组织惯例概念界定及其结构模型：基于扎根理论的研究

近年来，得益于组织惯例的再定义和惯例二维观的提出，组织惯例在组织任务完成以及组织创新和发展中的根本性作用已经得到广泛的认同，相关研究随之呈现繁荣景象。但组织惯例所代表的集体行为模式由哪些方面构成或组织惯例的具体内容是什么，尚未得以揭示，使整个研究领域呈现出根基不稳的状态。 在梳理有关组织惯例的基本概念及其二维构成理论的基础上，选择天地华宇定日达惯例、宏康针织订单完成惯例和上海移动投诉处理惯例作为研究对象，通过访谈、观察和文档资料等方式获取相关数据，采用扎根理论方法，按照开放性编码、主轴编码和选择性编码的路径，对组织惯例的概念进行有效界定，析出各维度之间的相互关系，并构建组织惯例结构模型。 研究具体化组织惯例概念的构成，得出组织惯例由显性规范、共享基模、共倾行动、专业能力和执行异动5个维度构成；构建组织惯例概念模型，验证组织惯例由启示面和执行面构成以及两者之间的互动关系，即代表执行面的执行异动和代表启示面的其他4个维度之间存在互动关系；代表组织惯例基本原则和思想的启示面除了已有研究提出的集体层面的共享基模和共倾行动，还包括组织层面的显性规范以及个体层面的专业能力，且4个维度之间相互依存。 研究旨在具体化组织惯例的概念，深化组织惯例二维观理论，为该领域的深入研究创建基础，改变该领域当前对组织惯例概念的理解仅停留在单一、抽象层面的局面，并指导组织实践者深入理解组织惯例的内涵和意义。受扎根理论编码过程主观性的限制，有必要对调研资料进行反复比较和编码对比，进一步完善和检验所构建的概念模型。     

Replication of Routines in Organizations: Existing Literature and New Perspectives

Replication of existing routines in new contexts is an important value‐creating strategy for organizations. This paper synthesizes the state of research on replication and organizes the literature around two broad themes: forward knowledge flows (i.e. from a replicator to a replicatee) and reverse knowledge flows. The authors show that the theoretical assumptions of existing research leave important questions around the replication of routines unaddressed. More specifically, they identify research gaps in regard to micro‐level processes of replication. Little is understood about the performance of routines in practice and, related to that, the processes through which routines change during replication. Drawing on recent theorizing on organizational routines, in particular the relationship between the ostensive and performative aspects, helps the authors to unpack the micro‐level processes of forward and reverse knowledge flows. This paper opens two new trajectories for research on replication: (1) a focus on the actions of individual actors in the enactment of organizational routines provides new possibilities for understanding how replication is an inherently political process; (2) conceptualizing change as endogenous within the performance of routines offers a route to a more nuanced understanding of change and deviation in the process of replication. The paper closes with a summary of major theoretical arguments, questions for further research and implications for practitioners.     

新企业组织学习对惯例的影响研究——组织结构的调节作用

 组织惯例广泛存在于成熟企业之中,然而学者对新企业惯例以及影响惯例的因素并未展开深入的探讨。聚焦于分析新企业中组织学习对组织惯例的影响,并考虑到组织结构的调节作用;基于组织学习理论和组织惯例的研究成果,在组织学习过程中,知识会被存储在组织记忆,并与组织记忆共同存储在惯例中,进而决定惯例表现形式。而组织结构会影响学习过程中知识在组织中的传递。        新企业在走向成熟的过程中必然伴随着组织运行的惯例化过程,在这个过程中,企业会通过实践和观察行业中其他企业获取运行和发展的知识。由于组织惯例的核心内容是存储在惯例中的知识,以知识的内外部获取为划分依据,研究替代式学习和体验式学习两种不同的组织学习方式;以惯例存储的知识的显性和隐性特征为划分依据,研究显性惯例和隐性惯例两种不同的组织惯例;基于对知识传递的影响作用不同,将组织结构划分为机械型组织结构和有机型组织结构;构建受组织结构调节影响的新企业组织学习影响组织惯例的理论模型,进行定量研究,采用SPSS 20.0软件对来源于长春地区的188家新企业的数据进行分析,并检验相关假设。        研究结果表明,替代式学习和体验式学习对新企业的显性惯例有正向影响,体验式学习对新企业的隐性惯例有正向影响,替代式学习对隐性惯例有负向影响。机械型组织结构中,体验式学习对显性惯例和隐性惯例的正向影响更大,机械型组织结构和有机型组织结构对替代式学习影响显性惯例和隐性惯例的调节作用并不显著。        研究结果揭示了新企业中组织学习影响惯例的作用机理,进一步细化了二者之间关系的研究,为新企业规范化和制度化运行提供了借鉴意义。     

