Shared values make a difference: An empirical test of corporate culture

Is the recent popular management literature on corporate culture and cultural values just a passing fad or is it highlighting some fundamental organizational realities? The results from a recent nationwide survey of American managers shows, we are convinced, that clearly articulated organizational values do make a significant difference in the lives of employees, as well as in their organization's performance. This article is an effort to integrate this broad-based data on individual managers' values with the reported experience of successful organizations that pay careful attention to their culture. It also offers ideas on how human resource managers can facilitate the alignment of personal and organizational values.     

Followership and the Samurai

Japan's samurai were a class of followers—their very name samurai originally meant those who served. The current study examines the colorful nature and significance of followership in the unique cultural setting of Japan's Edo or Tokugawa period (1603–1868), and how the relationship between samurai and their lords was affected by bushido—the way of the warrior. It also considers the relevance of samurai‐style followership to today's world.     

How do leaders' perceptions of organizational health climate shape employee exhaustion and engagement? Toward a cascading-effects model

Although researchers and practitioners increasingly focus on health promotion in organizations, research has been mainly fragmented and fails to integrate different organizational levels in terms of their effects on employee health. Drawing on organizational climate and social identity research, we present a cascading model of organizational health climate and demonstrate how and when leaders' perceptions of organizational health climate are linked to employee well-being. We tested our model in two multisource studies (N_{Study 1} = 65 leaders and 291 employees; N_{Study 2} = 401 leader–employee dyads). Results showed that leaders' perceptions of organizational health climate were positively related to their health mindsets (i.e., their health awareness). These in turn were positively associated with their health-promoting leadership behavior, which ultimately went along with better employee well-being. Additionally, in Study 1, the relationship between perceived organizational health climate and leaders' health mindsets was moderated by their organizational identification. High leader identification strengthened the relationship between perceived organizational health climate and leaders' health mindsets. These findings have important implications for theory and practice as they show how the dynamics of an organizational health climate can unfold in organizations and how it is related to employee well-being via the novel concept of health-promoting leadership.     

Determinants of work organization in the modern firm: change and continuity in the Spanish labour relations

The host of statistical data on labour organization from the 2004 Encuesta de Calidad de Vida en el Trabajo (2005) will be used as a basis for using factorial analysis to identify the factors that determine how ‘modern’ companies organize their work according to business management literature. Workers' identification with their company seems to be the essence of a good part of business managers' objectives. The results of the research point to a continuity in a worker profile that largely corresponds to the Fordist model, with a few significant changes: the domain of some non-conflictive industrial relations which is settled on the value that is given to the good relationships with mates and managers and the flexible work-class positive assessment that allows to harmonize other life aspects.     

An Empirical Assessment of the Influence of March and Simon’s Organizations: The Realized Contribution and Unfulfilled Promise of a Masterpiece

March and Simon’s Organizations is a seminal work in management studies. We assess the contribution Organizations has made to management studies through a citation context analysis of 1,400 articles from top management journals. By categorizing the content from Organizations cited in subsequent works, we find that two related categories associated with cognitive limits and routines or programs account for half (50.5%) of all citation contexts since 1990. We also investigate whether citations to Organizations have been peripheral or substantial to the citing authors’ claims, how cited content has changed over time, and the extent to which citing works have provided empirical evidence to test March and Simon’s propositions or have been critical of their assertions. Our investigation reveals disturbingly few attempts to empirically validate the assertions made in Organizations. Overall, we provide a critical reflection on how well subsequent scholarship fulfils the aims and promise heralded by this masterpiece.     

Emerging Cultural Capital in the City: Profiling London and Brussels

This essay examines how the contemporary city is being redefined as a fundamental crucible in which new and emerging modes of cultural capital are being forged. Drawing inspiration from the links Bourdieu draws between physical and social space, we use comprehensive quantitative surveys from Belgium and the UK to explore the accelerating interplay between large urban centres and the generation of ‘cosmopolitan cultural capital’. We show a close association between urban sites and the location of residents with new kinds of emerging cultural capital. This appreciation allows us to understand the increasing prominence of large metropolitan centres, which stand in growing tension with their suburban and rural hinterlands. This process is simultaneously cultural, economic, social and political and marks a remaking of the nature of cultural hierarchy and cultural capital itself, away from the older model of the Kantian aesthetic, as elaborated by Bourdieu in Distinction, which venerates a ‘highbrow’ aesthetic removed from everyday life, towards ‘emerging’ forms of cultural capital that valorize activity, engagement and intense forms of contemporary cultural activity.     

