Showing papers in "Journal of Management Studies in 2007"

The Development of Organizational Social Capital: Attributes of Family Firms*

Abstract: We develop and extend social capital theory by exploring the creation of organizational social capital within a highly pervasive, yet often overlooked organizational form: family firms. We argue that family firms are unique in that, although they work as a single entity, at least two forms of social capital coexist: the family's and the firm's. We investigate mechanisms that link a family's social capital to the creation of the family firm's social capital and examine how factors underlying the family's social capital affect this creation. Moreover, we identify contingency dimensions that affect these relationships and the potential risks associated with family social capital. Finally, we suggest these insights are generalizable to several other types of organizations with similar characteristics.

Stewardship vs. Stagnation: An Empirical Comparison of Small Family and Non‐Family Businesses*

Abstract: Two major perspectives can be construed in the literature concerning the nature of family owned businesses (FOBs). The first implies that these enterprises have unique charac- teristics of stewardship. FOB owners are said to care deeply about the long-term prospects of the business, in large part because their family's fortune, reputation and future are at stake. Their stewardship is said to be manifested by unusual devotion to the continuity of the company, by more assiduous nurturing of a community of employees, and by seeking out closer connections with customers to sustain the business. The second perspective is less flattering. It proposes that FOBs are unusually subject to stagnation: they are said to face unique resource restrictions, embrace conservative strategies, eschew growth, and be doomed to short lives. This paper develops and examines the merits of the two perspectives, neither of which has been systematically articulated or researched. It does so in an empirical study of only small firms that are owned and managed by their founder. Within this sample, it compares firms that are FOBs, that is, family owned and managed, with non-FOBs, that is, owned and managed by a founder with no other relative involved in the business. The findings show significant support for all three aspects of the stew- ardship perspective of FOBs, and no support for any elements of the stagnation perspective.

Investigating Managers' Exploration and Exploitation Activities: The Influence of Top-Down, Bottom-Up, and Horizontal Knowledge Inflows*

Abstract: This paper develops and tests hypotheses on the influence of managers' knowledge inflows on managers' exploration and exploitation activities. Based on a survey among managers of a leading electronics firm, the findings indicate, as expected, that top-down knowledge inflows of managers positively relate to the extent to which these managers conduct exploitation activities, while they do not relate to managers' exploration activities. Furthermore, as expected, bottom-up and horizontal knowledge inflows of managers positively relate to these managers' exploration activities, while they do not relate to managers' exploitation activities. We contribute to current literature on exploration and exploitation by focusing on the manager level of analysis, and by adding the importance of knowledge flow configurations to studies which investigate the impact of organizational factors on exploration and exploitation.

Burned by Bullying in the American Workplace: Prevalence, Perception, Degree and Impact†

Abstract: This study assesses the prevalence of workplace bullying in a sample of US workers, using a standardized measure of workplace bullying (Negative Acts Questionnaire, NAQ), and compares the current study's prevalence rates with those from other bullying and aggression studies. The article opens by defining bullying as a persistent, enduring form of abuse at work and contrasting it with other negative workplace actions and interactions. Through a review of the current literature, we propose and test hypotheses regarding bullying prevalence and dynamics relative to a sample of US workers. After discussing research methods, we report on the rates of bullying in a US sample, compare these to similar studies, and analyse the negative acts that might lead to perceptions of being bullied. Based upon past conceptualizations, as well as research that suggests bullying is a phenomenon that occurs in gradations, we introduce and provide statistical evidence for the construct and impact of bullying degree. Finally, the study explores the impact of bullying on persons who witnessed but did not directly experience bullying in their jobs.

The Role of Perceived Organizational Performance in Organizational Identification, Adjustment and Job Performance

Abstract: Favourable organizational status and prestige has a substantial role in shaping constituents' attitudes and actions. The status and prestige of an organization is often a reflection of its achievements or performance. In the present study, we investigate the role of organizational performance or achievement (as assessed by organizational members) in evoking employees' identification, adjustment, and job performance. The results of this study indicate that two forms of organizational performance (labelled as perceived social responsibility and development and perceived market and financial performance) are associated with organizational identification. However, when compared to perceived market and financial performance, perceived social responsibility and development had a larger effect on organizational identification, which in turn resulted in enhanced employees' work outcomes – adjustment and job performance.

