Managerial Control of Employees Working at Home

Places of work constitute processes of management by facilitating ‘visibility’ (the possibility for supervisors and others to observe workers) and ‘presence’ (the ability for workers to participate in relations with co‐workers and others). Working at home creates problems for both these aspects of managerial control. We suggest that managers seek to compensate for the relative lack of visibility and presence of home‐located workers by generating a range of devices and social disciplines that together comprise loose networks of control. However, these responses are only partially successful since they are founded on contradictory assumptions and practices.     

Actor engagement,value creation and market innovation

We extend the discourse on actor engagement by arguing that the ‘actor’ should be viewed both as a single-actor (humans or machines) and a group of actors (collectives or organizations), and that engagement implies both exchange-based and non-exchange-based resource contributions, which are facilitated by dispositions, formed partly by actor specific characteristics and partly by the institutional and organizational arrangements prevalent in the context in which the resource contributions occur. We further show how the resource contributions, combined with other resources, improve resource density and, thus, drive value creation. This mechanism can be the foundation for ‘economies of actor engagement’; focal actors can achieve increasing returns by mobilizing actor engagement. Building on this, we argue that actor engagement is central for market-shaping strategies that aim for market innovations, which we define as the emergence and institutionalization of resource linkages that improve resource density and, hence, value creation in a market. Finally, we suggest that the dramatic shifts that we see in the operating environment are elevating the role of actor engagement, making the management of actor engagement a strategic priority.     

Telling tales: online comic and gripe story‐sharing by service workers about difficult customers

The article extends previous research on the storying practices of service workers, workplace humour as resistance, and workers’ autonomous use of social media. Discussion strings from two hairstylist forum storylines, exemplifying comic and tragic story‐sharing about difficult customers, were analysed using Gabriel's notion of story‐work. Processes of coping, entertainment, identity‐construction and learning are clearly evident in the discussion strings and social media is confirmed as a ‘new’ terrain for the enactment of employee agency. Findings emphasize that service workers are engaged in contradictory and ambiguous relations of resistance and accommodation as they learn how to deal with difficult customers. The article's contribution is to show how service workers share their fears and anxieties about difficult customers through storying and humour in generative dialogical poietic processes in social media. Further research is suggested.     

Strategic Dilemmas: How Managers Use HR Practices to Meet Multiple Goals

Contrary to the classic assumptions in the business and human resource (HR) strategy literatures, real‐world organizations often pursue multiple and potentially contradictory performance goals. They may adopt ‘hybrid’ strategies to maximize both differentiation and low cost — leading middle managers to face dilemmas in how to achieve different goals using the same HR practices. We link employee‐level surveys of HR practices to establishment‐level data on service quality, labour efficiency and profitability to examine the effects of HR practices on these outcomes. We find that establishments with greater use of high involvement practices have significantly higher service quality, which mediates the relationship between HR practices and profitability. Findings for labour efficiency are positive, but generally not significant. These findings also have implications for the quality of jobs.     

Is Good Work Good for Democracy? Work,Change at Work and Political Participation in Canada and England

This article draws on data from 750 Canadian and 450 English workers to systematically explore the implications of work for political participation, addressing whether ‘good’ work, and recent trends identified in work and employment, appear to be good for political participation. It finds that various aspects of work and of the work experience, many of which have been associated with recent trends, can have significant implications. However, these implications tend to differ for ‘passive’ and ‘active’ forms of participation and to be weak for the former. Moreover, characteristics that might be associated with ‘good’ work have negative as well as positive spillovers, suggesting contradictory effects and reducing the net positive effects of good jobs. Finally, there is some (albeit limited) evidence of cross‐national differences, especially with regard to the implications of union representation.     

