The shadow dance of political climate: Engagement in political behavior in local government authorities

In describing the processes of organizations as political acts, we are not making a moral judgment; we simply are making an observation about a process. Bacharach and Lawler, 1980, p. 2.This study focuses on the ways a perceived political climate influences engagement in political behavior during a national election period. By using social cognitive theory as a way to predict behavior in organizations, we study how managers' engagement in political behavior is shaped. A qualitative research methodology was used. Sixteen interviews with managers were conducted in various local authorities during the 2015 election campaign for Israel's parliament. Participants perceived an intensification of political climate during the pre-election period, which they attributed to a significant connection between electoral and intraorganizational politics. Additionally, a perceived organizational political climate intensifies engagement in a range of political behaviors throughout an organization and is connected with an administrative role. The findings suggest that managers use “political capital” that the election period provides to influence and manipulate their organization's future and their own.     

组织支持感与工作投入的曲线关系及其边界条件

作为一种工作资源,组织支持感是员工工作投入的重要预测变量。但是,基于社会交换理论,组织支持感也可能增加员工角色外的投入、减少对工作角色的投入。在一定条件下,组织支持感与工作投入可能存在非线性的关系。采用302名证券行业员工问卷,考察组织支持感与工作投入的曲线关系,进一步探索情感承诺对该曲线关系的调节作用。在检验共同方法偏差的基础上,采用多项式回归对研究假设进行检验。研究结果表明,在控制员工的情感承诺后,组织支持感与工作投入呈显著U形曲线关系。情感承诺显著调节组织支持感与工作投入的曲线关系,即情感承诺高的员工,组织支持感与工作投入呈U形曲线关系;而情感承诺低的员工,组织支持感与工作投入呈显著线性关系。总体而言,研究结果进一步支持组织支持感对工作投入潜在的负面影响,尤其是具有高情感承诺的员工其感知到的组织支持只有超过一定水平后才会对工作投入产生积极的影响。     

基于文化差异观的组织文化友好性和一致性对组织变革的影响

本文在组织文化的价值层面、事实层面及其两层面差异的视角上,研究组织文化友好性和一致性对组织变革的认知反应和行为反应的影响,并以我国302个中高级管理者代表的企业为样本进行实证研究。结果表明:相对于价值层面的组织文化友好性,事实层面的组织文化友好性对变革认知反应和行为都具有推动作用;两层面文化友好性的差异仅推动变革认知反应;相对于价值层面的组织文化一致性,事实层面的组织文化一致性仅对变革行为反应具有阻碍作用;两层面文化一致性的差异阻碍变革认知反应和行为反应。     

Acceptance of automation manufacturing technology in China: an examination of perceived norm and organizational efficacy

Abstract

With a shift to more automation technology, social acceptance of technology plays an important role in the manufacturing sector. To what extent this occurs, and affects the adoption of technology, has been less researched, but is important in deciding how such technology is introduced, and the nature of the shift from labour-intensive manufacturing to automation. This research applies the revised technology acceptance model (TAM) to examine the impact of social and individual antecedents on the acceptance of automation manufacturing technology. Survey data are collected from 258 Chinese manufacturers. Results suggest that perceived norms significantly affect organizational intention to use automation manufacturing technology both directly and via perceived usefulness; organizational efficacy explains the intention to use via mediating effect of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. This research is one of the first extending and applying TAM from individuals to organizations.     

社会资本、组织学习与组织创新的关系研究

近年来,学者对社会资本是否以及如何提升企业的竞争力问题进行了大量的研究,但社会资本对组织学习以及组织创新的影响却鲜有学者关注.本文以我国珠三角地区企业为调查对象,对社会资本、组织学习与组织创新之间的关系进行实证研究.结果表明,组织的内部社会资本对组织学习有显著的直接影响,外部社会对技术创新也有显著的直接影响.组织学习对组织技术创新和管理创新都有显著的直接影响.而且技术创新对管理创新也有直接的正向影响,本文的结果进一步拓展了组织学习与组织创新的相关理论,对企业知识管理与创新管理实践也有重要的指导意义.     

