bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Unclaimed Colonies: Anglo‐Greek Identities Through the Prism of the Dilessi/Marathon Murders (1870)
Authors: Tzanelli Rodanthi
Published: March 2003

This paper examines the Anglo‐Greek dialogue on Greek and British European identities following the Dilessi/Marathon Murders, a case of kidnapping and murder of three upper class Britons by Greek brigands, which became the European cause célèbre of the 1870s. It focuses on British and Greek narratives of brigandage and uses them to provide some insight into the ways both sides conceptualised modernity. The uses of the Greek, Irish and Scottish past and present in this dialogue formed a discourse in which history, imperialism and romanticism were woven altogether. This paper argues that these intertwined ideas and processes were complicit in the formation of modern British and Greek national identities.
Bridging the GAAP: the Changing Attitude of German Managers towards Anglo‐American Accounting and Accounting Harmonization
Authors: Glaum Martin
Published: March 2003

This paper presents and compares results from two empirical studies into the attitudes of financial executives of large German corporations towards a global harmonization of accounting principles and towards the adaptation of German accounting to Anglo‐American Standards. The first of the studies was conducted in 1994, the second in late 1997, early 1998. A comparison of the results reveals that German managers' attitudes have changed profoundly over the course of only three years. In 1994, they objected to the view that German accounting is inferior to Anglo‐American accounting; they had a negative attitude towards US accounting; and they were highly sceptical about adapting German accounting to Anglo‐American accounting rules. Today, German managers openly concede that German financial accounts have a lower information value for investors and that the use of German accounting rules reduces the demand for German shares abroad. They are also more willing to accept far‐reaching changes in the German accounting system. The survey shows that numerous large corporations have already adopted international standards, or are planning to do so in the near future. A further finding is that opinion among German managers and firms has shifted significantly towards accepting IAS rather than US‐GAAP as the basis for the internationalization of German accounting. In fact, more than 80%of managers believe that five years from now the great majority of German firms will publish their consolidated financial accounts according to either IAS or US‐GAAP.
Regulation Avoidance in the Banking Industry: The Case of 364 Day Lines of Credit
Authors: Mosebach Michael
Published: March 2003

The purpose of this case is to offer a demonstration of Kane's regulatory dialectic and to discuss a line of credit that is a result of the interaction between the regulators and the regulated. Banks have been affected by new capital requirements. Calculation of these requirements considers not only on‐balance sheet activities but off‐balance sheet activities. Prior to these requirements, banks issued one year lines of credit for 365 days. These lines of credit have since been replaced with 364 day lines of credit. With maturity less than one year, the percentage of lines of credit considered in the calculations for required capital is reduced from 50% to 20%. Lines of credit are well established financial instruments and there is no reason, other than the changes in regulations, to make banks change the maturity dates by one day.
Thinking About Law Schools: Rutland Reviewed
Authors: Twining William
Published: March 2003

Thinking about law schools as institutions requires tools of analysis andthe questioning of some common assumptions. This paper applies some of the general ideas in the recent report on Legal Education in Xanaduto the Faculty of Law at the University of Rutland, with particular reference to institutional goals and functions, clientele, league tables, and who counts as a ‘law student’.
The Case Against Constitutional Reform
Authors: Morison John
Published: March 2003

Proposals for constitutional reform in the United Kingdom are examined critically. Ideas of ‘governance’ as posited by various accounts in the literature of politics are compared with the simpler idea of ‘government’ that is predicated within the reform programme. It is argued that changes in the site of public power, as well as in the reality of its exercise through a range of bodies beyond the traditional state, now provide a much more complex situation than the reform programme acknowledges. The paper calls for the development of a new technology of constitutional control to capture fugitive power. The paper concludes with a brief examination of some newer theories of radical or participatory democracy and their potential to assist in a wider project of constitutional renewal.
Theory Meets Practice: Some Current Human Rights Challenges in Canada
Authors: Hucker John
Published: March 2003

The article examines three recent situations in which human rights issues have been in the forefront of public policy debates in Canada. In the first, freedom of expression may have been compromised as a result of foreign policy considerations. The second case involves the sometimes contentious issue of equal pay for work of equal value. Thirdly, a current initiative aimed at resolving a longstanding claim by Aboriginal Canadians is examined in the context of principles of equality.
Regulating Global Financial Markets
Authors: Picciotto Sol , Haines Jason
Published: March 2003

