bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A Process Study of Strategic Change and Industry Evolution – the Case of the Irish Dairy Industry, 1958–74
Authors: Leavy Brian 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYThe research reported in this paper sets out to study empirically the process by which an industry evolves, and to examine how this process is related to the process of strategic change at the level of the firm. In this way it extends the study of strategic change to change processes that involve strategic intention and action at national, industry and firm levels of the social structure. The particular multilevel change process chosen for empirical examination, using a longitudinal‐processual methodology, was the amalgamation process of 1958–74 in the Irish dairy industry. The paper examines the genesis, progression and outcome of this multilevel change process in its full historical context. The empirical analysis generates a descriptive and explanatory model of process which demonstrates the functionality and importance of political and cultural rationalities, alongside economic rationality, in the determination of the direction, pace and outcome of industry evolution. This model, largely induced from the data, also indicates that the Pettigrew (1985) context‐process‐outcome meta‐framework is a more empirically sound and conceptually useful framework within which to study the linked processes of industry evolution and firm level strategic change than the classic structure‐conduct‐performance model (Bain, 1968) in industrial economics. Finally, the analysis provides some useful insight into the synoptic and incremental character of strategic change processes which informs the synoptic‐incremental debate in the strategy literature.
The Importance of Creativity in the Management Field
Authors: Proctor R. A. 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYCreative problem‐solving is an important dimension to managerial activity. Rapidly changing business environments produce problems which managers have not previously encountered. Tried and trusted methods of approaching new problems can meet with failure. The need for creative problem‐solving methods which overcome such difficulties is of paramount importance. There are a number of established creative problem‐solving aids, such as brainstorming, lateral thinking, etc. and a new set of aids which are computer‐assisted. This paper outlines newer developments.
Asset Management Performance and Reputation Building for Large US Firms
Authors: Riahi‐Belkaoui Ahmed , Pavlik Ellen 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYCorporate audiences construct the reputation of firms by interpreting informational signals about the firms from various monitors. Of importance to these parties are signals about asset management. The results of our empirical study of 114 large US firms supported the general hypothesis that corporate audiences construct reputations on the basis of information about firms' asset management performance, specifically using market and accounting signals indicating size of the assets, market assessment of the value of the assets in place, asset turnover and profit margin.
The Entrepreneurial Tendencies of Managers: a Research Note
Authors: Cromie Stanley , Callaghan Ian , Jansen Maarten 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYIn this study associations are sought between certain biographical, family, personality and career variables and the likelihood that managers will develop their own business venture. Results, based on an analysis of questionnaires completed by 194 managers, reveal that ownership of a business by self or parents together with certain personal characteristics predispose managers towards business founding. Contrary to expectations, job and career frustration does not incline managers towards proprietorship.
Patterns of Strategic Change in Health Care: District Health Authorities Respond to AIDS*
Authors: Ferlie Ewan , Bennett Chris 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYThe literature on strategic change is based mostly on research in the private sector. This paper suggests that change in public sector organizations is equally worthy of study and can offer novel insights. Findings from research into the development of services for HIV/AIDS in NHS health districts are used to illustrate six generic themes in strategic change processes. The first theme concerns the role of context in potentiating change, and in promoting a diverse response in different localities despite unifying government guidelines. A second theme introduces the initiators of change, the ‘product champions’, a less homogeneous group than is sometimes suggested. Although personal status, energy and pro‐activity were shared characteristics, individuals differed in style and methods used to attain goals. Theme three highlights social movements as mediators of change. Consumerism has affected both private and public sector industry, but for HIV/AIDS the process has been particularly visible. The mobilising role of crisis comes next. A three phase model is suggested, linking ‘crisis‐as‐threat’ and ‘crisis‐as‐opportunity’ theories. A fifth theme concerns changes in organizational culture provoked by HIV/AIDS, and the role played by symbolism ‐ often unpredictable and not easily manipulated by management. The last theme is organizational learning; how learning about HIV/AIDS diffused through the districts, and how well learning generalizes to other issues. In conclusion, it is argued that the study of processes of change in a public sector organization can contribute to general models of strategic change and help to develop organizational theory.
