Phases of the Adoption of Innovation in Organizations: Effects of Environment,Organization and Top Managers1

Multidimensional empirical examinations of the adoption of innovations in organizations, and the influence of factors within each dimension on the phases of adoption, are scarce. This study examines the effects of environmental, organizational and top managers' characteristics on the initiation, adoption decision and implementation of innovation. Using a sample of approximately 1200 public organizations in the United States, we found that while each dimension accounts for unique variance in the adoption of innovation, organizational characteristics and top managers' attitudes toward innovation have a stronger influence than environmental and top managers' demographic characteristics. We also found no difference in the direction of effects of any antecedent, but did find differences in the significance of effects of several antecedents, on the phases of innovation adoption. We discuss the implications of these findings and suggest ideas for future research.     

Organizational Form,Ownership Structure and Corporate Performance: A Contextual Empirical Analysis of UK Companies1

This paper contributes to the literature on organizational form and performance (the performance-conduct paradigm) by examining the impact of two sets of variables that have not been examined previously: measures of environmental uncertainty and alternative forms of controlling separation of ownership from control. The paper first examines the extent to which contextual variables such as perceived environmental uncertainty and age of the organizational form moderate the relationship between organizational form and corporate performance. Next, the paper extends the analysis by examining the possible effects of ownership and control structures on performance. Measures suggested by agency theory, such as conventional ownership proxies (i.e. proportion of shares held by identifiable, homogenous groups), the proportion of non-executive board members and Fama and Jensen's concept of separation of decision management from decision control are used in the analysis. The results indicate that these measures have direct impact on corporate performance in their own right, though the main impact is indirect through interactions with organizational form variables.     

Smart cities: implications of urban planning for human resource development

This paper looks at creative or smart city experiments around the world that are aimed at nurturing a creative economy through investment in quality of life which in turn attracts knowledge workers to live and work in smart cities. It highlights the need for and broad nature of human resource/talent development initiatives at the intermediate level, that is regional and city level, as opposed to organizational and national level. Using the literature on economic geography, it provides a useful theoretical framework to cross organizational boundaries and look for factors that influence the decision of knowledge workers in choosing a location to live and work. The implications of urban planning on the theory and practice of human resource development are explored.     

Innovation management in context: environment, organization and performance

Several decades of research into innovation management have failed to provide clear and consistent findings or coherent advice to managers. In this paper, I argue that this is because innovation management 'best practice' is contingent on a range of factors, and that we need better characterizations of the technological and market contingencies which affect the opportunity for, and constraints on, innovation. I review research on innovation together with relevant studies from organizational behaviour and strategic management, and develop a model which may help to guide future innovation research on the relationships between environmental contingencies, organization configurations and performance. I identify uncertainty and complexity as the key environmental contingencies that influence organizational structure and management processes for innovation.     

The Founder's Legacy: Hangover or Inheritance?

The legacy of organizational founders is a comparatively under‐studied topic. Through two in‐depth case studies, this article explores the factors which influence whether founding strategic visions, objectives or decisions influence present‐day strategic choice. Furthermore, the study identifies and explores a number of factors which influence whether a strategic legacy is categorized as either an inheritance or a hangover. The article begins with an overview of existing research into the role of the founder, commitment and strategic inertia, which suggests that additional research is required to clarify the legacy of company founders. After a review of the research design and methodology adopted for the study, the findings of two case studies are presented. The findings suggest that the initial establishment of a strong organizational culture, continuing perceptions of success as well as successive family control all contribute to an adherence to the founding strategy, mission or objectives. In addition, the study indicates that the flexibility of the original strategy and environmental issues impact on the extent to which the strategic legacy is classified as an inheritance or a hangover. The article culminates in a series of conclusions and implications.     

Subordinate Participation in Audit Budgeting Decisions: A Comparison of Decisions Influenced by Organizational Factors to Decisions Conforming with the Vroom-Jago Model*

This study examines the role of subordinate participation in the effectiveness of audit hours budget decisions in accounting firms. The study compares decisions influenced by organizational factors (such as organizational policies or the preferences of the superior) to decisions that conform to the Vroom-Jago (VJ) model. Our results indicate that actual level of participation used in budget decisions appears to be based primarily on perceived preferences of superiors and participation styles available under the circumstancesof the individual audit. However, results also indicate that decisions consistent with the Vroom-Jago model are characterized by higher decision quality and increased subordinatedevelopment. Since managers are apparently reluctant to use decision styles that conflictwith organizational factors, accounting firms may wish to gather information regarding the attributes of the decision context and use the VJ model to establish their available decision styles and determine the preferences of superiors. Doing so has the advantage of considering decision-specific attributes while enhancing the probability of manager compliance with a desired decision style.     

