bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Organizational Culture and Individual Sensemaking: A Schema-Based Perspective
Authors: Harris Stanley G. 
Published: October 2008

Organizational culture encompasses both individual and group-level phenomena. However, to date, the individual-level dynamics of organizational culture have remained relatively neglected. This paper addresses this neglect by focusing on culture's manifestation in individuals' sensemaking structures and processes. Building off the social cognition literature, I propose that organizational culture's influence on individual sensemaking is revealed in the operation of a patterned system of organization-specific schemas. Schemas refer to the cognitive structures in which an individual's knowledge is retained and organized. In addition to being knowledge repositories, schemas also direct information acquisition and processing. They guide answering the questions central to sensemaking efforts: “What or who is it?,” “What are its implications; what does it mean?,” and “How should I respond?” After a brief review of schema theory, the categories of schema knowledge relevant to understanding sensemaking in organizations and the cultural influences on their emergence are examined. The conscious and unconscious operation of these schemas in the actual process of making sense of organizational stimuli is framed within a schema-directed, intrapsychic, mental dialogue perspective on social cognition. Specifically, I propose that in the social setting of organizations, individuals make sense out of their experiences based in large part on the outcomes of contrived mental dialogues between themselves (e.g., “I think it means this and I would be inclined toward this response”) and other contextually-relevant (past or present; real or imagined) individuals or groups (e.g., “What would my boss and peers think about this? What would they want me to do?”). The content of the argument provided for others is guided by the individual's schemas for those others. I close the paper by discussing the ways in which this schema-based perspective enhances our under-standing of the individual experiences of cultural sharing, subcultural boundaries, and psychological attachment.
Consensus, Diversity, and Learning in Organizations
Authors: Fiol C. Marlene 
Published: October 2008

Organizational learning, like individual learning, involves the development of new and diverse interpretations of events and situations. Unlike individual learning, however, collective learning also involves developing enough consensus around those diverse interpretations for organized action to result. Traditional measures of organizational consensus are unable to capture the multiplex nature of collective agreement that encompasses both unity and diversity. Traditional wisdom thus suggests that to achieve unity in groups, one must sacrifice diversity. This study breaks the notion of consensus into two component parts: consensus around interpretations embedded in the content and in the framing of communications. Communicated content consists of the labels people use to convey their “pictures” of reality, e.g., pictures of issues as threats or as opportunities. The framing of communications refers to the form people use to construct a picture, regardless of its content, e.g., rigid or flexible perceptions of an issue. People may hold very different pictures of reality and still agree on the way they frame them. It is thus possible for groups to simultaneously agree and disagree, an essential component of collective learning. Simultaneous agreement and disagreement is especially important in corporate innovative efforts. Successful corporate innovation requires that decision makers develop a collective understanding that incorporates the new and the different. This paper describes the changing pictures and frames communicated in a new-venture development process in a large financial institution over a two-year period. Several linguistic analyses show how the venture team members developed unified ways of framing their arguments, while at the same time maintaining diversity through differences in the content of team members' interpretations. The results reveal one way that organizations manage to combine the unity and diversity needed for collective learning. The managerial implications present a challenge for anyone wishing to promote learning as a community: managers must actively encourage the development of different and conflicting views of what is thought to be true, while striving for a shared framing of the issues that is broad enough to encompass those differences.
Electronic Mail as the Medium of Managerial Choice
Authors: Markus M. Lynne 
Published: October 2008

As new technologies that support managerial communication become widely used, the question of how and why managers, especially senior managers, use them increases in importance. This paper examines how and why managers use electronic mail. Today, one of the more influential theories of media choice in organization and information science is information richness theory, which has stimulated much empirical research on media selection and has clear implications for how managers should use media. Despite numerous modifications and elaborations, information richness theory remains an individual-level rational choice explanation of behavior, and as such it differs fundamentally from theories that emphasize the social context of managers' communication and media choice behavior. While the weight of informed opinion seems to be shifting toward social theories of media selection and use, much empirical research continues to test individual-level rational choice models. A multi-method investigation was designed to assess the power of information richness theory, relative to alternative social theories, to explain and predict managers' use of email. Managers were found to perceive various media in ways that were relatively consistent with information richness theory, but to use email more and differently than the theory predicted. In particular, effective senior managers were found to use email heavily and even for equivocal communications tasks. These results cannot be explained by information richness theory or by simple modifications of the theory. Rather, they suggest that the adoption, use, and consequences of media in organizations can be powerfully shaped by social processes such as sponsorship, socialization, and social control, which require social perspectives to understand them. These processes can result in differences across organizations and other social units in the patterns of using traditional media like the telephone, but such differences are even more likely for new media, like electronic mail.
Organizational Routines Are Stored as Procedural Memory: Evidence from a Laboratory Study
Authors: Cohen Michael D. , Bacdayan Paul 
Published: October 2008