Sacred alliance or pact with the devil? How and why social enterprises collaborate with mainstream businesses in the fair trade sector*

Abstract

This paper uses institutional theory to highlight different patterns of cross-sector collaboration from the perspective of social enterprises. Specifically, it explores how and why social enterprises interact with mainstream businesses and to what extent their collaboration patterns reflect a vision of how their social mission should be implemented and institutionalized. The empirical analysis is derived from a qualitative study of ‘fair trade’ – a hybrid model created by social enterprises and using market mechanisms to support small-scale producers in developing countries and to advocate for changes in international trading practices. The findings highlight three strategies used by fair trade social enterprises to manage their interactions with mainstream businesses: sector solidarity, selective engagement, and active appropriation. This paper suggests that each strategy is motivated by a different vision of how best to articulate the social mission of fair trade via specific types of collaborations. It also notes how each vision has a distinct pattern of institutionalization at the field level. This paper adds to the emergent literatures on social enterprise and social entrepreneurship, fair trade, cross-sector collaboration and hybrid organizing.     

Evaluating the impacts of government policy through the long view of life history

The research reported in this paper uses life history analyses of Indigenous entrepreneurs to address the following question: How do individuals engaged in entrepreneuring incorporate their experience of government policy into their self-narratives, and what affects are apparent on attitudes towards, and the objectives of, their entrepreneurial activity? Subsequently, the paper makes two contributions to conceptual debates within entrepreneurship and small business studies. Firstly, the paper shows the value of life history methodology narratives in providing insights into entrepreneuring processes over time, particularly in understanding how to evaluate the impact of enterprise animation policies. Secondly, the particular focus upon Indigenous entrepreneurs affords some purchase on recent debates relating to the purpose and potential of enterprise policies aimed at those defined as socially and economically excluded [Blackburn, R., and M. Ram. 2006. Fix of fixation? The contributions and limitations of entrepreneurship and small firms to combating social exclusion. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development 18, no. 1: 73–89]. The paper's findings show that life history analysis has an important role to play in developing our understanding of entrepreneurship as a process. Moreover, evaluations of enterprise policy should pay more attention to temporally extensive impacts on individuals over their life course, and not limit evaluative efforts to programme specific factors.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Fertility Patterns*

Recent studies by economists have focused on cultural transmission from the origin country rather than the origin family. Our paper extends this research by investigating how family‐specific‘cultural transmission’ can affect fertility rates. Following Machado and Santos Silva [Journal of the American Statistical Association (2005) Vol. 100, p. 1226] and Miranda [Journal of Population Economics (2008) Vol. 21, p. 67], we estimate count data quantile regression models using the British Household Panel Survey. We find that a woman's origin‐family size is positively associated with completed fertility in her destination family. A woman's country of birth also matters for her fertility. For a sub‐sample of continuously partnered men and women, both partners’ origin‐family sizes significantly affect destination‐family fertility.     

Communicating management: The role of the mass media in the institutionalization of professional management and productivity discourse in Israel

Against the tendency to ground depictions of management professionalization in the analysis of professional media, this article argues that such literature represents the end of the institutionalization process rather than its beginning. Based on a systematic analysis of one general (non-professional) daily newspaper in Israel, I suggest that the mass media constitute a vehicle through which professional ideas are crystallized, disseminated, and become “taken for granted” prior to the emergence of management as an autonomous field. I show how a particular managerial concept, that of productivity, emerges in the popular media and travels into the managerial field evoking a process of institutionalization. Thus, it enables managers to establish and legitimize their distinct professional identity.     

组织文化认同内在层次与情绪工作的关联性分析

激发员工情绪工作是企业管理的重点.以服务行业工作人员为研究对象,依据社会认同理论,研究组织文化认同对情绪工作产生影响的机理,基于SPSS的回归分析,实证检验支持了组织文化认同是激发员工情绪工作的重要影响要素,其中组织文化认同的情感层能够有效地控制情绪工作中表层行为,认知层文化认同和行为层文化认同则能激发员工的深层行为,并且行为层认同更能激发员工的深层行为.     

The application of learning theories to improve cross-cultural training programs in MNCs

Cultural intelligence and intercultural competence are concepts that have been identified as antecedents for success in global management, and both depend on the acquisition of cultural knowledge. However, although a lack of cultural knowledge is cited in the international management literature as a frequent source of failure in expatriate assignments, there is scant research about how cultural knowledge is created and diffused within organizations. We cite evidence that cross-cultural training programs, which are widely utilized for cross-cultural knowledge transfer, tend to be ineffective in transferring cultural knowledge, and we examine in detail how cultural knowledge is acquired in MNCs and reveal the importance of its tacit component. Then, drawing upon five relevant learning models, we propose a framework for the effective transfer of cultural knowledge. Based on this theoretical underpinning, we offer four sets of effective cross-cultural training methods, as a function of the resources available, that the firm can apply to achieve more effective cross-cultural training for global managers.     

