bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
JAPANESE AND BRITISH MANAGERIAL COLLEAGUES—HOW THEY VIEW EACH OTHER
Authors: Everett J. E. , Stening B. W. 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTThe mutual perceptions were obtained of 113 Japanese and 100 British managers working in the London offices of 18 Japanese companies. Eighteen semantic differential items were used to permit each respondent to report his auto stereotype of his own nationality of manager, his hetero stereotype of the other nationality, and his meta stereotype (his opinion as to how they would assess his own group). The degree of agreement between the auto stereotype of each group and the hetero stereotype held of it by the other group is discussed, and the accuracy of the meta stereotypes is examined. It is also shown that the 18 semantic items can be reduced to 3 principal components which, after rotation, are consistent in meaning between the two nationalities. The three rotated factors are interpretable as ‘approval’, ‘open style’ and ‘functional’. The factors permit a more concise comparison of the stereotypes.
OBSTACLES TO STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION IN A NATIONALIZED INDUSTRY[1]
Authors: Wernham Roy 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTImplementation of policy or strategy in the public sector has attracted a growing interest in the U.S.A. (Bardach, 1977; Derthick, 1972; Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973) and more recently in the U.K. (Dunsire, 1978; Levitt, 1980; S.S.R.C., 1979). the emphasis in this stream of work is on centre‐periphery relationships and their respective uses of power and authority and on interorganizational relationships. This emphasis probably stems from the overt independence of local Government and some other public bodies from central Government in their appointment, composition, manner of carrying out their duties and, in resource terms, raising revenue. In large ‘commercial’ organizations, centre‐periphery relations have tended to be viewed more in terms of the formal organizational structure and have attracted less research attention.A complementary but distinct stream of research, offering many parallels and useful insights into management science/O.R. implementation, has grown from the early work of Churchman and Scheinblatt (1965) ‐ for example Schultz and Slevin (1975), Doktor et al. (1979). This second stream concentrates more on technical, operational aspects and largely ignores power relations which are assumed to correspond closely to the formal organization structure. A third stream of research has emerged from the strategic management literature (Ansoff, 1979; Anthony, 1965; Lewin, 1981; Steiner and Miner, 1977). Here the emphasis has been on budgeting and control though the scope has broadened to embrace e.g. considerations of power. A fourth related contributor, drawn on mainly by the policy and strategy streams and largely ignored in the public policy literature, is the organizational behaviour literature with its work on the exercise of power in organizations (for example, Cyert and March, 1963; Mumford and Pettigrew, 1975).In the study to be described here, which predates privatization, insights have been drawn from, and relationships established between, each of these streams of work, none of which has yet produced a comprehensive theory of implementation; regretably it remains beyond the scope of this study to do so. Hypotheses have emerged from the study which are offered as a contribution to theory buiding in implementation. It is hoped that they, in combination with findings from other research, will bring nearer the goal of a comprehensive theory of implementation as a guide to planning and action applicable to both the public and private sectors.While there have been some empirical studies of strategy formulation, little field research has been undertaken on implementation (Bardach, 1977; Hofer, 1976; Schultz and Slevin, 1975).
SOME CORRELATES OF DISCRETION FOR CHARTERED SURVEYORS
Authors: Dickson John W. 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTThe discretion of professionals in small organizational practices was examined. This research identified three types of discretion: (1) discretion over clients; (2) discretion over the choice and sequence of tasks; (3) discretion over task rules and procedures. the first two forms of discretion are associated with high performance and job satisfaction. Discretion over rules and procedures in tasks (contrary to the job design literature) is not associated with satisfaction or performance, and is positively associated with role conflict and role ambiguity. Organization size reduces discretion over clients, but not over tasks. Reduced discretion over clients in turn is associated with low ability to attract work.
ORGANIZATION DESIGN AND THE LIFE‐CYCLES OF PRODUCTS [1]
Authors: Donaldson Lex 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a model which elaborates the relationship between organization design and the product life‐cycle. Consideration is given to the structural implications of corporations which have multiple products at differing phases in their life‐cycles. This involves a theoretical synthesis of work on P.L.C. with that on degree of product diversification.
ENVIRONMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS AND ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY
Authors: Dastmalchian Ali 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTThis article is primarily concerned with exploring the relationships between organizational climate and characteristics of organizational environments. Environmental characteristics include dependencies, competition and uncertainty. In addition, the relationship of climate and environments with dimensions of organizational structure and size are examined. Using data from 15 industrial organizations in Britain, the results have shown that different environmental characteristics have different associations with organizational climate. Also, the relationships between organizational environments and climate are not similar to those found between environments and structure. It is suggested that the creation of appropriate climates and structural design as responses to environmental pressures may be considered as complementary strategies in an attempt to maintain administrative control. The results, therefore, provide support for the suggestion that, in order to improve our understanding of the dynamics of organizational climate, characteristics of organizational environments should be incorporated into future research designs.