Organizational routines—multi-actor, interlocking, reciprocally-triggered sequences of actions—are a major source of the reliability and speed of organizational performance. Without routines, organizations would lose efficiency as structures for collective action. But these frequently repeated action sequences can also occasionally give rise to serious suboptimality, hampering performance when they are automatically transferred onto inappropriate situations. While the knowledgeable design and redesign of routines presents a likely lever for those wishing to enhance organizational performance, the lever remains difficult to grasp because routines are hard to observe, analyze, and describe. This paper argues that new work in psychology on “procedural” memory may help explain how routines arise, stabilize and change. Procedural memory has close links to notions of individual skill and habit. It is memory for how things are done that is relatively automatic and inarticulate, and it encompasses both cognitive and motor activities. We report an experiment in which paired subjects developed interlocked task performance patterns that display the chief characteristics of organizational routines. We show evidence from their behavior supporting the claim that individuals store their components of organizational routines in procedural memory. If routines are stored as distributed procedural memories, this may be the source of distinctive properties reported by observers of organizational routines. The paper concludes with implications for both research and practice.
A Funny Thing Happened! The Management of Consumer Emotions in Service Encounters
Authors: Locke Karen 
Published: October 2008

This paper examines the interplay between emotions expressed by patients and their families (consumers) and those expressed and recruited by physicians (service providers) in the pediatric department of a subspecialty medical setting. Detailed observations made during a year of fieldwork demonstrate that physicians enacted comedic performances in response to patient families' negative emotions. These comedies are a vehicle for the display and generation of fun: incompatible with the anxiety, fear, and despondence patient families typically bring to medical encounters. They further invite a move to positive emotions because the performances themselves are cues for optimism. Four comedies were identified, selectively presented by physicians at various emotional junctures in the service delivery process. Sociability comedy is initiated as physicians and patient families first come face-to-face, and it invites the former to like and feel comfortable with the performing physicians. Mastery comedy induces feelings of reassurance in families at the moment when physicians lay hands on the patients' bodies. Ostentatious Celebratory comedy promotes feelings of joy as it marks treatment successes while carefully modulated Magical performances bid for resilience at those times when patient families find it difficult to be hopeful about the medical prognosis. The positive feelings engendered by these comedies likely expedite physicians' and patient families' dependence on each other. For example, liking, feeling comfortable with, and reassured with their physicians will make patient families less likely to hesitate about cooperating with the diagnostic and treatment procedures the former suggest. Reciprocally, confident of these feelings, physicians can be assured that families will continue in the service relationship and follow through with their medical recommendations. The account provided in this paper has several implications for the study of organizational emotions and of service encounters. For example, the emotional exchanges described in this paper underscore the appropriateness of understanding clients as co-participants in the service process because the emotional displays of physician providers arise in response to various feelings that clients bring to encounters. Additionally. where previous studies of emotion in service encounters highlight the relationship between providers' emotional displays and client satisfaction, this study suggests the emotions that prevail in service encounters influence client cooperation with the service delivery process. And, they may be important to the quality of services generated.
Misbehavior in Organizations: A Motivational Framework
Authors: Vardi Yoav , Wiener Yoash 
Published: October 2008

