A theory of supplier network-based innovation value

To understand how a supplier helps a buying company create value through innovations, studies have focused on a supplier's internal resources or its relationship with a buying company. Building upon this body of literature, we develop a theory of supplier network-based innovation value in this conceptual paper. This theory explains how a supplier's upstream and downstream value network can be a source of competitive advantage for a buying company. Specifically, it proposes that the levels and types of supplier innovation value is contingent on the configuration of a dual-ego value network, characterized by the locus and degree of buyer-supplier structural equivalence. This theory also explains how a supplier's ties with a buying firm's competitors can pose both opportunity and risk to buying company innovation. This theory contributes to the literature by showing when “seemingly undesirable” suppliers, due to a lack of technical capability or strong relationship with a buying company, might still be valuable to a buying company's innovation.     

Mobilizing consent: paternalism and cellular manufacturing

In this paper we explore the dynamics of the introduction of New Systems and Structures of Work Organization (NSSWO) in the context of the forces impacting upon organizational change in the unionized sector of manufacturing industry throughout the Thatcher period. This we do by way of a detailed case study of a major UK auto-components manufacturer. We explore a number of changes in work organization, including the introduction of a cellular-based system of manufacturing, from its initial strategic conception through to its implementation; the delegation of responsibility for quality to shop-floor operators and the use of more flexible working practices. In doing so, we reconsider the context of change, the detailed processes of change and the pattern of accommodation between labour and management. Drawing upon our previous work on the nature of paternalism (Ackers,and Black, 1991), we explore its significance in terms of management’s constant drive for more economic work practices and patterns of organization. Specifically we explore the significance of paternalism as a relevant concept in interpreting the case, and hence, also, as a relevant concept in understanding HRM. The case challenges the prevailing ideology that the ‘successful’

economic organization requires (a) a de-regulated labour market and (b)

a trade union free environment, or, failing this, that management needs to

develop an individualistic approach towards the work-force, moving from the

more pluralist‘industrial relations’approach towards an essentially ‘unitarist framework, as found in certain interpretations of ‘uman resource management’(Guest, 1987)

The paper is thus a contribution to the continuing analysis of those ‘tensions and struggles through which the open ended potential of labour power have been managed, through shifting patterns of coercion, accommodation and compliance into profitable forms of production’(Elger and Smith, 1994: 12; Thompson, 1990). By means of this case we attempt to explore this issue with respect to three interconnected

themes:

The place of paternalism as a relevant concept in the age of HRM.

The extent to which organizations may be better advised to look towards ways

to build upon their existing organization culture, rather than seeking solutions

from overseas models.

Linking with previous work on the ‘Joint Process’in the US (Black and Ackers, 1994), the paper raises issues concerning the ‘strategic issue . . . which managers have to face . . . the balance between joint regulation and joint consultation’(Storey and Sissons, 1993: 221), and hence the role of trades unions in organizational change programmes.     

Mind the channel! An affordance perspective on how digital voice channels encourage or discourage employee voice

We apply an affordance lens on qualitative data from three case organisations using a digital voice channel providing employees with the opportunity to speak up via answering periodic mini‐surveys and making comments in an anonymous mini‐forum. We find that imbrications of material and social agencies (i.e., the voice channel's features and managerial reactions to voice) in the respective organisational contexts culminate in employees perceiving the channel as either affording or constraining voice, leading to perceived voice outcomes that eventually encourage or discourage them to speak up. Whether voice is encouraged or discouraged partly results from the mere interaction between employees and the digital voice channel independent of managerial reactions. Our findings thus challenge the emphasis on managerial behaviour and reactions to voice in explaining voice behaviour and outcomes in extant literature.     

城市公园游客参与、解说满意度与 环境教育评估关系研究——以福州市 晋安公园为例

教育功能作为城市公园功能组成的重要部分,随着 人们日益增长的文化需求,城市公园环境教育的地位日益凸 显。为探究城市公园环境教育评估、游客参与以及解说满意度 之间的关系及作用机制,构建了三者之间的路径模型,以福州 市晋安公园为例,在对294位游客问卷调查的基础上,进行结 构方程验证。结果表明：1)修正后的模型中,建立关系指标 与游客参与相关性最强,有形性对解说满意度的影响最大,认 知层面最能反映环境教育评估;2)游客参与对解说满意度具 有显著正向影响,解说满意度对环境教育评估存在显著正向影 响,游客参与对环境教育评估有显著正向影响;未来公园在进 行环境教育功能提升时,应当将游客参与度以及解说系统满意 度纳入考量。     

社区参与、集体行动与新农村建设

在发展中国家,社区参与治理已经成为农村经济发展的关键.传统理论强调个人理性行为导致集体行动困境.本文通过将参与意识纳入博弈论分析框架演绎出社区参与发生的外部条件,外部通过降低个体参与的成本收益比率,促使社区参与规模产生临界值效应而形成高水平集体行动均衡,社区参与形成的集体行动促使公用地悲剧为公用地繁荣.我国新农村建设过程中,需构建政府、市场和社区参与的综合发展框架.     

