核心能力:组织文化和组织学习作用

本文研究组织文化、组织学习、核心能力和组织绩效之间的相互影响关系,并以华南地区的139家企业为对象进行实证研究。本文的理论贡献在于证实了:(1)组织文化通过影响组织学习进而影响核心能力;(2)组织学习影响核心能力进而影响组织绩效;(3)核心能力对组织绩效有直接的正向影响;(4)组织文化对组织绩效没有显著的直接影响,但通过组织学习和核心能力的构建间接影响组织绩效;(5)组织学习对组织绩效没有显著的直接影响,但通过核心能力的构建间接影响组织绩效。本文的研究结果对于深刻理解核心能力的形成及正确认识组织文化和学习在组织管理中的作用有重要的借鉴价值。     

员工社会化、组织认同与组织公民行为——基于中国科技制造企业的实证研究

组织社会化的策略、内容及其对员工态度和行为影响的研究已经比较丰富,但在结果变量上对组织公民行为的分析和实证研究都很不足。本文选取了组织社会化中的历史、语言、价值观和目标社会化三项内容,考察它们对组织公民行为的影响及其机制,尤其是组织认同在其中的中介作用。层级回归、结构方程建模分析的结果表明,历史、语言、价值观和目标社会化正向影响组织公民行为,组织认同在语言、价值观和目标社会化与组织公民行为的关系中起完全中介作用,在历史社会化与组织公民行为的关系中起部分中介作用。     

组织承诺及其形成过程研究

本文在一系列研究的基础上,提出了在不同工作情景下对组织承诺研究的两种思路：一是在西方文化背景下,员工倾向于从离职角度考虑自己与企业的关系,特别关心离职损失和离职后的工作机会;二是在中国文化背景下,员工倾向于从留职角度考虑自己与企业的关系,关心现有工作的稳定性及企业发展前景。在此基础上,提出了一个基于社会交换理论的组织承诺形成过程模型。即员工首先将在企业内受到的支持与期望标准进行比较,再对比较的结果进行归因后,才能确定组织承诺的高低,而期望标准包括价值匹配、组织公平、社会比较等内容。     

组织文化演变驱动力的实证研究

组织文化是组织战略性竞争优势的重要组成部分。在前人研究的基础上,本文首先区分了组织文化变革两种类型——改革与演变,并以组织文化演变为研究对象,进一步提出驱动组织文化演变的三种驱动力——组织任务环境变化、组织内部环境变化和组织成员参与程度,通过结构方程模型就三种驱动力对组织文化演变的作用及三种驱动力之间的关系进行实证研究。研究结论表明,组织内部环境变化对组织文化演变起正向作用,组织任务环境变化对组织文化演变起负向作用,组织员工参与程度通过组织内部环境变化这一中介变量,对组织文化演变起正向作用。     

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.     

Innovation with field experiments: Studying organizational behaviors in actual organizations

Organizational scholarship centers on understanding organizational context, usually captured through field studies, as well as determining causality, typically with laboratory experiments. We argue that field experiments can bridge these approaches, bringing causality to field research and developing organizational theory in novel ways. We present a taxonomy that proposes when to use an audit field experiment (AFE), procedural field experiment (PFE) or innovation field experiment (IFE) in organizational research and argue that field experiments are more feasible than ever before. With advances in technology, behavioral data has become more available and randomized changes are easier to implement, allowing field experiments to more easily create value—and impact—for scholars and organizations alike.     

More (new) products,more problems? A systems perspective on increased capability deployment and organizational errors

The capabilities-based view postulates that organizational capabilities are a key driver of competitive advantage. However, while increasing the pace of deploying organizational capabilities, such as new product development (NPD), may enable alignment with changing environments, it may also have unintended consequences. In this study, we advance theory on these unintended consequences by investigating how the increased deployment of NPD capability leads to organizational errors. Borrowing from organizational research employing systems theory, we argue that an increase in NPD deployment may increase the likelihood of routine discoordination and, thus, the incidence of intra-firm and interfirm errors. However, we also proffer that firms can mitigate errors from increases in NPD capability deployment by engaging in distinct internal and external activities that enable the accumulation of knowledge on how to coordinate systemic change. We distinguish between internal and external errors, demonstrating that in the context of increased NPD deployments, internal voluntary investigations ameliorate internal manufacturing errors, while supplier alliances mitigate outsourced component errors. We find support for our predictions using data from new product introductions and recalls in the U.S. automotive industry. This study sheds light on the tension inherent to accelerating the deployment of patterned organizational activities and suggests that the outcomes of deploying an organizational capability are best viewed holistically within the milieu of organizational systems the capability spans.     

