The Event: An Underexamined Risk Concept

Some of the terms used in risk assessment and management are poorly and even contradictorily defined. One such term is “event,” which arguably describes the most basic of all risk‐related concepts. The author cites two contemporary textbook interpretations of “event” that he contends are incorrect and misleading. He then examines the concept of an event in A. N. Kolmogorov's probability axioms and in several more‐current textbooks. Those concepts are found to be too narrow for risk assessments and inconsistent with the actual usage of “event” by risk analysts. The author goes on to define and advocate linguistic definitions of events (as opposed to mathematical definitions)—definitions constructed from natural language. He argues that they should be recognized for what they are: the de facto primary method of defining events.     

Networks in policy,management and governance: a comparative literature review to stimulate future research avenues

Policy networks, network management and network governance have received particular attention in the public sector literature over the last 20 years. Networks have been studied from different perspectives resulting in the creation of various concepts and definitions. However, the proliferation of definitions, metrics and language is responsible for a confusing picture, where policy networks, network management and network governance are used both as synonyms and to define different concepts. We review the existing literature with two aims: firstly, to compare the three streams of literature, by highlighting their similarities and differences; secondly, to propose a guide for network scholars that identifies the importance of each stream in analyzing specific issues.     

The sense of it all: Framing and narratives in sensegiving about a strategic change

Managers leading strategic change processes have to be skilled language users in order to convince others of the necessity of change and to shape the interpretations of their followers in a preferred direction. This paper asks how and why managers employ certain forms of language in their sensegiving during strategic change, and when these managers are effective in their language use to change the sensemaking of others in the organization. On the basis of a longitudinal case study of a European multinational corporation, we find that effective sensegiving is about providing organizational members with a pragmatic form – a way of making sense rather than, as previous research suggests, about providing them with pre-packaged meanings. We extend prior research by distinguishing the effects that the different linguistic forms of managerial sensegiving have on organizational sensemaking. Furthermore, the managers we studied were effective in their sensegiving when they combined framing and narratives. These two forms of language supported each other by amplifying the overall effect on organizational sensemaking. This notion of a combined use of framing and narratives complements previous research, which has largely studied them separately.     

Strategic management of public and non-market corporations

The author has developed a strategic framework for the management of ‘non-market corporations’ which he thinks better meets their peculiarities and specific needs by framing them in a relatively tight and rigorous socio-economic system relating to their internal logic. He believes that the proposed approach should provide the basis for a more constructive relationship between such corporations and the community at large and for better levels of performance     

企业管理系统复杂性评价的三维尺度模型建模与实证研究

应用物理学、数学、力学、信息论、统计学和管理学等理论方法,提出了管理力、管理功和管理复杂度的基本概念、定义、基本原理和研究范围;并基于管理熵理论的基本原理,建立了企业管理系统复杂性评价的新尺度和评价方法;构造了尺度的矢量空间、数学模型及量化模型;以创造世界采矿奇迹的中国煤炭企业的旗帜一神府东胜煤炭责任有限公司为例,进行了企业组织管理系统复杂性实证研究与评价.     

基于非均匀性语言标度和DLWA算子的动态绩效模糊群决策研究

基于企业人力资源管理(HRM)系统中职能管理部门年度绩效考核决策评价和选优序列生成过程中的数据的不确定性、随机性和模糊性,通过设计季度绩效多维度模糊评价体系,采用非均匀加性语言评估标度定性的多维度评价,构建动态加性语言判断矩阵模型,利用DLWA算子等语言信息集成算子,集成多个决策者不同时期绩效指标评价数据,并整合不同决策者的偏好度,综合呈现年度部门业绩选优序列,优化提升职能管理部门绩效考核决策的精确性、公平性和可信度。     

