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.     

Generations in organizations

Despite a rich tradition of scholarship across many disciplines, organizational research on the topic of generations has been relatively scarce. In this article we develop a framework for studying generations in organizations that draws on multiple conceptualizations across multiple disciplines. Our framework distills two distinct critical elements that give ‘generations’ agency in organizational settings – chronology (the idea that a unique location in time creates a ‘generation’) and genealogy (the idea that generations are linked through the transmission/descent of ideas/values/skills/knowledge). After an historic overview of the evolution of the topic of generations, we review generational research across the fields of political sociology, family sociology, psychology, social anthropology, cultural sociology, demography, and gerontology. Our framework elucidates how linkages between generations, based on chronology and genealogy, can be characterized in organizations and how the nature of intergenerational contact and transfer predicts a wide range of organizational outcomes such as change/innovation, conflict, turnover, and socialization. We outline the implications of this framework for future research on generations in organizations.     

Wisdom of the crowd and capabilities of a few: internal success factors of crowdsourcing for innovation

Crowdsourcing has been demonstrated to be an effective strategy to enhance the efficiency of a firm’s innovation process. In this paper, we focus on tournament-based crowdsourcing (also referred to as “broadcast search”), a method to solve technical problems in form of an open call for solutions to a large network of experts. Based on a longitudinal study of six companies piloting this application of crowdsourcing, we identify barriers and sources of resistance that hinder its implementation in firms. Our paper contributes to the state of research by analyzing crowdsourcing on the level of pilot projects, hence providing a workflow perspective that considers the creation of dedicated processes and operations of crowdsourcing. This project level analysis enables the identification of specific challenges managers face when implementing crowdsourcing within an established R&D organization. Following a design science approach, we derive suggestions for organizational interventions to overcome these barriers. We find that dedicated promoter roles strongly contribute to a successful implementation of crowdsourcing, turning pilot projects into an organizational routine.     

众包供应链基于On/OffLine混合定制设计生产决策模型分析

互联网平台经济（Platform Economy）正颠覆传统企业商业模式,众包供应链（Crowdsourcing Supply Chain,CSC）作为一种新型的"互联网平台+设计创新"供应链,也正成为人们关注和研究的热点。本文在订单定制设计模式（Engineering to Order,ETO）的基础上,将定制设计和订单生产两环节相结合,并以交货期为驱动,按常规生产时间和加班生产时间来优化生产流程。在此框架下,建立了线下（Offline）自行定制设计的供应链生产模型;接着结合互联网众包平台的特点,以及众包线上（Online）和线下（Offline）的互补性,将众包线上定制设计环节有机嵌入融合到线下自行定制设计供应链中,以此优化和构建出基于众包的线上线下混合定制设计的供应链生产决策模型,设计出众包线上定制设计和线下定制设计动态切换条件;并通过粒子群算法（Particle Swarm Optimization,PSO）对上述模型进行求解;最后通过实例进行分析,发现定制订单数量不多时,线上线下混合定制设计对成本的降低不是很显著,但随着订单数量越多,线上线下混合定制设计优势将显著变化,并且具有一定程度的抗风险性;通过这个转换点也发现,众包定制设计的订单生产最好安排在期初和期末,众包线上定制设计订单应尽可能减少挤占线下自行设计的常规生产时间,而应转向在加班时间生产更为经济;同时,通过增加对众包设计者的设计报酬,发现不仅对整个供应链的成本影响不大,反而对众包设计者形成较大激励作用,进一步证明该模式的可行性和实用性。     

企业研发团队内部技术知识转移的过程机理与途径研究

在有关知识转移过程机制的国内外研究基础上,着重从团队层面揭示了企业研发团队内部技术知识转移的一般过程和内在机理,进而借用NONAKA等的模型思想,设计了研发团队内部技术知识转移的途径框架,解析知识转移的具体途径和方式,从研发团队内部技术知识转移视角为我国企业自主性技术创新绩效提升提供了几点思路。     

IT治理与我国国防科技组织发展创新

加快信息化发展、提高信息化建设水平,进而保证国防能力稳定提高是我国国防科技组织发展与创新的重要目标,而在研究如何实现这一目标的过程中,"IT治理"问题越来越突出.本文从交易成本经济学、契约理论、嵌入理论出发,对IT治理的多层性特征等问题进行分析,试图建立IT治理的分析框架,探讨IT治理机制的特征,进而制定战略和具体执行措施,从制度上保证我国国防信息化建设的成功.     

Organizational Learning,knowledge creation,problem formulation and innovation in messy problems

This paper attempts to bring the discussion about knowledge creation, innovation and organizational learning to a level that addresses how messy problems are addressed and how the organizations must integrate the viewpoints of the key decision-makers, establish a process for testing their assumptions, include the context including the environment design, and to allow innovation and creativity to enter the choice of actions. It builds on the literature of problem formulation, innovation, and experimentation and on the articles in this special issue.     

