浅论经济学研究中的继承性和创新性

当前对经济学有两种极端,一是对马克思经济学的全盘否定,是对西方经济学的全部接受,而这些都严重违背了经济学作为一门科学本身所具有的继承性和创新性。文中以经济学领域的科尔奈的"预算软约束"和林毅夫教授的"自生能力假说"以及"比较优势战略"为例,探讨了科研方法论的继承性和创新性。     

High-performance human resource practices in Australian family businesses: Preliminary evidence from the wine industry

Using quantitative and qualitative approaches, this paper examines the prevalence of high-performance human resource (HR) systems in Australian family businesses. Focusing on the wine industry, we found that establishing formal HR systems, particularly related to employee involvement and motivation, was positively related to perceived effectiveness of a company’s HR function, leadership, strategic alignment and profitability. Results indicated that formalizing HR systems occurs slowly in the industry, and is largely a function of organizational size. This exploratory study shows the need for more in-depth studies of HR in family-run organizations and supports the notion that increased emphasis on people practices is important to operational and financial success of the family business.     

Careers and human resource management—a European perspective

Although many of the principal milestones of current career research are of U.S. origin, the influence of European contributions slowly grows. Drastic changes of careers and career contexts surfacing in the early 1990s have renewed the interest in career issues. In addition, new concepts such as the boundaryless career propelled the European career discourse and triggered career studies in Europe. Despite the difficulty to give a comprehensive picture because of the differences within Europe and the many possible measures of comparison, this paper identifies three major characteristics of European career research and practice: (1) Substantial heterogeneity in terms of career practice; (2) The use of theoretical concepts usually coming from social sciences in career research; (3) The emphasis on social structures in conceptualizing influencing factors of career. After identifying and explaining these characteristics, the paper discusses their implications for human resource management research and practice.     

Human resource management and the performance of Western firms in China

The study examines the relationship between human resource management and organizational performance in sixty-two manufacturing Chinese-Western joint ventures and wholly owned subsidiaries located in different parts of the People's Republic of China. A positive relation was found between firm performance and the extent to which firms used a 'high-performance' HRM system as well as the degree to which they engaged in the integration of HRM and firm strategy.     

家族企业工匠精神传承的涓滴效应模型:一个纵向单案例分析

在我国经济由高速增长向高质量发展转变的关键时期,工匠精神作为个体价值取向和企业发展的重要支撑,因其提质增效的功能而备受社会各界的广泛关注。家族企业为工匠精神的研究提供了难得的考察对象,工匠精神以技艺和商业秘密为标识,成为家族企业代际传承的一项重要议题,能否顺利传承事关家族企业的可持续发展与基业长青。然而,现有研究聚焦于探讨工匠精神内涵和传承方式,以及在家族企业中的存在形态和重要作用等,缺少对家族企业工匠精神特性和传承机理的分析。为此,本文以越窑青瓷有限公司为案例,采用扎根分析,探索家族企业工匠精神的传承过程。研究结论:(1)家族企业工匠精神包括个体的技艺精神和价值取向,主要表现为对技艺、家族、产业的特殊情感和认知。(2)工匠精神经历播种期、培育期、绽放期,每个阶段根据涓滴主体不同,净化、渗透和吸收的过程和效果存在差异。(3)家族企业工匠精神在"父-子"传承模式受阻时,依靠引入外部师傅资源,在"师带徒"模式中得以保留和传递。研究结论不仅明晰了家族企业工匠精神的内涵,而且为工匠精神的传递提供了涓滴理论解释,对于工匠型家族企业继承人的策略性培育具有实践启示。     

Implementing organizational change in supply towards decentralization

This paper presents the findings from research in large companies investigating implementation issues faced by chief purchasing officers as their supply organization changed to greater decentralization. Once the decision was made to decentralize, responsibility for implementation was given to the chief purchasing officer (CPO). Firms changing their supply organization to a more decentralized structure faced a number of implementation issues, including the business unit concerns, role of the chief purchasing officer, top management involvement, changes to existing purchasing staff and the involvement of consultants. In the nine changes studied across seven companies, the decentralization process also required the CPO to address a number of simultaneous activities, including cost reduction objectives and implementation of information technology systems. A surprising “purchasing paradox” was also uncovered as top management still expected decentralized supply units to provide additional savings.     

