The contours of employee voice in SMEs: the importance of context

This article develops a context‐sensitive approach to analyse how and why voice operates in small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), an area that remains under‐theorised and under‐researched. By building on a priori frameworks with proven ability to unpack complexity and take account of the wider context of SMEs, this article explores how resources (human and social capital) and constraints (product market, labour market and strategic orientation) interact to shape voice practices. The article finds significant differences between ‘reported’ compared with ‘actual’ practices in situ, and identifies different types of firms (‘strategic market regulation’, ‘strategic market‐led’ and ‘non‐strategic market‐led’) along with the factors that influence the form and practice of voice. Overall, the article argues that researchers should further pursue research that appreciates the layered nature of ontology and the role played by firm context to explain complex organisational phenomena, if we are to advance our understanding of voice practices in SMEs and beyond.     

PART II Criticisms and Reconstructions Searle's Foole

In The Construction of Social Reality, John Searle promises a causal account of how social facts are constructed by human acts of intention, but specifically disavows a special theoretical space in that account for human motivation. This paper argues that such a story as Searle tells cannot serve as a causal account of society. A causal account must illuminate motivations, because doing so illuminates the aims and interests lacking which we cannot explain why these social practices come to be and not potential others. Thus Searle's would‐be account of society has a problem analogous to that of Hobbes, which Hobbes's own Foole poses, and that Hobbes never answers to anyone's satisfaction.     

How do Scientists Contribute to the Performance of Innovative Start‐ups? An Imprinting Perspective on Open Innovation

Our study illustrates how scientists contribute to the performance of innovative start‐ups through an analysis of 211 Italian start‐ups with and without scientist founders. Building upon imprinting theory, we hypothesize and find that scientists provide an advantage to innovative start‐ups to the extent that they stimulate open innovation (i.e., search breadth and depth). However, for this to effectively occur, the involvement of multiple scientist founders is needed, so that their career imprints internalized in the lab are successfully transferred to the start‐up. Moreover, if the start‐up embraces business practices (i.e., strategic planning) or departs from scientific logics (i.e., pursuing non‐commercial goals), scientists’ contribution is further increased. Therefore, our study illustrates how the scientist career imprint can provide an advantage to innovative start‐ups with multiple scientists, but also how it can act as a rigidity if the start‐up does not pursue strategic planning or emphasizes non‐commercial goals.     

Do Investors Really Value Corporate Governance? Evidence from the Hong Kong Market

To examine the relation between corporate governance and firm value, we develop an instrument to assess the corporate governance practices of listed companies in Hong Kong. Based on the Revised OECD Principles of Corporate Governance (OECD) and the Code of Best Practices (HKEx), we construct a corporate governance index (CGI) for Hong Kong listed companies. Unlike measures used in other studies, the CGI score reflects the presence of good corporate governance practices as well as variation in the quality of corporate governance practices. Empirical evidence shows that a company's market valuation is positively related to its overall CGI score, a composite measure of a firm's corporate governance practices. We also find that the transparency component of the CGI score drives the relation with market valuation. In summary, this study provides supporting evidence for the notion that, in Hong Kong, good corporate governance practices are consistent with value maximization.     

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.     

The effects of accounting regulations on stock valuation and volatility: Evidence from the banking industry

Banking regulators and market participants learn from price signals in the stock market (e.g., Flannery, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 30: 273, 1998). Therefore, the system becomes more secure and developed as stock prices become more informative about banks’ financial conditions. Using a sample that includes major banks from 35 countries, this study investigates how accounting regulations affect bank stock valuation and volatility. The evidence suggests that bank stocks have higher valuation and lower volatility in countries that strictly regulate the quality of external audits and financial statement transparency. This study presents a comprehensive picture of the effects of bank accounting regulations on the stock market.     

