The effect of managerial distribution of scientific and technical information on company performance

272 scientific and technical personnel working in the R&D departments of 25 firms in the electronics/instrumentation field noted how often their managers engaged in different forms of influencing them to use scientific and technical information originating outside the firm (STI). The firms were classified as either 'high performers' or as 'low performers' on the basis of their sales growth and return on assets. Managers in the high performing firms were perceived to make significantly more use of the following forms of influence than those in low performing firms; supporting professional visits and continuing education, routing literature and references to scientific and technical staff, directing their staff to use STI and purchasing STI services. There was no difference between the two groups of managers in their perceived use of organizational efforts to increase use of STI, such as changing work and personnel and altering hiring and promotional policies. These findings suggest that company performance can be improved if managers take specific steps to encourage their staff to use STI.     

Public managers' acquisition of scientific and technical information

A number of information channels are available to public managers, but there is considerable variance with regard to the flow of scientific and technical information along the various channels. The objective of this study, based on data derived from a questionnaire mailed to program managers at the Canadian Environmental Protection Service, is to examine aspects of information acquisition with a focus on scientific and technical information. More specifically, the study attempts to determine (1) the relationship of information channel preference to scientific and technical information acquisitiveness and (2) the relation of 'externalist/internalist' orientations to STI acquisitiveness. Analysis of correlations indicated that the proposition relating STI acquisitiveness to disposition for formal channels is supported. The results for 'externalist/internalist' indicate that those more closely tied to the scientific and technical communities' activities and norms (i.e. those who attend scientific meetings, publish, have Ph.D.s in the sciences or engineering), are more active in acquiring STI, but it does not follow that the internalists (at least as measured by identification with the organization rather than the profession) are less active in acquiring STI.     

Employee perceptions of management relations as influences on job satisfaction and quit intentions

In this paper we use a relational approach to investigate how employee perceptions of their relationships with three types of managers—senior, line, and human resource managers—are related to employees’ job satisfaction and intention to quit. Based on an employee survey (n = 1,533), and manager network data (n = 140) in ten organizations operating in Australia, we found that the extent of agreement between employees’ perceptions of their relations with senior and line management was positively related to these outcome variables. In addition, we found these relationships were strengthened in organizations where HR and line managers reported high-frequency communication between the two groups. Implications of our findings are briefly canvassed.     

Managing complex programs: a review of major research findings

Managing large-scale research and development projects is without question a difficult task. Success is often dependent on the ability of the project manager to successfully cope with a myriad of unpredictable situations. To assist project managers, the authors review several of the most significant recent research studies to identify potentially useful insights for those charged with the administration of complex research and development projects. Specifically, five areas of research are examined, namely, (1) project manager leadership styles; (2) conflict management; (3) decision-making styles; (4) organizational design considerations and project authority; and (5) the relationships of the project team with the parent, client, and other external organizations.     

Managing Innovation Champions: The Impact of Project Characteristics on the Direct Manager Role*

A key challenge for organizations seeking to improve the management of innovation lies in determining when to lend direct managerial support, and how much support, to those championing such projects. This research provides insights into the connection between project characteristics and the type and frequency of direct manager involvement. As such, it addresses the following research question: how does the level of project innovativeness, strategic relatedness, and resource requirements impact the level of empowerment of innovation champions and the sponsor or supervisor role played by managers? The research method involves a survey of 89 project champions from four divisions of large, multinational Korean companies. The results show that when innovativeness was high but projects were strategically related, there was greater project champion empowerment but also a more frequent managerial sponsor role. This suggests it may be best to allow innovators, who are close to the project's markets, technologies, and industry conditions, to have greater freedom over objectives and decisions. Yet they may also need the advice and support of their managers to function optimally under the highly uncertain conditions that characterize innovative projects. This combination of empowerment and a sponsor role, though appropriate for highly innovative projects, may also require high strategic relatedness, however. On the other hand, when projects are less strategically related and when resource requirements are high, the analysis suggests managers are more likely to exert control. Managers may therefore need to become more closely involved in decision making for costly ventures representing new strategic directions for their organizations. Overall, this research suggests that both empowerment and manager roles are relevant to the management of innovation. These results offer academic value in recognizing the nature of the direct manager role under different innovation project conditions. It further reveals a need for academics to recognize both the supervisor and sponsor roles in the management of innovation. For managers, the findings suggest that for organizations to effectively develop and commercialize innovations managers need to recognize when certain projects call for different levels and types of involvement.     

