Distinction making and pattern recognition in management

The ability to make new distinctions in management, and to diffuse these rapidly throughout a company into shared practices, will be a corporate strategic advantage in the future. Johan Roos justifies this view on the grounds that knowledge development provides the foundation for distinction making, and it is the management of this knowledge that provides the driver.The author argues it is the process of distinction making which is a conscious managerial process. He first discusses the art of making distinctions in general, and then focuses on a particular form of distinction making: pattern recognition. He concludes with three managerial actions that can be taken to enhance the pattern recognition capability of an organisation.     

The Nature,Social Organization and Promotion of Management Research: Towards Policy

This paper argues for the distinctiveness of management research and develops a perspective concerning management research policy. It argues that the key defining characteristic of management research is its applied nature, and that its central concern should be ‘the general (engineering) problem of design’. Because a key goal of management research is to improve the relationship between theory and practice, a fundamental concern lies with its diverse nature and the consequential difficulty of integration of sub-disciplines, as well as with the issue of the relevance and the application of findings. As a policy paper, it aims to introduce a limited number of analytical frameworks in order to develop a policy position, thus helping frame the debate concerning the role of management research. Specifically, it achieves this, first by exploring the ontology of management research, examining its form, features, peculiarities and idiosyncrasies using Becher's conceptual schema for exploring the nature of disciplines; second by identifying a requisite form of social organization to support management research activity using the Gibbons et al. taxonomy of knowledge production systems; and finally, by identifying some conclusions, research policy implications, and suggesting a set of policy propositions concerning the conduct of management research.     

利他主义、代理成本与家族企业成长

家族管理模式的代理成本是高还是低?这是国外家族企业代理问题研究领域争论的焦点。本文分析了利他主义对家族企业代理成本的动态影响作用,本文认为:在家族企业发展的初期,利他主义有利于降低家族管理的代理成本;在家族企业发展的后期,利他主义会增加家族管理的代理成本。在此基础上,本文对学术界关于家族企业代理成本的争论进行整合,并从代理成本的维度提出了家族企业管理模式相机选择的原则。     

The management of international manufacturing networks: a missing link towards total management of global networks

Abstract

The purposes of this article are to provide a brief overview of the research on international manufacturing networks (IMNs), identify corresponding gaps and provide background for the papers published in this special issue. First, this article shows the importance of addressing the management of IMNs, especially in times of global turbulence as a result of new economic, political and technological trends. Second, it highlights research into the management of IMNs as a missing link in the Operations Management (OM) discipline, as most of the current OM research neglects the fact that the internal structures and relationships of multi-plant organizations inside firms play a critical role in how a supply chain/network operates and relies mostly on scholars in other fields for insights into high-level and strategic issues in the management of global operations. Finally, this article argues there is still a lot to do in order to develop new theories towards the total management of global networks that can holistically analyze different global (intra- and inter-firm multi-functional) networks and address the complex interdependencies between them.     

Management Research After Modernism

If the duty of the intellectual in society is to make a difference, the management research community has a long way to go to realize its potential. The Starkey and Madan (2001) report is a useful entry point into the debate about what kind of management research, but it defines the issues too narrowly and seeks solutions too particularly. The big strategic issues about management research are about capacity, capability and delivery. In an era of knowledge production after modernism there is a more receptive context to meet the double hurdles of management research. Research without scholarly quality will satisfy no one and will certainly disable our capacity to meet the double hurdle of scholarly quality and relevance. A more contextualist and dynamic view of knowing needs to be supported by a re-engagement of management researchers with social scientists and users, a re-engagement between European management researchers and their colleagues in the USA and a period of experimentation and learning with all the potential partners out there waiting to engage with us.     

Digital technology-based entrepreneurial pursuit of the marginalised communities

United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals call for an inclusive development and empowerment of marginalised communities. However, scholars have suggested that one single discipline or party, Multinational Enterprises, Governments or NGOs, cannot tackle these issues alone. Parallel to this, nonmarket strategies emphasising the societal context of economic competition have appeared as an important topic of research. Taking an inter-disciplinary perspective, this paper examines the extant research in digital technology, entrepreneurship and development studies to identify whether these three fields can help us understand how these issues can be tackled from a nonmarket strategies' approach and propose a conceptual model. We analyse papers published from 1994 to 2018 in these fields to map the collective state of research and provide a conceptual framework. We believe that this will help in establishing a relationship between digital technology, entrepreneurship and inclusive development. It will also help us to understand how to transform the benefits of technology into jobs and income for marginalised communities. This study will encourage researchers to investigate how United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be achieved.     