Participation in Strategic Decision Making: The Role of Organizational Predisposition and Issue Interpretation*

Each time managers are faced with a strategic decision they decide how to decide. Specifically, they make choices about who has necessary information and, therefore, who needs to participate in the decision. Such responses to strategic issues are believed to be affected by the way in which decision makers interpret issues. However, organizations develop habitual responses to issues and may be predisposed because of their attention to rules and routines, or because of past performance, to respond to strategic issues in certain ways regardless of how issues are interpreted. We examined the direct and indirect effects of predisposition (rule orientation and past financial performance) and interpretation of strategic issues on the participation of internal stakeholder groups in strategic decision making. Executives in 52 organizations indicated that rule orientation and performance are directly linked to participation in strategic decision making, and that interpretation and rule orientation are directly linked to each other. Implications for managers include the notion that any effort to improve decision-making effectiveness by shaping how organizational members frame and interpret issues will be constrained by the organization's existing routines as well as its past performance.     

Adaptive and Generative Learning: Implications from Complexity Theories

One of the most important classical typologies within the organizational learning literature is the distinction between adaptive and generative learning. However, the processes of these types of learning, particularly the latter, have not been widely analyzed and incorporated into the organizational learning process. This paper puts forward a new understanding of adaptive and generative learning within organizations, grounded in some ideas from complexity theories: mainly self‐organization and implicate order. Adaptive learning involves any improvement or development of the explicate order through a process of self‐organization. Self‐organization is a self‐referential process characterized by logical deductive reasoning, concentration, discussion and improvement. Generative learning involves any approach to the implicate order through a process of self‐transcendence. Self‐transcendence is a holo‐organizational process characterized by intuition, attention, dialogue and inquiry. The main implications of the two types of learning for organizational learning are discussed.     

Leveraging Open Innovation Using Intermediary Networks

Open innovation, fuelled by the rise of the Internet, has made it feasible and cheaper for firms to open themselves up to a wide range of external sources of innovative ideas. The explosive growth of open innovation intermediary networks, such as InnoCentive or Linked‐in, enables the rapid pairing of firms seeking knowledge to address a wide range of business challenges (seekers) with other firms or individuals who already have relevant knowledge (solvers or knowledge brokers). These intermediary networks allow procurement departments to source codified and un‐codified knowledge from firms or individuals outside their traditional supplier networks using one‐off transactional relationships. Although sourcing ideas in this way theoretically poses problems for knowledge search and transfer, we have found that companies can draw on processes and integration mechanisms developed by procurement and design engineering to develop effective organizational learning routines. These routines are strategically vital to source new ideas through open innovation using intermediary networks and create competitive advantage.     

Critical Aspects of Organizational Learning Research and Proposals for Its Measurement

Based on an extensive literature review, this paper reveals several gaps in organizational learning (OL) research that need filling before we can really talk about a theory of organizational learning or verify the traits and very existence of learning organizations (LO) as a phenomenon. The critique, however, is not targeted at any single model or theory of organizational learning, but at theory building, which constantly drifts away with new definitions and approaches that break up rather than construct a theory. Despite the fact that numerous consultation tools for turning organizations into learning models have been developed and applied, the concept of organizational learning itself still remains vague and there is an urgent need for a holistic model of OL. Too much emphasis is put on studying the learning of individuals instead of concentrating on the learning of organizations. Since the theory is highly dispersed and does not really build on earlier findings, rich empirical studies are needed in order to validate measures of organizational learning. Modelling of the organizational learning process and clarification of how learning of individuals is turned into learning of organizations is needed. This paper introduces one set of OL measures developed to study whether organizational learning occurred during the operational and business culture change process of a single case company. Suggestions for further OL research are made on the basis of experiences gained when empirically testing this model.     