This paper discusses the role of regulation in the emergence of a global system of linked financial markets. It traces the origins of the internationalization of financial markets to the emergence of new competitive pressures, rooted in changes in the social structures of savings and investment, breaking down both national systems of financial control and international arrangements for monetary and financial co‐ordination. These changes have been accompanied and facilitated by a process of international re‐regulation, through informal specialist networks. Although these have facilitated the international diffusion of regulatory standards and practices, and attempted to co‐ordinate them, they are greatly hampered by espousing the perspectives of the various markets and firms which it is their task to supervise. Together with their minimalist view of the aims of public legitimation and oversight of financial markets, they have proved inadequate to prevent the destabilizing effects of the new global finance on the world economy.
Putting the Regulated Back into Regulation
Authors: Johnstone Richard
Published: March 2003

Book reviewed in this article:

Fiona Haines, Corporate Regulation: Beyond ‘Punish Or Persuade’
Accountability in the Regulatory State
Authors: Scott Colin
Published: March 2003

Accountability has long been both a key theme and a key problem in constitutional scholarship. The centrality of the accountability debates in contemporary political and legal discourse is a product of the difficulty of balancing the autonomy given to those exercising public power with appropriate control. The traditional mechanisms of accountability to Parliament and to the courts are problematic because in a complex administrative state, characterized by widespread delegation of discretion to actors located far from the centre of government, the conception of centralized responsibility upon which traditional accountability mechanisms are based is often fictional. The problems of accountability have been made manifest by the transformations wrought on public administration by the new public management (NPM) revolution which have further fragmented the public sector. In this article it is argued that if public lawyers are to be reconciled to these changes then it will be through recognizing the potential for additional or extended mechanisms of accountability in supplementing or displacing traditional accountability functions. The article identifies and develops two such extended accountability models: interdependence and redundancy
Government‐Voluntary Sector Compacts: Governance, Governmentality, and Civil Society
Authors: Morison John
Published: March 2003

In 1998 government and the main representatives of the voluntary sector in each of the four countries in the United Kingdom published ‘compacts’ on relations between government and the voluntary sector. These were joint documents, carrying forward ideas expressed by the Labour Party when in opposition, and directed at developing a new relationship for partnership with those ‘not‐for‐profit organizations’ that are involved primarily in the areas of policy and service delivery.This article seeks to use an examination of the compacts, and the processes that produced them and that they have now set in train, to explore some of the wider issues about the changing role of government and its developing relationships with civil society. In particular, it argues that the new partnership builds upon a movement from welfarism to economism which is being developed further through the compact process. Drawing upon a governmentality approach, and illustrating the account with interview material obtained from some of those involved in compact issues from within both government and those umbrella groups which represent the voluntary sector, an argument is made that this overall process represents the beginning of a new reconfiguration of the state that is of considerable constitutional significance.
Business, State, and Community: ‘Responsible Risk Takers’, New Labour, and the Governance of Corporate Business
Authors: Wilson Gary
Published: March 2003

In December 1998, Peter Mandelson MP, one of the principal architects of the Labour Party’s victory in the May 1997 general election, dramatically resigned as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Nevertheless, despite his relatively brief period in that office, Mr. Mandelson left his imprint on policy through the publication in November 1998 of a major White Paper, ‘Our Competitive Future: Building the Knowledge Driven Economy’. The White Paper sets out the New Labour analysis of the national political economy in a globalized world economy and is very much influenced by Mr. Mandelson’s experience of the entrepreneurial spirit during his fact‐finding visit to the United States of America. This article seeks to chart the relationship between New Labour’s desire to foster the development of the corporate sector within a vibrant entrepreneurial culture and the need to ensure that the integrity of the market is preserved in an arena which is seen as inimicable to strong regulatory intervention by the state. As well as mapping New Labour’s political rhetoric onto contemporary debates in corporate governance, the analysis will involve an examination of the interface between business practice and morality. In particular, the article will focus upon the role of the conception of company directors as ‘responsible risk takers’ and the upon the use of name‐and‐shame sanctions in the development of an entrepreneurial culture in which all corporate enterprises are seen as having a legitimate societal ‘licence to operate’.
‘An Unqualified Human Good’: E.P. Thompson and the Rule of Law
Authors: Cole Daniel H.
Published: March 2003

The late E.P. Thompson described himself as ‘a historian in the Marxist tradition’ But when he embraced the Rule of Law (in Whigs and Hunters, many of his colleagues on the left ostracized him as an apostate. This essay argues that Thompson's critics have largely misunderstood what he meant by the Rule of Law. His was a minimal and historical conception, which merely sought to distinguish states whose rulers had unfettered discretion from states whose rulers were constrained by legal rules, whatever their source and contents. Also, in contrast to other radical theorists, Thompson recognized that law would be a necessary institution in any complex society, no matter what its economic basis, to mediate social relations. The essay concludes with some thoughts about the relevancy of Thompson's conception of the Rule of Law for ongoing efforts to revitalize a more `radical liberalism'.
The Emotional Dimension in Legal Regulation
Authors: Lange Bettina
Published: March 2003

