Resource dependence theory

About: Resource dependence theory is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2732 publications have been published within this topic receiving 184871 citations.

The paradox of branding and collaboration

Abstract: As government devolves its responsibilities, service providers are competing for resources, but are working collectively to solve public problems. The divergent requirements of branding and collaboration create a paradox that helps to explain why collaborations are hard to sustain. We integrate ideas from literature exploring public sector management, marketing, social identity, resource dependence, collaboration, and paradox management. Public administration is looking to marketing theory and practice to enhance its tool kit. Government reforms emphasize devolution of responsibilities, collabo- rative responses to social problems, and the role of private sector management techniques such as branding for public sector organizations (Flynn, 1990). Brands of government agencies have effects on more than just consumers, the traditional focus of the marketing literature. Brand awareness and loyalty can influence the actions of employees, grant makers, contractors, donors, policymakers, and the voting public, as well as those who directly consume a product or service. Brand- ing and collaboration have divergent requirements and objectives that can make collaborations involving public sector organizations hard to sustain. We argue that resource dynamics, identity pressures, and management strategies affect brand- ing and collaboration outcomes. Two anecdotes highlight how collaborations can affect brands and vice versa. ARTICLE

Resource Tangibility and Foreign Firms’ Corporate Political Strategies in Emerging Economies: Evidence from India

Abstract: Foreign firms operating in emerging economies are increasingly exploiting and becoming dependent on locally existing intangible resources such as intellectual skills, technological know-how and reputation. Political strategies are used to absorb the external constraints associated with this external dependence. Little is known about the different types of political strategies used by foreign firms in emerging economies and the factors that determine this choice. We draw on Resource Dependence theory to argue that this choice will be influenced by the degree to which foreign firms depend on tangible vs. intangible resources. Using a sample of 105 foreign subsidiaries in India, we find that foreign firms that depend on local intangible resources are more likely to use information-based political strategies, but less likely to provide direct financial incentives to policymakers; whereas firms that depend on local tangibles are less likely to use information-based strategies. Foreign firms that depend on both tangible and intangible resources are more likely to use the constituency building strategy. Our findings enhance our understanding of the factors affecting foreign firms’ political strategy in emerging economies.

Attention Mosaics: Studies of Organizational Attention

Abstract: textOrganizational studies emphasizing the role of attention in organizational behavior depart from the idea that organizations, like individuals, have limited capacity to attend to environmental stimuli. The bounded capacity of the organizations to respond to stimuli is conditioned by the limited cognitions of individuals and by the limited capability of organizations to distribute, coordinate and integrate those cognitions. The cross-level nature of organizational attention, its dual character as both a process and an output, means that theories of attention afford interesting insights to explain organizational behavior. This dissertation presents one conceptual and two empirical studies about organizational attention. In the conceptual study entitled “Attention span: expanding the attention-based view to team, organizational and social movements levels”, it is argued that attentional processes have functional equivalence at the team, organizational and social movements level. The study entitled “When a thousand words are (not) enough: an empirical study of the relationship between firm performance and attention to shareholders”, tests the power of the attention-based view combined with resource dependence theory to explain the relationship between financial performance and attention to shareholders. Finally, the study “Sense and sensibility: testing the effects of attention structures and organizational attention on financial performance” tests the process model of situated attention by examining the effects of attention structures and the allocation of attention on organizational social responses and performance/ Together, these studies deepen and expand attentional perspectives on organizational behavior. Moreover, they renew scholars’ interest in organizational attention, indicating some of the strengths and limitations of theories of attention and also revealing a prolific research stream.

Community Resilience in Southern Appalachia: A Theoretical Framework and Three Case Studies

Abstract: A fundamental assumption in nearly all research on social adaptation to environmental change is that there is a concomitant and inverse relationship between human communities’ dependence upon particular natural resources affected by environmental change and those communities or societies’ resilience to disturbances. However, recent theoretical and empirical developments suggest resilience is a dynamic social process determined, in part, by the ability of communities to act collectively and solve common problems. The interactional approach to community is utilized to develop a framework whereby various patterns of social interaction define the process of social resilience. Data come from multiple mixed methods case studies of forest dependent communities within Southern Appalachia. The findings reveal varied processes of social resilience can occur in communities with similar levels of resource dependence; a community’s composition of internal social ties and their cross-scale linkages to external agencies and organizations define these processes.