Subjective Perceptions of Organizational Change and Employee Resistance to Change: Direct and Mediated Relationships with Employee Well‐being

Researchers have focused on linking objective measures of change exposure, such as the number of downsizing activities implemented, with employee well‐being. This has meant that less attention has been paid to employees’ subjective experience of change. The authors examine relationships between employees’ perceptions of the extent of change and the frequency of change and insomnia and psychological well‐being. They propose direct and indirect relationships via resistance to change between employees’ subjective experience of change and well‐being. Data were collected from 260 employees from a range of different organizations and industries. Respondents completed surveys at two time points, separated by four months. Results revealed significant indirect relationships between subjective perceptions of change and insomnia and employee well‐being via affective resistance to change at Time 1 and Time 2. In addition, employees’ subjective reports that change was very frequent were initially positively associated with T1 behavioral resistance to change but also were negatively associated with T2 behavioral resistance to change. Discussion focuses on the importance of managing employees’ perceptions of change. Practically, the authors consider the difficult choices that confront managers when seeking to implement and ‘sell’ change within their organization.     

The Role of Project and Organizational Context in Managing High‐tech R&D Projects

High‐tech organizations often struggle to manage different types of R&D projects. Evidence from research and practice suggests that managers frequently categorize and manage projects based on the extent of change triggered in product, process, technology, and market dimensions. However, this can create challenges in high‐tech organizations. This study investigates how high‐tech organizations manage R&D projects based on their learning goals. First, we argue for the benefits of categorizing R&D projects based on the degree of exploration and exploitation learning goals. A qualitative case study from four high‐tech business units involving 10 R&D projects helps understand the different types of projects based on their learning goals. The case study shows that R&D projects in high‐tech organizations typically fall into three categories based on their learning goals: Radical innovation projects, Incremental innovation projects, and Hybrid projects. Second, we iterate between literature and evidence from our qualitative data to theorize how project context and organizational context affect project performance depending on the type of project. The data for the empirical analysis come from a multilevel survey of 110 R&D projects across 34 high‐tech business units. Results show the importance of designing project and organizational context differently for the three types of R&D projects. Collectively, this study offers a new perspective on how to manage high‐tech R&D projects.     

Managing Knowledge Creation in High‐Tech R&D Projects: A Multimethod Study

R&D projects in high‐tech organizations bring together diverse knowledge domains to quickly develop new products and processes. The fast‐paced context of high‐tech organizations makes it challenging to create new knowledge and solve complex problems. Managing these R&D projects requires understanding both the mechanisms and the type of knowledge created to achieve project objectives. This research conducts a two‐phased multimethod study to understand knowledge creation in high‐tech R&D projects. The first phase uses qualitative data to develop a theory on knowledge creation in R&D projects. The second phase involves a survey that collects data from R&D projects to test the theory. Results from the case study find that R&D projects benefit from two types of knowledge – objective and intuitive. The case analyses show that intuitive and objective knowledge creation in high‐tech organizations occurs by creating not only diverse but also psychological safe project teams. The large‐scale survey finds that team diversity positively influences objective knowledge creation while psychological safety affects intuitive knowledge creation. Surprisingly, the results show that team diversity negatively affects intuitive knowledge creation. A post hoc analysis takes a more granular look at diversity and shows that different kinds of diversity have different effects on knowledge creation. This helps to better explain how to manage innovation across boundaries. Finally, the analysis shows that both objective and intuitive knowledge influence R&D project performance. Taken together, these results help explain how to manage innovation across functional boundaries to create knowledge and enhance R&D project performance.      

The Measurement of Subjective Probability: Evaluating the Sensitivity and Accuracy of Various Scales

The RISK of an event generally relates to its expected severity and the perceived probability of its occurrence. In RISK research, however, there is no standard measure for subjective probability estimates. In this study, we compared five commonly used measurement formats—two rating scales, a visual analog scale, and two numeric measures—in terms of their ability to assess subjective probability judgments when objective probabilities are available. We varied the probabilities (low vs. moderate) and severity (low vs. high) of the events to be judged as well as the presentation mode of objective probabilities (sequential presentation of singular events vs. graphical presentation of aggregated information). We employed two complementary goodness‐of‐fit criteria: the correlation between objective and subjective probabilities (sensitivity), and the root mean square deviations of subjective probabilities from objective values (accuracy). The numeric formats generally outperformed all other measures. The severity of events had no effect on the performance. Generally, a rise in probability led to decreases in performance. This effect, however, depended on how the objective probabilities were encoded: pictographs ensured perfect information, which improved goodness of fit for all formats and diminished this negative effect on the performance. Differences in performance between scales are thus caused only in part by characteristics of the scales themselves—they also depend on the process of encoding. Consequently, researchers should take the source of probability information into account before selecting a measure.     