Conglomerate Unions and Transformations of Union Democracy

Confronted with membership losses and declining bargaining power, trade unions have engaged in both political and organizational responses. A frequent type of organizational response has involved the creation of conglomerate unions, which bring together workers from various sectors and occupations. Pointing out a number of parallels between organizational developments in trade unions and political parties, this article analyses the emergence of conglomerate unions as a cause and consequence of changing conceptions of union democracy. Drawing on two in‐depth case studies conducted in France and Germany, the article examines how trade unions perceive their situation and how they define a reform rationale based on increasing their organizational ‘efficiency’ and ‘effectiveness’. In accordance with this rationale, unions engage in mergers and create larger conglomerates, thereby centralizing decision‐making bodies and professionalizing their staff. The reform of trade unions’ internal organization, in turn, affects unions’ capacity for interest aggregation and representation.     

Telework paradoxes and practices: the importance of the nature of work

Research on telework often focuses on the outcomes of telework, investigating if telework is ultimately a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ thing for teleworkers and their organisations. However, findings across telework research studies are often inconclusive, requiring deeper engagement with potential explanations for contradictory and paradoxical results. This study uses virtual ethnography (netnography) to investigate naturally occurring data. By analysing online debates related to Yahoo!'s decision to ban telework for its employees, this study surfaces aspects currently overlooked by telework research. These findings suggest that the diversity of the nature of work undertaken by knowledge workers and perceived differences in the suitability of different tasks for telework are of critical importance for understanding telework from a practice perspective. However, deeper engagement with the different kinds of work activities of knowledge workers is currently missing in the telework research literature. This study therefore contributes to better understanding of telework and paradoxical findings in telework research.     

Influences on strategic decision effectiveness: Development and test of an integrative model

This paper draws upon three broad perspectives on the strategic decision‐making process in order to develop a more completely specified model of strategic decision effectiveness in a different context, namely Egypt. The key variables in this model consist of three strategic decision‐making process dimensions (rationality, intuition, and political behavior); seven moderating variables concerning decision‐specific, environmental, and organizational factors; and strategic decision effectiveness as an outcome variable. A two‐stage study was conducted in which the first stage provided exploratory insights and the second stage investigated hypotheses on the impact of strategic decision‐making process dimensions on strategic decision effectiveness and the moderating role of broader contextual variables. The second‐stage study produced three major findings: (1) both rational and political processes appear to have more influence on strategic decision effectiveness than does intuition; (2) strategic decision effectiveness is both process‐ and context‐specific; and (3) certain results support the ‘culture‐free’ argument, while others support the ‘culture‐specific’ argument. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Are products striking back? The rise of smart products in business markets

The business world is experiencing a shift away from ‘physicality’ due to the ubiquitous growth of the service sector and a progressive shift from selling product to offering service. Yet, at the same time, with regard to technology-based phenomena such as the Internet of Things (IoT), it is physical products equipped with sensors that are at the centre of the transformation. Our research seeks to understand how business products become smart products. It focuses on how product physicality (visibility of smartness; additional functions) and product ecosystems (product connectedness; degree of autonomy) are changing, and the resulting issues for marketing managers. We propose a typology of smart products along two dimensions: ‘Product Attributes’ and ‘Ecosystemic attributes’. We distinguish four categories of smart products: More Efficient Products (MEPs), Augmented Products (APs), Products as a Node (PN), and Products as a Hub (PH). In each category, a product acquires a certain degree of ‘digital enhancement’, ‘embeddedness’ and ‘transformativeness’, as we describe. We also discuss several implications of our work both at the theoretical and managerial levels.     

Managerial challenges of outbound open innovation: a study of a spinout initiative in AstraZeneca

While the research on open innovation is flourishing, less attention has so far been given to ‘outbound’ processes in comparison to ‘inbound’ and ‘coupled’ open innovation. In this paper we analyze a qualitative case study of the global bio‐pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and their attempt to establish a spinout initiative where internal projects are transferred to entrepreneurial startups funded by external venture capital. We explain the enactment work of this initiative and identify three emerged managerial challenges, linked to (1) internal decision‐making, (2) the cultural and psychological barriers of what we phrase as the ‘not‐invented‐elsewhere’ (NIE) syndrome, and (3) the ability to translate and communicate internal projects as attractive external proposals. Theoretical and managerial implications in relation to these challenges are outlined and discussed.     