Observers of organizations recognize now that work related misconduct is both pervasive and costly. There is ample evidence that members of organizations sabotage processes, steal company property, harass others, cheat the government, or mislead customers. Companies and the public pay dearly. What are the motivational forces that drive organizational members to exhibit such varied forms of misconduct? Are these forces different from those that drive them to engage in constructive behavior? What kinds of personal and organizational factors influence such acts of intentional misbehavior? Our basic objectives in this paper are three-fold; first, to formally define a new construct of Organizational Misbehavior (OMB), and to discuss the theoretical implications of the definition; second, to identify different types of OMB; and third, to develop a conceptual framework that would allow the inclusion of OMB in a comprehensive theory of work motivation, applicable to both proper and improper conduct. We define Organizational Misbehavior as “any intentional action by members of organizations that violates core organizational and/or societal norms.” A crucial element in the definition is the intention underlying the misbehavior. It therefore serves as the basis for the distinction among three types or organizational misbehavior: (a) OMB Type S, misbehavior that intends to benefit the self; (b) OMB Type O, misbehavior that intends to benefit the organization; and (c) OMB Type D, misbehavior that intends to inflict damage. In order to integrate these forms of misconduct within a comprehensive motivational framework, we use the distinction between normative and instrumental sources of motivation. We propose that people who engage in OMB Type S are primarily motivated by self-interest consideration (i.e., instrumental processes), whereas those that perpetrate OMB Type O do so mostly because of strong identification with and loyalty to their organization (i.e., normative processes). OMB Type D, however, may he triggered by either instrumental or normative forces, or by both at the same time. The various instrumental and normative factors that influence misbehavior are not only personal; they can also be organizational. On the individual level, we refer to such factors as the stage of moral development and personal need satisfaction At the organization level, we examine the role of such factors as organization culture and cohesiveness. We finally use the instrumental-normative framework to derive a set of formal propositions about the effects of some of these factors on the form and intensity of OMB.
The Evolution of Intracorporate Domains: Divisional Charter Losses in High-Technology, Multidivisional Corporations
Authors: Galunic D. Charles , Eisenhardt Kathleen M. 
Published: October 2008

Modern corporations have become synonymous with the multidivisional form of organization. Variously interdependent divisions are “chartered” to look after one or more business areas, in effect defining the “turf” of the division and its purpose within the corporation, and collectively defining the corporate domain. However, once created, these divisional charters should not be regarded as rigid; they are susceptible to change. Particularly in fast-paced environments, such as in high-technology industries, divisional charters are liable to change as divisions add or subtract businesses to their charter responsibilities. These charter changes are seen as an adaptive device for large, multidivisional corporations in fast-paced environments. This paper presents a process model of how divisions change their domains in hypercompetitive contexts, focusing on the specific question of how divisions lose all or portions of their business charters. The paper is based on a larger inductive study of charter changes in ten divisions, both domestic and foreign, of a large, multinational, high-technology corporation. Data were collected over an 18-month period and included formal interviews, questionnaires, company documents, group interviews, media publications and direct observations of strategy formation sessions. Over 80 informants were interviewed across several managerial levels. Our data revealed three distinct patterns and logics of charter loss depending upon what phase of core business development a division found itself: (1) Divisions starting-up new core businesses lost these charters because of a combination of their failure in the new area and competition with other divisions in the company—the process revealed a competitive market for new charters; (2) Divisions rapidly growing new core businesses lost peripheral business areas in order to focus on the core business—the process emphasized a focus logic for charter change: finally (3) Divisions with mature charter areas were found to shed their core business areas because of an emerging misfit between their skills and culture and the nature of competition in the industry—the process emphasized the emerging nature of corporate mis-alignment and the abrupt charter changes that can follow. This paper contributes to organizational theory by exploring the evolution of large, diversified corporations, focusing on the organizational responses to fast-moving, competitive environments. It also contributes to strategy by revealing a “re-combinant” multidivisional organizational form, by which timely charter changes can be used by large corporations to keep pace in these turbulent contexts.
Prospering in Dynamically-Competitive Environments: Organizational Capability as Knowledge Integration
Authors: Grant Robert M. 
Published: October 2008