Culture and cross-functional coopetition: The interplay of organizational and national culture

Scholars now recognize coopetition—the joint occurrence of cooperation and competition—between functional units as an important factor for a firm's learning and performance. We know little, however, about the drivers of cross-functional coopetition and in particular the roles of organizational culture and national culture. This study introduces cross-functional coopetition to the international management literature by illuminating the cultural antecedents of cross-functional coopetition. Specifically, we develop a cross-cultural model to analyze the influence of organizational and national culture on cross-functional coopetition. Drawing on a dataset of 646 companies from seven countries, we theoretically advance and empirically validate the influence of organizational culture and the moderating role of individualism and uncertainty avoidance on cross-functional coopetition. Organizational cultural dimensions directly enhance cross-functional coopetition. Furthermore, strong social values of individualism and uncertainty avoidance weaken the relationship between organizational culture and cross-functional coopetition. This study provides a novel perspective on how organizational culture can represent a strategic resource by illuminating the cultural mechanisms that influence coopetition within the firm.     

Strategic information management in global manufacturing

Responding to new forces on the competitive landscape, global manufacturing companies are restructuring corporate cultures, organizational cofigurations and management coordination channels and styles. The emergence of flexibility as a prime competitive parameter for manufacturing is paralleled by companies shifting toward flexible, adaptive structures. A major challenge is to develop and deploy information technologies linking organizational subgroups for a streamlines process of new product/service creation and delivery. This article describes the convergence of information management and manufacturing activities over the past 30 years and suggests what the future will hold.     

跨文化情景下组织试错学习机理研究

试错学习是企业全球化经营时应对文化冲突不可缺少的革新过程,已有研究对企业试错学习过程和机理尚缺乏深入探讨和明确阐释,尤其是针对跨文化情景下的研究较少。以美国医药行业著名跨国企业H公司作为研究对象,运用扎根理论方法,借助定性分析软件NVivo 8.0对访谈和二手所得资料进行分析,探究跨文化情景下组织试错学习的影响因素及机理模型。借助开放性编码、主轴编码和选择性编码分析得出试错学习的7个主要影响因素,包括跨文化学习能力、跨文化制度设计、稳定的跨文化经营、团队领导者素质、跨文化试错学习氛围、母公司的支持和跨文化适应性;选用著名跨国制药企业M公司案例进行理论饱和度检验,得到另一个影响因素即企业研发能力;据此构建试错学习过程模型。 研究结果表明,试错学习是一个循环往复的过程,可分为失败分析、试验开展和措施生效3个阶段;通过进一步分析各阶段的主要影响因素,构建跨文化情景下组织试错学习的机理模型。研究结论旨在为跨文化经营的企业有针对性地提升试错学习效率提供理论支持。     

Waiting: integrating social and psychological perspectives in operations management

Waiting time is an important issue in service operations management because of its impact on customer satisfaction and operations capabilities. This paper examines waiting time from a social and psychological perspective. It provides a conceptual framework which identifies social and psychological factors that affect perceptions of waiting. The conceptual framework enables service managers to rethink operational issues, such as layout design, process choices, and service delivery from customers’ perceptions of waiting. Assimilation–contrast theory suggests that perceived waiting time be linked to expected waiting time and its gap leads to customers’ overall evaluation of service. A customer’s willingness to accept delay is related to the causes for delay as explained by attribution theory. Approaching waiting time from a stress management theory, this paper provides service managers with various stress-reduction mechanisms such as giving customers advance notice of expected waiting time, speeding up pre-process waiting time, and acknowledging customers’ rights to quick service. These practical suggestions can aid service managers in reducing perceived waiting time, enhancing customers’ waiting experience, and improving queue management.     

The public affairs function in American corporations: Development and relations with corporate planning

The increase of social and political turbulence has led to the development of new organizational response mechanisms. Public affairs units are among the most widely adopted forms in U.S. companies. This paper reports findings from a major research study of the public affairs function in American corporations. Analysis of the public affairs function in several hundred firms strongly suggests that a critical stage in the organization's response to environmental change involves the integration of the corporate planning and public affairs perspective. This paper reviews data from the study and discusses the planning/public affairs relationship in terms of survey and case research data.     

