Good Night,and Good Luck: Perspectives on Luck in Management Scholarship

It is not insignificant that seminal contributions to management scholarship have highlighted luck as an alternative explanation for performance differences between individuals and organizations. Yet it has rarely taken center-stage in scholarship. The principal purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic review of the application of luck in the management literature and in such foundation disciplines as economics, sociology, and psychology. Our analysis finds five common perspectives on luck: (a) luck as Attribution; (b) luck as Randomness; (c) luck as Counterfactual; (d) luck as Undeserved; and (e) luck as Serendipity. We outline various ways in which research on luck may be advanced along each of these perspectives, and develop an underexplored, sixth, perspective on (f) luck as Leveler to provide a possible solution to such issues as social inequality and (unwarranted) executive compensation.     

Diversity research—what do we currently know about how to manage diverse organizational units?

Diversity with respect to demographic variables such as gender, age, and cultural background, as well as directly job-related characteristics such as tenure, educational specialization, and functional background is both a challenge and an opportunity. We review the extant literature on how best to manage diverse organizational units. We discuss the definition and conceptualization of diversity, its direct effects on team performance and team member satisfaction, as well as the mediating variables that explain these effects and the moderating variables that determine when the positive effects of diversity are likely to prevail over the negative effects. We conclude by offering managerial suggestions on how to leverage diversity’s potential.     

MANUFACTURING STRATEGY ON THE “S” CURVE

The concept and techniques of “manufacturing strategy” offer managers the opportunity to use their production function as a strategic weapon in competition, an apparently attractive objective. Yet after about 25 years, the use of manufacturing in corporate strategy (MCS) as a management practice is not widespread. In contrast, however, in academic literature it appears to be flourishing and rapidly growing in popularity. This paper seeks to answer this apparent paradox, beginning with the history of MCS as it was developed as a theory of design to enable a manufacturing system to be focused on a key competitive task. Common criticisms of MCS, such as “tradeoffs,” “focus” and “undynamic,” are examined and refuted as valid reasons for its only modest usage. Instead, three “new” problems in the MCS concept and its techniques are suggested as genuine needs for the completion of the theory and for its becoming more universally understood and used by industrial managers.     

The Politics of the Exhibition: Viewing Corporate Museums Through the Paradigmatic Lens of Organizational Memory

This paper explores corporate museums as little–understood sites of organizational memory and proposes that corporate museums, as a form of organizational memory, are used strategically by organizations in the development of the firm's identity and image. More critically, the authors examine the politics of the exhibition of organizational memory, or what Sturken refers to as 'organized forgetting' or 'strategic forgetting'. The authors propose that organizations, through these museums, choose what is recalled (the politics of remembering) as well as what is not remembered (the politics of forgetting). Four propositions are suggested to guide future research on corporate museums with the purpose of furthering our understanding of these museums and their relationship to the development of organizational identity and image as well as organizational actions – past, present, and future. The paper concludes with implications for the organizational–studies scholar.     

Financial incentives for cost control under moral hazard

A distinguishing feature of contracted production is that the contractual terms must be agreed upon before the product exists. If the specified product is the result of an innovative and complex process, uncertainties as to its production cost estimates can be enormous. This renders the traditional cost-plus-fixed-fee and fixed-price contractual arrangements increasingly untenable. An alternative contractual arrangement that is currently gaining greater acceptance is the fixed-price-incentive contract, which may be as simple as a linear cost-sharing formula or as complex as a state-contingent reward penalty structure. The problem from the viewpoint of the contractee (principal) is to identify the optimal incentive structure in order to minimize his expected cost; the incentive affects the contractor (agent) through his risk aversion and his propensity for “moral hazard”, due to the co-insurance effect of cost-sharing incentives. Taking as premise the contractee's risk-neutrality, the problem is formulated as a constrained optimization problem, with the constraint arising from the returns to each of the parties to the contract. It is thereby demonstrated that the currently popular linear incentive mechanism is ineffective from the viewpoint of the contractee before the introduction of the problem of moral hazard. We then show that, the problem can be segregated into independent components of the contractor's risk aversion and his propensity for moral hazard. Having established this, we proceed to examine the incentive form as related to the “monitoring mechanism” instituted by the contractor during the performance of the contract. Acceptance of the conclusions necessitates that the contracting parties can interpret their objective as the maximization of the ratio of their expected profits to target profits, which is demonstrated as being equivalent to the minimization of the certainty equivalent of costs.     

