bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
How to be a postmodernist: a user’s guide to postmodern rhetorical practices
Authors: Legg Charles , Stagaki Paraskevi
Published: March 2003

Family therapists are being encouraged to adopt a postmodern approach to therapy and knowledge. Postmodernism is more than a set of beliefs that therapists can either accept or reject; it is an approach to the construction of truth that eschews many of the forms of argumentation, such as appeals to logic or evidence, characteristic of earlier writing in family therapy. In this paper we present some of the alternative rhetorical strategies used by contemporary family therapy and family therapy texts in the construction of novel truths. These strategies include: writing in the first person; making qualified or conditional assertions; implying rather than stating truths; ‘delegitimizing’ conflicting views; and ignoring disagreement. We discuss the value of these strategies in maintaining the authority of therapists and commentators on therapy in the face of the widespread incredulity towards metanarratives, such as science, that characterize postmodern society.
The Social Foundations of Latin America’s Recurrent Populism: Problems of Popular Sector Class Formation and Collective Action
Authors: Oxhorn Philip
Published: March 2003

The article is an attempt to offer a ‘bottom‐up’ explanation of political instability in Latin America by examining patterns of class formation in the region. It argues that the heterogeneous class structure characterizing the popular sectors creates collective action problems that historically have resulted in popular sector mobilization by populist elites, if not apathy or civil war. The possibility of an alternative basis for popular sector mobilization that is more favorable to democratic consolidation is explored on the basis of a neo‐Marxist interpretation of class formation. By incorporating variables dealing with the state and the nature of civil society that are not directly related to the relationship of individuals or groups to the means of production, an effort is made to outline the basis of a new popular sector collective identity which offers a totalizing synthesis of this social heterogeneity. Some of the implications of this are briefly discussed in a concluding section.
Spatial Governance and Working Class Public Spheres: The Case of a Chartist Demonstration at Hyde Park
Authors: Roberts John Michael
Published: March 2003

The concepts of the public sphere and public space have gained increasing purchase within social history. This paper contributes to this literature by theoretically developing a critical approach to both concepts. By drawing upon the insights of the Bakhtin circle, as well as Marxism and Poststructuralism, the paper suggests that public spheres under capitalism are structured through the basic contradiction between capital and labour. Each public sphere may then be seen as a refracted dialogic and spatial form of this basic contradiction, and is then best viewed as a contradictory spatial entity that obtains its unique identity through different “accents” and “word signs”. The capitalist state must aim to regulate, through governance and law, dialogue within a public sphere. By focusing on the Chartist demonstration at Hyde Park, London in 1855, I show how these theories can be employed to explore how a radical social movement appropriated space by developing a working class public sphere.
Regulating Heterosocial Space: Sexual Politics in the Early Twentieth Century
Authors: Hunt Alan
Published: March 2003

This essay proposes a reading of the vice commission reports of the early 20th century USA and Canada as exemplifying projects to regulate ‘heterosocial space’. ‘Heterosocial space’ refers to the shifting and changing sites where young women and men come into contact and where transactions with potentially sexual dimensions arise or which others define in sexualized terms. ‘Space’ not only has a spatial, but also a temporal dimension exemplified in deep anxieties about the rapid expansion of the cities and life on street‐corners after dark. The city was constituted as an arena of dispersed agencies of surveillance; a myriad of sites, including dance, halls, movie houses, ice cream parlors and skating rinks; department stores and city parks, which evaded attempts at systematic disciplinary supervision. Attention is paid to the closely textured interaction between official bodies and private agencies of moralization whose attempts at regulating heterosocial life involved an expansion of regulatory activities which were often ill‐coordinated and conflictual. In the struggle between respectability and unrespectability, traditional notions of respectability were persistently submerged and outflanked. The vice reports can also be read as metaphorical narratives, such that prostitution can be seen as embracing multiple referents shifting from concern with ‘commercial vice’ to ‘casual prostitution’, and encompassing ideas of disease, disorder and transgression.
International Standardisation and Harmonisation: a New Measurement Technique
Authors: McLeay Stuart , Neal David , Tollington Tony
Published: March 2003

