ways to improve work and work organizations. Sometimes these employees exercise voice and express their ideas, information, and opinions; and other times they engage in silence and withhold their ideas, information, and opinions. On the surface, expressing and withholding behaviours might appear to be polar opposites because silence implies not speaking while voice implies speaking up on important issues and problems in organizations. Challenging this simplistic notion, this paper presents a conceptual framework suggesting that employee silence and voice are best conceptualized as separate, multidimensional constructs. Based on employee motives, we differentiate three types of silence (Acquiescent Silence, Defensive Silence, and ProSocial Silence) and three parallel types of voice (Acquiescent Voice, Defensive Voice, and ProSocial Voice) where withholding important information is not simply the absence of voice. Building on this conceptual framework, we further propose that silence and voice have differential consequences to employees in work organizations. Based on fundamental differences in the overt behavioural cues provided by silence and voice, we present a series of propositions predicting that silence is more ambiguous than voice, observers are more likely to misattribute employee motives for silence than for voice, and misattributions for motives behind silence will lead to more incongruent consequences (both positive and negative) for employees (than for voice). We conclude by discussing implications for future research and for managers.

1,380 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors found that the most frequently mentioned reason for remaining silent was the fear of being viewed or labeled negatively, and as a consequence, damaging valued relationships, while the social and relational implications of speaking up can take away employees' ability to have influence within an organizational setting.
Abstract: There is evidence from a variety of sources that employees often do not feel comfortable speaking to their bosses about organizational problems or issues that concern them. The purpose of this study was to shed light on the types of issues that employees are reluctant to raise, and identify why employees sometimes decide to remain silent rather than voice their concerns. We interviewed 40 employees and found that most had been in situations where they were concerned about an issue but did not raise it to a supervisor. Silence spanned a range of organizational issues, with several of our respondents indicating that they did not feel comfortable speaking to those above them about any issues or concerns. The most frequently mentioned reason for remaining silent was the fear of being viewed or labeled negatively, and as a consequence, damaging valued relationships. From our data, we develop a model of how the perceived consequences of voice contribute to silence, and a model of how the social and relational implications of speaking up can take away employees’ ability to have influence within an organizational setting.

1,223 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose an activity-based view of strategy that focuses on the detailed processes and practices which constitute the day-to-day activities of organizational life and which relate to strategic outcomes.
Abstract:  This introductory paper provides a background to the origins, themes and papers of this Special Issue on Micro Strategy and Strategizing. Our overarching argument is that, while the field of strategy has traditionally concentrated on the macro-level of organizations, it needs now to attend to much more micro-level phenomena. We propose an activity-based view of strategy that focuses on the detailed processes and practices which constitute the day-to-day activities of organizational life and which relate to strategic outcomes. The paper develops this view by considering two bodies of theory, those of the resource based view and institutionalism; two bodies of empirical work, those on corporate diversification and structure; and finally the process tradition of strategy research. The paper identifies the benefits of the activity-based view and introduces some challenges for further research. It concludes by introducing the papers in this Special Issue.

862 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present the results of a qualitative study that examines the relationship between the effects of interorganizational collaboration and the nature of the collaborations that produce them, based on the collaborative activities of a small, nongovernmental organization (NGO) in Palestine over a four-year period.
Abstract: Inter-organizational collaboration has been linked to a range of important outcomes for collaborating organizations. The strategy literature emphasizes the way in which collaboration between organizations results in the sharing of critical resources and facilitates knowledge transfer. The learning literature argues that collaboration not only transfers existing knowledge among organizations, but also facilitates the creation of new knowledge and produce synergistic solutions. Finally, research on networks and interorganizational politics suggests that collaboration can help organizations achieve a more central and influential position in relation to other organizations. While these effects have been identified and discussed at some length, little attention has been paid to the relationship between them and the nature of the collaborations that produce them. In this paper, we present the results of a qualitative study that examines the relationship between the effects of interorganizational collaboration and the nature of the collaborations that produce them. Based on our study of the collaborative activities of a small, nongovernmental organization (NGO) in Palestine over a four-year period, we argue that two dimensions of collaboration – embeddedness and involvement – determine the potential of a collaboration to produce one or more of these effects.

