Organisational ambidexterity and firm performance: burning research questions for marketing scholars

ABSTRACT

Organisational ambidexterity is an important topic in management research having grown meteorically over the past 17 years. Yet, very few studies in marketing examine organisational ambidexterity. Where studies do exist, seldom do they do justice to its theoretical richness and complexity. This complexity is a significant hurdle for scholars and managers alike, but theory and practice on organisational ambidexterity can benefit substantively from the input of scholars outside the realm of management. This paper provides scholars and managers with a detailed analyses, documentary and corpus of reference material documenting the development, definition, theoretical assumptions and conceptual treatment, measurement and empirical findings to do with organisational ambidexterity. Drawing on this detailed analysis, the paper identifies the burning research questions marketing scholars should give urgent attention to advance theory and practice on organisational ambidexterity.     

A Holistic Corporate Responsibility Model: Integrating Values,Discourses and Actions

The corporate responsibility (CR) discussion has so far been rather fragmented as academics tackle it from their own areas of expertise, which guarantees in-depth analyses, but leaves room for broader syntheses. This research is a synthetic, interdisciplinary exercise: it integrates philosophical, psychological and managerial perspectives of corporate responsibility into a more holistic CR-model for the benefit of academics, companies and their interest groups. CR usually comprises three areas: environmental, social and economic responsibilities. In all these areas there should be a match between corporate values, discourses and actions. The aim of this multidisciplinary research is to build a CR-model by integrating (1) utilitarian/egoistic, duty/rights/justice and virtue ethical corporate values with (2) increased consciousness of psychological defences in corporate discourses, in order to achieve (3) responsible environmental, social and economic corporate actions. The resulting CR-model can be tested in companies and executed through corporate strategic and operational management. This paper was presented at the European Academy of Management (EURAM) Conference in Munich, 4–7 May 2005 (Ketola, 2005a). I would like to thank professor Stephan Laske for his insightful comments at the conference, which enabled me to revise the paper. Many thanks also for the anonymous reviewers of this journal for their further advice on finalizing the article. Tarja Ketola is Associate Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Vaasa, Finland, and Adjunct Professor of Environmental Management at the Turku School of Economics, Finland. She took her Ph.D. at Imperial College, University of London, and worked as a Lecturer in the Department of Management Studies at Brunel University before returning to Finland. Her research interests include eco-psychological leadership, strategic environmental management and corporate responsiblity. She has written books and published articles in many journals, including Business Strategy and the Environment, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Sustainable Development and Long Range Planning.     

Just Doing Business or Doing Just Business: Google,Microsoft, Yahoo! and the Business of Censoring China’s Internet

This paper addresses the criticism recently directed at Internet companies who have chosen to do business in China. Currently, in order to conduct business in China, companies must agree to the Chinese government’s rule of self-censoring any information the government deems inappropriate. We start by explaining how some of these companies have violated the human rights of Chinese citizens to freely trade information. We then analyze whether the justifications and excuses offered by these companies are sufficient to absolve them of moral responsibility. We argue that both justifications and excuses offered are insufficient. Wilfully abiding by unjust laws, albeit necessary to do business in China, should not trump moral actions that protect rights. “This is not something we did enthusiastically, or not something that we are proud of at all.”– Elliot Schrage answering questions from Congress regarding Google’s decision to censor its Internet searches in China Neil Haddow is currently finishing his PhD in philosophy at the University of Waterloo. His interests are moral and political philosophy at the theoretical and applied levels. He is the co-author of another paper forthcoming in The Journal of Business Ethics on age discrimination and automobile insurance. G. Elijah Dann presently lectures for the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is author of After Rorty: The possibilities for ethics and religious belief (Continuum Press, 2006), and is editor of a forthcoming book on Christianity entitled, Leaving Fundamentalism (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007).     

“Blaming the victim” and other ways business men and women account for questionable behavior

Impression management refers to behaviors used by individuals to control the impressions they make on audiences. This study demonstrated that business men and women were more likely to defend their questionable behavior by using excuses and justifications than to openly concede errors of judgment and behavior. Three hundred and sixty two participants received a scenario in which they had allegedly engaged in questionable behavior. The participants then wrote a position paper explaining their actions. Results indicated that people in business attempt to avoid being associated with potentially negative interpretations of their behavior primarily through the use of justifications and excuses. In general, the types of responses were relatively consistent across work experience, educational and occupational levels. However, in some instances the specific explanations used depended on gender and age.Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.Bertrand Russell (1872–1970)Mary Konovsky is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the A. B. Freeman School of Business of Tulane University. She received her Ph.D. from the Indiana University School of Business in 1986. Her research interests include procedural justice in organizations, organizational citizenship behavior, and ethics in management decision-making.Frank Jaster is Executive Vice President of Aegis Consulting & Training, Inc., Denver, Colorado, and Adjunct Professor of Management Communication at Tulane University. His doctorate is in American Literature from Tulane. His current research interests are in entrepreneurship, business ethics, and the (sometimes hostile) relationship between business and the media.     