The great health policy debate of 2010

Moderator: Good evening. Tonight I will be moderating a debate on the Health Care System Salvage and Coverage Overhaul Act of 2010 (Senate Bill 1, with companion legislation in the House). The bill is awaiting final congressional action, and the issue is considered so important that all 14 major television networks are carrying this debate live, along with many radio networks and at least 1,873 Internet/World Wide Web sites. As you know, S.B. 1 would provide immediate federal aid to the 1,000 hospitals and health care systems that are currently in bankruptcy; extend government-subsidized coverage to the estimated 90 million Americans who lack it; return to the federal government a wide range of health care regulatory and payment activities that had been transferred to the states; and prohibit certain types of health care enterprises and services, chiefly proprietary delivery and managed care systems. At the moment, the chances of its passage are too close to call. Arguments in support of S.B. 1 will be presented tonight by Sen. Joseph P. Kennedy II, Democrat of Massachusetts; arguments in opposition to the bill will be presented by Sen. George W. Bush, Republican of Texas; and the view of the Independent Party will be presented by former Kansas Senator Nancy Kassebaum, who also speaks as chairman of the National Nonpartisan Commission to Save American Health Care. Senator Kennedy will begin.     

The Economic Circumstances Surrounding the Decision to Capitalize Brands—A Comment

The paper offers a reappraisal of the empirical study by Mather and Peasnell (1991) of 13 UK brand-capitalizing companies. It argues that the findings of this study can be questioned on a variety of grounds including: method appropriateness, indirectness, timing and data issues. Specifically, it is suggested that their use of market reaction testing on this topic fails to capture the wide variety of economic consequences that may flow from brand capitalization.     

Religion and Organization: A Critical Review of Current Trends and Future Directions

Given the profound role that religion continues to play in contemporary societies, it is surprising that management researchers have not explored the intersection between religion and organization in a more meaningful and determined way. This may be because religion is considered too far removed from the commercial organizations that form the empirical focus of much work in the discipline, or simply because it is deemed too sensitive. Whatever the reason, the upshot is that we know relatively little about the dynamics of religious organizational forms or the influence of these forms (and the values and practices that underpin them) on broader social processes and other kinds of organization. This paper is designed to highlight the potential of religion as a domain of study in management and to provide concrete suggestions for taking forward research in this area. The paper consists of three parts. I begin by reviewing some of the key literature in the sociology of religion and religious organizations. I then evaluate the existing literature on religion and organization, noting the salient contributions to date and highlighting some of the issues raised by this body of work. In the third and final main section, I suggest promising directions for future research.     

Fleeing from the Elephant

Abstract

The present set of papers show that leaders in the field of organizational behavior management are grappling with issues of human language and cognition. That is a good and necessary step for the field, but the solutions proposed are worrisome: adopting principles from non-behavioral psychology, adopting principles from introspection that have not been empirically validated, returning to methodological behaviorism, or appealing to non-empirical interpretations using traditional behavioral principles. In this paper I argue that these are the wrong solutions, being taken for the right reasons. There is a need for an analysis of language and cognition, but it will be found neither in other forms of psychology nor in traditional Skinnerian thinking on the topic. I suggest instead that OBM look at the data that exists in contemporary basic behavior analysis on the topic, particularly in the area of Relational Frame Theory. That work is a vigorous area of research, and its applied implications are significant, growing, and known to be relevant to organizations. The solution to the malaise these papers reflect is most likely to be found in post-Skinnerian behavior analysis itself.     

To be or not to be corporate heritage oriented? A study of managers’ corporate heritage mindsets

Corporate heritage is a research topic in branding with managerial relevance to achieve competitive advantages. Research has mainly focussed on companies with a formal corporate heritage orientation, neglecting other companies. In this study, a novel framework has been developed for analysing managers' corporate heritage mindsets as a precondition for a corporate heritage orientation in a non-heritage-oriented company. Individual managers’ corporate image heritage depicts how managers perceive their company over time, hence revealing their corporate heritage mindset. This article proposes that two managerial mindset dimensions matter – corporate heritage recognition and stance. This abductive study combines theory and empirical findings from an industrial company with a long history, but no corporate heritage orientation. The proposed framework offers companies with a history a way to analyse whether corporate heritage could be recognised and employed. This article contributes to corporate heritage research by broadening the applicability of corporate heritage issues.     

Integrated logistics-call in the revolutionaries!

