Big Data and Information Processing in Organizational Decision Processes

Data-centric approaches such as big data and related approaches from business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) have recently attracted major attention due to their promises of huge improvements in organizational performance based on new business insights and improved decision making. Incorporating data-centric approaches into organizational decision processes is challenging, even more so with big data, and it is not self-evident that the expected benefits will be realized. Previous studies have identified the lack of a research focus on the context of decision processes in data-centric approaches. By using a multiple case study approach, the paper investigates different types of BI&A-supported decision processes, and makes three major contributions. First, it shows how different facets of big data and information processing mechanism compositions are utilized in different types of BI&A-supported decision processes. Second, the paper contributes to information processing theory by providing new insights about organizational information processing mechanisms and their complementary relationship to data-centric mechanisms. Third, it demonstrates how information processing theory can be applied to assess the dynamics of mechanism composition across different types of decisions. Finally, the study’s implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

高管危机警觉性是如何影响组织创新的？一个双中介模型

文章基于信息加工理论以及“信息→认知→行动”框架，探索并验证了高管危机警觉性与组织二元创新策略间（渐进式创新和突变式创新）的内在机制与路径模型，即组织响应和组织自省的双中介效应。本研究基于218家企业调研数据，所采用的层次回归、结构方程建模和Bootstrapping等方法的检验结果显示，高管危机警觉性正向影响组织渐进式创新和突变式创新；高管危机警觉性通过组织响应影响渐进式创新，通过组织自省影响突变式创新。研究结论为企业在危机下实现绿色创新与可持续发展提供理论与实践启示。     

Artificial intelligence and the future of work: Human-AI symbiosis in organizational decision making

Artificial intelligence (AI) has penetrated many organizational processes, resulting in a growing fear that smart machines will soon replace many humans in decision making. To provide a more proactive and pragmatic perspective, this article highlights the complementarity of humans and AI and examines how each can bring their own strength in organizational decision-making processes typically characterized by uncertainty, complexity, and equivocality. With a greater computational information processing capacity and an analytical approach, AI can extend humans’ cognition when addressing complexity, whereas humans can still offer a more holistic, intuitive approach in dealing with uncertainty and equivocality in organizational decision making. This premise mirrors the idea of intelligence augmentation, which states that AI systems should be designed with the intention of augmenting, not replacing, human contributions.     

Organizational Factors Encouraging Ethical Decision Making: An Exploration into the Case of an Exemplar

What factors in the organizational culture of an ethically exemplary corporation are responsible for encouraging ethical decision making? This question was analyzed through an exploratory case study of a top pharmaceutical company that is a global leader in ethics. The participating organization is renowned in public opinion polls of ethics, credibility, and trust. This research explored organizational culture, communication in issues management and public relations, management theory, and deontological or utilitarian moral philosophy as factors that might encourage ethical analysis. Our understanding of organiza tional ethics is enhanced by elucidating factors the case revealed as encouraging ethical analysisan organizational culture that emphasizes the importance of ethics, Theory Y management, a symmetrical worldview valuing innovation and dialogue, a counseling role for issues management or public relations in the dominant coalition, rewarding ethical behavior, ethical analysis using moral philosophy, consistency between individual values and organizational philosophy, and ethics training. These factors, and perhaps others as yet unidentified, worked together to create an environment that encouraged ethical decision making at the exemplar organization.     

The effect of attribute-based and alternative-based processing on consumer choice in context

The current research proposes that the extent to which consumer choices are affected by the decision process depends on the underlying nature of the choice problem. Specifically, choices resulting from substantial inter-brand comparisons and tradeoff analyses are vulnerable to whether product information is evaluated by attribute- or alternative-based processing. By contrast, choices resulting from a minimal cognitive processing are less sensitive to variations in the decision strategy employed. We test our theory in the well-known domain of choice context effects. Across three studies using multiple operationalizations of the decision process (i.e., information display format, product presentation mode, and processing goal), we find converging evidence that the more cognitively involving compromise choice increases when the environment facilitates attribute- versus alternative-based processing. Conversely, the choice of asymmetrically dominating option, which is characterized by relatively little analytical processing, does not depend on the type of decision strategy highlighted by the task.     

Leadership integrity and the role of human resource management in Greece: Gatekeeper or bystander?

With ethical misconduct commonplace in organizations and with the touting of competitive advantage associated with ethical organizational practices, considerable attention has turned to leadership integrity. Leaders are uniquely situated to influence the behavior of organizational members, and integrity has been shown to be instrumental in supporting ethical behavior and decision‐making. This article explores the role and influence of human resources management (HRM) in supporting leadership integrity among a group of large organizations operating in crisis‐stricken Greece. Although the institutional and cultural context of Greece appears to exacerbate role tensions confronted by human resources (HR) professionals, its forces are not deterministic; findings from in‐depth interviews with 12 HR directors indicate that the HR potential to secure ethical influence at the top level is primarily contingent on the nature of the organization's culture. Cultures of integrity enable HR executives to influence integrity and ethical behavior in top management teams (TMTs). In contrast, compliance‐based organizational cultures appear to breed a fickle HR presence: fostering integrity and ethical behavior for the middle and lower levels of an organization, while turning a blind eye to integrity violations at the top.     

