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.     

Knowledge Management Using Information Technology: Determinants of Short‐Term Impact on Firm Value*

The importance of knowledge management (KM) processes for organizational performance is now well recognized. Seeking to better understand the short‐term impact of KM on firm value, this article focuses on public announcements of information technology (IT)‐based KM efforts, and uses cumulative abnormal return (CAR) associated with an announcement as the dependent variable. This article employs a contingency approach, arguing that the KM announcement would have a positive short‐term impact on firm value in some conditions but not in others. Thus, it pursues the following research question: What are the effects of contextual factors on the CAR associated with the announcement of an IT‐based KM effort? Specific hypotheses are proposed based on information‐processing theory, organizational learning theory, the knowledge‐based theory of the firm, and the theory of knowledge creation. These hypotheses link CARs to alignment between industry innovativeness and the KM process, alignment between firm efficiency and the KM process, firm‐specific instability, and firm diversification. The empirical study utilizes secondary data on 89 KM announcements from 1995 to 2002. The results largely support the hypotheses. Overall, this article provides empirical support for the theory‐based arguments, and helps develop a contingency framework of the effectiveness of KM efforts.     

Allocation of Rights and the Organization of Transactions: Elements of a Generative Approach to Organizing

This paper is an attempt to articulate in a systematicfashion how different patterns or forms of organizingare achieved and how one can talk about the variety inand the transformation of these forms. The paperargues that one way to address this fundamentalquestion is to look at how resources and rules can beused in transactions to develop a generative grammarof organizational forms. The theoretical perspectivedeveloped in the paper incorporates the nature ofinterdependencies among social actors in definingtheir relationships and the nature of resources beingtransacted in these relations. As a social system, anyorganizational form that involves regularizedrelations of interdependence between social actors,requires resources in some form or another. Whetherthey are characterized as goods transacted in anexchange situation, human or social capital of actorsin a productive act, or collective control ofproductive skills, they are the necessary componentsof organizing because they give the social actors thecapability to develop their strategic conduct. Inaddition to resources, any organizational form mustalso possess a set of rules that define the nature ofthe transaction among the social agents.The first part of the paper introduces the logic andthe elements of the generative grammar fororganizational forms. The second part applies theseideas to organizational governance structuresespecially the relationship between the owners and themanagers in order to show how different forms ofgovernance structures can be generated based on theallocation of rights among various parties involved. The paper concludes with the suggestion that marketsversus hierarchic governance are very grosscategorization that cannot satisfactorily show thediversity of variations in forms of governance inorganizations.     

Micro-political or inter-cultural conflicts? – An integrating approach

The article focuses on inner-organizational conflicts arising with respect to processes of organizational transnationalization of multinational companies (MNCs). Two strands of debate are identified and discussed in this respect: one focusing on micro-political, the other one focusing on inter-cultural conflicts. It is argued that an integrative perspective on conflict processes is needed as neither power nor culture can be neglected or put in a secondary position when explaining conflicts in MNCs. Such an integrative framework is developed following Giddens' analytical differentiation of three dimensions of social systems: signification, domination and legitimation. It is argued that it depends on contextual variables framing the process of transnationalization, whether actors conceive of occurring conflicts as being either inter-cultural or micro-political. This theoretical argument is underscored by referring to two case studies from a German MNC in the process of transnationalization.     

A framework to study strategizing activities at the field level: The example of CSR rating agencies

This paper responds to recent calls to bridge strategy and organization research by combining Strategy-as-Practice and Neo-Institutional Theory through re-theorizing the notion of strategic actor. We problematize the notion of strategic actor at the field level, and rely on insights from management and organization studies and sociology to advance a theoretical framework that conceptualizes organizations as social actors at the field level. We demonstrate our theoretical framework by drawing on corporate social responsibility rating agencies. We see corporate social responsibility rating agencies as supra-individual, social actors that are predisposed to assume an active role in defining and revisiting structural parameters within the society through their purposeful, meaningful actions and interactions. Our main contribution is to the development of the Strategy-as-Practice literature, achieved by re-theorizing the notion of strategic actor at the field level. This contribution responds to the micro-isolationism critique, and proposes a new focus for Strategy-as Practice research.     

