Organizing for disaster: Lessons from the military

Recent global events have highlighted the need for disaster planning by leaders in all types of organizations, civilian and military included. This article illustrates, from both academic and personal viewpoints, lessons learned during relief operations for the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. Having participated in this effort, I detail guidance for designing resilient and robust organizational structures that can deal with the uncertainties of a disaster environment. For example, organizations frequently form temporary command centers to improve information flow in a crisis. Consequently, managers are advised to create temporary organizational structures with a common cognitive map to improve sense-making for employees during turbulent times. Other lessons presented include the establishment of a nuanced priority system for assessing potential courses of action, and the need to eliminate bureaucratic barriers to action to improve the speed of response when lives are at stake. This article concludes by pointing out that proper organizational structures need to be considered prior to disaster in order for organizations to be effective and efficient during the course of a mitigation effort.     

Fostering an ethical organization from the bottom up and the outside in

Despite the best efforts of corporate compliance officers, boards of governance, auditors, and regulators, corporate misconduct continues to plague our markets. In this thought-provoking installation of Accounting Matters, we argue that efforts to fight fraud and other forms of corporate misconduct have failed, in part, due to the systematic approach employed toward a problem that is irregular, complex, and extends well beyond the boundary of the firm. By drawing upon research from the field of behavioral ethics to suggest a new approach that does more than just stress formal control systems, we illustrate how executives may strengthen organizational ethics through informal practices that work from the ‘bottom up’ and the ‘outside in.’ Our review includes practical recommendations regarding how to create shared responsibility for ethical leadership, how to empower employees to achieve both economic and ethical ends, how to enlist the aid of key stakeholders in identifying problems before they grow and spread, and how to redesign compliance practices to address the complex nature of corporate misconduct.     

Organizational innovation as an enabler of technological innovation capabilities and firm performance

This study assesses the relationship between organizational innovation and technological innovation capabilities, and analyzes their effect on firm performance using a resource-based view theoretical framework. The article presents empirical evidence from a survey of 144 Spanish industrial firms and modeling of a system of structural equations using partial least squares. The results confirm that organizational innovation favors the development of technological innovation capabilities and that both organizational innovation and technological capabilities for products and processes can lead to superior firm performance.     

Organizational and competitive influences of exploration and exploitation activities in small firms

This study explores organizational and competitive factors affecting exploration/exploitation activities in SMEs by examining the role of entrepreneurial orientation (EO), market orientation (MO) and perceived competitive intensity. We test the relationships among these variables using data collected from 55 manufacturing SMEs operating in the southern part of U. S. The findings provide a strong support for a positive association between EO, MO and exploration/exploitation activities. Perceived competitive intensity was only a significant moderator for the relationship between MO and the degree of exploratory activities. Our findings, hence, suggest the significant role organizational predictors play in enhancing exploration/exploitation activities in SMEs. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Regional influences on the prevalence of family versus non-family start-ups

We integrate insights from family business and organizational ecology into the entrepreneurship field by constructing a theoretical framework that explains how the regional context impacts family and non-family start-ups in differing ways. Regional count data models based on a rich longitudinal dataset reveal that while economic factors such as population size and growth in regions are primarily associated with the number of non-family start-ups, factors related to regional embeddedness, such as pre-existing small family businesses as well as favorable community attitudes toward small businesses, are more strongly associated with the number of family start-ups. Our research provides support for the notion that ‘the regional context’ is an important yet under-theorized area for research on venture creation and family business.     

Deviant behavior in retail,when sales associates “Go Bad”! Examining the relationship between the work–family interface,job stress,and salesperson deviance

The unique role of retail sales associates combined with retailers desire to establish relational selling, make associates vulnerable to work–family conflict (WFC). Unfortunately, research examining how retail sales associates cope with a WFC is limited. This research investigates relationships between WFC, job stress, and three dimensions of salesperson deviance: organizational, interpersonal, and frontline. Findings indicate that WFC has a significant direct effect on all three deviant behaviors, as well as job stress. Interestingly, the relationship between job stress and deviant behavior is not significant. This finding adds to the debate regarding job stress as a mediator between WFC and deviant behavior or outcome variable.     

跨组织视角下的营销渠道治理:制度环境的影响(英文)

营销渠道研究是营销研究的一个重要组成部分。随着市场中竞争性环境的变化以及营销理论的发展,营销渠道研究的关注点从强调效率和利益转向强调权力和冲突,进而转向联网以及关系和联盟。在研究渠道治理过程方面,以往的营销渠道研究大多采用以效率为基础的任务环境视角,而在很大程度上忽视了以合理性为基础的制度环境方法。本文提出,营销渠道从本质上说是一种制度安排和跨组织关系。因此,企业在治理营销渠道时,必须关注其决策和行为的接受度与认可度。本文先是回顾了营销渠道治理和跨组织关系方面的理论与研究,进而从中吸收有价值的观点,提出了理论框架和一些命题,并通过两则案例研究进行解释和检验。     

组织文化、环境不确定性与管理会计信息认知

管理会计是一门应用性学科,它围绕组织的价值创造服务于企业实践。组织文化在其核心价值观的传递与解释过程中会对管理会计信息的认知程度产生影响,也会改变人们对环境不确定性的态度。管理会计信息支持系统通过对信息有用性的甄别与分析,提高人们对管理会计信息的认知能力,进一步使管理会计控制系统发挥更大的作用,提高管理会计的效率与效果。     

Conceptualizing and validating organizational networking as a second-order formative construct

Based on an existing conceptualization in the literature, this study operationalizes the construct of organizational networking, through a rigorous two-stage scale construction and validation process. Organizational networking refers to firm behaviors, i.e. the activities/routines/practices, which enable an organization to make sense of and capitalize on their networks of direct and indirect business relationships. We conceptualize the measurement model as a second-order formative construct with four first-order reflective constructs based on a four-dimensional view of organizational networking comprising information acquisition, opportunity enabling, strong-tie resource mobilization and weak-tie resource mobilization. The scale validation was undertaken at the first- and second-order levels. The result confirms the four distinct first-order measurement models. At the second-order level, a MIMIC (multiple indicators and multiple causes) model was employed to assess the validity of the formative measurement model. The results suggest that all four components significantly contribute to the overarching construct of organizational networking, with strong-tie resource mobilization being the most important contributor. Thus, our operationalization confirms the uniqueness of the different dimensions of organizational networking that should be configured as a strategy of sensing and seizing opportunities in the network. The organizational networking scale will provide future research with a basis to explore different strategic patterns of networking behaviors in varying contexts, and its role in relation to other organizational behaviors and outcome variables, such as firm performance.     

内部控制核心内涵的历史演变及其评述

内部控制在其百余年的发展进程中,取得了丰富的研究成果,但也存在着潜在的缺陷。追溯内部控制理论的历史发展轨迹,探析其历史发展各阶段的理论形成过程、主要推动因素、核心内涵演变,有助于对内部控制发展历程进行全方位审视,从而提炼其理论研究成果,分析其存在的局限,为拓展内部控制研究路径奠定文献基础。