The persistent link between growing talent and growing the top line: lessons from fast-growing firms in the COVID-19 recession

We examined Fortune Magazine’s 100 Fastest Growing Companies of 2018 and found 32 firms still listed in Fortune’s updated 2019 list. The "Persistent 32" are still growing in the first half of 2020, as the COVID-19 recession continues. As a whole they have added to headcount over the long expansion (2013–2019) and continue to hire aggressively. We focus on how a commitment to building talent and growth sets them apart in this pandemic, how they represent a focus on human capabilities; how their investments contribute to organizational change and renewal; and how the leader plays new roles as marketplace insight visionary and chief safety officer. We draw lessons from the "Persistent 32" and outline steps top teams can take now to build talent and grow the firm.     

Problematizing socioemotional wealth in family firms: a systems-theoretical reframing

The concept of socioemotional wealth (SEW) seeks to present an independent paradigmatic basis for family-firm research, and in doing so aims to establish a sound basis for the scientific legitimacy of family-firm research. Establishing that legitimacy requires scholars to demonstrate that SEW is based on coherent assumptions on several theoretical levels. This paper uses the problematization methodology to challenge the coherence of the theoretical assumptions underpinning SEW and to advance theory development. The results of this problematization show that SEW is built on a theoretical level close to the object of research (in-house assumptions), but that more deeply-rooted theoretical levels (e.g. paradigmatic assumptions) are not sufficiently elaborated. Moreover, the original conceptualization is based on a positivist-mechanistic view, which hinders SEW reflecting the complex reality of family firms. Based on the results of this problematization, new systems theory is applied to reframe SEW’s theoretical grounding. Thereby the main contribution of the paper is a critical reflection on the theoretical underpinnings of SEW (in particular root-metaphor and paradigmatic assumptions), serving as the basis for advancing a coherent theoretical understanding of this important concept in family business research.     

Organizational remembering as a trigger for cultural change: Exploring the episodic memories of a financial scandal

Organizational memory research has developed from the 'storage bin' model of memory towards emphasizing collective remembering. We advance this view by proposing organizational remembering not just as the process of evoking past events to reproduce traditions but also as a projection into the future using imagination. Empirically this is illustrated through the qualitative analysis of 27 episodic interviews with employees of a global financial institution, documents and the media coverage of the organization’s involvement in two well-publicized financial scandals. We explore the impact of the episodic memories of those events on employees' readiness for the cultural change programme launched by management after the scandals. The analysis shows how the negative media coverage of the organization generated a powerful dis-confirmation of its working practices among employees and how this was amplified by the strong emotional reactions remembering those events provoked. Management used both to re-frame the past in a narrative used to increase receptiveness to change. Yet the past was brought differently into the present by different organizational groups depending on the future each group imagined, counteracting the impact of the generic management narrative. The findings illustrate the collective, emotional and imaginative qualities of organizational remembering and provide new insights into the process of cultural change through the lens of memory showing how while memories may be shaped by management to respond to crisis, they can also become part of prospective and transformative change processes.     

Organizational adaptation to disruptions in the natural environment: The case of climate change

Dynamic and intensified changes in the global ecosystem result in significant disruptions to the natural environment. One of the most prominent examples of this is climate change and the resulting natural disasters. As firms are embedded within the natural environment, they need to adapt to any environmental disruptions that transpire. Using Swiss and Austrian electric utilities as case studies, this paper empirically explores the underlying organizational capabilities necessary to enable adaptation to climate-related disruptions to a firm's resource supply, production processes, and product distribution. Through a case- and literature-based iterative process of analytical induction, three organizational capabilities are derived: climate knowledge absorption as an essential information generating and internalizing capability, climate-related operational flexibility as a short-term adjustment capability, and strategic climate integration as a long-term, innovation-focused capability.     