On self-interest and greed

First the assumption of self-interest as applied in Economics is presented. Here we also discuss areas in which (many) people behave less self- but more other-regarding than traditional economic models assume. Then, greedy behaviour is considered as existing in the political and economic ‘world’. Here we refer to corruption as well as to the role of money as a positional good. We also discuss such behaviour in the academic world, in which money plays a role as well as reputation. Thus, while the assumption of mutually disinterested rationality is a very powerful instrument for analysing individual behaviour, to explain some phenomena we have to recognise that people are not only sometimes other-regarding, but also sometimes greedy, and that they might value money much more than traditional Economics assumes. We conclude with some remarks on what we can learn in this respect from Behavioural Economics.     

Regulating the domestic air travel in India: an umpire's game

This paper analyses the competitive strategies available to an Indian airline in a scenario where the entry of private domestic airlines has only recently been allowed. The Calcutta-Delhi route is initially analysed as an example—where there are three major players competing. The fare charged by each airline being the same, the number of departures is used as one of the major competitive weapons. Game theory is used here as a useful tool to analyse such situations. The equilibrium behaviour of the airlines is studied and the possibility of the game being played at the focal point is then analysed.All over the world, airlines have had a long history of economic regulation of both their national and international operations with governments often regarding regulation as necessary—both to achieve a comprehensive route network and to achieve stable markets. The game formulated is then analysed from the point of view of the regulating body and it is found that the game-theoretic framework is able to provide powerful insights regarding regulatory interventions. Two types of interventions, viz. fare regulation as well as the introduction of a licence fee per flight, are analysed and their ability to shift the Nash equilibrium to the focal point are studied. Finally, the problem is generalised and some results are obtained which are applicable to any route with any number of operators as long as the basic nature of the competitive situation remains the same. Use of the game-theoretic approach as a powerful tool to decide regulatory interventions is thus highlighted.     

技术型企业链式“绩效一薪酬”管理模式探析

技术型企业拥有的大部分是知识型员工,由于知识型员工具有较高的自主性和创造性,也就使得技术型企业绩效考核和薪酬管理很难进行。为了解决技术型企业人力资源管理中遇到的难题,本文以X企业为例,探索构建出一个以企业战略为出发点、以企业架构为切入点、以绩效体系为关键点、以薪酬管理为落脚点的“绩效一薪酬”管理模式。     

Charisma,Macht und Narzissmus

Charisma, power and narcissism. On the diagnostics of an ambivalent leading qualityManagers are often obviously narcissistic personalities with “charismatic qualities”. The author discusses the background of these qualities and their ambivalence, because behind the brilliance of a successful manager may be a hidden narcissistic problem as the actual motive power. Nevertheless a constructive narcissism is to be distinguished from a destructive one. Charismatic constellations as well as narcissistic dynamics are to be understood not only as an individual problem but as an interactional phenomenon, involving both sides of a relationship. In order to explain these dynamics, the author presents the concepts of “narcissistic collusion” and “expanded self”. It is of great importance to the coach, to be able to analyse and to deal with these relational patterns — and also to preserve oneself from being involved in such narcissistic dynamics.     

The Network Origins of Aggregate Fluctuations

This paper argues that, in the presence of intersectoral input–output linkages, microeconomic idiosyncratic shocks may lead to aggregate fluctuations. We show that, as the economy becomes more disaggregated, the rate at which aggregate volatility decays is determined by the structure of the network capturing such linkages. Our main results provide a characterization of this relationship in terms of the importance of different sectors as suppliers to their immediate customers, as well as their role as indirect suppliers to chains of downstream sectors. Such higher‐order interconnections capture the possibility of “cascade effects” whereby productivity shocks to a sector propagate not only to its immediate downstream customers, but also to the rest of the economy. Our results highlight that sizable aggregate volatility is obtained from sectoral idiosyncratic shocks only if there exists significant asymmetry in the roles that sectors play as suppliers to others, and that the “sparseness” of the input–output matrix is unrelated to the nature of aggregate fluctuations.     