History and the present: Institutional legacies in communities of organizations

An important source of organizational variation in communities is institutional legacies: institutions that persist and affect the community over long periods of time. Institutional legacies have received attention in the past, but recently there has been increased interest in their origins and effects. We examine three carriers of institutional legacies—legal structures, voluntary organizations, and intra-community relations—and show some work on each of these carriers. We discuss how research on institutional legacies presents a particular challenge in causal identification, but we also offer potentially viable solutions to this challenge. Finally, we outline extensions of research on institutional legacies through work that documents how the interrelationships between community organizations and businesses are shaped by institutional legacies and in turn contribute to their evolution.     

The impact of a participatory organizational intervention on job stress in community health care institutions

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of a short-term participatory intervention in health care institutions in Norway on workers' control, other job characteristics, job stress, subjective health and job satisfaction. Participants (including managers and supervisors) were randomly allocated to intervention groups and to a control group. Actions to solve problems based on the employees' own perceptions of the main problems were seen as the key motivators for organizational improvement and increased control at the task and office level in the work situation. The main stressors identified by the participants in this study were lack of information, communication and respect between professions, as well as the need for professional and personal development. The participatory intervention had a positive, but limited effect on work-related stress, job characteristics, learning climate and management style, and seemed to have started a beneficial change process. There were no negative short-term effects on work-related stress and job demands. Organizational interventions may be a potential training ground for acquiring participatory skills and resources, and if sustained after the intervention period, they can have long-term effects on problem solving, job stress and employee satisfaction.     

The impact of emotion on organizational learning

This paper addresses an aspect of organizational learning that has not been extensively developed - the impact of emotion on organizational learning. The study of emotion in organizations is seen as an important part of the development of organizational learning. The paper argues that attention to the emotional dynamics of organizing, and to the links between emotion and organizational politics, will increase the possibilities for understanding organizational learning. Awareness of the impact of emotion on organizational learning can be developed through an investigation of two areas. First, organizational learning is more than a product of organizational responses to individual learning. Emotion contributes to a broader understanding of systemic learning. Second, emotion is important to strategic aspects of organizational learning. There is a link between the emotional and the political within organizations. The paper contains a discussion of these themes using brief case examples to illustrate and develop the issues.     

Organizational change and rigidity during crisis: A review of the paradox

When and how do existential crises, threatening business continuity, stimulate organizational change or cause the opposite—rigid preservation of established business practices? This question remains unresolved, despite three decades of deliberations in the academic literature, which still yields contradicting theoretical arguments and empirical results. One view argues and finds support for the hypothesis that posits an amplified propensity to change within threatened organizations. The other view supports the threat-rigidity thesis, implying reinforcing habitual practices. In this paper, we provide a novel holistic typology of organizational crises and then review the literature on the topic, summarizing existing insights within a theoretical framework comprising three interrelated sequential processes: organizational cognition, decision-making, and implementation. We analyze the gaps in the field's knowledge within each process and propose a research agenda to address these voids.     

Examining the Joint Roles of Responsibility and Reinforcement History in Recommitment*

The present study examined the combined effects of responsibility and reinforcement history on investment responses during a series of failure experiences. Subjects performed a variation of the A and S decision case [27] under one of six conditions varying in responsibility (high, low) and reinforcement history (variable partial, fixed partial, no training). When investment responses at the start of the period of continuous losses were examined, results indicated that high responsibility and a variable history of reinforcement are both necessary conditions for escalation to occur. When later responses were included in the analysis, reinforcement history and time were the main factors affecting recommitment responses. These results suggest possible refinements to current models of escalation.     

