Search results

This research seeks to explore the intersection between modularity and conformity in organizational contexts. Modularity, a cornerstone of organizational design, pertains to the decomposability of tasks within an organization into subtasks with internal interdependence and external independence. Conformity, on the other hand, is the adjustment of an individual’s behavior to match that of others, often driven by a desire to adhere to social norms.

We employ agent-based modeling and simulation as a technique to model organizations as complex systems. This approach allows us to delve into the effects of modularity in organizational structures on organizational performance, with a particular emphasis on the role of conformity in this relationship. We treat conformity as exogenously given, which allows us to focus on its effects rather than its emergence.

The results demonstrate that a concentration of interdependent tasks within fewer departments can boost overall performance. Conformity decreases performance in all organizational structures except for cases when the departments work on highly similar tasks. This decline in performance can also explain why functional organizational structures are still being used in practice even though they are less modular than divisional structures — they feature lower levels of conformity and, thus, face smaller decline. Finally, we find that in highly complex settings, organizational performance can, surprisingly, be improved as complexity within departments increases.

To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to explore the modularity in organizational structures in presence of conformity. Distinctively, we adapt the NKCS model from evolutionary biology to our study, and perform an exhaustive analysis by examining all possible combinations of parameters that refer to the task allocation within organizations. We thereby contribute a unique perspective to the discourse on organizational theory and behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a greater flexibility in the budget time-structure, which allows for shifting budgetary funds beyond the budget year, does, in fact, mitigate inefficiencies in budget spending. Traditional budgets are usually tied to a finite time span, e.g. one year, and are heavily criticized both for hampering efficient resource allocation and also for encouraging dysfunctional budget spending behaviours such as wasteful spend-downs at the end of the budget year and inappropriate holding back of funds early on.

A research framework is proposed which draws on critical perspectives developed in prior research and an analytical model put forward by Pollack/Zeckhauser that is adopted as the basis for the development of the hypotheses. In an explorative study, data from an empirical questionnaire survey administered to 219 practitioners, mainly managers, from Austria are then used to substantiate the hypotheses.

Finite-period budgets and fully flexible budgets, which allow subordinates both to save unspent funds beyond the budget year and also to borrow funds from future budgets, cause inefficiencies in budget spending. Subordinates who are allowed to spend and save funds at their discretion without being threatened by the loss of funds or imminent debts seem to spend their budgets most efficiently.

The present paper contributes to the management accounting literature by investigating a heavily criticized but rather underexplored area of budgeting and by subjecting theoretical propositions from prior research to explorative empirical testing. Enhanced understanding of the temporal effects of the budget cycle structure will help practitioners improve budget spending and should encourage further research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the formation of two artist-led collective actors, Koalition der Freien Szene (KFS) and Haben and Brauchen (H&B), and their differing strategies of political critique towards Berlin’s cultural policy-making complex. The paper seeks to contribute to the lack of empirical case studies on Berlin’s cultural governance and cultural policy stakeholders by creating a self-designed framework for analysis of artist-led organizations’ formulation of political claims and how their articulations find entrance into policy-making.

The paper’s theoretical framework is situated at the intersection between new social movement studies, post-positivist policy analysis and discursive institutionalism. Methodologically, the paper is based on qualitative interviews with members of KFS, H&B and relevant cultural stakeholders from Berlin’s contemporary arts scene.

The paper identifies five differentiating axes of political critique through a self-designed framework. These include: political or constitution-like program, personnel infrastructures determining decision-making, approach to cultural administration, strategic agenda and activity in a collective action framing scheme. Furthermore, the paper illustrates the (trans)formative potentialities for Berlin’s future cultural policy due to complementarity of discursivity and operative action, of pragmatism and utopian thinking.

The practical implications of the paper provide guidance for cultural policymakers to better systematize modes of participatory policy-making.

This paper gives an overview of current developments and shifts in Berlin’s cultural field through the emergence of new collective actors by providing unique stakeholder-centered perspective(s). Furthermore, through an empirically grounded, self-designed analytical framework, a systematic analysis of articulatory and communicative strategies and the practices of new cultural policy stakeholders is provided.

