Business and Management Studies in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework

The Research Excellence Framework 2014 (REF 2014) was the 7th formal assessment of research in UK universities and other institutions of higher education. Participation in these assessments is voluntary, and institutions can decide which staff to include and under which discipline to include them. A hundred and one institutions chose to submit research in Business and Management Studies, and this work was assessed by a panel of academic researchers and research users nominated by a wide range of academic constituencies. The previous assessment exercise was conducted in 2008, and REF 2014 shows that the quality of UK research in Business and Management Studies, already high in 2008, has improved since then. The operation of the Business and Management Studies sub‐panel is described, the results are summarized, and a few caveats are discussed so as to aid the Business and Management Studies community in its endeavours to understand and evaluate the process and the results.     

A Multi‐level Dialectical–Paradox Lens for Top Management Team Strategic Decision‐Making in a Corporate Venture

This paper aims to critique the process of corporate‐owned, high‐tech start‐up strategizing through an inductive, longitudinal, case study of ‘UK‐Research‐Tech’. Insights are given through the combined ‘dialectical–paradox’ concept, thereby focusing on where ‘dialectic’ and ‘paradox’ theorizing overlap. This linked iterative, ‘dialogical–dialectic’ research approach also reflects chief executive officer/top management team (CEO/TMT) start‐up dynamics over time. These foci fill important gaps that impede better understanding of dialectical, dialogical and paradoxical forces within strategic decision‐making. As an interpretative tool, they illuminate CEO/TMT strategizing and changing interrelationships affected by broader, volatile, techno‐economic contexts and parent‐company influences on ventures. In this case study, it was found that the CEO's relatively autocratic, parent‐framed approach combined with TMT members' contradictory reactions to create ‘dialectical–paradox’ oppositional forces, eventually only resolved through ‘eleventh hour’ business strategy changes to rescue the venture. This research contributes to more nuanced understandings of corporate‐constrained ventures during early business development from start‐up strategic decisions at parent‐company level to subsequent conditions of more independent dynamic equilibrium. The ‘dialectical–paradox’ conceptual lens contributes an innovative critique of processes affecting strategic decision‐making dynamics. Another important contribution is the empirically inspired conceptual model, developed for use both to guide subsequent case‐study research analyses and as a reflective tool for CEO/TMT strategic decision‐making, especially within corporate‐inspired start‐ups.     

Evidence‐based Management in Practice: Opening up the Decision Process,Decision‐maker and Context

Evidence‐based management (EBM) has been subject to a number of persuasive critiques in recent years. Concerns have been raised that: EBM over‐privileges rationality as a basis for decision‐making; ‘scientific’ evidence is insufficient and incomplete as a basis for management practice; understanding of how EBM actually plays out in practice is limited; and, although ideas were originally taken from evidence‐based medicine, individual‐situated expertise has been forgotten in the transfer. To address these concerns, the authors adopted an approach of ‘opening up’ the decision process, the decision‐maker and the context (Langley et al. ( 1995 ). ‘Opening up decision making: the view from the black stool’, Organization Science, 6, pp. 260–279). The empirical investigation focuses on an EBM decision process involving an operations management problem in a hospital emergency department in Australia. Based on interview and archival research, it describes how an EBM decision process was enacted by a physician manager. It identifies the role of ‘fit’ between the decision‐maker and the organizational context in enabling an evidence‐based process and develops insights for EBM theory and practice.     

Heterogeneous Submission Behavior and its Implications for Success in Innovation Contests with Public Submissions

Innovation contests are increasingly adopting a format where submissions are viewable by all contestants and the information structure changes during the contest. In such an “unblind” format, contestants must weigh the costs of revealing their submissions against the benefits of improving their submissions through emerging information. We take a closer look at how contestants solve problems in innovation contests with public submission of solutions—that is, unblind contests, by examining the implications of their submission behavior for contest outcomes. We analyze the submission behavior in terms of three dimensions: the position of first submission by the contestant, the number of submissions the contestant makes, and the length of active participation by the contestant. The econometric analysis of a large dataset of unblind innovation contests and participating contestants indicates that, despite the potential for free riding and intellectual property loss from disclosure of submissions, contestants who have a lower position of first submission are more likely to succeed in the contest. Further, we find some evidence of a curvilinear relationship between a contestant's number of submissions and her likelihood of success, indicating a potential “quality–quantity” trade‐off in unblind innovation contests. Finally, our findings indicate that increasing the length of participation in a contest has a positive effect on a contestant's likelihood of success. Departing from prior studies on innovation contests, where a contestant's success is assumed to be a function of her prior experience and problem‐solving skills, our study provides new empirical evidence that, in innovation contests with public submissions, the submission behavior of a contestant also plays an explanatory role in a contestant's success.     

