Product co-development in an emerging market: The role of buyer-supplier compatibility and institutional environment

In emerging markets, supply chains increasingly serve as critical value chains through which ideas, practices and knowledge flow to and from suppliers and buyers. Drawing on buyer-supplier collaboration literature and organizational learning theory, we examine the antecedents and underlying mechanisms of product co-development. Due to emerging markets' unique institutional environments, we further investigate how government intervention and guanxi importance moderate supplier-buyer collaborative outcomes. Dyadic data from 323 supplier-buyer pairs in China largely support our theoretical framework. Partners' knowledge commonality has a curvilinear (inverted U-shaped) relationship to product co-development, whereas goal compatibility has a positive impact on product co-development. Mutual learning partially mediates the main effect. Furthermore, government intervention weakens the positive effect of mutual learning on product co-development whereas guanxi importance strengthens this relationship. This research provides fresh theoretical and managerial implications to supply chain collaboration in emerging markets.     

Options‐based HRM,intellectual capital,and exploratory and exploitative learning in law firms' practice groups

The current study intends to uncover the strategic contribution of human resource management by introducing a unique construct of options‐based (vis‐à‐vis project‐based) HRM and examining its links to intellectual capital and exploratory and exploitative learning in the context of law firms' practice groups. Empirical results show that options‐based HRM is positively related to the practice group's explorative and exploitative learning. The intellectual capital mediates the relationships between options‐based HRM and the practice group's learning for exploration and exploitation. This study makes a valuable contribution to the HRM literature by establishing the mechanisms by which HRM enables organizational learning and extending the scope of HRM research to professional service firms. Our findings also provide valuable implications for the literature of organizational learning. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Gravity's pull: The identity-related motives and outcomes of hiring stars

Strategic human capital scholarship, alongside a wealth of evidence from the popular press, suggests that star employees can influence an organization's socially constructed identity. However, an overarching conceptual framework that explains these shifts has yet to emerge. In this paper, we draw upon Hatch and Schultz's (2002) theory of identity change to discuss how organizational identity-change related motives – defined as decision makers' interest in spurring changes to socially constructed, internal perceptions of their organization's central and distinctive features – act in concert with considerations of value creation and capture to influence the hiring of different identity-aspirant stars (i.e., stars that embody a desired future organizational identity). Given that stars represent catalysts for identity change that have agency and become part of the social fabric of an organization, we then explain how the mechanisms by which stars' attempts to gain or retain status – coupled with organization members' willingness to emulate their behaviors – can affect internal-oriented organizational identity change. This paper advances consideration of social-psychological factors alongside economic views of stars and offers implications for the literatures on strategic human capital and organizational identity.     

Clarifying the effect of organization learning on service innovation: the mediating role of intellectual capital

Abstract

The study of intellectual capital has gained interest in today’s highly competitive landscape. Using intellectual capital as a mediator, this paper developed an integrated model to examine whether organization learning affects and increases the capacity for new service development (NSD). The results from the study of 598 hotel managers support this model across multi-dimensions of intellectual capital and show that intellectual capital plays a mediating role between organizational learning and NSD. This paper also finds exploitative organization learning enhances the positive effect of organization capital because it fosters a positive link between relational capital and human capital. The study also discusses how this intriguing pattern of mediation could be explained by using theory and research with a regulatory focus.     

From National Service to Global Player: Transforming the Organizational Logic of a Public Broadcaster

We present organizational logics as a meso‐level construct that lies between institutional theory's field‐level logics and the sense‐making activities of individual agents in organizations. We argue that an institutional logic can be operationalized empirically using the concept of a discourse – that is, a coherent symbolic system articulating what constitutes legitimate, reasonable, and effective conduct in, around, and by organizations. An organization may, moreover, be simultaneously exposed to several institutional logics that make up its broader ideational environment. Taking these three observations together enables us to consider an organizational logic as a spatially and temporally localized configuration of diverse discourses. We go on to show how organizational logics were transformed in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation between 1953 and 1999 by examining the changing discourses that appeared in the Corporation's annual reports. We argue that these discourses were modified through three main forms of discursive agency: (1) undertaking acts of ironic accommodation between competing discourses; (2) building chains of equivalence between the potentially contradictory discourses; and (3) reconciling new and old discourses through pragmatic acts of ‘bricolage’. We found that, using these forms of discursive agency, a powerful coalition of actors was able to transform the dominant organizational logic of the ABC from one where the Corporation's initial mission was to serve national interests through public service to one that was ultimately focused on participating in a globalized media market. Finally, we note that discursive resources could be used as the basis for resistance by less powerful agents, although further research is necessary to determine exactly how more powerful and less powerful agents interact around the establishment of an organizational logic.     

