Ignorance Isn't Bliss: Complaint Experience and Organizational Learning in the California Nursing Home Industry, 1997–2004

Organizational learning theory suggests that complaints about products and services can promote organizational learning and change. However, evidence suggests that potentially valuable forms of experience may be ignored or discounted in organizations, and additional research is needed to determine why this happens. This study contributes to those efforts by examining how multiple forms of complaint experience interactively influence organizational outcomes. An empirical test on a longitudinal panel of Californian nursing homes finds that complaints about other issues may distract attention away from complaints about a focal issue, but only when complaints are provided anonymously. These findings forward organizational learning theories by suggesting that multiple types of experience may detract from rather than supplement each other in some cases. Additional implications and opportunities for further research are also discussed.     

Operational Slack and Venture Survival

Slack can act as a double‐edged sword. While it can buffer against environmental threats to help ensure business continuity, slack can also be costly and reduce profitability. In this study we focus on operational slack, the form related to the firm's production processes. We investigate the role of operational slack on firm survival during its venture stage when its survival is significantly challenged by environmental threats. Specifically, we explore how change in three types of environmental uncertainty, namely dynamism, complexity, and lack of munificence, affect the relationship between operational slack and venture survival. Results suggest that with an increase in environmental uncertainty, operational slack lowers the likelihood of venture failure.     

Rule Violations and Organizational Search: A Review and Extension

Whether they are formally prescribed or informally agreed upon, rules delineate the types of behavior deemed acceptable or appropriate within organizations. Studies often find that negative outcomes such as decreased group cohesion and higher turnover result when rules are broken. However, research rarely examines the potential positive effects of rule violations. Rules describe expectations about behavior within routines, or patterns of activity in organizations. When rules are violated by individuals, it could be an indication that the associated patterns of activity are no longer appropriate and that changes to the routines are needed. Organizations may learn from these violations if the violations trigger a search for new ways to organize activities, but this connection between violations and the search for new routines is affected by several factors. Drawing from a review and discussion of rules, routines, and research on organizational search and learning, this paper develops propositions regarding how rule violations motivate the search for new routines. This perspective integrates the literatures on rule‐breaking and organizational search, and also suggests that managers who attend to patterns of rule‐breaking within their organizations may detect drift from their environments and take corrective action earlier than suggested by other organizational learning research.     

The Two Faces of Voluntary Disclosure: Quality Improvement and Organizational Learning from Self‐reported Problems

Research suggests the promise of voluntary self‐reporting, given that organizational quality can be difficult to monitor. However, I explore opposing theoretical arguments regarding its impact. On one hand, self‐reported problems may motivate intensive investigation, resulting in subsequent improvement. However, self‐reports may instead represent relatively superficial impression management efforts, and their value to organizational performance may be more dubious. Associated hypotheses are tested on a longitudinal panel of nursing homes. Findings suggest that self‐reports generally detract from performance except when they are reinforced by other, complementary forms of experience. Contributions to organizational learning theory, institutional theory and regulatory policy are discussed.     

An analytical framework for urban upgrading: property rights, property values and physical attributes

In the mid-1980s, the state government of Maharashtra, India, introduced a slum redevelopment strategy in its capital city, Mumbai (Bombay). In contrast to traditional housing improvement strategies that focus primarily on legalizing the land tenure of residents, slum redevelopment is a more complex strategy. It involves the demolition of existing slums and the redevelopment of new, higher density, medium-rise apartment blocks, including, entirely cross-subsidized housing for the original slum dwellers. Mumbai's experience, documented through a single case study in this paper, illustrates that contrary to the conventional focus only on private property rights, upgrading policy must be based on a differentiated view of property rights. Furthermore, policy must also consider the property values, the physical attributes of the real property (underlying asset), and the interplay among property rights, property values and physical attributes. Second, the paper demonstrates that under certain conditions, there is a constituency among slum dwellers for complex initiatives, like redevelopment. This suggests that planners should be skeptical about popular, simplistic myths regarding low-income housing preferences. However, slum redevelopment's slow pace also implies that planners need to be cautious in their enthusiasm for redevelopment.     

Imitate Others? Not if We Have the Chance: Competitive Differentiation in Medical Malpractice Insurers' Pricing Decisions under Uncertainty

Several perspectives assert that organizations facing uncertainty tend to imitate other organizations' actions. While one might therefore expect to see great homogeneity across fields characterized by uncertainty, it is surprising that this homogeneity has not been observed more frequently in practice. Research investigating this puzzle has typically focused on the role played by organizational characteristics or the information organizations possess about their environments. Instead, this study turns attention to the information others possess about the organization. To that end, I disaggregate organizational uncertainty into the uncertainty facing decision makers and the uncertainty faced by others about what those decision makers might ultimately do, providing a more fine grained analysis of uncertainty and its impact on competitive action than typically offered in this literature. I suggest that uncertainty in competitors' evaluations of the organization provides an opportunity for the organization to differentiate itself rather than imitate others. I also suggest that this effect is stronger than the effects of the uncertainty facing the decision makers themselves. Related hypotheses are tested on a panel of medical malpractice insurance providers. The study's perspective generates unique predictions regarding imitation and differentiation in this industry and across other contexts featuring both uncertainty and competition.     

The Role of Operational Capabilities in Enhancing New Venture Survival: A Longitudinal Study

We investigate relationships between operational capabilities and new venture survival. On the basis of operations management and entrepreneurship literature, we develop a contingency framework of operational capabilities especially appropriate at different life phases of a new venture's evolution. We expect that in the first years of a new venture's life, entrepreneurs should emphasize high inventory turnover to preserve working capital, support customer responsiveness, and aid firm adaptability. As new ventures grow, entrepreneurs should emphasize internal working capital generation via larger gross margins to support production ramp‐up. Later, new venture entrepreneurs should emphasize employee productivity to buttress sustainable volume production. We analyze a 6‐year longitudinal sample of 812 Swedish manufacturing new ventures using a gamma frailty‐based Cox regression. The findings show that specific operational capabilities, while always supporting new venture survival, have exceptional influence in specific new venture life phases. The three hypotheses are confirmed, suggesting that higher inventory turnover, gross margin, and employee productivity further increase new venture survival likelihoods, respectively, in the venture's start‐up, growth, and stability phases. This suggests a phased‐capabilities approach to new venture survival. This study contributes to operations management and entrepreneurship theory and practice, and sets a foundation for future research on operations strategy for new ventures.     

The Tradeoffs of Inclusionary Zoning: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know?

Inclusionary zoning (IZ), a controversial planning tool for supplying affordable housing, grew significantly during the 2000s' housing boom in the USA. We review the resultant scholarly literature on IZ. Our key reading is that IZ can include both tradeoffs and practical efforts to address them. There is also a need for additional research. More specifically, we find that IZ programs (i) have many components and vary considerably; (ii) can increase affordable housing production and social integration, but there can be a tradeoff between these goals; and (iii) can have slight adverse market effects, but cost-offsets can help mitigate the outcomes. Finally, we discuss the need for more research, particularly in-depth case studies and make suggestions.