bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Analysis of Complex Negotiations in International Business: The RBC Perspective
Authors: Weiss Stephen E.
Published: October 2008

International negotiations between organizations project a complexity that makes them a challenge to describe, explain and improve. Their many elements and dynamics challenge especially those researchers and practitioners who seek a comprehensive yet essential understanding of these negotiations. Toward that end, this article develops a new analytic perspective that focuses on three key facets of negotiation—parties' Relationships, parties' Behaviors, and influencing Conditions (RBC)—and their basic B → R → C → B interaction.

The first section defines international business negotiation, targets the subset of complex, interorganizational negotiations, presents as an example the 1985–86 CGE-ITT telecommunications merger, and considers the partial views of the merger talks provided by existing frameworks. Several reasons then enumerated underscore the need for and potential value of an inclusive, generally applicable perspective for complex negotiations.

The RBC Framework, coupled with the Basic Model, are presented in detail, with each key facet defined, illustrated, and supported with references from diverse literatures. The Relationship and Behavior facets incorporate multiple levels of analysis (organizational, group and individual). Conditions encompass four types (circumstances, capabilities, cultures and environments). A temporal dimension completes the framework.

The last section of the paper proposes empirical and practical applications of this perspective to international business. The former includes question-asking, model-building and testing, and cumulation of knowledge, and the latter, making sense of myriad details and identifying potential points of influence on counterparts. In these ways, the RBC Perspective integrates existing knowledge and will stimulate future work in the field.
The “Litigation Mentality” in Organizations: A Test of Alternative Psychological Explanations
Authors: Bies Robert J. , Tyler Tom R.
Published: October 2008

A “litigation mentality” increasingly pervades today's workplace, as an ever wider variety of managerial decisions are the target of employee-initiated lawsuits. In this paper we identify different psychological factors that could explain why employees consider suing their employers. One group of factors suggests that employee consideration of litigation is motivated primarily by self-interest, as employers perceive they have more to gain than lose by going to court. A second group of factors suggests that employees' decision to go to court is influenced largely by the perceived fairness of their dealings with the organization. In a survey of 141 currently employed workers, we found that the perceived fairness of organizational rules and procedures was the primary factor influencing whether employees consider a litigious response. In particular, employees were concerned about how the rules and procedures were implemented and the quality of interpersonal treatment received from managers. Job satisfaction also had an impact on employees considering litigation. We argue that while our findings support organizational efforts to create more formalized policies and procedures that emphasize due process or procedural justice, such efforts, in and of themselves, may undermine the intended goal of ensuring fairness and reducing employee litigation. The solution to this dilemma is not in the creation of formal procedures per se, but in the moral and interpersonal conduct of those implementing the procedures. We conclude by identifying directions for future research on employee litigation.
Defusing the Director Liability Crisis: The Strategic Management of Legal Threats
Authors: Kaplan Marilyn R. , Harrison J. Richard
Published: October 2008

Boards of directors have been substantially affected by recent changes in their legal environment. The most profound change has been in the area of director liability. New legislation and regulations and a series of court decisions increased the extent to which directors are held accountable for their actions and those of their organizations. These changes resulted in increased liability exposure for directors and a crisis in director liability insurance. Corporations have successfully developed strategies to manage the adverse consequences of these changes in the legal environment.

This paper develops an extension of resource dependence theory to enable us to analyze events surrounding the director liability crisis from the perspective of the corporation. It then reviews the legal forces which have affected boards of directors. The concept of director liability is discussed, including the business judgment rule, which has historically protected the decision making discretion of boards. Indemnification and director liability insurance, which provide protection from monetary penalties against directors arising from liability suits, are also described. Recent environmental changes which have affected director protection from liability are then examined. These include legislation specifying certain director responsibilities and granting additional enforcement powers to federal regulatory agencies, court decisions which expanded the personal liability of directors in several important ways, and changes in director liability insurance policies and markets.