The impact of human resource management practices on intention to leave of employees in the service industry in India: the mediating role of organizational commitment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a bundle of eight human resource management practices on intention to leave, and to examine the mediating effect of organizational commitment on the relationship between the HRM practices and intention to leave of employees of a service organization in India. Most of the prior HRM practices–employee turnover studies have been from the HR manager's point of view. This study took a different approach and studied this relationship from an employee's point of view. Internet survey questionnaires were used to collect the data from 183 employees working in a service company in India. Multiple linear regression and hierarchical linear regression analysis were conducted to test the hypotheses. The study found not only that the HRM practices lower employee intentions to leave, but also that this relationship is partially mediated by organizational commitment. The results of the study not only supported that organizations should focus on employee perceptions of the organizations' HRM practices but also indicated that human resources should go beyond establishing policies and procedures to providing an employee-friendly work environment (Biswas and Varma 2007).     

Conceptualizing entrepreneurial capital in the context of institutional change

This paper explores the building of entrepreneurial capital from an entrepreneurship and contextual/institutional position. In taking this position, it is possible to understand “entrepreneurial capital” as the content of the process that unfolds when individuals are exposed to certain characteristics of the environment. Drawing on findings from an ethnographically inspired longitudinal case study, the paper identifies the various actions attributed to entrepreneuring actors. Using the context of Poland as an illustrative case, the paper traces a variety of entrepreneuring accounts which appear to define entrepreneurial capital. This in turn provides a preliminary theoretical framework for the nature and the key elements of entrepreneurial capital. The study indicates that entrepreneurial capital is relationally and contextually constituted. The findings draw attention to the value of entrepreneurial capital in the context of an organizational and institutional change process that (1) involves the active creation Lachmann (Organization Studies 31: 219–244, 1986) of entrepreneuring actors within an organizational and societal context, (2) creates beneficial and supportive conditions that incorporate internal (organizational, personality) and external (environmental) resources for entrepreneuring, and (3) is facilitated by the entrepreneuring process. Finally, implications for entrepreneurship inquiry are drawn.     

The Context of Entrepreneurial Judgment: Organizations,Markets, and Institutions

The economics and management literatures pay increasing attention to the technological, competitive, and institutional environment for entrepreneurship. However, less is known about how context influences the judgment of entrepreneurs. Focusing on the emerging judgment‐based approach to entrepreneurship, we argue that economics can say much about how the organizational, market, and institutional context shapes entrepreneurial judgment. We describe entrepreneurs as individuals who deploy scarce, heterogeneous resources to service customer preferences at a profit. Because of uncertainty, this process is essentially experimental, and context influences the experimental process. Thus, entrepreneurs will seek to design the internal organization of the firm so that it facilitates internal experimentation. Moreover, the market or task environment determines the need for experimentation (e.g., how fast do consumer preferences change, how does technology evolve, which assets are available at which terms, etc.). Finally, the institutional environment influences, for example, the transaction costs of acquiring and divesting assets as firms adjust their boundaries through ongoing commercial experimentation.     