This article argues that the study of legal regulation can be further developed through an analysis of emotions because it can bring into sharper focus the social nature of regulation. The article illustrates this point by discussing the notion of regulatory law as an emotional process. It then suggests various ways in which an analysis of emotions can promote understanding of a key issue in legal regulation, the role of structure and agency. The article concludes with a brief discussion of how existing social science research methods can be adapted to the study of emotions.
Agents, Stakeholders and Corporate Governance in Russian Firms
Authors: Buck Filatotchev Wright Trevor, Igor, Mike
Published: March 2003

This paper considers some developments within Russian privatized industrial firms 1992–94 through the lens of Stakeholder‐Agency Theory (SAT). Although it has its own shortcomings and weaknesses, SAT, unlike the traditional financial version of Agency Theory, at least contemplates the possibility of a transitional period during which enterprise governance structures can evolve.

It is by now widely recognised that in the middle of deep economic crisis, the Russian economy is too volatile for longitudinal studies of formally structured samples of firms over a period of time. In any case, SAT is at a stage of development that has not yet yielded detailed predictions for scientific testing. Yet surveys of recently privatized firms in Russia do provide empirical data away from the origins of SAT, and it is argued that this fresh data suggests new research propositions that can hopefully lead to more theoretical refinement and ultimately testing. At the very least, SAT can be used as a heuristic device, capable of providing a way of looking at complex Russian developments in a structured way.

A process of Russian privatization through management–employee buy‐outs involving giveaway distributions of shares has secured the compliance of the two main groups of enterprise stakeholders who could have prevented the withdrawal of the State from the governance of industrial enterprises, but has not yet produced a form of corporate governance structure that is likely to survive in the long term without State protection.

In the longer term, international competitiveness can only be secured in Russia through investment in new products and processes, and the inadequacies of managers and other employees as sources of investable funds mean that incumbents must generate a more welcoming climate for outside investors. Even after such a short period since privatization and in the middle of a deep economic crisis, some enterprises are already favouring more efficient governance structures in a way consistent with SAT.
The Influence of Cognitive‐based Group Composition on Decision‐making Process and Outcome
Authors: Volkema Gorman Roger J., Ronald H.
Published: March 2003

The effects of cognitive‐based group composition on decision‐making process (problem formulation, ideation) and outcome (performance, time‐to‐decision) were investigated. Two types of composition based on the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator were compared – a uni‐temperament group composition (all sensing‐judgers), common among supervisors and managers, and a multi‐temperament composition (a sensing‐judger, a sensing‐perceiver, an intuitive‐thinker, and an intuitive‐feeler). While significant relationships were found between the process and outcome stages, cognitive‐based group composition generally did not predict the decision‐making process or outcome variables. A significant interaction between group composition and problem formulation, however, suggests that a multi‐temperament (heterogeneous) composition can moderate the effect of problem formulation on performance. The implications of these findings for cognitive‐based group composition and decision making are discussed, along with suggestions for future research
Durkheim and the Limits of Corporate Culture: Whose Culture? Which Durkheim
Authors: Starkey Ken
Published: March 2003

Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in Durkheimian perspectives on management. P. Dahler‐Larsen uses such a perspective to critique theories of corporate culture. He is particularly critical of corporate culture’s claim that the locus of morality can exist in organizations.

This, he argues, is inimical to Durkheim’s view of morality as a societal phenomenon. This paper argues that this criticism of corporate culture is limited on two counts. First, it is limited in its failure to deal with those proponents of corporate culture who are themselves critical of culture as a form of ideological control. Secondly, it is based on only one of several possible readings of Durkheim. In his later work, Durkheim analyses the construction and destruction of social solidarities.

A Durkheimian reading of organizational culture and the related phenomenon of the learning organization allows us to develop a view of management and organization in which culture is conceived as a heterogeneous rather than homogeneous.
Confounding Market and Hierarchy in Venture Capital Governance: The Canadian Immigrant Investor Program
Authors: Steier Lloyd
Published: March 2003