676 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Abstract:  In this article, we use the theory of planned behaviour to develop a model of small business managers’ growth aspirations and the level of growth achieved. We empirically test this model on a large longitudinal data set of small firms using hierarchical regression. Consistent with previous findings and others’ assumptions, we find that small business managers’ aspirations to expand their business activities are positively related to actual growth. However, the relationship between aspirations and growth appears more complex than stated. It depends on the level of education and experience of the small business manager as well as the dynamism of the environment in which the business(es) operates. Education, experience and environmental dynamism magnify the effect that one’s growth aspirations have on the realization of growth.

592 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, an empirical investigation of the micro practices of strategy in three UK universities is presented, focusing specifically on the formal strategic practices involved in direction setting, resource allocation, and monitoring and control.
Abstract: This paper draws upon activity theory- to analyse an empirical investigation of the micro practices of strategy in three UK universities. Activity theory provides a framework of four interactive components from which strategy emerges; the collective structures of the organization, the primary actors, in this research conceptualized as the top management team (TMT), the practical activities in which they interact and the strategic practices through which interaction is conducted. Using this framework, the paper focuses specifically on the formal strategic practices involved in direction setting, resource allocation, and monitoring and control. These strategic practices arc associated with continuity of strategic activity in one case study but are involved in the reinterpretation and change of strategic activity in the other two cases. We model this finding into activity theory-based typologies of the cases that illustrate the way that practices either distribute shared interpretations or mediate between contested interpretations of strategic activity. The typologies explain the relationships between strategic practices and continuity and change of strategy as practice. The paper concludes by linking activity theory to wider change literatures to illustrate its potential as an integrative methodological framework for examining the subjective and emergent processes through which strategic activity is constructed. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003.

534 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a Neo-Gramscian theoretical framework for corporate political strategy is developed drawing from Gramsci's analysis of the relations among capital, social forces, and the state, and from more contemporary theories.
Abstract: A neo-Gramscian theoretical framework for corporate political strategy is developed drawing from Gramsci's analysis of the relations among capital, social forces, and the state, and from more contemporary theories. Gramsci's political theory recognizes the centrality of organizations and strategy, directs attention to the organizational, economic, and ideological pillars of power, while illuminating the processes of coalition building, conflict, and accommodation that drive social change. This approach addresses the structure-agency relationship and endogenous dynamics in a way that could enrich institutional theory. The framework suggests a strategic concept of power, which provides space for contestation by subordinate groups in complex dynamic social systems. We apply the framework to analyse the international negotiations to control emissions of greenhouse gases, focusing on the responses of firms in the US and European oil and automobile industries. The neo- Gramscian framework explains some specific features of corporate responses to challenges to their hegemonic position and points to the importance of political struggles within civil society The analysis suggests that the conventional demarcation between market and non-market strategies is untenable, given the embeddedness of markets in contested social and political structures and the political character of strategies directed toward defending and enhancing markets, technologies, corporate autonomy and legitimacy.

504 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors suggest that disparities between service and manufacturing firms' international entry mode choices can be explained by differences in their reaction to transaction cost based variables and by the influence of risk and trust propensity.
Abstract: In this study, we suggest that disparities between service and manufacturing firms’ international entry mode choices can be explained by differences in their reaction to transaction cost based variables and by the influence of risk and trust propensity. We find that: (1) due to the investment intensive nature of manufacturing, environmental uncertainties and risk propensity influence manufacturers’ mode choices; while (2) behavioural uncertainties, trust propensity and asset specificity influence service providers’ entry mode choices because of the people-intensive nature of services. Implications for future research are discussed.

502 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed the neglected issues concerning the structuring and management of syndicated venture capital investments from the perspectives of both lead and non-lead syndicate members using two surveys of venture capital firms and examination of syndication documents.
Abstract: Syndicates are a form of inter-firm alliance in which two or more venture capital firms co-invest in an investee firm and share a joint pay-off. Syndication is a significant part of the venture capital market yet little research has been conducted into the process of structuring syndicate deals and the management of syndicates following deal completion. This paper analyses the neglected issues concerning the structuring and management of syndicated venture capital investments from the perspectives of both lead and non-lead syndicate members using two surveys of venture capital firms and examination of syndication documents. Lead investors typically have larger equity stakes and the syndicated investment agreement is a document that enshrines the rights of participants rather than specifying behaviour. Contractual arrangements typically serve as a back drop to relationships as non-legal sanctions are important and decisions are typically reached following discussion and consensus, but lead venture capital investors’ residual and specific powers are important in ensuring timely decision-making. The findings extend previous work on alliances by emphasizing the importance of non-legal sanctions, especially reputation effects, in mitigating opportunistic behaviour by dominant equity holders. The paper also adds to the limited research on the dynamics of alliances by highlighting the role of repeat syndicates.