Double Trouble: Sibling Rivalry and Twin Organizations in the 2008 Credit Crisis

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and explore the novel idea of highly similar ‘twin organizations’. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory in his formulation, the author argues that the closeness of organizational identities in twin organizations may lead to increased rivalry, narcissism and a tendency for greater risk‐taking and vulnerability. Four of the biggest casualties of the 2008 credit crisis – two UK banks (HBOS and RBS) and two large US financial institutions (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) – are used to illustrate this conceptual development. The contribution of this paper is fivefold. First, this paper contributes the theoretical innovation of the idea of twin organizations to the organization studies literature. Second, it casts a fresh light on four of the organizations that got most deeply into trouble in the credit crisis. Third, it contributes to other areas of organizational scholarship, specifically the theory of risk and the theory of organizational identity. Fourth, this paper acts as a warning by identifying similar phenomena in the ongoing Eurozone crisis, and fifth, it contributes to the understanding of risk‐management practice and organizational consultancy.     

开放式创新下的知识治理——基于认知视角的跨案例研究

开放式创新作为21世纪的创新趋势,所带来的挑战已经不是知识管理层面的问题,而是组织知识治理层面的问题,即迫切需要有效的治理机制来应对由知识差异性、知识复杂性以及创新者利益冲突所产生的知识基础性风险,从而为这种分布式、大规模的创新活动提供制度性保障.本文基于内涵更加丰富的认知视角,将知识治理的两种主要思路--情景组合观与流程设计观有机融合,以开放式创新中的知识流转作为分析单元,以创新过程各个环节中的知识基础性风险为分析的微观基础与治理对象,运用跨案例研究,旨在超越交易成本理论的传统思路建立一个开放式创新下知识治理的理论框架,从而为更加深入的实证研究奠定基础,也为企业的开放式创新实践提供有益的借鉴与参考.     

The soft side of knowledge transfer partnerships between universities and small to medium enterprises: an exploratory study to understand process improvement

Abstract

The study explores the soft side of knowledge transfer partnerships between universities and small to medium enterprises (SMEs), a topic which is often neglected in the knowledge management literature. The aim of this paper is to uncover the issues which emerge during formation of a partnership between heterogeneous organizations and universities. In addition, the study unfolds the criticalities of typical process improvement capability that supports the knowledge transfer partnerships between universities and SMEs. Using multiple cases, this study unravels the dominant elements that influence knowledge transfer process development, governance, implications and responsibilities. The major contribution of this study is the development of a framework based on empirical evidence using three knowledge transfer partnerships (KTPs) which illustrates the way in which soft factors in knowledge transfer partnership phases may have an impact on success or failure of university–industry collaborations for innovation.     

Managing Knowledge Creation in High‐Tech R&D Projects: A Multimethod Study

R&D projects in high‐tech organizations bring together diverse knowledge domains to quickly develop new products and processes. The fast‐paced context of high‐tech organizations makes it challenging to create new knowledge and solve complex problems. Managing these R&D projects requires understanding both the mechanisms and the type of knowledge created to achieve project objectives. This research conducts a two‐phased multimethod study to understand knowledge creation in high‐tech R&D projects. The first phase uses qualitative data to develop a theory on knowledge creation in R&D projects. The second phase involves a survey that collects data from R&D projects to test the theory. Results from the case study find that R&D projects benefit from two types of knowledge – objective and intuitive. The case analyses show that intuitive and objective knowledge creation in high‐tech organizations occurs by creating not only diverse but also psychological safe project teams. The large‐scale survey finds that team diversity positively influences objective knowledge creation while psychological safety affects intuitive knowledge creation. Surprisingly, the results show that team diversity negatively affects intuitive knowledge creation. A post hoc analysis takes a more granular look at diversity and shows that different kinds of diversity have different effects on knowledge creation. This helps to better explain how to manage innovation across boundaries. Finally, the analysis shows that both objective and intuitive knowledge influence R&D project performance. Taken together, these results help explain how to manage innovation across functional boundaries to create knowledge and enhance R&D project performance.      

Discursive strategies for internal legitimacy: Narrating the alternative organizational form

A significant body of academic work has explored the ways in which hybrid organizations seek to secure external legitimacy. However, there is a more limited understanding of the ways in which organizational units in hybrid organizations seek to acquire internal legitimacy – legitimacy which is conferred by internal stakeholders. This study draws on more than a century of communications in a Dutch cooperative bank to uncover how a major organizational unit enacted distinct discursive strategies to seek internal legitimacy. The paper extends prior work by showing how internal legitimacy work – the efforts to shape, reinforce, or suppress internal legitimacy judgments – in a hybrid organization is a dynamic process whereby an internal unit generates multiple complementary narratives to promote a fit between its own attributes and the legitimacy evaluations by internal audiences. In addition, it shows how internal legitimacy work can promote this fit by attempting to manipulate not only the impressions of the internal unit's attributes, but also its audiences’ understanding of wider cultural norms of the day, on which their legitimacy judgments are based. In this vein, the paper highlights how discursive internal legitimacy work seeks to generate a taken-for-granted organizational position for the internal units concerned.     