French and British Top Managers' Understanding of the Structure and the Dynamics of Their Industries: a Cognitive Analysis and Comparison
Authors: Calori Roland , Johnson Gerry , Sarnin Philippe 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYThis paper presents the findings of an exploratory study of the content of and differences between managerial frames of references with regard to the structure and dynamics of competitive environments. These frames of references are examined and compared at both the industry level and the country level; and the paper shows the influences of both industry and institutional structures and national culture on managerial thinking. It therefore contributes to the field of comparative management, as well as the growing interest in cognitive analysis in the field of management. The study is particularly significant since (a) its context is the rapidly changing industry environment of Europe, and (b) the managers are all involved in the development of strategies for their firms. Thirty three top managers (16 English and 17 French) were interviewed in four industries (brewing, car manufacturing, retail banking and book publishing) on their understanding of their industry and the strategy of their company. Content analysis of the transcribed interviews surfaces cognitive constructs which facilitate the identification of similarities and differences between managers, (a) within industries, (b) across industries, (c) within countries, (d) between countries and (e) between countries within the different industries. The analysis also provides means whereby the constructs can be represented in the form of cognitive maps.
Centres of Excellence? Assessment and Development Centres, Managerial Competence, and Human Resource Strategies
Authors: Iles Paul 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYThe use of assessment centres for the selection of staff and for the identification of long‐term potential seems to be growing in popularity. The paper reviews research on their predictive validity and fairness and explores some reservations revealed by recent research in relation to such areas as construct and content validity, the processes of assessor decision‐making, the roles of exercises and criteria and the value of the assessors' conference. Increasingly, assessment centres have been also used for the purpose of diagnosing development needs, and the paper reviews recent empirical research on the effects of such ‘development centres’. More recently assessment and development centres have come to play a significant role in managing strategic change and in supporting programmes of culture change. This paper examines two recent case studies which illustrate the key roles that assessment and development centres may play as part of an organization's overall human resource strategy.
Competition Between Banks and Building Societies in the Retailing of Financial Services
Authors: McGoldrick Peter J. , Greenland Steven J. 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYWithin the financial services sector there has been diversification on a vast scale, with varying degrees of success. Financial services are increasingly viewed as products, the various branch networks as channels of distribution. The competition between banks and building societies has become a major battleground in the war for consumers' financial services expenditure. Both types of organization have a strong presence in the high street and have become major users of media advertising and other marketing weaponry. Historically, they have both enjoyed strong but different forms of relationship with their customers; these differences are rapidly diminishing as each invades the other's trading territory. This paper presents results from a study of bank‐building society competition, illustrating the attributes and dimensions upon which consumers tend to base their choices. Financial services retailers are urged to base their marketing strategies upon a clear understanding of consumer needs and motives, not upon ‘me‐too’ responses to competitors' moves. As many product retailers have discovered to their cost, heavy marketing expenditure cannot be a substitute for a well founded retail marketing strategy.
Research Notes on the Best British Companies: a Peer Evaluation of Britain's Leading Firms
Authors: Saunders John , Brown Michael , Laverick Stuart 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYThe assessment of company performance is one of the major dilemmas facing the strategic researcher. This paper reviews the alternative methods available, then uses one approach, peer assessment, to produce a guide to British company performance. Britain's best companies are identified and their profiles are examined. Their declared financial strengths and relative weaknesses in marketing and innovation are identified.
Towards an Objective Classification Scheme for Organizational Task Environments
Authors: Rasheed Abdul M. A. , Prescot John E. 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYThis study replicates, refines, cross‐validates and simplifies a scheme of operationalization and measurement of environmental dimensions proposed by Dess and Beard (1984). Employing a sample of 60 industries and data over a 16‐year period, this study found considerable support for the viability of the three dimensions of munificence, dynamism and complexity. The data intensive and computationally complex operationalization scheme was simplified using a discriminant analysis approach and the discriminant functions were cross‐validated using an alternate data set.
The Impact of Environmental Change on the Characteristics of Top management Teams*
Authors: Üsdiken Behlül 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYThe study reported in this paper examined the impact of environmental change on the background characteristics of top management teams. The banking sector in Turkey provided the setting for the study. Starting with a package of economic policy decisions put into effect in January 1980, the banking sector experienced a shift from a highly stable and regulated industry into one characterized by change, and at times, a highly turbulent setting. Twenty of the 28 banks that existed throughout the 1975–1986 period constituted the sample for the study. The study focussed on entire management teams, and data were collected on all incumbents (380 in total) of general manager or assistant general manager positions in these banks in the 1975–1986 period. Three biographical background variables, operationalized at the top‐management team level, were included in the analyses: age, length of time of inside service and formal education. The results provided support for the expectation that changes in environmental context affect organizational choices about characteristics of top management teams. The effects of environmental change, however, did not appear to be uniform across all variables included in the study. Size effects were also found for the average age of management teams, showing that changes in the predicted direction were more common among smaller organizations. Changes in large banks appeared to lag behind the more immediate response of smaller banks.