Becoming the best: by beating or ignoring the best? Toward an expanded view of the role of managerial selection in complex and turbulent environments

This paper explores how the rules that guide search affect organizational adaptation in complex and turbulent environments. Our consideration of such rules extends beyond search scope—i.e., exploitation of current technologies vs. exploration of new technologies—to include focus on competition. We consider two types of competitive focus—i.e., external, where the choice of focal technology to be improved is influenced by information about other organizations and internal, where it is not influenced by others. We refer to this expanded set of rules as managerial selection and vary it to explore how it affects organizational adaptation. Employing an agent based simulation model, built on the framework of NKC fitness landscapes, we consider multiple types of interdependencies within and between technologies and across competitors. We show that in the presence of these multiple interdependencies, the ability of organizations to adapt is conditioned as much or more by the focus of search than by its scope. In particular, we observe that in simple and stable environments, organizational adaptation is enhanced by an external focus but in complex and turbulent environments, such external focus is counterproductive.     

企业环境下个人获取知识和输出知识能力对组织公民行为影响的研究

很多研究者关注企业组织环境下个体如何获取和输出知识、以及个体获取和输出知识与其前因和结果的关系,但是,这些研究至少在以下两方面有待进一步完善:一是未考察个体获取和输出知识对组织公民行为的作用机制,二是鲜有研究将获取知识和输出知识同时纳入研究范畴中。本研究的目的正是希望针对以上问题,考察企业环境中个体获取知识能力和输出知识能力对于组织公民行为的影响机制。对216个样本的实证研究结果表明,个人获取知识能力能够提升个人组织公民行为,而且这种影响是通过输出知识能力的完全中介作用实现的。本研究结果不仅丰富了个体学习和组织学习的相关理论,而且为企业推动组织学习提供了新的思路:企业管理实践中,只有在组织中对人们"获取知识"和"输出知识"齐抓共管,才能更好地促进个体组织公民行为,更好地建设学习型组织,推动组织的可持续生存和健康和谐发展。     

Learning in and from projects: the learning modes and a learning capability model

Abstract

The notion of ‘project delivery’ is well embedded in and across the management and organizational sciences literature – generating a narrative that reflects and recognizes the instrumental nature of projects and programmes in strategy execution. Project management, as a distinct and well-established body of research enquiry, has increasingly sought to focus our attention on the impacts of complexity, risk and uncertainty in projects; the corollary being a desideratum to strengthen our theoretical understanding of how insight and learning from projects may influence improvements to organizational efficiency. The wider literature suggests that organizational learning remains a challenging proposition, particularly in the context of organizations operating in environments of high complexity. In this paper, we enhance the conversation on organizational learning through a series of case studies, generating evidence of thirteen ‘learning modes’. The paper proposes that mature organizations tend to exhibit a greater number of learning modes and that there is a tendency to capture and socialize knowledge with a greater emphasis on the context of the learning situation rather than the learning artefact in isolation. The empirical evidence gathered in this paper forms the basis of a capability model, characterized by the thirteen modes of learning. The model intimates that learning occurs, and is more effective, when knowledge and information are enacted in practice through the learning modes which form a nucleus of the organizational learning capability. The research concludes with a 'call to action' that emphasizes the strategic importance of learning practices and routines in project oriented-organizations.     