A Citation Analysis of Management and Organization Research in the Chinese Context: 1984–1999

Since modern China was closed to the outside world until 1979, research on management issues within organizations operating in the Chinese context is a relatively recent phenomenon. In this study, we analyzed this body of research by performing a citation analysis on 226 research articles on this topic published in 20 leading English language academic journals over the past 16 years (1984–1999). The citation impact analysis identified the 52 most cited articles and the academic journals as well as the most influential authors on this research. We examined the issues or topics in these 52 influential articles and suggest some directions for future research.     

From Experience: Linking Projects to Strategy

There is a dramatic rise in the use of project management as organizations shift to provide customer-driven results and systems solutions. Some implementations of project management have been successful, whereas others are spectacular failures. A common occurrence in many organizations is too many projects being attempted by too few people with no apparent link to strategy or organizational goals. Research and experience indicate that the support of upper management is critical to project success. This article reviews actions that upper managers can take to create an environment for more successful projects in their organizations. Specifically, the authors discuss practices for upper manager teamwork and offer a complete model for selecting projects that support a strategic emphasis. The article includes experiences from within Hewlett-Packard Company. © 1999 Elsevier Science Inc.     

Reading the wind: how middle managers assess the context for selling issues to top managers

Issue selling is an important mechanism for creating change initiatives in organizations. This paper presents two studies that examine what middle managers think about as they decide whether or not to sell strategic issues to top management. In Study 1 middle managers identify themes that indicate a favorable or unfavorable context for issue selling. Top management’s willingness to listen and a supportive culture were the most often named contributors to context favorability, while fear of negative consequences, downsizing conditions and uncertainty were thought to signal that a context was unfavorable for issue selling. Study 2 identifies factors that middle managers associate with image risk in the context of issue selling. Violating norms for issue selling, selling in a politically vulnerable way and having a distant relationship with top management were regarded as major contributors to a middle manager’s level of image risk. Both studies enrich our understanding of the social psychological mechanisms that undergird the strategic change process. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nested identities as cognitive drivers of strategy

Research Summary: Organizations face tensions to conform to industry norms for legitimacy yet differentiate for competitive advantage when implementing strategies. We suggest this tension is due to and resolved through organizations’ cognitive negotiations of multiple levels of identity. Through an inductive study in the recreational vehicle industry, we find that organizations concurrently draw on identities at the organizational, industry, and strategic group levels to formulate and enact specific competitive actions. Specifically, we find that organizational identity relates to decisions on product offerings; industry identity relates to downstream strategy; and strategic group identity relates to upstream strategy, firm boundaries, and expansion mode. Our findings highlight the importance of strategic group identity and inform a grounded model describing how organizations draw upon different levels of identity to influence strategy. Managerial Summary: Many managers experience tensions of differentiating their firms’ competitive actions from rivals, while conforming with industry norms and practices. In this article, we argue that a manager can navigate these tensions by understanding their firm, strategic group, and industry identities and how these identities interrelate. Through a qualitative case study of the U.S. recreational vehicle industry, we show that each level of identity influences different competitive actions, with firm identity connected to product offerings, industry identity related to managing downstream distribution, and strategic group identity related to firm boundary and acquisition strategies. Overall, strategic group identity is the most critical for managers as this level filters how they view competitors and provides the rules of competition.     

Sales management control level and competencies: Antecedents and consequences

The pursuit of superior salesperson performance and higher levels of sales organization effectiveness is a growing management priority. Management control is an important antecedent to several aspects of salesperson performance and organizational effectiveness. However, prior research has neglected two important issues. First, the impact of market orientation on sales manager control approaches has not been previously considered. Second, sales manager competencies in behavior-based control have not been examined, as research has focused on the level and form of control. Market orientation and the critical sales skills required of salespeople have strong antecedent relationships with sales manager control. Also, sales manager control competencies play a significant role in shaping salesperson performance, and the impact of control competencies is larger than control level. Sales manager control competencies play an important mediating role between sales manager control level and salesperson performance and sales organization effectiveness. Our findings are based on a study of British companies in which five hundred sales managers were sent surveys and 300 usable responses (a response rate of 60%) were returned. Three important implications derived from this study include: (1) sales managers need to translate market orientation into sales force behaviors; (2) control strategy should be aligned with sales force priorities; and (3) time and resources should be invested in training sales managers.     