Governance structure is a central feature of organization. Hybrid forms of organization – typified by governance structures from more than one organizational model – have become prominent features of the organizational landscape. This study examined the governance structure of a hybrid organizational arrangement created when a government programme was developed utilizing selected aspects of venture capitalist models of governance. Central findings include: designing appropriate governance structure is a key activity for new organizations; combining market and hierarchical forms of governance produces a confounding mix of rationalities, which is potentially dangerous for long‐term survival; ambiguous control systems allow participants to pay selective attention to particular elements of governance structure; existing models of venture capital governance understate important social dimensions of governance – particularly the role of trust; hybrid organizations potentially remove the element of trust necessary for effective transactions
The Violent Rhetoric of Re‐engineering: Management Consultancy on the Offensive
Authors: Grint Keith , Case Peter
Published: March 2003

Business process re‐engineering (BPR) was a leading form of organizational restructuring from the late 1980s until the late 1990s. This paper seeks to contextualize its development and account for its particularly bellicose language by reflecting on its historical antecedents in the west and its contemporary competitors in the east. We suggest that one way of reading BPR is as a form of ‘inverse colonization’ in which US managerial discourse both assimilated and revolted against the growing domination of Japanese thinking and practice. We conclude with some speculative comments on related causes of the rise of violent managerial rhetoric.
The Relationship Between Mission Statements and Firm Performance: An Exploratory Study
Authors: Bart Baetz Christopher Kenneth, Mark C.
Published: March 2003

This paper examines the relationship between mission statements and firm performance using a sample of 136 large Canadian organizations. Previous writings suggest that mission statements are essential for superior organizational performance results. However, there is little empirical evidence to support this claim. The data from the present study demonstrate that mission statements and some of their specific characteristics are selectively associated with higher levels of organizational performance. The paper concludes with several propositions to guide future research.
Learning from Honda
Authors: Mair Andrew
Published: March 2003

The case of the Honda Motor Company has been cited frequently in the strategic management literature. A review reveals that Honda's strategy has been used to illustrate and support apparently contradictory positions on a series of conceptual dichotomies, namely analytical planning versus learning, market positioning versus resource‐based and, within the last of these, core competencies versus core capabilities. A critical analysis of this literature reveals empirical inaccuracies and a focus on Honda's strategic successes to the neglect of its failures. More significantly, explanations and general strategy implications are couched in terms of reductionist one‐sided theories, a tendency which is only deepened when strategy thinkers debate ‘the meaning of Honda’. This theoretical approach is particularly ill suited to Honda, an important strategic capability of which appears to be precisely the reconciliation of dichotomous management concepts. Western strategy thinkers have therefore missed the opportunity to develop a more appropriate and productive paradigm for learning from Honda.
Autonomy and Effectiveness of Equity International Joint Ventures (EIJVs): An Analysis based on EIJVs in Hungary and Britain
Authors: Newburry William , Zeira Yoram
Published: March 2003

The paper utilizes data collected from 34 equity international joint ventures (EIJVs) located in Hungary and 49 EIJVs located in Britain to examine the effects of autonomy on EIJV effectiveness. Study results suggest that for the total sample, permitting an EIJV to develop local HRM policies and to implement business plans independently contribute to EIJV effectiveness. Additionally, there is a positive correlation between EIJV age and effectiveness. When the samples are broken up, the results are consistent except that developing local HRM policies is not a significant factor with respect to EIJV effectiveness in Hungary. The paper contributes to the literature by demonstrating that autonomy is a multidimensional construct and by providing initial support for the development of a theory relating EIJV autonomy to effectiveness based on a hierarchy of autonomy measures. The paper also suggests a model of relative recommended autonomy levels for different EIJV activities.
Practical Reason and Performance Appraisal
Authors: Townley Barbara
Published: March 2003

This paper examines responses of chairs of university departments to the news that they would be required to conduct a formal performance appraisal system. It is suggested that in order to understand resistance to appraisal we need to reject explanations invoking polarized antinomies – formal/informal, rational/political – and interrogate the concept of rationality. Drawing on MacIntyre's work, the paper examines the concept of practical reason to make sense of the chairs' responses and considers its relevance for understanding management and change in universities.
Managing Organizational Knowledge Integration in the Emerging Multimedia Complex
Authors: De Boer Michiel , Van Den Bosch Frans A. J. , Volberda Henk W.
Published: March 2003

Due to technological convergence, complexes of interrelated industries are emerging. This paper presents a conceptual framework of the role different organizational forms and combinative capabilities play in the management of organizational knowledge integration in this context. The focus is on firms previously operating in one of the relatively stable constituting industries. We argue that a firm's organizational form has to be matched with appropriate combinative capabilities in order to integrate component knowledge into architectural knowledge that consequently serves as a platform for generating new product–market combinations. The framework is empirically illustrated using the example of two Dutch publishing firms moving into the multimedia complex, which is currently emerging around information and communication technologies. The empirical analysis shows that the framework offers strong potential for improving the understanding of the complex process of organizational knowledge integration, as the prerequisite for developing new business in an emerging industrial complex.
Managing Consultants in a Small Firm: A Case Study
Authors: Ram Monder
Published: March 2003