These developments increased the liability exposure of corporate directors and precipitated the director liability crisis of 1986. Corporations responded to this threat by making changes in board composition, director compensation, and board decision making structures and processes; by developing alternative forms of director liability insurance; and by lobbying for legislation providing greater liability protection for directors. These actions are interpreted within the framework of resource dependence theory. Implications for future research are also discussed.
The Fragmented State and Due Process Protections in Organizations: The Case of Comparable Worth
Authors: Abzug Rikki , Mezias Stephen J.
Published: October 2008

This analysis starts with models of the diffusion of due process protections in organizations that emphasize the role of the state, especially those from the institutional perspective. The case of equal pay for work of comparable value is used to develop propositions concerning important additions to current models of the expansion of due process protections in the workplace. First, we suggest that models of the nation-state should include an explicit recognition that the progressiveness of public policy varies over time. Second, we suggest that models of the nation-state should include explicit recognition of the fact that state authority is fragmented by the separation of powers and the partition of federal and local authority. Implications for future theory and empirical study that follow from these additions to current models are discussed.
Transaction Cost Theory: Inferences from Clinical Field Research on Downstream Vertical Integration
Authors: Rangan V. Kasturi , Corey E. Raymond , Cespedes Frank
Published: October 2008

A bulk of the marketing research on distribution channel design attempts to resolve the question of when a direct company-owned sales operation would be preferred to an indirect independent distributor operation. The widely accepted theoretical rationale is provided by transaction-cost theory which indicates that the total costs of going-to-market, inclusive of distribution as well as its administration, is likely to be lower for the direct option when the sales transactions require investments in unique assets for effectively serving the end customer. Examples of unique assets are account-specific sales teams and account dedicated repair and maintenance facilities. Conversely, transaction-cost theory indicates that an indirect option would be the more efficient one for sales transactions that require investments only in nonunique assets, such as an inventory of standard parts. Since its formulation in 1975, the transaction-cost framework has been empirically confirmed in a variety of marketing channel settings.

It has been our observation, however, that most of these verifications have been of the easier rather than the more difficult problems in the field. Two such complex problems are: (1) the issue of hybrid channels, i.e., channel arrangements involving a sharing of going-to-market tasks between the direct and indirect channels, and (2) the evolution of channels from one form to the other, i.e., a direct channel evolving into an indirect channel and vice versa.

To resolve our curiosity regarding the applicability of transaction-cost theory to these complex channel issues, we interviewed 50 key informants in 15 carefully selected manufacturing firms and 20 key informants in 7 related distribution firms. Because the purpose of our field research was to enhance our understanding of complex channel phenomena rather than to test existing theory, we did not gather structured quantitative data. Instead, we let managers describe to us the rationale for their channel choice decisions.

In comparing the fit of our field observations to existing wisdom on transaction-cost theory, we reached the conclusion that the theory needs broadening in order to explain the variety and complexity of the real world channels we studied. In this paper, we attempt to suggest some useful directions for such enhancements. Specifically,

(1) transaction-cost analysis is more meaningful when applied at the level of a channel function,

(2) channel investments are influenced by a firm's uncertainty absorption mechanism, and

(3) channel investments serve to raise competitive entry barriers.
Crossroads—The Myth of a Monolithic Economics: Fundamental Assumptions and the Use of Economic Models in Policy and Strategy Research
Authors: Hesterly William S. , Zenger Todd R.
Published: October 2008

In 1990, in the first issue of Organization Science, Paul Hirsch and his co-authors Ray Friedman and Mitchell Koza published a caveat to researchers about possible pitfalls of using economic models in behaviorally oriented strategy and policy research (Hirsch et al. 1990). “Crossroads” provides a context for a reply to this paper and Todd Zenger and William Hesterly have taken the opportunity to do so. They seek to clarify where economics stands with respect to fundamental assumptions about humans, organizations, markets and investors. They concur with many of Hirsch, Friedman, and Koza's (1990) warnings concerning the adoption of unrealistic assumptions, but disagree that the assumptions they impute to economics are universally held by economic models, particularly those models most often used by strategy and policy researchers. Zenger and Hesterly show that there are significant differences among economic theories in their fundamental assumptions. Finally, they suggest how strategy and policy researchers might constructively respond to economic approaches to strategy and organization. They argue that there is more to economic assumptions and models than was noted in the initial article and suggest ways in which collaboration may and does occur between economics and behavioral approaches to the study of organizational strategy and policy. Taken together, the papers by Hirsch et al. and by Zenger and Hesterly serve to illuminate and extend an important debate (Introduction by Peter J. Frost).
An Empirical Taxonomy of Implementation Processes Based on Sequences of Events in Information System Development
Authors: Sabherwal Rajiv , Robey Daniel
Published: October 2008

A widely accepted and usable taxonomy is a fundamental element in the development of a scientific body of knowledge. However, the creation of good empirical taxonomies of implementation processes is complicated by the need to consider the dynamics of the implementation process. This paper addresses this difficulty by using an optimal matching procedure to measure the pairwise distances among event sequences occurring in 53 computer-based information system (IS) implementation projects. Cluster analysis based on these inter-sequence distances is used to generate the empirical taxonomy of implementation processes.

