Authenticity: Meanings,targets, audiences and third parties

Research shows that perceived authenticity conveys value in many disparate domains. The analytical attention of this research focuses on producers of products and services, identifying which actions and structures the typical individual associates with authenticity. Far less is known about how individuals and audiences differ in their interest, receptiveness and response to potentially authentic entities and services. Even less is known about how regulators, certifiers, critics and other third parties play a role in the social construction of authenticity. Yet the perception and valuation of a product or service as authentic rests largely with heterogeneous audiences and interpretive third parties. Accordingly, in this chapter, we review and develop theory and empirical research about how targeted entities (producers, persons, products, services), audiences and third parties combine to produce authenticity. For targets, we examine the range of actions and structures of various entities that have been empirically associated with authenticity. For audiences, we explore variations in interests in authenticity based on domain engagement, cosmopolitanism, and cross-cultural differences. For third parties, we consider the roles of other audience members, certifiers and regulators. Finally, we conceptualize a co-evolutionary process whereby targets, audiences and third parties combine to generate social pockets where authenticity is recognized and highly valued.     

Electronic Intermediary Functional Roles and Profitability

Internet start‐ups and traditional firms expanding existing offerings and services through the Net have seen both success and failure. For such business model pursuits, electronic intermediation possesses the ability to cultivate new marketplaces and restructure supply chains. The economic literature identifies four distinct intermediary roles, specifically: (i) information and (ii) logistics management, (iii) transaction securitization, as well as (iv) insurance/market‐making and liquidity management. Research notes that electronic intermediaries, while possessing clear advantages in their ability to manage information, face greater challenges in allowing parties to benefit from the facilitation of more complex coordination activities, namely transaction securitization in addition to insurance/market‐making and liquidity management. In an effort to better understand pursuit of functional intermediary roles, our analysis of data collected on 182 electronic intermediaries explores relationships between intermediation roles and profitability. Business models relying solely upon the provision of information management are likely to realize lower levels of profitability. Alternately, the intermediary roles of logistics management as well as insurance/market‐making and liquidity management realize higher levels of profitability. Moreover, when comparing commodity‐ and service‐based intermediaries, the provision of logistics management on the part of commodity‐based firms sees higher levels of profitability, with insurance and liquidity provisions associated with greater profitability for both commodity‐ and service‐based firms. Finally, when contrasting traditional firms expanding operations in digital markets with Internet pure‐plays, we find transaction securitization functions increase the likelihood of realizing greater profitability for non‐Internet pure‐plays.     

Managing crowdsourced software testing: a case study based insight on the challenges of a crowdsourcing intermediary

Crowdsourcing has gained much attention in practice over the last years. Numerous companies have drawn on this concept for performing different tasks and value creation activities. Nevertheless, despite its popularity, there is still comparatively little well-founded knowledge on crowdsourcing, particularly with regard to crowdsourcing intermediaries. Crowdsourcing intermediaries play a key role in crowdsourcing initiatives as they assure the connection between the crowdsourcing companies and the crowd. However, the issue of how crowdsourcing intermediaries manage crowdsourcing initiatives and the associated challenges has not been addresses by research yet. We address these issues by conducting a case study with a German start-up crowdsourcing intermediary called testCloud that offers software testing services for companies intending to partly or fully outsource their testing activities to a certain crowd. The case study shows that testCloud faces three main challenges, these are: managing the process, managing the crowd and managing the technology. For each dimension, we outline mechanisms that testCloud applies for facing the challenges associated with crowdsourcing projects.     

管理学术与实践隔阂:和谐管理的桥梁作用

管理学术与实践各自自我循环的运作模式,使得二者之间存在较大的隔阂。从管理知识的形成与使用视角来看,原因包括两个方面:首先是管理知识的类型,目前学者们认为面向实际问题解决产生的模式2知识比传统学术研究产生的模式1知识更具实践价值,但分析发现模式1与模式2因其优劣互补而分别适应于不同的管理问题;其次是目前实践者对管理知识的消费偏好,据此给出了缩减管理学术与实践隔阂的整体思路及措施.和谐管理理论揭示了如何定位组织中核心问题以及解决问题的双规则机制,将其应用于上述措施,有助于促进管理学术与实践的有效对话。     

