ORGANIZATIONAL PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT

The phenomena of organizational perception management is hardly new. The efforts of organizational spokespersons to protect and manage positive images, identities, or reputations of their organizations can be found in historical accounts of the Roman Catholic Church, and the universities of ancient Greece. The same perception management problems that plagued these early organizations (e.g. threats of illegitimacy due to changes in social norms; face-saving following scandals or accidents), continue to confront organizations today. During the past thirty years, these types of issues have been studied by organizational scholars in attempts to understand how perception management tactics affect the views and support critical audiences’ (i.e. those audiences on which the organization depends for support). This paper provides an overview of this research and a framework defining the primary components of organizational perception management. This framework distinguishes organizational perception management from individual perception management in terms of its practical implementation and strategic nature.     

Working with an executive search firm: Part I--The candidate's perspective

This article is the first in a two-part series on how to work with executive search firms. Part one describes how the physician executive can build an effective relationship with an executive search firm as a candidate or potential candidate. Part two will cover how the physician executive can work with an executive search firm--either as a client or as a member of an executive search committee--to attract high-quality management talent.     

Avoiding the valley of death in educating strategists

Billions of dollars and hundreds of millions of hours are invested every year in executive education. However, much of this investment dies in a familiar “Valley of Death” (VoD) wherein what is learned in the classroom is not applied when the strategist returns back to work. Based on 30 in-depth interviews and live observation, we investigate the architecture of an executive education program designed to avoid the VoD. In the observed program, senior partners of a strategy consulting firm, and their key strategist clients, are brought together to co-learn strategy associated with scenario planning, and, at the same time, improve their ongoing business relations. We find that adopting a “paired learning structure” and utilizing “live case content” results in “group-level co-learning” (or the co-production of knowledge) that, participants report, avoids the VoD. This research contributes to the scholarship on learning architecture in executive education by establishing linkages to the literature on client-partner relationships, modelling the student, and service co-production in knowledge-intensive organizations, and, in the end, provides a blueprint that professional service firms and business schools, seeking to produce more value for their participants, can jointly emulate.     

Working with an executive search firm: Part II--The hiring organization's perspective

This article is the second part in a two-part series on how to work with an executive search firm. The first article, which appeared in the September-October 1992 issue of Physician Executive, focused on executive search from the candidate's perspective. This article focuses on how organizations can work with an executive search firm to recruit and retain top management talent.     

The Role of Project and Organizational Context in Managing High‐tech R&D Projects

High‐tech organizations often struggle to manage different types of R&D projects. Evidence from research and practice suggests that managers frequently categorize and manage projects based on the extent of change triggered in product, process, technology, and market dimensions. However, this can create challenges in high‐tech organizations. This study investigates how high‐tech organizations manage R&D projects based on their learning goals. First, we argue for the benefits of categorizing R&D projects based on the degree of exploration and exploitation learning goals. A qualitative case study from four high‐tech business units involving 10 R&D projects helps understand the different types of projects based on their learning goals. The case study shows that R&D projects in high‐tech organizations typically fall into three categories based on their learning goals: Radical innovation projects, Incremental innovation projects, and Hybrid projects. Second, we iterate between literature and evidence from our qualitative data to theorize how project context and organizational context affect project performance depending on the type of project. The data for the empirical analysis come from a multilevel survey of 110 R&D projects across 34 high‐tech business units. Results show the importance of designing project and organizational context differently for the three types of R&D projects. Collectively, this study offers a new perspective on how to manage high‐tech R&D projects.     

The Persistence of a Stigmatized Practice: A Study of Competitive Intelligence

Studies on the diffusion of practices provide valuable insights into how organizations adopt, adapt, sustain and abandon practices over time. However, few studies focus on how stigmatized practices diffuse and persist, even when they risk tainting the adopters. To address this issue and understand how firms manage stigmatized practices, we study US organizations associated with the practice of competitive intelligence (CI) between 1985 and 2012. CI includes legitimate information gathering practices that are sometimes also associated with infringements and espionage. Our findings suggest that CI became highly diffused and persisted despite the risk of stigmatizing its adopters. We identified three factors to explain CI's persistence: (1) keeping it opaque to avoid the negative effects of stigmatization, (2) ‘constructing’ usefulness to justify its ongoing use by leveraging accepted beliefs and invoking fear of unilateral abandonment and (3) adapting it by developing multiple versions to increase its zone of acceptability. These three factors contribute to practice persistence by allowing firms to dilute the potential stigma from use of the practice. Our contribution lies in explaining the adoption, diffusion and ongoing use of a stigmatized practice whose benefits cannot be overtly acknowledged or made public.     