Executive GDSS: Behavioral considerations at individual,organizational, and environmental levels of analysis

This article emphasizes the importance of behavioral considerations at individual, organizational, and environmental levels of analysis when researching and evaluating the design, implementation, and use of group decision support systems (GDSS) within complex organizations. Discussion is based on interview and archival data collected on an executive level GDSS used within a corporate setting. Issues that are considered generalizable to organizational computing, coordination, and collaboration technologies concern (a) viewing organization participants as strategic, intuitive information processors, (b) understanding the importance of organizational power, politics, and situational constraints on decision making, and (c) appreciating the symbolic value of advanced information technologies to an organization's external environment.     

University and In-House Management Education of Multinational Business and Bank Employees

A study of the education needs of multinational businesses in Dade County, Florida has been carried out in order to gain insight into the recruiting and training practices of the larger multinational employers'in the area. The conceptual basis for the study is a model of organizational information processing and socialization which identifies eight ways in which organizational decisions can be directed and made. Education contributes differently to each approach to decision making. Consequently, the use that should be made of education programs differs according to the approach used to make decisions in a particular setting. The focus of the discussion is on the contribution which university-based education can make toward fulfilling the education needs of new international business employees. The comparative value of in-house training, conferences, seminars, and undergraduate and graduate degree programs for promoting organization-specific and occupation-specific knowledge and socialization are also considered.     

Means–end analysis: Does the affective state influence information processing style?

Means–end theory aims at explaining how consumers evaluate products by linking relevant attributes to perceived consequences to desired ends in a hierarchical way, based on core assumptions of cognitive psychology about human information processing. This study investigates the influence of affective states on information processing styles in a means–end measurement situation, thus taking into account an important antecedent and correlate of human decision making and behavior that has received scarce attention so far in the methodological literature on means–end chains. The results reveal that a person's affective state indeed influences the style of information processing. Respondents in a positive mood used more general knowledge structures and processed the laddering questionnaire faster than respondents in a negative or neutral mood. The laddering technique, which measures means–end chains, thus seems to be sensitive to situational effects, and this finding indicates that affective states then also might have an influence on product knowledge and the decision‐making process in a purchase situation. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Spirituality and Strategic Leadership: The Influence of Spiritual Beliefs on Strategic Decision Making

This work extends the consideration of spirituality and leadership to the field of strategic leadership. Future development in the field of spirituality and leadership will depend on greater clarity concerning the level of analysis, and will require a distinction between personal and collective spirituality. Toward that end, a framework is proposed that describes how the personal spiritual beliefs of a top level leader operate in strategic decision making like a schema to filter and frame information. This function is mediated by the leader’s constructive development and meta-belief and moderated by the organizational context and leadership style. This framework provides a starting point for considering the many expressions of spirituality in organizations and serves as a foundation for a multi-level theory of spirituality and leadership.     

The Influence of Large Stake Family Control on Performance: Is It Agency or Entrenchment?

Agency theory posits that the greater degree of control by those with decision-making authority, the greater the overall organizational performance. Conversely, entrenchment theory implies that at extremely high levels of inside control by those with decision authority, organizational performance decreases. Using a nationwide sample of 2,631 privately held and publically traded family businesses, we examined if the relationship of percent family ownership is an agency or entrenchment relationship and found the latter. Specifically, there was a statistically significant negative relationship between percent of family control and sales growth as well as a strong inverse relationship between percent of family controlling the top management team and all measures of financial performance.     

Decision making behavior in smaller entrepreneurial and larger professionally managed firms

The main findings in this study are that: • Entrepreneurs from smaller firms are less comprehensive in their decision behavior than professional managers from larger firms, with comprehensiveness defined as the degree to which an individual follows a formal rational decision process; • As decision comprehensiveness declines, so too does organizational performance, both among entrepreneurs and professional managers.The present study was based on the responses of 15 entrepreneurs from smaller firms averaging 25 employees and 13 CEOs and other top level corporate executives from larger, more professionally managed firms averaging 740 employees. The firms were randomly selected from a list of mid-Atlantic electronic manufacturing firms. Field interviews and questionnaires were employed, as well as a decision scenario involving a series of questions to which the entrepreneur or professional manager responded.After reviewing the literature on entrepreneurship, the researchers noted that most of it focused on developing profiles of entrepreneurs—for example, that they were high achievers, impatient and made decisions quickly. However, little—if any—research has focused on the behavior of entrepreneurs, particularly when compared to that of professional managers. Given this gap in the research, a field study was designed to compare the decision behavior of entrepreneurs and professional managers. It was expected that entrepreneurs would be less comprehensive than professional managers, but given previous research on comprehensiveness, it was difficult to predict the consequences of this less comprehensive model for performance.The researchers note in the discussion and conclusion that the results of the study have major implications for entrepreneurs and professional managers. Granted that decision comprehensiveness should be emphasized, they question the ability of entrepreneurs to change their decision behavior. It is argued that many of the drawbacks of comprehensiveness can be overcome by more sophisticated planning techniques and information processing systems. The paper concludes by stressing the need for research on techniques and ways to train entrepreneurs and managers to be more comprehensive.In summary, the present study has produced some important preliminary findings. It confirmed in larger scale studies, they could have major implications for the manner in which entrepreneurs and professional managers are trained and developed.     