The resulting taxonomy includes six distinct archetypical processes. One of the process types is labeled textbook life cycle (type 4) due to its close resemblance to the detailed, rational approach commonly prescribed in IS textbooks. The logical minimalist process (type 1) follows some of the basic steps of the textbook approach, but is characterized by little project definition and infrequent assignment of personnel. Whereas both textbook life cycle and logical minimalist approaches use external vendors and consultants to some extent, external dependence is much greater in traditional off-the-shelf (type 2) and outsourced cooperative (type 5) processes. The traditional off-the-shelf process simply involves purchasing the system from an external vendor, with little system construction or assignment of personnel. In contrast, the outsourced cooperative process consists of joint system development by internally assigned personnel and external vendors. The remaining two process types—problem-driven minimalist (type 3) and in-house trial and error (type 6)—are both considerably influenced by performance problems. The problem-driven minimalist process is initiated by such problems, with little project definition, and results in a reassignment of organizational roles. The in-house trial-and-error process begins like textbook life cycle, with a clear project definition, but involves frequent system modifications to respond to the performance problems encountered during the project.

The paper demonstrates how an empirical taxonomy that incorporates the dynamics of event sequences may be developed. The archetypes comprising the taxonomy are related to other implementation process models available in the literature. Some limitations of the study are acknowledged and its implications for future research and practice are discussed.
The Motivational Effects of Charismatic Leadership: A Self-Concept Based Theory
Authors: Shamir Boas , House Robert J. , Arthur Michael B.
Published: October 2008

The empirical literature on charismatic or transformational leadership demonstrates that such leadership has profound effects on followers. However, while several versions of charismatic leadership theory predict such effects, none of them explains the process by which these effects are achieved. In this paper we seek to advance leadership theory by addressing this fundamental problem. We offer a self-concept based motivational theory to explain the process by which charismatic leader behaviors cause profound transformational effects on followers. The theory presents the argument that charismatic leadership has its effects by strongly engaging followers' self-concepts in the interest of the mission articulated by the leader. We derive from this theory testable propositions about (a) the behavior of charismatic leaders and their effects on followers, (b) the role of followers' values and orientations in the charismatic relationship, and (c) some of the organizational conditions that favor the emergence and effectiveness of charismatic leaders.
Appealing Work: An Investigation of How Ethnographic Texts Convince
Authors: Golden-Biddle Karen , Locke Karen
Published: October 2008

This paper examines how written research accounts based on ethnography appeal to readers to find them convincing. In particular, it highlights the role of rhetoric in the readers' interaction with and interpretation of the accounts. Extending relevant work in the literatures of organization studies, anthropology and literary criticism, the paper develops three dimensions—authenticity, plausibility and criticality—central to the process of convincing. Further, through the analysis of a sample of ethnographic articles, it discloses the particular writing practices and more general strategies that make claims on readers to engage the texts and to accept that these three dimensions have been achieved. Through authenticity, ethnographic texts appeal to readers to accept that the researcher was indeed present in the field and grasped how the members understood their world. Strategies to achieve authenticity include: particularizing everyday life, delineating the relationship between the researcher and organization members, depicting the disciplined pursuit and analysis of data, and qualifying personal biases. Through plausibility, ethnographic texts make claims on readers to accept that the findings make a distinctive contribution to issues of common concern. Plausibility is accomplished by strategies that normalize unorthodox methodologies, recruit the reader, legitimate atypical situations, smooth contestable assertions, build dramatic anticipation, and differentiate the findings. Finally, through criticality, ethnographic texts endeavor to probe readers to re-examine the taken-for-granted assumptions that underly their work. Strategies to achieve criticality include: carving out room to reflect, provoking the recognition and examination of differences, and enabling readers to imagine new possibilities. The empirical analyses, which highlight both the rhetorical and substantive aspects of convincing, suggest that at a minimum ethnographic texts must achieve both authenticity and plausibility—that is, they must convey the vitality and uniqueness of the field situation and also build their case for the particular contribution of the findings to a disciplinary area of common interest. These analyses also suggest that the most provocative task and promising potential of ethnography is the use of richly-grounded data to not only reflect on the members' world, but more importantly to provoke an examination of the readers' prevailing assumptions and beliefs.
Knowledge or Skills: Which Do Administrators Learn from Experience?
Authors: Nass Clifford
Published: October 2008

Is increased knowledge or enhanced skills the primary result of learning from experience? This study addresses this question by examining the effects of experience of administrators and the average experience of the administrators' units on four aspects of information-processing performance: need for breadth of information, need for depth of information, receiving more information than needed, and receiving less information than needed. That is, the administrator is viewed as an individual learner operating within an ecology of other learning administrators.