Changing Corporate Governance in Response to Negative Media Reports

We study how organizations change their corporate governance in response to negative publicity in the media. We build on insights from the literature on interpersonal trust to theorize how organizations respond to different types of trust‐damaging information. We suggest that organizations are likely to replace key individuals involved in the corporate governance process when trust‐damaging information provides evidence of low integrity. In contrast, organizations are likely to make changes in how the governance process is organized when trust‐damaging information provides evidence of low benevolence. We test our hypotheses by using data on publicly traded Korean firms from 2006 to 2013. Our results provide general support for our argument about corporate governance changes that organizations initiate in response to different types of trust‐damaging information. We also explore how foreign ownership and state ownership moderate organizational responses to trust‐damaging information.     

Innovation communities' contributions throughout firms’ innovation processes: An outdoor sports industry case study

Although it is crucial for firms to select openness patterns and strategies to involve innovation communities more effectively, the literature treats innovation communities as homogeneous. However, organizations may mobilize various innovation communities, including external and/or internal members. Similarly, little is known about how firms may involve those different types of innovation community during the distinct phases of their innovation processes. In this context, our main research questions are: For what contributions do companies solicit innovation communities? Do these contributions vary in content and intensity depending on the community and the phase of the innovation process? We distinguish between three types of innovation community (user, practice, and epistemic) and use a dynamic approach, considering four innovation process phases (opportunity recognition, search for solutions, development, and diffusion). The multicase study design includes three iconic firms from the outdoor sports industry and relies on archival data, observations, and 31 semidirective interviews with members of their innovation teams. Our results first show the important involvement of innovation communities during the innovation process. They also highlight the complementary use of those communities to manage their contributions, alongside their dark sides, better. Finally, we emphasize the crucial contribution of internal communities of practice in the firms’ open innovation strategies.     

Responding to discontinuities in product-based service supply chains in the COVID-19 pandemic: Towards transilience

PurposeIn this study, we identify and characterise how organisations have responded, in ways ranging from restoration to radical change, to discontinuities in their product-based service (PBS) supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a theoretical approach that integrates transilience and panarchy theory as a response strategy in PBS supply chains, our qualitative study involved collecting data through 19 semi-structured interviews at six manufacturing firms during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., March to August 2020) and triangulating the findings with the secondary data and that from an industry workshop. Following an inductive approach, we performed thematic data analysis in Nvivo software package.FindingsThe findings suggest characterising discontinuities in PBS supply chains as unmanageable external supply-side, demand-side or interactional discontinuities or other manageable deliberate or forced organisational discontinuities. Following that characterisation, we developed a conceptual framework combing both resilience and transformation into new service opportunities.Research limitations/implicationsWe gained insights into the first-response abilities and ways of coping among manufacturing firms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Though our findings capture a contemporary, eye-of-the-storm perspective on future directions, a longitudinal study on the pandemic could further validate and extend the modes of response that complement mitigation with the ability to accelerate change or innovation of internal process or external service offerings.Originality/valueCombining current literature with lessons learned from the firms' immediate responses, this paper's overview and characterisation of discontinuities following the COVID-19 outbreak in PBS supply chains demonstrate how manufacturing firms can foster transilience. As such, it integrates product-based supply chain discontinuities into the domain of service-based supply chains.     

Perceived competitive influences and innovative behaviour

The article looks at how firms' perceptions of competitive influences shape their innovative behaviour as they search for strategic advantage. In this exploratory piece of research, the author shows that firms take notice of a small number of competitors only, their perceived competitive position is very different from that measured “objectively”, and that firms have programs which direct resources into innovative behaviour to meet competitive threats.¹     

Public participation in corporate planning— strategic management in a Kibitzer's world

In this article the author argues that there are three main challenges for the company which wishes to be known for its strategic prowess. These are the need to search a changing environment with respect to both threats and opportunities. The second challenge is to ensure organizational response, while the third—that which is least understood—is the challenge of coping with an active intrusive environment which is made up of individuals and organizations which seek to influence the strategic decision of the enterprise.The author does not offer a series of ready-made answers to the problems posed, but rather, suggests that planners need to take cognizance of the third challenge when developing strategies.     

