Building Organizational and Scientific Platforms in the Pharmaceutical Industry: A Process Perspective on the Development of Dynamic Capabilities

In this paper, we examine the process of dynamic capability development in a large pharmaceutical firm. Using interviews with multiple managers at different organizational levels, we developed two narratives of the process of developing two separate dynamic capabilities in the same firm. We focus on three areas that prior research has shown to be critical in the early stages of the process of implementing new strategic initiatives: the cognitive orientations of key personnel, managerial action undertaken within the firm, and the firm's internal and external contexts. We provide evidence that managers undertake specific initiatives based on their own particular cognitive orientations , and that senior managers play a major role in the development of capabilities by imprinting the organization with their specific cognitive orientation and then orchestrating the multilevel organizational routines necessary for actualization of a capability. These replicable actions by senior management during the early stages of capability development can lead to the development of a capability that is not initially in the cognitive frames of lower level employees. Finally, we will show that internal and external contingencies have a profound impact on the decision to develop a capability, and to discontinue its development. Our findings thus suggest that the process of developing new capabilities shares common elements with other strategic initiatives.     

Flexibility, Hierarchy, Markets

The conclusion that organizations need to become more strategically flexible as a response to increasing environmental dynamism and uncertainty has been an important feature of recent contingency theories of organization design. In this literature organizations have been analysed from the perspective of the development of networks of organizations concentrating on their core competencies and contracting among themselves on a stable long-term basis. This model of inter-firm relationships provides an alternative mode of organizational structuring to that arising from vertical integration, which, by contrast, is seen as fostering strategic inflexibility. In the literature on corporate restructuring and changes in ownership form arising from the markets and hierarchies perspective, we see a similar emphasis on the dysfunctional consequences of large-scale bureaucratic organization. Changes in ownership form are seen as a major means of providing more effective managerial control. In this paper we argue that linking the literature on flexibility emanating from contingency theories of organizational design and the markets and hierarchies perspective provides important new insights into current and emerging forms of organization.     

下一个可能就是你

今天,供应链经理这个职位调子比任何时候都高当公司召回产品、生产运营地点更换,或供应商破产成为新闻时,公司会让供应链主管来协助形成或甚至发表公司的有关消息。供应链经理人在公共关系领域的角色进一步拓展,与此同时,这也是一个提     

Parents Dilemmas in Sharing Donor Insemination Conception Stories with their Children

Parents of children conceived by gamete (sperm or egg) donation often find it challenging to share donor conception stories with their children. This study reports findings of a qualitative study of families with children conceived by donor insemination in New Zealand, a country where the policy and practice of sharing information in donor insemination is advanced. Almost all parents had told, or planned to tell, their children about their origins, but some parents faced considerable dilemmas around disclosure. Parents need to be given support and guidance as they inform their children about their donor family history. © 2007 The Author(s). Journal compilation © 2007 National Children's Bureau.     

Crime victimization: its extent and communication

Summary. The criminal justice contexts are identified in which understanding and communicating risks are important. The paper is thereafter exclusively concerned with the probability of crime victimization classified by person and location. Examples of crime risks derived from the British Crime Survey are provided, with instances of where concern about crime diverges from risks of crime. Caution is advocated about seeking to reduce the fear of crime by reassurance. The high levels of concentration of crime by location are noted, together with the fact that particular individuals and households are repeatedly victimized, enabling the prioritization of crime-reductive resources after a crime has taken place. The paper concludes that an emphasis on how the supply of criminal opportunities may be regulated heralds a more systematic approach to the distribution of unavoidable hazard among citizens.     

Towards Common Ground and Trading Zones in Management Research and Practice

The purpose and nature of management scholarship is contested, evidenced by debates about the ‘academic–practitioner divide’ and attendant remedies for addressing it, including mode 2 and mode 3 research, engaged scholarship, evidence‐based management and design science. In this paper the authors argue that, without a culture of dialogical encounter, management scholarship will never be able to emerge from its adolescence, and management will not develop into the profession that it should and can become. The central proposition is that the highly fragmented landscape of management (practice and scholarship) lacks sufficient capability for dialogue among the plurality of actors situated across that landscape. Developing the dialogical capability ultimately required to break this fundamental impasse demands, first, a shared sense of purpose and responsibility (akin to the Hippocratic Oath in medicine) and, second, institutional entrepreneurship to establish more and better ‘trading zones’. Drawing on the philosophy of pragmatism, the authors further this endeavour by identifying and proposing key elements of a statement of shared purpose and responsibility. Finally, they explore the nature and characteristics of successful trading zones, highlighting particular examples that have already been created in management studies.     

Examining DSM-IV Criteria for Pathological Gambling: Psychometric Properties and Evidence from Cognitive Biases

We examined the DSM-IV criteria for pathological gambling as assessed with the DSM-IV-based Diagnostic Interview for Gambling Severity (DIGS; Winters, Specker, & Stinchfield, 2002). We first analyzed the psychometric properties of the DIGS, and then assessed the extent to which performance on two judgment and decision-making tasks, the Georgia Gambling Task (Goodie, 2003) and the Iowa Gambling Task (Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994), related to higher reports of gambling pathology. In a sample of frequent gamblers, we found strong psychometric support for the DSM-IV conception of pathological gambling as measured by the DIGS, predictive relationships between DIGS scores and all cognitive performance measures, and significant differences in performance measures between individuals with and without pathological gambling. Analyses using suggested revisions to the pathological gambling threshold (Stinchfield, 2003) revealed that individuals meeting four of the DSM-IV criteria aligned significantly more with pathological gamblers than with non-pathological gamblers, supporting the suggested change in the cutoff score from five to four symptoms. Discussion focuses on the validity of the DSM-IV criteria as assessed by the DIGS and the role of cognitive biases in pathological gambling.     

Local deprivation and the labour market integration of new migrants to England

ABSTRACT

Using data on new migrants to England from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey, we show how a key component of migrant integration - labour market progress in terms of wages and unemployment rates – is broadly positive in the early years after arrival across a range of migrant groups and across gender. However, the precise level of labour market success achieved varies considerably across groups reflecting both the initial entry-level and labour market trajectories after migration. Migrants from Western Europe and the Old Commonwealth countries have unemployment rates (wages) which are generally lower (higher) than other groups, particularly non-white groups, while migrants from the Accession countries experience relatively low unemployment but also low wages. Groups which have better outcomes on entry also tend to experience higher rates of progress over time in England. However, the extent of multiple deprivation in the local authority where migrants reside interacts with years since migration to dampen wage trajectories for some groups and accounting for deprivation highlights the importance of internal migration for access to employment. The results emphasise structural explanations for patterns of labour market integration of new migrants to England.     

Sexuality/sexuality Discussion of Deborah Waxenberg's “On Not Being Supposed To”

In discussing Waxenberg's case presentation, the author focuses on the interimplication of sex and object in the patient's tie to her mother. This sadomasochistic tie is viewed both as the progenitor and as the product of a dead mother—baby union. Consideration is given to the clinical paradox of having to embody the transference position of the dead mother while simultaneously offering the safety of generative potential space.