INTRODUCING MARKET FORCES INTO MANAGERIAL DECISION‐MAKING IN CHINESE INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISES
Authors: Henley John S. , Nyaw Mee Kau 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on the fundamental changes in the management of state enterprises that are taking place in China. Specifically, we discuss the expansion of enterprise autonomy and changes in the managerial decision‐making structure. The genesis of the reform programme is traced back to inefficiencies caused by the over‐centralized state planning system which reduced enterprise management to little more than an administrative function dominated by the Party secretary. As a consequence, managerial and technical cadres became demoralized and the growth of staff functions such as accounting, marketing and personnel management was stunted. From a series of experiments launched in 1978 has grown the realization that tinkering around with the state planning apparatus is insufficient to stimulate entrepreneurship and vigorous industrial expansion. Accordingly, reform has been launched on a broad front both within the state apparatus, in an endeavour to roll back external constraints on enterprise, and within the enterprise itself, by seeking to provide powerful incentives both to managerial cadres and workers through a system stressing individual responsibility and rewards commensurate with results. A number of severe constraints on the reform programme are analysed, in particular, the changing balance of power within the enterprise between the factory director, the Party secretary, the workers’congress and the trade union. Contradictions exist within the new structure of decision‐making but, given a period of political stability and sustained economic growth, there should be sufficient surplus to mollify discontent and stifle those who refuse to give up their belief in the virtues of having‘politics in command’of the industrial enterprise.
MANAGERS’ PROTOTYPES OF FINANCIAL TERMS
Authors: Walton Eric J. 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTLike most experience, people endow organizations with meaning. Meaninggiving has been explained as a categorization process of matching stimuli against prototypes. This study explores the applicability of such a view to organizations by focusing on a central component of the perspective ‐ prototypes. A phenomenological design is used to uncover the content of organizational prototypes. Data collected from a sample of managers in the financial industry demonstrate the utility of the prototype notion, indicating that further exploration is warranted of how organizations are categorized.
THE MANAGEMENT OF NEW OFFICE TECHNOLOGY: CHOICE, CONTROL AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE IN THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY
Authors: Storey John 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTAmongst the growing literature on the technical and social aspects of microelectronics in work organizations, a considerable portion has direct or indirect pertinence to the question of managerial practice. That segment of the literature relating to new office technology is perhaps especially conscious of this angle — not least because this sphere of innovation has a clear bearing on the managerial role itself.Drawing both on theoretical issues extracted from this literature, and on empirical studies in three insurance companies, it is argued that while control is of crucial long‐term importance in shaping the general direction of organizational change using new technology, there are sound sociological reasons why the path which is beaten out in that direction remains a far from straight one. Moreover, while differences in organizational practice between these organizations are found to exist, these appear to be associated only indirectly with the diverse levels of technological sophistication.
DISSIMILAR STRUCTURAL AND CONTROL PROFILES OF EDUCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL ORGANIZATIONS[1]
Authors: Koberg Christine S. 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTThis article contrasts the characteristic structural and control profiles of educational organizations with those of technical organizations. A group of primary and secondary schools and the operating units of an industrial firm differed both in structural variables and in three activities of control: buffering, smoothing, and forecasting. the article suggests that educational organizations emphasize modes of control that operate on components peripheral rather than central to the organization's technical core.
THE LEARNING STYLES QUESTIONNAIRE: AN ALTERNATIVE TO KOLB'S INVENTORY?
Authors: Allinson Christopher W. , Hayes John 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTAn important consideration in the design of educational programmes is the learning style of students. In the field of management education, Kolb's theory of learning styles has received particular attention. Research has shown, however, that his associated measure, the Learning Style Inventory (LSI), may be of doubtful utility. the present study of British and overseas managers examines the measurement properties of one alternative, Honey and Mumford's Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ). the results, calling into question Kolb's theory itself, suggest that the LSQ may be preferred to the LSI on account of the distribution of its scores, its temporal stability and its construct and face validity. Its predictive validity, however, remains in doubt.
