Search results

Given the huge investment and complexity of information technology, it is imperative that boards of directors fully play their important role in promoting firms' IT success. This study aims to investigate the effects of boards of directors' external ties on firms' IT success from the perspective of resource dependence theory.

According to the method of the matched sample comparison group, a total of 576 samples of listed enterprises in three periods were obtained.

Results show that both boards' political ties and boards' business ties have a positive impact on firms' IT success. Environmental uncertainty and the institutional environment play different roles in the relationships between two types of external ties and firms' IT success. Specifically, the results show that the institutional environment can regulate the influence of the political association of directors on firms' IT success negatively. In addition, environmental uncertainty regulates the influence of directors' political association on firms' IT success negatively, as well as the influence of directors' commercial association with firms' IT success.

The external ties were measured by cross-sectional data. And the current study focused on two fundamental types of external ties.

Boards' external ties are studied from both political and business perspectives, and the effects of these two types of external ties on firms' IT success are compared. Additionally, the moderating effects of the institutional environment (macro level) and environmental uncertainty (micro level) in these relationships are investigated.

Organisational performance of sport organisations has been studied over the last three decades. However, little attention was paid towards performance management (PM) compared to performance measurement. The purpose of this paper is to close this research gap by establishing a holistic perspective for PM of National Sports Organisations (NSOs) that accounts for their uniqueness, the interdependence of their operating systems and their relationship with their environments. Furthermore, this paper presents a holistic model of PM for NSOs.

The model was developed from a literature review process and uses the macro, meso and micro framework to describe external and internal environmental influences that affect the PM of NSOs.

The NSO’s ability to respond to the dynamics of their external environment by implementing organisational processes that account for the resources available and their structural designs influences their PM. Furthermore, the ability of the individuals within NSO to create enabling environments for PM influences organisational efficiency and effectiveness.

This paper contributes to sport management literature on the PM of NSOs, and informs sport managers on ways to improve organisational performance by implementing holistic approaches to PM.

This is the first study that takes a holistic approach to PM of NSO and depicts the specific elements that play a crucial role in managing NSO’s multi-dimensional performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of external factors on police efficiency in a sample of Peru’s municipalities. Drawing on the postulates of the contingency theory of organizations, this study argues that because of the public nature of police organizations’ activities, they are heavily influenced by the environment in which they operate, which invariably affects their efficiency.

The study examines police efficiency using a four-stage Data Envelopment Analysis model in a sample of 619 Peruvian municipalities (“distritos”). After adjusting the inputs to the external environment, the remaining inefficiencies are presumed to result from managerial issues and other internal organizational factors.

The results indicate that police efficiency improves after adjusting police inputs to the effect of external factors. The mean efficiency scores improved by 39 percent from 0.57 to 0.79. Because the effects of the external environment can be stronger in larger municipalities, these experience larger improvements in efficiency than smaller municipalities.

There are two important limitations. First, the sample of municipalities in Peru is limited and the results must be interpreted with caution. In addition, the external factors included in the second stage analysis represent only a proportion of all potential external factors which can influence police efficiency. Second, the results presented here explain only one aspect of contingency theory. An important implication of this study suggests that for police managers to make more informed decisions on resource use and allocations, they need a more thorough understanding of the environments in which police operate.

It can assist researchers to ascertain the effects of the external environment on police performance. More importantly, it can assist police managers in making informed decisions about resource use and allocation. Consequently, a better use of resources could lead to better policing and improved citizen safety and security.

This study introduces a new and innovative methodological approach to measure police performance. This multi-stage approach has not been used in the context of democratic policing in Latin America and the Caribbean. The current research fills an important gap on how to measure police performance in developing countries.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the impact of the external environment on the emergence of particular forms of transformational leadership.

To develop a conceptual model, the extant literature on environment and transformational leadership was used. Specifically, the focus was on the constructs of volatility of the external environment, environmental uncertainty, and existing models of transformational leadership.