Resource Configuration in Family Firms: Linking Resources, Strategic Planning and Technological Opportunities to Performance

Abstract: We apply the resource-based view of the firm to the study of family firms by investigating how a family specific resource (reciprocal altruism) and a firm specific resource (innovative capacity) contribute to family firm performance. We then examine how the impact of these resources is moderated by strategic planning and technological opportunities. Our findings suggest that family firms can benefit from emphasizing the positive aspects of kinship and from developing innovative capacities. As such, we demonstrate that not only do firm specific resources contribute to family firm performance, but also that family relationships can be a source of competitive advantage for a family firm. In addition, we found a heightened importance of reciprocal altruism in environments rich in technological opportunities, and that strategic planning is more important for those family firms that lack innovative capacities.

The Theory of Knowledge Spillover Entrepreneurship

Abstract: The prevailing theories of entrepreneurship have typically revolved around the ability of individuals to recognize opportunities and then to act on them by starting a new venture. This has generated a literature asking why entrepreneurial behaviour varies across individuals with different characteristics while implicitly holding constant the external context in which the individual finds herself. Thus, where the opportunities come from, or the source of entrepreneurial opportunities, is also implicitly taken as given. By contrast, in this paper an important source of entrepreneurial opportunities is identified – knowledge and ideas created in an incumbent organization. By commercializing knowledge that otherwise would remain uncommercialized through the start-up of a new venture, entrepreneurship serves as a conduit of knowledge spillovers. According to the theory of knowledge spillover entrepreneurship, a context with more knowledge will generate more entrepreneurial opportunities. By contrast, a context with less knowledge will generate fewer entrepreneurial opportunities. Based on a data set linking entrepreneurship to the knowledge context, empirical evidence is provided that is consistent with the proposition that entrepreneurial opportunities are not exogenous but rather systematically created by investments in knowledge by incumbent organizations.

Alliance Capability as a Mediator Between Experience and Alliance Performance: An Empirical Investigation into the Alliance Capability Development Process*

Abstract: This study centres around the way in which firms can enhance alliance performance through the development of alliance capabilities. Whereas most research has focused on inter-firm antecedents of alliance performance, research on intra-firm antecedents pointing to prior experience and internal mechanisms to foster knowledge transfer has only recently emerged. As little is known about how firms develop alliance capabilities, this study aims to uncover how differences in sources of alliance capabilities explain performance heterogeneity. The data are derived from a detailed survey held among alliance managers and Vice-Presidents of 151 firms. The survey covers over 2600 alliances for the period 1997–2001. This study not only finds that alliance capabilities partially mediate between alliance experience and alliance performance, but also yields novel insights into the micro-level building blocks underlying the process of alliance capability development.

Resources, Capabilities and Entrepreneurial Perceptions*

Abstract: We review and develop a subjectivist theory of entrepreneurship that focuses on individuals, their knowledge, resources and skills, and the processes of discovery and creativity, which constitute the heart of entrepreneurship. First, we establish the fundamental importance of subjectivity in entrepreneurial discovery and creativity. Second, we build on Penrose (1959) to elaborate how entrepreneurs' perceptions and personal knowledge shape a firm's subjective productive opportunity set. Third, we explain that entrepreneurial perceptions and knowledge partly originate from entrepreneurs' experiences in specific business settings such as the firm, the management team, and the industry. Fourth, we highlight the causal connections between subjectivity in entrepreneurship and observed heterogeneity in firm-level economic performance. Lastly, we suggest directions for further advancing a subjectivist resource-based approach to future entrepreneurship research.