Intervention Research as Management Research in Practice: Learning from a Case in the Fashion Design Industry

Research in the field of management and organizational sciences has yielded a deeper understanding of many emerging business issues. However, the relevance of the contributions has been increasingly criticized, in both the academic and public spheres. We propose the intervention research approach – originally developed by the research group at Ecole des Mines de Paris – as a design science approach able to address both the relevance gap issue and the growing complexity of management practice. It is argued that increasing our understanding of management requires research that is more insightful, influential and immediately applicable. This in turn requires closer collaboration between management and researchers during the inquiry process, which is not always easy to achieve. An illustrative case study of an intervention research project focusing on creativity, conducted in Italy in collaboration with a fashion company, demonstrates how intervention research can be rigorous and relevant to practitioners, and how it can advance theoretical knowledge in management science.     

作为研究者的管理者:链接理论与实践的重要桥梁

不仅理论本身的原因会导致理论与实践的脱节,管理者不愿意使用理论或者不正确使用理论也会造成理论与实践的脱节,因此对管理者实践逻辑本身的分析就非常必要。基于对管理者实践逻辑的分析,管理者不仅应作为研究对象进入研究过程,即对管理者的实践智慧进行研究、吸纳和提炼,而且应作为研究主体进入研究过程。弥合管理理论与实践的距离,不仅要基于实践的逻辑去构建理论,更要研究实践者如何才能成为一个高效的研究者。     

中介机构参与下联盟企业知识转移的三方利益博弈分析

知识转移是企业保存知识、提升创新能力的重要途径,中介机构在转移过程中发挥了重要作用。本文以联盟企业间知识转移为研究对象,考虑了企业的不同心理压力,首先建立了联盟企业双方的讨价还价博弈模型;其次构建了考虑中介机构参与知识转移的博弈模型,分析和讨论三方收益变化的影响因素及策略选择。结果表明,在直接知识转移博弈中,转移主体的收益大小与自身的心理压力呈负相关,而与对方的心理压力呈正相关,同等心理压力下知识转出方占优;中介机构参与博弈情形下,中介机构作为协作角色的博弈收益仅受博弈双方心理压力影响,且与知识接收方协作可获得更大收益,而主导角色博弈情形下收益受到三方主体心理压力的综合影响,并在主导知识接收博弈时获得收益更大;中介机构的角色选择与知识转出方心理压力变化相关性不明显,主要受到知识接收方及自身心理压力影响。     

Developing a Human‐centred and Science‐based Approach to Design: The Knowledge Management Platform Project

The gap between theory and practice is a persistent problem in management and organization research. In this respect, several scholars have suggested that ‘design’ is an ideal‐typical form of mode 2 knowledge production. Design research develops knowledge in the service of action and problem solving in organizational settings. In this paper, we connect two perspectives on design that can be considered to be largely complementary but have hardly been combined and integrated in practice: science‐based design drawing on design propositions grounded in research and human‐centred design emphasizing an active and systematic participation by users and other stakeholders. An integrated approach that builds on both perspectives is developed and subsequently applied to designing and developing a portal for mapping competencies in an information technology cluster. This project involves creating problem awareness and articulating design propositions as well as developing scenarios of use, experimenting with prototypes, and organizational transformation. As such, this methodology addresses the dual challenge of rigour and relevance by producing both scientific and practical knowledge.     

Re-imagining Relevance: A Response to Starkey and Madan

Starkey and Madan (2001) propose that changing conditions of knowledge production mean that business schools face an increasing relevance gap which, if they do not respond, will be filled by management consultants and corporate universities. In this response, I question the core assumptions of their analysis, suggesting that they misunderstand both the historical role and present practices of universities and business schools. In particular they fail to understand the complexities of knowledge production, its relationship to practice and the importance of 'independence' which is the unique contribution that universities make to society. I argue that their proposal to bridge the relevance gap would, if adopted, have the effect of leaving business schools with no defensible social role. Thus, ironically, their 'solution' to the challenges facing business schools would in fact exacerbate the problems they currently face.     