We argue in this paper that it is the availability of alternative accounting treatments and the use by individual firms of the appropriate method that produces financial statements which are comparable. Accordingly, international harmony in accounting should be seen as a state in which firms throughout the world are able to use an internationally‐recognised accounting treatment that is appropriate to their circumstances without being constrained to do otherwise by local accounting regulations or other requirements to adopt practices confined to particular nations. The paper distinguishes harmonisation from standardisation and presents a method for measuring harmonisation which allows for choice between alternative accounting treatments. The statistical model also takes account of the stylised fact that accounting treatments are not mutually exclusive, and the method is illustrated by an analysis of goodwill accounting practices in Europe.
The Information Content of Concurrently Announced Earnings, Cash Dividends, and Stock Dividends: An Investigation of the Chinese Stock Market
Authors: Chen Gongmeng , Firth Michael , Gao Ning
Published: March 2003

The firms listed on China’s stock market are less than ten years old and to date there has been relatively little research on the usefulness of their accounting disclosures for investors. This study focuses on the information content of annual earnings and dividend announcements made by listed Chinese companies. Earnings, cash dividends, and stock dividends are announced concurrently in China and so this allows for tests of their information usefulness and of the interactions between the three signals. Based on a data set of up to 1,232 announcements, we find that unexpected earnings, proxied by earnings changes, are positively related to abnormal returns. Thus, earnings are used by investors in setting market prices. Stock dividends corroborate or attenuate the earnings signal. If the sign of the unexpected stock dividend (increase, decrease) is the same as the sign of the unexpected earnings, then the earnings signal is stronger. If the signs are opposite, the earnings signal is weaker. Unexpected cash dividends have little impact on the earnings signal. Stock dividends per se have a small association with stock returns. In contrast, cash dividends have no discernible association with stock returns and this is consistent with dividend irrelevance arguments. Our results are robust across a number of sensitivity tests.
Post‐colonial Fragments: Representations of Abortion in Irish Law and Politics
Authors: Fletcher Ruth
Published: March 2003

The Republic of Ireland has become infamous for its legal stance against abortion, especially since it went as far as stopping, albeit temporarily, a young rape victim from travelling abroad for an abortion in 1992. I argue that one of the rationales behind anti‐abortion law is a post‐colonial urge to mark Irishness distinctively by constructing it in exclusively ‘pro‐life’ terms. I discuss examples of how Irish colonial experiences have been used to justify the effort to keep Ireland abortion‐free, and to resist that effort. Representations of colonial history in the context of Irish abortion law and politics have changed over time and between groups. Such changes indicate a need for post‐colonial critique to account for the fragmentation of colonialism as it is displaced, a need which the conceptualization of post‐coloniality as a historical object can address.
Values and Purpose in Government: Central‐local Relations in Regulatory Perspective
Authors: Vincent‐Jones Peter
Published: March 2003

This paper explores the relationship between theories of regulation and governmentality, showing how a synthesis of the two approaches may be used in the analysis of central‐local relations. The basis of the current trend towards greater partnership and cooperation in the regulation of local by central government is argued to lie in the linking of increasingly selective imperium and dominium controls with ‘responsibilization’ strategies involving techniques of accounting, audit, and contracting. Following Nonet and Selznick, the substantive and purposive nature of state action is placed at the centre of the analysis. In this perspective, the ideal of responsive regulation implies not just technical effectiveness, but the harnessing of regulatory forces and ‘governmental’ resources in endeavours to achieve legitimate regulatory objectives. While New Labour's regulatory style is more likely to prove effective than that of the Conservatives, it may be criticized for a similar failure to implement fundamental values of openness and participation in the determination of regulatory purposes.
Leverage, Resistance and the Success of Implementation Approaches
Authors: Nutt Paul C.
Published: March 2003

The research reported in this paper explored the success of implementation approaches used by managers with differing amounts of leverage facing resistance from key stakeholders. The explanatory variables were implementation approach and resistance, measured by the extent of stakeholder support, scale and disruptiveness of the decision, as well as the implementing manager’s leverage. ‘Intervention’ was found to be the most successful approach, no matter what situation faced a manager seeking to implement a decision. Intervention proved to be a viable substitute for participation that has a favourable adoption rate and a dramatic increase in timeliness. Persuasion and edicts were often used and generally unsuccessful. More implementation success seems possible if other approaches are used. The findings indicate that the most successful approach, intervention, was not subject to situational influences. This questions the value of contingency frameworks that call for an implementation approach to be selected according to the demands of the situation.
Performance Implications of Incorporating Natural Environmental Issues into the Strategic Planning Process: An Empirical Assessment
Authors: Judge William Q. , Douglas Thomas J.
Published: March 2003

This paper explores the ability of firms to integrate a critical strategic issue, the natural environment, into the strategic planning process within the natural resource‐based perspective. Using survey data collected from a wide variety of firms and industries based in the United States, we empirically examined the antecedents and effects of integrating the natural environment into the formal planning process. These data were analysed using structural equation modelling with the LISREL technique.