The role of HRD in bridging the research-practice gap: the case of learning and development

ABSTRACT

An enduring challenge for HRD is ensuring academic research achieves impact on professional practice. We have located this research within debates about the research-practice gap. To investigate this challenge, we analyse case studies of academic impact from all disciplines submitted to the United Kingdom’s 2014 research assessment exercise (REF 2014). We found that Learning and Development was a primary focus of significant number of impact case studies submitted across all disciplines compared to other areas of HR and HRD. We also found that Learning and Development was a key path to Impact. These findings reveal that Learning and Development in a work context plays a pivotal role in helping researchers irrespective of discipline achieve impact. Our findings therefore speak to the research-practice gap across academia. We conclude by considering the potential role for HRD in generating impact.     

The Glass Cliff: Evidence that Women are Over-Represented in Precarious Leadership Positions

There has been much research and conjecture concerning the barriers women face in trying to climb the corporate ladder, with evidence suggesting that they typically confront a ‘glass ceiling’ while men are more likely to benefit from a ‘glass escalator’. But what happens when women do achieve leadership roles? And what sorts of positions are they given? This paper argues that while women are now achieving more high profile positions, they are more likely than men to find themselves on a ‘glass cliff’, such that their positions are risky or precarious. This hypothesis was investigated in an archival study examining the performance of FTSE 100 companies before and after the appointment of a male or female board member. The study revealed that during a period of overall stock‐market decline those companies who appointed women to their boards were more likely to have experienced consistently bad performance in the preceding five months than those who appointed men. These results expose an additional, largely invisible, hurdle that women need to overcome in the workplace. Implications for the evaluation of women leaders are discussed and directions for future research are outlined.     

Phenomenology‐Based Ethnography for Management Studies and Organizational Analysis

This paper introduces phenomenology‐based ethnography as a novel ethnographic approach for research in management studies and organizational analysis and describes three methods that have been developed from this approach: life‐world analytical ethnography, focused ethnography and go‐along ethnography. Phenomenology‐based ethnography has emerged from developments in sociology that draw on ‘social phenomenology’ developed by Alfred Schütz. These developments involve the use of phenomenology‐based ethnographic methods that shift the focus of research onto participants’ subjective experiences of the field further than has been required by other ethnographic approaches. This paper uses a set of dimensions that allow a comparison of these phenomenology‐based methods’ aims, techniques of data collection and analysis, and required effort. These three methods are then compared with current ethnographic methods used in organizational research and management studies. The paper concludes with a discussion that explores and addresses the critique of how phenomenology‐based ethnography conceives the relationship between the researcher and the research subject.     

‘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’.     

In Search of ‘Managerial Work’: Past,Present and Future of an Analytical Category

Based on a comprehensive review of literature, the paper examines how ‘managerial work’ as a fluid analytical category has been approached methodologically, theoretically and empirically for more than 60 years. In particular, it highlights the existence of competing scholarly understandings regarding its nature, performance, meaning and politics. The authors suggest that subsequent empirical investigations have too often worked, methodologically and theoretically, to slot in, and thus effectively reduce, the term to a particular pre‐existing box, rather than exploring open‐endedly the what and how, but also the why of ‘managerial work’ as a distinct mode of situated ordering. Having represented the concept's past and present by identifying four distinct research approaches reflected in representative publications, the authors suggest that more attention should be devoted to a mode of analytical departure that promises to address directly the suggested shortcomings in the literature. Specifically, it is argued that much could be gained if contemporary notions of practice were brought into the study of managerial work. To this end, the authors outline the contours of a practice‐based approach as a sensitizing framework for understanding managerial work by highlighting the situated, relational, sociomaterial, meaning‐making and consequence‐oriented analytical foci the approach suggests, and suggesting a number of conjoint research questions, as well as acknowledging subsequent limitations.     