国家创新体系研究评介及启示

在探讨了国家创新体系的来源、定义及相关概念的基础上,总结了目前有关国家创新体系研究的4个主要方向:国家创新体系特征横向比较研究;绩效比较模型研究;创新体系纵向比较研究以及非工业发达国家创新体系研究。然后,结合我国实践,指出建设和完善我国国家创新体系的2个维度,即明确国家创新体系内部组成的职责定位,并提高政府、企业、高校和科研机构之间的系统合作性,以及在加大各层级创新体系构建力度的基础上与国家创新体系实现纵向一体化。     

Comparative and International Corporate Governance

Abstract

In this article, we examine the state of the art in comparative and international corporate governance by identifying the key research questions, main concepts, and paradigms of explanations of cross‐country diversity in corporate governance. First, we discuss the multiple definitions of corporate governance across disciplines and explore how this multi‐dimensional nature of corporate governance posses challenges when making cross‐national comparisons. Second, we review existing comparative research on corporate governance and highlight some of the main characteristics of comparative analysis. Third, we analyze how comparative corporate governance has been understood from four different scholarly perspectives: economics and management, culture and sociology, legal, and political paradigms. We conclude from this third section that future research should make an effort to better integrate cross‐disciplinary paradigms. Fourth, we investigate what insights these four perspectives bring to understand change and stability better in two particular governance dimensions: corporate ownership and the role of labor in comparative corporate governance. Finally, we conclude the article with some forward looking suggestions regarding (1) how different perspectives of corporate governance can be more effectively integrated by adopting case‐based, historical, and actor‐centered forms of institutional explanations and by (2) discussing the current U.S. corporate governance system, frequently seen as the “best practice” model.     

Recovering the Divide: A Review of Strategy and Tactics in Business and Management

With origins in military history, strategy and tactics is a frequently used conceptual couplet in the business and management literature. This paper reviews how strategy and tactics are portrayed, identifying a dominant ‘pragmatic’ account of strategy as an expression of formal, planned ends achieved through the subordinate means of tactics. Pragmatic distinctions give rise to a range of well‐known problems, in particular in strategy implementation stages. We suggest that some of these problems may be avoided when the strategy–tactics relationship is conceived differently. We elaborate two alternative distinctions: a sociological framing of tactics as mechanisms of resistance to formal, controlling strategies; and a processual perspective, which sidesteps fixed distinctions between tactics and strategy, giving rise to more fluid interrelations between both modes. Based on a review of the business and management literature, we identify key examples of each trope and conclude by drawing insights for each account on the basis of these wider discussions.     

Reasoned Decision Making Without Math? Adaptability and Robustness in Response to Surprise

Many real‐world planning and decision problems are far too uncertain, too variable, and too complicated to support realistic mathematical models. Nonetheless, we explain the usefulness, in these situations, of qualitative insights from mathematical decision theory. We demonstrate the integration of info‐gap robustness in decision problems in which surprise and ignorance are predominant and where personal and collective psychological factors are critical. We present practical guidelines for employing adaptable‐choice strategies as a proxy for robustness against uncertainty. These guidelines include being prepared for more surprises than we intuitively expect, retaining sufficiently many options to avoid premature closure and conflicts among preferences, and prioritizing outcomes that are steerable, whose consequences are observable, and that do not entail sunk costs, resource depletion, or high transition costs. We illustrate these concepts and guidelines with the example of the medical management of the 2003 SARS outbreak in Vietnam.     

How Managers Talk about their Consumption of Popular Management Concepts: Identity,Rules and Situations

This paper analyses how top managers account for their consumption of popular management concepts. By ‘consumption’ we refer to managers acting as active users of popular management concepts within their organizations. After reviewing the relevant literature, we argue that the logic of appropriateness is a better theoretical perspective to view, understand and analyse managers' accounts of concept consumption than is the logic of consequence. We apply this perspective to extensive interviews we conducted with top managers in Germany. Based on the managers' own accounts of how they understand and apply popular management concepts, we identified four discourse categories: (1) learning from others' experiences, (2) controlling organizational change, (3) gaining external legitimacy and (4) collective sensemaking. We argue that these discourse categories all draw on the social norm of rationality central to managerial identity, while differing in socially defined rules about how rationality is realized in typical management situations. Our findings strongly encourage researchers, when investigating popular management concepts in the future, to take into account the situational nature of rationality that circumstantiates the consumption of concepts.     