Role Expectations and Middle Manager Strategic Agency

Abstract: Based on an analysis of 262 interviews, I argue that role expectations have the potential to both enable and constrain middle manager strategic agency. To explain why the same role expectations have contradictory effects on agency, I analyse enabling conditions corresponding to four strategic role expectations, based on Floyd and Wooldridge's work on middle manager roles. After presenting eight enabling conditions for strategic agency, specific to the four role expectations, I argue that the dominant functionalist view of strategic roles should be augmented from a middle manager viewpoint. I suggest a reciprocal view of strategic role expectations, which elucidates the tensions between dialogue, legitimacy and rationality within a set of strategic roles.

Dimensions of Social Capital and Firm Competitiveness Improvement: The Mediating Role of Information Sharing

Abstract: This study investigates the mediating role of information sharing in the relationships between dimensions of social capital and firm competitiveness, thereby positing a possible explanation for the divergent empirical results of the social capital–performance relationship in the existing literature. The study uses a sample of 108 Hong Kong-based Chinese family-owned firms from the manufacturing sector. Largely supporting the theoretical predictions, the results from multiple regression and structural equation model tests show that information sharing plays a mediating role in the relationships between three dimensions of social capital (trust, network ties, and repeated transactions) and firm competitiveness improvement.

Corporate Entrepreneurship Activities through Strategic Alliances: A Resource-Based Approach toward Competitive Advantage†

Abstract: Corporate entrepreneurship (CE) activities may significantly benefit from interfirm strategic alliances, although such benefits have not been sufficiently examined in the literature. In this paper, a resource-based framework is presented to examine how strategic alliances offer entrepreneurial firms needed resources that may not otherwise be available. We argue that CE activities are likely to lead to resource gaps. We compare various options to fill resource gaps, and identify the pros and cons of the alliance approach. We then discuss the resource conditions that provide competitive advantage for a firm, if alliances are properly used to help implement CE. Finally, we examine how different types of alliance (e.g. joint ventures, R&D alliances, and learning alliances) facilitate various CE activities, including innovation, corporate venturing, and strategic renewal.

Identifying, Enabling and Managing Dynamic Capabilities in the Public Sector*

Abstract: In this paper, we examine how a public sector organization developed a new strategic approach based on the identification and use of an internal dynamic capability (learning through experimenting). In response to the need for continual performance improvement in spite of reduced financial resources, this organization engaged in three overlapping phases as they shifted to this strategic approach. First, managers identified appropriate latent dynamic capabilities. Next, they used their leadership skills and built on established levels of trust to enable the use of these dynamic capabilities. Finally, they managed the tension between unrestricted development of local initiatives and organizational needs for guidance and control.

An Exploration of How the Employee–Organization Relationship Affects the Linkage Between Perception of Developmental Human Resource Practices and Employee Outcomes*

Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to examine whether and how the quality of the employee–organization relationship (EOR) influences the relationship between employee perception of developmental human resource (HR) practices and employee outcomes. Analyses of 593 employees representing 64 local savings banks in Norway showed that four indicators of the EOR (perceived organizational support, affective organizational commitment, and procedural and interactional justice) moderated the relationship between perception of developmental HR practices and individual work performance. A strong and direct negative relationship was found between perception of developmental HR practices and turnover intention, but perceived procedural and interactional justice moderated this linkage. No support was found for a mediating role of the EOR indicators in the relationship between perception of developmental HR practices and employee outcomes. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Strategy-making in context: ten empirical archetypes

Abstract: A more encompassing form of contingency theory is proposed to study organizations and their decision-making behaviour. Instead of looking at bivariate relationships between environmental, organizational, and decision- making style variables, it is suggested that researchers attempt to find a number of causal models which represent archetypal, or frequently occurring relationships amongst a broad host of such variables. In this manner, relationships are qualified by their context and a more complete picture of organizational functioning emerges. A methodology for isolating archetypes is presented and we discuss some findings which portray strategy making behaviour under different environmental and organizational states.

