网络治理的权力基础:一个跨案例研究

网络组织是当前经济活动中的普遍现象,网络治理并非信任基础上的自主治理,而是受组织间权力关系的规制,权力是决定网络组织运行的重要关系并影响了网络组织运行绩效.本文通过一个跨案例研究,分析了网络治理的权力基础,提出组织间权力来源于企业资源、结构位势和制度压力.三种权力基础的作用机理不同,其中企业资源和网络中心性显著地表现为个体层面的权力,而网络密度和制度压力则体现为网络层面的权力,个体层面权力与网络层面权力的相互作用导致网络组织呈现不同的演变趋势.     

The deceptive allure of empowerment

Empowerment has become a favoured way of seeking to utilize the talents of employees. The article takes a sceptical view of the practical application of empowerment, since its basic techniques have been available, but underused, for decades. Given this, is the average Western firm in a position to take advantage of the benefits which can flow from empowering employees? A management would have to be prepared to re-shape the power structures and processes of the organization and build up a hierarchy of empowerment practices if significant gains were to be made. Contrary to many assumptions, empowerment in no way diminishes managerial responsibility for leadership, judgement and decisive action.     

The Management of Circulations: Biopolitical Variations after Foucault

This paper provides a review of the reception of Foucault's later work on biopolitics within management and organization studies and contrasts this with the reception of these ideas in sister fields of research in the social sciences. In his later work, Foucault developed original conceptions of power, including ‘biopolitics’, ‘the apparatus of security’ and ‘neo‐liberal governmentality’, which marked a departure from his conception of disciplinary power. This paper explores these concepts and elaborates the implications of these ideas for management studies. The structure of this argument is divided as follows. The first section outlines Foucault's concept of biopolitics and neo‐liberal governmentality, distinguishing these systems of control clearly from the concept of disciplinary power. The second section then undertakes a synthesis and evaluation of the extent to which these ideas have been developed within the field of management and organization studies. The final section provides a discussion of how these concepts have been used within other social sciences, distinguishing between three key approaches to their development in terms of: (a) the concept of governmentality; (b) the concept of immaterial labour; and (c) the concept of biocapital. Based on this analysis, a framework is developed which can serve as a basis for future research into the significance of these new biopolitical systems of control for management studies.     

新权力范式对组织行为管理的影响及对策研究

当下一种由下而上聚集而成的具有开放性、共享性和分散性的新型权力范式已经逐步形成并涉及到社会生活的各个方面,从根本上改变着个体与组织、权威以及他人之间的关系,并对组织行为管理产生了深刻的影响,但学术界对这种新权力范式的基础性内容尚缺乏系统的整理。鉴于此,通过从权力的定义入手,基于对东西方古典政治哲学中权力概念的梳理,从不同维度对新旧权力范式进行了对比,分析总结了新型权力范式对组织行为管理在宏观和微观层面的影响,并针对具体情况提出了相应的管理对策与建议。     

Limitations to Freedom: is there a Choice for Human Resource Management?

There is a great variety in human resource management (HRM) practices, not only in terms of policies and personnel activities, but also with regard to the parties involved and the procedures for decision-making. But which factors can best account for these differences? Are they due to organizational and environmental characteristics or are they basically due to the interests, preferences and power positions of the parties concerned - parties like management, employees, personnel management staff, trade union representatives, members of the works council and so on? Based on elements of industrial relations theory, organization theory and organization sociology, a research project was set up with the aim of gaining a better understanding of the factors which can shape HRM practices. The empirical part of the research consisted of paired comparative case studies from different industries. The result is a conceptual model which not only encompasses the relevant forces in the shaping of HRM, but also states the conditions determining the amount of room for manoeuvre the parties concerned have to make their own strategic choices with regard to HRM.     

The politics of mean

Since mid-1990, there have been many signs that politics--especially relationships between middle management and the troops--have changed from annoying but rarely lethal to Mean, as in ornery, ugly, and sometimes downright grisly. Part of this has to be recession-related, but part comes from top management's attention having been diverted to survival issues. The loser has been the individual contributor in the organization. In laying out the reasons for this distressing turn of events, the author provides clear-cut advice on how to overcome it.     