Overall, our data provided strong support for the hypothesized relationships. Specifically, we found that the level of integration of environmental management concerns in the strategic planning process was positively related to financial and environmental performance. Furthermore, we found that the greater the functional coverage and the more resources provided to environmental issues, the greater the integration of environmental issues in the planning process. These results suggest that concern for environmental issues may yield competitive advantages in the marketplace as the natural resource‐based perspective suggests
Developing Co‐operative Buyer–Supplier Relationships: A Case Study of Toyota
Authors: Langfield‐Smith Kim , Greenwood Michelle R
Published: March 2003

Over recent years many businesses have recognized that there are strong competitive advantages in developing co‐operative partnerships with suppliers. An important challenge for many companies is to identify the factors to enable them to move from relationships characterized by strong buyer power and bargaining position, to partnerships based on trust and co‐operation. The purpose of this paper is to consider factors that may influence the development of co‐operative buyer–supplier relationships. A case study is presented which illustrates the developing relationship between an automotive manufacturer, Toyota Australia, and its suppliers, as part of a new supplier strategy. Several factors are proposed which provide areas for further research. These include the consideration of similarities between the industry and technologies of buyer and suppliers, prior experiences of change among suppliers, effective communications between buyer and suppliers, and the importance of experiential learning in the acceptance of change.
The Competitiveness of Networked Production: The Role of Trust and Asset Specificity
Authors: Carney Mick
Published: March 2003

The paper offers a synthesis of sociological and transactions cost economics perspectives on production networks. Sociological explanations of network effectiveness (competitiveness) stress the importance of trust, and transactions costs emphasizes asset specificity. The approach here is comparative, the capabilities of networks are assessed against those of the vertically integrated, managerially co‐ordinated hierarchy. The argument is that the competitiveness of each form derives from different organizational capabilities. Neither is inherently superior – by supporting different strategies, networks and hierarchies can co‐exist. A distinction is drawn between those networks that rely on communal support and trust and those networks whose dynamism relies on individualistic and autonomous entrepreneurship. The absence of trust (or the surfeit of entrepreneurial zeal) leaves firms reliant on generic assets. Trust creates the conditions under which communities of firms can develop industry‐specific assets capable of delivering real services to network firms that are unavailable through market channels. The competitiveness of a production network is a function of the value adding activities undertaken by agents and the collective responses made to external threats or disturbances. The argument is illustrated with reference to the organization of watch (timepieces) production in Hong Kong
Systems for Sustainable Organizations: Emergent Strategies, Interactive Controls and Semi‐formal Information
Authors: Osborn Charles S
Published: March 2003

New‐form organizations are likely to organize more explicitly around processes than traditional‐form organizations that emphasize functional hierarchy. Developing process‐based strategic responses quickly using diffuse sets of resources is likely to play an increasingly important role in sustaining new organizational forms. Three ideas introduce alternative perspectives on strategy formulation, management control and information systems design that may be useful in understanding organizational performance in this area. They focus on: (1) emergent strategies, (2) interactive management controls, and (3) semi‐formal systems. In combination these three perspectives describe relationships between strategy, organizational design and systems support that suggest mechanisms for improving the sustainability of new organizational forms.

To some degree distributed organizational structures such as networked organizations and quasi‐organizational forms such as alliances, partnerships and joint ventures represent attempts to solve a paradox of competitive agility. This paradox suggests that in the context of rapidly changing, increasingly global markets, organizations need to be flexible (so they can respond quickly to competitive threats) yet remain stable (so they can learn and grow based on their strengths). If this is the case, what systems and tools are available that encourage a productive balance between flexibility and stability?