An increasingly noted feature of the small business population is the rise of the small, professional‐service firm. Explanations of the emergence, employment potential and economic contribution of such firms have been much debated. But comparatively little is known of the dynamics of managing such enterprises. This paper aims to illuminate the nature of the management process in such settings by examining the case of one particular management consultancy, WhitCo. A broad conception of the management process is argued for that recognizes the tensions of working in a ‘high‐trust’ environment. The study, which is based on an intensive investigation in the case‐study firm over a year‐long period, explores three processes. First, the development of the enterprise, particularly in relation to the recruitment of consultants; this establishes the basis of ‘trust’ in the firm. Second, the management of client relationships and their impact on work relations. Third, the dynamics of ‘project management’. The findings highlight how fragile ‘co‐operation’ in such a context can be, and identifies tensions that stem from pressures for organizational efficiency and the need to encourage ‘entrepreneurialism’ among key staff
Demographic Dissimilarity and Workplace Inclusion
Authors: Hope Pelled Lisa , Ledford, Jr Gerald E. , Albers Mohrman Susan
Published: March 2003

This study examined the relationship between individual demographic dissimilarity from co‐workers and three indicators of inclusion by an organization: decision‐making influence, access to sensitive information, and job security. Data from 345 individuals in eight work units showed that individual dissimilarity in race and gender were negatively associated with inclusion, and the effect of race dissimilarity was more pronounced for whites than for non‐whites. In contrast, individual dissimilarity in tenure and education level were positively associated with inclusion, and these effects were more pronounced for those with greater tenure and greater education, respectively. Overall, the results suggest that whether being different hinders or helps organizational inclusion may depend on whether that difference is visible and whether it reflects job expertise. Further, they suggest that, when being different is a hindrance, it may be hardest on those who have traditionally been the majority in organizations.
Too Much or Too Little Ambiguity: The Language of Total Quality Management
Authors: Kelemen Mihaela
Published: March 2003

The paper documents the working of the language of total quality management (TQM) and some of its effects in four UK service organizations. By making language central to the ‘production’ and ‘consumption’ of TQM practices, the paper explores the use of managerial language and its effects upon organizational practices and employees' experiences. The semantic use of language, reflected merely in the use of labels and platitudes, is concerned with clarity and specificity while the poetic use of language, reflected in the use of metaphors, emphasizes ambiguity by inviting multiple interpretations from below. The paper argues that both uses of language are directed towards achieving some sort of meaning and order; however, managers do not have total discretion over the consequences of their language use. While they may seek to enrol employees in the TQM language (via a process of interest translation), the responses of the employees cannot be predicted or controlled from the top. EmployeesÃ discursive responses are themselves riddled with ambiguity and range from open resistance to manipulation to internalization. Indeed, it is impossible to know in advance how TQM language works in practice because such workings are the complex and ambiguous outcome of material and non‐material relationships that can never be accurately predicted.
The Management Implications of Women’s Employment Disadvantage in a Female‐Dominated Profession: A Study of NHS Nursing
Authors: Lane Nikala
Published: March 2003

Current explanations of gender inequality in paid employment fall into two broad groups. Firstly, there are theorists who argue that the actions and strategies of managers maintain and perpetuate unequal outcomes for women in the labour market. Secondly, there are theorists who argue that women’s lower commitment to work determines their job choices and outcomes. A survey of 643 qualified female NHS nurses examines both approaches. We argue that recognizing not only the existence of gender‐based disadvantage but also its sources are important in devising effective managerial policies and initiatives. Also, conventionally less attention has been given to patterns of individual disadvantage for employees within workforces dominated by members of the same gender. Employment disadvantage is shown to exist in the single gender workforce, as in the more general case, but its operation is subtler and more difficult for managers to detect. This suggests a number of important management implications: a clear need for diagnosing potential patterns of disadvantage which may be relatively covert; the need to recognize the imperative for monitoring employment equity beyond regulatory compliance; the need for the implementation of effective strategy; and managers’ need to evaluate the adequacy of not simply equal opportunities policies, but the broader issue of long‐term career planning.
Factory Innovations And Management Machinations: The Productive And Repressive Relations of Power
Authors: McCabe Darren
Published: March 2003