Managing organizational conflict

This article suggests three ways to manage organizational conflicts. The first is the collaboration theory which maintains that people should air their differences and work for mutually satisfactory solutions. Collaboration requires that members of the organization be interdependent, capable of interacting candidly, and sufficiently committed to the organization to justify the time and energy required to develop and preserve mutually beneficial relationships. A second approach, the power play, is a method of handling organizational conflict which is diametrically opposed to collaboration. It is characterized by an adversary ethic and rational self-interest; the parties are involved in a win/lose situation. According to Derr, the power-play is the dominant conflict management strategy for those who seek autonomy and is best suited for idealogical disputes. Bargaining, the third technique, contains elements that overlap collaboration and power-play. Bargaining "trade-offs" are particularly useful in dealing with conditions of scarcity; this method is seen as economical in that it requires parties to meet only periodically to review the old contracts and to develop new contracts. The author concludes that there is no one best way to manage organizational conflicts and suggests that conflict management will require more extensive studies of the realities of power play.     

组织文化和领导风格对知识管理的影响

组织文化是组织知识管理的推动力,知识支持型和知识共享型的组织文化会对组织中的知识管理具有正面影响;金字塔形的组织文化会对组织中的知识管理具有负面影响。领导风格既直接作用于组织的知识管理,又通过影响组织文化的形成和组织文化的内容对知识管理产生间接影响。研究发现,领导风格对于在组织中建立知识支持型文化具有十分重要的作用,鼓励和支持知识管理的领导需要拥有更多的专家权利,并推崇参与型管理风格;领导的支持行为将有助于知识支持型组织文化的形成和发展,并有利于组织中的知识管理活动。     

Understanding Organizational Safety Using Value-Focused Thinking

Decision analysis is recognized as the right way to make risk management decisions, using probabilistic techniques to assess the accident risk. It is also accepted that the decisions that individuals in the organization make affect the likelihood of an accident and thus managerial and organizational factors should be included in the risk modeling process. However, decision analytic techniques have not been used to understand the decisions that are made by these individuals. The initial domain for this research is marine transportation. We use the framework of value-focused thinking in order to understand safety decisions made within our research partner organization, a major domestic oil tanker operator. We describe the results of interviews held with managers and employees from this organization. Through these interviews, we sought to understand the values these experts apply in their roles within the organization and the objectives they seek to achieve to contribute to its overall safety performance. The end result is a framework that not only portrays the fundamental objectives of safe operations for various roles in the organization, but also interconnects these different decision contexts. We believe that this approach is fundamentally different from those used in previous work and that this is an interesting application of value-focused thinking.     

试论中国管理研究的话语权问题

新中国成立以后,中国管理研究与实践经历了3个阶段,其话语权经历了从萌芽到催生到完全西化的演进过程.西方管理学在中国的话语权可以解构为:引领学术共同体的学者;先入为主成为管理理论的主流;自诩为普世的管理学理论;控制大量国际学术期刊;借力强势组织管理实践活动;扩散和推广其研究方法与范式;依托国际化的英语语言等.当前,需要统筹"中国管理的理论"与"中国的管理理论"2条研究路线,在争取话语权利的同时,提升自己的话语能力,并以国内话语权的建构为切入点,继而争取国际话语权.在此过程中,要借助一切可以借助的力量,在学者个体话语权和中国管理研究集体话语权2个方面齐头并进,坚持问题导向的本土化研究思路,通过理论研究与组织管理实践的共同努力,最终重构中国管理研究的话语权.     

Using a benchmarking system to improve patient care and assist in technology assessment

Clinical benchmarking is a tool of CQI that can be used to improve outcomes in areas of strategic importance. While it is a simple tool, benchmarking requires a long-term commitment from the entire organization involved in its use to be successful. Benchmarking is a means of setting goals or targets. As a tool used for continuous quality management, benchmarking is an ongoing activity of comparing an organization's service, product, or process with similar ones outside the organization that are known to be the best. In attempting to emulate or surpass "best practice," an organization must set challenging but attainable goals and reach them with a plan of realistic and efficient actions.     