In this article, an environment‐induced model of transformational leadership was developed, which identifies three types of transformational leaders – revolutionary, evolutionary and transgressor. Revolutionary transformational leaders are likely to emerge in organizations operating in volatile environments and whose members show either a high or a low degree of receptivity. However, evolutionary‐transformational leaders are likely to emerge in less volatile environments whose members show a high degree of receptivity, and transgressor‐transformational leaders would emerge in less volatile environments whose members show a low degree of receptivity.

This model is a conceptual one and has not been empirically validated yet. However, the model's propositions have implications for research. Organizational scholars may empirically test the extent to which firms' external environments influence the types of transformational leaders that emerge within them. They may also assess the extent to which the external environment facilitates employee acceptance of particular forms of transformational leadership.

Knowing the external environment of a firm may help select the appropriate type of leaders needed to move the organization ahead. For instance, when organizations face high volatile environments, they may be well advised to select revolutionary‐transformational leaders as CEOs or change agents.

The value of the present article lies in the fact that it binds together the literature on the firm external environment and transformational leadership. Thus, the article helps reduce the artificial boundary between macro and micro issues in the study of organizations.

This study aims to provide a systemic and integrated view of how Industry 4.0 and its enabling technologies affect companies' internal and external environments. It offers a comprehensive view of the contribution about ten years after the start of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The study performs a systematic literature review based on Industry 4.0 management literature. Analyzing the results of the 308 final papers in the sample made it possible to build a theoretical model to explain the contribution of Industry 4.0 to the internal and external environment of the company.

The results highlight the contribution of Industry 4.0 to the processes and environment of the company by providing a systemic and integrated view, highlighting the most applied enabling technologies and their internal, external, and combined usefulness in business processes.

Finally, the paper provides a broad view of the Industry 4.0 topic ten years after its origin through an extensive literature analysis that allows us to highlight the significant studies and the areas still under-researched by researchers and opens the debate on the Industry 5.0 scenario.

The model makes it possible to appreciate the role of Industry 4.0 and its enabling technologies in companies in a broad and systemic view and to understand, from a managerial point of view, the interactions, synergies, and possibilities within processes and the reflection on the external environment.

Pressures from non-profit sport organizations’ (NPSOs) external environment influence governance structures and processes. Thus, this study explores the impact of external factors on NPSO board decision making.

Using a sample of six NPSO boards (two national, four provincial/territorial), data were collected via 36 observations, 18 interviews, and over 900 documents. A thematic analysis was conducted via NVivo 12.

Results identified two external factors impacting NPSO board decision making: the sport system structure and general environment conditions. External factors impacted NPSO board decision making in terms of duration, flow, interaction, and scrutiny.

Results demonstrate the need for NPSO boards to engage in boundary-spanning activities whereby external information sources from stakeholders are incorporated to make informed decisions. Practically, NPSO boards should harness virtual meetings to continue their operations while incorporating risk management analyses to assess threats and opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the aspects of decision theory (DT) to performance measurement and management (PMM), thereby enabling the theoretical elaboration of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in the business environment, which are identified as barriers to effective PMM.

A review of decision theory and PMM literature establishes the Cynefin framework as the basis for extending the performance alignment matrix. Case research with seven companies explores the relationship between two concepts under-examined in the performance alignment matrix – internal dominant logic (DL) as the attribute of organisational culture affecting decision making, and the external environment – in line with the concept of alignment or fit in PMM. A focus area is PMM related to sustainable operations and sustainable supply chain management.

Alignment between DL, external environment and PMM is found, as are instances of misalignment. The Cynefin framework offers a deeper theoretical explanation about the nature of this alignment. Other findings consider the nature of organisational ownership on DL.

The cases are exploratory not exhaustive, and limited in number. Organisations showing contested logic were excluded.