Individual job‐choice decisions and the impact of job attributes and recruitment practices: A longitudinal field study

The present research is intended to contribute to the understanding of how job‐choice decisions are made and the role of effective and ineffective recruiting practices in that process. The issues are examined by tracking job seekers through the job search and choice process. At multiple points in the process, structured interviews are used to elicit information from the job seekers pertaining to how they are making their decision and what factors play a role. Results provide theoretical and practical insights into the organizational and job attributes important to job choice, as well as how specific recruiting practices may exert a significant influence, positive or negative, on job‐choice decisions. For example, our findings reinforced the importance of providing job seekers the opportunity to meet with multiple (and high‐level) organizational constituents, impressive site‐visit arrangements, and frequent and prompt follow‐up. Also, imposing a deadline (i.e., “exploding offer”) showed little effect on job‐choice decisions. Recommendations for recruitment practice and continued research are provided. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Human Capital and CEO Compensation during Institutional Transitions

Firms appoint CEOs with different types of human capital in order to manage resource dependencies. How CEOs are compensated thus can be conceptualized as a valuation process of how boards view the value of CEOs' human capital. Two types of human capital – international experience and political ties – have emerged as potential drivers of CEO compensation during institutional transitions. But how they impact CEO compensation has remained unclear. We develop a resource dependence‐based, contingency framework to focus on the external and internal factors that enable or constrain human capital to impact CEO compensation. Because of the tremendous regional diversity within China, externally, we focus on the level of marketization of the region in which firms are headquartered. Internally, we pay attention to two corporate governance mechanisms: politically connected outside directors and compensation committee. Data from 10,329 firm‐year observations at 94 per cent of listed firms in China largely support our framework. Overall, our study contributes to resource dependence research by extending this research to the context of institutional transitions with a focus on how human capital impacts CEO compensation.     

Pricing Experience Goods: The Effects of Customer Recognition and Commitment

In a two‐period model of nondurable experience goods, we compare the profit and social welfare effects of behavior‐based price discrimination (BBPD) and price commitment (PC) (relative to time‐consistent pricing) in a monopoly. We find that when the static, full‐information monopoly price is higher (lower) than the mean consumer valuation, PC yields higher (lower) profits and social welfare than BBPD. We also identify the market conditions under which BBPD does not increase firm profits and provide an explanation as to when the firm should discriminate against its first‐time and repeat customers, respectively.     

Reputation and Corporate Social Responsibility Aberrations,Trends, and Hypocrisy: Reactions to Firm Choices in the Stock Option Backdating Scandal

Drawing on strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) and reputation theory, this paper examines the market reaction to firm disclosures of involvement in the US stock option backdating scandal. We examine how a firm's prior signals regarding ethical behaviour and values, as demonstrated through CSR initiatives, may both ameliorate and exacerbate market reactions. CSR initiatives may buffer a firm against general wrong‐doing but expose it to greater scrutiny and sanction for related wrong‐doing. Our results show that firms with enhanced overall reputations for CSR are partially buffered from scandal revelations. However, we find that when firms possess an enhanced reputation for CSR associated with corporate governance, violations pertaining specifically to governance are viewed as hypocritical and more harshly sanctioned. We also find lower and negative market reactions for firms that delay but self‐disclose their involvement in the scandal. The study extends the emergent, related literatures on strategic CSR and reputation management, and documents dynamics in the relationship between corporate social and financial performance.     

Enhancing Market Valuation of ESG Performance: Is Integrated Reporting Keeping its Promise?