ENVIRONMENTAL STRUCTURE AND THEORIES OF STRATEGIC CHOICE
Authors: Whittington R. 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTThis article argues that the prevailing dichotomization of organizational studies into voluntarist and deterministic orientations is too simple, and that this simplicity has dangerous consequences for accounts of strategic choice. Determinism has been equated exclusively with the operation of environmental constraint, with the implication that the agency necessary for strategic choice can be secured simply by the removal of this constraint. This focus on external constraint has obscured the continuing influence of ‘action determinist’ positions, in which action is determined by mechanisms internal to the actor him/herself. This article argues that many recent theorists of strategic choice have relied too much on the interpretive voluntarist dissolution of environmental structure and neglected to safeguard themselves from the action determinism latent in the Carnegie tradition. the article proposes an alternative Realist account that, by contrast with interpretive voluntarism, incorporates environmental structure as an essential precondition to actors’ internal and external capacities for strategic choice.
THE SELF‐FULFILLING PROPHECY LEADER: ACHIEVING THE METHARME EFFECT
Authors: FIELD R. H. G. 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTSelf‐Altering Prophecies are expectations by a source person that when communicated lead to behaviours of a target person that would not have occurred had the prophecy not been made. When the prophecy is confirmed it is called a Self‐Fulfilling Prophechy (SFP), when it is disconfirmed it is named a Self‐Defeating Prophecy (SDP). The most well‐known example of an SFP is probably that of Pygmalion, a sculptor who carved an ivory statue of a woman so beautiful that his treating it as it were alive caused it be become so. The living statue was named Galatea, and she became the wife of Pygmalion. The overall conclusion of literature reviews of the SFP in education is that an SFP effect undeniably exists. In management contexts there is some evidence that the SFP effect exists. In this article an SFP leader model is presented that may be prescriptively used by leaders in organizations to produce a group social situation of high expectations. Members of the group may then subsequently act with positive expectations towards others in the organization to create a new and energized organizational climate and culture. This change is named the Metharme effect, after the daughter of Pygmalion and Galatea.
MANAGERIAL COGNITION: A MISSING LINK IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT RESEARCH
Authors: Stubbart Charles I. 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTThis article explores the linkages between cognitive science and strategic management research. It begins by noting that Schendel and Hofer, in their classic work Strategic Management: A New View of Business Policy and Planning, implicitly assumed a cognitive basis for much of the strategy‐making process but did little to systematize a cognitive approach. Next, the article examines the foundations of modern cognitive science. Several areas of recent research that are particularly relevant to strategic thinking are reviewed. The article concludes with a call for a more explicit cognitive emphasis in strategic management.
ORGANIZATIONAL CONTROL: AN EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE*
Authors: Das T. K. 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTMuch of the literature on organizational control processes has traditionally been based on concepts of cybernetics, power, and authority. This article explores an alternative way of looking at the control phenomenon by introducing the idea of an evolutionary ‘controlling’ cycle. This idea is derived by modifying the basic organizing cycle (enactment, selection, retention) to a hierarchical form, with two distinct components. The model is then applied to understand the basic control modes informing markets, bureaucracies and clans. The article concludes with some comments on the likely future directions of the bureaucratic mode of organizational control.
DEFICIENCIES AND THE PERPETUATION OF POWER: LATENT FUNCTIONS IN MANAGEMENT APPRAISAL
Authors: Barlow Graham 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTInstitutionalized procedures for management appraisal are considered to be necessary and appropriate devices which contribute to and are supported by rational‐legal ideologies of organization. The operation of such appraisal systems, however, is frequently regarded as deficient.This article discusses three inter‐related propositions. They are that:1. the rational‐legal procedures of appraisal systems contradict the social processes by means of which dominant organizational power groups emerge, cohere and are perpetuated;2. management appraisal systems consequently come to operate in ways which manifestly are consistent with a rational‐legal ideology, but which do not constrain the prerogatives of members of dominant power groups to define reality and manage affairs in their own interests; and that3. this inconsistency fulfils a latent function of perpetuating deficiency in the operation of management appraisal systems.
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF STRATEGIC DECISIONS
Authors: Schilit Warren Keith 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTThis study examines the process of upward influence in a variety of strategic decisions. The study provides a list of categories and supporting data for the agents, methods, perceived outcomes, and perceived causes of success and failure of upward influence interactions that impact upon the strategic decision‐making process in organizations. The results suggest that: (a) middle‐level managers (MLMs) deal directly with their superiors and use rational or persuasive arguments in their upward influence interactions in strategic decisions; (2) MLMs are very successful in their influence interactions and attribute their successes to internal causes; (3) MLMs and their superiors view the influence episode similarly; and (4) upward influence activity in strategic decisions is quite similar to upward influence activity in non‐strategic decisions. The study also examines individual and organizational factors that are associated with success and failure in influence activity in strategic decision‐making.
THE STRATEGIC CONTINGENCIES THEORY OF POWER: MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES
Authors: Saunders Carol Stoak 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTThe strategic contingencies theory of power proposed by Hickson et al. (1971) has been tested and compared to an alternative perspective. In the alternative perspective, the theory has been modified to include control of strategic contingencies as a moderating variable in the relationships between power and its determinants. A field study, using questionnaire and interview responses of 54 administrators at five universities, partially supports the modified theory.