Researchers have assumed that skills (information processing abilities gained from learning by doing) are more important than knowledge (the relatively formal and established facts, rules, policies, and procedures within the organization) in predicting how the individual and context effects of experience affect administrators' information-processing performance. However, using a survey of administrators in a multi-unit organization (N = 415), it is demonstrated that a model that assumes that knowledge is the primary intervening variable between experience and enhanced information processing correctly predicts both the individual and context effects of experience on information processing, such as the negative relationship between individual experience and the need for breadth and depth of information and getting less information than needed, and the negative relationships between average experience of an administrators' unit and receiving more information than needed. A model based on skills-acquisition as the primary intervening variable between experience and information-processing performance predicts contrary, and hence incorrect, results, leading us to conclude that knowledge is the primary result of experience for administrators. The experience/knowledge relationship is argued to have implications for understanding worker satisfaction and the liability of newness.
Employee Positive Emotion and Favorable Outcomes at the Workplace
Authors: Staw Barry M. , Sutton Robert I. , Pelled Lisa H.
Published: October 2008

This paper draws on writings in psychology, sociology and organizational behavior to develop a conceptual framework that specifies how positive emotion helps employees obtain favorable outcomes at work. We propose that feeling and expressing positive emotions on the job have favorable consequences on: (1) employees independent of their relationships with others (e.g., greater persistence), (2) reactions of others to employees (e.g., “halo,” or overgeneralization to other desirable traits), and (3) reactions of employees to others (e.g., helping others). These three sets of intervening processes are proposed, in turn, to lead to work achievement, job enrichment and a higher quality social context. A partial test of this framework is made in an 18-month study of 272 employees. Results indicate that positive emotion on the job at time 1 is associated with evidence of work achievement (more favorable supervisor evaluations and higher pay) and a supportive social context (more support from supervisors and coworkers) at time 2. But positive emotion at time 1 is not significantly associated with job enrichment at time 2.
Windows of Opportunity: Temporal Patterns of Technological Adaptation in Organizations
Authors: Tyre Marcie J. , Orlikowski Wanda J.
Published: October 2008

This paper examines the introduction and adaptation of technologies that support productive operations. The authors argue that the process of technological adaptation is not gradual and continuous, as often argued in the innovation literature, but is instead highly discontinuous. Evidence from three manufacturing and service organizations indicates that there exists a relatively brief window of opportunity to explore and modify new process technology following initial implementation. Afterwards, modification of new process technologies by users is limited by the increasing routinization that occurs with experience. Thus, the technology and its context of use tend to congeal, often embedding unresolved problems into organizational practice. Subsequent changes appear to occur in an episodic manner, triggered either by discrepant events or by new discoveries on the part of users. These findings have important implications for theories of technological change.
Tales of Change: Public Administration Reform and Narrative Mode
Authors: Sköldberg Kaj
Published: October 2008

Several institutional theorists have noted the existence of inconsistencies and decouplings in organizations, depending on conflicting signals from the milieu. Others have pointed out the pressure for homogeneity in organizational fields. These positions may seem contradictory, yet the present article gives support to both of them. The empirical basis is a series of case studies of change in Swedish local authorities. Faced with conflicting signals from the outside, and lacking an internal, dominating center, the organizations showed similar patterns of inconsistencies and decouplings. Problems, power, and symbols, which constituted the foci of the study, all manifested a common deep structure. It combined two radically opposed narrative conventions, tragedy and romantic comedy. The result was a third, and incoherent convention—fragmented satire. At a higher degree of resolution, even single genres within the three main conventions emerged in the analysis. The narrative conventions and their genres, rather than more substantial concerns, formed the texture of the changes, virtually disengaging the latter from mundane realities.
Crossroads—A Case Against Workplace Drug Testing
Authors: Comer Debra R.
Published: October 2008