Decentralization is Dead,Long Live Decentralization! Capital City Reform and Political Rights in Kampala,Uganda

African cities are currently experiencing some of the highest population growth rates in the world. Accompanying this growth is constant and continuing pressure on national and local governments to develop political and institutional structures that respond to the multiple demands this demographic change provokes in relation to service delivery, economic development and social wellbeing. In response to these challenges, national governments are reviewing the political and administrative structures of their capital cities, sometimes recentralizing authority. This article examines the reforms to Kampala, capital city of Uganda. The article explains how the national government gradually created the legal conditions necessary to take over the capital city directly, and the political rhetoric and conflict that ensued. We argue that while Kampala had deep internal problems and fared poorly in service delivery, matters were exacerbated by the national government's historical indifference to the city. Moreover, past service delivery failures offered an easy rationale for recentralizing authority. We demonstrate that this recentralization was a well‐planned effort by the central government to regain political control of the capital city. This article illustrates how the national government's recentralization of authority in Kampala is a significant departure from its longstanding policy of democratic decentralization.     

The Influence of Institutional and Task Environment Relationships on Organizational Performance: The Canadian Construction Industry

This study compared the influence of organizations' relationships to the institutional versus task environment on organizational performance in the Canadian construction industry. This industry is characterized by both intense institutional regulation and strong market competition. Regulatory stringency and resource stringency were proposed as key determinants of the relative importance of institutional versus task environment relations in predicting organizational profitability and productivity. Results favoured the contribution of task environment relations to organizational success in support of an economic or strategic perspective on organizations. However, under highly stringent conditions, institutional relations were shown to be associated significantly with performance, suggesting that future research needs to consider both institutional and task environment effects on organizational performance and success.     

Positive psychological capital and emotional labor in Korea: the job demands-resources approach

This study examined the effect of organizational justice perception on service employees' positive psychological capital and the influence of positive psychological capital on surface and deep acting. Drawing on the job demands-resources (JD-R) model and the literature on positive work environment, the indirect effects of perceived distributive and procedural justice on surface and deep acting through service employees' psychological capital were hypothesized. Using data from 263 flight attendants of the largest airline company in South Korea, the results indicated that perceived distributive and procedural justice were positively related to service employees' psychological capital, which, in turn, fostered deep acting but not surface acting. Deep acting was negatively related to emotional exhaustion, while surface acting showed a positive relationship. Emotional exhaustion, in turn, increased turnover intention. This study offers contributions to our understanding of positive psychological capital and implications for emotional labor in service management. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.     

Investment in organizational capital

Organizational capital is a specific form of capital that firms accumulate. It relates to the development of codes, technical languages, practical arrangements about how the work is done and to the creation of an organizational culture. The distinctive feature of this form of capital is the fact that it does not contribute directly to an output result. Instead, it can be thought as creating the correct environment for the human factor to maximize its capability of generating value, that is, organizational capital works as an external effect on the accumulation of the human capital input. Nevertheless, organizational capital is a form of capital and therefore it has an investment process associated with it. The paper considers the process of investment in this form of capital and recognizes that it introduces important changes over the firm's profit maximization problem. The problem gains new features relating to its dynamic nature and a condition that guarantees saddle‐path stability can be derived. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Incentives,Capital Budgeting,and Organizational Structure

Divisional managers compete for financial resources in what is often referred to as an internal capital market. They also have a common interest in maximizing corporate profits, as this determines the resources available to the firm as a whole. Both goals are powerful motivators but can at times conflict: while the amount of resources available to the firm depends on corporate performance, divisional funding depends upon the division's performance relative to the rest. We propose a model in which organizational form is endogenous, divisions compete for corporate resources, and managers have implicit incentives. We show that organizational design can help companies influence their divisional managers' potentially conflicting goals. Our analysis relates the firm's organizational structure to the source of incentives (external vs. internal), the nature of the incentives (competition vs. cooperation), the level of corporate diversification, the development of the capital market, and to industry and firm characteristics.     

Power of sustainable development: Does environmental management system certification affect a firm's access to finance?

Although prior research generated inconclusive findings between a firm's environmental management system and firm financial performance, attention to resolve this inconsistency by examining the internal channels is limited. Thus, this study focuses on a firm's access to finance and investigates whether a firm's environmental management system certification (EMS) leads to better access to finance. Based on the organizational legitimacy perspective, we hypothesize that this certification will benefit a firm with stakeholder approval and support and consequently alleviate its financial capital constraints. We further posit that the proposed relationship will be moderated by three types of legitimacy environments pertaining to how stakeholders and investors make the judgment on the environmental management system certification. We document that the proposed relationship, that is, the positive relationship between environmental management system certification and access to finance, will be stronger when the government attaches larger importance to environmental protection (regulative legitimacy), better environmental record (moral legitimacy), and better financial position (pragmatic legitimacy). Empirical analyses provide strong corroborating evidence for our predictions. These findings have important theoretical and managerial implications that are well discussed in this study.     

