bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Application of Complexity Theory to Organization Science
Authors: Lewin Arie Y. 
Published: October 2008

This special issue originated with the 1996 Organization Science Winter Conference (OSWC), which set out to explore the implications of the science of complexity for the field of organization studies. Following the OSWC, a formal program organized by the Organization Science section of INFORMS took place in Atlanta. The vast potential for complexity theory to inform and transform research in organization studies became evident from the discussions of 22 papers that were presented at that meeting. In response to the call for papers issued after the Atlanta meeting, 56 papers were submitted to Organization Science, of which seven make up this issue. Interest in complexity has grown dramatically since the 1996 OSWC first explored this idea. The purpose of this special issue is not to declare that a new era in organization studies and strategic management is at hand, but to explore the boundaries and links between the science of complexity—with its origin in evolution and biology—and the field of strategy and organization. The issue explores the implications of complexity research for organization studies in the context of new ways of modeling dynamic, nonlinear complex systems for advancing theoretical and empirical research in organization studies (e.g., theorizing within coevolutionary frameworks, decomposition of nested phenomena, multidirectional causalities).
Organizations as Adaptive Systems in Complex Environments: The Case of China
Authors: Boisot Max , Child John 
Published: October 2008

This paper treats organizations as adaptive systems that have to match the complexity of their environments. The nature of this complexity is analyzed by linking an institutional Information-Space (I-Space) framework to the work of complexity theorists. The I-Space framework identifies the codification, abstraction, and diffusion of information as cultural attributes. Codification involves the assignment of data to categories, thus giving them form. Abstraction involves a reduction in the number of categories to which data needs to be assigned for a phenomenon to be apprehended. Information is diffused through populations of data-processing agents, thus constituting the diffusion dimension. Complexity theorists have identified the stability and structure of algorithmic information complexity in a way that corresponds to levels of codification and abstraction. Their identification of system parts and the richness of cross-coupling draws attention to the fabric of information diffusion. We discuss two modes of adaptation to complex environments: complexity reduction and complexity absorption. Complexity reduction entails getting to understand the complexity and acting on it directly, including attempts at environmental enactment. Complexity absorption entails creating options and risk-hedging strategies, often through alliances.The analysis, and its practical utility, is illustrated with reference to China, the world's largest social system. Historical factors have shaped the nature of complexity in China, giving it very different characteristics than those typical of Western industrial countries. Its organizations and other social units have correspondingly handled this complexity through a strategy of absorption rather than the reduction strategy characteristic of Western societies. Western firms operating in China therefore face a choice between maintaining their norms of complexity reduction or adopting a strategy of complexity absorption that is more consistent with Chinese culture. The specifics of these policy alternatives are explored, together with their advantages and disadvantages.The paper concludes with the outlines of a possible agenda for future research, focusing on the investigation of complexity-handling modes and the contingencies which may bear upon the choice between them.
Organizational Learning: The Contributing Processes and the Literatures
Authors: Huber George P. 
Published: October 2008

This paper differs from previous examinations of organizational learning in that it is broader in scope and more evaluative of the literatures. Four constructs related to organizational learning (knowledge acquisition, information distribution, information interpretation, and organizational memory) are articulated, and the literatures related to each are described and critiqued. The literature on knowledge acquisition is voluminous and multi-faceted, and so the knowledge acquisition construct is portrayed here as consisting of five subconstructs or subprocesses: (1) drawing on knowledge available at the organization's birth, (2) learning from experience, (3) learning by observing other organizations, (4) grafting on to itself components that possess knowledge needed but not possessed by the organization, and (5) noticing or searching for information about the organization's environment and performance. Examination of the related literatures indicates that much has been learned about learning from experience, but also that there is a lack of cumulative work and a lack of integration of work from different research groups. Similarly, much has been learned about organizational search, but there is a lack of conceptual work, and there is a lack of both cumulative work and syntheses with which to create a more mature literature. Congenital learning, vicarious learning, and grafting are information acquisition subprocesses about which relatively little has been learned. The literature concerning information distribution is rich and mature, but an aspect of information distribution that is central to an organization's benefitting from its learning, namely how units that possess information and units that need this information can find each other quickly and with a high likelihood, is unexplored. Information interpretation, as an organizational process, rather than an individual process, requires empirical work for further advancement. Organizational memory is much in need of systematic investigation, particularly by those whose special concerns are improving organizational learning and decision making.
Reputation, Learning, and Coordination in Distributed Decision-Making Contexts
Authors: Ching Chee , Holsapple Clyde W. , Whinston Andrew B. 
Published: October 2008