Workplace drug testing, particularly urinalysis, has proliferated in the last few years. Despite widespread support for biological testing, research suggests that not all drug use diminishes performance and that testing may fail to deter the most potentially harmful substance abuse. There is no solid empirical evidence that drug testing is associated with enhanced organizational productivity and safety, and findings that persons who fail drug tests are inferior workers may be rooted in ethnic discrimination. Further, because drug testing detects exposure to a drug but cannot assess an individual's ability to perform, it is an inappropriate gauge for judging the suitability of employees or applicants. Drug tests may violate current and prospective employees' right to privacy and, according to a growing body of literature, may adversely affect their work attitudes and behaviors. Skills testing, which assesses employees' performance fitness less intrusively, discussed as an alternative to biological testing.
Distinguishing Between the Forest and the Trees: Media, Features, and Methodology in Electronic Communication Research
Authors: Griffith Terri L. , Northcraft Gregory B.
Published: October 2008

Electronic communication media usually differ from nonelectronic communication media on a variety of communication features. However, research designs typically do not allow for the most revealing examination of communication feature effects. This paper proposes a methodological framework for conceptualizing and operationalizing electronic communication research, and presents an illustrative study based on the framework. The methodological framework distinguishes among communication media, channels, and features, and emphasizes the importance for theory and research of understanding the effects of communication features both within and across communication media. To demonstrate this framework, subjects in the study participated in a sealed-bid negotiation. Communication of the bids was either paper-and-pencil or computer-mediated. The results revealed a significant main effect for medium (computer-mediated communication yielded lower individual scores), significant main effects for features (documentation and anonymity both yielded lower individual scores), and a significant interaction between a feature (documentation) and medium. For organizations, these results suggest that the accepted effects of a medium should be reexamined in light of the medium's component features; design and adoption decisions should be made with an understanding of the existence of interactions between features and media.
A Socio-Cognitive Model of Technology Evolution: The Case of Cochlear Implants
Authors: Garud Raghu , Rappa Michael A.
Published: October 2008

This paper examines the social and cognitive processes that unfold over time as a technology develops. Our model focuses on the relationship between the beliefs researchers hold about what is and is not technically feasible, the technological artifacts they create, and the routines they use for evaluating how well their artifacts meet with their prior expectations.

The historical development of cochlear implants serves as an illustration of the model. The evidence suggests that there is a reciprocal interaction between beliefs, artifacts, and routines that gives rise to two cyclical processes. One is a process of inversion at the micro level of individual cognition wherein evaluation routines designed to judge specific artifacts begin reinforcing researchers' beliefs. Once evaluation routines become the basis for constructing individual reality, technological claims are perceived as relevant only to those who employ the same routines while appearing as noise to those who employ different routines.

The other is a process of institutionalization at the macro level of shared cognition. By institutionalization we mean the development of a common set of evaluation routines that can be applied to all technological paths. Commonly accepted evaluation routines represent a shared reality that strongly shapes the direction of future technological change.

The micro- and macro-level processes that shape individual and shared realities place paradoxical demands on researchers in their efforts to develop a new technology. On the one hand, researchers must create and believe in their own realities in order to make progress in their chosen paths and convince others. On the other hand, researchers must also be ready to disbelieve their realities and be willing to embrace the emerging shared reality even if it does not match theirs. How well this paradox is managed can profoundly influence who emerges as the victor or the vanquished during the genesis of a technology.
Executive Judgment, Organizational Congruence, and Firm Performance
Authors: Priem Richard L.
Published: October 2008

Contingency theory suggests that a match among business-level strategy, organizational structure, and the competitive environment is necessary for high performance. This research asks whether manufacturing firm chief executives judge as “good” those strategy-structure-environment matches recommended by contingency theory. Knowledge of executive judgment is particulary important for two reasons. First, judgment—defined as an individual's understanding of relationships among objects—governs the strategic choices made by top managers. Second, prescriptive strategy theories recommend the judgments that executives “should” use, but there is little evidence specifically tying executive judgment to firm performance.

Part of this research is essentially a “laboratory” study of executive judgment that was conducted in the field. Manufacturing firm chief executives' beliefs about cause-and-effect relationships among business-level strategy, structure, environment and performance were ascertained through a judgment task. The second part of the study was a field survey wherein other top executives of each firm reported on their firm's actual strategy, strategy making processes, structure, competitive environment and performance. Both the chief executives' judgments and the actual alignments were compared to the matches recommended as “best” by contingency theory. The hypotheses tested link the two parts of the study. Some predict relationships between judgment policies, realized alignments, and firm performance. Others attempt to identify factors that may lead to differences in executives' judgments.