Some organisations have cultures of predictability and control; others have cultures that recognise their external environment as fundamentally unpredictable, and hence there is a need for responsive, decentralised PMM. Some have sought to change their culture and PMM. Being attentive to how cultural logic affects decision making can help reduce the misalignment in PMM.

A novel contribution is made by applying decision theory to PMM, extending the theoretical depth of the subject.

The requirements of various participants of a project may conflict with the strategy of the project's parent organization and, consequently, the project may form its individual strategy independently, to better align with the factors in its environment. The purpose of this paper is to describe the formation of the strategy of a project as a response to the project's environment, providing insight into a project's strategy formation, where the project does not merely reflect the strategy of the parent but where the parent is only one influential actor (of many) in the project's environment.

To increase understanding of the relationship between the project's environment, the strategy of the project‐based firm and the strategy formation of a project, the authors analyze a project of a metallurgy firm in an empirical case study. The authors use project literature and corporate venturing literature, look for the dimensions of project strategy and the factors in the project's environment and study how the factors in the environment shape the project's strategy.

The analysis suggests that factors in the internal and external environments affect the strategy formation with varying strength. The strategy of the case project was formed in micro‐level iterative processes, in interaction between dimensions of strategy of the project and factors in environment. The empirical case study suggests that a project initiated with strong influence of external factors has to face contradiction between the strategy and related influential factors in the parent organization of the project.

This paper contributes to our understanding of how the strategy of an individual project is formed through micro‐level processes that are related to external and internal factors that affect the strategy formation.

Three theories of legitimacy – Dornbusch and Scott’s “Evaluation and the Exercise of authority” (EEA), Walker and Zelditch’s “Legitimacy and the Stability of Authority” (LSA), and Meyer and Rowan’s “Institutonalized Organizations” (IO) – are integrated into a single consistent theory interrelating the internal and external legitimacy processes of organizations. One consequence of IO, the decoupling of sanctions, evaluations, and performance, contradicts EEA and LSA. The contradiction is addressed by aligning the scope of the three theories, which proves to be the source of the contradiction, accommodating their principles to the change in their scope. Translating their terms into a single, consistent language, auxiliary principles are formulated that interrelate their legitimacy processes and conditionalize pressures for evaluation and control and therefore the decoupling of sanctions, evaluations, and performance – the conditions depending on type of environment, extent of dependence on it, and its organization. Integration does not alter the basic principles of EEA or IO but does correct LSA’s over-estimation of the stability of authority and provides IO with a mechanism by which and refines the conditions under which sanctions, evaluations, and performance come to be decoupled.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate researchers' operationalization of the construct of embedment of overseas R&D subsidiaries.

First, the paper provides a systematic literature review of subsidiary embedment research. Second, it draws on resource dependence theory (RDT) and argues how embedment of overseas R&D subsidiaries should be treated as a more multi‐faceted and complex phenomenon than has been apparent in the literature to date.

The authors find a large variation in the operationalization of embedment (e.g. frequency of communication versus depth of integration versus direction of communication). They also find scant attention to the nature of differences between external actors (types of actors, including local and international). These represent weaknesses that inhibit the advancement of theory and policy within the context of the globalization of innovation.

Researchers should treat R&D subsidiary embedment as a multi‐level phenomenon consisting of resource‐dependence interactions between collective entities internal and external to the subsidiary. R&D subsidiary embedment research design can be improved by being: formative; multiple‐actor; bi‐directional; and longitudinal.

Managers should treat external R&D subsidiary embedment as pattern of resource dependencies in which the actors that matter most to R&D subsidiary performance are a function of the importance and availability of the innovation‐specific resources they contain. This involves building a capability in multi‐level networking with R&D resource providers in the external environment.

The contribution of the current paper is to provide a critical evaluation of scholarly treatment of the construct of R&D subsidiary embedment, and to develop a foundation for operationalizing and analyzing the external embedment of R&D subsidiaries.