Flexibility, Hierarchy, Markets

The conclusion that organizations need to become more strategically flexible as a response to increasing environmental dynamism and uncertainty has been an important feature of recent contingency theories of organization design. In this literature organizations have been analysed from the perspective of the development of networks of organizations concentrating on their core competencies and contracting among themselves on a stable long-term basis. This model of inter-firm relationships provides an alternative mode of organizational structuring to that arising from vertical integration, which, by contrast, is seen as fostering strategic inflexibility. In the literature on corporate restructuring and changes in ownership form arising from the markets and hierarchies perspective, we see a similar emphasis on the dysfunctional consequences of large-scale bureaucratic organization. Changes in ownership form are seen as a major means of providing more effective managerial control. In this paper we argue that linking the literature on flexibility emanating from contingency theories of organizational design and the markets and hierarchies perspective provides important new insights into current and emerging forms of organization.     

Strategic quest and the search for the primal mother

This paper seeks to offer a Jungian perspective on the purposive behaviour of organizations and to throw light on the recent preoccupation with various organizational initiatives such as quality management, benchmarking, and even strategic approaches to HRD. The paper is unconventional in its approach in that it seeks to engage with the issues it discusses in both its form and its content. The purpose of the paper is to give attention to feminine aspects of the organization and, in particular, to the relegation of the feminine from the organization and, by implication, from social life. Here the feminine equates to the Jungian anima, the archetype of the male feminine. The ideas in the paper operate in the space between the organization as regulation and purposive rationality and the organization as living, physical bodies: between the Law and the Body. The form of the paper replicates these divisions and so text boxes run throughout the text to exemplify the captured otherness which is a central concern of the paper. The rationale for the text boxes is understated to allow the relationship between the rational and the physical to remain playful and ambivalent (see Baudrillard 1990). The paper is concerned with the questing behaviour of organizations and the expression of loss of the feminine, with the construction of masculine emblems that seek to substitute for the lost feminine, and with the impossibility of fulfilment.     

敏捷制造环境下分布式团队组织激励研究

敏捷制造环境下,人员组织的一般形式是分布式团队。由于分布式团队能在极短的时间内组成,在需求被满足后很快地被解散,与传统制造企业中相对稳定的组织形式相比,组织激励存在许多根本性差别。本文分析了其中主要的差别,并探讨了影响分布式团队组织激励有效发挥作用的主要外部环境因素。     

‘Bureaucracy‐lite’ and Continuities in Managerial Work

This paper questions three frequently asserted, interrelated claims about developments in management: that centralized, regulated bureaucratic organizations characterized by hierarchy and rules are inevitably giving way to decentralized and empowered post‐bureaucratic organizations characterized by internal networks and an internal market; that, as a consequence, the traditional managerial role of command and control is being superseded by one of facilitation and coordination; and that, in turn, managerial work as routine administration of work processes is being supplanted by the ‘new managerial work’ of non‐routine leadership and entrepreneurship. It is argued that these claims often rest on caricatures of bureaucracy and network organization and are neither new nor well supported by evidence. Against these claims, the paper adduces case‐study evidence which shows that, despite claims about ‘decentralization’ and ‘empowerment’, organizational change may entail not a radical shift to network organization, but more limited change to a different form of bureaucracy in which hierarchy and rules have been retained but in an attenuated and sharper form –‘bureaucracy‐lite’. Consequently, managerial roles continue to be defined in terms of individual responsibility and vertical accountability for an organizational sub‐unit, and managerial work continues to be preoccupied with monitoring and maintaining work processes, routine direction and control of staff and processing information in order to deal with the ambiguities inherent in the dimensions of managerial ‘responsibility’.     