Age, Experience and Corporate Synergy: When Are They Sources of Business Unit Advantage?
Authors: Williamson Peter J. , Verdin Paul J. 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYWhen do older businesses have a competitive advantage over new startups? When do the corporate subsidiaries have advantages over independent firms? This paper tackles these questions by comparing the performance of businesses classified according to age and affiliation in the game of competitive survival. The research is based on an analysis of 377,000 United States business units between 1978 and 1984. Our results suggest that age confers substantial advantages in competitive environments where intangible assets, accumulated through experience, are critical to success. These include industries with high‐labour intensity, high skill levels and heavy reliance on push marketing. For other industries, e.g., where competitive advantage can be built through superior service or media hype, age advantage is generally much more limited. Affiliation with a corporate group, meanwhile, allows young businesses to overcome some of their handicap by ‘borrowing’ experience through their parent. Once a business is well established, however, affiliation is immaterial.
Strategy and Human Resource Management Integration in Fast Growth Versus Other Mid‐sized Firms1
Authors: Buller Paul F. , Napier Nancy K. 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYThe nature and integration of strategy and human resource management practices, and the effects of such integration on firm performance were examined in two groups of mid‐sized flrms: fast‐growth firms and a random sample of similar sized mature firms. The results indicated that the fast‐growth firms emphasized fewer human resource activities and experienced a lower degree of strategy‐human resource integration than the mature firms. Some evidence was found that the relation between the level of integration and firm performance was moderated by the organization's stage of development.
Patterns in Cross Shopping for Groceries and their Implications for Co‐operation in Retail Location
Authors: Davies Gary 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYOne determinant of the success of a retail outlet is its location. The location strategies adopted by many retailers of convenience products, including those marketing groceries, have been based upon the principle of siting stores away from competition. Recent moves by leading grocery retailers to develop out of town and other sites jointly, where they would trade side by side, mean that methods are needed to appraise the selection of location partners to supplement or replace traditional, spatial analyses. A method based on similarity of image and cross‐shopping behaviour is proposed and tested on two substantial data bases. A concept, drawn from theory on brand switching, that customers would treat outlets seen as similar in a similar way, is found not to apply to source switching. Source switching behaviour is found instead to vary with the source itself, according to two distinct patterns. In one, shoppers cross shop more to retailers perceived to be similar; in the other, shoppers cross shop more to retailers perceived to be different. The strategies currently adopted by four grocery retailers in joint site development are appraised against the model of source switching that can be defined from these patterns. Some location alliances are predicted to be potentially more valuable to one partner than another both in the short and long term. The anomalies identified in the selection of location partners are analysed by reference to concepts drawn from the literature on co‐operation. Two different types of relationship exist between the various retail partners; a longer term alliance at each site and shorter co‐operation between head offices. It is suggested that the nature of the second could prejudice the outcome of the first.
Managerial Career Development Programmes: Effectiveness, Availability and Acceptability
Authors: Iles Paul , Mabey Christopher 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYThough there have been many prescriptive accounts of career development procedures and techniques, there has been little systematic research into how extensive their use is in Britain, how effective they are, or how participants in such programmes react to them. Following a review of the availability, effectiveness, and acceptability of such programmes, we report the results of a survey of 120 British managers undertaking a distance‐learning Master of Business Administration programme. In particular, findings are presented concerning the availability and usage of a range of such procedures and respondents' reactions to them in terms of their perceived fairness and usefulness for personal, organizational and career development. These studies help to identify features that characterize well‐received career development programmes.
