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The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between language, thinking and society for explaining the degree of visibility of the French organizational studies (OS) production.

This paper proposes a sociological analysis based on Bourdieu field to understand the variation of reception the French OS production have had among the Anglo-Saxon field. The paper aims to underline some key elements, which can explain the differences of reception experienced by the French OS scientists. The paper opted for a general review using historical data; reviews of OS literature; and Google scholar, Web of Science and major OS Journal data.

The paper provides some evidence about how the degree of visibility of the French OS production is related to translation, cognitive and social resonance, producer place in the scientific network and relationship between the fields. It suggests that the degree of visibility is the result of a complex set of socio-cognitive schemes, social issues raised by the scholar and the place occupied by the researcher in the field.

The paper brings interesting ideas concerning the international development of the OS field, the degree of visibility of diverse contributions coming from non-English speaking researchers, notably the French ones, and how the dialogue between different linguistic and social universes can be ameliorated.

This paper seeks to deal with the history of Research and Development (R&D) management. It takes the history of the R&D Department of the Royal Philips Electronics of The Netherlands as an example to unravel the dynamics behind industrial R&D management.

This paper is based upon historical and theoretical studies on industrial R&D institutions and research cultures.

The paper proposes that the directors of the Philips R&D Department continually shaped and reshaped the organization in order to retain researchers with creative ideas, and to stimulate innovativeness. The R&D‐management was the outcome of a search process that comprehended a mixture of scientific and industrial (management) skills, knowledge and expertise, which together shaped an industrial research culture. One of the most difficult questions for the research managers was to find a balance between the professional status and motives of individual researchers on the one hand and the Philips company production strategy on the other. Over the years, the research leaders stimulated individual creativity in their own way, taking specific business and economic circumstances into account. They operated during different historical periods that reflect their management ideas.

Nowadays, the Philips research takes place at the High Tech Campus. Its philosophy is based upon Chesbrough's open innovation paradigm. In the discussion of this paper, it is argued that the history of industrial research teaches that the success of this organization, as in the past, will depend upon the management's ability to find a balance between scientific activities and industrial production.

The purpose of this paper is to review the formation and evolution of the “Making Projects Critical” movement in project management research.

Retrospective and discursive paper.

Reflections on tensions and challenges faced by the MPC movement.

The paper establishes the historical trajectory of this movement and clarifies the tensions and challenges faced by MPC.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether works councils (WCs) in Belgium have a positive effect on firm performance, notably productivity and profitability, while taking the role of trade unions into account.

The authors first introduce the typical Belgian industrial relations system, discussing the similarities and differences with neighboring countries. This is followed by a brief overview of the relevant literature. Subsequently, the impact of Belgian employee representation on firm performance is estimated by means of OLS, using a newly developed questionnaire administered among Belgian CEOs. Special attention is given to moderating and mediating effects.

The authors find that Belgian WCs have a small (direct) significantly positive effect on labor productivity, but not on profitability. The additional results of the mediation test show tentatively that WCs might affect profitability indirectly, through their impact on productivity. Despite trade unions’ dominance in practice, the findings reveal that their impact is insignificant.

Although nationwide, rich and representative, as well as statistically valid, the data set is rather small (196 usable observations). The data set offers ample opportunities to further explore what makes effective Belgian WCs different from their non-effective counterparts.

The data set is unique, and combines subjective CEO with objective performance data. The data offer the opportunity to do a first study into the special case of Belgium, which has a distinct union-dominated IR regime. In this study, the focus is furthermore on the rarely studied WC-trade union interaction. In addition, subtle moderation and mediation effects are estimated.

This paper aims to unpack the organization of an multinational enterprise (MNE) and confront its meso‐level complexity of structures and strategies. It seeks to uncover how the glocalization process unfolds, which are the mechanisms at its base and the outcomes in terms of stability, convergence or divergence in strategies and structures.

Through a case study research design, the paper investigates strategic change in an Italian MNE from 2005 to 2011. In 2008 and 2010, extensive data on organizational configurations were also collected. Overall, the paper analyses the glocalized blending of corporate and subsidiary strategies and organizational structures. Attention is also paid to the cognitive, political and institutional mechanisms that accounted for this process before and during the late‐2000 financial crisis.