This paper studies the effectiveness of a firm's strategy to report on its ESG activities with regard to the extent and direction in which the firm's ESG performance is valued by capital market investors. It is the first to disentangle the moderating effects of different types of ESG reporting on market valuation of ESG performance and to analyze whether following the current integrated reporting trend is worth the effort. Results indicate that ESG performance is valued more strongly and in the (desired) positive direction when firms publish an ESG report, irrespective of its type (stand‐alone or integrated). Furthermore, integrated reporting is associated with superior outcomes compared with a stand‐alone report for composite ESG and corporate governance performance. Our findings are important for corporate managers, as they help to understand market valuation of ESG performance in dependence on the reporting type and provide guidance for formulating and evaluating the reporting strategy. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Discourse in a Material World

We challenge recent assertions that discourse studies cannot de facto address materiality. We demonstrate how a Foucauldian theorization of discourse provides a way to analyse the co‐constitutive nature of discursive and material processes, as well as explore the power relations implicated in these relationships. To illustrate our argument, we identify exemplary studies that have effectively combined a study of discourse and different aspects of materiality – bodies, objects, spaces, and practices. In doing so, we show how discourse scholars are able to study both materiality and power relations.     

Neoliberalization of Istanbul's Nightlife: Beer or Champagne?

This article shows how the transformation of Istanbul's entertainment industry and of Beyo?lu, Istanbul's oldest, largest and the most diverse entertainment district, represents and reproduces spatial and economic divisions in the city. We argue that these differences also become compounded and intertwined with distinctions in consumption and taste. Taking a simultaneous look at the spatial, economic and symbolic transformations of the entertainment industry enables us to understand how and why these intense divisions emerge, and what kind of contestations, rationalizations and resistance strategies are at work in this transformation. A major contribution of this article is to document and discuss the political economy of the process of urban transformation in the city through the lens of the entertainment industry, providing an interesting case of ‘neoliberalism on the ground'. Examining the neoliberalization of nightlife in a relatively understudied context, Istanbul, also reveals that its segmentation and spatial inequality are not just determined by political economy but are also constitutive of it. By adding the concept of ‘image consumption' and taste distinctions into the analysis, the article also uncovers the symbolic nature of the ongoing transformations. Finally, exploring Beyo?lu as a district in transition with persistent contestations contributes, in turn, to the right to the city debate.     

Environmental business strategy: the Portuguese case

This study focuses on the adoption of environmental management systems and corporate social responsibility reporting as mechanisms for creating a differential advantage, looking at how different stakeholders in an organization perceive the importance of instituting these mechanisms as determinants of market success. The paper then aims to focus on environmental business strategy and corporate social responsibility reporting in companies, rather than prescribing policy for the entire sector. In so doing it postulates that compliance with market requirements on environmentally related issues, by instituting proper environmental management mechanisms and corporate social responsibility reporting, is a pre‐requisite for acceptance of the firm and its products in the market. The paper is methodologically based on a set of 60 interviews conducted with various agents in the Portuguese textile industry, ranging from policy‐makers to industrialists and NGOs, with a view to determining differences in perception between the various stakeholders. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Dynamic building blocks for science: comment on Kronegger,Ferligoj, and Doreian

There are two very good reasons to study the social organization of science, and Kronegger, Ferligoj and Doreian’s paper exemplify both (henceforth K, F, D). First, we rarely have such rich and detailed data in most other areas of social life. Because science is a written social sphere where credit and authorship matter greatly, we have rich data on scientific careers that allows us to develop new research methodologies. Second, with a nod to the sociology of science, the ever-increasing importance of scientific discovery to national economies, the extension of science through metaphor (or evidence) to other types of organizations with emphasis on the development of new ideas, career trajectories and so forth, underscore the substantive importance of studying science.     

Formalization by the State,Re‐Informalization by the People: A Gecekondu Transformation Housing Estate as Site of Multiple Discrepancies

This article demonstrates residents' transformative practices and discusses attendant outcomes to contribute to an understanding of state‐built housing estates for people affected by urban transformation projects. It draws upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a social housing estate (K‐TOKI) in the Northern Ankara Entrance Urban Transformation Project (NAEUTP). It addresses questions on why formalization of informal housing takes place today, under what conditions it is countered by re‐informalization practices, and what the outcomes of this process are. As informal housing became formalized by NAEUTP, gecekondu dwellers were forced into formalized spaces and lives within K‐TOKI, which was based on a middle‐class lifestyle in its design and its legally required central management. Informality re‐emerged in K‐TOKI when the state's housing institution, in response to the estate's poor marketability, moved out, allowing residents to reappropriate spaces to meet their needs and form their own management system. When cultural norms that are inscribed in the built environment and financial norms that treat residents as clients conflict with everyday practices and financial capabilities, the urban poor increasingly engage in acts of informality. I argue that the outcome of this informality in a formal context is a site of multiple discrepancies.     