Results indicate that chief executive judgment is strongly related to the actual organizational alignment. Further, judgment policies that favor the strategy-structure-environment matches recommended by contingency theory produce higher performance than do other judgment policies. No support was found for either executive experience or quality of the firm's strategy making process as factors leading to executive judgment. These results suggest that the judgment of top executives is important to both organizational alignment and firm performance.
Analyzing Unexpected Density Dependence Effects on Organizational Births in New York's Life Insurance Industry, 1842–1904
Authors: Budros Art
Published: October 2008

Organizational ecologists argue that numbers of firms (density dependence) significantly affect industrial development. Rising numbers of firms are thought to legitimize a young industry, leading persons to launch new firms in the industry; but in a more crowded, older industry, increasing numbers of companies are expected to intensify competition, producing a decline in organizational births. Since this argument dominates ecological theory, results that challenge it must be explained. I identify six reasons for such results. Only a few of these explanations have been evaluated empirically and the ideas rarely have been assessed with respect to organizational births. Therefore, I address these explanations in order to resolve unexpected density dependence effects on foundings in New York's life insurance industry from 1842 to 1904. Measuring numbers of life insurance operators at both the state (New York) and national (U.S.) levels of analysis resolves the unexpected density dynamics in this study and produces a coherent pattern of density findings. Further, numbers of mutual savings banks and numbers of small life insurers in New York created competitive pressures in the life insurance business, leading persons to abandon carrier entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship also suffered when the life insurance industry was dominated by a few large sellers. More generally, the evidence shows that New York was divided into two insurance submarkets and that carrier organizers reacted to legitimation and competition trends in the submarket occupied by domestic insurers. I conclude that once we consider the reasons for unexpected density dynamics, the core model of density dependence offers a cogent explanation for industrial evolution.
National Institutional Structures, Transaction Cost Economizing and Competitive Advantage: The Case of Japan
Authors: Hill Charles W. L.
Published: October 2008

Japan’s economic success since World War II has been striking. Modern Japan was the first major industrial economy to emerge from outside the Western tradition. Economically devastated in 1945, by 1990 Japan had the world’s second largest economy and a GDP per head 20 percent greater than that of the United States. In this paper it is argued that one reason for Japan’s success is that the costs of achieving cooperation and specialization are lower in Japan than in the West. Cooperation and specialization have been acknowledged to have a beneficial impact upon productivity ever since Adam Smith wrote about cooperative specialization in the context of the division of labor. Modern economic theory, however, suggest that in a world of self-interested individuals the costs of achieving cooperation and specialization are substantial. In this paper it is argued that the cultural value system that Japan has inherited from its preindustrial past, and particularly the Tokugawa period, helps facilitate cooperation between individuals and encourages them to undertake productivity-enhancing investments in specialization. This lowers the costs of achieving cooperative specialization. In turn, the lower costs of achieving cooperative specialization have helped Japanese enterprises adopt practices such as self-managing work teams and long-term supplier relations that are consistent with obtaining a productivity-based competitive advantage in the world economy.
A Procedural Justice Model of Strategic Decision Making: Strategy Content Implications in the Multinational
Authors: Kim W. Chan , Mauborgne Renée A.
Published: October 2008

How can a multinational formulate an effective global strategy? This paper attempts to address this question by assessing the effect of a procedural justice model of strategic decision making (Kim and Mauborgne [Kim, W. C., R. A. Mauborgne. 1991. Implementing global strategies: The role of procedural justice. Strategic Management J. 12125–143.], [Kim, W. C., R. A. Mauborgne. 1993a. Procedural justice theory and the multinational corporation. S. Ghoshal, D. E. Westney, eds. Organization Theory and the Multinational Corporation. Macmillan, London, UK.]) on the multinational’s ability to formulate effective global strategies. There are five designing principles that define a procedural justice model of strategic decision making. These are: bilateral communication between the head office and subsidiary units; the subsidiary units’ ability to challenge and refute the strategic views of the head office; head office familiarity with the local situation of subsidiary units; a full account for the head office’s final strategic decisions; and application of consistent decision making procedures across subsidiary units. To examine the above effect, here we introduce information processing as an intervening concept to assess the match between the information processing requirements of multinationals’ global strategic objectives and the information processing capabilities provided by the proposed procedural justice model of strategic decision making. Here multinationals’ global strategic objectives are defined as global learning, the balancing of global efficiency and local responsiveness, global strategic renewal, and rapid global strategic decision making. The underlying assumption in this analysis is that if the dimensions of procedural justice facilitate the kinds of strategic information necessary to achieve the multinational’s global strategic objectives, the exercise of procedural justice can be judged to have a salutary effect on the content of global strategies. The results of this study, which are based on the experiences of 63 global strategic decision units, provide support for the effectiveness of this model of strategic decision making.
From Decision to Action in Organizations: Decision-Making as a Social Representation
Authors: Laroche Hervé
Published: October 2008