A review of outsourcing from the resource‐based view of the firm

The phenomenon of outsourcing is becoming increasingly widespread among organizations and is now one of the strategic decisions that attract the greatest interest from professionals and organizational scholars. The primary purpose of the paper is to contribute with a review of the principal works that address outsourcing from the resource‐based view of the firm (RBV). The paper begins by setting out the main premises of outsourcing and then presents the different concepts of outsourcing and proposes a concept that is more in line with the theoretical framework used. This is followed by an analysis of the principal differences and similarities of the treatments of outsourcing from the traditional perspective of the transaction costs economics theory (TCE) and from the more strategic and up‐to‐date RBV. The next section contains a review of the most significant theoretical and empirical works on outsourcing that address outsourcing from the RBV. The contributions are classified into two categories, depending on the objectives: works that study the propensity to outsource and works that study the relationship between the outsourcing decision and organizational performance. Finally, a framework is proposed that is based on the resource and capability view with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of outsourcing and facilitating future empirical works from the RBV that are complementary and examine issues of greater interest that have been less developed in the literature to date.     

Crowdfunding through a partial organization lens – The co-dependent organization

Crowdfunding has become a rapidly growing source of alternative financing for a wide range of products and service ideas. The crowdfunding process itself necessitates the successful interaction between a number of actors including the central organizing platform, a number of content providing campaigns, and a large diverse group of funders. By utilizing the literature on complete and partial organizations and rejecting the commonly applied organizational molds to describe the process, this paper proposes that crowdfunding is organized and enabled as a fluid and co-dependent interaction between the various actors. The concept of partial organizations and its emphasis on key organizational decisions reveal that crowdfunding may be conceived of as a “co-dependent organization” in which the relationship of the involved actors is so interdependent that the crowdfunding process can neither be maintained nor implemented without it.     

Managing Employee Compliance with Information Security Policies: The Critical Role of Top Management and Organizational Culture*

We develop an individual behavioral model that integrates the role of top management and organizational culture into the theory of planned behavior in an attempt to better understand how top management can influence security compliance behavior of employees. Using survey data and structural equation modeling, we test hypotheses on the relationships among top management participation, organizational culture, and key determinants of employee compliance with information security policies. We find that top management participation in information security initiatives has significant direct and indirect influences on employees’ attitudes towards, subjective norm of, and perceived behavioral control over compliance with information security policies. We also find that the top management participation strongly influences organizational culture which in turn impacts employees’ attitudes towards and perceived behavioral control over compliance with information security policies. Furthermore, we find that the effects of top management participation and organizational culture on employee behavioral intentions are fully mediated by employee cognitive beliefs about compliance with information security policies. Our findings extend information security research literature by showing how top management can play a proactive role in shaping employee compliance behavior in addition to the deterrence oriented remedies advocated in the extant literature. Our findings also refine the theories about the role of organizational culture in shaping employee compliance behavior. Significant theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Developing Absorptive Capacity Theory for Public Service Organizations: Emerging UK Empirical Evidence

A strong public policy focus on high performance means that utilizing management knowledge effectively is at a premium for UK public service organizations. This study empirically examined two English public agencies to explore the inter‐sectoral transfer of a strategic management model originally developed in the private sector – absorptive capacity – which is one way of conceptualizing an organizational competence in such knowledge mobilization. Two theoretical contributions are made. First, a new absorptive capacity framework for public service organizations is developed which recognizes the participation of public agency project teams during an innovation process proceeding over time with phases of co‐creation, testing, metamorphosis and diffusion. Second, our novel framework modifies an early influential model of absorptive capacity. Counter to this model, we argue that realized absorptive capacity requires agency from skilled and embedded actors to turn ‘curbing routines’ into ‘enabling routines’ in all four stages. Project (middle) managers have flexibility in their roles to seize episodic moments of opportunity to innovate and achieve service delivery goals, and to build absorptive capacity capability. Absorptive capacity capability develops organically over time. Future research directions are discussed.     

组织环境对工程项目成本管理影响研究——基于中铁二局的案例分析

工程项目成本管理是施工企业生存发展的关键所在。本文从组织环境这一宽泛的视角,探讨组织内外部环境中对工程项目成本管理产生影响的重要因素。以中铁二局为研究对象,通过实地访谈研究识别企业组织环境对工程项目成本管理的影响因素。本文应用扎根理论,通过对访谈数据逐级编码分析,构建了基于组织结构、控制体系和社会关系等三大支持系统的"3S"理论,从而揭示组织环境对工程项目成本管理的作用机制和对企业成本管理的意义。     