459 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the fear and threat of isolation are particularly powerful for members of invisible minorities such as gay and lesbian employees, and propose a second, vertical "spiral of silence" may develop through processes at a more micro level within the workgroup and organization.
Abstract: When will individuals speak up about organizational issues, and when will they remain silent? We suggest that organizational voice will be significantly influenced by individuals’ perceptions of the attitudes towards an issue within their workgroup. In particular, individuals will be more likely to speak up when they believe that their position is supported by others, and remain silent when they believe that it is not. We explain this using the ‘spiral of silence’ proposed by Noelle-Neumann (1974, 1985, 1991) and widely used in public opinion research, which explains how majority opinions become dominant over time and minority opinions weakened. Spirals of silence within groups can restrict the open and honest discussion that is essential to organizational improvement. Noelle-Neumann's spiral of silence emphasizes the horizontal pressures that the threat of isolation and corresponding fear of isolation exert to keep people from being open and honest about their opinions. We argue in this paper that the fear and threat of isolation are particularly powerful for members of invisible minorities such as gay and lesbian employees. We propose a second, vertical ‘spiral of silence’ may develop through processes at a more micro level within the workgroup and organization. This second spiral begins with the inability to fully express one's personal identity within the workgroup because of a negative climate of opinion towards a particular aspect of one's identity. This may be especially true for ‘invisible’ sources of diversity such as sexual orientation. Revealing a potentially disruptive identity might impair social cohesion: concealing it, however, can inhibit social exchange and task exchange and reduce self-efficacy, leading to organizational silence. However, an alternate virtuous spiral can result in which individuals will feel empowered to express organizational voice.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify four co-evolutionary generative mechanisms (engines): naive selection, managed selection, hierarchical renewal, and holistic renewal, which illustrate the extensive range of evolutionary paths that can take place in a population of organizations.
Abstract: The extensive selection–adaptation literature spans diverse theoretical perspectives, but is inconclusive on the role of managerial intentionality in organizational adaptation. Indeed this voluminous literature has more to say about selection and sources and causes of structural inertia than about self-renewing organizations that might counteract such inertia. In this introductory essay, we identify four co-evolutionary generative mechanisms (engines) – naive selection, managed selection, hierarchical renewal and holistic renewal – which illustrate the extensive range of evolutionary paths that can take place in a population of organizations. In particular, the managed selection engine provides the foundations of the underlying principles of co-evolving self-renewing organizations: managing internal rates of change, optimizing self-organization, and balancing concurrent exploration and exploitation. However, it is altogether clear that empirical co-evolution research represents the next frontier for empirically resolving the adaptation selection debate. The essay concludes with a discussion of requirements for co-evolutionary empirical research and introduces the empirical papers in this Special Research Symposium.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a dual longitudinal case methodology, including a single in-depth study combined with a multiple retrospective study, involving four multinational companies, was used to evaluate how managers create and develop strategy in practice.
Abstract: Although strategy process research has provided careful and in-depth descriptions and examinations of strategy, micro-level processes and activities have been less commonly evaluated, especially as regards strategy creation and development. This paper examines how managers create and develop strategy in practice. A dual longitudinal case methodology, including a single in-depth study combined with a multiple retrospective study is used, involving four multinational companies. The findings show a twofold character of strategy creation, including fundamental different strategy activities in the periphery and centre, reflecting their diverse location and social embeddedness. Strategy making in the periphery was inductive, including externally oriented and exploratory strategy activities like trial and error, informal noticing, experiments and the use of heuristics. In contrast, strategy making in the centre was more deductive involving an industry and exploitation focus, and activities like planning, analysis, formal intelligence and the use of standard routines.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors draw together the ethnographic and ethnomethodological/conversation analytic traditions to outline an innovative and multidisciplinary approach for researching strategists-at-work.