System Dynamics as a Structural Theory in Operations Management

The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of (1) system dynamics as a structural theory for operations management and (2) system dynamics models as content theories in operations management. The key findings are that, although feedback loops, accumulation processes, and delays exist and are widespread in operations management, often these phenomena are ignored completely or not considered appropriately. Hence, it is reasoned why system dynamics is well suited as an approach for many operations management studies, and it is shown how system dynamics theory can be used to explain, analyze, and understand such phenomena in operations management. The discussion is based on a literature review and on conceptual considerations, with examples of operations management studies based on system dynamics. Implications of using this theory include the necessary re‐framing of some operations management issues and the extension of empirical studies by dynamic modeling and simulation. The value of the paper lies in the conceptualization of the link between system dynamics and operations management, which is discussed on the level of theory.     

Family Business Performance from a Governance Perspective: A Review of Empirical Research

Given the complexity of the family business phenomenon, empirical research has still reached no consensus on whether family control is beneficial or detrimental to firm performance. To shed new light on this issue, this paper covers more than 350 articles published in 37 top finance and management journals. More specifically, it provides an in‐depth analysis of the family business governance system in three steps. First, after examining the various family business definitions and measures of performance used in empirical research, the authors discuss the findings on the direct effect of family control on performance in different geographical regions. Second, the authors pay special attention to the choice of ownership structures by business families and analyse how family owners influence strategic decisions faced by their corporations, including the succession process. Finally, the authors explore the interaction of family control with other governance devices to gain a better understanding of family firms' corporate decision‐making and performance. The holistic approach highlights the need to contemplate the multiple relations that exist among the various governance dimensions of family firms to explain their unique performance. In addition to enhancing understanding of family business conduct, the authors emphasize the need to go beyond the borders of the family firm to identify its external antecedents and consequences. By integrating the finance and management perspectives and analysing the theoretical frameworks and methodologies used in these disciplines, the review highlights the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to advance family business research and thus to consolidate it as a distinctive academic field.     

Linguistic structures and innovation: A behavioral approach

We draw on the Sapir-Whorf theory of linguistics and its effect on cognition, to advance the theory of commercial innovation. We do so by analyzing the association between linguistic structures and innovation output. We evaluate three distinct linguistic categories (grammatical gender marking, the use of second-person pronouns, and the use of first-person singular pronouns) and demonstrate that the corresponding linguistic variables are strongly associated with innovation output and performance. Our paper makes several contributions to the literature. We advance management scholarship by demonstrating how the Sapir-Whorf theory of language relativity can provide a deeper understanding of technology development processes and the functioning of national systems of innovation. Specifically, our quantitative results regarding the association between the three metrics of linguistic structure and innovation have important implications for theory, policy, and practice. Finally, we contribute to the ongoing theoretical debates on gender inequality, group creativity, and collaborative innovation.     

Management leadership and productivity improvement programs

The intent of this empirical research is to identify the critical factors that are potentially fatal to productivity improvement programs and to analyze these factors relative to management leadership concepts. From this analysis we determine that these “fatal” factors can be prevented by the pre-existence of a leadership-based program that requires participative involvement of all members of an organization through good performance measurement and a sound reward system.     

In learning mode? The role of mindsets in derailing and enabling experiential leadership development

In comparison to the vast literature on leadership theories, concepts, and behaviors, relatively less is known about why leaders often learn little from their leadership experiences, as well as how to support them in doing so. We propose that leaders learn more from their challenging leadership experiences when they are in learning mode, defined as intentionally framing and pursuing each element of the experiential learning process with more of a growth than a fixed mindset. We describe how the extent to which leaders are in learning mode stems from salient mindset cues and guides whether they work through the experiential learning process with a predominantly self-improvement or self-enhancement motive. We theorize about several other likely mediators and moderators of when being in learning mode will manifest in experiential leadership development. Practical implications at the micro, meso, and macro levels, as well as within management education are outlined.     