This paper uses the experience of regional management teams at a large consumer goods company to suggest how interactive controls and semi‐formal information systems combine to increase the agility of a distributed organization that can employ emergent strategies. Evidence illustrates some of the mechanisms by which (a) faster response times deliver organizational flexibility while (b) semi‐formal analytics add the stability of knowledge and guidance shared across organizational sites. Examples discuss the use of information within management teams, discussion behaviour within management meetings, and organizational performance in response to crisis events. In this context the paper analyses the characteristics of new‐form systems that could be used to sustain new‐form organizations

While the development of process‐oriented semi‐formal systems is just beginning, the potential for linking such technology with newly developed approaches to management control appears to have important implications for the practice and performance of management in new‐form organizations. In particular, interactive controls and semi‐formal information appear to offer leverage as mechanisms for organizational adjustment during times when organizations must exploit emergent strategies
Privatization from the Acquirer's Perspective: a Mergers and Acquisitions Based Framework
Authors: Uhlenbruck Nikolaus , Castro Julio de
Published: March 2003

Privatization, especially in developing countries, presents international firms with opportunities for market entry and growth, but acquirers have to consider the distinct characteristics of a state owned enterprise (SOE) and the influence of the government as seller and policy maker. This study introduces a model, based on mergers and acquisitions literature and microeconomic theory, that explains the critical relationships among characteristics of the SOE, the government, and the acquirer. Public administration research suggests that the critical characteristics of SOEs are their sources of funding and their mode of social control of the organization, and recent work in privatizing countries emphasizes the influence of the government. The theoretical framework for the model suggested here is derived from research within the field of strategic management on mergers and acquisitions. The paper develops propositions regarding the organizational fit between private firms and those heretofore owned by governments and discusses research and managerial implications.
Affective, Normative and Continuance Commitment: Can the ‘Right Kind’ of Commitment be Managed?
Authors: Iverson Roderick D. , Buttigieg Donna M.
Published: March 2003

This study examines the multi‐dimensionality of organizational commitment: affective, normative and continuance (including the sub‐components of low perceived alternatives and high personal sacrifice), and how these are differentially related to a set of antecedents and consequences (i.e. turnover intentions, absenteeism and acceptance of change). The results, based on a sample of 505 Australian male fire‐fighters, indicate that organizational commitment is best represented by the four‐factors of affective, normative, low perceived alternatives and high personal sacrifice. In addition, employees experience different personal, job‐related and environmental causes of commitment depending on whether they feel they want to, ought to, or need to remain with the organization. Further, not all facets of commitment enhanced organizational effectiveness, with affective being the most beneficial (i.e. employees are less likely to leave, be absent and are more accepting of change) and low perceived alternatives being the most detrimental (i.e. less accepting of change). The implications of these findings for the management of desirable forms of commitment are discussed.
The Consultant–Client Relationship: Critical Perspectives on the Management of Organizational Change
Authors: Fincham Robin
Published: March 2003

The management consultancy industry is attracting more and more attention. The critical literature in particular has questioned how a non‐codified body of knowledge like ‘consultancy’ could become so apparently influential. The answering emphasis has been on the symbolic nature of consultant strategies and consultancy as a powerful system of persuasion. However, an emerging structural perspective has developed a rather different view, focusing on the limits of the industry discourse, and the constraints of a consultancy role defined largely by external forces. While it is useful to contrast the two perspectives – strategic and structural – they can also be viewed as complementary, and indeed a number of writers have been well aware both of the importance of consultant strategies and the context of consultancy work. In particular, they have explored the interaction between consultant and client, and called attention to factors like the countervailing power of client organizations and the uncertainty of the management task. The paper aims to contribute to this debate and draws on case studies of consultants' role in the management of organizational change – one of clients with considerable market power, and another of interdependency between consultant and client. The point stressed is that the consultancy process contains no ‘necessary’ structures (which may be implied by pairings such as the dependent client and indispensable consultant, or alternatively the resistant client and vulnerable consultant). Instead the consultant–client relationship is best regarded as part of an overarching managerial structure and a contingent exchange that assumes a variety of forms.
Cultural Antecedents of Behavioural Differences Between American and Egyptian Managers
Authors: Parnell John A. , Hatem Tarek
Published: March 2003