(Re)Presentations of Gender and Ethnicity in Diversity Statements on European Company Websites

This paper investigates how specific notions of gender and ethnicity are integrated into diversity discourses presented on 241 top European company websites. Large European companies increasingly disclose equality and diversity policies in statements on websites. Such statements may be used to promote an ethical image of the company in terms of how well it manages diversity and guards against discrimination. In this paper, we argue that diversity statement discourses are important as they play a key part in socially constructing how diversity should be regarded in the company by minority and majority groups, as well as indicating corporate values to external stakeholders (investors, government, community, press etc.). Sometimes, the notions of gender or ethnic diversity are positioned as a liability in need of protection, whilst in others, as a source of competitive advantage. We find evidence of use of discursive tools such as problematisation, rationalisation, fixation, reframing and naturalisation of the notions of gender and ethnic diversity, reinforced by use of symbols, such as statistics, photographs, membership badges and awards. Few statements directly associate gender and ethnic diversity with enhanced corporate performance. We found that diversity statements sometimes appear to reinforce existing business stereotypes of women and people from ethnic minorities, and in a few discourses, create new ones, particularly evident in photographs illustrating the diversity web pages. Val Singh received her PhD from Cranfield School of Management, where she is Senior Research Fellow in Organisational Behaviour. Her research areas include corporate governance and diversity; women directors’ careers, gender and ethnic diversity management, work/life balance, mentoring; role models, networking and impression management. She is Gender Section Editor of the Journal of Business Ethics, Associate Editor of Gender Work & Organization, and has published widely in both academic and practitioner journals. She has been a judge of the UK National Business Awards since 2003. Sébastien Point received his PhD in management from Institut d’ Administration des Entreprises, Lyon, France. He is currently Lecturer in Human Resource Management and International Management at the Université de Franche-Comté(France). He is also Visiting Fellow at Cranfield School of Management (UK). His research interests include diversity managment, organisational discourse and impression managemnt. Current research centers on analysing organisational discourse, through both corporate annual reports and websites, often with cross-national comparisons.     

What makes a good citizen in service settings?

As service firms face intense pressure to improve service quality, contact employees have been asked to do more with less. It is important that managers understand the concept of organisational citizenship behaviours and attempt to motivate employees to exhibit such behaviours. This study developed and tested a model of how employees' perception of organisational support affects affective commitment (AC), which contributes to their citizenship behaviours in service settings. Questionnaire data from matched pairs of 318 contact employees and their supervisors demonstrated that both perceived organisational support (POS) and AC play strong, central roles in determining contact employees' exhibition of citizenship behaviours. In addition, AC was found to be an effective mediator linking contact employees' perception of organisational support to their citizenship behaviours.     

Approaches to organisational culture and ethics

This paper assesses the potential of organisational culture as a means for improving ethics in organisations. Organisational culture is recognised as one determinant of how people behave, more or less ethically, in organisations. It is also incresingly understood as an attribute that management can and should influence to improve organisational performance. When things go wrong in organisations, managers look to the culture as both the source of problems and the basis for solutions. Two models of organisational culture and ethical behaviour are evaluated. They rest on different understandings of organisational culture and the processes by which ethics are enhanced. Firstly, the prevailing approach holds that creating a unitary cohesive culture around core moral values is the solution to enhancing ethical behaviour. Both the feasibility and desirability of this approach, in terms of ethical outcomes, is questioned. The second model queries the existence of organisational culture at all, arguing that organisations are nothing more than shifting coalitions of subcultures. In this second model, the very porousness of the subcultures provides a catalyst for the scrutiny and critique of norms and practices. Such diversity and debate is construed as potentially a better safeguard for ethical behaviour than the uniformity promised by the unitary, strong culture model.Dr. Amanda Sinclair is a Senior Lecturer in the Graduate School of Management. As a teacher on the MBA program of courses, including Ethics, she has a particular interest in the development and professionalisation of managers. Her current research focuses on organisational diversity, change and culture and administrative leadership and accountability.     

Ethical orientations of managers in Malaysia

In view of the heightened societal attention to the ethical aspects of business behaviour, there has been, in recent years, a great deal of discussion regarding individual and organisational factors influencing managerial decision making. The main focus of this paper is on understanding the attitudes of managers toward ethical dimension of their choices and judgments, as also the forces that pressurise, provide them with opportunities, or contribute to shaping their intentions, for ethical or unethical actions. Findings reported here are based on a questionnaire-survey of 381 managers from 41 commercial organisations in Malaysia.Dr. J. L. Gupta is Professor at National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM), Pune, India. He has authored two books on management and has published several research articles on the subject of Leadership and Ethics. His teaching and research interests lie in the areas of Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Development.Mohamed Sulaiman is Professor of Management at University of Science Malaysia (USM), Penang. He has authored several research monographs and published articles in reputed business journals. His teaching and research interests lie in the areas of Corporate Policy and Strategic Management, Organisation Design and Marketing. Dr Mohamed Sulaiman is currently the Dean of School of Management, USM.     

