Examining Organic and Mechanistic Structures: Do We Know as Much as We Thought?

Burns and Stalker's theory of organic/mechanistic structures (1961, The Management of Innovation. London: Tavistock) has been widely used. However, review of the empirical literature revealed inconsistencies in how the concepts have been operationalized. These inconsistencies may interfere with the ability to consolidate knowledge. This paper reviews the various ways in which researchers have operationalized the concepts, and summarizes the empirical findings derived from these operationalizations. In doing so, it highlights gaps and opportunities for future empirical and methodological work, suggesting the need to further our theoretical conceptualization of the concepts and to draw attention to Burns and Stalker's ( 1961 ) largely neglected corollary of the employee experience. As such, this review provides a road map for future exploration of the wide‐ranging implications associated with organic and mechanistic structures.     

How Will We Know It When We See It? Conceptualizing the Ethical Organization

How might one conceptualize the ethical organization? The argument presented here is that the truly ethical organization accentuates three main components. First it must be law-abiding in its basic execution of its organizational ethical responsibility. Second, the organization must exercise strong ethical leadership in its day-to-day operations and policies. Finally, at the organizational level, there must be ongoing monitoring processes ensuring compliance of the organization. Specific techniques for consistent, ongoing monitoring and enforcement of ethical compliance by an objective party are described.     

What Do We Mean by Performativity in Organizational and Management Theory? The Uses and Abuses of Performativity

John Austin introduced the formulation ‘performative utterance’ in his 1962 book How to Do Things with Words. This term and the related concept of performativity have subsequently been interpreted in numerous ways by social scientists and philosophers such as Lyotard, Butler, Callon and Barad, leading to the coexistence of several foundational perspectives on performativity. This paper reviews and evaluates critically how organization and management theory (OMT) scholars have used these perspectives, and how the power of performativity has, or has not, stimulated new theory‐building. In performing a historical and critical review of performativity in OMT, the authors’ analysis reveals the uses, abuses and under‐uses of the concept by OMT scholars. It also reveals the lack of both organizational conceptualizations of performativity and analysis of how performativity is organized. Ultimately, the authors’ aim is to provoke a ‘performative turn’ in OMT by unleashing the power of the performativity concept to generate new and stronger organizational theories.     

What Should Planners Do to Address Unethical Political Pressure?

This paper presents the case study of three planners who risked their jobs to oppose unethical political pressures in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. It attempts to understand what was done by these planners to address those pressures and what lessons could we learn from their experiences. This research found that in a hostile political environment where unethical political pressure is strong, and voicing is of little help, unique actions of procedural planning (exit, deny-exit-and-expose, and defend), deontological in nature, may have to be adopted. If that is not adequate one should also consider de-communicating or manipulative actions, teleological in approach.     

Do We Need Computer Skills to Use a Computer? Evidence from Britain

Abstract. Using cross‐section data from the 1997 Skills Survey of the Employed British Workforce, we examine the labour‐market returns to self‐assessed computer skills in Britain. Many researchers, using information on computer technology use, have concluded that wage differentials between computer users and non‐users might, among others, be due to differences in the embodiment of computer skills. Using unique information on the importance, level of sophistication, and effectiveness of computer technology use, we show that computer skills do not yield significant labour‐market returns for most types of use. Examining the returns to computer skills at different levels of sophistication of use yields estimates suggesting returns to computer skills at the highest level of sophistication of use only.     

Ex Ante and Ex Post: What Does Rod Stewart Really Know Now?1

Do we really know whether or not we have “maximized” utility, or do we just know that we are “happy” or “sad”? We argue that we can never know objectively whether or not utility has been maximized; however, people acting on a free market are sufficiently close to the decision as to be able to hazard a better guess about their opportunity costs than policy makers.     

Why Do We Observe Stockless Operations on the Internet? Stockless Operations Under Competition

Due to the proliferation of electronic commerce and the development of Internet technologies, many firms have considered new pricing‐inventory models. In this paper, we study the role of stockless (i.e., zero‐inventory) operations in online retailing by a considering duopoly competition in which two retailers compete to maximize profit by jointly optimizing their pricing and inventory decisions. In our model, the retailers are allowed to choose either an in‐stock policy or stockless operations with a discounted price. We first present the characteristics and properties of the equilibrium. We then demonstrate that the traditional outcome of asymmetric Bertrand competition is observed under head‐to‐head competition. However, when the two firms choose different operational policies, with corresponding optimal pricing, they can share the market under certain conditions. Finally, we report interesting observations on the interaction between pricing and inventory decisions obtained from an extensive computational study.     