New Product Portfolio Management Decisions: Antecedents and Consequences

This research employs organizational information processing theory to propose and examine the antecedents and consequences of new product portfolio management (NPPM) decisions. Understanding NPPM decisions is an important research area because these decisions affect firm profitability but are difficult to make because of limited reliable information. Recent survey results of Product Development and Management Association members and other NPPM professionals suggest nearly half of initial new product ideas are chosen to advance through the new product development (NPD) pipeline via informal processes. Thus, managers wield considerable influence in NPPM. Yet only limited research quantitatively examines how NPPM decisions impact performance and the role of manager dispositions. Using as the research context a marketing simulation exercise conducted with mid‐level managers, this research reveals important insights into the impact of the three NPPM dimensions—value maximization, balance, and strategic fit—on NPD and firm performance. The analysis suggests a critical role for the NPPM dimension of balance as it is the single dimension impacting performance. However, value maximization is relevant as a criterion for competing because, overall, managers see this dimension as important. At the same time, managers are cautioned in their use of strategic fit as it appears this dimension may constrain innovative choices. Furthermore, three manager dispositions proposed from organizational information processing theory—directive leadership style, need for cognition, and risk perceptions—all influence NPPM dimensions. Managers are recommended to consider the personality traits of managers involved in NPPM decisions to ensure thorough consideration of all dimensions.     

The impact of strategic dissent on organizational outcomes: A meta‐analytic integration

Research summary: Strategic dissent represents divergence in ideas, preferences, and beliefs related to ideal and/or future strategic emphasis. Conventional wisdom in strategic management holds that such differences in managerial cognitions lead to higher‐quality strategic decisions, and thus to enhanced firm performance. However, 4 decades of empirical research have not provided consistent findings or clear insights into the effects of strategic dissent. Hence, we analyze the relative validity of predictions about these effects from both social psychological theories of group behavior and information processing perspectives on decision‐making. Then, we conduct a meta‐analytic path analysis (MASEM) based on current empirical evidence. Synthesizing data from 78 articles, we put to rest the notion that strategic dissent leads to positive outcomes for organizations and estimate how negative its effects actually are. Managerial summary: Top management teams (TMTs) set the tone and direction for their firms in important ways. Top managers, however, often disagree over fundamental issues related to strategy. Such strategic dissent affects how important decisions are made, and thus how the firm performs. In more specific terms and contrary to popular belief, strategic dissent creates not only dysfunctional relationships among top managers, but also disrupts the process by which these managers exchange, discuss, and integrate information and ideas in making strategic decisions. In short, firms have not yet generated value through numerous perspectives, ideas, and opinions among their top managers. We discuss interventions that could prove helpful in efforts to benefit from having diverse cognitions in a TMT.     

Effects of inter-organizational compatibility on supply chain capabilities: Exploring the mediating role of inter-organizational information systems (IOIS) integration

Growing globalization and environmental uncertainty have increased the challenges managers face in delivering services or products to the customer. Integration of information systems across partnering organizations has become the backbone of supply chain management, as amalgamation facilitates the sharing of information required to enhance organizational flexibility and responsiveness while minimizing risk and inventory costs. Using data from the Australian retailing sectors, this study investigates the mediating role of inter-organizational information system (IOIS) integration on the relationships between inter-organizational compatibility and supply chain capabilities. The results indicate that inter-organizational compatibility of technical, strategic, and cultural inter-organizational dimensions facilitate IOIS integration and supply chain capabilities. To maximize benefits for all chain members, IOIS integration needs to be embedded in the strategies and goals of partnering organizations. Business-to-business and industrial marketing managers need to be aware that IOIS integration processes require support of top managers of the partnering organizations and should be embedded in the organizations' strategic goals.     

Blockchain as a cutting-edge technology impacting business: A systematic literature review perspective

As one of the most disruptive technological innovations, blockchain technology has received extensive attention from academia and industry. Although many scholars have reviewed the existing blockchain research, most of the previous review articles focused on the application of technology or blockchain in specific industries or scenarios, and lacked a comprehensive review of the application of blockchain technology in the business field. Based on a systematic literature review approach and cluster analysis, this study quantitatively analyzed 2830 papers obtained from the Web of Science to fill this gap. By constructing a three-layer research framework, this research enumerates the infrastructure and protocols of blockchain technology in detail, and on this basis develops a three-subjects value creation model. The model highlights that business value can be created from transactions, crypto-economic models, and analytical and automated processes in the interaction of organizations, individuals, and technologies. Different blockchain-based applications solve different kinds of economic problems, including information storage/sharing, consensus generation and governance. This study expands the blockchain literature and deepens our understanding of how blockchain technology affects organizations and individuals in the business world. The newly proposed research framework can inspire practitioners and managers to discover opportunities for business model innovation. This work provides a solid research foundation and practical guidance for academics and practitioners who are interested in blockchain-based business.     

Vendor selection and the buying process

This paper reports the results of a study dealing with the vendor selection process in organizational buying. Purchasing managers in two different types of organizations assessed the importance of vendor attributes and buyer information sources in connection with two different buying tasks. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed in connection with: (1) the relative importance of vendor attributes and buyer information sources; and (2) the influence that different buying tasks and different buying organizations have on the importance of vendor attributes and information sources.     