虚拟企业及其智能化管理

随着计算机技术和信息技术的高速发展．虚拟企业将是未来企业的有效组织形式。企业组织形式与经营模式的巨大变革,将促使企业管理模式的更新、因此,虚拟企业与由虚拟企业所引申的管理理念(本文称之为虚拟企业策略)、虚拟企业管理三者之间存在本质的差异。本文针对当前对"虚拟企业"理解和认识上的不完善,系统地阐述了虚拟企业的有关概念,并讨论了虚拟企业的体系结构,提出了虚拟企业智能化管理的基本思想．探讨了虚拟企业管理智能决策综合集成系统的总体设计方案和若干关键技术问题。     

Archetype Change in Professional Organizations: Survey Evidence from Large Law Firms

This paper examines the proposition that the traditional archetype of the professional partnership is said to have changed into a more 'business-like' entity, the managed professional business. It broadens the restricted case sample base on which much of the evidence has been adduced, by developing a survey questionnaire through which 197 large British law firms were sampled. Change, consistent with the notion of a more commercially oriented and consciously managed organization, is concentrated in the market-facing area of the firm but coexists with areas of continuity in the governance of the firm and its strategic management. The findings reveal a more managerial form of organization in which the core elements of the traditional form of professional organization have not been transformed. These results contest the assertion of either transformational or sedimented change found in other, case-based research and suggest that archetype change needs theoretically to be distinguished from the general phenomenon of greater managerialism within the professional service firm.     

组织结构变革的复杂适应系统观

复杂适应系统的组织被认为是现代经营环境条件下企业生存的重要形式,它要求构成组织的行为主体既相对独立又相互联系和依赖,能够根据各自所处的环境条件进行内部变革和相互关系调整,以适应复杂变化的环境和条件。本文根据复杂适应系统理论,阐述了组织变革的趋势和未来形式,给出复杂适应组织设计原理,指出现有企业组织变革成为复杂适应系统的途径。     

Pluralism in Organizations: Learning from Unconventional Forms of Organizations

The bureaucratic organization is still regarded as the conventional organizational form, but is ill‐suited to an increasingly pluralistic world. Research on the variety of organizational forms has increased dramatically over the past three decades and offers the potential to understand better how pluralism is manifested and managed within organizations. However, this research remains fragmented. The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize research on unconventional organizations to explore how organizations resolve or attenuate the tensions related to pluralism. Drawing from research in leading management journals, it covers seven distinct literatures: ‘referent organization’, ‘temporary organization’, ‘pluralistic organization’, ‘meta‐organization’, ‘bridging organization’, ‘hybrid organization’ and ‘field‐configuring event’. For each literature, the authors trace the genealogy of the key concepts and review their distinct insights regarding organizational pluralism. They then synthesize and discuss their collective contributions and conclude with avenues of research for pluralism in organizations.     

Plural forms versus franchise and company-owned systems: A DEA approach of hotel chain performance

Plural form tends to be the most popular organization form in retail and service networks compared to purely franchised or purely company-owned systems. In the first part, this paper exposes the evolution of researchers’ state of mind from the way of thinking which considers franchising and ownership as substitutable organizational forms to theories which analyze the utilization of both franchise and company arrangements. The paper describes the main attempts to explain theoretically the superiority of plural forms. In the second part, the paper discusses the hypothesis which says that there is a relationship between the organizational form of the chain and its efficiency score. It is demonstrated through the application of a data envelopment analysis method on French hotel chains that plural form networks are in average more efficient than strictly franchised and wholly owned chains. The Kruskal–Wallis test which is a distribution-free rank-order statistic is used to statistically verify this relationship. The result does not permit the rejection of the null hypothesis regarding whether an organizational form is more efficient than another one. Hence, this paper opens prospects for researches aiming at testing the organizational form effect on different samples and with other methods.     

An evaluation of the effects of a National Health Service Trust merger on the learning and development of staff

Although mergers are increasingly common amongst National Health Trusts in the UK there is limited research on how National Health Service (NHS) mergers influence the learning and development of staff. This paper bridges the gap in the literature, through a case-study of a recent NHS Trust merger. It gives an account of the delivery of human resource development (HRD) post merger as seen through the eyes of staff from across the merged organization. The data were obtained from 21 unstructured interviews, nine group discussions, two focus group discussions and a form of micro-ethnography. In addition, quantitative data were used for triangulation purposes. Findings show that power differentials, cultural clashes and unequal access to training and development amongst staff have resulted in hostility towards the new organization. However, the strong management structures for professional members of staff have facilitated knowledge exchange across boundaries in the merged organization. The paper concludes by suggesting that without senior managers dealing with cultural issues and inequitable development opportunities, a number of unintended consequences of the merger are likely to occur.     