E‐Procurement Infusion and Operational Process Impacts in MRO Procurement: Complementary or Substitutive Effects?

The procurement of maintenance, repair, and operating (MRO) goods has remained a relatively understudied topic in the literature. Though vital cost efficiencies can be extracted from procurement processes through investments in e‐procurement systems, there is little empirical work that addresses how such systems should be deployed within organizations. In this study, we focus on the role of e‐procurement systems in MRO procurement and study two critical aspects of infusion. The first dimension captures the depth of e‐procurement use within the procurement function, while the second dimension depicts the breadth of use. We argue that these two dimensions of e‐procurement use, and their interaction, will be related to the performance of the MRO procurement process. Using survey data from 193 service organizations and structural equation modeling techniques, we show that the two infusion dimensions are significantly associated with improved process performance. Additionally, we show a substantial substitutive effect between the two use dimensions on performance. Our work has significant implications for managers who seek to gain efficiencies by the deployment of Internet‐based technologies within operational processes. Our conceptualization of e‐procurement infusion along two dimensions provides a more fine‐grained analysis of performance benefits accruing from the infusion of information technologies within organizations.     

Investing with Prejudice: the Relationship Between Women's Presence on Company Boards and Objective and Subjective Measures of Company Performance

This paper presents a comprehensive archival examination of FTSE 100 companies in the period 2001–2005, focusing on the relationship between the presence of women on company boards and both accountancy‐based and stock‐based measures of company performance. Consistent with work by Adams, Gupta and Leeth this analysis reveals that there was no relationship between women's presence on boards and ‘objective’ accountancy‐based measures of performance (return on assets, return on equity). However, consistent with ‘glass cliff’ research there was a negative relationship between women's presence on boards and ‘subjective’ stock‐based measures of performance. Companies with male‐only boards enjoyed a valuation premium of 37% relative to firms with a woman on their board. Results support claims that women are found on the boards of companies that are perceived to be performing poorly and that their presence on boards can lead to the devaluation of companies by investors. Yet the findings also indicate that perceptions and investment are not aligned with the underlying realities of company performance.     

Labour Market Flexibility,Human Resource Management and Corporate Performance

Labour market flexibility is often portrayed as a key to the competitive success of the UK and US economies. We surveyed several hundred firms in the UK, and using the resulting data (on over 200 manufacturing firms) this paper investigates the relationships between firms’ use of flexible work practices, human resource systems and industrial relations on the one hand, and corporate performance on the other hand. The results suggest that ‘low‐road’ practices – short‐term contracts, a lack of employer commitment to job security, low levels of training and low levels of human resource sophistication – are negatively correlated with corporate performance. In contrast, it is found that ‘high‐road’ work practices –‘high commitment’ organizations or ‘transformed’ workplaces – are positively correlated with good corporate performance. It is also found that human resource management practices are more likely to contribute to competitive success where they are introduced as a comprehensive package, or ‘bundle’ of practices. Significant interaction effects between human resource systems, trade unions and flexible work practices add further support to the bundling hypothesis.     

Developing Absorptive Capacity Theory for Public Service Organizations: Emerging UK Empirical Evidence

A strong public policy focus on high performance means that utilizing management knowledge effectively is at a premium for UK public service organizations. This study empirically examined two English public agencies to explore the inter‐sectoral transfer of a strategic management model originally developed in the private sector – absorptive capacity – which is one way of conceptualizing an organizational competence in such knowledge mobilization. Two theoretical contributions are made. First, a new absorptive capacity framework for public service organizations is developed which recognizes the participation of public agency project teams during an innovation process proceeding over time with phases of co‐creation, testing, metamorphosis and diffusion. Second, our novel framework modifies an early influential model of absorptive capacity. Counter to this model, we argue that realized absorptive capacity requires agency from skilled and embedded actors to turn ‘curbing routines’ into ‘enabling routines’ in all four stages. Project (middle) managers have flexibility in their roles to seize episodic moments of opportunity to innovate and achieve service delivery goals, and to build absorptive capacity capability. Absorptive capacity capability develops organically over time. Future research directions are discussed.     