What Does Hollywood Think Nonprofit CEOs Do All Day? Screen Depictions of NGO Management

This article explores the cinematic image of chief executive officers (CEOs) of nonprofit organizations in the U.S. Movie CEOs head a broad range of the nongovernmental organizations, including hospitals, colleges, social service agencies, prep schools, labor unions, legal aid, faith-based and youth-serving. They are predominantly white males. Their professional backgrounds include medicine, teaching, union organizing, social activism, clergy, law and environmental activism. Movie audiences see nonprofit CEOs involved in the mundane and inspirational elements of day-to-day management. One of their primary responsibilities consists of overseeing line functions, including fund raising, media relations, managing volunteers and board relations. But, nonprofit managers are also responsible for broader concerns, such as protecting the organization's values and equilibrium. Some movie nonprofit CEOs are shown multitasking and trying to balance competing demands from multiple stakeholders.     

“U.S. Pharmaceutical Gray Markets: Why Do They Persist—and What to Do about Them?”

This article illustrates how a traditional U.S. pharmaceutical industry supply chain operates, beginning with pharmaceutical compounds and ending at patient‐dispensing hospitals or pharmacies. Furthermore, to place the problem of U.S. drug shortages in historical perspective, a review of the annual volume of such shortages over the last decade is undertaken. Following this review of recent drug shortages is an analysis of the market forces and business decisions that drive the creation of a pharmaceutical gray market, its attendant “price gouging” and product integrity issues, and the alterations in the traditional pharmaceutical industry supply chain model. In response to persistent drug shortages, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently been empowered by the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government to actively address this issue. To reflect these FDA challenges, a thorough review of these new agency charges and responsibilities is undertaken. Lastly, an analysis of the results of recent FDA public policy actions on mitigating drug shortages, as well as recommendations tor market‐based solutions to the gray market problem that pharmaceutical manufacturers, hospitals and pharmacies could institute as industry‐wide standards of business practice, are discussed in the conclusion.     

13 Ethical Decision Making: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going

Abstract

Research on ethical decision making, or behavioral ethics, in organizations has developed from a small niche area to a burgeoning stand‐alone field, one that has gained not only in number of articles written but in the legitimacy of the topic and the field. Our review motivated us to first try and summarize the field, not by comparing it to existing theoretical paradigms, but rather by observing what the data were telling us. We present our summary in the form of a model of ethical decision making and a typology that distinguishes intentionality of actions from ethicality of actions. After presenting this summary of the data, we critically review the research in this area, noting those areas which offer substantial insight and those that do not. In looking to the future and how the field can enhance the former and mitigate the latter, we identify several areas in which meaningful progress can be made, including defining what is “ethical”, revisiting unsubstantiated assumptions, focusing on the processes of ethical decision making, fixing methodological issues, and disentangling the outcomes of ethical decisions.     

What Risks Do People Perceive in Everyday Life? A Perspective Gained from the Experience Sampling Method (ESM)

The experience sampling method (ESM) was used to collect data from 74 part-time students who described and assessed the risks involved in their current activities when interrupted at random moments by text messages. The major categories of perceived risk were short term in nature and involved "loss of time or materials" related to work and "physical damage" (e.g., from transportation). Using techniques of multilevel analysis, we demonstrate effects of gender, emotional state, and types of risk on assessments of risk. Specifically, females do not differ from males in assessing the potential severity of risks but they see these as more likely to occur. Also, participants assessed risks to be lower when in more positive self-reported emotional states. We further demonstrate the potential of ESM by showing that risk assessments associated with current actions exceed those made retrospectively. We conclude by noting advantages and disadvantages of ESM for collecting data about risk perceptions.     

Incomplete Contracts: Where do We Stand?