价值驱动视角下制造企业服务创新能力的构建机制——基于艾默生网络能源(中国)的案例研究

服务创新能力是一种基于服务机会识别与开发的价值创造能力,也是制造企业应对动态市场环境,提升服务质量和服务效率,构建、提高与维持竞争优势的有效路径。现有服务创新能力的研究主要从企业内部运营与网络嵌入视角探讨服务产品和服务流程的创新,很少涉及制造企业的服务创新能力及其构建机制。本文从价值驱动视角,运用案例研究方法,通过对艾默生网络能源(中国)的案例分析,基于人力资本、关系资本和结构资本三个价值驱动要素探讨制造企业如何实现服务创新能力的构建。研究结果显示,在人力资本、关系资本和结构资本的共同驱动下,制造企业通过组织学习、网络嵌入和资源匹配构建其服务创新能力,且驱动因素在企业生命周期的不同阶段具有动态变化性。     

The Olympic Effect: Employee Reactions to Their Employer's Sponsorship of a High‐Profile Global Sporting Event

With companies investing vast sums of money on sponsoring high‐profile sports events, it is surprising that very little research exists to examine the possible impact that this has on the sponsors’ employees. This two‐wave panel study explores the indirect role that Olympic sponsorship and employee support for this sponsorship has on increases in organizational identification and discretionary effort—via, that is, pride and employee assessments of their employer's corporate social responsibility (CSR) credentials. The current study surveyed 241 employees (from three countries) in two phases across a 12‐month period in the run‐up to the 2012 London Olympics. Olympic sponsorship support was found to be positively associated with organizational pride and CSR perceptions, which both predict increases in organizational identification and discretionary effort (controlling for earlier baseline levels of these outcomes). In addition, there is also evidence of an indirect positive effect (through CSR perceptions and pride) of Olympic sponsorship support on increases in organizational identification and discretionary effort. The implications of these findings for decision makers considering sponsoring major sporting events are discussed; the findings provide interesting insights that can help HR functions to understand the consequences of sports sponsorship and processes involved that explain positive employee responses. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Customers cocreating value with the firm: implications for IHRM

The purpose of this article is to develop a theoretical framework for governing an organization's relationships with customers engaged as contributors to the organization's business processes (i.e. customers as quasi-employees). Based on our suggested framework, we explain how appropriate customer-centric HRM practices can support more cost-effective and accommodating adaptations in the organization's governance of its relationships with customers. We complement these propositions with practical examples illustrating how customers who take different cooperative roles will increasingly become valuable organizational assets. The collaborating customers not only provide the information necessary for the successful performance of the service exchange, but also contribute human and social capital in performing tasks that are a complement to or a substitute for employee tasks. In conclusion, we outline implications for international human resource management (IHRM), as well as future research directions for examining the relationships among customer governance, role configurations, and IHRM practices.     

Service specification in pre-tender phase of public procurement - A triadic model of meaningful involvement

The purpose of this research is to define the actor roles and collaborative practices that are central to service specification co-development in relation to the pre-tender phase of public procurement. We propose a new model of meaningful stakeholder involvement in the context of public service specification as a triadic setting. In addition to the theoretical value, the proposed model guides public procurement units on how to define their roles as intermediaries and to design a service specification process involving internal customers and providers of a service. The approach adopted highlights the meaningfulness of involvement by referring to the types of cooperative roles and practices that are both suitable for the situation and well understood and implemented by the cooperative parties. Service specification co-development is defined as a triadic setting involving buyers, service providers, and internal customers. This study consists of two longitudinal empirical public procurement cases viewed with the aid of a theoretical framework drawn from the general involvement and public-sector-specific involvement literature. Managerial implications relate to involving stakeholders early in the process, focusing on value creating activities, and sharing relevant information throughout the pre-tender phase.