The privatization of British Telecom—Its impact on management

This article describes the series of changes which British Telecom has gone through over the last 10 years or so— changes which have often been dramatic and highly publicized. Faced with the challenges of the fast-changing business environment of the past decade—the most obvious of which was the technological revolution—British Telecom was perceived to be safe and reliable, but slow to change and expensive. Its strengths were the widespread understanding and acceptance of the need for change, its reservoir of the necessary skills and talent, a sound commercial infrastructure and a corporate culture. The author describes the organizational changes which have taken place and looks to a future where change is endemic if a business is to survive.     

Labour Market Flexibility,Human Resource Management and Corporate Performance

Labour market flexibility is often portrayed as a key to the competitive success of the UK and US economies. We surveyed several hundred firms in the UK, and using the resulting data (on over 200 manufacturing firms) this paper investigates the relationships between firms’ use of flexible work practices, human resource systems and industrial relations on the one hand, and corporate performance on the other hand. The results suggest that ‘low‐road’ practices – short‐term contracts, a lack of employer commitment to job security, low levels of training and low levels of human resource sophistication – are negatively correlated with corporate performance. In contrast, it is found that ‘high‐road’ work practices –‘high commitment’ organizations or ‘transformed’ workplaces – are positively correlated with good corporate performance. It is also found that human resource management practices are more likely to contribute to competitive success where they are introduced as a comprehensive package, or ‘bundle’ of practices. Significant interaction effects between human resource systems, trade unions and flexible work practices add further support to the bundling hypothesis.     

Unpacking the Mechanism by which Corporate Responsibility Impacts Stakeholder Relationships

Most research on corporate responsibility (CR) has investigated CR from the perspective of organizations, often focusing on how organizations define, manage and implement CR to gain benefits or competitive advantage. The benefits of CR for organizations are, however, often said to be achieved through increased support of stakeholders. Despite this, limited attention has been given to understanding CR from the perspective of stakeholders and, in particular, the mechanism by which CR drives stakeholder support. This study addresses this deficit. Building on advances in the application of psychological theories to the field of management, the research develops and empirically tests a theoretical model of how CR‐related experiences and beliefs drive stakeholder trust and positive intent. The research is conducted with customers (n = 708) and employees (n = 359) of a service organization in the UK that introduced a range of CR‐related activities into their business. The findings contribute to literature by empirically demonstrating (a) the impact of CR‐related experiences on the development of beliefs about, and trust towards, the organization; (b) the importance of ‘others‐related’ CR experiences even in the presence of ‘self‐related’ CR experiences; and (c) the role of beliefs as partial mediators in how experiences of CR, both ‘self‐related’ and ‘others‐related’, translate into trust and positive intent.     

Digitalization and Promotion: An Empirical Study in a Large Law Firm

In law firms, the number of hours that associates work reportedly plays a preponderant role in promotion decisions. We build on previous research in this area by distinguishing the effect of ‘development hours’ from ‘billable hours’ on promotions and by assessing the extent to which billable hours are still important criteria today, in digitalized environments where efficiency is, presumably, likely to matter more than working long hours. We also examine whether certain types of behaviours, like associates' interactions with technology, may be associated directly or indirectly with a higher likelihood of promotion. We studied these questions in the context of a large corporate law firm in continental Europe, focusing on the promotion of 93 lawyers between 2005 and 2010. We found that both billable and development hours are still significant positive predictors of promotions and that associates' ability to use the case firm's computer‐mediated knowledge management system productively is indirectly rewarded by promotion. This research reasserts the fundamental role of billable hours as one of the primary means for evaluating lawyers' work and suggests that using knowledge management systems gives associates an edge in the race for promotion, particularly in law firms moving along the ‘evolutionary path’ of legal service, from bespoke to commoditized work (Susskind, R. (2010). The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services. Oxford: Oxford University Press).     

A Multi‐theory Perspective of Board Leadership Structure: What Does the Egyptian Corporate Governance Context Tell Us?

Much of the existing research in corporate governance has been directed at examining the consequences of board leadership structure on various organizational issues, with little to say about the determinants of this structure. By exploring either agency theory or stewardship theory, researchers provide contested conclusions regarding board leadership structure. The underlying premise of both theories is that ‘one universal structure fits all’. However, the main argument of this paper is that the appropriate board leadership structure varies with some contextual variables and certain actors in a given environment. Econometric analysis demonstrates that board leadership structure varies with firm size, age and ownership structure. The implication of this result is that the assertion of both agency theory (CEO non‐duality structure) and stewardship theory (CEO duality structure) may be valid under certain conditions. Thus, existing theories might need to be treated as complementary viewpoints, each of which draws upon a part of the whole picture, because depending on just one single perspective is more likely to result in misleading conclusions about the structure as a whole.     