Numerous researchers have studied behavioural characteristics typically common to American managers. However, few studies have considered how cultural differences impact behavioural management practice in developing Middle‐Eastern countries. This study reports the results of a top executive survey comparing and contrasting American and Egyptian management styles, providing strong support for the argument that management behaviour is deeply embedded in culture. Results also suggest that management behaviours seen positively in one culture are not always viewed as such in another.
The Adoption of the Multi‐divisional Form in Large Czech Enterprises: The Role of Economic, Institutional and Strategic Factors
Authors: Clark Ed , Soulsby Anna
Published: March 2003

In the Czech Republic and elsewhere in the region, researchers have noted the widespread adoption of the multi‐divisional form (MDF) by the former state‐owned enterprises. In contrast to the accepted explanations in western capitalist societies, the spread of the MDF in post‐Communist economies has had little or nothing to do with growth strategies such as diversification. Developing ideas from the existing western literature, the paper examines the role of economic, institutional and strategic choice factors in three large, former state enterprises within the Czech post‐Communist context. The findings suggest that all three factors are theoretically important, but neither equally nor independently so. In particular, economic factors acted as a major constraint on structural choice only under extreme conditions, while institutional factors and strategic choice are best understood as interdependent moments in a recursive process of structural enactment.
Managing the Managers: Japanese Management Strategies in the USA
Authors: Tolich Martin , Kennedy Martin , Biggart Nicole
Published: March 2003

One of the greatest difficulties Japanese multinationals have had is managing American managers in their US subsidiaries. The reason for this is fundamental and profound: Americans and Japanese conceive of management very differently and have strikingly different conceptions of themselves as managers and of correct management practice.

We do two things in this paper. First, borrowing from social psychology, we explore the idea of the ‘management self’. Second, we report our research on management self‐conception and style in Japanese‐owned factories or ‘transplants’ in the USA.

The research reports the results of 34 interviews conducted with 19 US and Japanese managers in three electronics transplants. Each factory had adopted different combinations or ‘hybridizations’ of the management styles of the two countries. The three factories had very different characters. One was dominated by Japanese management practice, another by American practice, and the third was a hybrid of the two styles. We found four factors critical determinants of management style: the nationality of the general manager, a stated preference (or lack thereof) for bicultural management, control over the budget‐setting process, and the strength of the Japanese assignees
Schumpeterian Dynamics Versus Williamsonian Considerations: A Test of Export Intermediary Performance
Authors: Peng Mike W. , Hill Charles W. L. , Wang Denis Y. L.
Published: March 2003

Using a sample of export intermediaries connecting domestic producers and foreign buyers, the study tests competing hypotheses on firm performance derived from the Austrian and transaction cost perspectives. Specifically, the Austrian perspective suggests that the more distant the export market and the more complex the product that the intermediary specializes in, the better its performance. Transaction cost theory, on the other hand, offers conflicting predictions. Our results indicate that these two theories are complementary to each other, and a contingency framework is proposed and discussed.
Strategic Decision Mking, Discourse, And Strategy As Social Practice
Authors: Hendry John
Published: March 2003

In this paper we argue that the existing conceptualizations of strategic decision making, while each affording valuable insights, offer only partial and disconnected perspectives of the strategy process that leave important questions un‐addressed. To overcome this problem we develop an empirically grounded conceptualization of strategic decisions as elements of a strategic discourse, operating at both the structural level of social reproduction and the instrumental level of intentional communication, and constituting the medium through which choices are discussed and recorded, interpretations developed and expressed, and strategic actions initiated, authorized and acknowledged. This conceptualization opens up a number of research questions concerning the role of strategic decision making in the overall strategy process and leads to a fruitful conceptualization of strategy itself as a technological and appropriative social practice.
Rhetorical Power, Accountability And Conflict In Committees: An Argumentation Approach*
Authors: Sillince John A. A.
Published: March 2003

