Metaphor and the Dynamics of Knowledge in Organization Theory: A Case Study of the Organizational Identity Metaphor*

abstract Despite the increased salience of metaphor in organization theory, there is still very little conceptual machinery for capturing and explaining how metaphor creates and/or reorders knowledge within organization theory. Moreover, prior work on metaphor has insufficiently accounted for the context of interpreting a metaphor. Many metaphors in organization theory, including the ‘organizational identity’ metaphor, have often been treated in singular and monolithic terms; seen to offer a similar or largely synonymous interpretation to theorists and researchers working along the entire spectrum of disciplines (e.g. organizational behaviour, organizational psychology) in organization theory. We argue in this paper that contextual variation however exists in the interpretation of metaphors in organization theory. This argument is developed by proposing and elaborating on a so‐called image‐schematic model of metaphor, which suggests that the image‐schemata (abstract imaginative structures) that are triggered by the metaphorical comparison of concepts may vary among individuals. Accordingly, once different schemata are triggered the completion and interpretation of a metaphor may equally vary among different individuals or, indeed, research communities. These points associated with the image‐schematic model of metaphor are illustrated with a case study of the ‘organizational identity’ metaphor. The case study shows that this particular metaphor has spiralled out into different research communities and has been comprehended in very different ways as different communities work from very different conceptions, or image‐schemata, of ‘organization’ and ‘identity’, and use different theoretical frameworks and constructs as a result. The implications of the image‐schematic view of metaphor for knowledge development and theoretical progress in organization theory are discussed.     

Improvisation for innovation: The contingent role of resource and structural factors in explaining innovation capability

This paper focuses on resource and structural factors to explore the relationship between organizational improvisation and innovation capability. Although the role of improvisation has attracted increasing academic attention in fast-changing environments, little is known about the conditions under which firms benefit from improvisation. This paper addresses this gap using an organizational learning perspective that explains the role of a firm's organizational structure and organizational resources for improvisation and innovation. A large-scale survey in China finds that firms vary in their levels of (I) centralization and formalization of decision making and (II) resource slack and investment irreversibility and that these factors moderate the relationship between improvisation and innovation capability in distinct ways. Consistent with our theorizing, improvisation enhances innovation capability when firms have a decentralized but formalized structure or pursue the dual goals of maximizing resource slack and minimizing investment irreversibility.     

Building traits for organizational resilience through balancing organizational structures

This paper describes and explains how balancing organizational structures can build traits for organizational resilience. Organizational resilience is a holistic and complex concept. In this paper, we move beyond focusing on sudden and disruptive events in favour of anticipating the unexpected in daily organizing. Organizational resilience is understood here as building traits of risk awareness, preference for cooperation, agility and improvisation and is analysed by means of a longitudinal qualitative case study. The paper contributes to the field by showing how balancing organizational structures can foster organizational resilience traits. We show that power distribution and normative control can create preparedness for unexpected events and foster action orientation at the same time as supporting organizational alignment.     

Regulatory focus,environmental turbulence,and entrepreneur improvisation

Improvisation is increasingly recognized as a critical strategy used by entrepreneurs for effectively dealing with unexpected events. Nevertheless, limited effort has been exerted in the investigation of the antecedents of entrepreneur improvisation. This study proposes and analyzes regulatory focus as an important antecedent of entrepreneur improvisation, and examines the moderating role of environmental turbulence in this relationship. Data are obtained from a two-wave survey of 99 entrepreneurs in the largest economic area in China. Empirical results indicate that promotion focus (but not prevention focus) is significantly related to entrepreneur improvisation. Furthermore, environmental turbulence significantly moderates the relationship between prevention focus and entrepreneur improvisation. These findings advance the understanding of entrepreneur improvisation and regulatory focus theory, and provide practical implications for entrepreneurs, investors and boards of directors.     