A WTP‐Choice Model: Empirical Validation,Competitive and Centralized Pricing

Willingness To Pay (WTP) of customers plays an anchoring role in pricing. This study proposes a new choice model based on WTP, incorporating sequential decision making, where the products with positive utility of purchase are considered in the order of customer preference. We compare WTP‐choice model with the commonly used (multinomial) Logit model with respect to the underlying choice process, information requirement, and independence of irrelevant alternatives. Using WTP‐choice model, we find and compare equilibrium and centrally optimal prices and profits without considering inventory availability. In addition, we compare equilibrium prices and profits in two contexts: without considering inventory availability and under lost sales. One of the interesting results with WTP‐choice model is the “loose coupling” of retailers in competition; prices are not coupled but profits are. That is, each retailer should charge the monopoly price as the collection of these prices constitute an equilibrium but each retailer's profit depends on other retailers' prices. Loose coupling fails with dependence of WTPs or dependence of preference on prices. Also, we show that competition among retailers facing dependent WTPs can cause price cycles under some conditions. We consider real‐life data on sales of yogurt, ketchup, candy melt, and tuna, and check if a version of WTP‐choice model (with uniform, triangle, or shifted exponential WTP distribution), standard or mixed Logit model fits better and predicts the sales better. These empirical tests establish that WTP‐choice model compares well and should be considered as a legitimate alternative to Logit models for studying pricing for products with low price and high frequency of purchase.     

When are organizations punished for organizational misconduct? A review and research agenda

Scholars have highlighted the use of punishment as a tool to defend laws and norms, deter deviance, and restore justice in the aftermath of organizational misconduct. However, current theory and research primarily draw on a micro-oriented lens to understand how punishment occurs in response to deviant actors within organizations, neglecting macro-oriented questions of whether and how organizations are punished for their misconduct. We review sociological and macro-organizational work that suggests punitive severity can vary with three key attributes of the organization: status, reputation, and embedded ties. We then develop a mezzo-lens framework motivated at the intersection of micro- and macro-perspectives on organizational misconduct to shed light on opportunities for theoretical expansion by crossing levels of analysis.     

Organizational identification and workplace behavior: More than meets the eye

Organizational identification is a theoretically profound and practically important construct. It fundamentally transforms the relationship between employees and their work organizations, because highly identified employees integrate their organizational memberships with their sense of who they are. This transformation enhances highly identified employees’ work performance and contributions to the organization. However, despite considerable research on the benefits of organizational identification for employee behavior, theorizing about this effect and its underlying mechanisms remains underdeveloped. In particular, there has not been sufficient theoretical development regarding the specific types of work behaviors that follow from organizational identification, the psychological mechanisms that underlie these behavioral consequences, or observers’ evaluations of these behaviors and those enacting them. To address these issues, we present a framework of the behavioral consequences of organizational identification as well as observers’ reactions to them. Our framework highlights two distinct motivational orientations that underlie organizational identification, one that reliably leads to conformist work behaviors and one that may lead to deviant work behaviors that violate the status quo to advance organizational interests. Moreover, our framework highlights that reactions to these behaviors will differ depending on the organization’s emphasis on means versus ends. Overall, we emphasize that the benefits of organizational identification for work behavior are not as straightforward or as widely recognized as implied in prior research.     

Building an integral metatheory of management

The increasing fragmentation of organization theory seems not to be responding to the challenges and complexities of organizations and society. This article contends that integral theory can make an important contribution to our discipline and presents a metatheory that integrates all previous organizational knowledge in an integral, balanced and non-marginalizing framework. Using metatriangulation techniques it reviews management and organization theories, classifies them according to their underlying paradigms and integrates them in a new metatheory. The resulting theory called “3D Management” maintains that there are 3 basic and irreducible dimensions of management: science, arts and ethics which refer respectively to the techno-economical, the aesthetic-emotional and the moral aspects of organizational reality. The fourth management dimension, the spiritual dimension, integrates the Big Three in an essential unit and strives for unity and meaning. An assessment of the theory and a concluding discussion of its contributions and potential applications is provided.     

High Performance Work Systems and Organizational Performance: An Empirical Study on Manufacturing and Service Organizations in Pakistan

A two level analysis was conducted to examine the impact of High Performance Work Systems (HPWS) on organizational performance by investigating four most prevailing theories in HPWS literature i.e., human capital (Resource based view), social exchange, relational coordination, employee attitudes and behaviours. It was proposed that HPWS predicts improved organizational performance and this relationship can be strengthened through intervention of human capital development, degree of social exchange among organizations and its members and productive relationships among employees. It was further argued that HPWS results into employee motivation, job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviours, which ultimately results into better organizational performance. Results from 17 manufacturing and service organizations confirmed the significance of association of implemented and perceived HPWS with managerial and employee rated organizational performance. Mediation analysis confirmed the contribution of human capital, social exchange, relational coordination and OCB towards organizational performance but no influence was found for employee attitudes on HPWS-performance linkage.     