Unstable market conditions caused by innovation and increasing intensity and diversity of competition have resulted in organizational capabilities rather than served markets becoming the primary basis upon which firms establish their long-term strategies. If the strategically most important resource of the firm is knowledge, and if knowledge resides in specialized form among individual organizational members, then the essence of organizational capability is the integration of individuals' specialized knowledge. This paper develops a knowledge-based theory of organizational capability and draws upon research into competitive dynamics, the resource-based view of the firm, organizational capabilities, and organizational learning. Central to the theory is analysis of the mechanisms through which knowledge is integrated within firms in order to create capability. The theory is used to explore firms' potential for establishing competitive advantage in dynamic market settings, including the role of firm networks under conditions of unstable linkages between knowledge inputs and product outputs. The analysis points to the difficulties in creating the “dynamic” and “flexible-response capabilities” which have been deemed critical to success in hypercompetitive markets.
Garbage Cans and Advancing Hypercompetition: The Creation and Exploitation of New Capabilities and Strategic Flexibility in Two Regional Bell Operating Companies
Authors: Smith Anne D. , Zeithaml Carl 
Published: October 2008

How does an organization functioning in a regulated, monopoly environment transform itself to prepare for hypercompetitive conditions? Two of the regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) found one answer to that question: create self-contained areas of chaotic activities with the potential to spawn new managerial capabilities and flexibility. After divestiture from AT&T, the RBOCs maintained their local telephone service monopolies, but they all became involved in numerous unregulated activities, such as international expansion. For two of the seven RBOCs, the international activities led to new skills; learning and capabilities developed inside their stodgy bureaucracies. By the early 1990s, the RBOCs' local telephone service was facing dramatic change. Powerful potential entrants such as long-distance, wireless, and cable companies were surrounding and converging on the local telephone service industry through their new wireless licenses, collaborations crossing traditional industry borders, and new network development. The RBOCs saw clear signs of impending hypercompetitive conditions. How the two RBOCs changed over an eight-year period and prepared for hypercompetition illustrates several aspects of Volberda's model of organizational transformation. The two RBOCs proceeded through two parallel trajectories of change, which after several years converged and necessitated reorganization. Only through a major organizational change were the two RBOCs able to redeploy the capabilities acquired from international activities into their regulated core business, thereby creating the flexibility they needed to prepare for advancing hypercompetition. With the imminent removal of regulatory barriers and legal roadblocks to competition in local telephone service in the United States, the RBOCs' flexibility and ability to manage hypercompetition may soon be tested.
Toward a Model of Risk in Declining Organizations: An Empirical Examination of Risk, Performance and Decline
Authors: Wiseman Robert M. , Bromiley Philip 
Published: October 2008

Scholars who study organizational decline have argued that declining organizations reduce or eliminate their riskier activities such as innovation. Further, they cite reduced risk-taking as a primary contributor to further decline. Scholars with an interest in risk per se come to the opposite conclusion: low performing firms often take more risks than other firms and such risks reduce subsequent performance. This study attempts to resolve these conflicting views by examining the risk of firms in decline. Our model, based on Cyert & March's (Cyert, R. M., J. G. March. 1963. A behavioral theory of the firm. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.) behavioral theory of the firm, includes six basic variables: (1) performance, (2) slack, (3) aspirations, (4) expectations, (5) risk (income stream uncertainty), and (6) organization size as a measure of decline. The estimated model includes prior levels of risk and performance in the risk and performance equations respectively as controls. This study uses data on 344 low-performing firms in 19 manufacturing industries to estimate a time-series model that addresses both decline's influence on risk and risk's influence on performance while controlling for firm slack resources and industry factors. The results suggest (1) organizational decline and potential slack (debt/equity) positively influence risk whereas recoverable slack (SGA/Sales), and the difference between performance aspirations and expectations negatively influence risk; and (2) recoverable slack and risk negatively influence performance. We also examined the influences of performance and slack on organizational decline and found that performance associates negatively whereas recoverable and potential slack associate positively with decline. These results challenge the argument that declining firms reduce risk and so hurt their subsequent performance. Instead, the results suggest a cyclical process with positive feedback in which decline and the loss of certain slack resources increases risk which in turn reduces performance and results in further organizational shrinkage. Thus firms facing decline fall into a trap of taking unprofitable risks that ultimately exacerbates the decline. In addition, results relating slack to risk and performance exhibited inconsistent relations across the measures raising questions about the role slack resources play in risk and decline. Previous discussions of this slack implicitly assume all forms of slack have similar influences but our results demonstrate different forms of slack have very different effects.