Coordination Cost Evaluation of Network Configurations

This article examines organizational coordination structures using transaction cost economics. Coordination cost is modeled as a function of organizational dimensions and information availability within each of 3 structures. The 3 structures analyzed include centralized markets, decentralized markets, and hierarchies. Coordination complexity is formulated in terms of products, processors, levels, span of control, and information filter. Based on messages required to assign a task, the results of the comparison show the regions of dominance for each structure. Network configurations that utilize the appropriate coordination substructure for different levels of information filter quality are discussed.     

Strategic Aspects of Organizational Culture of Czech Companies

ABSTRACT

The paper presents the results of the research into organizational culture which was carried out at the Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Business and Management. Respondents of the research were representatives of top and middle management working in 54 Czech manufacturing companies. The organizational culture was looked at on the level of organizational values, five empirical types of the organizational culture of Czech manufacturing companies were identified. Research outcomes bring information which could be useful for further research in this area and also for the management practice.     

Newness and novelty: Relating top management team composition to new venture performance

We distinguish novelty from newness and argue that the tasks of new venture top management teams vary with new venture novelty. We argue that as novelty increases, the information processing requirements on the TMT change as well. Because a team's demographic characteristics influence its information processing abilities, venture performance should reflect, at least partially, the fit between the characteristics of the TMT and the level of venture novelty. Evidence from a large sample of ventures supports this view.     

Exploring factors driving social recruiting: The case of Australian organizations

This study identifies key factors driving the organizational adoption of social recruiting technologies, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. The Technology, Organization, and Environment (TOE) framework, as an initial exploratory approach, is used to identify underlying factors of new technology adoption. Qualitative evidence collected from 12 Australian firms serves to specifically categorize key determinants of the organizational adoption of social recruiting technologies. It is found that apart from several TOE factors that significantly influence the organizational decision making with reference to social recruiting, top management support is seen as imperative for successful adoption of recruiting technologies. Formalization, comprehensiveness, and strategic orientation of organizational human resource departments are closely linked to adoption of social recruiting at the firm level. In addition, job applicants’ readiness and local success stories have driven firms to adopt social recruiting technologies. The study extends and modifies the TOE model to provide the theoretical foundations of social recruiting in the context of Australian organizations and help human resource professionals and practitioners to gain a better understanding of key drivers of organizational social recruiting.     

Structural constraints on organizational change: A longitudinal analysis

The results of a longitudinal study assessing the impact of internal constraints upon both organizational responsiveness to the environment and efforts to change structures for symbolic signaling of policy are presented. The causal model used is developed from a theoretical elaboration of Williamson, Thompson, and Meyer. The implications of the analysis for the signaling metaphor of organizational change are emphasized. The data indicate (i) that the varying resistance to change observed within core dimensions of organizational structure may be largely due to durable capital investments, (ii) that within capitalized dimensions of organizational structure, the resulting resistance to change leads to a longitudinal persistence of centralized decision making, and (iii) that failure to incorporate such constraints in analyses of organizational change leads to misleading results.     

Managerial Tenure and Recovery Following M-Form Reorganization in Diversified Firms

We identify two factors that affect how quickly highly interdependent diversified firms recover from the performance disruptions that typically accompany M-form reorganizations: (1) organizational tenure and (2) the tenure of top management teams. We find that top management teams with a rare combination of long organizational tenure and relatively short team tenure are associated with faster performance recovery in diversified firms with extensive business unit interdependencies. The effects of managerial tenure on recovery time were found to be inconsequential in unrelated diversified firms where the reorganization task is less complex.     

Managing Internal Supply Chain Integration: Integration Mechanisms and Requirements

In response to globalization, diversification, and other organizational drivers, managers continue to seek organizational designs that promote integration. We study this phenomenon by focusing on requirements and mechanisms for internal supply chain integration (SCI). Using qualitative interview data, we examine how managers in manufacturing firms integrate internal supply chain activities. We elaborate and extend the information processing view by studying why organizations integrate (integration requirements) and how integration mechanisms are associated with different integration requirements. Four patterns of integration requirement–mechanism linkages emerged from our study, depicting integration mechanisms that are associated with a particular integration requirement, and those that are not. We provide a detailed examination of the multidimensional nature of integration requirements, as well as an increased understanding of how integration mechanisms are used to manage different integration requirements. These findings offer deeper insights into organizational integration, enhancing the understanding of integration in the context of internal supply chains, while also contributing to the literature on organizational design. For supply chain managers, these findings describe ways in which organizational design decisions can support internal SCI efforts with varying aims.