Integration and Autonomy in Organizational Governance: A Comparative Study of Two Government-Owned Railways in Hong Kong

This article identifies the patterns of integration and autonomy in organizational governance in two government-owned railways in Hong Kong in relation to relevant external and internal actors from the government, market and civil society. The Kowloon Canton Railway Corporation, a government department turned into a statutory corporation, and the Mass Transit Railway Corporation Limited, a statutory corporation turned into a listed company, are both profitable enterprises. They have been subjected to similar macro-governance influences (mainly political and policy changes), but their patterns of integration and autonomy with relevant actors in organizational governance are not the same. The historical variations in the integration-autonomy patterns, notably an increased tendency for government intervention, as well as major differences between the two railways in their relationships with market and civil society actors, can often be explained by three interrelated factors, namely, political conditions, community expectations and performance.

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A Discourse on the Incorporation of Organizational Factors into Probabilistic Risk Assessment: Key Questions and Categorical Review

This article presents a discourse on the incorporation of organizational factors into probabilistic risk assessment (PRA)/probabilistic safety assessment (PSA), a topic of debate since the 1980s that has spurred discussions among industry, regulatory agencies, and the research community. The main contributions of this article include (1) identifying the four key open questions associated with this topic; (2) framing ongoing debates by considering differing perspectives around each question; (3) offering a categorical review of existing studies on this topic to justify the selection of each question and to analyze the challenges related to each perspective; and (4) highlighting the directions of research required to reach a final resolution for each question. The four key questions are: (I) How significant is the contribution of organizational factors to accidents and incidents? (II) How critical, with respect to improving risk assessment, is the explicit incorporation of organizational factors into PRA? (III) What theoretical bases are needed for explicit incorporation of organizational factors into PRA? (IV) What methodological bases are needed for the explicit incorporation of organizational factors into PRA? Questions I and II mainly analyze PRA literature from the nuclear domain. For Questions III and IV, a broader review and categorization is conducted of those existing cross-disciplinary studies that have evaluated the effects of organizational factors on safety (not solely PRA-based) to shed more light on future research needs.     

The social constitution of knowledge integration in MNEs: A theoretical framework

The goal of this article is to present a theoretical framework for a better understanding of knowledge integration in multinational enterprises (MNEs). It is argued that the enormous body of mainstream contributions from the field of International Business has largely failed to consider the transformational nature, the micro-foundations, and above all the social constitution of knowledge integration. Mainly drawing on and combing two sociological theories – Scandinavian Institutionalism and Structuration Theory – this paper contributes to an alternative understanding on knowledge integration in MNEs. In this view, knowledge integration is seen as dialectic transformation, constituted by human actors and embedded in social systems. It is argued that if we wish to understand knowledge integration, we need to ask on the micro-level, how specific actors are differently affected and able to shape such processes based on their social-systemic positioning.     

Institutional maintenance in an international bureaucracy: Everyday practices of international elites inside UNESCO

Scholars have recently called for an organizational sociology of international experts and expertise, the production and functioning of elite worlds. Meanwhile, efforts have been made to refocus organization studies of institutions towards the lived experience and everyday working practices through which organizational actors perceive, reproduce and revise the institutional structures within which they operate. The purpose of this paper is to bridge the study of international elites in the context of international policy making and emergent research on how actors actively accomplish institutional maintenance, the intent being to advance a more differentiated understanding of agency of international elites in micro-institutional maintenance. This research is based on an organizational ethnography among international program experts at the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris. The study contributes to knowledge about how maintenance of institutional frameworks of policy making is accomplished by program specialists as they continually apply the legitimate language of the institution, endow it with institutional authority in everyday practices and navigate in hierarchies and social networks. The paper discusses contributions to extant research on international elite worlds, power and agency in institutional reproduction.     

软件外包中社会资本对知识共享的影响研究

基于已有文献提出软件外包中结构资本、认知资本、关系资本与知识共享之间相关关系的概念模型,并提出假设。通过对西安软件园14家软件外包企业中管理者的访谈及相关员工的问卷调查,用结构方程模型方法、SPSS 16.0等软件对数据进行验证,实证结果表明:结构资本与知识共享没有显著关系;认知资本与知识共享有正相关关系,但并不显著;关系资本与知识共享有正相关关系,也不显著。对结构方程模型进行简化后,社会资本对知识共享有着显著的正向影响。