The antecedents and consequences of a market orientation: the moderating role of organisational life cycles

Abstract

There is widespread agreement in the marketing literature that newly founded and established mature companies have different perspectives on marketing. However, there is little comparative research in this respect. Therefore, the current research compares the antecedents and effects of a market orientation (MO) – as one major construct in marketing research – across organisational life-cycle stages, thereby integrating organisational life-cycle theory into MO research. Our hypotheses are based on the information-processing model of Tushman and Nadler (1978 Tushman, M. and Nadler, D. 1978. Information processing as an integrating concept in organizational design. The Academy of Management Review, 3(3): 613–624. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). In order to test these hypotheses, we conduct a survey-based empirical study of 252 new high-tech ventures. Our results show that the organisational life-cycle stage does indeed exert a moderating influence on the links between MO and its antecedents, and performance consequences. The implications for the market literature are discussed in detail. A map of possible future research topics is derived.     

Internal marketing,organisational culture,job satisfaction,and organisational performance in non-life insurance

The concept of internal marketing employed in the service sector is crucial to excellent service provision and successful external marketing. This study conducts an empirical investigation into the non-life insurance industry in Taiwan, exploring the correlation between internal marketing, organisational culture, job satisfaction, and organisational performance in Taiwan. Results show significant correlations among internal marketing, organisational culture, job satisfaction, and performance of non-life insurers. These findings can provide a basis for future studies of related topics as well as a solid reference for business owners and managers in the non-life insurance sector.     

Exploring the Principle of Subsidiarity in Organisational Forms

The paper starts with a case study of a medium-sized company in which a strong and successful change in the organisational form and job design took place. A bureaucratic organisation with highly-specialised jobs was converted into a new organisation in which employees became much more autonomous in managing their own work. This not only entailed new techniques and managerial systems but also a new anthropological vision. Bureaucratic rules were reduced, but not eliminated completely, and management became less authoritarian. Employees could therefore apply greater entrepreneurial spirit, developing their talents in pursuit of the company’s common goals. It is argued that this new organisational form is ethically superior to the old, and reflects the basic requirements of the principle of subsidiarity. The ethical principle of subsidiarity holds that a larger and higher-ranking body should not exercise functions which could be efficiently carried out by a smaller and lesser body; rather the former should support the latter by aiding it in the coordination of its activities with those of the greater community. While the principle has usually been applied in a political context, this paper explores the principle as a moral base for organisational forms within business organisations. Finally, the principle of subsidiarity is analysed in the context of business organisations and proposed as an ethical guideline for organisational forms. This would help to mitigate the effects of those bureaucracies in which individuals, with their dignity, freedom, diversity and capacity for undertaking business activities with entrepreneurial spirit, are often not fully appreciated.     

An Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility,Corporate Identity and Ethics Teaching in Business Schools

Recent events have raised concerns about the ethical standards of public and private organisations, with some attention falling on business schools as providers of education and training to managers and senior␣executives. This paper investigates the nature of, motivation and commitment to, ethics tuition provided by the business schools. Using content analysis of their institutional and home websites, we appraise their corporate identity, level of engagement in socially responsible programmes, degree of social inclusion, and the relationship to their ethics teaching. Based on published research, a schema is developed with corporate identity forming an integral part, to represent the macro-environment, parent institution, the business school and their relationships to ethics education provision. This is validated by our findings. Dr. Nelarine Cornelius, Reader in Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour, Brunel Business School, Brunel University, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She is also a Chartered Psychologist and is Director of both the Centre for Research in Emotion Work and the Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour Research Group at Brunel University. Dr. James Wallace, Lecturer in Quantitative Methods, School of Management, University of Bradford, is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He has considerable experience of statistical and mathematical modelling gained over several years in the UK utilities sector and in H.E. His current research interests include, applying statistical and mathematical modelling approaches to Technological, Operational and General Management problems. Dr. Rana Tassabehji, Lecturer in Information Systems and E-business, School of Management, University of Bradford, is a member of the British Academy of Management and the UK Academy for Information Systems. She worked as an international business consultant and as a consultant in the UK IT sector and is currently an academic member of the eGISE eGovernment network. Her research interests include ethics and e-business, Internet security and e-government.     