Mapping the successful succession process in family firms: evidence from Greece

The succession process in family firms has by far been determined to be the most critical phase in the family business life-cycle (e.g. Morris et al. Journal of Business Venturing 18:513–531, 1997; Wang et al. 2000) and characterized as the period in which most family firm fatalities occur (Handler and Kram Family Business Review 1:361–381, 1988). This paper is an empirical study on Greek family firms and seeks to identify the critical success factors that have a major impact on the outcome of a generational transition in the leadership of the family firm. Based on an integrated conceptual framework proposed by Pyromalis et al. (2006), we test the impact of five factors, namely the incumbent’s propensity to step aside, the successor’s willingness to take over, the positive family relations and communication, succession planning, and the successor’s appropriateness and preparation on both the satisfaction of the stakeholders with the succession process and the effectiveness of the succession process per se. The results provide a useful insight and confirm the importance of the aforementioned factors in the succession process by mapping a safe passage through the family business succession process, and by contributing not only to the overall family business literature but also generating strong arguments in favor of the family firm as an integral entrepreneurial element for a region’s sustainable economic development.     

Legitimating behaviors and firm emergence: a resource dependence perspective

This study makes an attempt to understand some of the reasons why some nascent firms make the transition to new operational firms (a process called “firm emergence”) while others do not. Because of liabilities-of-newness, nascent firms face the daunting task of acquiring legitimacy from their immediate audience in order to emerge as new operational firm. This study claims and finds empirical evidence that through certain legitimating behaviors nascent firms can acquire legitimacy from their immediate audience and thus succeed in becoming new operational firms. The study will put forward more general propositions for future testing, and will draw implications for practitioners and entrepreneurship scholars.

Influence of technological support,skills and competencies,and learning on corporate entrepreneurship in European technology firms

In the today′s changing environment, firms are hardly competing with each other to achieve a competitive advantage that can differentiate them from others and improve their organizational performance. In this sense, it is crucial to develop corporate entrepreneurship and promote strategic variables that foster it.The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of different technological variables (top management support to technology, technological skills and technological distinctive competencies) and organizational learning on corporate entrepreneurship, and thus analyze the influence of corporate entrepreneurship on organizational performance in the context of technology firms.A sample of 160 European technology firms was selected from the database Amadeus in 2009 with CEOs as our main informants. The hypotheses studied are empirically confirmed by using a hierarchical regression model.     

Another look at the role of emotion in the organizational change: A process model

The paper proposes a cognitive–emotional model of organizational change. It is argued that employees' emotions go through four sequential but distinguishable stages in the organizational change process. In the first stage, primary appraisal induces emotions that are high in arousal, mixed in hedonic tones, and are anticipatory. In the second stage, the mixed emotional experiences give way to either positive or negative emotions as a result of the secondary appraisal. The emotional experience then affects employees' coping behaviors in the third stage. In the forth stage, discrete emotions that are evaluative and have distinct action tendencies are induced. Given this changing nature of employees' emotional experiences during the organizational change process, and considering emotions' influence on individuals' attitudes and behaviors, it is suggested that change agents adjust the timing and content of the information communicated in order to promote employee acceptance to change. Implications of this conceptualization are discussed, as are directions for future research.     