The role of internal agents in starting salary negotiations

We introduce the concept that internal organizational agents who negotiate starting salary packages with job applicants may not always act in the organization's best interests. To gain an understanding of what motivates the internal agent toward assuming a particular role, we use expectancy theory, agency theory and concepts from the negotiations literature. We describe the roles that agents may assume, identify factors that impact agents' motivation, and formulate propositions to help identify which role an agent is likely to enact in starting salary negotiations. We form propositions as to how these roles are likely to impact final negotiation outcomes of probability of hiring, salary size, and applicant satisfaction and discuss strategies for ensuring agents are motivated to enact a role that meets organizational objectives.     

‘Totally Un‐Australian!’: Discursive and Institutional Interplay in the Melbourne Port Dispute of 1997–98*

ABSTRACT We examine how discourses are mobilized and deployed by actors in an inter‐organizational domain during a critical industrial relations event. We identify the ways that business interests and union interests in the Melbourne Port industrial dispute of 1997–98 related to each other. We weave concepts from domain theory and organizational discourse theory in deriving the concept of the discursively ordered domain. This suggests that the main processes that occur in a domain are actors’‘mapping’ texts onto discourses and discourses onto interpretive schemes which make certain courses of action rational and sensible. Methodologically, we join an institutional‐historical analysis and a text‐based discourse analysis to gain a well‐rounded understanding of the situation. We extract several discursive frameworks which the major actors mobilized to make sense of the situation, and draw linkages to the actions that those positions made possible. The main findings are that actors in the two networks performed complex mapping in different ways, the material and symbolic outcomes of the dispute are products of those mapping processes, and the material and discursive aspects of the domain interweave. We discuss the value of the concept of discursively ordered domain for mutually enriching domain theory and discourse analysis and for understanding critical events such as major industrial disputes in new ways.     

Conceptualizing the processes,benefits, and challenges of organizational lifelong learning at Yuhan-Kimberly,Korea: the notion of anticipative affordance

This research investigates, reports, and theorizes Yuhan-Kimberly's journey to establish its organizational lifelong learning program in Korea. Based on a four-year longitudinal study and the principles of grounded theory, we propose the notion of anticipative affordance to elaborate the process through which benefits derived from an organization's lifelong learning are created, interconnected, and amplified through the gradual and long-term building and accumulation of shared understanding and commitment. Main theoretical contributions derived from this study are threefold. First, the concept of anticipative affordance enhances our understanding about the key process and challenges related to organizational lifelong learning. Second, anticipative affordance serves as a bridge to synthesize the separation between the cognitive and situated aspects of learning. Third, our research empirically illustrates how collective benefits of organizational learning are actualized over time through the development of learning mechanisms and through the integration of its individual members' learning.     

Parasitism and Internet auction fraud: An exploration

Most research on Internet auction fraud focuses exclusively on the relationship between the con-artist and victim. However, the con-artist and victim are situated in an ecology comprising the auction house, police, and auction community. This paper employs the ‘parasite’ metaphor as a way of building theory about Internet auction fraud. We begin by describing the parasite metaphor. We then introduce three theories from the parasitism literature and demonstrate the insights these theories can produce. The first theory, the competitive exclusion principle, highlights how separate auction markets evolve their own species or types of fraud. It also warns us that fraud elimination may be neither desirable nor feasible relative to constraining fraud to acceptable levels. The second theory details various parasite infection mechanisms to show that on-line fraud is composed of two processes; the actual deception and escape. Finally, virulence theory provides one way to predict how much harm a particular kind of fraud will cause to an individual victim. Virulence theory is also used to suggest that the auction infrastructure encourages low virulence vis-à-vis other kinds of fraud like Nigerian letter fraud.     

Improvised internationalization in new ventures: The role of prior knowledge and networks

How do entrepreneurs identify foreign market opportunities and how do they identify foreign market(s) and customers? We draw on the concepts of effectuation, improvisation, prior knowledge and networks to study the early internationalization of new ventures operating in the Irish Shellfish sector. We argue that the internationalization process was strongly influenced by two ‘resources to hand’: the entrepreneurs’ idiosyncratic prior knowledge and their prior social and business ties. We observe an effectuation logic and extensive improvisation in the internationalization process of these new ventures.     