Organizational Legitimacy and Stakeholder Information Provision1

One interpretation of the concept of organizational legitimacy is that it stems from the cultural values of society, and suggests that businesses operate under a mandate that may be withdrawn if organizations are seen not to be doing the ‘right’ things. This suggests there is something in the nature of a principal-agent relationship in existence, and that some form of accountability is then owed by the agent (the organization) to the principal (society). This paper seeks to investigate the nature of this accountability, distinguishing between the accountability which exists towards those elements of society with which an organization has a contractual relationship, and those where it does not. Adopting a pluralist stance, stakeholder theory is then used to illustrate the possible nature of both the form of legitimacy relationship extant, and of the accountability that the principal might expect of the agent.     

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.     

知识的分布与组织结构的变革

传统观念认为企业采用什么样的组织形态主要由企业所在的环境决定。本文从韦伯、西蒙等人的理论出发,认为组织设计的一个关键问题是保持知识与权力的匹配。按照知识与权力匹配的理论,组织是集权还是分权,主要由知识在企业中的分布决定。而知识在组织中的分布取决于所在的行业、企业规模等几个方面的因素。文章最后从历史演变的角度,分析了组织中知识的分布所引起的组织变革。     

A framework for understanding commitment in the R&D organization

The complex and long-range nature of technological innovation makes commitment particularly important to the R&D organization. Using findings from previous and current research, this paper develops a conceptual framework for understanding commitment in the technology-based organization that may be more precise and meaningful than the traditional, global conceptions. Three general conclusions emerge. First, organizational commitment has positive benefits not only for the organization but also for the individual. Second, given the popularity of the project form of organization in R&D and the deep commitments individuals sometimes make to those projects, some allowance should be made for multi-commitments. Third, one of the most important and least investigated antecedents of organizational commitment is the verbal behavior of the project manager. Some implications of this perspective for future research are presented.     

Micro-Political Strategies and Their Implications for Participative Decision Making

Drawing on both organizational behaviour and employee relations perspectives,the paper defines participation as `opportunity to influence decisions,' andconsiders the impact of the micro-political behaviour of organization membersin pursuit of their interests on the development of genuine participation.Three types of micro-political strategy are identified and their implicationsdiscussed: information control, flexibility, and stage-craft. The discussionis illustrated with findings from an international study of decision making,and brief comment is made on international cultural differences as acomplicating factor. It is suggested that the role of participation in enhancing the knowledge baseof the organization has been neglected. If genuine participation is to beinstituted, decision making will become more complex, requiring negotiation,not only of competing interests but also of what is to be accepted as`knowledge' in the organization. This in turn will place greater demands onthe intellectual skills and personal behaviour of participants.     

Accounting and Conceptions of Control in the American Corporation1

This study examines three conceptions of how capitalist firms are organized and the relationship between accounting, organization, and control. The first conceptions is based on neoclassical economic theories, and its central premise is the efficacy of contracts. The second model emphasizes Marxian ideas of class conflict and exploitation. Its organizational premise rests on hierarchy and accumulation. The third concept is sociological. Its core assumption is that firms act to create ‘organizational fields’ which assure their continued survival. Each of these three perspectives relies on accounting as a means of control. The paper argues that there is an institutional connection between accounting and corporate control; the connection is demonstrated by the way in which accounting legitimizes control through objectivity, methodology, and professionalism. Regardless of how control is theoretically conceived, accounting is a crucial aspect of control within the modern economic organization.     