Assessing the ‘Choosiness’ of Job‐seekers. An Exploratory Approach and Evidence for Italy

Abstract. We use information about job search and work preferences, typically collected in a labour force survey, in order to construct an indicator of ‘choosiness’ of the labour supply of job‐seekers. The method for obtaining the indicator, first at individual level and then at aggregate levels, is based on results from multiple correspondence analysis. We investigate the informational value of the indicator by examining its stability over time and its predictive power on labour force transitions. Empirical analyses of cross‐section and panel samples of job‐seekers from the Italian quarterly Labour Force Survey clarify the potentials (and limitations) of the approach.     

Leveraging Open Innovation Using Intermediary Networks

Open innovation, fuelled by the rise of the Internet, has made it feasible and cheaper for firms to open themselves up to a wide range of external sources of innovative ideas. The explosive growth of open innovation intermediary networks, such as InnoCentive or Linked‐in, enables the rapid pairing of firms seeking knowledge to address a wide range of business challenges (seekers) with other firms or individuals who already have relevant knowledge (solvers or knowledge brokers). These intermediary networks allow procurement departments to source codified and un‐codified knowledge from firms or individuals outside their traditional supplier networks using one‐off transactional relationships. Although sourcing ideas in this way theoretically poses problems for knowledge search and transfer, we have found that companies can draw on processes and integration mechanisms developed by procurement and design engineering to develop effective organizational learning routines. These routines are strategically vital to source new ideas through open innovation using intermediary networks and create competitive advantage.     

The Strategic Management of Innovation: A Systematic Review and Paths for Future Research

Strategic management scholars have long emphasized the importance of innovation for a firm's competitive advantage and performance. However, the current state of knowledge about the strategic management of innovation is characterized by conflicting theoretical predictions, persisting knowledge gaps and theoretical inconsistencies. Adopting a ‘systematic’ approach to reviewing the literature, this paper combines different quantitative methods – co‐word analysis, cluster analysis and frequency analysis – to review 342 articles on the strategic management of innovation published in seven journals from 1992 to 2010. On the basis of these analyses, suggestions are developed for future research which could help to promote future theory development and provide relevant material for policy decisions that managers and executives have to make when they manage innovation.     

基于集群创导导向的航空产业集群治理评价研究

借鉴已有集群治理研究成果并结合航空产业集群的特殊性,剖析了集群创导与集群治理的互动关系,构建了航空产业集群治理分析框架,提出了航空产业集群治理要素模型,即包含治理结构、治理机制和治理环境3个维度的多层次综合治理要素体系,旨在为政府等有关集群主体公允地参与航空产业集群治理、提升集群创新能力提供指导,并为开展集群治理评价实证研究奠定基础。     

A MARKET UTILITY‐BASED MODEL FOR CAPACITY SCHEDULING IN MASS SERVICES

Only a small set of employee scheduling articles have considered an objective of profit or contribution maximization, as opposed to the traditional objective of cost (including opportunity costs) minimization. In this article, we present one such formulation that is a market utility‐based model for planning and scheduling in mass services (MUMS). MUMS is a holistic approach to market‐based service capacity scheduling. The MUMS framework provides the structure for modeling the consequences of aligning competitive priorities and service attributes with an element of the firm's service infrastructure. We developed a new linear programming formulation for the shift‐scheduling problem that uses market share information generated by customer preferences for service attributes. The shift‐scheduling formulation within the framework of MUMS provides a business‐level model that predicts the economic impact of the employee schedule. We illustrated the shift‐scheduling model with empirical data, and then compared its results with models using service standard and productivity standard approaches. The result of the empirical analysis provides further justification for the development of the market‐based approach. Last, we discuss implications of this methodology for future research.     

Translating Local Knowledge at Organizational Peripheries *

This article theorizes about the kinds of knowing present in organizations that share both a structural similarity in the organization of work and work practices – a ‘double periphery’ in which a community of practitioners acts across both a horizontal, geographic periphery and a vertical, hierarchical periphery – and a common mode of practice – translating across these peripheral borders. In principle, these workers develop knowledge in interaction with clients and customers that could be valuable to the organization, were it but to learn from them. Instead, the ‘local knowledge’ they learn in acting across these peripheries is discounted, if not disparaged, by more centrally‐located managers and executives. The article theorizes about the nature of translating local knowledge concerning organizational practices and about the structural character of local versus ‘expert’ knowledge.     

Does Distance Hinder Coordination? Identifying and Bridging Boundaries of Offshored Work

We submit that offshoring research focused mostly about an empirical phenomenon and extending our understanding about it, rather than expanding our understanding of the underlying theory as illuminated by empirical evidence. To theoretically frame the implications of offshoring strategy and practice for organizational design, this paper centers on the interplay between coordination and geographical distance. Distance strains the traditional approaches to coordination – i.e. decomposability and communication – as it impacts on knowledge boundaries created by the decomposition scheme. This increases the inherent complexity of the international division and coordination of innovative labor and knowledge and calls for new organizational practices.