Measuring the Performance of Acquisitions: An Empirical Investigation Using Multiple Criteria

The performance of corporate acquisitions is a popular research topic. Researchers have employed various criteria in their attempt to evaluate acquisition performance. This paper replicates and extends a previous study by investigating the comparability of the three most widely used measures of acquisition performance, namely accounting‐based measures, cumulative abnormal returns and managers' subjective assessments, in a non‐Anglo Saxon setting. Empirical testing is based on a sample of 50 domestic acquisitions carried out by Greek firms. Overall, results from the three measures indicate failure rates from 50% to 60%. However, the most impressive finding stems from the comparison (correlation analysis) of the alternative measures. Accounting‐based measures are positively correlated to managers' subjective assessments. Contrarily, cumulative abnormal returns are not correlated to either accounting‐based measures or managers' subjective assessments. This lack of statistically significant relationships between the performance criteria may provide a plausible basis for explaining some of the contradictory results often reported in the mergers and acquisitions literature. In light of these findings, we discuss their implications for both theory and practice and suggest ideas for future research.     

Managing Supply Chain Execution: Monitoring Timeliness and Correctness via Individualized Trace Data

Improvements in information technologies provide new opportunities to control and improve business processes based on real‐time performance data. A class of data we call individualized trace data (ITD) identifies the real‐time status of individual entities as they move through execution processes, such as an individual product passing through a supply chain or a uniquely identified mortgage application going through an approval process. We develop a mathematical framework which we call the State‐Identity‐Time (SIT) Framework to represent and manipulate ITD at multiple levels of aggregation for different managerial purposes. Using this framework, we design a pair of generic quality measures—timeliness and correctness—for the progress of entities through a supply chain. The timeliness and correctness metrics provide behavioral visibility that can help managers to grasp the dynamics of supply chain behavior that is distinct from asset visibility such as inventory. We develop special quality control methods using this framework to address the issue of overreaction that is common among managers faced with a large volume of fast‐changing data. The SIT structure and its associated methods inform managers on if, when, and where to react. We illustrate our approach using simulations based on real RFID data from a Walmart RFID pilot project.     

Marketing Is from Mars,IT Is from Venus: Aligning the Worldviews for Firm Performance

A typical firm is operated by multiple functional managers who may collaborate as well as compete to achieve firm performance. In the digital age, firm performance is essentially customer‐dependent and technology‐dependent, with both marketing and information technology (IT) playing key roles. Unfortunately the two functions often have very different worldviews. We show how these differences can damage firm performance, and suggest ways to mitigate this damage. We build a worldview difference model, synthesized from multiple disciplines. The model is tested using both matched and nonmatched observations from marketing and IT managers, and is analyzed with hierarchical linear models using both perceptual and objective firm performance data over a 4‐year period. We find that differences between the beliefs and perceptions of marketing managers and IT managers generate a negative impact on firm performance, and suggest appropriate technology‐culture associations to effectively align their worldviews for firm performance. To improve firm performance, a cross‐functional appreciation for market and technology drivers can be achieved by making marketing managers more learning‐oriented and by providing IT managers a culture that is congruent with technology.     

The Value of Organizational Ambivalence for Small and Medium Size Enterprises in an Uncertain World

Prior literature suggests two competing mechanisms for how organizations respond to environmental forces – absorption and reduction – but there is no consensus on which mechanism is more effective. We solve this puzzle by analysing one underlying dimension of these two mechanisms – organizational ambivalence – in a small and medium size enterprise context. Specifically, we believe that because of the difference in consuming resources, organizational ambivalence can be divided into latent and active, which exhibit different uses in dealing with environmental forces and improving firm performance. We conducted two studies in four countries to test our hypotheses. These two studies yield unanimous support for our hypotheses regarding the impact of organizational ambivalence on organizational performance and mixed support for our hypotheses concerning environmental impacts on organizational ambivalence.     