核心能力:组织文化和组织学习作用

本文研究组织文化、组织学习、核心能力和组织绩效之间的相互影响关系,并以华南地区的139家企业为对象进行实证研究。本文的理论贡献在于证实了:(1)组织文化通过影响组织学习进而影响核心能力;(2)组织学习影响核心能力进而影响组织绩效;(3)核心能力对组织绩效有直接的正向影响;(4)组织文化对组织绩效没有显著的直接影响,但通过组织学习和核心能力的构建间接影响组织绩效;(5)组织学习对组织绩效没有显著的直接影响,但通过核心能力的构建间接影响组织绩效。本文的研究结果对于深刻理解核心能力的形成及正确认识组织文化和学习在组织管理中的作用有重要的借鉴价值。     

A ‘No Blame’ Approach to Organizational Learning

In high‐reliability organizations (HROs) even minor errors can seriously hinder the very existence of the firm and the safety of employees and customers. Field studies have shown that HROs encourage the reporting of errors and near misses, exploiting these incidents to improve their operative processes. In this paper, we describe this practice as a ‘no blame’ approach to error management, and link it to learning theory, showing how no blame practices can enhance organizational learning. By taking a cognitive perspective of organizations, we draw on existing contributions and on a set of empirical case studies to discuss the characteristics of no blame practices, and their applicability in traditional, non‐HROs. Our findings show that, in exploiting information from error‐reporting, no blame practices are beneficial in environments where learning and reliability issues are particularly relevant. Empirical evidence suggests that a no blame approach can be extremely constructive for organizations that want to enhance their learning processes. We conclude that a no blame approach is a valuable way to achieve an organization that has flexibility and variability. However, no blame practices imply a set of organizational issues and costs that pose significant challenges to firms operating in non‐high‐reliability settings. The findings from our study contribute to the literature on HROs and organizational learning.     

Research on leadership in a cross-cultural context: Making progress, and raising new questions

It is almost cliché to say that there has been an explosion in the amount of research on leadership in a cross-cultural context. In this review, we describe major advances and emerging patterns in this research domain over the last several years. Our starting point for this update is roughly 1996–1997, since those are the dates of two important reviews of the cross-cultural leadership literature [specifically, House, Wright, and Aditya (House, R. J., Wright, N. S., & Aditya, R. N. (1997). Cross-cultural research on organizational leadership: A critical analysis and a proposed theory. In: P. C. Earley, & M. Erez (Eds.), New perspectives on international industrial/organizational psychology (pp. 535–625). San Francisco, CA) and Dorfman (Dorfman, P. W. (1996). International and cross-cultural leadership research. In: B. J. Punnett, & O. Shenkar (Eds.), Handbook for international management research, pp. 267–349, Oxford, UK: Blackwell)]. We describe the beginnings of the decline in the quest for universal leadership principles that apply equivalently across all cultures, and we focus on the increasing application of the dimensions of culture identified by Hofstede [Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values (Abridged ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage] and others to describe variation in leadership styles, practices, and preferences. We also note the emergence of the field of cross-cultural leadership as a legitimate and independent field of endeavor, as reflected in the emergence of publication outlets for this research, and the establishment of long-term multinational multi-investigator research programs on the topic. We conclude with a discussion of progress made since the two pieces that were our departure point, and of progress yet to be made.     

Innovation and Organizational Learning: the Case of Computer-Aided Production Management

Recent experience of unsuccessful implementation of integrated advanced manufacturing technology suggests that much of the problem is due to a lack of innovation in organizational in parallel with the technological dimension. Discussion of this issue argues the need for some kind of ‘organizational learning’ to obtain the full benefits of AMT. This paper reviews the topic of organizational learning in technology and explores its relevance to the problem of AMT implementation through the case example of computer-aided production management systems.     