Business adaptation to climate change: American ski resorts and warmer temperatures

How do firms adapt to the intensity of adverse chronic conditions stemming from the natural environment? We seek to contribute to the debate on whether environmental adversity tends to be positively or negatively related to adaptation. We propose that both diverging perspectives tend to predict part of firms' adaptation to nature adversity intensity. This is because of the interplay between latent counterbalancing mechanisms. First, at mild levels of nature adversity intensity, organizational inertial forces constrain organizations' willingness to adapt. Second, at medium levels of nature adversity intensity, coalition building and internal organizational politics allow managers to deploy adaptation resilience capabilities. Third, at severe levels, growing natural forces eventually impose limits beyond which protective adaptation becomes unviable. Our findings from a 2001 to 2013 analysis of western U.S. ski resorts' adaptation to temperature conditions indicate that firms facing medium levels of nature adversity intensity appear more likely to engage in higher levels of adaptation whereas those experiencing lower and higher intensity show a tendency for lower levels of adaptation, yielding an inverted U‐shaped relationship.     

New evidence on absenteeism and presenteeism

This paper draws from two separate but complementary theories, namely social exchange theory and social identity theory, as a means of understanding the organizational antecedents of organizational commitment. Its purpose is to study the connections between the characteristics of work in the organization (a source of perceived organizational support), the characteristics of the organization (reflected in perceived external prestige), organizational commitment and turnover intentions. We test our assumption using a sample of 249 managers and a longitudinal design. The results show that perceived organizational support and perceived prestige are differently influenced by the characteristics of and in the organization. This suggests that the characteristics of the firm, reflected in the notion of perceived external prestige, play a complementary role to the characteristics of work in the organization, reflected in perceived organizational support, in shaping organizational commitment and turnover intentions.     

STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT WITHIN A RESOURCE-CAPABILITY VIEW OF THE FIRM*

This paper takes a critical look at the field of strategic human resource management and in particular the debate about the strategic value of the human resource. We identify the contribution as well as the problematic nature of the situational-contingency perspective. Drawing from the strategic management literature and the concept of resource heterogeneity, we then posit a resource-capability view of the firm and argue that the mutually reinforcing interaction between the stock of knowledge, skills and expertise (resources) and the organizational routines and human resource policies and practices (capabilities) generates human resource competencies whose strategic value is realizable to the extent that they are linked with core competencies. We thus offer a reconceptualization of human resource competencies which goes beyond existing trait, behavioural and systems approaches. Finally, we identify the circumstances surrounding the generation and distribution of rents arising from the utilization of human resource competencies by drawing from transaction cost theory and industrial relations.     

Sink or Swim: Empowering Leadership and Overload in Teams' Ability to Deal with the Unexpected

The notion of improvisation has recently emerged in managerial studies as a viable solution to flexibly dealing with unexpected occurrences in work environments. However, past research on team improvisation has overlooked the contingencies that allow teams to effectively improvise. Drawing upon demand‐control theory, we investigate how empowering leadership and overload affect the improvisation‐performance relationship in the context of 48 work teams. Our results suggest that empowering leadership positively moderates the relationship between improvisation and performance, while overload attenuates the same relationship. Moreover, we found a joint effect of overload and empowering leadership influencing the improvisation‐performance link, such that improvisation is most positively related to performance when empowering leadership is high and overload is low. Conversely, we found that empowering leadership is particularly detrimental to the improvisation‐performance relationship when team members perceive high degrees of overload. Our findings make important contributions to the extant team literature as well as to the emerging literature on team improvisation. We outline several significant insights for HR managers and team leaders who are responsible for supporting teams that face unexpected events in the work environment. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Business is Show Business: Management Presentations as Performance