Abstract: This paper draws together the ethnographic and ethnomethodological/conversation analytic traditions to outline an innovative and multidisciplinary approach for researching strategists-at-work. Ethnography is premised upon close-up observation of naturally occuring routines over time/space dimensions and ethnomethodology/conversation analysis, upon a study of people's practices and inherent tacit 'methods' for doing social and political life, much of which is accomplished through talk. Through the observation and recording of strategists talk-based interactive routines and from drawing upon seminal studies within the social sciences, the paper aims to map out a number of analytical routes for a fine-grained analysis of strategists' linguistic skills and forms of knowledge for strategizing. This includes their speaking of morals and the assembly of emotion as they construct a shared definition of the future. To illustrate the approach and its scope, the paper draws upon one ethnomethodologically informed ethnography. It will specifically focus upon aspects of the relational-rhetorical basis of strategic effectiveness as constituted by one strategist who was judged, from amongst a group of six, to have influenced strategic processes.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors interviewed members of the Canadian pulp and paper industry who had either an EMS or ISO 14001 certification to understand why they may have becomeISO 14001 certified.
Abstract: Many firms worldwide have adopted environmental management systems, and some have taken the extra step and had their systems certified for the international standard ISO 14001. While institutional pressures and market demand often motivate firms to adopt an EMS, the reasons why they certify for ISO 14001 are less clear. In this study, we interviewed members of the Canadian pulp and paper industry who had either an EMS or ISO 14001 certification to understand why they may have become ISO 14001 certified. We found that task visibility and environmental impact opacity lead to differences in a firm's approach to ISO 14001 certification in the absence of coercive pressures.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse strategies available to management in privatized, former state-owned enterprises in transition economies to restructure their organization, both internal forces promoting or inhibiting the restructuring process and external constraints arising in the transition context.
Abstract: The capitalist and socialist societies of the twentieth century assigned firms different roles within their economic systems. Enterprises transforming from socialist to market economies thus face fundamental organizational restructuring. Many former state-owned firms in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe have failed at this task. These firms have pursued primarily defensive downsizing, rather than strategic restructuring, as a result of both internal and external constraints on restructuring strategies. Building on the organizational learning and resource-based theories, we analyse strategies available to management in privatized, former state-owned enterprises in transition economies to restructure their organization. Both internal forces promoting or inhibiting the restructuring process, and external constraints arising in the transition context are examined. A model and testable propositions are developed that explain post-privatization performance. Implications of our research point to the ways in which firms should manage and develop their resource base to transform to competitive enterprises.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an in-depth analysis of a merger between a large Finnish furniture manufacturer and three smaller Swedish furniture companies and uncover four interrelated tendencies that illuminate why the frequent problem of slow progress during post-acquisition integration occurs: inherent ambiguity concerning integration issues; cultural confusion in social interaction and communication; organizational hypocrisy in integration decision-making; and the politicization of integration issues.
Abstract:  Though many studies have examined post-acquisition integration challenges, they have mainly focused on rationalistic explanations for the difficulties encountered in post-acquisition integration. There remains little knowledge of how the ‘irrational’ features of post-acquisition decision-making may impede organizational integration. This study attempts to bridge that gap by examining postacquisition decision-making from a sensemaking perspective. The paper presents an in-depth analysis of a merger between a large Finnish furniture manufacturer and three smaller Swedish furniture companies. By focusing on the sensemaking processes surrounding integration issues, we uncover four interrelated tendencies that illuminate why the frequent problem of slow progress during post-acquisition integration occurs: inherent ambiguity concerning integration issues; cultural confusion in social interaction and communication; organizational hypocrisy in integration decision-making; and the politicization of integration issues.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a conceptual scheme for examining the influence of self-monitoring on the relationships between two individual (locus of control and self-esteem) and two contextual (top-management openness and trust in supervisor) factors and speaking up is presented.