Problematizing ‘Relevance’ in the Business School: The Case of Leadership Studies

In recent years, the discourse of ‘relevance’ has risen to prominence in the university‐based business school. At the heart of this discourse is the suggestion that management researchers should align their research practices more closely with the needs of practitioners in external organizations. One important but under‐researched strand of this debate focuses on the way in which ‘relevance’ is pursued by business scholars via forms of practitioner engagement such as management consulting, corporate presentations, executive education and personal coaching. Drawing on extensive semi‐structured interviews, this paper explores the motivations, rewards and tensions experienced by leadership scholars in the process of engaging with practitioners. This study suggests that the pursuit of ‘relevance’ may come into conflict with norms of scholarly conduct, which in turn gives rise to a series of trade‐offs and compromises. Ultimately, the authors argue that the prevailing discourse of relevance provides an alibi for scholars to orient themselves towards practitioners in ways that contravene their academic identity and research ethos (whether post‐positivist, interpretivist or critical).     

Evolution of the Debate on Control Enhancing Mechanisms: A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis

This paper aims to assess the state of the art, the structure and the evolution of the debate on control enhancing mechanisms (hereafter CEMs). It combines bibliometric and qualitative methodologies to analyze 210 articles published in scientific journals up to 2014. The findings show that the academics’ interest has increased over time, and the research has simultaneously developed along two main poles: antecedents and consequences of the proportionality principle. The analyses also reveal that the debate stems from the US studies on the legal principles of disproportionate ownership devices at the end of 19th century, and has been strongly fueled by the ‘law and finance’ theorists. This paper has both theoretical and practical implications. First, it provides insights into underexplored issues where future research efforts could be focused. Second, it supports new policy‐making interventions to CEMs and encourages investor regulation and corporate transparency.     

Confidentiality Constraints Within Mergers and Acquisitions: Gaining Insights Through a ‘Bubble’ Metaphor*

Mergers and acquisitions are extremely sensitive, both within and outside the organizations involved. Confidentiality agreements are therefore essential for allowing teams the ‘space’ to develop potential scenarios for future integration. Despite the importance of confidentiality in practice, the subject has received little coverage in the management literature. By adopting a case‐study approach, this research explores aspects of confidentiality in a four‐year post‐acquisition integration programme in a FTSE100 pharmaceutical company. The paper identifies a range of personal impacts on the signatories, as well as various dimensions of information transfer despite the agreement being in place. Through the use of a metaphor, the research suggests that a confidentiality agreement has many similarities with the properties and characteristics of a bubble. This bubble trope is used to enhance conceptual understanding of confidentiality constraints in an organizational‐change context. The paper concludes by suggesting some ‘key learnings’ in relation to using confidentiality agreements in strategic change programmes such as a merger or acquisition.     

Employee Well‐being and the HRM–Organizational Performance Relationship: A Review of Quantitative Studies

There is a lack of consensus on the role of employee well‐being in the human resource management–organizational performance relationship. This review examines which of the competing perspectives –‘mutual gains’ or ‘conflicting outcomes’– is more appropriate for describing this role of employee well‐being. In addition, this review examines whether study attributes such as the measurement of key variables, the level of analysis and the study design affect a study's outcomes. The review covers 36 quantitative studies published from 1995 to May 2010. Employee well‐being is described here using three dimensions: happiness, health and relationship. The main findings are that employee well‐being in terms of happiness and relationship is congruent with organizational performance (mutual gains perspective), but that health‐related well‐being appears to function as a conflicting outcome. Directions for future research and theoretical development are suggested.     

Organisation structure,management style and company performance

This paper examines the relationship between organisation structure and management style and their influence on organisational effectiveness measured in both ‘human’ and financial terms. Account has also been taken of related contextual factors such as differences in task, size and environment of a company. Using information collected from a sample of fifty small and medium size printing and building firms the authors have elaborated a conceptual model involving the independent attributes; integration, control, task orientation and people orientation. The validity of this model has been operationally tested and examined against the background of evidence reported by other research workers on the contextual determinants of organisational structure and management style. Substantially different patterns of association between ‘organisation’ and ‘style’ and company performance are found for the two industries and an important outcome of the research has been to produce further evidence in favour of the contingency theory of organisation. The paper concludes with some implications for management practice and organisational design.