Bifurcated HR practices in family firms: Insights from the normative-adaptive approach to stepfamilies

This paper seeks to stimulate additional research on a form of workforce differentiation specific to family firms: the asymmetric treatment of family versus nonfamily employees. Argued to be manifest within differential HR practices applied to each group, little is known as yet about the nature, prevalence, origins, and consequences of this ‘bifurcation bias’. Our overarching thesis is that greater insight can be gleaned by considering family firms as analogous to stepfamilies, which we demonstrate by drawing upon work adopting a normative-adaptive approach to stepfamily research. A key contribution of our resultant interdisciplinary theory-building is a typology of different bifurcated HR practice bundles in family firms. We also develop propositions regarding (a) owning family characteristics that contribute to the various forms of bifurcation, (b) conditions under which the presumed dysfunctional consequences can be attenuated, and, (c) the functionality of a particular type that we term ‘bivalent bifurcation’.     

Implications of core self-evaluations for a changing organizational context

There is a need for individuals who have the confidence and assertiveness to adapt to and create positive change in contemporary organizations. The concept of core self-evaluations provides one way to conceptualize this requisite positive self-construal. This article begins by covering the concept of core self-evaluations, highlighting what has been learned about the relationship between core self-evaluations and attitudes, motivation, performance, and career progress. After this review, implications of the core self-evaluation construct for challenges in contemporary organizations are reviewed. Specifically, the potential importance of core self-evaluations for creative performance, transformational leadership, coping with organizational change, and managing “boundaryless” careers is discussed.     

A comparative analysis of corporate entrepreneurial orientation between selected firms in the Netherlands and the USA

Firms in turbulent or fast-changing environments must continually innovate to remain competitive. This study examined how a firm's strategic management practices influence its entrepreneurial behaviour as compared to an international competitor. Four firms in the Netherlands were each matched with a key competitor in the USA. Several survey measures related to the strategic management process were used along with an instrument related to corporate entrepreneurship practices. Both managers and employees participated in the study. Results revealed significant differences between the Netherlands firms and the US competitors in entrepreneurial orientation. Results also supported these comparative differences along three key dimensions of strategic management as they relate to corporate entrepreneurship. The final set of data revealed a relationship between corporate entrepreneurship and three measures of firm performance. The implications focus upon the key role that culture may play in facilitating corporate entrepreneurship and adaptable organizational practices. Suggestions for further research are also made.     

Supply structure: The pendulum in action

Using an in-depth longitudinal case study based on an “historical retrospective”, this article focuses on how some factors (“drivers”) set into motion the pendulum of change in supply structures, a research theme neglected in the supply field. It examines, over a 20-year period, the changes made to the supply structure of a well-known organization. The data comes mainly from: (a) semi-structured interviews with 21 managers and professionals within eight operating units, and (b) documentary analyses of the archives. This article shows how to map structural changes of the supply function, while explaining the nature and the causes of these changes. Understanding the pendulum movement from one supply structure to another can be very valuable, as well for academics as for managers.     

Employee emotions during organizational change—Towards a new research agenda

In this research note, we address the role of employee emotions during organizational change processes. While prior studies have examined emotions during a single change, such research analyzes emotions and change as snapshot events. In addition, we lack sufficient knowledge of the role of employee emotions during repeated changes, despite the evidence that organizations increasingly need to adapt to dynamic environments. We address these shortcomings and offer a research agenda on emotions during change, which incorporates the so far neglected view of emotions as processes that unfold during and across organizational changes. Specifically, we illustrate the role of employee emotions during sequential and simultaneous changes and offer six suggestions for future research on emotions in such contexts.     

Factors influencing processes of radical change in organizational belief systems

The recent development of a cognitive, interpretive approach to organizational analysis has helped to increase our understanding of organizational action. This paper discusses the relationship between organizational beliefs and organizational change. Based upon a review of empirical studies of strategic reorientations, the article presents a model of factors that influence processes which lead to changes in organizational belief systems. It is argued that radical changes in organizational belief systems are influenced by organizational results, by characteristics of the organizational environment, by intra-organizational factors, and by characteristics of the current organizational belief systems. These factors are discussed and some ways to further augment our knowledge of this phenomenon are indicated.