The general aim of the paper is to shift interest in group communication in organizations in general and in committees in particular away from a prescriptive and rationalistic view detached from the organizational context towards a more analytical approach which takes account of important organizational issues of conflict, power and accountability. The paper outlines a theoretical model containing 11 propositions. The model contains definitions of rhetorical power (defined to be distinct from positional power), rhetorical accountability (defined to be different from organizational accountability for a task) and rhetorical conflict and contains 12 rhetorical variables which are language categories, and eight non‐rhetorical variables. These language categories are argumentation elements which can be identified within any committee transcript such as proposals, challenges and questions and which have been derived from previously published and validated coding schemes. The model predicts that committee members will seek to maximize their rhetorical power by using some language categories and avoiding others, and that they will seek to vary the amount of rhetorical accountability they wish to claim depending on the likely success or failure of the project being discussed. The model also predicts that the proportions of language categories within any committee transcript will change depending upon how open or hostile the committee debate is, and that the proportions of language categories will also be changed by attempts by committee leaders to reduce rhetorical conflict by using some language categories and avoiding others. Several relations between rhetorical power and rhetorical conflict are hypothesized. According to the model, rhetorical power and rhetorical conflict can be manipulated by participants in beneficial ways only under some circumstances (those which characterize an open rather than a hostile committee debate). The model is related to several important non‐rhetorical variables.
Institutional Ownership, Strategic Choices and Corporate Efficiency: Evidence from Japan
Authors: Chowdhury Shamsud D. , Michael Geringer J.
Published: March 2003

Based on the tenets of capital allocation systems theory, stewardship theory, and ‘going concern’ concept of business, institutional ownership is proposed to affect corporate productivity, both directly and indirectly, in large Japanese corporations through a set of four firm‐level choices: product/market development, R&D intensity, capital intensity, and leverage. Using data on 118 corporations drawn from five industry sectors in Japan, and applying a partial mediation technique, this study tests an integrated, causal model of the relationships among these variables. Results show mixed support for the model. No direct relationship between institutional ownership and productivity is observed. However, institutional ownership affects productivity indirectly through R&D intensity and leverage. Although product/market development and capital intensity also affect productivity, institutional ownership has no significant relationship with them.
Tacit Knowledge: Some Suggestions for Operationalization
Authors: Ambrosini Véronique , Bowman Cliff
Published: March 2003

With the emergence of the resource‐based view of the firm and of the concept of core competencies, intangible resources, and tacit knowledge in particular have been argued to occupy a central place in the development of sustainable competitive advantage. This is because tacit knowledge is argued to be difficult to imitate, to substitute, to transfer and it is rare. However, there is little empirical research to support this theoretical proposition. Tacit knowledge has so far resisted operationalization. This paper sets out to define the term tacit knowledge and proposes to redefine it, within the context of the resource‐based view of the firm, as tacit skills. A methodology (based on causal mapping, self‐Q and storytelling) for empirically researching the subject is outlined.
Employer Policies and Organizational Commitment in Britain 1992–97
Authors: Gallie Duncan , Felstead Alan , Green Francis
Published: March 2003

An important current of thinking in the last decade has emphasized the need for a shift from control to commitment as the central objective of management employment policies. This paper is concerned to assess whether there was a significant increase in British employees’ commitment to their organizations in the 1990s, using comparative data from two large‐scale and nationally representative surveys carried out in 1992 and 1997. It finds that there was no evidence of an increase in commitment over the period. As in the early part of the decade, employees had only a weak level of attachment to their organizations. The analysis examines a number of factors that have been seen as important determinants of such commitment: changes in the level of skill, task discretion, controls over work performance, and forms of employee involvement. While there were changes in some of these factors that encouraged higher commitment, these were largely cancelled out by a notable decline in the discretion that employees were allowed to exercise over their work.
External Sources of Innovative Capabilities: The Preferences for Strategic Alliances or Mergers and Acquisitions
Authors: Hagedoorn John , Duysters Geert
Published: March 2003

This paper explores the preferences that companies have as they use alternative (quasi) external sources of innovative competencies such as strategic technology alliances, mergers and acquisitions, or a mix of these. These alternatives are studied in the context of distinct industrial, technological and international settings during the first half of the 1990s. Different strategies followed by companies and the role played by routinized sets of preferences are also taken into consideration. The analysis demonstrates that these options are influenced by both different environmental conditions and firm specific circumstances, such as those related to protecting core businesses.
Managing Humour
Authors: Collinson David L.
Published: March 2003

This article examines the under‐explored relationship between humour, power and management. Critically analysing the functionalist influence on workplace humour studies, it addresses the reproduction of humour through power relations and of management control through joking relations. In particular, the following argument considers how, in different social and organizational contexts, the management of humour is implemented through the practices of suppression and manufacture. The article concludes that, although apparently opposing, these two managerial control strategies in some cases may also overlap. Attempts to manufacture humour can actually suppress it, while the suppression of jocularity may also lead to its resurgence.
Collective Myopia and Disciplinary Power Behind the Scenes of Unethical Practices: A Diagnostic Theory on Japanese Organization
Authors: Chikudate Nobuyuki
Published: March 2003

