Strategic leadership research: Moving on

During the last 20 years, the field of strategic leadership has undergone both a rejuvenation and a metamorphosis. We argue that the essence of strategic leadership involves the capacity to learn, the capacity to change, and managerial wisdom. Against this backdrop, we first review issues related to under what conditions, when, and how strategic leadership matters. Next, we selectively review three streams of theory and research. The first is strategic leadership theory and its antecedent, Upper Echelon theory. The second stream of theory and research focuses on what Bryman has labeled the “new” leadership theories. These include charismatic, transformational, and visionary theories of leadership. The last stream of research we classify as the “emergent” theories of leadership. Among these are theories that explore behavioral and cognitive complexity as well as social intelligence. Finally, we attempt to suggest how the “new” and “emergent” theories can be integrated within what we claim is the essence of strategic leadership.     

A comment on: A note on the EOQ-JIT relationship

In a recently published note in this journal the need for independent control of the production rate (R) and production time (L) was established in order to adapt the economic production quantity (EPQ) model in JIT settings. In this comment we aim to improve the relevance of EPQ in a JIT environment. We focus on two issues, namely, modelling the production rate as a decision variable and also deriving an expession for the optimal number of batches (n* ) for the raw materials and/or subcomponents needed.     

Foreword: Special Issue on Retail Operations

This article draws on my field research in the retailing industry to identify the operational challenges faced by retailers and the relevance of those challenges to senior retail managers and researchers in operations management. It summarizes areas of research in retail operations that have evolved recently and are likely to be important in the future.     

UK Privatization: Its Impact on Procurement

This study is concerned with changes in procurement and supply chain management in UK privatized companies. In most cases, privatization requires the organization to develop a completely new approach. This is because of the change in ownership and the new competitive environment into which the company moves. Part of this reassessment of the business by senior management can be expected to include procurement. The paper focuses on the nature and direction of the changes in procurement associated with privatization, based on research into the privatized sector in Britain. The method adopted involves an extensive questionnaire completed by 28 major companies privatized in the UK, followed up by interviews with twelve of these companies. Questions centre on the following key areas: changes in the structure of procurement, procurement strategy, the role and profile of procurement within the company, attitudes to outsourcing and supplier performance and changes in approach to assessing the performance of the procurement function. Our results indicate extensive change. Although cost reduction is often a driver of these changes, as the companies strive to reduce costs to meet City expectations and best practice in the private sector, another consideration is the contribution that procurement can make to the overall strategy of the company, so as to gain and maintain competitive advantage.     

产品创新与绩效：基于元分析的直接效应研究

对收集到的主要学术数据库中有关产品创新与企业绩效之间关系的36个研究样本进行了元分析.研究表明,产品创新与企业绩效之间存在着显著的正相关关系.这不仅从一般意义上证实了产品创新是企业绩效的关键驱动因素,而且还为企业管理人员有效处理二者之间的关系提供了理论支持.     

异地性对冲动性购买行为影响的实证研究

冲动性购买在商场和超市的零售中占有相当的比例,值得关注的是越来越多的消费者在异地发生冲动性购买,然而文献中对冲动性购买行为的研究大量是集中在对同城购买(常居地购买)的实证上,很少涉及以异地购买(非常居地购买)为实证对象的研究.显然这是两个不同的环境,消费者的购买行为是否会发生变化呢?原有的理论模型是否能够全面解释?基于此,论文提出了如下研究问题:异地性会对冲动购买行为产生什么样的影响?研究通过访谈和文献检索定义了异地性变量的四个维度:文化差异、时间压力、重购成本、购买压力.并以旅游者为实证研究对象,采用问卷调查和结构方程模型的研究方法探讨了异地性对冲动性购买行为的影响.研究发现,旅游者感知的文化差异、重购成本和购买压力与其冲动性购买意愿和行为呈显著的正相关关系;其中购买压力的影响最大,文化差异的影响次之,重购成本的影响相对最小.因此对零售商而言,针对异地消费者,基于加大购买压力感知的考虑,挖掘其家人和朋友的需求可能比挖掘其本人的需求更重要;基于加大文化差异感知的考虑,介绍商品的文化背景可能比介绍商品本身更重要;基于加大重购成本感知的考虑,有些商品原产地销售可能比在全国布店销售更好.     