Colonel Urwick and “organization”

This paper examines Urwick's view that confusion of two meanings of the term “organization”, due to social scientists, has diverted attention from the study of organization structure and the task oriented nature of management. It is maintained that this view is not an adequate characterization of Organization Theory. The relationship between social science and management theory is examined, and the approaches are held to be symbiotic, not, as Urwick suggests, competitive.     

The relation of standards and power in management and organization research: Core notions and alternative avenues

This paper explores how management and organization research has shed light on the relation between standards and power. The narrative literature review intersects so far unconnected categorizations from standardization and power literatures to systematically map out the broad knowledge structure of the power-related literature on standardization. As a result, the paper details six power-related notions of standardization. Building on the review, the paper summarizes neglected issues and suggests new avenues for future research. The analysis reveals that research widely tends toward either/or conceptions in terms of the empowering or disempowering dynamics of standardization. To descend from this dichotomous perspective in future research, the paper finally recommends exploring the dialectics of standardization in more detail: first, by analyzing standards as a reflection of existing power structures and contestations; second, by investigating standards as subject to power logics and interests; and third, by scrutinizing standardization as the dynamic interplay of powerlessness and powerfulness.     

Setting corporate goals and measuring organizational effectiveness--a practical approach.

Shareholders, customers, suppliers, lenders, the community, government and regulatory agencies and employees--the stakeholders in an organization--are the ones entitled to anticipate the satisfaction of societal demands placed on the organization. Strategic planning has to take these into account in order to be able to plan how the demands can be met. Therefore, the stakeholders as such must be identified and placed in an order of priority. There are those without whom the organization could not exist and those who have a judicial position in relationships to the organization. It then becomes important to establish the criteria by which each will judge the organization's effectiveness. One way is to approach the stakeholder directly. Another is to use a deductive approach based on a literature survey or polling representatives. In practice a combination can be used. If this is done then the crucial effectiveness criteria for each stakeholder group can be identified. It is important, of course, to realize that not only can these criteria change, but also the determinants of stakeholder power can vary. They depend on what resources each group possesses, whether there are alternative stakeholders, what authority and influence is held. In turn the effectiveness will be influenced by the pressures brought to bear on the power of the stakeholder. These can progress from societal pressures to political issues to legislated requirement and, finally, to punitive action. Another way of regarding them is as moving from strategic to emerging to current. An appreciation of this will help environmental scanning.     

Managing Imbalanced Supply Chain Relationships for Sustainability: A Power Perspective

This study adopts a power perspective to investigate sustainable supply chain relationships and specifically uses resource‐dependence theory (RDT) to critically analyze buyer–supplier–supplier relationships. Empirical evidence is provided, extending the RDT model in this context. The concept of power relationships is explored through a qualitative study of a multinational company and agricultural growers in the UK food industry that work together to implement sustainable practices. We look at multiple triadic relationships involving a large buyer and its small suppliers to investigate how relative power affects the implementation of sustainable supply‐management practices. The study highlights that power as dependence is relevant to understanding compliance in sustainable supply chains and to identifying appropriate relationship‐management strategies to build more sustainable supply chains. We show the influences of power on how players manage their relationships and how it affects organizational responses to the implementation of sustainability initiatives. Power notably influences the sharing of sustainability‐related risks and value between supply chain partners. From a managerial perspective, the study contributes to developing a better understanding of how power can become an effective way to achieve sustainability goals. This article offers insights into the way in which a large organization works with small and medium size enterprises to implement sustainable practices and shows how power management—that is, the way in which power is used—can support or hinder effective cooperation around sustainability in the supply chain.     

Supervisors’ power to deal with employees’ inner resignation: How perceived power of the organization and the supervisor relate to employees’ voluntary and enforced work behavior

Power is fundamental in organizations and is exerted on employees by the organization itself as well as by supervisors. In this study, I applied the slippery slope framework (SSF) and interpersonal power interaction (IPI) model to shed light on how power dynamics relate to employees’ inner resignation and contextual performance.Survey data was obtained from 1102 employees of Austrian and German organizations. In line with expectations, the results of path modeling revealed that perceived coercive power of the organization and supervisors positively relates to employees’ inner resignation. Perceived legitimate power of the organization and supervisors is positively associated with contextual performance and negatively associated with inner resignation. Finally, supervisor reward power further strengthens the beneficial relationship between legitimate organizational power and inner resignation. The results are discussed in light of self-determination theory and the effort-reward imbalance model.     