This study draws on multiple writings to offer a new conceptualization, one that aids in the assessment of unethical practices. Traditionally, phenomenology and the sociology of knowledge have focused on perception, cognition and common sense. Ethnomethodology has focused on procedural infrastructures of ordinary lives. This article combines concepts and ideas from these methodologies in the general concept of ‘collective myopia’ with some Habermasian and Foucaultian influences. The conceptualization focuses on normative controls operating behind the scenes of unethical practices in Japanese business. The contributions of national culture to the crimes are omitted as much as possible to establish a position of general theory. The conceptualization is then applied to examine the case of the Dai‐ichi Kangyo Bank, which was linked to racketeering in 1997.
Innovation, Identities and Resistance: The Social Construction of An Innovation Network
Authors: Harrisson Denis , Laberge Murielle
Published: March 2003

This paper explores the process of diffusion of a socio‐technical innovation among workers of a large microelectronics firm. Actor–network theory (ANT), which draws on the sociology of science and technology, is applied to the analysis of socio‐technical innovation in order to understand the actions of creating and putting the actors’ arguments into action. Actors constructed and organized these arguments with the aim of diffusing innovation among workers whose support was essential to the project’s success. The authors of the innovation project wanted to change the state of relations between different actors. In the present study, the aligment of identities was established according to the criteria defined by the managers and engineers but the expected benefits of the innovation, in this case, technology and teamwork, were not automatically accepted. Network analysis reveals how persuasive arguments that repudiate the old reality and justify steps to create the new reality are constructed. This article will reveal how innovation is constituted and the form it takes by following the chain of arguments and the responses of the actors involved.
The Response of Old Technology Incumbents to Technological Competition – Does the Sailing Ship Effect Exist?
Authors: Howells John
Published: March 2003

This article investigates whether firms react to a radical technological substitution threat by a deliberate acceleration of innovation in their existing technology – the ‘sailing ship effect’. There have been repeated claims that the effect has been significant as a source of innovation (Foster, 1988; Rosenberg, 1976; Rothwell and Zegveld, 1985; Utterback, 1996). Detailed reexamination of two cases thought to be exemplars of the effect reveals that it existed in neither. It is suggested that the characteristics of historical, technological substitution processes prompt misinterpretation based on superficial knowledge. Brief review of two other cases further supports this position. It is argued that if the phenomenon occurs, it is likely to be rare.
Corporate Environmental Paradigms in Shift: Learning During the Course of Action at UPM–Kymmene
Authors: Halme Minna
Published: March 2003

Contrary to the popular conception in the corporate environmental management literature that corporations must learn new ecocentric paradigms before they can be expected to produce environmentally sound performance, the present results suggest that cognitive–level environmental learning in organizations does not inevitably precede behaviour change. Rather, at least partially, such learning is likely to occur in the course of action. The article also proposes that external pressure can set motion, but it alone does not lead to an environmental paradigm shift. In order to undergo such a shift, organizations will have to learn a meaning of their own to support new, more environmentally sound forms of activity.

The present study examines empirically how two companies have learnt to incorporate environmental considerations into their managerial paradigms. It adopts a perspective according to which learning is portrayed as a process in which changes are brought about in the collective beliefs that the organization members hold about the relationship of their business to the natural environment (i.e. environmental management paradigm). Applying the grounded theory approach, the article identifies phases of environmental learning starting from the recognition or rejection of weak signals in ‘pockets’ of the organization, continuing through the gaining of new knowledge and experience towards ‘competition’ between old and new assumptions about the business–environment relationship, and finally proceeding to potential frame–break.
Mapping Management Development Practice
Authors: Mabey Christopher
Published: March 2003

Research on management development has been characterized by broad surveys of training activity, in–depth analyses of development methods and, more occasionally, attempts to evaluate the impact of training investment. The result is a fragmentary picture of management development practice, providing incomplete insight into why certain policies and activities succeed or fail. Drawing upon a large sample of those responsible for human resource development in their organizations, this paper proposes a theoretical framework which attempts to identify the key variables in a more coherent and comprehensive manner. The HRM context of a firm is found to be highly responsible for the management development processes it adopts; the amount of training undertaken is largely determined by priority, and, in turn, amount is the key determinant of perceived success.
Strategy Creation in the Periphery: Inductive Versus Deductive Strategy Making*
Authors: Regnér Patrick
Published: March 2003