Sickness Presenteeism, Sickness Absenteeism, and Health Following Restructuring in a Public Service Organization

Abstract: This study examined the relationship between sickness presenteeism, sickness absenteeism, organizational outcomes and employee health. In particular, we wanted to investigate to what degree employees were substituting sickness presence for sickness absence. Three hypotheses were tested to formalize this ‘substitution proposition’. We surveyed a Canadian public service organization which was involved in a large scale downsizing initiative. For this study, 237 Personnel Corporation (pseudonym used) employees responded to the survey, representing a 66 per cent response rate. Survey results indicated that, while the workforce was of average health, sickness absenteeism was less than half that of the national average. The difference could be accounted for by sickness presenteeism – the average number of days employees attended work while ill or injured was greater than the number of days of sickness absence. The pattern of results supported the notion that employees were substituting presenteeism for absenteeism. The frequency and type of self-reported health problems were highly similar for presenteeism and absenteeism. Work factors (e.g. job security, supervisor support and job satisfaction) tested were significantly correlated with presenteeism. Presenteeism appears to be a stronger predictor of health than absenteeism, suggesting that efforts to improve workplace health may have a more immediate impact on presenteeism than on absenteeism.

Ring a Ring o’ Roses: Quality Journals and Gamesmanship in Management Studies*

Abstract: A paper in one of the quality journals of Management Studies is much more important as a unit of measurement than as a contribution to knowledge. It measures academic performance and determines much academic funding. There is consequently some pressure to publish in quality journals. But quality journals are defined in terms that are themselves defined in terms of quality journals – a circularity that explains both the paper's title and the frustration of those who do not mix in these circles. We examine the gamesmanship of publishing in quality journals. Findings from a survey of heads of Management Studies departments in UK universities suggest that such gamesmanship is common. Cunning and calculation now support scholarship in Management Studies. Gamesmanship will remain common until the rewards for publishing attach to the content of papers, to what is published rather than where it is published. We propose a ‘Tinkerbell Solution’: without belief in the value of a paper in a quality journal, the game is no longer worth playing.

Knowledge Management as the Basis of Sustained High Performance

Abstract: By deconstructing some of the key elements of the resource-based view and the knowledge-based view of the firm, we suggest that there are three components to knowledge management systems that influence firm performance: the firm's ability to produce new knowledge, its ability to build on that knowledge, and its effectiveness in capturing a high proportion of the subsequent spin-offs. Using regression analysis to analyse data from 30,022 patent records from 42 firms, we find that a firm's growth rate is positively associated with its ability to generate rare and valuable knowledge, and to build on that knowledge.

The Influence of Decision, Environmental and Firm Characteristics on the Rationality of Strategic Decision‐Making*

Abstract: This paper develops an integrated model of strategic decision-making rationality. The model is informed by three perspectives that respectively identify decision, environmental and firm characteristics as influences on the rationality of decision processes. The results of a study in Egypt indicate that the rationality of strategic decision-making processes is shaped by variables identified by all three perspectives, and that such decision processes cannot adequately be modelled in terms of a single perspective only. However, the study also suggests that the three perspectives do not contribute in equal measure to explaining strategic decision making, and that the national setting is relevant for the extent to which strategic decision-makers take account of environmental characteristics. The location of the investigation in Egypt highlights some deviations from previous research that could be attributed to nation-specific factors, both cultural and institutional.

Discourse and Audience: Organizational Change as Multi‐Story Process

Abstract: This article is critical of monological research accounts that fail to accommodate polyvocal narratives of organizational change, calling for more fully informed case studies that combine elements of a narrative approach with processual/contextual analysis. We illustrate how contrasting versions of the same change event by different stakeholders and by the same stakeholder for different audiences, raise theoretical and methodological issues in the analysis and presentation of data on organizational change. Our argument is that research narratives (that seek to develop understanding of change processes) are necessarily selective and sieved through particular discourses that represent different ways of engaging in research. They are authored in a particular genre and written to influence target audiences who become active co-creators of meaning. Organizational change viewed from this perspective is a multi-story process, in which theoretical accounts and guides to practice are authored consistent with pre-selected narrative styles. These, in turn, are purposefully chosen to influence target audiences, but this subjective crafting is often hidden behind a cloak of putative objectivity in the written and oral presentations of academic research findings.