Bridging Practice and Theory: A Design Science Approach

Despite ambitious efforts in various fields of research over multiple decades, the goal of making academic research relevant to the practitioner remains elusive: theoretical and academic research interests do not seem to coincide with the interests of managerial practice. This challenge is more fundamental than knowledge transfer, it is one of diverging knowledge interests and means of knowledge production. In this article, we look at this fundamental challenge through the lens of design science, which is an approach aimed primarily at discovery and problem solving as opposed to accumulation of theoretical knowledge. We explore in particular the ways in which problem‐solving research and theory‐oriented academic research can complement one another. In operations management (OM) research, recognizing and building on this complementarity is especially crucial, because problem‐solving–oriented research produces the very artifacts (e.g., technologies) that empirical OM research subsequently evaluates in an attempt to build explanatory theory. It is indeed the practitioner—not the academic scientist—who engages in basic research in OM. This idiosyncrasy prompts the question: how can we enhance the cross‐fertilization between academic research and research practice to make novel theoretical insights and practical relevance complementary? This article proposes a design science approach to bridge practice to theory rather than theory to practice.     

Solidarity in Action at a Time of Crisis: The Role of Employee Voice in Relation to Communication and Horizontal Solidarity Behaviour

Solidarity behaviour (SB) among employees is important in building a sense of community in organizations, particularly within a crisis context where adverse working conditions prevail. However, we have limited knowledge concerning how SB develops. Using the lens of social exchange theory, this study examines how top-down communication and employee voice relate to horizontal (employee to emplCoyee) SB. We conducted two comprehensive studies during the Greek economic crisis and found that the relationship between top-down employee communication and horizontal SB is mediated by employee voice. The paper extends our existing knowledge in the fields of management and human resource management by advancing our understanding of horizontal SB, highlighting the role of top-down employee communication as an effective human resource practice and delineating the role of employee voice in fostering workplace camaraderie in small and medium-sized enterprises under crisis.     

Spare parts classification and demand forecasting for stock control: Investigating the gap between research and practice

This paper investigates the gap between research and practice in spare parts management, with specific reference to durable goods addressed to private or professional customers. The paper provides a critical literature review of theoretical contributions about spare parts classification and demand forecasting for stock control. The discussion of ten case studies, then, allows to analyze the reasons for this gap, by addressing the limitations of models developed in literature, the role of contextual factors and the maturity in companies' spare parts management practices. Four main directions for research are proposed in order to bridge the gap, namely: to develop integrated approaches to spare parts management; to define contingency-based managerial guidelines, to favor the knowledge accumulation process in companies, and to supplement theoretical models with practical relevance.     

Entrepreneurship among the Displaced and Dispossessed: Exploring the Limits of Emancipatory Entrepreneuring

This paper explores the links between entrepreneurship, emancipation and gender within the international development arena. Through a longitudinal analysis of a micro‐enterprise development project in which intermediary organizations contract traditional handicrafts from female home‐based producers, we focus on the impact of contracting policies on the ability of the desperately poor to improve their disadvantaged position. Our critical analysis reveals how intermediaries who impose exclusive contracting conditions, supposedly to protect the women's interests, actually constrain the emancipatory potential of the women's entrepreneurial activities. However, such contractual limitations generate collaborative networks enabling the women to challenge these constraints in an effort to assert control over their activities. Accordingly, this paper contributes to contemporary debates concerning the emancipatory potential of entrepreneurship within the context of development. We advance this analysis through a gendered evaluation of the role of intermediary organizations on entrepreneurial emancipation and related empowerment.     

Bridging the Relevance Gap: Aligning Stakeholders in the Future of Management Research

This report examines the relevance gap in management research. Its focus is the nature of knowledge created by research at the interface between business and academia in the context of major changes likely to affect the nature of demand for such knowledge. Management research has been accused of a lack of relevance to managerial practice and of too narrow a discipline base. The report examines the conditions giving rise to this criticism, in the UK and elsewhere, and identifies an important strategic need to increase the stakeholding of users in various aspects of the research and knowledge creation and dissemination process. The report concludes with recommendations concerning new forms of research partnership and research training that will address the relevance gap. However, bridging this gap does not only require changes in the academic mind-set. Managers and firms too need to rethink their involvement in the research process.     