Is all communication created equal?: an investigation into the effects of communication mode on perceived information quality

Enhancing communication between functions is crucial to successful product development and management. Previous work in the product innovation management literature has made two implicit assumptions. First, that increasing the frequency of information dissemination from one function to the other always improves the perceived quality of the information received. The second assumption is that all types of interfunctional communication carry equal weight in the decision‐making process of the target of that communication. The current study develops a typology of communication modes, which suggests a rationale for why these assumptions may not be true. The empirical findings of the study, based on a survey of 504 nonmarketing managers indicate that the relationship between total communication frequency and perceived information quality (PIQ) is nonlinear. Specifically, the study finds that marketing managers can either communicate too little or too much with nonmarketing managers. If they interact too infrequently, they run the risk of not understanding the way to most effectively communicate market information. If they communicate too much, they may overload the manager with too much information and erode the overall quality of the information sent. In addition, some modes of communication are more effective in improving perceptions of the quality of market information. For instance, regular e‐mail sent by marketing managers seems to have no effect on perceived information quality. On the other hand, e‐mail sent with supporting documentation can have a strong positive effect on perceived information quality. Impromptu phone calls by marketing have less positive effects than scheduled phone calls. Interestingly, too much of the wrong types of communication actually seem to reduce perceptions of perceived information quality, and consequently the likelihood that market information will be used. The study also suggests that certain kinds of communication are better for manufacturing managers and others more effective in sharing information with R&D managers. For instance, disseminating information through written reports seems to reduce perceived information quality. This is particularly true for R&D managers. On the other hand too many meetings can reduce perceptions of PIQ, particularly on the part of manufacturing managers. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Marketing channel management and the sales manager

For years, the channel manager remained an organizational position found mainly in textbooks and the literature and seldom on company organization charts. Recently, however, persuasive evidence has revealed that marketing channel management comes chiefly under the purview of the sales manager. Accepting this new reality, sales management training will need to be dramatically expanded to include these new channel management responsibilities. But, are all levels of sales managers involved or equally involved in channel management? If not, channel manager training must be tailored for specific levels of sales management in order to achieve desired channel effectiveness and efficiency. To date, no published research has explored whether channel management involvement varies at different levels in the sales manager hierarchy. In this age of channel dynamism, successful companies must determine the specific involvement of each sales management level in channel management so that appropriate training and support can be provided to optimize performance in this critical area of market competition. To address the foregoing issues, data were drawn from a random national sample of sales managers. Results indicate that sales managers at all hierarchical levels participate in administering various aspects of marketing channel management. The degree of involvement, however, varies significantly by sales manager level. Sales management implications are discussed, and areas for future research are suggested.     

基于因特网的工程项目环境信息库研究

在工程项目建设过程中，项目经理（业主方）需要查阅和使用项目所处的环境信息。本的目的是探讨利用当代信息技术如何建立一个信息库，为项目经理及时提供全面和准确的环境信息，通过访问专业人士，查阅献，分析典型工程实例，并结合作的工程实践经验，从系统的角度定义了工程项目经理所需用的环境信息，确定了它的分类，建立了它的概念模型，并且详细地介绍了该信息库的技术实现途径。     

Large Employers and Apprenticeship Training in Britain

We consider the link between apprenticeship and large employers in Britain, in terms of the contribution of apprenticeship to intermediate skills and the contribution of large employers to the Advanced Apprenticeship (AA) programme. Evidence is taken from interviews with managers in 28 organizations. We find that apprenticeship functions to only a limited extent outside AA, and then primarily because of the ineligibility of particular categories of trainee. The use that employers make of apprenticeship varies considerably, in association with its cost‐effectiveness relative to recruitment and upgrade training within human resource management strategy, and with employers’ evaluations of the technical content of AA qualifications. The prospects for increased sponsorship of apprenticeship by large organizations are curbed by the greater appeal of recruitment and upgrade training in various contexts.     

Focusing the fuzzy front–end in new product development

Effectively managing the 'upfront or fuzzy front–end' (FFE) of the product development process is one of the most important, difficult challenges facing innovation managers. In this paper, we define the FFE as the period between when an opportunity is first considered and when an idea is judged ready for development. We classify the outcomes of the FFE into product definition, time, and people dimensions. We suggest several strategies to manage the FFE by assigning a FFE manager or team; by providing organizational support for FFE activities; by understanding the sources of FFE ambiguity; by building an information system; and by developing relationships with supporters, partners, and alliances.