Provider satisfaction: an analysis based on expectation

Provider organizations will need to be in closer touch with their medical staffs in order to successfully anticipate and react to the many changes that lie ahead in the financing and delivery of health care services. This will mean understanding both physicians feelings and expectations. If you were asked today how satisfied your physicians are with your HMO, what would be your reply? How would you know? This staff-model HMO conducted a formal survey of its physicians to determine their expectations of the organization and their level of satisfaction with their work and environment. Such a tool is recommended for others interested in maintaining good relations with their physicians.     

In-house recruiters: on the inside looking out

Few smaller hospitals or managed care companies have in-house physician recruiting departments. Their low hiring volume simply doesn't support such an operation. But most health systems and large managed care organizations say they literally couldn't afford to be without an internal system for the recruitment of physician executives and other health care professionals. They also claim they can find a better candidate faster than their counterparts on the outside. A number of them explain why.     

公司治理结构信息披露:若干发现

本文以 “ 公司治理结构 ” 定性信息披露为观察对象,通过认真阅读 2001 年度 1160 家上市公司的公司治理结构信息披露的文本,我们发现上市公司治理结构信息披露总体上存在 “ 表述操纵 ” 的特征主要表现为:华而不实、 文字游戏、避重就轻、虚假披露等现象。     

关于管理研究及其理论和方法的讨论

继续作者关于中国管理学科定位和发展方向的学术讨论,从管理学的研究动机,研究对象,以及理论和方法选择方面,讨论作者个人的一些初步想法.其基本观点主要有:1)学术研究的终极动力应该是对科学真理的追求;2)这种追求的一个重要特点就是勇于创新,勇于挑战现有的范式;3)这种创新必须基于严格的训练和严密的设计;4)这种严密的设计必须考虑到研究对象与理论和方法的匹配;5)中国管理学研究应该鼓励多种理论,多种学说,多种方法共同发展,取长补短,在借鉴国外主流管理学科发展的经验和教训的基础上,发挥中国管理学者的特长,解释和预测中国遇到的管理问题和现象,为整个管理学科的发展做出贡献.     

Click and mortar: Organizations on the web

The webpages of organizations are both a form of representation and a type of narrative. They entertain, persuade, express a point of view, and provide a means to organize collective action and economic exchange. Increasingly, webpages are the primary point of access between an organization and its environment. An organization's online presence offers a major new source of rich information about organizations. In this paper, we develop three perspectives on websites from an organizational point of view: as identity projects, tools, and relational maps. We draw on data from the online and offline presences of “brick and mortar” nonprofit organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area to both illustrate how a digital transformation shaped these organizations and identify a host of new methods that can be used to study organizations using webpages. Finally, we reflect on both the strengths of these new sources of data as well as possible limitations and conclude with theoretical implications for organizational scholars.     

Customization: Impact on Product and Process Performance

Manufacturing capability has often been viewed to be a major obstacle in achieving higher levels of customization. Companies follow various strategies ranging from equipment selection to order process management to cope with the challenges of increased customization. We examined how the customization process affects product performance and conformance in the context of a design‐to‐order (DTO) manufacturer of industrial components. Our competing risk hazard function model incorporates two thresholds, which we define as mismatch and manufacturing thresholds. Product performance was adversely affected when the degree of customization exceeded the mismatch threshold. Likewise, product conformance eroded when the degree of customization exceeded the manufacturing threshold. Relative sizes of the two thresholds have management implications for the subsequent investments to improve customization capabilities. Our research developed a rigorous framework to address two key questions relevant to the implementation of product customization: (1) what degrees of customization to offer, and (2) how to customize the product design process.