创业者个体学习、组织学习如何交互影响企业创新行为？——基于整合视角的纵向单案例研究

社会经济的不断发展促使分工愈发精细,对个人与组织间的技术隔离也愈加明显,亟待创业者个体及组织开展跨层次的交互学习以构建组织创新优势。基于此,本文援引学习理论与意义构建视角,从"行动"与"解释"出发,采用纵向单案例研究方法,基于"个体-组织"整合性分析框架,探究了不同创业阶段内跨层次行动主体间的学习互动模型,揭示了其对企业创新的影响路径。研究发现:创业者个体学习与组织学习间的互动,表现为渐变初期个体利用式学习经"自上而下"团队互动主导形成组织单环式行动;而在调整转变期,个体学习与组织学习发生交互影响,包含个体探索式学习经"横向协同式"团队互动主导形成组织双环式行动,以及组织双环式行动转换为单环式之后,经由持续反思与质询,刺激形成创业者个体利用式学习;最后,在发展突变期,个体利用式学习经"制度化统筹式"团队交互合作促成组织单环式行动,同时个体探索式学习经"跨越层次自主式"团队交互激活组织双环式学习。此外,在不同创业阶段,3种互动逻辑与意义构建框架下的创新决定机制呈现出以个体创意激发与扩散、信息整合与匹配以及平衡矛盾与冲突3种不同的影响路径展开的态势。本研究为创业学习理论和创业实践过程贡献了新的启示。     

Organizational learning and knowledge in public service organizations: A systematic review of the literature

This paper is a systematic review of the literature on organizational learning and knowledge with relevance to public service organizations. Organizational learning and knowledge are important to public sector organizations, which share complex external challenges with private organizations, but have different drivers and goals for knowledge. The evidence shows that the concepts of organizational learning and knowledge are under-researched in relation to the public sector and, importantly, this raises wider questions about the extent to which context is taken into consideration in terms of learning and knowledge more generally across all sectors. A dynamic model of organizational learning within and across organizational boundaries is developed that depends on four sets of factors: features of the source organization; features of the recipient organization; the characteristics of the relationship between organizations; and the environmental context. The review concludes, first, that defining 'organization' is an important element of understanding organizational learning and knowledge. Second, public organizations constitute an important, distinctive context for the study of organizational learning and knowledge. Third, there continues to be an over-reliance on the private sector as the principal source of theoretical understanding and empirical research and this is conceptually limiting for the understanding of organizational learning and knowledge. Fourth, differences as well as similarities between organizational sectors require conceptualization and research that acknowledge sector-specific aims, values and structures. Finally, it is concluded that frameworks for explaining processes of organizational learning at different levels need to be sufficiently dynamic and complex to accommodate public organizations.     

Managing Change Across Boundaries: Boundary‐Shaking Practices1

To date, boundary spanning has primarily been conceived of as an activity relating an organization to its environment, including other organizations with which it cooperates and competes. In contrast, this study focuses on the boundary spanning practices of individuals acting as change agents to implement boundary‐shaking change initiatives across intra‐organizational boundaries. These boundary‐shaking individuals all work for blue‐chip organizations in sectors as diverse as pharmaceuticals, consultancy and automotive. The change initiatives are equally diverse, including post‐merger integration, exploitation of across‐business synergies and implementing more integrative structures. Through our examination of boundary‐shakers we are able to extend what we know about internal change agency and change agent skills and practices. Our starting point is that organizations are comprised of networks of people with a degree of common interest. Our research shows our research subjects to be active movers and shakers in these networks, using their knowledge of the organizational political context and the motivations of others to create new networks (or new meanings within old networks), which then enables them to pursue their change objectives.     

That Unwanted Feeling: A Psychodynamic Study of Disappointment in Organizations

This paper explores the emotion of disappointment in organizations and develops a new line of theorizing inspired by psychoanalytic object‐relations theory. Existing literature frames disappointment as a threat to organizational effectiveness, as both a response and an anticipation of failure and as an emotion that needs to be managed in order to prevent it from damaging organizational morale and performance. This only captures part of the complexity of disappointment and leaves unexplored its potential contribution to organizational and individual learning and even creativity. The paper develops a theoretical framework which depicts disappointment in three configurations or positions, and it establishes the potential of disappointment acting as an integrative emotion within organizations. The framework accounts for an apparent contradiction in organizational members' experience of disappointment – that it is, at the same time, seen as ‘of little concern’ to individuals, and yet viewed as capable of undermining stability and destroying positive feelings. The paper shows how disappointment is connected to the dynamics of blame in organizations but, when fully appreciated, can offer a way of moving beyond these dynamics by recognizing partial failure within an organization and turning it into the basis for organizational learning.     