Alternative functional forms for production,cost and returns to scale functions

We consider generalized production functions, introduced in Zellner and Revankar (1969), for output y=g(f) where g is a monotonic function and f is a homogeneous production function. For various choices of the scale elasticity or returns to scale as a function of output, differential equations are solved to determine the associated forms of the monotonic transformation, g(f). Then by choice of the form of f, the elasticity of substitution, constant or variable, is determined. In this way, we have produced and generalized a number of homothetic production functions, some already in the literature. Also, we have derived and studied their associated cost functions to determine how their shapes are affected by various choices of the scale elasticity and substitution elasticity functions. In general, we require that the returns to scale function be a monotonically decreasing function of output and that associated average cost functions be U- or L-shaped with a unique minimum. We also represent production functions in polar coordinates and show how this representation simplifies study of production functions' properties. Using data for the US transportation equipment industry, maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods are employed to estimate many different generalized production functions and their associated average cost functions. In accord with results in the literature, it is found that the scale elasticities decline with output and that average cost curves are U- or L-shaped with unique minima. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Genetic distance,trade, and the diffusion of development

The determinants of countries' long‐term income differences feature prominently in the literature. Spolaore and Wacziarg (The diffusion of development, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2009 , 124, 469–529) argue that cultural differences, measured by countries' genetic distance, are an important barrier to the diffusion of development from the world's technological frontier. We revisit their findings in three ways. First, we successfully reproduce their results and confirm the robustness of their baseline findings. Second, we estimate their models for different time periods and find that the impact of genetic distance on income differences did not significantly change over time. Finally, we explore one of the underlying mechanisms of technology adoption and show that bilateral trade is one channel through which cultural differences retard the diffusion of development.     

An Empirical Identification of Project Management Toolsets and a Comparison Among Project Types

This article presents the results of an empirical investigation of project management practice. Practice is investigated through the study of the extent of use of a large number of practices, tools, and techniques specific to project management. A sample of 2,339 practitioners participating in a large‐scale international survey is used for this article. The sample size and the diversity of contexts in which the respondents are working render the analysis feasible and the results reliable. The data is analyzed to identify patterns of practice. More specifically, using principal component analysis, the research identifies patterns that demonstrate that practitioners use project management tools and techniques in groups or “toolsets.” A brief attempt is made to compare results with A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) (PMI, 2008 ) Knowledge Areas and Process Groups. The article also shows how practice varies with the management of different types of projects: engineering and construction; business and financial services; information technology (IT) and telecommunications; and software development projects. The identification of these variations has important consequences for practice and for the study of practice.     

When and why employees of non-profits promote their organizations: Determinants of positive staff-word-of-mouth

Employees represent a credible source of information for prospective job applicants of non-profit organizations. However, less is known about when and why staff actively promote their organizations. The authors develop a parsimonious model of determinants of positive staff-word-of-mouth (SWOM) and test this model on the data from a survey of employees of a major Scandinavian missionary organization (Normisjon). The findings show that identification with the organization, organizational climate, and task satisfaction are significant determinants of positive SWOM. The pattern of effects differs for employees with and without formal leadership responsibility. For employees with such responsibilities, organizational identification has a greater effect and organizational climate a weaker effect on SWOM than for employees with no leadership responsibility. Based on the current findings and the broader literature on employer branding and recruitment, the authors offer tentative guidelines for how to increase positive SWOM for nonprofits.     

‘Down with Big Brother!’ The End of ‘Corporate Culturalism’?

Hugh Willmott's classic 1993 JMS article, ‘Strength is Ignorance; Freedom is Slavery’, has greatly influenced how we understand culture management. It draws parallel's with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty‐Four to reveal the totalitarian aspirations of ‘corporate culturalism’. While it is sometimes said that employee resistance is missing in Willmott's account, I argue that it is implicitly pervasive, prefiguring subsequent investigations of ‘micro‐emancipation’ in management studies. The recent waning of scholarly interest in this type of resistance, however, also points to the contemporary relevance of Willmott's analysis. Emergent forms of corporate regulation utilize ‘biopower’ rather than just cultural conformity, rendering micro‐emancipation inadequate, but inspiring other types of dissent.     

Visitor orientation and its impact on the financial situation of cultural institutions in Germany

• In Germany, the financing of cultural activities is heavily dependent on state funding. About 90% of cultural funding comes from the public sector. However, because of the precarious state of public finances, funding for cultural activities has been steadily reduced in the last years. Against this background, German cultural institutions are essentially compelled to develop appropriate measures in order to improve their competitive situation in the context of scarce public resources, and to seek additional sources of finance in order to stabilise their situation over the longer term. One of the more suitable means of increasing revenue on an ongoing basis, is to improve and extend the marketing and visitor-related activities themselves. But how should the marketing or visitor orientation be formulated so that it contributes towards the organisation's social mission as well as improves the financial position of the cultural institution? With respect to the particular financing situation of German cultural institutions, this paper will try to give an answer to this question.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimal migration policies: an analytical approach. Part I

This paper explores the analytical features of population distribution or human settlement policies. It proposes a methodology for quantitative policy analysis and policy design based on optimal control and system theory. The paper consists of two parts. This part shows how policy models may be derived from demographic and demoeconomic or demometric models by adding a new dimension: the goals-means relationship of population distribution policy. It examines a large class of relevant policy models and demonstrates their relationship to the original Tinbergen Theory of Policy, which provides a paradigm for static and dynamic policy analysis. Problems of existence and of design of optimal population distribution policies are studied analytically. In designing optimal policies, use may be made of the minimizing properties of generalized inverses.