Corporate Entrepreneurs or Rogue Middle Managers? A Framework for Ethical Corporate Entrepreneurship

Corporate entrepreneurs -- described in the academic literature as those managers or employees who do not follow the status quo of their co-workers -- are depicted as visionaries who dream of taking the company in new directions. As a result, though, in overcoming internal obstacles to reaching their professional goals they can often walk a fine line between clever resourcefulness and outright rule breaking. A framework is presented as a guideline for middle managers and organizations seeking to impede unethical behaviors in the pursuit of entrepreneurial activity. This paper examines the barriers middle managers face in trying to be entrepreneurial in less supportive environments, the ethical consequences that can result, and a suggested assessment and training program for averting such dilemmas. We advise companies that embrace corporate entrepreneurship: (1) establish the needed flexibility, innovation, and employee initiative and risk-taking; (2) remove the barriers that the entrepreneurial middle manager may face to more closely align personal and organizational initiatives and reduce the need to behave unethically; and (3) include an ethical component to corporate training which will provide guidelines for instituting compliance and values components into the state-of-the-art corporate entrepreneurship programs.     

Innovation and service-dominant logic

Radical changes have occurred in innovation management. Traditional goods-dominant logic has shifted to service-dominant logic, where value is created for use instead of exchange. Customers are tied to organizations to co-create value. The focus of this special issue is on high quality, original, unpublished research, case studies, and implementation experiences. The issues are covered, including the collaborative workplaces for innovation in service companies, the financial crisis in hospitality industry, the role of quality management in innovation, and the value logic in service.     

Exchanging knowledge through healthcare manager placements in research teams

This study contributes to service industry theory by revealing how employers in the health service understand knowledge exchange as ‘transaction’. Although under pressure to deliver better services without additional resource, health service providers do not seek customers, making them unlike commercial service industries. This paper reports a UK knowledge exchange programme designed to bring together healthcare managers and researchers. Case study data were gathered from 36 semi-structured interviews with health services managers (Fellows) embedded in research teams, research team leads, and Fellows' workplace line-managers. Interviews were analysed thematically using a coding frame. The importance of personal contact in knowledge exchange mechanisms was confirmed but the knowledge model varied by interaction pairings (Fellow/research team; Fellow/health service). When with researchers, an exchange model was commonly in operation, marked by collaborative engagement. In contrast, line-managers tended to adopt a transactional approach, driven by instrumental motives. This transactional model merits further research.     

The Congruence of Successful International Competitors:

This paper examines the marketing strategies and organization of a matched triad of American, British and Japanese companies competing in the UK market. The sample includes leading companies in industries identified as being under threat by the EC. The relative success of business was measured and strategies identified using multiple depth interviews with senior managers within the businesses. The strategies of successful companies were found to be similar and not dependent on their country of origin or industrial sector. The most successful companies had a balance of marketing, innovation, planning and entrepeneurial orientation. More of these successful firms were Japanese than American, and very few were British.     

The effect of ethnic diversity on expatriate managers in their host country

Expatriate managers often encounter considerable obstacles in their overseas workplaces. While there is significant research on expatriate management and adjustment, relying on social identity and acculturation theories, little research addresses the expatriate experience of ethnic diversity in the host country. To address this gap, the aim of this study is to explore how Australian expatriate managers interpret their experience of working in a new and ethnically diverse workplace in Malaysia. The qualitative analysis suggests that the key to performing in such a context lies in the individual's ability to change and adapt beyond culture and language skills. The key managerial implication is that cross-cultural training can assist with the development of personal attributes by expatriate managers involved in ethnically diverse workplaces. Implications for future research are provided.     

Making bottom-up and top-down processes meet in public innovation

Innovations in an organisation derive from multiple sources. In the public sector, users and the policy sphere provide important but often unconnected impulses for innovation. These impulses are transmitted to the organisation by grassroots employees who interact with users and managers who implement policy requirements. The paper examines the actors and activities that coordinate bottom-up and top-down initiatives and promote their development into innovations. It creates a theoretical framework that combines the views of employee-driven innovation and strategic reflexivity and supplements them with an analysis of coordination in innovation processes. The functioning of this framework is illustrated in the context of children's day care services. The results highlight the central role of middle managers and provide new knowledge regarding their ‘bridging’ activities in innovation. The adjustment of bottom-up and top-down processes requires the personal involvement of managers, and the creation of communication arenas, networks and mediating tools.     

Innovation source,advancement stage and company stock returns

The purpose of this paper was to measure the short- and long-term impact of innovation announcements on the stock returns of service companies. In order to study the predictors of the abnormal stock returns, the study takes the adoption and diffusion theory as its conceptual background. The research was based on an event study and buy-and-hold methods. It encompassed 398 announcements released for 121 companies in EU member states between February 2011 and December 2016. The study deepens the dialogue on the role of the source of innovation and its advancement stage. It indicates a positive market reaction to high innovation advancement stage announcements in comparison to low advancement stage ones. Furthermore, it suggests a positive market reaction to in-house development in comparison to collaborative development and copying. Finally, the research signals that the innovation advancement stage complements its source by clarifying its relationship with abnormal market value changes.     