Zur Rolle versunkener Kosten in aufeinander folgenden IT-Outsourcing-Entscheidungen

Despite the ongoing theoretical and practical investigations of IT outsourcing, there are still a large number of projects that are unsuccessful or even fail all along the line. Studies in the decision-making literature indicate that psychological effects in the evaluation of decision-relevant facts may be one relevant reason for unsuccessful decisions. By conducting a quantitative empirical study with German IT decision makers, we investigate the influence of non-rational factors within consecutive IT outsourcing decisions. We show that beside the rational economic factors (transaction, production and the rational part of switching costs) also non-rational switching costs in terms of sunk cost do significantly contribute to the explanation of consecutive IT outsourcing decisions. Furthermore, we examine moderating effects that affect the non-rational behavior of IT decision makers. Besides the theoretical contribution to analyze the effects of sunk cost on both an individual and organizational level, we also derive practical implications. In consecutive IT outsourcing decisions, the non-rational behavior triggered by sunk cost can for example be reduced by replacing the decision maker or consult a decision team when sunk cost play a considerable role.     

转型经济背景下的组织复杂性动因研究:环境不确定性和战略导向的作用

基于468家中国企业的实证研究,考察了不同环境及战略导向对组织复杂性的驱动作用。在分析相关文献形成研究假设的基础上运用实证的方法进行检验。研究结论验证了当前转型经济背景下不确定环境特征和战略导向对企业组织复杂性的不同驱动作用,对企业根据所处环境及其战略导向认识并有的放矢的应对不同组织复杂性有重要意义。     

Taxes,risky investments,and the simultaneous choice of organizational form and financing

By taking explicit account of liability limitations, we analyse the influence of taxes on the simultaneous choice of organizational form and financing. In a two-state model for a single reporting period investors striving for maximisation of expected utility choose the organizational form (with or without liability limitation) in which they implement a given risky real investment and decide how they finance it (equity or debt). We demonstrate that liability limitations result in tax-relevant differences between organizational forms. Thus, for example, the tax bases differ in relation to the chosen liability-contingent debt capital compensations as well as to tax loss offset rules. Therefore, even in the event of identical tax rates, taxes can influence the decision regarding the organizational form.     

Stakeholder Actions and Their Impact on the Organizational Cultures of Two Tobacco Companies

We link the behaviors of executives and lawyers in two tobacco companies, in defending their tobacco products to the actions of stakeholders (e.g., the U.S. Government and Congress, medical researchers, consumers, public‐health organizations, tobacco‐control advocates, and insiders who have spoken out). Included in our analysis, which is based on publicly available documents spanning over a period of almost six decades, are critical incidents in which moral disengagement tactics were applied in the decision‐making process. We infer that the disengagement tactics applied by tobacco decision makers are indicative of what Schein and other organizational scientists describe as organizational culture. We equate the critical incidents to the espoused beliefs and values and underlying assumptions which comprise organizational culture and explain that the cultures of these two tobacco companies are not consistent with the stakeholder theory of management. We conclude that the critical incidents we analyze were immoral and the representatives were indeed accountable for these behaviors. From an organizational change perspective, we discuss how analyzing these critical incidents can serve to assess the extent to which an organizational culture is ethical. Furthermore, these critical incidents can be fed back to organizational decision makers and can then be used to initiate organizational changes.     

INFLUENCE OF POWER BASES IN ORGANIZATIONAL DECISION MAKING: A CONTINGENCY MODEL*

The relative influence of four power bases was investigated in four decision-making contexts using data from forty successfully implemented decisions. The analysis suggests that position power decreases in influence while resource power and political power increase in influence as decision contexts vary from less to more uncertainty. Expert power derives its influence when organizational uncertainty is low and when technical uncertainty is reduced, whereas political power thrives when organizational uncertainty is high and when technical uncertainty remains high. Indexing the influence of power bases provides greater understanding of decision processes than the sociological or social-psychological approaches of studying participation.     

期望落差与企业创新的动态关系——冗余资源与竞争威胁的调节效应分析

期望落差导致决策者倾向于冒险创新还是规避风险, 这仍旧是没有解决的重要问题.创新是决策者的冒险动机与冒险能力共同作用的结果, 并且这种作用还将受到企业内部冗余资源以及外部竞争威胁的制约.基于中国民营上市公司数据, 主要得到以下几方面的结论:期望落差所引致的冒险动机与可感知冒险能力的动态变化, 最终导致了企业决策者随着企业期望落差的递增而提升创新投入, 但拐点之后其冒险创新的动力则逐渐减弱;组织冗余在期望落差与企业创新之间起到显著的正向调节作用, 即充足的冗余资源提高了落差状态下的企业创新投入;竞争威胁则在期望落差与企业创新之间起到显著的负向调节作用, 即企业面临的竞争威胁程度越高则越有可能降低它在期望落差状态下的创新投入;最后, 冗余资源与竞争威胁还显著地影响到企业创新投入的曲率及斜率的动态变化.     