From an organizational perspective, there are many decisions that are not strictly individual. A decision-making process may need to be distributed across multiple participants, each of whom contributes to the final decision by performing one or more tasks. A participant may be a person, a group, a team, or an artifact such as a computerized decision-support system. Computers are routinely used to support individual decision making. However, their potential for supporting distributed decision making is only beginning to be actualized. Further progress in exploring and realizing this potential can benefit greatly from a formal model that accounts for the diverse phenomena that can occur within a distributed decision maker. When considering computer-based support for distributed decision making, the issue of coordinating the multiple participants becomes the central concern. Coordination defines the structural and dynamic patterns of inter-participant relationships in an organization. It has several aspects including planning, control, and review. Planning involves task decomposition, subtask allocation and synthesis. Control indicates mediation, negotiation and execution. And review deals with performance evaluation which will then contribute to organizational learning. Moreover, coordination occurs in a context of concurrent problem-solving tasks where multiple decisions are pending simultaneously. Bits and pieces of these coordination facets have been somewhat supported by existing computer technologies, such as decision-support systems and computer-mediated communication systems. However, systematic study of such support possibilities depends on formal models of distributed decision making as organizing paradigms. In this paper, we present a model of distributed decision making that is particularly concerned with the ongoing coordination among participants in multiple simultaneously active decision processes. Basic outlines of the model are presented as an initial foundation for understanding the possibilities of computer-based support for distributed decision making. The model takes the view that an organization is dynamic in terms of its capacity for improved coordination over time and through experience. It accommodates a bidding perspective as the context for coordination. The use and adjustment of entity reputation offers a means for improved coordination over time, and for capturing the phenomenon of organizational learning.
Demography and Design: Predictors of New Product Team Performance
Authors: Ancona Deborah Gladstein , Caldwell David F. 
Published: October 2008

The increasing reliance on teams in organizations raises the question of how these teams should be formed. Should they be formed completely of engineers or should they include a range of specialists? Should they be made up to people who have long tenure in the organization, or those with a wide range of experience? As teams increasingly get called upon to do more complex tasks and to cross functional boundaries within the organization, conventional wisdom has suggested that teams be composed of more diverse members. This study suggests that the answer may not be so simple. Using 409 individuals from 45 new product teams in five high-technology companies, this study investigates the impact of diversity on team performance. We found that functional and tenure diversity each has its own distinct effects. The greater the functional diversity, the more team members communicated outside the team's boundaries. This communication was with a variety of groups such as marketing, manufacturing, and top management. The more the external communication, the higher the managerial ratings of innovation. Tenure diversity had its impact on internal group dynamics rather than external communications. Tenure diversity is associated with improved task work such as clarifying group goals and setting priorities. In turn, this clarity is associated with high team ratings of overall performance. Yet diversity is not solely positive. While it does produce internal processes and external communications that facilitate performance, it also directly impedes performance. That is, overall the effect of diversity on performance is negative, even though some aspects of group work are enhanced. It may be that for these teams diversity brings more creativity to problem solving and product development, but it impedes implementation because there is less capability for teamwork than there is for homogeneous teams. These research findings suggest that simply changing the structure of teams (i.e. combining representatives of diverse function and tenure) will not improve performance. The team must find a way to garner the positive process effects of diversity and to reduce the negative direct effects. At the team level, greater negotiation and conflict resolution skills may be necessary. At the organization level, the team may need to be protected from external political pressures and rewarded for team, rather than functional, outcomes.
Organizational Innovation and Substandard Performance: When is Necessity the Mother of Innovation?
Authors: Bolton Michele Kremen 
Published: October 2008

This study extends earlier empirical research into organizational decline which has found that substandard performance stimulates innovation in a wide range of manufacturing industries. Using data from 74 U.S. high technology firms, this research investigates the relationship between organizational performance and adoption of an organizational innovation, the decision to join an R&D consortium. The central premise of the study is that a firm's propensity to innovate fluctuates with organizational performance, rather than stemming solely from a firm's inherent characteristics (such as size, structure, leadership, etc.). The study found that substandard performance stimulated early joiners of R&D consortia. More risk-averse, high performing firms were found to be late adopters of R&D consortia. However, the relationship between performance and innovation was somewhat more complex than traditionally envisioned. First, a distinct institutionalization effect occurred as R&D consortia became a commonly accepted method of conducting certain types of R&D projects. While substandard performance was necessary to stimulate the early adopters, over time, institutionalization of R&D consortia occurred, risks associated with adoption were lowered, and later adopters were no longer stimulated solely by substandard performance. Second, an adoption decision was observed to involve more than a single, dichotomous organizational choice, but included both an initial adopt/nonadopt component and a related decision involving the timing of adoption (early/late). The relationship between organizational performance and innovation emerged only when the effects of the initial adoption decision (adopt/nonadopt) were separated from the effects of adoption timing (early/late). The results here point rather strongly to the need to expand inquiry into the decision-making processes of late adopting firms, which are essentially “imitators,” to complement the existing prodigious literature on early adopting, firms, perceived in the traditional literature as “innovators.”
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.
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.
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.
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.