Career development of female managers in retailing: Inhibitors and enablers

In the retail industry “women are highly visible” as employees and customers, but managers are predominantly male [Traves et al., 1997. Service Industries Journal, 17(1), 133–154]. To shed light on this anomaly, this article investigates inhibitors to and enablers of the career development of female managers in retailing in theoretical and empirical terms. The primary work comprises interviews and focus groups in three case companies, exploring career development experiences and practices. The evidence discussed supports the contention that active enabling factors, such as organisational values supporting gender equity and people-centred management styles, are pre-prerequisites for females’ career progression.     

Are workplaces with many women in management run differently?

Are workplaces with a high percentage of women in management run differently? This paper uses data from the British 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98) to analyze empirically the relationship between the percentage of female workplace managers and people-management practices. The results show that workplace management teams with a higher proportion of women monitor employee feedback and development more intensely. Such teams also tend to promote more interpersonal channels of communication and more employee participation in decision-making, although the evidence is weaker for these last two practices. Overall, the findings suggest that the concept of good workplace management practices converges on female leadership styles when the percentage of female managers increases.     

Self‐regulated learning in the workplace: strategies and factors in the attainment of learning goals

The research reported here is an exploratory qualitative study aimed at identifying professionals' self‐regulatory strategies underpinning the planning and attainment of learning goals in the workplace and showing how a number of organizational factors affect these strategies. The rationale for the study is that existing research tells us little about how professionals regulate their learning, largely because much of the literature on the self‐regulation of learning has been conducted with pupils and students in schools and universities rather than with professionals. Data were obtained through 29 semi‐structured interviews with professional employees in a company in the energy sector – including engineers, scientists and managers of various kinds – in 12 countries. Findings suggest that self‐regulatory learning practices in, from and for work are iterative and fluid rather than delineated into discrete stages as suggested by phase models of self‐regulation. There was little deliberate, systematic self‐reflection on learning in the workplaces studied. Learning goals were driven by short‐term work tasks and individuals' longer term development needs. Professionals draw extensively upon supervisors, mentors and colleagues when planning and attaining their learning goals. Formation of learning goals was constrained by individuals' perceptions of their career development potential and of how their progression potential is viewed by the organization in which they work.     

Country Relational Distance,Organizational Power and R&D Managers: Understanding Environmental Challenges for Foreign R&D in China

This study examines the challenges of foreign research and development (R&D) in China, based on interviews with 32 senior R&D managers. It confirms the findings from previous research that many barriers still exist in China for foreign R&D, and such barriers include institutional environment, infrastructure and labour management. Among the three categories, issues related labour management, such as increasing labour cost and mobility, lack of experience and creativity and cultural differences among the research staff, prove to be most challenging for management, while China's institutions and infrastructure do not seem to pose big problems for foreign companies. This study also finds that responses from R&D managers are not consistent, and the differences could be largely explained by three types of factors: relational distance between the parent country and China, the strength and experience of foreign companies, and the manager's personal experience and closeness with China. Further research is needed to explore these issues due to the small sample size of this study.     

When are strategic orientations beneficial for collaborative service innovation?

Despite the importance of collaborative innovation, the existing literature tends to be somewhat vague in identifying when strategic orientations are beneficial for service innovation between a focal firm and its business partners. The purpose of this study is to examine the relative effects of four strategic orientations (market, service, interaction, and learning) on collaborative service innovation performance, while considering the contextual factor of service offerings (basic installed base, maintenance, operational, and professional). Results based on survey data from 362 paired B2B firms show that learning orientation has the strongest effect on collaborative service innovation performance, and is the most effective for basic installed base services and maintenance services. In contrast, interaction orientation best supports those firms with operational services, while market and service orientations are more effective for professional services. Managers are advised to consider alternative strategic orientations individually aligned with service offerings to achieve desired collaborative service innovation outcomes.     

Global software piracy: Trends and strategic considerations

The design, manufacture, distribution, and sale of software constitutes a rapidly growing and remarkably lucrative global industry. Leaders of most software companies understand that intellectual property rights (IPR) typically are vital to competitive advantage and company success. Theft of intellectual property (IP) in the form of software piracy is brazen, extremely costly, lowers incentives to innovate, and threatens the very existence of some companies. IP theft, therefore, is a daunting challenge for managers of software firms. In this article, we make several contributions that should prove helpful to software designers, managers, responsible users, and broad stakeholders of software innovation and use—that is, almost all of us. In doing so, we provide an overview of international legal, ethical, economic, and systemic considerations, and we share an analysis of the drivers of consumer software piracy. We then discuss strategic considerations and introduce a decision-making typology, which may help legitimate companies to devise strategies and tactics to manage their software IP in the face of widespread piracy.     