Physician leadership. Physician executives share insights

Senior physician executives were asked to share their insights about how the medical management field has evolved. The Physician Executive Management Center, a Tampa, Florida-based search firm, has been surveying senior physician executives each year for the past decade. This year's report on physician executive compensation and duties in hospitals, managed care organizations, and group practices provides an excellent picture of the growth of the profession, as well as a broad perspective of anticipated changes for the future of medical management. The respondents addressed the following questions: What are the skills necessary for success? How have their jobs changed over the years? Have they made the right choice in pursuing medical management careers?     

Squeezing or cuddling? The impact of economic crises on management control and stakeholder management

This paper analyzes the effects of economic crises on firms’ use of management control mechanisms and on their management of stakeholder relations. Moreover, the association between stakeholder management and management control system use is analyzed. In the wake of the economic crisis of 2008/2009, many firms were faced with severe threats that called for immediate short-term action to ensure firm survival. However, short-term action like massive cost-cutting and cash generation often are blamed for going at the expense of long-term health as key stakeholder relations may be irreversibly harmed. Hence, three interrelated questions are addressed theoretically and empirically: First, we analyze the impact of the recent economic crisis on firms’ control strategies. More specifically, we investigate whether a high crisis impact on firms is associated with a shortening of reporting cycles, a more interactive use of control-relevant information, restriction of employee autonomy and a focus on liquidity and cost-cutting. Second, we examine from the viewpoint of stakeholder theory how firms can make use of active stakeholder management for crisis management. Third, we explore whether firms can take short-term measures for ensuring liquidity and cutting costs and at the same time pursue a stakeholder strategy aiming at the long-term survival of the firm. Using survey data from 204 major Austrian corporations, we provide evidence that firms significantly adjusted their control systems as a response to the economic crisis. Our data do not indicate an immanent contradiction between a “short-term finance focus” and the pursuit of a sustainable stakeholder strategy.     

The Sharing Economy Globalization Phenomenon: A Research Agenda

Sharing economy firms have been able to achieve global levels of success at an unprecedented pace. In this study, we focus specifically on internet-based firms that allow rent appropriation from temporary utilization of underutilized assets. By looking at these firms' main characteristics and the current dynamics revolving around their internationalization process, we develop a framework to guide future research drawing from a business ecosystems perspective. The business ecosystem approach is a promising theoretical lens to assess this phenomenon due to its more holistic view of multisided network effects and multiple stakeholders' participation that can vary across nations. We note that the sharing economy phenomenon has spurred worldwide adoption of platform businesses which, in turn, creates a great opportunity for future research to extend current theories by exploring why, when, and how these firms expand into new countries. We argue that further research on sharing economy firms and its interactions with different national ecosystem configurations can provide important insights to theory as well as relevant information to managers and policymakers.     

Shame on Who? The Effects of Corporate Irresponsibility and Social Performance on Organizational Reputation

This study examines the relationship between corporate irresponsibility, corporate social performance and changes in organizational reputation. By combining attribution theory with expectancy violations theory, we provide the first systematic analysis of how organizational reputations are influenced by attributions of corporate irresponsibility in the context of social expectations. Drawing on a comprehensive and unique corporate irresponsibility dataset, this study reveals that firms previously believed to be most socially responsible are penalized by evaluators when corporate culpability is verified by a court of law. Conversely, firms perceived as least socially responsible were more likely to suffer reputation penalties when accused of irresponsibility, without their culpability established through litigation. Overall, the results of our study suggest that organizational reputations are mostly stable in light of irresponsibility, in that evaluators only penalize certain firms, in certain circumstances. Specifically, reputation penalties occur when highly responsible firms are perceived as hypocritical and least responsible firms were not found culpable by a court of law. Upon reflection on these findings, our study reveals that the mechanisms of social sanction previously assumed to regulate irresponsibility are weaker than currently understood. The theoretical and policy implications of this study are discussed, along with directions for future research on social evaluations.     