This paper argues that the ability of logistics to achieve its aim of efficient and effective interfunctional co-ordination is hindered by the particular paradigm to which it unwittingly adheres. We begin by defining and setting out the objectives of both ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ forms of logistics, and demonstrate that there is doubt about whether even the newer form can achieve proper interfunctional co-ordination or gain widespread acceptance in the practitioner community. In order to understand why, it is suggested that an analysis is required of the theoretical assumptions upon which contemporary logistics is based. Despite recent developments in logistics it may be that it is some unquestioned paradigm, upon which all logisticians hitherto have relied, which is preventing genuine progress being made. A paradigm analysis is conducted which reveals that both traditional and non-traditional logistics are ‘functionalist’ in nature. It is argued that the main problems faced by logistics derive from this. Logistics suffers from the failings of functionalist thinking and its ambitions will continue to be frustrated unless it is able to achieve an ‘epistemological break’ from functionalism. Logisticians must look towards other paradigms in order to progress. Logistics is in need of its own revolutionaries.     

A Multi-disciplinary Identification of Issues Associated with ‘Contracting’ in Market-oriented Health Service Reforms

Multi-disciplinary perspectives from operational research, management information systems, purposeful activity systems, accounting and finance, transaction-cost economics and organization learning are discussed in relation to `contracting' in the NHS following the recent reforms, applied within the general framework of soft-systems methodology. These are then used to frame questions for collecting information about contracting practices and issues. The data so collected suggest that the issues and activities associated with contracting can be grouped into five interacting categories of: strategy formation, making enabling arrangements, operational management of contracted activities, identifying and relating to stakeholders, and carrying forward organizational learning from experience. Each of the disciplinary perspectives attributes significance to specific forms in these five activities. The possibility of some multi-disciplinary linking of theoretical perspectives is demonstrated. Information and purposeful systems are central to this, being on the one hand created by social processes which define relevant information and corporate alignments of purpose, and on the other hand patterns of activity that can be evaluated in terms of contribution to these purposes, with properties of greater or lesser inhibition of innovation to improve purpose achievement. As a case study of an attempt at inter-disciplinary research, it demonstrates that interdisciplinary linkage can be made, though certain epistemological issues are skated over in the process. On the basis of the case study, some of the richness and insight of the different perspectives is lost in the process. The critical debate about the neutrality of soft-systems methodology is commented on in the light of the study.     

How Does Performance Management Affect Workers? Beyond Human Resource Management and Its Critique

While performance management (PM) is pervasive across contemporary workplaces, extant research into how performance management affects workers is often indirect or scattered across disciplinary silos. This paper reviews and synthesizes this research, identifies key gaps and explores ‘recognition theory’ as a nascent framework that can further develop this important body of knowledge. The paper develops in three main stages. The first stage reviews ‘mainstream’ human resource management (HRM) research. While this research analyses workers’ reactions to performance management in some depth, its focus on serving organizational goals marginalizes extra‐organizational impacts. The second stage reviews more critical HRM research, which interprets performance management as a disciplinary, coercive or inequitable management device. While this literature adds an important focus on organizational power, there is scope to analyse further how PM affects workers’ well‐being. To develop this strand of PM research, the third stage turns to the emerging field of recognition theory independently developed by Axel Honneth and Christophe Dejours. The authors focus especially on recognition theory's exploration of how (in)adequate acknowledgement of workers’ contributions can significantly affect their well‐being at the level of self‐conception. Although recognition theory is inherently critical, the paper argues that it can advance both mainstream and critical performance management research, and also inform broader inquiry into recognition and identity at work.     

“MANAGING THE DECISION SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY: A CASE FOR ETHICAL ANALYSIS?”-COMMENT

In the current issue of Decision Sciences, Brightman [2] argues that the growth of the discipline should be managed, and individual decision scientists must ultimately be held accountable for the ethical implications of implementing their research findings. The purpose of this comment is to examine several principles behind Brightman's arguments and to initiate a discussion of some of the important issues that have been raised. The distinction between the inquiry and technological imperatives and questions about the universality of moral reasoning at the ethical-principles leverl further Brightman's analysis and pose important considerations for decision scientists.     

Learning and Organization in the Knowledge‐Based Information Economy: Initial Findings from a Participatory Action Research Case Study

This paper reports on an ongoing, multiphase, project‐based action learning and research project. In particular, it summarizes some aspects of the learning climate and outcomes for a case‐study company in the software industry. Using a participatory action research approach, the learning company framework developed by Pedler et al. (1997) is used to initiate critical reflection in the company at three levels: managing director, senior management team and technical and professional staff. As such, this is one of the first systematic attempts to apply this framework to the entire organization and to a company in the knowledge‐based learning economy. Two sets of issues are of general concern to the company: internal issues surrounding the company's reward and recognition policies and practices and the provision of accounting and control information in a business‐relevant way to all levels of staff; and external issues concerning the extent to which the company and its members actively learn from other companies and effectively capture, disseminate and use information accessed by staff in boundary‐spanning roles. The paper concludes with some illustrations of changes being introduced by the company as a result of the feedback on and discussion of these issues.