Trends in Service Sourcing Practices

This paper identifies 12 current trends in sourcing practices in general and explores whether these trends are relevant for service sourcing in particular. Based on interviews with sourcing managers, it is, for example, concluded that service sourcing is becoming more systematic, formalized, and globalized with greater demands for trained staff, high-tech tools and focus on CSR. The authors have contributed equally to the article and appear in alphabetical order. The authors would like to express their gratitude to the respondents who made the study possible.     

A Need for Quality Services in the 1990s:

All service organizations need to be concerned about globalization and successful growth in the ever changing economic environment. Service companies in the midwest part of the United States were surveyed to determine how managers and their subordinates actually felt about the concept of "innovation through total quality." A discrepancy between the perception of total quality as a means to achieve sustainable advantage and the actual implementation of such a strategy was perceived. Some conclusions posed were that managers need to invest more in promoting quality by increasing training, measuring the efforts of individuals within the organization more effectively, and rewarding these individuals with higher compensation for superior performance.     

Value logics for service innovation: practice-driven implications for service-dominant logic

Service-dominant logic (SDL) provides a conceptual understanding of and widens the view on value creation in service innovation for product-centric companies. However, empirical research linking SDL and service innovation is still limited albeit expanding. This study provides insights beyond existing discussions on product and service dimensions using the theoretical lens of the value logic perspective. More specifically, the purpose of this study is to examine how value can be understood, targeted, and created in the pursuit of service innovation by product-centric manufacturing companies. Building on a previous investigation of two multinational product-centric manufacturing companies, this paper identifies and develops a theoretical model to describe the space shift in service innovation with four different kinds of value logics, namely, product-based value logic, service-based value logic, virtual-based value logic, and systemic-based value logic. Using a digitalization-driven new service innovation, namely the My Control System, which is a web-based service delivery platform, this paper describes space shifts to enhance value through four value logics as efforts. Further, challenges associated with different value logics are described in terms of complexity traps and service gaps. The study also contributes to bridging the gap between SDL theory and practice by developing a midrange theoretical model for value creation as a specification and amendment to SDL that supports SDL-guided service innovation and servitization in practice.     

Employer training in Australia: current practices and concerns

This paper presents and analyses results from a research project on current trends in employer training in Australia. While the formal vocational education and training (VET) system is well‐researched, the everyday training that happens in workplaces is relatively under‐researched in Australia. Using some of the results of an employer survey undertaken in 2015, the paper describes and analyses employer‐based training across a range of industry areas. The survey included groups of questions on a range of matters, including the reasons why employers train, and how these relate to employers’ perceptions of their operating environment, and the structures they have in place to manage and organize training. Detailed data are provided about three specific forms of training: in‐house training and learning; the use that employers make of external providers of training; and employers’ use of nationally recognised training – training from the VET system. Finally the paper reports what managers said about the barriers to providing more training. The paper analyses the findings in relation to the literature and also identified changes over time in training practices in Australian companies. Implications for training policy and practice, as well as for future research, are identified.     

Involving mind, body, and friends: Management that engenders creativity

Based on the careful observation and interviews of employees at three companies, and supplemented by cases from the popular business press, a discovery approach is used to derive four management principles that engender creativity and innovation in organizations: (1) manage organizations so that their knowledge base is more diverse than what would occur naturally; (2) encourage employees to embrace a collaborative and non-complacent attitude towards work and the organization; (3) make it possible for organization members to engage in the quick testing of ideas and solutions as they emerge; (4) reward employee and supervisor behaviors that support these principles and punish resistance to their implementation. The principles work in companies even if creativity and innovation are not stated organizational objectives, and do not require large investments or disruptions to work processes to yield valuable results.     

Competitive advantage through service differentiation by manufacturing companies

This paper examines the relationship among the complexity of customer needs, customer centricity, innovativeness, service differentiation, and business performance within the context of companies that have made a service transition from pure goods providers to service providers. A survey of 332 manufacturing companies provides the basis for the empirical investigation. One key finding is that a strong emphasis on service differentiation can lead to a manufacturing firm's strategies for customer centricity being less sensitive to increasingly complex customer needs, which can increase a firm's payoff for customer centricity. In contrast, the payoff from innovativeness appears to be higher if the firm focuses its resources on either product or service innovation; that is, a dual focus does not work well. This paper discusses the implications of these findings for researchers and managers.     

Financialization and the Employee Suicide Crisis at France Telecom

The privatization of France Telecom (FT) in 1997 led to the implementation of a profit-oriented financialization strategy. An unforgiving work environment was developed, which has unsettled many employees. Between February 2008 and October 2011, 69 employees took their own life. Many left notes blaming management for having privileged the interests of shareholders over those of employees. Through interviews with employees and professional practitioners associated with FT, we reveal that employees strongly resented the company’s use of financialization policies to maximize shareholder value. Pursuit of such policies led to the de-institutionalization of socially prescribed norms that were applied commonly in Continental European workplaces. Feelings of anomie, disgrace, futility and isolation ensued among employees. This case highlights an important effect of a modern corporation’s adoption of financialization policies. It points to the need to improve workplace sensitivities and the ethical dispositions of companies and their managers.