Abstract: Whereas both management scholars and practitioners emphasize the importance of employee input for improving workplace practices, research suggests that many employees are hesitant to express their opinions or voice their views because doing so might lead to retaliation. Consequently, they remain silent rather than speak up about workplace happenings, actions or ideas of others, needed changes, and other job-related issues. Drawing on various literatures, we developed and tested a conceptual scheme for examining the influence of self-monitoring on the relationships between two individual (locus of control and self-esteem) and two contextual (top-management openness and trust in supervisor) factors and speaking up. Data from 118 telecommunications employees and their coworkers provided supporting evidence. As predicted, low self-monitors, in comparison to high self-monitors, spoke up more often as internal locus of control, self-esteem, top-management openness, and trust in supervisor increased. The theoretical and practical implications of our results are discussed.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The role of the personnel professional has changed in a number of significant respects, and has become more multifaceted and complex, but the negative counter-images of the past still remain this article.
Abstract: There have been notable attempts to capture the changing nature of personnel roles in response to major transformations in the workplace and the associated rise of ‘HRM’ A decade ago Storey (1992) explored the emerging impact of workplace change on personnel practice in the UK and proposed a new fourfold typology of personnel roles: ‘advisors’, ‘handmaidens’, ‘regulators’ and ‘changemakers’ Have these four roles changed now that HRM has increasingly become part of the rhetoric and reality of organizational performance? If Storey's work provides an empirical and analytical benchmark for examining issues of ‘role change’, then Ulrich's (1997) work in the USA offers a sweeping prescriptive end-point for the transformation of personnel roles that has already been widely endorsed by UK practitioners He argues that HR professionals must overcome the traditional marginality of the personnel function by embracing a new set of roles as champions of competitiveness in delivering value Is this a realistic ambition? The new survey findings and interview evidence from HR managers in major UK companies presented here suggests that the role of the personnel professional has altered in a number of significant respects, and has become more multifaceted and complex, but the negative counter-images of the past still remain To partly capture the process of role change, Storey's original fourfold typology of personnel roles is re-examined and contrasted with Ulrich's prescriptive vision for the reinvention on the HR function It is concluded that Storey's typology has lost much of its empirical and analytical veracity, while Ulrich's model ends in prescriptive overreach by submerging issues of role conflict within a new rhetoric of professional identity Neither model can adequately accommodate the emergent tensions between competing role demands, ever-increasing managerial expectations of performance and new challenges to professional expertise, all of which are likely to intensify in the future

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory, and in particular his concept of an "episode", to guide research into strategic practice and its relationship to the operating routines of an organization.
Abstract: In this paper we draw on Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory, and in particular his concept of an 'episode', to guide research into strategic practice and its relationship to the operating routines of an organization. Episodes, in Luhmann's theory, provide a mechanism by which a system can suspend its routine structures and so initiate a reflection on and change of these structures. Applying this theory to the organizational process of strategic change, we draw attention to the routine nature of strategic episodes and to their organizational role as the effective locus of strategic practice and the interaction between strategic and operating routines. We continue to develop a framework for the systematic analysis of different kinds of episode in terms of key aspects of their initiation, conduct and termination.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the distinctive culture that existed within a knowledge-intensive firm (KIF) and also attempt to explain the emergence and effects of this culture. But they focus on a case study conducted over two years within a consultancy firm that created and applied scientific knowledge and expertise to the invention of solutions for clients.
Abstract: This paper explores the distinctive culture that existed within a knowledge-intensive firm (KIF) and also attempts to explain the emergence and effects of this culture. The findings are based on a detailed case study that was conducted over two years within a consultancy firm that created and applied scientific knowledge and expertise to the invention of solutions for clients. The firm employed highly educated scientists, considered ‘leading’ in their respective disciplines and project work was inherently fluid, complex, and uncertain. These kinds of ‘knowledge workers’, and this kind of work, are expected to demand high levels of autonomy. This creates complex managerial dilemmas around how to balance autonomy with control and uncertainty and flexibility with efficiency. The analysis shows how a strong culture based on an acceptance of ambiguity (e.g. in roles, power relations, organizational routines and practices) promoted the development of a loyal, committed, effective workforce and sustained a fluid and flexible form of project working over time. Critically, ambiguity allowed individuals to sustain multiple identities as both ‘expert’ and ‘consultant’. This, coupled with a corporate identity premised on ‘elitism’, helped to maximize commitment to the work and minimize tensions between control and autonomy. Thus the culture that embraced ambiguity (a consensus that there would be no consensus) engendered a form of normative control whereby consultants operated freely and at the same time willingly participated in the regulation of their own autonomy.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, three generic forms of reflexivity are proposed: the methodological, the hyper or deconstructive, and the epistemic, each with distinctive implications for the role of the management researcher in terms of aims, processes, and outcomes.