The Adjustment of Japanese Expatriates to Living and Working in Britain
Authors: Nicholson Nigel , Imaizumi Ayako 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYNinety‐one Japanese managers and professionals on international assignments in the London offices of trading houses and insurance companies responded to a wide‐ranging survey on work and non‐work adjustment. Dependent variables included standardized measures of adjustment, well‐being, mental health and modes of adjustment (personal change and role innovation). In comparisons with samples from other studies, the expatriates experienced lower work well‐being and mental health, and, compared with a sample of United Kingdom domestic job changers, engaged in less role innovation but recorded higher personal change, especially in their values. Predictor variables, including predeparture experience, family factors, self‐rated job performance, self‐efficacy, work‐non‐work spillover, social interaction and perceived company purpose in the assignment, were found to be differentially related to outcome measures. A new method of retrospectively recording changes in feelings over time in the work and non‐work domains was also applied, supplying tentative evidence for a negative shift in affect on arrival, especially in the non‐work domain, and a further fall after arrival, especially in the work domain. In most cases, this latter dip was followed by a recovery, providing some evidence in favour of the U‐curve hypothesis. Implications for theory and practice are reviewed.
Performance Related Pay in Practice: A Critical Perspective1
Authors: Procter Stephen , McArdle Louise , Hassard John , Rowlinson Michael 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYThis paper discusses the use of performance related pay (PRP) as a means of control over the relationship between effort and reward. Taking a critical perspective, it describes how the implementation of PRP in a UK‐based electronics company has been used as a device to remove trade union influence in wage‐setting arrangements and to effect changes in employee behaviour. The opinions of supervisors, line managers, personnel managers and shop‐floor staff are discussed and the implications for management control are assessed. The paper concludes that from management's perspective the PRP system appears to have been a success, for it has in some cases ‘commercialized’ the relationship between effort and reward, and has pre‐empted expressions of employee resistance.
Organizational Form, Ownership Structure and Corporate Performance: A Contextual Empirical Analysis of UK Companies1
Authors: Ezzamel Mahmoud , Watson Robert 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYThis paper contributes to the literature on organizational form and performance (the performance‐conduct paradigm) by examining the impact of two sets of variables that have not been examined previously: measures of environmental uncertainty and alternative forms of controlling separation of ownership from control. The paper first examines the extent to which contextual variables such as perceived environmental uncertainty and age of the organizational form moderate the relationship between organizational form and corporate performance. Next, the paper extends the analysis by examining the possible effects of ownership and control structures on performance. Measures suggested by agency theory, such as conventional ownership proxies (i.e. proportion of shares held by identifiable, homogenous groups), the proportion of non‐executive board members and Fama and Jensen's concept of separation of decision management from decision control are used in the analysis. The results indicate that these measures have direct impact on corporate performance in their own right, though the main impact is indirect through interactions with organizational form variables.
Accounting and Conceptions of Control in the American Corporation1
Authors: Hogler Raymond L. , Hunt Herbert G. 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYThis study examines three conceptions of how capitalist firms are organized and the relationship between accounting, organization, and control. The first conceptions is based on neoclassical economic theories, and its central premise is the efficacy of contracts. The second model emphasizes Marxian ideas of class conflict and exploitation. Its organizational premise rests on hierarchy and accumulation. The third concept is sociological. Its core assumption is that firms act to create ‘organizational fields’ which assure their continued survival. Each of these three perspectives relies on accounting as a means of control. The paper argues that there is an institutional connection between accounting and corporate control; the connection is demonstrated by the way in which accounting legitimizes control through objectivity, methodology, and professionalism. Regardless of how control is theoretically conceived, accounting is a crucial aspect of control within the modern economic organization.
Management Control Systems: One View of Components and Their Interdependence1
Authors: Rotch William 
Published: March 2005

SUMMARYProfessor Robert Anthony's statement that ‘control is the process of assuring that the organization does what management wants done’ implies that systems for management control must be broadly conceived. This paper takes the view that a comprehensive view of control systems should include at least five components: performance measurement, strategy, organization structure, direction and motivation. Each of these components reflects management choices, but those choices have implications for the other components. A strategy of dynamic new product development for example, requires a flexible structure, and should have performance measures that relate to the structure and the desired achievements for that strategy. As what is measured signals what is important, the measures provide direction and the basis for incentives and rewards. The interdependence of the components is seen as a key factor in control system design. When the components support each other, the interdependence is a source of strength; conflict or even absence of support among the components can be a source of weakness. This paper describes the components and illustrates ways in which the design of control systems needs to recognize their interdependence. The process of system implementation is also reviewed, as process choices can be independent of design choices. The framework is related to prior research and writing, showing that the components are themselves complex and have been the focus of extensive study. Finally, several teaching cases are decribed in order to show how the design issues may appear in practice and how the framework can be used to help teach management control systems.