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.
The Role of Micro‐Strategies in the Engineering of Firm Evolution*
Authors: Salvato Carlo
Published: March 2003

abstractThis paper proposes a model of strategic evolution as a sequence of intentional recombinations of a company'sCore Micro‐strategywith 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.
Narcissistic Processes: Optimistic Expectations, Favorable Self‐Evaluations, and Self‐Enhancing Attributions
Authors: Farwell Lisa , Wohlwend‐Lloyd Ruth
Published: March 2003

Three studies investigated the relationship between narcissism (as measured by the Narcissistic Personality Inventory; Raskin & Hall, 1979) and three forms of self‐enhancement. In Study 1, narcissism positively correlated with predictions of own final course grades, but not with actual grades received. In Study 2, narcissism positively correlated with estimated current course grades; high narcissists tended to overestimate their grades, while low narcissists tended to underestimate them. In Study 3, narcissism was associated with optimistic expectations for own performance on a laboratory interdependence task and with attributions of a successful task outcome to own ability and effort, but it did not correlate with attributions to a partner’s ability or effort, suggesting self‐aggrandizement but not other‐derogation. Narcissism was also associated with weaker gratitude and liking. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for the origins and generality of self‐enhancement and for the relationship between narcissism and self‐functioning in the social domain.
Personality and Temperament Correlates of Marital Satisfaction
Authors: Blum Jeffrey S. , Mehrabian Albert
Published: March 2003

Participants (166 married couples, ages 20–85) were administered marital satisfaction and Pleasantness‐Arousability‐Dominance temperament scales. Participants with more pleasant and more dominant temperaments, and those who had mates with more pleasant temperaments, were happier in their marriages. Temperament accounted for substantially more variance (30%–34% in marital satisfaction than effect sizes reported in the personality/marital satisfaction literature. Because Pleasantness is a general index of psychological adjustment, findings implied that better adjusted persons, and those with better adjusted mates, were more satisfied in marriage. Unpleasant and submissive (i.e., depressed) wives were highly dissatisfied in marriage. Although intermate temperament similarity on Pleasantness and Dominance (but not on Arousability) correlated positively with marital satisfaction, similarity was a weaker and somewhat misleading predictor of satisfaction in comparison to findings when individual temperament scores were treated as separate variables. Also, weak results showed individuals selected mates with temperaments similar to their own.
Subjective Overachievement: Individual Differences in Self‐Doubt and Concern With Performance
Authors: Oleson Kathryn C. , Poehlmann Kirsten M. , Yost John H. , Lynch Molly E. , Arkin Robert M.
Published: March 2003

We discuss the construct of doubt about one’s competence and suggest that doubt can have myriad consequences (e.g., self‐handicapping, defensive pessimism). We focus on the effect of self‐doubt when it is combined with a concern with performance and assert that this combination leads to the phenomenon of subjective overachievement. In two studies, we present a new 17‐item Subjective Overachievement Scale (SOS), which includes two independent subscales measuring individual differences in self‐doubt and concern with performance. The first study, consisting of two large samples (Ns = 2,311 and 1,703), provides evidence that the scale has high internal consistency and a clear two‐factor structure. Additionally, the subscales have adequate test‐retest reliability (Ns = 67 and 115). A second study reveals that the SOS has good convergent and discriminant validity. Both subscales are unrelated to social desirability but exhibit the predicted patterns of associations with other related constructs. The Concern with Performance Subscale is correlated with achievement motivation, whereas the Self‐Doubt Subscale is correlated with scales assessing negative affectivity (e.g., self‐esteem, social anxiety) and other self‐related strategies associated with concerns about one’s competence (e.g., self‐handicapping, defensive pessimism, impostor phenomenon). The SOS, which combines the two subscales, appears to tap a unique strategy that individuals may use to deal with doubts about their own competence.
Licensing Parents: A Response to Critics
Authors: Lykken David
Published: March 2003

The objections of three distinguished critics to my ‘Causes and Costs of Crime and a Controversial Cure’ (this issue) are welcomed but, in some cases, returned for further consideration.