This article explores how power is exercised by managers in both ‘repressive’ ways so as to chase out or deny alternative interests/subjectivities and in ways which are ‘productive’ of the subjectivity of those they employ and indeed their own subjectivity. Rather than necessarily an intention of managers, exercising power in productive and repressive ways, is a condition and consequence of the strategies they deploy. Nonetheless, the concern here is to question the totalizing effects of power whether in relation to management strategy, total quality management, business process reengineering or culture change. Through exploring innovation in an established automobile manufacturing company, it is argued that a necessary though not sufficient condition of such a prospect, is that managers reconstitute themselves. It is demonstrated that such a reconstitution is problematic when one considers managers as thinking, social beings, situated in a historical context of power and inequality rather than structural automatons or agents that are free of power.
Missionaries, Mercenaries Or Car Salesmen? MBA Teaching In Malaysia*
Authors: Sturdy Andrew , Gabriel Yiannis
Published: March 2003

Increasing academic attention is being given to the role of management gurus, consultants, managers and academic researchers in the international diffusion of Western management ideas. This is part of wider debates on knowledge, power and globalization. Relatively little attention has been paid to the mechanisms through which diffusion takes place and, in particular, the role of academics as lecturers and business schools as disseminators of management knowledge at home and abroad. This paper draws on the authors’ personal experiences and perceptions of teaching on an Executive MBA programme in Malaysia and those of their students.

Management education is growing rapidly in many regions of the world and has become highly commodified and commercialized, with Western universities competing in emerging markets for potentially lucrative local opportunities and foreign students or ‘consumers’. Accordingly, the process of diffusion of Western management ideas is examined through a consumption perspective which treats the foreign MBA as a standardized commodity (much like the foreign car) with particular use, symbolic and exchange values. However, the limits of the consumption perspective in terms of both consumer sovereignty and subordination are also established in revealing deeper and more dynamic relations of power. Moreover, it is argued that while there are parallels with domestic consumption of MBAs, the teaching of MBAs in Malaysia generates added ambivalence among learners founded on global–local and development–imperialism dynamics and tensions.
Management ‘Intuition’: An Interpretative Account of Structure and Content of Decision Schemas Using Cognitive Maps
Authors: Clarke Ian , Mackaness William
Published: March 2003

In this paper, the structure and content of executive perceptions are considered using cognitive mapping to isolate ‘intuitive’ elements within their individual decision schemas. An inductive approach is used to develop three propositions drawn from the literature. These are explored using the results of interviews with senior executives of two UK retail organizations. Three of the maps represent different levels of seniority and roles and are used to explore potential differences within the organization. Similarities and differences between organizations are examined with reference to an additional map of an individual in a second organization.[1] Propositions are interpreted and developed with reference to the maps and textual extracts from the interviews, to provide additional insight into the concept of intuition prior to larger‐scale studies. The study highlights the need to explore differences in schemas both within and between different industry sectors. It emphasizes three important aspects of intuition as a way in which individuals ‘cut through’ a decision situation to make an ‘unexplained’ relationship between input and cognition without really thinking in‐depth. First, they appear to trade‐off depth for breadth of information. Second, they use personal experiences, surrogate indicators, and typologies to rationalize their decisions. Finally, the study shows there are important overlaps and differences in the content of decision schemas that represent ground for agreement and disagreement and as a basis for negotiating group decisions. These insights are used to redevelop and extend the propositions by way of conclusion.
Perceived Environmental Uncertainty: The Extension of Miller’s Scale to the Natural Environment
Authors: Lewis Gerard J. , Harvey Brian
Published: March 2003

Large businesses are professionalizing their approach to environmental management, in pursuit of quality management, cost effective eco‐efficiency and regulatory compliance. However, recent evidence suggests that business corporations are not integrating the natural environment into their strategic thinking. One of the major reasons for this is the contingent relationship between perceived uncertainty in the business environment and strategic decision making. This paper describes the development and testing of a Perceived Environmental Uncertainty (PEU) measurement scale for the natural environment. The new PEU scale is based on Miller’s (1993) PEU scale for the commercial environment and grounded in the environmental management theory. It is also shown to possess very good reliability and dimensionality. The new PEU scale was applied in the form of self‐report questionnaire. Respondents were senior executives (n = 198) from the UK textile industry. We specifically looked for variations in levels of executives’ PEU along the industry supply chain. As a result of applying the new scale, our findings show that the natural environment presents significantly higher levels of PEU for executives in the textile making‐up/retail sector. The major cause of uncertainty for the textile making‐up/retail sector is that firms in this sector are at the end of the supply chain and therefore exposed to up‐stream risk, which is often very difficult to manage.
Strategic communication through the world wide web: an empirical model of effectiveness in the ceo’s letter to shareholders
Authors: Segars Albert H. , Kohut Gary F.
Published: March 2003