Public planning and political strategy

Planning theory and practice derived from corporate experience, management science and rational decision theory have had little influence on decision-making in the public sector. The political environment and organizational complexity of public decision making render conventional approaches to objective, rational, comprehensive planning of limited value in government agencies and in private corporations involved in public policy making. A more effective approach to strategic planning and management must be based on an understanding of the political dynamics through which policies are made. It must adopt a variety of styles directly related to major functions in the policy making process and use a variety of political intervention and influence techniques that facilitate the implementation of plans and policies.     

公司治理、环境因素与利益相关者对台湾上市电子公司赴大陆投资决策影响的实证研究

本文从公司治理的角度切入,通过实证分析研究了一般经营环境、大陆投资环境、台湾投资环境等因素对台湾电子上市公司投资决策的影响;研究了不同利益相关者对股东大会、董事会决策以及投资策略、生产策略、研发策略、用人策略、行销策略、财务策略和企业间合作关系的影响,并针对企业和政府提出了相应的对策建议.     

Propensity to adopt technological innovations: the impact of personal characteristics and organizational context

This study investigated how personal characteristics and organizational context are associated with strategic decision makers' intentions to adopt technological innovations. Positive significant relationships were found between hospital top managers' intentions to adopt potential innovations and risk propensity, self-efficacy, perceived organizational strategy, perceived information processing capacity, and perceived resource availability. The impact of personal and organizational factors on intentions to adopt, implications of our results, and future research directions are discussed.     

Organizational/environmental interchange: a model of boundary spanning activity.

A theoretical framework is developed for analyzing determinants and functions of activity at the boundaries of organizations. The process of boundary spanning, based on internal and external organizational factors, is conceptualized. A model of the organizational/environmental information interchange process suggests relationships between organizational, environmental, and individual aspects of boundary activity.     

Ambiguous Allure: The Value–Pragmatics Model of Ethical Decision Making

Research in organizational ethics emphasizes those dispositional factors that are expected to foster positive ethical behavior. We seek to contribute to this literature by including personal values that are in contention with moral outcomes. Specifically, we combine the values of hedonism and power with benevolence and universalism. Our underlying premise of this value–pragmatics model is that nonmoral, as well as moral, dispositional characteristics simultaneously influence ethical decision making. We further contribute to the existing research by investigating how these contending values interact with situational factors, such as performance rewards and punishments for unethical conduct. We administer an experiment to subjects (N = 177) and analyze their decisions regarding the likelihood they would act unethically. Results indicate that both morally relevant and nonmoral variables have direct effects on these decisions, and that nonmoral as well as moral values interact with situational factors to significantly influence decisions. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

AHP决策模型在怒江流域水电能源开发评价中的应用研究

本文以AHP决策理论为基础,针对水能资源开发对整个流域生态环境影响较大的特点,建立了一种新的标度矩阵和量化决策模型。该模型基于流域梯级开发环境影响因子的变化特性,提出量化AHP决策模型方法,以怒江流域水电能源开发方案为例,进行评估决策。在充分考虑对整个流域生态环境影响的前提下,对开发方案进行评价与决策,实证研究表明所建立的量化AHP决策模型效果良好。     

Firm-level correlates of emergent green supply chain management practices in the Chinese context

Greening the supply chain is increasingly a concern for many business enterprises and a challenge for logistics management in the 21st century. Of particular concern is how to arouse organizational environmental awareness and put environmental activities into practice in the logistics activities of their supply chains. This paper investigates the correlation of two major factors, organizational learning and management support, with the extent of adoption of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices in Chinese manufacturing firms, where their inbound and outbound logistics activities are potential polluters to the environment. Organizational and operational learning was derived from the firm's experience with programs such as total quality management and environmental management systems. Management support included support for GSCM ideas and practices from top and middle-level management and cooperation across organizational functions. We find significant positive relationships between organizational learning mechanisms, organizational support and the adoption of GSCM practices, after controlling for a number of other influences including regulations, marketing, supplier, cost pressures, industry levels of the relevant practice and organizational size. Implications of our findings on logistics management are discussed.     

Contextual influences on international subsidiaries' product technology strategy

We seek to test a broad range of factors that influence the technology sourcing decision of international subsidiaries in acquiring product technology from outside the firm (i.e., outsourcing) versus internal development. A regression model, used to analyze data from 187 international subsidiaries in six industries and with parents based in 14 countries, identifies the environmental, strategic, configurational, and resource endowment factors that influence the technology sourcing decision. Specifically, the level of product dynamism in the subsidiary's industry and the distance between the subsidiary's primary marketing and R&D operations are associated with a greater reliance on outsourcing. A differentiation goal, a low-cost goal, along with the level of the subsidiary's human and financial resources are associated with a greater reliance on internal development.