生产性企业组织学习最优控制模型及其理论分析

运用最优控制理论研究生产性企业组织学习活动的动态最优决策问题.以企业的概念性学习投资率和操作性学习投资率为决策变量,累积知识量、生产率、单位成本和废品率等为状态变量,计划期内的总利润为指标函数,建立了一个最优控制模型,其特点在于规范地描绘概念性学习和操作性学习对企业累积知识量、生产率、单位成本、质量以及企业利润的动态影响.根据生产性企业组织学习和生产经营的实际情况,提出了一些定量化表达的假设和定义.在假设和定义的基础上利用最大值原理分析了所建立的模型,获得了关于动态最优概念性学习投资策略和操作性学习投资策略性质的一些结论,将这些结论与实际问题相结合,指出了在生产性企业组织学习实践上的含义.     

Perceived importance of “social goals” in business organizations

Business organizations operate within a complex socio-technical environment. Interactions between these socio-technical dimensions and the managers' personal value systems are thought to influence managerial role patterns and decisions. This paper investigates shifts in perceived importance of “social goals” from a set of organizational goals. The research concludes that there has been no significant changes occurring in either the ordering or the clustering of organizational goals.     

Die Verbreitung moderner Managementkonzepte im Mittelstand

Within existing studies on the diffusion of modern management concepts, such as Lean Management, Business Process Reengineering or Shareholder Value Management, small and medium-sized enterprises are frequently examined as a homogeneous group of hesitant adopters. Differences among small and medium-sized companies with regard to concept adoption can thus hardly be explained by referring to existing research. In this paper, we argue that differences in adoption patterns of modern management concepts across small medium-sized companies can be explained on the basis of their resource endowment and embedment in different social environments. We thereby employ central arguments from organizational diffusion theory. Based on a multivariate analysis of online-survey data on the diffusion of 22 modern management concepts among 272 German SMEs, our results show that adoption decisions are mainly based on relationships to local organizational environments, whereas concept awareness can be best explained by media-exposure.     

STRUCTURE,ENVIRONMENT, AND ORGANIZATIONAL GOVERNANCE IN MANUFACTURING*

The paper compares theories of organizational governance that explain delegation in decision making in terms of administrative rationality on the parts of top corporate officials with theories that emphasize lower-level actors mobilizing resources to gain control over organizational outcomes. These two alternative theories are developed and extended to apply to the relationship between manufacturing plants and parent companies. A general model is introduced to compare these theories which includes characteristics of parent companies and site environments, site resources, and delegation. The model is then tested on a sample of manufacturing plants.     

How organizational cognitive frames affect organizational capabilities: The context of corporate sustainability

We draw on the emerging literature on the micro-foundation of capability development to investigate the effects of the relative importance of corporate sustainability in a firm's organizational cognitive frame on the development of distinct organizational capabilities. Based on survey data from 124 Danish manufacturing firms and seven interviews, we find that the relative importance of corporate sustainability in a firm's organizational cognitive frame positively encourages the development of three organizational capabilities, namely, stakeholder integration, market sensing, and organizational learning. However, contrary to our expectation and reasoning, we find that the development of the strategic planning capability is negatively affected. Our findings provide novel empirical evidence and contribute to an improved understanding of the effect of a firm's organizational cognitive frame on the development of organizational capabilities.     

市场导向与组织绩效的关系--环境与组织学习的影响

国外学者对市场导向是否影响组织绩效进行了大量的实证研究,至今没有定论,许多学者仍非常关注这个问题.改革开放以来,我国许多企业开始引入市场导向的管理观念,然而这种观念是否影响以及如何影响企业的绩效?国内外学术界尚未发表以中国大陆数据为基础的实证结果.本文以我国华南地区企业为调查对象,对市场导向是否以及如何通过组织学习影响组织的绩效,以及环境在其中的作用进行实证研究.结果表明,环境变动越快,企业的市场导向程度越高,企业的市场导向对组织绩效没有显著直接影响,但是市场导向却可以通过组织学习对组织绩效产生显著影响.