While there is continual scholarly interest in the ‘organization as theatre’ metaphor, extant dramaturgical perspectives limit the ability to account for aesthetic experiences in theatrical situations. This study provides a different methodological lens for looking at ‘theatre’ in organizations and illustrates that an inclusion of performance theory can be particularly valuable for understanding aesthetic techniques which are increasingly employed in organizations. Responding to calls for aesthetic studies, this article analyses large‐scale management presentations such as annual general meetings, press conferences, and analyst meetings ‘as performance’ instead of re‐labelling them as if they were drama. Drawing on the latest theatre theory and introducing a tool for performance analysis, the study accounts for the aesthetic experience and describes the complex interplay of scenography, lighting, clothing, managers' performance style, rhetoric, and audience interaction, showing that these organizational events are co‐created and contested theatrical performances with a potential for resistance and possible change as well as for persuasion.     

A systematic review of barriers to public sector innovation process

ABSTRACT

This article provides a systematic review of the empirical literature on barriers within public sector innovation processes, based on data from 63 articles. We investigate the nature of barriers using four dimensions: (i) classification; (ii) interrelations; (iii) innovation process and (iv) types of innovations. A new classification is developed to show that interaction-specific barriers emerge during collaborative innovation. Significantly, we identify that the nature of barriers are more complex than has previously been recognized, where there has been an emphasis on organizational barriers. We identify that the nature of barriers differ in process and innovation types. Moreover, they show interrelations across the process.     

Exploring managerial intentionality

To enable a better understanding of individual and, as a logical extension, organizational behavior, we set forth a theoretical framework of managerial intentionality. At its core are the concepts of desire and belief, which together form intentions. We argue that it is these intentions that may substantially affect strategic choices and, by that, organizational change. Exploring managerial intentionality, we acknowledge a central building block of cognitive science, which contrary to representations and computations has, by and large, been neglected in the management and organization literatures. We use the framework to explore the intrapersonal and interpersonal role of managerial intentionality as well as its effectiveness in an organizational context. We also clarify the differences to related concepts and discuss implications for future research. In doing so, we contribute to the overall objective of increasing our understanding of managerial action and organizational behavior.     

For Rigour in Organizational Management Theory Research

Rigour is required in examining the empirical validity of theories in organizational management, and is often considered to be the opposite of creativity in the development of knowledge about managing organizations. In this article, we argue that rigour is necessary in the enterprise of organizational management research. Moreover, it can actually be a contributor to creativity. The issue is not rigour versus creativity, but rather how rigour can foster creativity. We show that rigour in both theory and methodology can foster creativity. Rigour in theory provides the logical thinking that is the foundation that allows the development of sound theory. This can be achieved in various ways, including theory building, mathematical modelling, causal modelling, and theory analysis. Rigour in methodology can assist creativity in quantitative integration. The contribution of rigour to creativity is evidenced by the recently created statistico‐organizational theory and other new advancements in the field of structural contingency research.     

Reflections on developments in institutional theory: Toward a relational approach

In this review article, we reflect upon recent developments in institutional theory with particular emphasis on first, how organizational fields have been conceived and second, on how action has been conceptualized and incorporated into institutional accounts. We show that progress has been made in regard to our understanding of field level processes and the role of institutional actors. However, we also identify a number of weaknesses and challenges, which we assess in the context of developing a relational approach to institutional analysis.     

Circular economy and sustainability: The role of organizational behaviour in the transition journey

Implementing circular economy (CE) requires complex and dynamic changes in technical and behavioural aspects. Few studies spend efforts to understand the organizational behavioural side of CE transition. Thus, this study proposes a theoretical framework that addresses the requirements for the transition towards CE from the organizational perspective. We conducted a systematic review aiming to identify the relations between CE and organizational culture. As a result, we developed a theoretical framework composed of five building blocks (mindsets, values, behaviours, capabilities and competences) that guide the transition towards a CE-oriented culture aiming to achieve sustainability in business. We also identified several gaps for future researches. We concluded that the framework could enrich the literature discussion in the field and be used by practitioners for the identification of paths to implement CE from the organizational culture perspective. In addition, the use of this framework could lead to the achievement of the sustainable development.