网络组织风险传导的动态演化路径研究

网络组织是一个对风险高度敏感的交叉复杂系统,一方面风险具有客观必然性,另一方面风险极易在网络组织内部传导,各种风险在内外力的交互作用下会迅速扩张,因而风险传导机理如何、其动态演化路径如何等就成为能否实现协同效应的关键。本文基于网络组织风险传导具有路径依赖性的特征,利用泛函分析从时间维度推演风险传导的动态演化过程,构建网络组织风险传导路径模型,并运用具有典型网络组织特征的企业集团网络数值算例进行验证,为更好地控制风险、探寻疏通渠道、实现资源的有效配置提供新的洞察。     

The Emergence of Flexible Networks in the UK Television Industry

‘Flexibility’ became a management buzz word in the mid-to-late 1980s. Environmental pressures drove firms in many industries towards more flexible structures – away from internal, classical hierarchies towards agent networks brought together on individual project-task grounds. The goal of many organizations, according to proponents of this trend, became that of seeking ‘flexible specialization’– integrating specialist resources in a dynamic, flexible fashion. Critics of the drive towards flexibility argue that the phenomenon has been overemphasized, and that large-scale bureaucracies geared for mass production are still the dominant structural form. This paper overviews the arguments concerning flexibility and related arguments concerning the emergence of networked forms of organization. Flexibility trends within the UK television industry are then explored to illustrate the emergence of ‘flexible specialization’ and a ‘dynamic network’ form of organization. Television thus serves as an important counter-factual to the dismissive claims of the critics of flexibility.     

重大工程复杂性与适应性组织——港珠澳大桥的案例

 重大工程通常由技术难度、系统关联性、未知因素存在巨大差异的异质性子工程组成,不同子工程往往采取不同的组织模式。传统权变理论认为,不同的外部环境需要采用不同的组织模式,组织的构建要适应外部环境的不确定性。但在重大工程中,子工程本身及其环境的复杂性均会产生不确定性,组织模式的选择和构建与子工程的复杂性具有重要的联系。因此,有必要从复杂性的视角解释重大工程的组织多样化现象。        在梳理重大工程复杂性及组织适应性研究的基础上,选择港珠澳大桥工程中的岛隧工程、钢结构工程、路面铺装工程、海事工程等子工程的组织管理实践作为研究对象,通过访谈、参与式专家和文档资料等方式获取相关数据,从复杂性视角对子工程进行分类,界定重大工程适应性组织概念,解析重大工程中不同子工程采取不同组织模式的适应性组织现象,总结构建适应性组织的路径。        基于重大工程复杂性的具体表现即工程技术方案与外部环境的关联性和认知不完备性,构建子工程复杂性评价指标体系,据此将子工程分为复杂性工程、创新性工程、关联性工程和简单工程4种类型;提出重大工程适应性组织概念;得出重大工程适应性组织构建的路径包括组织需求设计和匹配、工程主体创新和构建、组织系统形成和集成、组织职能实现和协同4个步骤。        研究旨在提出重大工程适应性组织概念,揭示重大工程组织模式选择和构建的机理及动态过程,说明重大工程组织模式与工程复杂性之间的关联性,指导其他重大工程组织管理模式的选择和构建。由于单案例研究的局限性,有必要在其他重大工程中对所提出的重大工程适应性组织概念及适应性组织构建过程进行进一步的完善和验证。     

Uniformity and Diversity in Turkish Business Groups: Effects of Scale and Time of Founding

This study aims to extend recent theoretical and empirical work that has begun to question the strong homogeneity argument in much of the macro‐institutional literature on nationally dominant forms of organizing. More specifically, the paper develops the proposition that intra‐national variety is likely to be greater in business strategies and structures than in governance patterns. Drawing upon macro‐institutionalist and contingency theories, testable hypotheses are derived from this proposition that postulate relationships between size and time of founding and organizational dimensions of strategy, administrative structure, and forms of governance. These hypotheses are then tested on a sample of business groups that have historically been the dominant form of large business organization in Turkey. Findings did show, as expected, that governance structures remained insensitive to size and time of founding effects. Variety associated with size was apparent in the case of central administrative structures, although features associated with vertical control remained invariant. Hypotheses concerning diversification and internationalization strategies received only partial, and in the latter case, rather weak support. The findings are indicative, however, of divergence resulting from differences in size and institutional conditions of founding.