Many organizations are devoting enormous amounts of financial and human resources to improve corporate communications. Among the many forms of communication produced by firms, the Chief Executive Officer’s (CEO) letter to shareholders is perhaps the most strategic in conveying the well‐being and future direction of the enterprise. These letters have become even more visible with the advent of World Wide Web and its use as a primary forum for communicating the CEO’s message. Surprisingly, there has been little research into dimensions that characterize the effectiveness of the CEO’s letter and how this communication may benefit the overall enterprise in terms of improved financial position. Utilizing both theoretic and practical perspectives as well as the web‐based letters of prominent organizations, this study frames CEO’s letter effectiveness (CLE) along dimensions of credibility, efficacy, commitment, and responsibility. These first‐order constructs appear to be statistically coaligned by a second‐order construct of CLE. In turn, CLE is shown to be directly associated with favourable financial performance in terms of share price and trading activity. This study provides a useful framework for assessing strategic communication through the CEO’s letter and for operationalizing a key dependent variable in future studies related to strategic corporate communications through digital media.
The effects of entrepreneurial personality, background and network activities on venture growth*
Authors: Lee Don Y. , Tsang Eric W. K.
Published: March 2003

This study investigates the effects of entrepreneurial personality traits, background and networking activities on venture growth among 168 Chinese entrepreneurs in small and medium sized businesses in Singapore. Personality traits include need for achievement, internal locus of control, self‐reliance and extroversion; background comprises education and experience; networking activities consist of size and frequency of communication networks. A structural equation modelling technique – partial least squares (PLS) – is used to estimate a path model with latent variables. The results indicate that experience, networking activities, and number of partners as well as internal locus of control and need for achievement all have positive impact on venture growth. Two other personality traits, self‐reliance and extroversion have negative impact on number of partners and positive impact on networking activities, respectively. The impact of education on venture growth, however, is moderated by firm size, positive for larger firms and negative for smaller firms. Our findings indicate that among all the factors that we have considered, an entrepreneur’s industrial and managerial experience is the dominating factor affecting venture growth.
What is Organizational Knowledge?
Authors: Tsoukas Haridimos , Vladimirou Efi
Published: March 2003

Organizational knowledge is much talked about but little understood. In this paper we set out to conceptualize organizational knowledge and explore its implications for knowledge management. We take on board Polanyi’s insight concerning the personal character of knowledge and fuse it with Wittgenstein’s insight that all knowledge is, in a fundamental way, collective. We do this in order to show, on the one hand, how individuals appropriate knowledge and expand their knowledge repertoires, and, on the other hand, how knowledge, in organized contexts, becomes organizational. Our claim is that knowledge is the individual capability to draw distinctions, within a domain of action, based on an appreciation of context or theory, or both. Organizational knowledge is the capability members of an organization have developed to draw distinctions in the process of carrying out their work, in particular concrete contexts, by enacting sets of generalizations whose application depends on historically evolved collective understandings. Following our theoretical exploration of organizational knowledge, we report the findings of a case study carried out at a call centre in Panafon, in Greece. Finally, we explore the implications of our argument by focusing on the links between knowledge and action on the one hand, and the management of organizational knowledge on the other. We argue that practical mastery needs to be supplemented by a quasi‐theoretical understanding of what individuals are doing when they exercise that mastery, and this is what knowledge management should be aiming at. Knowledge management, we suggest, is the dynamic process of turning an unreflective practice into a reflective one by elucidating the rules guiding the activities of the practice, by helping give a particular shape to collective understandings, and by facilitating the emergence of heuristic knowledge.
Power, Control and Resistance in ‘The Factory That Time Forgot’
Authors: Ezzamel Mahmoud , Willmott Hugh , Worthington Frank
Published: March 2003

This paper contributes to a developing body of literature which questions the claim that the ‘factory of the future’ is a total institution in which self‐subordination through ‘new wave management’ is virtually inescapable. It examines the experience of frustrated management efforts to re‐engineer working practices, mainly at the point of production, in response to repeated corporate‐driven initiatives designed to implement a range of ‘lean manufacturing’ initiatives at ‘Northern Plant’, a pseudonym. Our findings illustrate how workers can and do employ a variety of individual and collective forms of resistance involving dissembling co‐operation with change initiatives whilst maintaining a distance from them. In accounting for resistance, we note the significance of market conditions but focus primarily upon the importance of workers’ identification with practices that had been established earlier when management were content to indulge self‐managing patterns of work in return for securing required levels of output.
The Coupling of Ownership and Control and the Allocation of Financial Resources: Evidence from Hong Kong
Authors: Carney Michael , Gedajlovic Eric
Published: March 2003