Experience,Service Operations Strategy,and Services as Destinations: Foundations and Exploratory Investigation

This paper explores the customer experience paradigm as it pertains to service operations strategy and design. First, we operationally define and discuss the concept of customer experience. In this context, we propose a reframing of the strategic role of operations strategy as one of choreographing experience‐centric services. We then introduce the concept of services as destinations as an emerging business model for classifying experiential service strategies. Our conceptual typology of experience‐based strategies uses two dimensions: (1) the depth of use of experience as a source of value creation, ranging from brand experience to the services as a destinations business model, and (2) the degree of integration of experience internally within the firm. Using this conceptual typology, we develop five propositions and use multiple cases to illustrate firms' use of these experience strategies. Laying the groundwork for future research, we highlight insights from the qualitative, multiple‐case data as they pertain to service operations strategy and the business model that employs services as destinations. A number of questions for further research are suggested.     

Approximate sorting of data streams with limited storage

We consider the problem of approximate sorting of a data stream (in one pass) with limited internal storage where the goal is not to rearrange data but to output a permutation that reflects the ordering of the elements of the data stream as closely as possible. Our main objective is to study the relationship between the quality of the sorting and the amount of available storage. To measure quality, we use permutation distortion metrics, namely the Kendall tau, Chebyshev, and weighted Kendall metrics, as well as mutual information, between the output permutation and the true ordering of data elements. We provide bounds on the performance of algorithms with limited storage and present a simple algorithm that asymptotically requires a constant factor as much storage as an optimal algorithm in terms of mutual information and average Kendall tau distortion. We also study the case in which only information about the most recent elements of the stream is available. This setting has applications to learning user preference rankings in services such as Netflix, where items are presented to the user one at a time.     

Resilienzf?rdernde M?glichkeiten der Teamsupervision bei Changeprozessen

Supervisors frequently are confronted with emotional and social effects of efficiency-driven restructuring and process optimizations. Using case studies as well as conceptual ideas, the article explores whether and how the resilience of affected employees can be fostered in the frame of supervision. Promoting resilience within supervision is not to be mistaken as a further attempt to stretch employees?? limits. Rather, we conceive of it as an attempt to make employees aware of the centrifugal powers of every day working routines and to promote decisions for joint investment in cooperation??to make team work worthwhile, even in strenuous times.     

The Inverse Relation Between Risks and Benefits: The Role of Affect and Expertise

Although risk and benefits of risky activities are positively correlated in the real world, empirical results indicate that people perceive them as negatively correlated. The common explanation is that confounding benefits and losses stems from affect. In this article, we address the issue that has not been clearly established in studies on the affect heuristic: to what extent boundary conditions, such as judgments’ generality and expertise, influence the presence of the inverse relation in judgments of hazards. These conditions were examined in four studies in which respondents evaluated general or specific benefits and risks of “affect‐rich” and “affect‐poor” hazards (ranging from investments to applications of stem cell research). In line with previous research, affect is defined as good or bad feelings integral to a stimulus. In contrast to previous research, affect is considered as related both to personal feelings and to social controversies associated with a hazard. Expertise is related to personal knowledge (laypersons vs. experts) as well as to objective knowledge (targets well vs. poorly known to science). The direct comparison of the input from personal and objective ignorance into the inverse relation has not been investigated previously. It was found that affect invoked by a hazard guides general but not specific judgments of its benefits and risks. Technical expertise helps to avoid simplified evaluations of consequences as long as they are well known to science. For new, poorly understood hazards (e.g., stem cell research), expertise does not protect from the perception of the inverse relation between benefits and risks.     

企业信息技术管理组织模式及其历史演进

信息化时代,企业对信息技术的使用不仅是IT技术开发应用和系统操作维护的问题,更是一种对专门化服务的管理问题。对企业信息技术管理的组织体制设计,将在很大程度上决定这个企业能否有效地利用信息技术作用来提升其竞争和发展的能力。本文试图从历史发展进程角度分析和评价企业信息技术管理可资采用的几种典型组织模式及其各自的优缺点和适用条件,以对全能型单位剥离辅助业务提供一些操作性的指导意见。     

Drivers of Corporate Social Responsibility Attitudes: The Demography of Socially Responsible Investors