Inter‐organizational Cooperation and Environmental Change: Moderating Effects between Flexibility and Innovation Performance

The paper investigates the moderator effect of inter‐organizational cooperation in the relationship between workplace flexibility and innovation performance. This research question is important because innovation is dependent on the strategic integration of technological knowledge, requiring organizations to acquire new capabilities rapidly or to ensure the presence of knowledge that may be beyond existing internal capabilities. Inter‐organizational cooperation constitutes a relevant mechanism for a firm to increase its knowledge base concerning new products and processes. High‐cooperation firms may have more opportunities to take advantage of flexibility for innovation performance because it facilitates the access and dispersion of knowledge within the firm. We test the research hypotheses in a sample of manufacturing and service firms. The results contribute to the literature on flexibility and innovation because they demonstrate that inter‐organizational cooperation moderates the relationship between flexibility and innovation performance. We discuss the implications of these results for future research and managerial practice.     

11 The Effects of Governments on Management and Organization

Abstract

We review and integrate existing research from organization theory, strategy, organizational behavior, economics, sociology and political science on the effects of governments on organization and management, with a focus on how governing ideology and government capability influence independent organizations’ forms, strategies, and their participants’ behavior. When brought together these works suggest significant research opportunities in the fields of management and organization, as well as new perspectives on public policy challenges. Several avenues of potentially profitable empirical research include more attention to the influence of government on corporate strategies, more research on the strategies of pursuing corruption and government capture for competitive advantage, the role of government in fostering innovation and the growth of entrepreneurial organizations, and extra‐organizational contextual effects on managerial and employee organizational behavior. Possible public policy implications are illustrated with an application to the role of organizations in national wealth generation and dispersion.     

Developing Absorptive Capacity Theory for Public Service Organizations: Emerging UK Empirical Evidence

A strong public policy focus on high performance means that utilizing management knowledge effectively is at a premium for UK public service organizations. This study empirically examined two English public agencies to explore the inter‐sectoral transfer of a strategic management model originally developed in the private sector – absorptive capacity – which is one way of conceptualizing an organizational competence in such knowledge mobilization. Two theoretical contributions are made. First, a new absorptive capacity framework for public service organizations is developed which recognizes the participation of public agency project teams during an innovation process proceeding over time with phases of co‐creation, testing, metamorphosis and diffusion. Second, our novel framework modifies an early influential model of absorptive capacity. Counter to this model, we argue that realized absorptive capacity requires agency from skilled and embedded actors to turn ‘curbing routines’ into ‘enabling routines’ in all four stages. Project (middle) managers have flexibility in their roles to seize episodic moments of opportunity to innovate and achieve service delivery goals, and to build absorptive capacity capability. Absorptive capacity capability develops organically over time. Future research directions are discussed.     

Politics and Power within Multinational Corporations: Mainstream Studies,Emerging Critical Approaches and Suggestions for Future Research

Given the increased public interest in the use and misuse of power in multinationals in the aftermath of the financial crisis, it is notable that power relations in multinational corporations (MNCs) have not gained enhanced attention in the academic community. What is missing so far in the study of MNCs is a systematic examination of how power and politics within MNCs have been addressed in mainstream international business (IB) and sociological research studying the MNC. This paper starts by critically reviewing these two mainstream approaches in the study of MNCs as organizations and seeking to understand the shortcomings of former research. Next, it reviews new emergent critical perspectives, which the authors call socio‐political studies of MNCs, where power and politics are addressed not just more prominently, but also differently, from a more bottom‐up and actor‐centred perspective. After reviewing this emergent stream of research, the authors propose that future studies should take a more micro‐political perspective and focus in more detail on the micro‐foundations of power relations. In the concluding section, the authors show how future studies of MNCs can learn from both critical interactionist and discursive theories when analysing organizational politics and power relations. A framework is proposed for the study of micro‐level political game‐playing in MNCs, based on a three‐dimensional framework for organizational power (episodic, rules of the game and domination), and some key research questions for future studies are suggested.