Hiring for Networks: Social Capital and Staffing Practices in Transitional China

This article investigates how firms’ use of social capital criteria in staffing practices has been affected by China's transitional institutional environment and explores the impacts of person‐job fit in the social capital dimension on employees’ performance. Empirical results show that non‐state‐owned enterprises set a higher social capital standard in the hiring process than state‐owned enterprises. Foreign‐invested enterprises outperform other firms in promoting a better match between individuals rich in social capital and the positions that need such resources. In places with intensive market competition, foreign and private enterprises pay even more attention to employees’ social capital when making HR decisions. Moreover, a better match between people and positions from a social capital aspect has a positive impact on employees’ performance. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

De‐Essentializing the Knowledge Intensive Firm: Reflections on Sceptical Research Going against the Mainstream

This paper provides an updated summary and discussion of my 1993 JMS paper ‘Organization as rhetoric: knowledge‐intensive firms and the struggle with rhetoric’, and relate this to my own and others' later work in the area explored in the paper: knowledge‐intensive work and discourse. A key aspect of knowledge work is the ambiguity of what it stands for, what people working with ‘knowledge’ are doing, and what they accomplish. This fuels identity uncertainties, which is also addressed and reflected upon in the paper. As part of my broader reflections, I also provide a brief overview of some methodological ideas on how to do problematization: a key theme in the original piece but which is more generally a research approach that may lead to contributions that generate interest.     

Reducing intentions to resist future change: Combined effects of commitment‐based HR practices and ethical leadership

Change management, and particularly the human side of change, is a central tenet of the strategy of contemporary organizations. However, there is little evidence concerning how strategic HR practices influence how individuals anticipate and react to the implementation of a major change and how direct supervisors influence that process. With a sample of 191 employees from multiple organizations, who completed two surveys with a four‐week lag, we examined the role of commitment‐based HR practices on employees’ intentions to resist future change. We found that commitment‐based HR practices contribute to a decrease in intentions to resist future change, measured four weeks later, via increased affective commitment to change. Moreover, we found that this relationship is conditional on ethical leadership, in that it is significant when ethical leadership is high but not when it is low. Building on social exchange and uncertainty reduction theories, our findings contribute to the literature by examining how and under what boundary conditions HR practices are an effective means for organizations to anticipate and manage change.     

HRM at a Crossroads: Comments on “Evolution of Strategic HRM Through Two Founding Books: A 30th Anniversary Perspective on Development of the Field”

I agree with Bruce Kaufman's evaluation of the HRM field and the danger to its relevance if change does not take place in the field's almost exclusive use of normal science, lack of focus on organizational change and development and indifference to the development of useful and usable knowledge. I use the development of the Harvard Business School's first‐ever required course in HRM and Managing Human Assets, the book that grew from the course, to illustrate why and how the strategic HRM perspective of the book emerged. I go on to argue that we do not need more proof that HRM practices are associated with financial performance. The best CEOs already believe this, though they need knowledge and practices that will enable them to develop a positive sustainable HRM system. HRM research, both normal and action science, must answer the question of how a “great” HRM system—practices, leadership, organization design, culture, and change processes—might be developed over time (its takes years) and how great companies can avoid the liquidation of intangible assets in the face of pressures for short‐term performance. I describe my own work to illustrate the future direction HRM should take methodologically and conceptually. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.