Abstract: Recently the term reflexivity has entered management discourses about research, education and practice. This paper highlights the ambiguity which prevails concerning the concept of reflexivity showing how the ways in which reflexivity itself is constituted inevitably articulates epistemological circularity in that commentators’ definitions and prescriptions vary according to their tacit metatheoretical commitments. Hence the aim of this paper is to explore this paradox by excavating such commitments and demonstrating how they constitute particular forms of reflexivity – each with distinctive implications for the role of the management researcher in terms of aims, processes, and outcomes. Three generic forms of reflexivity are proposed: the methodological, the hyper or deconstructive, and the epistemic.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a case study examines the role of narratives in organizational inquiry and knowledge work, focusing on how a best performing team engages in the resolution of disruptive occurrences on the shop floor.
Abstract: This paper explores the role of narratives in organizational inquiry and knowledge work. Following the tenets of the phenomenological method, the paper digs into the ‘life world’ of organizations in order to capture the taken for granted stream of everyday routines, interaction, and events that constitute both individual and social practices. An empirical case study examines the narrative-based processes of sensemaking and knowledge acquisition in the setting of a traditional pressing plant at Fiat Auto, Italy. The focus of analysis is on how a best performing team engages in the resolution of disruptive occurrences on the shop floor. Through the deconstruction of narratives underlying problem-solving activities, the case identifies a distinctive mode of investigation conceptualized as ‘detective stories’. The detective's method highlights the interplay between time and narrative in shaping the interconnected processes of organizational knowledge creation, utilization, and institutionalization. More generally, the findings of the paper stress the importance of conjectural knowledge and common-sensical wisdom in the everyday life of organizations.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors discusses three particularly promising approaches (interactive discussion groups, self-reports, and practitioner-led research) that fit the increasingly disparate research paradigms now being used to understand strategizing and other management issues.
Abstract: Empirical studies of strategizing face contradictory pressures. Ethnographic approaches are attractive, and typically expected since we need to collect data on strategists and their practices within context. We argue, however, that today's large, multinational, and highly diversified organizational settings require complimentary methods providing more breadth and flexibility. This paper discusses three particularly promising approaches (interactive discussion groups, self-reports, and practitioner-led research) that fit the increasingly disparate research paradigms now being used to understand strategizing and other management issues. Each of these approaches is based on the idea that strategizing research cannot advance significantly without reconceptualizing frequently taken-for-granted assumptions about the way to do research and the way we engage with organizational participants. The paper focuses in particular on the importance of working with organizational members as research partners rather than passive informants.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors call for research on organizational improvisation to go beyond the currently dominant jazz metaphor in theory development and identify the possible dangers of building scientific inquiry upon a single metaphor.
Abstract: This paper calls for research on organizational improvisation to go beyond the currently dominant jazz metaphor in theory development. We recognize the important contribution that jazz improvisation has made and will no doubt continue to make in understanding the nature and complexity of organizational improvisation. This article therefore presents some key lessons from the jazz metaphor and then proceeds to identify the possible dangers of building scientific inquiry upon a single metaphor. We then present three alternative models – Indian music, music therapy and role theory. We explore their nature and seek to identify ways in which the insights they generate complement those from jazz. This leads us to a better understanding of the challenges of building a theory of organizational improvisation.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the dynamics of worker participation in environmental management (i.e. management of pollution and waste) were examined at a New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI) plant.
Abstract:  This paper looks at, within the context of lean production, how and in what ways employees participate in environmental improvements. The paper uses data from an automobile plant well known for its participative work structures, New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI), to look more closely at the dynamics of worker participation in environmental management (i.e. management of pollution and waste). Findings show that while workers possess important contextual knowledge, the importance of process, intra-organizational and external knowledge make the role of specialist staff (both internal and external to the environmental function) critically important for environmental improvements. Additionally, environmental improvements often required a combination of more than one knowledge type. The paper discusses how the culture and management structure at NUMMI and other lean plants encourage this combination. Implications for environmental management, lean production, and future research on worker participation are discussed.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In many cases, people choose the safe response of silence, withholding input that could be valuable to others or thoughts that they wish they eould express as mentioned in this paper, which is referred to as employee silence.