The Discursive Construction of Gender in Contemporary Management Literature

This article analyses how the new type of worker is constructed in respect to gender in current management literature. It contributes to the increasing body of work in organisational theory and business ethics which interrogates management texts by analysing textual representations of gender. A discourse analysis of six texts reveals three inter-connected yet distinct ways in which gender is talked about. First, the awareness discourse attempts to be inclusive of gender yet reiterates stereotypes in its portrayal of women. Second, within the individualisation discourse, formerly discriminatory elements of gender lose their importance but a gender dimension reappears within the idea of ‹Brand You’. Third, in the new ideal discourse, women are constructed as ideal workers of the future. The article argues that there is little space within this web of discourses for an awareness of the continued inequalities experienced by women in relation to men to be voiced and that this rhetorical aporia contributes to a ‹post-feminist’ climate.     

Organisational citizenship behaviours and effectiveness: an empirical study in two small insurance companies

The study relates six dimensions of organisational citizenship behaviours (OCB) at the branch level with several indicators of the effectiveness of 38 branches of two insurance companies. Results suggest that the branches where employees display more OCB are the most effective. These findings are discussed in the context of a scarcity of empirical studies on the topic, despite researchers' assumption that OCB enhances team and organisational effectiveness.     

汽车零部件争端的成因与解决路径选择

发生在我国与欧盟等国家和地区的汽车零部件争端,其实质是如何解决美、日、欧这些汽车生产大国的厂商对我国的关税规避,这种规避的成因主要源于中国入世工作组报告中的相关承诺。本文在分析这一争端的起源的同时,着重探讨中方在此次磋商中的几点抗辩理由,并在此基础上提出今后解决类似争端的几种路径。     

Interculturality as a source of organisational positivity in expatriate work teams: An exploratory study

This study explored the issues related to interculturality and organisational positivity in culturally diverse teams (CDTs). The findings showed that interculturality in the expatriate settings of the Arabian Gulf is linked to organisational positivity, the manifestations of which include enjoyment, relationship building through concerted efforts to learn about others, and family‐like work environments. Interculturality‐driven organisational positivity is posited to encourage humanistic management, the attributes of which are sensitivity to human suffering, open‐mindedness, fairness, and respect. Organisational positivity is also theorised to improve CDT performance and stimulate professional and personal learning. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

The Development of Female Global Managers: The Role of Mentoring and Networking

This paper explores the role of mentoring and networking in the career development of global female managers. The paper is based on data collected from interviews with 50 senior female managers. The voices of the female managers illustrate some of the difficulties associated with informal organisational processes, in particular mentoring and networking, which hinder their career development. The findings confirm that female managers can miss out on global appointments because they lack mentors, role models, sponsorship, or access to appropriate networks – all of which are commonly available to their male counterparts. The interviewees suggest that men, as the dominant group, may want to maintain their dominance by excluding women from the informal interactions of mentoring and networking. The findings further suggest that if females had more access to networks and mentors they could be socialised in both the formal and informal norms of the organisation and gain career advantages from these. The managers reveal that they encounter additional barriers in ‹a man’s world’ and remind us that there is still much to be changed.     

Management Accounting Systems and Organisational Structure

In this paper we present an empirical analysis to test whether organisation configurations and management accounting systems change simultaneously. Using the original application of the fuzzy logic methodology, we analyse the level of development and implementation of the management accounting system and the organisational configuration on a sample of 501 Italian firms. Even though we employ a cross-sectional approach, the results may be interpreted according to the life cycle model. Our findings show that the evolution of the organisational configurations is not always coherent with the relevance assumed by management accounting systems. In particular, we find a large group of companies with a simple organisational configuration and a well-developed management accounting system. We interpret the presence of this cluster dynamically as an intermediate stage of growth towards more complex forms of organisation.     

Transforming learning into export performance by Chinese firms

Organisational learning plays a vital role in enhancing firm performance, particularly for companies operating in foreign markets. Knowledge gained from various markets needs to be integrated for it to have a significant impact on performance. This study seeks to demonstrate how organisational learning can transform knowledge into performance through an organization-wide commitment to learning, a knowledge integration system and an organisational capability to learn. A survey undertaken in South China would show that there is a sequential chain of effects among these constructs.     

Risk Reduction in Purchasing Organisational Professional Services

Organisational professional services are often costly, time consuming, high-profile and of undeterminable and variable quality; all of which increase the risk associated with their purchase. Yet understanding of what risks are perceived and how they are reduced is limited. The results of a Lisrel analysis of organisational purchasers’ risk perceptions in a high risk scenario confirmed the positive relationship between risk perception and reduction and that overall risk is derived mainly from the financial risk involved. The article also presents a new framework for understanding organisational purchasers’ risk-reduction behaviour in the context of purchasing professional services by a not-for-profit organisation which involves latent risk-reducing concepts such as clarifying, simplifying and risk sharing. Implications for risk measurement are discussed, together with more managerial recommendations for understanding purchasers’ behaviour and changing marketing practice in this sector.