Measuring the Performance of Corporate Acquisitions: An Empirical Comparison of Alternative Metrics*

The choice of performance measure has long been a difficult issue facing researchers. This article investigates the comparability of four common measures of acquisition performance: cumulative abnormal returns, managers' assessments, divestment data and expert informants' assessments. Independently each of these measures indicated a mean acquisition success rate of between 44–56%, within a sample of British cross‐border acquisitions. However, with the exception of a positive relationship between managers' and expert informants' subjective assessments, no significant correlation was found between the performance data generated by the alternative metrics. In particular, ex‐ante capital market reactions to an acquisition announcement exhibited little relation to corporate managers' ex‐post assessment. This is seen to reflect the information asymmetry that can exist between investors and company management, particularly regarding implementation aspects. Overall, the results suggest that future acquisitions studies should consider employing multiple performance measures in order to gain a holistic view of outcome, while in the longer term, opportunities remain to identify and refine improved metrics.     

“It's not how it looks!” Exploring managerial perspectives on employee wellbeing

The literature on employee wellbeing (EW) has largely focussed on employees' subjective experiences and has generally assumed that managers’ interpretations of EW are consistent and non-problematic. Tensions inherent in managing complex expectations, and diverse results, have not been adequately investigated, and ways in which EW practices are viewed by senior managers have not been sufficiently examined. This paper attempts to fill this gap by exploring the perceptions of senior managers with human resources (HR) responsibilities affecting EW. There is a specific focus on the tensions experienced by these senior managers and the related tactics they adopted to successfully manage them. We gathered data from focus groups made up of 20 senior managers from companies operating in the Milan County in Italy. An analysis of this data identified four predominant dimensions of EW, as well as the tensions felt by the managers and the various tactics they used to overcome them. Finally, we classified the interpretative tactics into four broad resolution strategies (i.e. flexible, integrative, separated and reciprocal thinking) that senior managers adopted to cognitively address their experience of tensions.     

Work Design and Integration Glitches in Globally Distributed Technology Projects

In a technology project, project integration represents the pooling together of complete, interdependent task modules to form a physical product or software delivering a desired functionality. This study develops and tests a conceptual framework that examines the interrelationships between the elements of work design, project integration challenges, and project performance. We identify two distinct elements of work design in technology projects: (i) the type of project organization based on whether a technology project spans a firm boundary (Domestic‐Outsourcing) or a country boundary (Offshore‐Insourcing) or both boundaries (Offshore‐Outsourcing) or no boundaries (Domestic‐Insourcing), and (ii) the joint coordination practices among key stakeholders in a technology project—namely, Onsite Ratio and Joint‐Task Ownership. Next, we measure the effectiveness of project integration using integration glitches that capture the incompatibility among interdependent task modules during project integration. Based on analysis of data from 830 technology projects, the results highlight the differential effects of distributed project organizations on integration glitches. Specifically, we find that project organizations that span both firm and country boundaries (Offshore‐Outsourcing) experience significantly higher levels of integration glitches compared to domestic project organizations (Domestic‐Outsourcing and Domestic‐Insourcing). The results further indicate that the relationship between project organization type and integration glitches is moderated by the extent of joint coordination practices in a project. That is, managers can actively lower integration glitches by increasing the levels of onsite ratio and by promoting higher levels of joint‐task ownership, particularly in project organization types that span both firm and country boundaries (Offshore‐Outsourcing). Finally, the results demonstrate the practical significance of studying integration glitches by highlighting its significant negative effect on project performance.     