Labor Market Intermediaries and the New Paradigm for Human Resources

Labor market intermediaries (LMIs) are entities that stand between the individual worker and the organization that needs work done. They include well-known operations such as executive search firms that act as brokers to fill jobs and temp agencies that lease labor to clients but also less familiar entities such as professional employer organizations (PEOs) that take on the legal obligations of employment for clients. LMI's mediate between individual workers and the organizations that need work done, shaping how workers are matched to organizations, how tasks are performed, and how conflicts are resolved [Autor, D.H. (2009). Studies of labor market intermediation: Introduction. In D. Autor (Ed.), Studies of labor market intermediation (pp. 1–26). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press]. They essentially disintermediate aspects of management that had been performed by employers. The growth and increasing prominence of LMI's is important for all research associated with the workplace because we can no longer do a study of “workers” in an organization and assume that they are all employees: Some may be temps under contract to an agency, some may be “employed” by a PEO, some may work for vendors. The reason that matters is because LMI's appear to alter attitudes and behaviors on all sides. For example, they change the bilateral, employee–employer relationship into a three-way “triangular” relationship. They may well create “dual allegiance” issues, where individuals feel ties to the search firm that placed them in their current job and their employer or the agency that employs them and the client on whose behalf they are currently working. Most fundamentally, they challenge the existing paradigms we have used to understand the workplace: Does “attraction–selection–attrition” have any relevance, for example, when employers hire temps placed by agencies into permanent jobs? What does career development mean when the person with the most influence over your next job is a search consultant? There is already an extensive literature on LMIs, but it is spread across disciplines and fields and mainly examines the labor market outcomes associated with the use of LMIs. The literature lacks a management voice. We know relatively little about the effects of LMIs on workplace attitudes and behaviors, the central focus of organizational behavior; about how LMIs and the associated rise of outside hiring change how we should think about topics such as recruiting and selection, a central concern of personnel psychology; we know even less about how LMIs change the way firms think about competencies and boundaries of the firm, central topics in strategy, when the firm's workforce is actually employed by another organization or when it can be reshuffled very quickly. We develop a taxonomy of LMIs and use it to classify the burgeoning but disjointed literature on LMIs across the social sciences. We classify LMIs in terms of three main attributes of human resource (HR) practices that they perform: Information Providers, Matchmakers, and Administrators. We describe first how LMI activities differ from HR management practices performed by employers in the traditional relationship. Second, we outline the existing research about how LMIs affect employment outcomes, such as access to employment, wages, work-related attitudes and behaviors, working conditions, and skill development. Finally, we highlight the implications of LMIs for management research, especially new, understudied research questions that need to be addressed.     

Measuring the pulse of an organization: Integrating physiological measures into the organizational scholar's toolbox

This goal of this chapter is to build a bridge between psychophysiology and organizational behavior in an effort to extend organizational theories and enhance the precision of organizational research. The first section describes psychophysiological systems and theories that can inform organizational scholars’ understanding of the biological bases of behavior in organizations. The second section discusses the advantages and challenges associated with incorporating psychophysiological measures into organizational research. The third section speculates on some possible domains where the use of psychophysiological measures may provide novel insights into key organizational phenomena. In sum, this chapter provides an opportunity for organizational scholars to think about how incorporating physiological measures and outcomes into organizational research can deepen theoretical insights and enrich our understanding of human behavior in organizations.     

A strategy for incorporting ISO 9000 into an internationally oriented accounting practice

Management consulting organizations generally can plan to improve their earnings by two strategies. First, they can offer their services in a more efficient manner by using a minimum amount of resources. This is normally accomplished by employing common tools such as reengineering of the processes, continuous improvement, and target costing. Second, they can attempt to raise their market share or offer new types of services required by clients. For accounting firms, this means expanding their service horizons from traditional audit, tax, and systems consulting to more contemporary areas such as ISO 9000 and total quality management (TQM). The authors outline an approach for firms to successfully undertake the inclusion of quality audit services in their practices.     

How do executive search firms increase interest in career opportunities? The role of past interactions

This article explores how executive search consultants stimulate executives’ consideration of career opportunities available at other employers. The study is based on a panel dataset of 3582 executives invited to a job interview by a global executive search firm from January 2005 to May 2009. The results demonstrate that past interactions between executives and the search consultants had a delayed effect on consideration of career opportunities. The results contribute to research on executive careers by identifying past relationships with search consultants as a factor affecting rejection of new career opportunities. They also shed light on the relatively understudied phenomenon of executive search firms.     

Managing the new global workforce:: Fostering diversity, forging consistency

As a result of rapid foreign investment, many multinational firms now have workforces that are spread across continents and countries, and that include an increasingly complex blend of cultures and nationalities. Their challenge is to capture the benefits of a diverse workforce while also forging necessary consistency around the world. This article explores the concepts of diversity and consistency as they apply to multinational firms, and draws on examples from several leading multinationals to suggest how firms can better manage their global workforces.