Don't Take It Personally: Exploring Cognitive Conflict as a Mediator of Affective Conflict

Abstract: Research has sought to explain the multi-dimensionality of conflict and its paradoxical effects on decision making (Amason, 1996; DeDreu and Weingart, 2003; Jehn, 1995). The primary prescription to emerge from this work has been for teams to seek the benefits of cognitive (task) conflict while simultaneously avoiding the costs of affective (emotional) conflict. The problem is that these two types of conflict often occur together and researchers have offered few explanations as to why this happens or guidance as to how it can be avoided. In this paper, we provide empirical evidence that cognitive conflict can contribute to affective conflict. As a result, by encouraging cognitive conflict, teams may inadvertently provoke affective conflict. We provide evidence that behavioural integration can mitigate this tendency.

Global Standardization of Organizational Forms and Management Practices? What New Institutionalism and the Business‐Systems Approach Can Learn from Each Other*

Abstract: The debate as to the effects of globalization on organizational forms and management practices is well known. Our paper focuses on two institutionalist traditions in organization theory which make a significant contribution to this discussion: new institutionalism and the business-systems approach. Both emphasize the adaptation of organizations to their institutional environments but come to very different conclusions as to the global standardization of organizational forms and management practices. Our paper aims to move them beyond the convergence-divergence dichotomy to account for signs of both global standardization and continued persistence of national differences. We do so by systematically comparing the two traditions, suggesting how they can be cross-fertilized and developing an agenda for future empirical research. We also highlight that they cannot learn from each other on the issue of agency and point to structuration theory as a way in which they can integrate agency into their accounts of the global standardization debate.

Business Groups: An Integrated Model to Focus Future Research

Abstract: Business groups are the primary form of managing large business organizations outside North America. This paper provides a systematic and integrative framework for understanding business groups. We argue that existing theoretical perspectives of business groups pay attention to four critical external contexts, each of which draws from a specific theoretical perspective: market conditions (transaction cost theory), social relationships (relational perspective), political factors (political economy perspective), and external monitoring mechanisms (agency theory). Business groups adapt to these external forces by deploying various internal mechanisms along two key dimensions: one focuses on the distinctive roles of the group affiliates (horizontal connectedness) and the other focuses on coupling and order between the parent firm and its affiliates (vertical linkages). Based on these two dimensions, a typology of business group forms is developed: network (N-form), club (C-form), holding (H-form), and multidivisional (M-form). Utilizing this model we provide research questions which facilitate an improved future research agenda.

Opportunity Discovery, Problem Solving and a Theory of the Entrepreneurial Firm

Abstract: When should an entrepreneur employ a market to help discover and exploit opportunities, and when should the entrepreneur create a firm to do so? If a firm is created, how should it be organized? In this paper we argue that opportunities equate to valuable problem- solution pairings, and that opportunity discovery relates to deliberate search or recognition over this solution space. As problem complexity increases, experiential (or 'directional') search via trial-and-error provides fewer benefits, and cognitive (or 'heuristic') search via theorizing becomes more useful. Cognitive search, however, requires knowledge sharing, when knowledge is distributed among specialists, that is plagued by a knowledge appropriation hazard and a strategic knowledge accumulation hazard. Markets, authority-based hierarchy, and consensus- based hierarchy then have differential effects on the efficiency of opportunity discovery given the complexity of the associated problem. Those entrepreneurs with exceptional capabilities of opportunity recognition can efficiently adopt authority-based governance over a wider range of complexity. We thus combine the two major modes of opportunity discovery - search and recognition - onto one framework that can explain different entrepreneurial organizational forms, resulting in an entrepreneurial theory of the firm.

The Moderating Effect of CEO Power on the Board Composition–Firm Performance Relationship*

Abstract: Prior studies of the relationship between the composition of boards of directors and firm performance offer equivocal results. Drawing on agency and power circulation theories, we attempt to reduce this equivocality by asserting that CEO power moderates the relationship. Specifically, an outside director dominated board is needed to check a powerful CEO, but monitoring by other executives provides sufficient constraints on CEOs with low power. We used event study methodology to test the effects of the interaction between board composition and CEO power on stock market reaction to 73 unexpected CEO deaths. We found support for our theorizing among two of three sources of CEO power. Thus, although regulatory trends increasingly support outside director dominated boards, our findings indicate that this may not always benefit shareholders and that CEO power should be considered when constructing boards.