Coordinability and Consistency in Accident Causation and Prevention: Formal System Theoretic Concepts for Safety in Multilevel Systems

Although a “system approach” to accidents in sociotechnical systems has been frequently advocated, formal system theoretic concepts remain absent in the literature on accident analysis and system safety. To address this gap, we introduce the notions of coordinability and consistency from the hierarchical and multilevel systems theory literature. We then investigate the applicability and the importance of these concepts to accident causation and safety. Using illustrative examples, including the worst disaster in aviation history, and recent incidents in the United States of aircraft clipping each other on the tarmac, we propose that the lack of coordinability is a fundamental failure mechanism causing or contributing to accidents in multilevel systems. We make a similar case for the lack of consistency. Coordinability and consistency become ingredients for accident prevention, and their absence fundamental failure mechanisms that can lead to system accidents. Finally, using the concepts introduced in this work, we identify several venues for further research, including the development of a theory of coordination in multilevel systems, the investigation of potential synergies between coordinability, consistency, and the high reliability organizations paradigm, and the possibility of reframing the view that “sloppy management is the root cause of many industrial accidents” as one of lack of coordinability and/or consistency between management and operations. By introducing and expanding on the concepts of coordinability and consistency, we hope to contribute to the thinking about, and the to language of, accident causation, and prevention and to add to the intellectual toolkit of safety professionals and academics.     

Crisis Management: Informing a New Leadership Research Agenda

As the business community becomes more complex, crisis events are likely to increase in both prevalence and severity. Whether management scholarship has kept pace with this new reality is debatable. Moreover, much of the existing crisis research—perhaps understandably—stems from a negative frame: crises are threats or problems to be overcome. Such research has produced relevant insight into crisis handling, has helped categorize the plethora of crisis events, and has connected crisis events to relevant management strategies. We argue here that this framing fundamentally limits the types of questions asked and the methodological approaches used to answer those questions. Perhaps worse, given the important role that leadership plays in crisis handling, this negative frame can hinder the possibilities for the practice and study of leadership. In this article, we review an array of crisis research and explore two theoretical domains—issue framing and deviance—and their potential role for influencing leadership theory. We discuss the challenges of conducting crisis research, and offer suggestions for new methodological approaches and new research questions that are consistent with a more positive leadership approach.     

When in Rome: Intercultural learning and implications for training

Learning requires acquiring and using knowledge. How do individuals acquire knowledge of another culture? How do they use this knowledge in order to operate proficiently in a new cultural setting? What kinds of training would foster intercultural learning? These questions have been addressed in many literatures of applied and basic research, featuring disparate concepts, methods and measures. In this paper, we review the insights from these different literatures. We note parallels among findings of survey research on immigrants, expatriate managers, and exchange students. We also draw on experiment-based research on learning to propose the cognitive processes involved in intercultural learning. In the first section, we focus on acquiring cultural knowledge, reviewing longstanding literatures on immigrant acculturation and expatriate adjustment investigating antecedents of intercultural adjustment and performance. In the second section, we focus on displaying proficiency, examining how newcomers to a cultural setting deploy their knowledge of it in order to adjust their behavior and judgments. We draw upon findings about individual differences and situational conditions that predict performance to suggest training for optimal use of cultural knowledge by adapting behaviors and judgments according to situational factors.     

What is international management,and what is its domain?

We provide a review of the management field and the various meanings given to international when it prefaces the word management. We also review the paradigms associated with international business inquiry and find them helpful for defining the domain of international management inquiry. Finally, we conclude that a distinction needs to be made between management inquiry, one that extends beyond national borders. Internationalized management inquiry seeks to verify culture-bound management theories, concepts, and principles. International management inquiry adds either distinctive or unique knowledge to the body of management knowledge.