Family-friendly management,organizational performance and social legitimacy

Research on family-friendly practices has concentrated on the predictors of their use, particularly from the perspective of either institutional theory or the high involvement or commitment management vogue. This paper first shows how such perspectives can be used to generate hypotheses about the link between family-friendly management and organizational performance. Second, the paper reports research designed to test these, using data from a national representative sample of workplaces across the British economy, the Workplace Employment Relations Survey of 2004 (WERS2004). The results support the high commitment thesis that family-friendly management will strengthen the relationship between commitment and key economic outcomes, as the relationships between workforce commitment and productivity or quality are stronger in organizations when friendly management is high, which is consistent with social exchange theory. Family-friendly management is not, however, related to the human resource outcomes of labour turnover and absenteeism. Nor does the study find support for the argument that its use in conjunction with high involvement management enhances the performance effects of both. Equally, there is no support for the hypothesis from the institutional thesis that family-friendly management has positive effects on the legitimacy of the organization.     

Social capital and innovation in family firms: The moderating roles of family control and generational involvement

Drawing on the social capital literature, we examine whether the co-existence of distinct yet interacting social groups, namely family and non-family members, creates the conditions for increased family firm innovation. In particular, we theorize that family and non-family social capital have a joint positive effect on family firm innovation and this joint effect is stronger than the single effects of family and non-family social capital. In addition, we predict that while family control has a positive moderating effect, generational involvement has a negative moderating effect on the above-mentioned relationship. With supportive empirical results, our research makes important contributions to the existing literature.     

Work Values and Preferences for Employee Involvement in the Management of Organizations

This study has 3 objectives: to develop a scale to measure preferences for involvement in management (PIM), to examine if PIM are related to work values (altruism, pride in craftsmanship, collectivism, and individualism), and to examine if PIM are affected by a bundle of work values. Data are taken from 749 participants to develop a psychometrically appealing scale for measuring PIM. Using the universalistic perspective, we predict a positive relationship between PIM and altruism, pride in craftsmanship, and collectivism, and a negative relationship between PIM and individualism. Using the synergistic perspective, we hypothesized that PIM are likely to be positively affected by a bundle of work values. Our results support the universalistic perspective because PIM are positively related to altruism, pride in craftsmanship, and collectivism, and negatively related to individualism. Our results did not support the synergistic perspective. In the final section of the paper, we outlined the implications of our results for organizational practice and public policy.     

网络口碑信息对消费者购买决策的影响：一个实验研究

本文通过实验法考察了网络口碑信息对消费者购买决策的影响，就网络口碑的影响力在口碑信息类型、传播方向和产品涉入度不同的情况下会表现出哪些差异等问题作了分析。实验结果支持了所提出的6项假设，网络口碑信息对于消费者购买决策的影响力可能会随着口碑传播方向、信息类型以及产品卷入度的不同而呈现出显著差异的预测得到了证实；信息类型、传播方向和产品卷入度之间所存在的交互效应也会明显地作用到网络口碑对消费者购买决策的影响效果。     

Employee involvement and participation: developing the concept of institutional embeddedness using WERS2004

It is widely accepted that employee involvement and participation (EIP) is a key component of the high commitment bundle of HRM, but that it can take a range of forms in practice. Much of the analysis to date has either treated different forms of EIP as a single construct or has measured EIP by virtue of its presence or absence alone. Drawing on earlier work based on the data from WERS1998 examining the link between various forms of EIP and employee outcomes such as job satisfaction and organisational commitment, the authors re-apply and extend these ideas to data from WERS2004. In particular they develop the concept of institutional embeddedness, in order argue that both the depth and breadth of EIP have important associations with commitment though not with satisfaction.

This association held for workplaces employing 25 or more workers, and here it was apparent that the more that employees are involved at workplace level – through a wider number of EIP practices that are held more frequently and include opportunities for workers to have their say – the more likely it is that investments in EIP will reap the reward of organisational commitment. For smaller establishments, given that they tend to operate with relatively few formal schemes, it is likely that managers in these workplaces find alternative ways in which to engage the workforce, and that informal EIP offer similar levels of embeddedness in these situations. A clear implication to be drawn from the findings is that, in a context of lower levels of formality within organisations (large and small), line managers are more than ever the key link between HR policy and the embodiment of actual practice at the workplace.