Demographic characteristics of socially responsible investors (SRIs) are likely to play a significant role in shaping their perceptions and behaviour concerning corporate social responsibility (CSR). This paper identifies demographic characteristics of SRIs and explores the relationship of these characteristics with their CSR attitudes. We analyse, using generalized ordered logistic regression, the questionnaire responses of 2464 SRIs from 20 countries. The results demonstrate that younger and female SRIs are more likely to believe that a company's social and environmental performance is as important as its financial performance. Female SRIs and those with high incomes are the most likely to believe that companies should be as responsible to their shareholders as to the broader society. In addition, younger SRIs, those with high incomes and those who have attained higher education levels regard socially responsible companies as at least as profitable as other companies. The benefits which companies can derive from understanding the demographic profile of SRIs are examined, including a potentially lower cost of capital, improved CSR rankings and business policy formulation and communication consistent with CSR views held by specific groups of SRIs.     

Intended Message Versus Message Received in Hypothetical Physician Risk Communications: Exploring the Gap

We examined the risk perception that is derived from hypothetical physician risk communications. Subjects (n= 217) completed a questionnaire on the Web for $3. Subjects were presented with four hypothetical cancer risk scenarios that included a physician risk communication in one of three risk communication formats: verbal only, verbal plus numeric probability as a percent, and verbal plus numeric probability as a fraction. In each scenario, subjects were asked to imagine themselves as the patient described and to state their perceived personal susceptibility to the cancer (i.e., risk perception) on a 0 to 100 scale, as well as responses to other measures. Subjects' risk perceptions were highly variable, spanning nearly the entire probability scale for each scenario, and the degree of variation was only slightly less in the risk communication formats in which a numeric statement of risk was provided. Subjects were more likely to overestimate than underestimate their risk relative to the stated risk in the numeric versions, and overestimation was associated with the belief that the physician minimized the risk so they wouldn't worry, innumeracy, and worry, as well as decisions about testing for the cancer. These results demonstrate significant gaps between the intended message and the message received in physician risk communications. Implications for medical decisions, patient distress, and future research are discussed.     

Branch-and-Bound Strategies for the Log Bucking Problem

Tree bucking is the initial production process in converting felled trees into useable wood products. This process has been previously modelled as a dynamic programming problem. Unlike other production problems that have been modelled as dynamic programming problems, there have been no serious attempts to formulate this problem as a branch-and-bound model and then examine the model's performance. This research develops the tree bucking problem as a branch-and-bound model to be tested by varying several parameters. The testing is performed in two phases: (1) a sensitivity analysis is performed to test two key parameters used by the model, and (2) branching strategies are tested on various problem scenarios. The size of the solution sets searched by the technique vary from as low as 40 to as many as 41,000 possible combinations.     

Political behavior in organizations—A cross-cultural comparison

The purpose of this study is to explore the differences in the meaning attached to organizational politics (OP) across cultures. A critical incidents scale was distributed to two samples of university faculty, one in Canada and one in Israel. Three aspects relevant to the perception of OP were investigated : (1) the role that elements previously identified in the literature play in the actual perception of OP by employees; (2) the extent to which OP is perceived as moral; and (3) the degree to which OP is perceived to be prevalent or likely to occur in the subjects’ organization. The results showed that the Canadian sample perceived the various elements in the scale as generally more political, less moral, and less prevalent in their organization than the Israeli sample. Both samples considered informal influence attempts as more political than formal or illegal ones. The two samples also considered illegal influence attempts as less moral than formal or informal ones. Elements defined in our study as circumstantial, i.e, “conflict,” “power attainment,” “concealment of motive,” and “acting against the organization,” were found to make a smaller contribution to the perception of situations as political than elements defined as behavioral, i.e., “formal,” “informal,” and “illegal,” influence attempts.     

The use of performance measurement as a basis for project control of offshore modification oil and gas projects

The methods presented in this article are based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of close-out data drawn from a portfolio of 38 modification projects. The primary premise is that modification projects are intrinsically subject to quantity and complexity growth during the course of detailed engineering as a consequence of the indeterminate interface with the existing facility. The normative project control routines need to be supplemented by material take-offs-based weight monitoring as a basis for re-estimation and re-calibration of the project baselines as detailed engineering proceeds in order to mitigate this uncertainty as early as possible. Similarly, estimating needs to be based on norms drawn from performance measurement of modification work rather than extrapolations from greenfield projects, particularly the work performed on the platforms. This article presents a portfolio of project control methods based on the performance measurement principle covering the short term of single projects as well as the longer term multi-project perspective.