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.     

Using web mining to explore Triple Helix influences on growth in small and mid-size firms

While broad “Triple Helix” frameworks of industry, government and university collaborations have the potential to enhance innovation and economic development at macro-levels, at the micro-level of the firm it should not be assumed that such relationships are uniform in character or outcomes. Each firm will negotiate and develop its own set of relationships with other innovation system actors based on its capabilities and strategies. To better understand these dynamics, particularly from the perspective of small and medium-sized enterprises, this study probes the micro-level characteristics and impacts of external enterprise relationships. Novel website-based Triple Helix measures are introduced that extend the analytical scope beyond customary indicators (such as patent analysis or entropy measures) to include communication and coordination among all three helices at the micro-level of individual firms. This approach is used to explore the micro-level characteristics and impacts of industry, government and university relations for small and medium-sized enterprises by analyzing a subset of 271 U.S. green goods small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises. We compare the website-based measures with case study results to authenticate the method. A panel data regression model is then employed to analyze the simultaneous impacts of various combinations of industry, government and university links on firm sales growth (2008–2011), with controls for region, scale, and application domains. The ability of website-based indicators to distinguish the impacts of different mixes of Triple Helix relations is demonstrated. While relationships with all three helices have a positive total marginal effect on firm sales growth, local relationships and relationships that emphasize links with government and industry make particularly notable contributions to growth in the sample green goods enterprises. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Buyer-supplier collaboration: A macro,micro, and congruence perspective

Buyer-supplier collaboration, an important part of operational performance, is predicated on the assumption that a firm's stated strategy on inter-firm collaboration is implemented in practice. We argue that a strategy is only as good as its execution and that micro-level factors—the employees' collaborative propensity and their internal collaborative behaviors—also play an essential role in the successful implementation of buyer-supplier collaboration. We test competing models based on secondary data collected from 330 manufacturing firms in 16 countries/regions. Our results show that both the macro-level firm strategy and micro-level employee factors exert substantial influence over buyer-supplier collaboration. In addition, when inter-firm collaborative strategy and micro-level factors are congruent, there is an enhancement effect. Our research explores the critical role of supply managers and surrounding employees in shaping buyer-supplier collaboration and actualizing operational strategies.