Measuring Trade Union Democracy: The Case of the UK Civil and Public Services Association

The Civil and Public Services Association (CPSA) has experienced a substantial number of organizational changes over the last 25 years, both as a voluntary response to membership concerns and to comply with legislative demands. Have these changes made the CPSA more or less ‘democratic’? An answer to this question must acknowledge that individuals interpret ‘trade union democracy’ in different ways. This paper evaluates the changes in the CPSA’s organizational structure and internal decision‐making procedures according to the emphasis of four models of trade union democracy: liberal pluralism, grass‐roots activism, individual accountability and consumer trade unionism.     

Making gigs work: digital platforms,job quality and worker motivations

Technology has driven new organisations of work and employment relationships, rendering changes that would have been unimaginable just a decade ago. The rise of digital platforms has not only enabled new forms of work activity but also transformed the way workers find new opportunities. This development, referred to as gig work, is distinct from traditional employment in that it is mediated through online platforms. While we can somewhat objectively designate traditional job characteristics as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, designating gig work itself as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ overlooks the fact that workers are inclined to evaluate the quality of their jobs according to their own individual needs, priorities, backgrounds and other circumstances—even if those jobs are objectively the same. Unlike previous scholarship on gig work, which has viewed job quality largely from a platform-focused perspective, this article takes a worker-centric approach and provides a typology of gig workers. The typology demarcates how gig work is used and indicates key attributes that differentiate how workers approach such jobs. Moreover, the typology reveals heterogeneity in gig workers’ motivations, characteristics and intentions. Consequently, platforms with ‘bad’ job quality characteristics can still offer work that some workers will see as ‘good’ and vice versa.     

How firms respond to being rated

While many rating systems seek to help buyers overcome information asymmetries when making purchasing decisions, we investigate how these ratings also influence the companies being rated. We hypothesize that ratings are particularly likely to spur responses from firms that receive poor ratings, and especially those that face lower‐cost opportunities to improve or that anticipate greater benefits from doing do. We test our hypotheses in the context of corporate environmental ratings that guide investors to select ‘socially responsible,’ and avoid ‘socially irresponsible,’ companies. We examine how several hundred firms responded to corporate environmental ratings issued by a prominent independent social rating agency, and take advantage of an exogenous shock that occurred when the agency expanded the scope of its ratings. Our study is among the first to theorize about the impact of ratings on subsequent performance, and we introduce important contingencies that influence firm response. These theoretical advances inform stakeholder theory, institutional theory, and economic theory. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adherence to WHO’s nutrition recommendations in the UK: Dietary patterns and policy implications from a national survey

Analysis of dietary patterns has largely focused on their association with diseases or risk factors, but limited research has been conducted on the heterogeneity of population dietary patterns and their adherence to international or national nutritional guidelines. As a result, the aim of this study is to identify latent dietary patterns of UK residents and to assess how well different segments comply with WHO dietary norms.To achieve this objective, the UK’s National Diet and Nutrition Surveys for 2011–12 dataset was analysed performing a latent class analysis on energy (kcals) derived from selected food groups. To assess adherence to different dietary patterns of the British population to nutritional guidelines, a traffic light system and a composite conformity index were developed to establish how well the identified segments comply with current dietary WHO norms regarding salt, free sugars, total fat, saturated fat, fruit and vegetables and dietary fibre.Results show four different segments which on the basis of heterogeneity of dietary patterns were named ‘high sugar/high fat consumers’, ‘prudent eaters’, ‘high fat consumers’ and ‘junk food eaters’. These segments show significant differences within and between groups in terms of dietary calories intakes and their adherence to WHO norms. Although ‘prudent eaters’ are closer to WHO dietary guidelines than other segments, none of the identified segments fully comply with dietary WHO norms. Policy implications of these findings are fully discussed in the conclusions arguing how current, future and potential dietary demand and supply measures affect consumers’ compliance with WHO norms.     

