Service innovativeness and the structuring of organizations: The moderating roles of learning orientation and inter-functional coordination

This paper aims to investigate the influence of organizational structure on service innovativeness by testing the moderating roles of learning orientation and inter-functional coordination. This helps to understand how organic structure influences service innovativeness when it is effectively leveraged with favorable organizational factors. Data were collected from 178 hotel managers and executives in Japan and moderated regression analysis was performed to analyze the data. Findings of the study suggest that higher levels of service innovativeness are positively related to higher levels of hotel business performance. In addition, organic structure makes a positive influence on service innovativeness and an increase in the levels of learning orientation boost the effectiveness of organic structure on service innovativeness. Moreover, the positive association between organic structure and service innovativeness become stronger when all firm’s functions make an attempt to cooperate and contribute to disseminating customers and competitors’ information in the hotels. These findings contribute to understanding how hotel service innovation is affected by service innovativeness, organizational structure, learning orientation and inter-functional coordination.     

The Sexual Economy,Gender Relations and Narratives of Infant Death on a Tomato Farm in Northern South Africa

Based on an extended case study of a large‐scale tomato farm in northern Limpopo province, the paper examines how the restructuring of agriculture transforms the sexual economy through shifts in the composition of labour and management practices on farms in this area. The employment of Zimbabwean migrants, rather than relatively permanent Venda families, suggests a potentially greater variety of people participating in the sexual economy. While families as units of employment have declined, black supervisors increasingly serve as a primary locus of coercion on the farm and in the sexual economy. The monetization of erstwhile paternalistic services places pressure on women to earn income however they can, including transactional sex. Contested interpretations over the causes of infant deaths on the farm, in the form of hygiene, blood‐mixing and infanticide, provide an ethnographic framework for a deeper analysis of the sexual economy and its social effects. While the sexual economy presents opportunities for women to increase their income, it also exposes them to the risks of HIV/AIDS and unwanted pregnancies, resulting in contradictory implications for the status of women on farms.     

Bridging the Gap Between Strategy and Performance: Using Leadership Style to Enable Structural Elements

Successful leaders create structural elements in order to achieve the performance objectives set forth by organizational strategy. Supply chain oriented structural elements are reflected in an organization's relationships, both within the firm and with supply chain partners. In this research effort, we examine how such structural elements can be created as a means through which to enhance performance. Our hypothesized model is rooted in strategy‐structure‐performance theory and integrates elements of servant leadership theory and social exchange theory to explain how building organizational commitment via servant leadership behaviors can ultimately impact performance. We use a survey method to collect data from 158 motor carriers. The results of our structural equation model support our hypotheses and serve to extend the discussion of supply chain structural elements and the role of leadership style in achieving organizational performance.     

我国农民合作社设立机制 ——基于产业组织生态学理论的探讨

本文基于浙江省合作社的统计数据和访谈所收集的37家合作社第一手数据，考察了合作社设立的生态化和制度化过程。合作社种群及其所在群落中组织的竞争状态和种群密度在不同的条件下会促进或阻碍合作社的设立；就合作社设立的组织者来看，精英农户和政府分别在合作社的生态化和制度化过程中扮演了关键性作用；合作社相关法律法规的完善和合作社社区嵌入性的加强，有利于我国合作社的制度化，促进合作社的设立和发展。     

保险业新主体公司的经济绩效与组织管理及人力资本利用

近年来保险业许多成立的新主体公司,为了抢占市场份额,在所采取的各种组织措施和组织手段中,其最重要的组织管理与人力资源利用的制度却出现了矛盾和悖论,进而又出现了人力资源利用与经济绩效的悖论,并造成人力资本的原子状态,使公司成员缺乏团队精神,不能形成整体的合力,并带来公司内人际关系紧张等一系列严重问题。究其问题的核心,发现其组织管理制度和人才激励机制是对人的扭曲,把人降低为物当成了工具。这样的问题如果不能得到及早、尽快地解决,不仅会影响新主体公司的生存和发展,甚至会危及整个保险业的健康发展。     

组织学习的时空理论

从动态和系统的角度,从组织学习的来源出发,首先提出了组织学习的来源存在时间和空间两个维度,然后建立了基于时间和空间维度的组织学习时空理论。从时间维度(过去、现在和未来)和空间维度(内部和外部)构建了组织学习的6种基本模式,通过排列组合建立了64种组织学习方法,并进一步提出组织要根据外部环境的客观要求和内部实现的可行性选择合适的学习方法,以及组织选择的学习方法可能随着发展阶段的推移而变化等观点。     

酒店行业协会的运行机制及其变迁——以广州地区酒店行业协会为例

行业协会在酒店业发展进程中发挥越来越大的作用,但在国内现行条件下,行业协会发展面临多重困难。文章以广州地区酒店行业协会为案例,采用实地调查和深度访谈的方法,讨论行业协会的运行机制及其变迁。研究认为,第一,"政会不分"是目前行业协会管理的主要问题,政府应创新行业协会管理机制,加快"政会分开"的进程,推进部分行业职能向协会转移;第二,酒店行业协会应大胆创新,依据地区、行业发展环境动态调整组织架构,丰富协会职能发挥,以此达到激活协会运行机制的目标。基于此,酒店行业协会可以更好地为会员酒店服务,提升行业专业化管理水平。     

Is Current Way of Promoting Sustainability,Sustainable?

Consumer behavior regarding sustainable products has been a complex concept. There is a discrepancy between consumer’s espoused concern towards environment and their purchase of environment friendly products. Past literature suggests greenwashing being a possible reason for this discrepancy. With greenwashing being caused by mismatch between communication and perceived performance, this article focuses on assessment of simultaneous impact of both communication and performance elements on brand attitude. A quantitative study was undertaken to test the hypotheses. This was followed by a qualitative study to understand alternative explanation of hypotheses that was not accepted. The research revealed that a consumer’s attitude toward a green brand is impacted both by his or her general skepticism towards green ads and the credibility that she assigns to the firm’s green message. Perceived value of product also had a positive impact on brand attitude. Findings advance academic literature and support managerial community by highlighting factors for building a positive green brand attitude and resultantly avoiding the trap of being equated with greenwashing.     

The Impact of Position Difference on Employees’ Organizational Commitment After the Merger of Life Insurance Companies

We investigate the impacts of job position and survey time period on employee’s organizational commitment of insurance company after the merger. Our results show that both job position and survey time period are significant determinants to employee’s organizational commitment. Results also show that there is no interaction effect between survey time period and job position. For each year, during the survey time period, the mean of organization commitment of agent employees is significantly higher than staff employees. The mean difference of organizational commitment between agent and staff employees shrank year by year during the survey time period.     

When the going gets tough: the influence of expatriate resilience and perceived organizational inclusion climate on work adjustment and turnover intentions

Abstract

Despite the strong evidence for the beneficial influence of resilience for employee stress resistance in domestic settings, the construct has not received much attention in the expatriation literature, where stress is considered a major factor for expatriates’ poor cross-cultural adjustment and turnover. Drawing upon conservation of resources theory, the present study examines resilience as an antecedent of expatriate work adjustment and turnover intentions. Furthermore, this study investigates the moderating role of perceived organizational inclusion climate as a resource-protecting organizational factor. Results from a survey of 175 expatriates in South Korea indicate that resilience is positively related to expatriate work adjustment and that these positive effects are more pronounced when expatriates perceive their organizational climate to be highly inclusive. Furthermore, findings suggest that work adjustment mediates the effects of resilience on turnover intentions and that this mediation is moderated by a perceived organizational inclusion climate. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.