The Organizational Life of an Idea: Integrating Social Network, Creativity and Decision-Making Perspectives*

Abstract: Existing theories on the influence of social networks on creativity focus on idea generation. Conversely, the new product development literature concentrates more on the selection of ideas and projects. In this paper we bridge this gap by developing a dynamic framework for the role of social networks from idea generation to selection. We apply findings from creativity and behavioural decision-making literature and present an in-depth understanding of the sociological processes in the front-end of the new product development process. Our framework builds on the importance of mutual understanding, sensemaking and consensus formation. The propositions focus on both network structure and content and highlight the need to have strong ties and prior related knowledge, to incorporate decision makers, and to move over time from a large, non-redundant and heterogeneous to a smaller and more cohesive network structure. We conclude with a discussion on empirical validation of the framework and possible extensions.

The Entrepreneurial Organization of Heterogeneous Capital

Abstract: Transaction cost, property rights, and resource-based approaches to the firm assume that assets, both tangible and intangible, are heterogeneous. Arranging these assets to minimize contractual hazards, to provide efficient investment incentives, or to exploit competitive advantage is conceived as the prime task of economic organization. None of these approaches, however, is based on a systematic theory of capital heterogeneity. In this paper we outline the approach to capital developed by the Austrian school of economics and show how Austrian capital theory provides a natural bridge between theory of entrepreneurship and the theory of the firm. We refine Austrian capital theory by defining capital heterogeneity in terms of subjectively perceived attributes, the functions, characteristics, and uses of capital assets. Such attributes are not given, but have to be created or discovered by means of entrepreneurial action. Conceiving entrepreneurship as the organization of heterogeneous capital provides new insights into the emergence, boundaries, and internal organization of the firm, and suggests testable implications about how entrepreneurship is manifested.

A Prescriptive Analysis of Search and Discovery

Abstract: I develop a prescriptive model of entrepreneurial search and discovery, which operationalizes constrained, systematic search. This approach appears to be superior to the alertness perspective in both the number and the wealth-creating potential of the opportunities that it can assist entrepreneurs to discover. Essentially, this research shows how entrepreneurs can improve their search effectiveness by systematically restricting their searching to known domains, which I elaborate prescriptively. Finally, I discuss the implications of the approach for researchers, educators and entrepreneurs.

Minority Employees Engaging with (Diversity) Management: An Analysis of Control, Agency, and Micro‐Emancipation*

Abstract: This study analyses how minority employees engage with control in organizations. Differently from most critical studies of diversity management, which focus on how minority employees are discursively controlled, we approach (diversity) management as a constellation of both identity-regulating discourses and bureaucratic controls. We assume that minority employees are agents who actively resist and/or comply with the constellation of controls they are subject to. Based on qualitative data collected in a technical drawing company and a hospital, the specific constellation of controls in each organization is first reconstructed. Four interviews with minority employees are then analysed in depth, showing how their engagement with material and discursive controls creates both constraints and possibilities of micro-emancipation.

Knowledge Networks and Careers: Academic Scientists in Industry-University Links*

Abstract: Careers are central to our understanding of the knowledge creation dynamics of network organizations. Based on the example of R&D project collaboration between firms and universities, this paper examines the emerging forms of career models that support knowledge flows between organizations. It explores how some large firms in the high-technology sectors have sought to break away from the limitations of internal R&D and firm-based careers for scientists by engaging in external collaborative projects to gain access to the open knowledge networks of university researchers. It examines how the firms seek to forge close institutional ties with their university partners and develop network career structures in order to engage academic scientists in joint knowledge production. It argues that firms have sought to extend their human resource and knowledge boundaries into the established internal labour markets of the universities with which they collaborate, leading to the formation of a pool of joint human resources with work experiences and career patterns straddling the two sectors. The paper develops the concept of an 'overlapping internal labour market' to provide a conceptual bridge between internal labour markets and network organizations.