How should we understand decision-making in organizations? And how important is it for our understanding of organizations? A wide body of empirical and theoretical research—labeled here as the decision-making perspective—assumes that decision-making is a fundamental element of organizational processes, and aims to identify different types of decision-making processses in organizations. But what exactly is decision-making? The paper argues that this perspective suffers from insufficient debate on the definition of its research object. One of the main limits of the decision-making perspective is its understanding of organizational decision-making as series of separate decision-making episodes. Stressing the continuity of organizational processes, an emerging “action perspective” challenges this view. It argues that decision and decision-making are either rare, marginal phenomena, or artificial constructs producing biased observations. Thus, some authors suggest that we would better do without decision-making. The paper argues that, because people in organizations think of decision and decision-making as realities, the concept of organizational action should not be opposed to decision and decision-making. Decision and decision-making are best understood as social representations: they influence organizations’ members’ ways of understanding and behaving in organizations. They influence processes, they facilitate action, and they give meaning to what happens in organizations. As organization members think and act in terms of decision-making, a theory of organizational action cannot simply do without a theory of decision-making.
Knowledge and the Speed of the Transfer and Imitation of Organizational Capabilities: An Empirical Test
Authors: Zander Udo , Kogut Bruce
Published: October 2008

The capabilities of a firm, or any organization, lie primarily in the organizing principles by which individual and functional expertise is structured, coordinated, and communicated. Firms are social communities which use their relational structure and shared coding schemes to enhance the transfer and communication of new skills and capabilities. To replicate new knowledge in the absence of a social community is difficult. A classic demonstration is the well-studied problem of the transfer across country borders of manufacturing capabilities that support production of new product innovations. We show in this article that the degree of codification and how easily capabilities are taught has a significant influence on the speed of transfer. What makes the question of knowledge codification particularly interesting is that firms compete not only through the creation, replication, and transfer of their own knowledge, but also through their ability to imitate the product innovations of competitors. The capacity to speed the internal transfer of a production capability to new markets (e.g., those in other countries) is, consequently, of fundamental significance in a competitive environment. In the attempt to speed the internal transfer of knowledge, the dilemma arises that capabilities which can be easily communicated within the firm are more likely to be easily imitated by competitors. This relationship is tested by analyzing the effects of the ease of codifying and communicating a manufacturing capability not only on the time to its transfer, but also on the time to imitation of the new product. ’The determinants of the time to imitation are found to be the extent to which knowledge of the manufacturing processes is “common” among competitors, and the degree of continuous recombination of capabilities leading to improvement of the product or the manufacturing process. We support this interpretation by a discussion of the results from field research. A wider implication of these findings is the proposition that the transfer and recombination of organizational capabilities are the foundation of an evolutionary theory of the firm. A critical element limiting the expansion of a firm is that the competitive value of codifying knowledge leads to the selection of organizing principles that are not functional in all competitive environments. The pressure of speed is of critical importance to understand the evolutionary advantage of nonoptimal rules of coordinated action within a social community.
The Research Design in Organization Studies: Problems and Prospects
Authors: Grunow Dieter
Published: October 2008

The paper is concerned with problems of research methodology in organization studies. It places the main emphasis on the “research design,” which is seen as an important tool for the planning, the substantiation and the practical guidance of research procedures. The explicit discussion and improvement of research designs is proposed to be a major contribution also to concept and theory development in Organization Science. The basic content of the paper is an empirical analysis and evaluation of the status quo in design conceptions for organization studies. For this, some 300 empirical studies (in German and English) have been critically reviewed, 74 of them described in detail. The results show many deficiencies in the elaboration of the research designs, especially the ties between design and theory (or research question) are often weak or unclear. But there are also good examples which can be used as starting points for further improvements. The development over time shows shifts toward more reflection/discussion of available alternatives in the methods of data collection and more critical examinations of the data quality. This also leads to increasing applications of multi-method designs. A comparison between German and US studies show differences along the quantitative-qualitative line, which opens chances of mutual learning processes.
Interdepartmental Interdependence and Coordination: The Case of the Design/Manufacturing Interface
Authors: Adler Paul S.
Published: October 2008