Abstract: Within organizations, people often have to make decisions about whether to speak up or remain silent whether to share or withhold their ideas, opinions, and concerns. In many cases, they choose the safe response of silence, withholding input that could be valuable to others or thoughts that they wish they eould express. Researchers have referred to this as employee silence (Morrison and Milliken, 2000; Pinder and Harlos, 2001). There are many different types of issues that people in organizations are silent about and many reasons why people may elect to be silent. An employee may keep quiet about unethical practices that he or she has observed, for example, out of fear of being punished. Members of a group may choose to not express dissenting opinions in the interest of maintaining consensus and cohesiveness in the group. Thus, silence can be caused by fear, by the desire to avoid conveying bad news or unwelcome ideas, and also by normative and social pressures that exist in groups.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a model of strategic evolution as a sequence of intentional recombinations of a company's core micro-strategy with new resources and organizational routines, based on two comparative case studies.
Abstract: This paper proposes a model of strategic evolution as a sequence of intentional recombinations of a company's Core Micro-strategy with new resources and organizational routines. A Core Micro-strategy is defined here as the established system of interconnected routines, micro-activities and resources that can be traced through most of a company's strategic initiatives. The paper is based on two comparative case studies and on theories of evolution in social and cultural systems, intraorganizational ecology and the resource-based view of the firm. The resulting model advances the existing literature on strategy evolution by (1) incorporating a more direct and salient role of managerial leadership within processes of strategic evolution, (2) incorporating a central role for micro-level processes through which management can directly and intentionally shape strategic evolution, and (3) proposing recent developments in the resource-based view of the firm as a suitable theoretical framework with which to explain the processes in which strategic evolution is rooted. The model also contributes to the dynamic capabilities perspective by offering a microprocessual interpretation of their workings. The resulting view of dynamic capabilities suggests that they operate more through repeated recombination patterns of stable organizational factors, than through disruption of existing practices. The paper describes the empirical evidence which emerges from analysis of the two case studies; the two descriptive models of strategy evolution inductively built on the cases; the theoretical model resulting from cross-case analysis and iteration between the two grounded models and theoretical frameworks.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A review of histories of management shows ante-bellum slavery excluded from managerial modernity as pre-capitalist, unsophisticated in practice, and without non-owner managers identified as such.
Abstract: American slavery has been wrongfully excluded from histories of management. By 1860, when the historical orthodoxy has modern management emerging on the railroads, 38,000 managers were managing the 4 million slaves working in the US economy. Given slaves’ worth, slaveholders could literally claim ‘our people are our greatest asset.’ Yet a review of histories of management shows ante-bellum slavery excluded from managerial modernity as pre-capitalist, unsophisticated in practice, and without non-owner managers identified as such. These grounds for exclusion are challenged. First, it is shown slavery is included within capitalism by many historians, who also see plantations as a site of the emergence of industrial discipline. Second, ante-bellum slavery is demonstrated to have been managed according to classical management and Taylorian principles. Third, those doing the managing are shown to have been employed at the time as ‘managers’. In the idea of the manager, and of scientific and classical management slavery has therefore left an ongoing imprint in management practice and thought. A strong argument is made for not just for postcolonialist accounts of management, but for management histories in which anti-African-American racism is a continuing strand. The fundamental significance of the article however is its identification of slavery as of intrinsic, but hitherto denied, relevance to management studies.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the evolution of firm boundaries must be understood in the context of decisions on how the firm relates to other actors in its environment and develop the notion of indirect capabilities to highlight how firm boundaries respond to the distribution of capabilities in the economy as well as the modes of access to complementary and external capabilities.
Abstract: The notion of firm boundaries has received considerable attention in theories of the firm that address the problems of investment incentives and mitigation of hold-up problems. In this paper we attempt to develop a different approach to the problem of vertical firm boundaries, based on recent advances in the capabilities view of the firm. Our arguments rely on the pioneering insights of Penrose, Richardson and Loasby to elaborate a view of the boundaries determined by the interaction of the firm's direct and indirect capabilities with other actors. We develop the notion of indirect capabilities to highlight how firm boundaries respond to the distribution of capabilities in the economy as well as the modes of access to complementary and external capabilities. We conclude that the evolution of firm boundaries must be understood in the context of decisions on how the firm relates to other actors in its environment.