The Impact of Poor Performance on Risk-Taking Attitudes: A Longitudinal Study with a PLS Causal Modeling Approach

This article addresses some important issues in risk-return, or mean-variance, research. Much of the research in this tradition has used Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory to explain Bowman's proposition that “troubled firms” prefer and seek risk. Unfortunately, two key constructs in prospect theory, reference point and risk attitude, have not been applied in risk-return research in ways consistent with prospect theory. The author examines a series of inconsistencies in the use of prospect theory in risk-return research to date and suggests remedies. A proposed approach using a longitudinal research design at the individual-firm level is applied in an empirical test of the Bowman hypothesis with data from brewing firms in the United States. The findings strongly support the Bowman hypothesis.     

Initiating structure leadership and employee behaviors: The role of perceived organizational support,affective commitment and leader–member exchange

The aim of this study was to examine the mediating role of perceived organizational support (POS) and affective organizational commitment (AOC) in the relationship between initiating structure (ISL) and employee behaviors. In addition, we also analyzed the moderator role of leader–member exchange in this relationship along three dimensions (affect, loyalty and professional respect). We conducted a survey-based study of 484 employees of a retail business and the results of the multiple regression analyses indicate that POS and AOC act as mediators in the relationship between ISL and two employee behaviors (extra-role organizational citizenship behaviors and turnover). Further, our results support the moderator effect of professional respect in the positive relationship between ISL and POS. This study makes an interesting contribution to the literature on ISL and its effects by construing POS as a consequence of this leadership style, and by adding professional respect among the possible moderators. Research avenues, limitations, and the practical implications of our findings are discussed.     

The Positive Effects of Easy Goals on Decision Quality and Risk Propensity in an MCPLP Task

In this study the potential performance benefits of easy goals were examined within the multiple cue probability learning paradigm (MCPLP). Specifically, the effects of varying levels of goal difficulty on performance and risk propensity (used to define a form of commitment) were investigated. With few exceptions, previous studies demonstrated support for difficult goals. In this study, contrary to the majority of past evidence, as goals became easier decision quality significantly improved. Moreover, risk propensity increased with easier goals and, as suggested by a post-hoc analysis, had more direct impact on decision makers’ behaviors than goal levels. Goal-related behavior in complex MCPLP tasks appears to significantly differ from the majority of goal evidence in other types of research due to the tendency for subjects to view complex task properties in the same context as goal levels.     

多维环境规制下的组织目标及组织形态演变——基于中国长江三峡集团公司的案例研究

环境力量如何渗透到组织内部影响组织形态是组织理论研究的一个基本话题。本文通过案例方法,以处于战略转型中的中国长江三峡集团公司为研究对象,分析、总结其从工程建设阶段到运营管理阶段所处环境的变化、组织目标以及组织形态的演变。研究发现,组织目标作为组织边界上链接环境与组织的机制,是整合组织内外部力量和要求并赋予组织主体性的关键要素;在追求目标实现的过程中,结构安排与文化控制塑造了组织形态。环境影响组织的力量并非是单一纯粹的,而是社会性、经济性和技术性力量的混合甚至是变异;同时,环境力量是在与组织内部动机、需求的共同作用下影响组织目标的。对此过程的深层剖析发现,环境变化引致组织任务继而组织权力格局的变化,而把握权力的群体因为对组织产出和结果的控制而控制了组织目标。     

Involving Information System Users in Defining System Requirements: The Influence of Procedural Justice Perceptions on User Attitudes and Performance

This study incorporates the theoretical framework of procedural justice into the information system (IS) user participation research paradigm. In a field setting, 726 subjects representing 59 local newspaper sites took part in a fully randomized, longitudinal experiment. Four increasing levels of participation concerning specifying system requirements were manipulated: mute, voice, choice, and voice plus choice. As the participation level increased, procedural justice judgments increased correspondingly. Perceptions of control over the development process, satisfaction with the outcome, and objective measures of performance increased from the mute to voice conditions, were unchanged from the voice to choice conditions, and increased again as participation was manipulated at the highest level—voice plus choice. The rich contextual field setting in which this experiment was conducted, combined with strong attitudinal and performance results, encourage researchers to integrate the psychology of procedural justice into the study of IS user participation.