Provider-sponsored networks. Physicians organize for direct contracting

The Provider Service Network (PSN) concept is part of a wider movement by physicians to restructure for managed care to improve bargaining leverage for America's more than 600,000 active medical practitioners. Direct contracting has a simple appeal--no intermediaries. Imagine managed care contracts without the costs or hassles of an HMO or third-party intermediary. The PSN is a new form of managed care organization, but without the middleman. Savvy, self-insured employers, business coalitions, and government health programs are the potential "buyers." Doctors and hospitals are the "sellers," organizing provider networks on a regional and statewide basis. Up for grabs are over 225 million consumers whose health benefits are currently managed by insurance plans, HMOs, and third parties. This new marketplace of direct contracting may sound to doctors like the Garden of Eden, but there is plenty of opposition. PSNs will not become a national trend without a fight.     

Bridging Scholarship in Management: Epistemological Reflections

If the relevance gap in management research is to be narrowed, management scholars must identify and adopt processes of inquiry that simultaneously achieve high rigour and high relevance. Research approaches that strive for relevance emphasize the particular at the expense of the general and approaches that strive for rigour emphasize the general over the particular. Inquiry that attains both rigour and relevance can be found in approaches to knowledge that involve a reasoned relationship between the particular and the general. Prominent among these are the works of Ikujiro Nonaka and John Dewey. Their epistemological foundations indicate the potential for a philosophy of science and a process of inquiry that crosses epistemological lines by synthesizing the particular and the general and by utilizing experience and theory, the implicit and the explicit, and induction and deduction. These epistemologies point to characteristics of a bridging scholarship that is problem-initiated and rests on expanded standards of validity. The present epistemological reflections are in search of new communities of knowing toward the production of relevant and rigorous management knowledge.     

管理学如何才能“致用”——管理学技术化及其方法论

求真与致用的矛盾本质上是科学认识论与技术认识论之间的矛盾,求真与致用在目的、推理方式和知识体系3个方面存在显著的区别。管理学要"致用",就必须实现认识论层面的改变,由"求真"的逻辑转为"致用"的逻辑,这可以称之为管理学的技术化转向。管理学技术化有助于把握管理学的学科属性和本质特点;有助于理解循证思想的精髓,避免将其实证化和教条化;此外,管理学技术化是直面中国管理实践的直接路径,有助于厘清管理研究中"科学严谨性"和"实践相关性"之间的主次关系,是理解"理论与实践脱节问题"的指南。     

The "Trust Gap" Hypothesis: Predicting Support for Biotechnology Across National Cultures as a Function of Trust in Actors

Using results from the 1999 Eurobarometer survey and a parallel telephone survey done in the United States in 2000, this study explored the relationship between levels of knowledge, educational levels, and degrees of encouragement for biotechnology development across a number of medical and agricultural applications. This cross-cultural exploration found only weak relationships among these variables, calling into question the common assumption that higher science literacy produces greater acceptance (whether or not mediated by lower perceived risk). The relationship between encouragement and trust in specific social institutions was also weak. However, regression analysis based on "trust gap" variables (defined as numerical differences between trust in specific pairs of actors) did predict national levels of encouragement for several applications, suggesting an opinion formation climate in which audiences are actively choosing among competing claims. Differences between European and U.S. reactions to biotechnology appear to be a result of different trust and especially "trust gap" patterns, rather than differences in knowledge or education.     

“管理学”断想

什么是管理学?具体到中国的环境下,"管理"是不是"学"?此问题同科学、知识、学科这3个词汇紧密相关。严格意义上的学科之"学"后缀为-o logy,此意义的管理学,不论中外并未形成,且很可能无法形成;科学意义上的管理学,已经形成或正在形成,在成熟程度上学界判断有差别;知识意义上的管理学,古代就有丰富积淀,学界公认现在已经形成。管理学界的讨论,需要对这种区别进行辨析,才能进一步讨论管理区域性和管理哲学等问题。     

企业跨部门心理安全、知识分享与组织绩效间关系的实证研究

知识分享是组织学习研究领域中的一个热点话题,本研究旨在探讨跨部门心理安全对组织内部知识分享以及组织绩效的影响机制。本文实证研究发现,组织跨部门心理安全与组织知识分享、组织绩效之间均存在"倒U"关系,而知识分享会对组织绩效的提升产生正向影响,知识分享在跨部门心理安全对组织绩效的作用中扮演中介角色。研究发现有助于加深我们对跨部门心理安全与组织知识分享、组织绩效间作用关系的深入了解,为企业管理实践提供有益的借鉴和启示。