STRATEGIC DECISIONS MADE BY TOP EXECUTIVES AND MIDDLE MANAGERS WITH DATA AND PROCESS DOMINANT STYLES
Authors: Nutt Paul C. 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTThe influence of a manager's decision style in strategic decision‐making is explored using simulations. The Jungian style classification is extended to identify ‘data and process dominant’ styles of decision‐making. Managers with process dominant styles can use several types of data and managers with data dominant styles can apply various modes of data processing. Both the expanded and the traditional definitions of style are used as factors to explain how 79 top executives and 89 middle managers rated project simulations. Decision style is found to be a key factor in explaining the likelihood of taking strategic action and the risk seen in this action. Decisions made by top executives are more style dependent than those of middle managers. The extended definition of style reveals more about the preferences of top executives than traditional style categories.
ADOPTION, DISCONTINUATION AND RETENTION OF A CAPITAL GOOD INNOVATION
Authors: Mascarenhas Briance 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTAn analysis of post‐innovation adoption behaviour revealed that over a third of adopters subsequently discontinued a capital good innovation. Innovation non‐adopters, discontinuers, and retainers exhibited sharp differences with respect to size, age, and multinationality. Paradoxically, while favourable economic conditions discouraged innovation adoption, organizations that adopted the innovation under these conditions were more likely to retain it.
DETERMINANTS OF STRATEGIC PLANNING SYSTEMS IN LARGE ORGANIZATIONS: A CONTINGENCY APPROACH*
Authors: Kukalis Sal 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTThis study investigates the relationship among four design parameters of planning systems and five different firm and environmental characteristics. The impact of this multivariate relationship on organizational effectiveness is then examined using a sample of 115 large manufacturing firms. The findings show general support for the proposition that, in order to be effective, a strategic planning system should be designed in such a way that the specific situational setting of the firm is reflected in the design. The analysis also indicates that firms adopt a more flexible planning system ‐ captured here by two key variables, planning horizon, and frequency of plan reviews ‐ as the level of environmental complexity increases. Implications for future research are discussed.
CHAMPIONS OF CHANGE AND STRATEGIC SHIFTS: THE ROLE OF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CHANGE ADVOCATES*
Authors: Ginsberg Ari , Abrahamson Eric 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTChange advocates who participate in the process of strategy‐making can play an important role in enabling organizational adaptation. To examine the nature of this role, this article investigates the influence on strategic shifts of two such participants ‐ new members of the top management team and management consultants. Empirical findings suggest that managers see these two types of change agents as having two different kinds of influence on strategic shifts. Specifically, the change agent role of management consultants is viewed as one that creates pressure for change by helping to shape new managerial perspectives of the environment. In contrast, the change agent role of new members of the top management team is viewed as one that counteracts inertial forces that may block the implementation of change. These results suggest that management consultants may be much more useful in stimulating changes in the ways executives think about their environment than they are in implementing radical strategic changes. To overcome institutional resistance to extreme strategic shifts, organizations may need to resort to stronger political and symbolic actions, such as promoting or hiring new top executives in key leadership roles.
A LONGITUDINAL COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TWO JOINT VENTURES
Authors: Kent David H. , Hellriegel Don 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTA longitudinal comparative study of two joint ventures in the oil transportation industry illustrates the importance of organizational leadership, networking, and proactive strategies in the face of an increasingly hostile operating environment. Secondarily, this article represents a methodological approach based on grounded theory that effectively examines the complexities associated with large‐scale organizational dynamics.
A TEST OF PERFORMANCE SIMILARITY AMONG STRATEGIC GROUP MEMBERS IN CONFORMING AND NON‐CONFORMING INDUSTRY STRUCTURES
Authors: Lawless Michael W. , Tegarden Linda Finch 
Published: May 2007

ABSTRACTEmpirical tests have produced mixed support for a membership‐performance link in strategic groups, perhaps due to incomplete treatment of industry forces. We argue that strategic group concept is more useful for explaining performance differences among firms in some industries (where conditions favour conformity in firm conduct) than others. Using three industry structure constructs as criteria, 47 four‐digit SIC industries are classified into ‘conforming’ or ‘non‐conforming’ industry samples. Firms are then clustered into strategic groups in a separate treatment for each sample. Performance differences among groups are tested under conforming and non‐conforming industry conditions. Tests confirm membership effects on ROA and ROE are significantly stronger in ‘conforming’ industries, where stronger regression relationships between conduct variables and performance also obtain.