Complexity,simplicity, simplexity

“In the midst of order, there is chaos; but in the midst of chaos, there is order”, John Gribbin wrote in his book Deep Simplicity (p. 76). In this dialectical spirit, we discuss the generative tension between complexity and simplicity in the theory and practice of management and organization. Complexity theory suggests that the relationship between complex environments and complex organizations advanced by the well-known Ashby’s law, may be reconsidered: only simple organization provides enough space for individual agency to match environmental turbulence in the form of complex organizational responses. We suggest that complex organizing may be paradoxically facilitated by a simple infrastructure, and that the theory of organizations may be viewed as resulting from the dialectical interplay between simplicity and complexity.     

Examining the Antecedents and Consequences of CIO Strategic Decision‐Making Authority: An Empirical Study*

Despite the strategic importance of information technology (IT) to contemporary firms, chief information officers (CIO) often still have varying degrees of strategic decision‐making authority. In this study, we apply the theory of managerial discretion to define CIO strategic decision‐making authority and argue that the CIO's level of strategic decision‐making authority directly influences IT's contribution to organization performance. We also draw on the power and politics perspective in the strategic decision‐making literature to identify the direct antecedents to the CIO's strategic decision‐making authority. A theoretical model is presented and empirically tested using survey data collected from a cross‐industry sample of 174 matched pairs of CIOs and top business executives through structural equation modeling. The results suggest that organizational climate, organizational support for IT, the CIO's structural power, the CIO's level of strategic effectiveness, and a strong partnership between the CIO and top management team directly influence the CIO's level of strategic decision‐making authority within the organization. The results also suggest that the CIO's strategic decision‐making authority in the organization directly influences the contribution of IT to firm performance and that effective CIOs have a greater influence on IT's contribution when provided with strategic decision‐making authority.     

A process for hierarchical decision making with multiple objectives

This research was motivated by a recurring management problem of a large service organization in Philadelphia. The problem concerns the contraction of service facilities. Typically, management decisions of this type and magnitude affect the entire management hierarchy. Each manager in the hierarchy may have several objectives with respect to the problem. The perspective of each manager can contribute to the decision-making process by providing additional insight into both (a) what should be done and (b) the resistance to implementation which may result. Thus the output of this research is not a solution to a particular problem but rather a process for providing critical information for decisions of this type. This paper generalizes the information gathering process and presents the results of eliciting objectives from managers, formalizing objectives into measurable attributes, and interacting with the decision makers to use their implicit preference relationships over the set of Pareto-optimal alternatives. Intuitively, the procedure is appealing as it is flexible enough to allow formal input from all pertinent decision makers in the organization, it is hierarchically consistent, it is politically acceptable, and it is not cumbersome to apply.     

Bending over Backwards? Using a Pluralistic Framework to Explore the Management of Flexible Working in the UK Police Service

Professional reduced-hours working is a form of flexible working that runs counter to the increasing trend of employer-led flexibility, and exemplifies the rise of the so-called 'idiosyncratic' employment deal. Although an emerging body of literature, there is evidence to suggest that despite the claim that professional reduced-hours working provides 'better' part-time employment than usually typifies this pattern, it actually confers considerable costs to both individuals and organizations. Some academics have called for a more strategic approach to the introduction and management of professional reduced-hours working, in order to combat these problems. Utilizing a pluralistic perspective on the employment relationship, I draw on data from research in three metropolitan UK police forces to argue that the needs of the part-time employee and the organization will be difficult to integrate. Showing how the negotiation context of the employment relationship has changed and resulted in a power shift from the manager to the part-timer, I argue that the best that can be achieved is a minimal integration of the needs of both parties, and draw out the theoretical and practical implications of this position.