Glocalization, largely interpreted as an in‐between process compromising between homogeneous global standards and heterogeneous local traditions, unfolds as a beyond process leading to divergent outcomes outside the poles of an imagined local‐global continuum. The mechanisms driving strategic change partly differ from those usually described in strategic change literature emphasizing managerial cognition. Sensegiving from the center is found to be proactive during economic expansion and reactive during economic downturn. Following change initiation, cognitive mechanisms are “taken over” by political and institutional ones. Paradoxically, local societal‐specific patterns of organization and strategy were preserved due to the actions of powerful central HQ actors.

A theory of institutional‐bound strategic change within MNEs is outlined.

The purpose of this paper is to reframe the debate about the tension between management control and employee empowerment by drawing on a theory of paradox. Reframing the problem in this way draws attention to the variety of ways in which organisations can attend to both control and empowerment simultaneously.

The authors undertake a conceptual examination of the relationship between empowerment and control using a paradox theory lens. First, the authors bring together two dimensions of empowerment – structural empowerment and psychological empowerment – and combine them to produce three new empowerment “scenarios”: illusory empowerment, obstructed empowerment and authentic empowerment. For each of these three scenarios, the central tenets of paradox theory are applied in order to explain the nature of the paradoxical tension, anticipated behavioural responses and the resulting challenges for ongoing management control.

The authors find that neither structural nor psychological empowerment alone can account for variation in behavioural responses to management control. The conceptual analysis highlights the interplay of socio-ideological control and systems of accountability in generating psychological empowerment and demonstrates that this does not come at a cost to management control but instead results in a reduction in the scale and scope of ongoing challenges.

This paper contributes a new theoretical perspective on the classic problem of tension between management control and employee empowerment. Rather than positioning control and empowerment either as a managerial choice or dialectic, the authors identify three different ways in which organisations can engage with both paradoxical elements simultaneously.

The aim of this paper is to promote the concept of organizational voluntarism, borrowed from political philosophy and to stimulate feedback and debate as to its efficacy in furthering the discourse on corporate responsibility.

The paper examines a range of current theories that address the issue of balancing organizational plurality and coherence. It identifies both shortfalls in current research and provides criteria for developing new theory in this area. The concept of organizational voluntarism is developed and these criteria used to test the robustness of the model and to explore future areas of research.

The criteria used to assess the voluntarism model are: the centrality of organizational plurality, the embeddedness of social relations and power in organization working, accounting for the motivations of managers to work this way; and the need for clear organizational benefits. Four potential cognitions are proposed that define a voluntaristic mindset.

The aim is only to develop the concept of voluntarism and promote debate about its value as an organizing principle in multi stakeholder settings.

The paper offers a research proposition that managers who pursue voluntaristic behaviour will be influenced by cognitions that reflect plurality of interests, the value of personal interest, the need to “take” authority and who value political models of working in the reconciliation of competing interests.

The paper provides an additional perspective that can further the development of corporate responsibility by mediating the demands for corporate control and efficiency and the calls for greater inclusion.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how public policies may influence the way members of virtual communities linked with social movements perceive the legitimacy of their leaders and governance structures.

This paper is based on qualitative research (in‐depth interviews) with three Brazilian environmental education virtual communities. It adopts an interpretive approach, grounding the analysis in institutional theory.

The paper shows that a public policy of funding the studied communities has reinforced the legitimacy of some leaders and legitimated more centralised decision‐making structures. The influence of the funding has endured even after the end of the respective contracts.

Although the paper is limited to three virtual communities in a very specific context, its conclusions may inform other studies on the institutional instruments (sanctions mechanisms) governments may appropriate to influence the virtual interactions among members of social movements and civil society organisations and which impact their offline interactions as well.

The paper calls attention to the need to discuss public policies with stakeholders, especially to permit social movements and civil society organisations to have a say in policies that may affect their social structures.

The paper contributes to understanding how public policies impact interactions in virtual environments and in a broader sense, and the relevance of considering the influence of institutions in online interactions.