Theoretical and empirical research regarding the impact of corporate ownership on the behaviour and performance of firms have typically focused on consequences stemming from the separation of ownership and control. While large scale business enterprise characterized by such a separation is dominant in the US, Japan and the UK, firms in which ownership and control is coupled in the hands of individuals and their families are apparent in many other large developed economies and are dominant in most emerging markets. This paper examines consequences regarding the generation and allocation of financial resources stemming from the coupling of ownership and control among Hong Kong based firms. In doing so, we join insights from the economics literature regarding the incentive and risk bearing consequences of coupled ownership and control with the extant management, sociology and history literatures regarding Chinese family business groups and develop and six hypotheses pertaining to patterns in the allocation of financial resources. Results indicate that coupled ownership and control is positively related with dividend payout levels and financial liquidity while it is negatively related to investments in capital expenditures. Consistent with these results, we also find that coupled ownership and control is positively related to short‐term (accounting) profitability.
Strategic Practices: An Activity Theory Perspective on Continuity and Change
Authors: Jarzabkowski Paula
Published: March 2003

abstract  This paper draws upon activity theory to analyse an empirical investigation of the micro practices of strategy in three UK universities. Activity theory provides a framework of four interactive components from which strategy emerges; the collective structures of the organization, the primary actors, in this research conceptualized as the top management team (TMT), the practical activities in which they interact and the strategic practices through which interaction is conducted. Using this framework, the paper focuses specifically on the formal strategic practices involved in direction setting, resource allocation, and monitoring and control. These strategic practices are associated with continuity of strategic activity in one case study but are involved in the reinterpretation and change of strategic activity in the other two cases. We model this finding into activity theory‐based typologies of the cases that illustrate the way that practices either distribute shared interpretations or mediate between contested interpretations of strategic activity. The typologies explain the relationships between strategic practices and continuity and change of strategy as practice. The paper concludes by linking activity theory to wider change literatures to illustrate its potential as an integrative methodological framework for examining the subjective and emergent processes through which strategic activity is constructed.
Learning In A Constellation of Interconnected Practices: Canon or Dissonance?
Authors: Gherardi Silvia , Nicolini Davide
Published: March 2003

In this paper we argue that the learning of safety in a constellation of communities of practice is mediated by comparison among the perspectives of the world embraced by the co‐participants in the production of this practice. Our discussion is based on two empirical research projects in which we investigated the accounts of the causes of accidents provided by the members of three different communities of practice (engineers, site foremen and main contractors), in a medium sized building firm. In the paper we suggest that comparison among perspectives is made possible by a discursive practice targeted on the alignment of elements both mental and material, within mutually accountable discursive positions. These alignments are provisional and unstable, they produce tensions, discontinuities and incoherence (cacophony) just as much as they produce order and negotiated meanings (consonance).
Empathy, Shame, Guilt, and Narratives of Interpersonal Conflicts: Guilt‐Prone People Are Better at Perspective Taking
Authors: Leith Karen P. , Baumeister Roy F.
Published: March 2003

Both guilt and empathic perspective taking have been linked to prosocial, relationship‐enhancing effects. Study 1 found that shame was linked to personal distress, whereas guilt was linked to perspective taking. In Studies 2 and 3, subjects were asked to describe a recent experience of interpersonal conflict, once from their own perspective, and once from the perspective of the other person. Guilt‐prone people and guilt‐dominated stories were linked to better perspective taking (measured by changes between the two versions of the story) than others. Shame had no effect. Guilt improved relationship outcomes but shame harmed them. Path analysis suggested that trait guilt‐proneness leads to perspective taking, which leads to actual guilt feelings, which produces beneficial relationship outcomes. Guilt feelings may mediate the relationship‐enhancing effects of empathy.
Dynamic Stability of Behavior: The Rhythms of Our Interpersonal Lives
Authors: Brown Kirk W. , Moskowitz D. S.
Published: March 2003

The authors examined whether variations in day‐to‐day estimates of personality characteristics, which are often treated as error, are instead predictable and meaningful. Using event‐sampling and spectral analysis, they found that variations in interpersonal behavior over weekly periods were cyclic and normative. Dominant, submissive, agreeable, and quarrelsome behaviors rose during the week and fell on the weekend. The more general dimensions of agency and communion exhibited opposite patterns of cyclicity, with agency rising and communion falling during the week. Interpersonal traits were not useful in predicting behavior cyclicity. Extraverts exhibited a daily cycle, partially mediated by more varied partners and social behaviors during evenings. Findings are discussed with reference to conceptions of personality expression as dynamic yet stable processes.