The paper takes stock of the advances and directions for research on the incomplete contracting front. It first illustrates some of the main ideas of the incomplete contract literature through an example. It then offers methodological insights on the standard approach to modeling incomplete contracts; in particular it discusses a tension between two assumptions made in the literature, namely rationality and the existence of transaction costs. Last, it argues that, contrary to what is commonly argued, the complete contract methodology need not be unable to account for standard institutions such as authority and ownership; and it concludes with a discussion of the research agenda.     

Do Irrelevant Commodities Matter?

We study how to evaluate allocations independently of individual preferences over unavailable commodities. We prove impossibility results that suggest that such evaluations encounter serious difficulties. This is related to the well known problem of performing international comparisons of standard of living across countries with different consumption goods. We show how possibility results can be retrieved with restrictions on the domain of preferences, on the application of the independence axiom, or on the set of allocations to be ranked. Such restrictions appear more plausible when the objects of evaluation are allocations of composite commodities, characteristics, or human functionings rather than ordinary commodities.     

What do you know?

If you run an organization, what do you know? What could you know? What is obvious--what we take for granted--hides deeper, contradictory realities. Such simple assumptions as "The goal of management is to get things done by motivating people to do them" not only hide a deeper truth, they keep us from getting to what's true. There is no short road to leadership. It is long-term. It is about relationship, in the deepest sense. Leaders don't create energy and momentum, they harness the energy and momentum that already exists in the people that they hope to lead. They connect with people, and they get out of the way.     

We don't need more leaders – We need more good leaders. Advancing a virtues-based approach to leader(ship) development

This conceptual article advances a virtues-based approach to developing good leaders and good leadership. Virtue and discrete virtues are gaining traction within leadership scholarship, but there remains a lack of clarity regarding exactly what virtue is and precisely how virtues inform leadership. To address this, we articulate a clear conceptualization of how virtue informs good leadership in multiple domains. We also elucidate five synergisms of virtues-based leadership development, including how a virtues approach accounts for leadership effectiveness and ethics; how virtue and leadership are both learnable; the relationship between virtues, character, and leadership; the unity and universality of virtue; and how virtue serves as the linchpin between the individual and the common good. Three trajectories for virtues-based leadership development are described. This article has implications for the study and practice of developing good leaders(hip). Limitations and future research directions are discussed.     

Do Immigrants Compete with Natives?

The paper analyses the impact of foreign workers on the Italian labour market. We address the issue of whether immigrants from less developed countries are complementary or substitutes to domestic workers. We construct a data set on immigrant workers from the Administrative Social Security Archive which starts in 1986, before the general amnesty of 1990–91, when a large share of illegal immigrants were granted working permits, and end in 1995. A two-stage procedure devised by Moulton is applied to yearly cross-sections of wages by industry and region. Our results show that the inflow of immigrants raises the wages of native manual workers (i.e. it has a complementary effect), and this effect is larger in small firms and in the north of the country. We postulate that the positive impact on native wages is due to the existence of labour constraints on the side of firms. Firms are unable to expand their output because they cannot find native workers who are willing to undertake certain (typically low-skilled) jobs. Immigrants help to fill this gap. This view is reinforced by the fact that over a ‘crucial threshold’ of the share of foreign work (7.7–12 percent) additional inflows in the labour market of foreign work have a negative effect on native wages (i.e. they compete with natives).     

What happened, what next?

Many physicians and other health care professionals breathed a collective sigh of relief when the 103rd Congress adjourned without passing the Clinton Health Security Act or any other health care reform legilsation. The ambition of this brief paper is to describe why health care reform did not pass in 1994, the issues that need to be resolved if we are to pass legislation, the political forces that will need to be addressed before legislation is passed, and the type of struggles we can expect to see in the coming session of Congress.     

What now? Cremation without tradition

Although cremation is an increasingly popular method of body disposal, there is little research on ash disposition, particularly the decisions and negotiations underlying the process. Americans who have recently encountered the cremation of loved ones for the first time have not been studied at all; the present research describes 87 of their cremation experiences. Adults who were actively involved in cremation and ash disposition decisions were interviewed about these processes at every stage, from the decision to cremate through the performance of final rituals for their dead. Results detail family and friends' active negotiations over cremation and ash disposition, the surprises they encountered, and the personally meaningful rituals they created for their loved ones. As in other emerging postdeath rituals, the enactment of individualized rituals for the dead was seen as a positive experience; accordingly, most participants preferred to be cremated and honored through nontraditional rituals themselves.