Performance Metric Portfolios: A Framework and Empirical Analysis

The widespread adoption of supply chain management principles suggests that managers recognize the importance of evaluating operational decisions holistically. However, it is often difficult to link specific operational practices to strategic level outcomes and in turn to corporate financial results. This presents problems for both managers and academic researchers attempting to justify the often high cost of operational improvement initiatives in terms of objective accounting metrics. This study provides evidence that it is possible to demonstrate linkages between carefully chosen portfolios of tactical, strategic, and financial metrics. Survey data from 118 manufacturers are used to evaluate hypotheses linking multilevel metrics of performance across three well‐established strategic foci. We present portfolios of metrics drawn from the literature and from the Supply Chain Counciľs supply‐chain operations reference model and related design and customer chain models. Our analysis suggests that metric portfolios in which tactical metrics are designed to match strategic‐level metrics, based on alignment with a specific strategic focus, provide clearer mechanisms for understanding performance linkages.     

The role of personal values in the charismatic leadership of corporate managers: A model and preliminary field study

This study used multi-source field data collected in five organizations to examine linkages among managers' personal value system (i.e., intensity of openness to change, traditional, collectivistic work, self-transcendent, and self-enhancement values), charismatic leadership of managers, and three outcome measures. Two-hundred and eighteen managers provided self-reports of their personal values and ratings of their followers' extra effort and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Nine-hundred and forty-five subordinates rated the focal managers' charismatic leadership. Superiors of the focal managers provided ratings of managerial performance 2 months after collecting the managers' and subordinates' ratings. Results indicated that traditional, collectivistic work, self-transcendent, and self-enhancement values related positively to charismatic leadership, which predicted managerial performance and followers' extra effort and OCB. Managerial performance moderated the relationships between leaders' values, charismatic leadership, and followers' outcomes.     

The queen bee: A myth? The effect of top-level female leadership on subordinate females

We investigate the effect of female leadership on gender differences in public and private organizations. Female leadership impact was constructed using a quasi-experiment involving mayoral elections, and our research used a sample of 8.3 million organizations distributed over 5600 Brazilian municipalities. Our main results show that when municipalities in which a woman was elected leader (treatment group) are compared with municipalities in which a male was elected leader (control group) there was an increase in the number of top and middle female managers in public organizations. Two aspects contribute to the results: time and command/role model. The time effect is important because our results are obtained with reelected women – in their second term – and the command/role model (the queen bee phenomenon is either small, or non-existent) is important because of the institutional characteristics of public organizations: female leaders (mayor) have much asymmetrical power and decision-making discretion, i.e., she chooses the top managers. These top managers then choose middle managers influenced by female leadership (a role model). We obtained no significant results for private organizations. Our work contributes to the literature on leadership by addressing some specific issues: an empirical investigation with a causal effect between the variables (regression-discontinuity design – a non-parametric estimation), the importance of role models, and how the observed effects are time-dependent. Insofar as public organizations are concerned, the evidence from our large-scale study suggests that the queen bee phenomenon may be a myth; instead, of keeping subordinate women at bay, our results show that women leaders who are afforded much managerial discretion behave in a benevolent manner toward subordinate women. The term “Regal Leader” instead of “Queen Bee” is thus a more appropriate characterization of women in top positions of power.     

Achieving styles of Bulgarian managers and politicians: a longitudinal perspective

We explore individual and organizational leadership behaviour in a transitional economy context. Through the instruments of the Achieving Styles/Connective Leadership model (AS/CL), we assess the goal-directed behaviour of Bulgarian managers and politicians who are members of the national Parliament. The study adopts a longitudinal approach since we analyse data collected in 2003 and 2005, and compare it with evidence collected in 1988. The quantitative results reveal that there are no significant differences in the ways Bulgarian politicians have accomplished their objectives in 1988 and in 2003, whereas Bulgarian managers reported a shift in four out of nine achieving styles in 2003 and 2005 compared to 1988. We have found a substantial fit between the individual and the organizational scores, which indicate that Bulgarian managers behave in ways rewarded by their organizations. The results are used to analyse the pace of organizational change within the setting of Bulgarian transitional economy.     

Social ties and subjective performance evaluations: an empirical investigation

We empirically investigate possible distortions in subjective performance evaluations. A key hypothesis is that evaluations are more upward biased the closer the social ties between supervisor and appraised employee. We test this hypothesis with a company data set from a call center organization which contains not only subjective assessments but also several more objective measures of performance. Controlling for these performance measures, we find strong evidence that evaluations are upwards biased in smaller teams and some evidence that supervisors give better ratings to employees they themselves have evaluated before.