Survivors of industry shake-outs: The case of the U.S. color television set industry

In this article survivors and non-survivors of the ‘shake-out’ in the U.S. color television set industry are compared to determine how and along what dimensions these two classes of businesses differ. Two types of strategy variables are used in 18 hypotheses to probe similarities and differences at both the ‘corporate level’ and ‘business level’ of strategy. Significant differences are found, particularly at the business level. The findings are consistent with those of previous strategy research, but suggest that traditional wisdom regarding size, low costs and market share did not necessarily hold in this industry.     

Rethinking the ‘mirroring’ hypothesis: implications for technological modularity,tacit coordination,and radical innovation

Studies of the ‘mirroring’ hypothesis have demonstrated the relationships between technological modularity and explicit coordination, yet little is known about the ‘mirroring’ relationship between technological modularity and tacit coordination, and how the ‘mirroring’ relationship may affect radical innovation. This paper contributes to the ‘mirroring’ hypothesis by identifying the interaction mechanisms embedded in and surrounded over the mirroring relationships. Using survey data of 121 high-tech firms in China, our study indicates that technological modularity enhances interfirm tacit coordination between module-makers (‘mirroring’ hypothesis), and will also positively influence radical innovation (‘outcome’ hypothesis). Moreover, tacit coordination negatively moderates the impact of technological modularity on radical innovation (‘interaction’ hypothesis), indicating that the ‘mirroring’ relationship may offset the benefit obtained from modularization. It also suggests that, in a high-technology industry in underdeveloped areas, tacit coordination could lead to exposure of hidden knowledge, thus lowering module-makers' motivation for technology breakthrough.     

Collective Bargaining and Wage Dispersion in Europe

The level at which collective bargaining takes place is usually considered important in determining wage levels and wage inequalities. Two different situations are considered: a first in which bargaining is only ‘multi‐employer’, and a second in which it is ‘multi‐level’, in the sense that workers can be covered by both a ‘multi‐employer’ and a ‘single‐employer’ contract at the same time. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of these different institutional settings on pay dispersion. The study is carried out using the European Structure of Earnings Survey, which is a large dataset containing detailed matched employer–employee information for the year 1995. The countries analysed are Italy, Belgium and Spain. The empirical results generally show that wages of workers covered by only a ‘multi‐employer’ contract are no more compressed than those of workers covered by both ‘multi‐employer’ and ‘single‐employer’ contracts. This implies that where workers are not covered by single‐employer bargaining, they receive wage supplements paid unilaterally by their employers.     

Open innovation change agents in large firms: how open innovation is enacted in paradoxical settings

This paper theorizes how change agents in large firms enact open innovation with small firms. The open innovation change agent is highlighted as a key internal actor for the transformational work needed to put open innovation into practice. The paper presents an empirically grounded theoretical model of how these actors work, emphasizing the two activities of ‘anchoring’ and ‘navigating’, with the purpose of bridging the inside and outside of the corporation. In applying a paradox perspective on open innovation enactment, it is explained how these change agents act as both catalysts and guards for collaboration, continuously balancing different paradoxical demands. Theoretical and managerial implications in relation to these findings are discussed.     

The Course of Research into the Economic Consequences of German Works Councils

In her recent survey, Carola Frege concludes that economic analysis of the works council has reached a ‘dead end’. The present paper offers a very different assessment. The evolving economic literature is shown to follow three distinct phases, the last of which contains some of the most positive evaluations to date of works council impact on establishment performance. Although these estimates are exaggerated, and the effects of works councils are likely to be small on average, the new literature redirects our research focus towards factors producing swings around this average, including differences in works council types and their workplace environments.