In contrast with the relative stability of interdepartmental coordination mechanisms in ongoing operations, coordination tasks and mechanisms typically change over the course of the product development project’s life cycle. This article presents a taxonomy of these project coordination mechanisms. The taxonomy is based on an inductive analysis of development projects in nine printed circuit board operations and four aircraft hydraulic tubing operations. It distinguishes four modes of interdepartmental interaction—standards, schedules, mutual adaptation and teams (as in Thompson [Thompson, J. D. 1967. Organizations in Action. McGraw-Hill, New York.] and Van de Ven et al. [Van de Ven, A. H., A. L. Delbecq, R. Koenig, Jr. 1976. Determinants of coordination modes within organizations. Amer. Sociological Rev. 41322–338.])—in each of three temporal phases: pre-project, product and process design, and manufacturing. Each of the resulting twelve matrix cells represents a distinct coordination mechanism. Since the objective of coordinating design and manufacturing departments is to ensure an acceptable fit between product design and manufacturing process parameters, the most efficient interdepartmental coordination mechanism is that which is able to deal with the uncertainty of this product/process fit at least cost to the organization. Extending Perrow’s (Perrow, C. 1967. A framework for the comparative analysis of organizations. Amer. Sociological Rev. 32 194–208.) analysis of the two dimensions of uncertainty to the case of product/process fit, the choice of interaction mode within each project phase is hypothesized to depend on the novelty of the product/process fit problem, and the relative importance of coordination effort across the three project phases is hypothesized to depend on the analyzability of the product/process fit problem.
Inertial Forces and the Implementation of a Socio-Technical Systems Approach: A Communication Study
Authors: Fairhurst Gail T. , Green Stephen , Courtright John
Published: October 2008

Borrowing from population ecology, this study examined the potential effects of organizational inertia on the implementation of a socio-technical systems (STS) philosophy in five manufacturing plants. Plant history (conversion from a hierarchical system as opposed to STS from start-up) and plant manager style (autocratic as opposed to participative) were posed as potential sources of inertia. As counterproductive inertial forces, a conversion plant history and an autocratic plant manager style were hypothesized to be associated with less participative communication between lower level managers and subordinates in the plants. Using a coding scheme to analyze and compare actual work interactions, we found that when both inertial forces were present, participation between manager and subordinates as equals was less (i.e., there were fewer challenges by subordinates of managers’ statements, more manager led discussion, and more subordinate approval seeking). When these inertial forces were absent, subordinates assumed a more assertive, equal role in communication. Subordinates challenged manager assertions, more often led discussion that was copied by the manager, and experienced fewer control attempts by the manager in discussions led by the subordinate. The implications of these findings for advancing our understanding of population ecology dynamics within the firm are discussed. Links between population ecology, communication patterns, and organizational change are also addressed.
Toward a Theory of Organizational Culture and Effectiveness
Authors: Denison Daniel R. , Mishra Aneil K.
Published: October 2008

This paper develops a model of organizational culture and effectiveness based on four traits of organizational cultures; involvement, consistency, adaptability, and mission. These traits are examined through two linked studies: In the first, qualitative case studies of five firms are used to identify the traits and the nature of their linkage to effectiveness; In the second, a quantitative study provides an exploratory analysis of CEO perceptions of these four traits and their relation to subjective and objective measures of effectiveness in a sample of 764 organizations. The results show support for the predictive value of the traits, and help to illustrate the complementarity of qualitative and quantitative methods for studying organizational cultures. Two of the traits, involvement and adaptability, are indicators of flexibility, openness, and responsiveness, and were strong predictors of growth. The other two traits, consistency and mission, are indicators of integration, direction, and vision, and were better predictors of profitability. Each of the four traits were also significant predictors of other effectiveness criteria such as quality, employee satisfaction, and overall performance. The results also showed that the four traits were strong predictors of subjectively-rated effectiveness criteria for the total sample of firms, but were strong predictors of objective criteria such as return-on-assets and sales growth only for larger firms. This paper suggests that culture can be studied as an integral part of the adaptation process of organizations and that specific culture traits may be useful predictors of performance and effectiveness. The paper also illustrates how qualitative case studies and inductive theory building can be combined with quantitative comparisons and theory-testing to make progress on specific aspects of organizational culture research.