Based on the necessity for universities through the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic to switch to online teaching from one day to the other, this study aims to show how a combination of different online teaching approaches makes it possible to activate reflection as an enabler of intercultural competency development even though real experience, interaction and exchange elements could not be implemented as usual.

This study is based on insights on experiential learning using intercultural competence development through the mechanism of reflection in combination with findings from on- and offline learning settings and informal learning processes. Adapting Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle, this study presents an online course design for an undergraduate course in intercultural competencies. This study delineates an assessment of the course based on student evaluation results and excerpts of student essays.

This study demonstrates how the acquisition of important future skills such as reflection skills can be successfully mastered by combining different online teaching approaches. This study also shows that Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle continues to yield critical benefits when adapted it to the “new reality.”

This study provides a case study on how business schools can deal with special challenges in courses where competencies are taught, which are usually developed through real experiences or informal learning. An application to other types of experiential learning activities is considered valuable. It is useful to further adopt elements in a post-COVID-19 teaching environment. Especially using apps as described can contribute to make learning more tailored to each student. As such, this paper contributes to the body of research on the importance of reflection skills in an educational and virtual context.

As social infrastructures, public libraries are increasingly recognised as providing more than access to books and information; librarians’ work is importantly centred around practices of care. However, the ways in which they provide care is poorly researched, let alone conceptualised. This paper explores how this important part of librarians’ daily work is practiced through the lens of infrastructuring.

The paper first theoretically discusses the concepts of social infrastructuring, care and tinkering. Then, it turns to ethnographic research conducted in the public library networks of three European cities: Vienna (Austria), Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and Malmö (Sweden). The paper comprises empirical materials from all three countries and unpacks 16 librarians’ daily working routines of care through participant observations.

The empirical analysis resulted in three modes of social infrastructuring in public libraries: (1) maintaining, (2) building connections and (3) drawing boundaries. Practices of care are prominent in each of these infrastructuring modes: librarians infrastructure the library with and via their care practices. Whilst care practices are difficult to quantify and verbalise, they are valuable for library patrons. By using the concept of tinkering, the article conceptualises librarians’ infrastructuring enactments as crucial community-building aspects of libraries.

By focusing on the enactment of social infrastructuring, the paper goes beyond a descriptive approach to understanding public libraries as important social infrastructures. Rather, the paper unpacks how libraries come into being as infrastructuring agencies by highlighting what librarians do and say. Our international study articulates the importance of care practices in public libraries across different national contexts.

In this chapter, we advance an understanding of entrepreneurial resourcefulness in relation to context by focusing on challenging and sometimes outright hostile environments and the way they shape, and are shaped by, entrepreneurial resourcefulness. Drawing on selective evidence from several projects in post-socialist countries in both Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia and other published research covering these countries, we argue for contextualized conceptualizations of resourcefulness. More specifically we emphasize that temporal, historical, socio-spatial, and institutional contexts are antecedents and boundaries for entrepreneurial behavior, while at the same time allowing for human agency. This is visible in individuals’ actions to negotiate, reenact, and cross these boundaries, and as a result, intentionally or inadvertently contributing to changing contexts. We suggest that resourcefulness is a dynamic concept encompassing multiple practices, which change over time, and it results from a close interplay of multiple contexts with entrepreneurial behavior. We also propose that from a theoretical point of view, resourcefulness not only needs to be contextualized, but it also needs to be explored together with its contextual outcomes – the value it creates and adds at different levels of society.

This paper addresses the perceived closeness of the relation between East and West German adult children and their parents who no longer live in the same household. The empirical analyses are based on the German Socio‐Economic Panel (GSOEP). They show that East German family relations are closer than West German relations. Regarding the causes for closer or weaker relations for East and West Germans there are both similarities and differences. For example, the empirical analyses indicate differences regarding the importance of standard of living, birth cohort, and religion.

The journey of novelty – from the moment it arises to the time it takes hold – is as fascinating as it is problematic. A new entity, to be recognized as such, needs to be differentiated from what existed before. However, novelty poses cognitive challenges that hamper its appreciation since it is difficult to form expectations about and make sense of something genuinely new. And since novel ideas, products, technologies, or organizational forms often violate existing practices and social structures, they are usually met with skepticism and resistance. In this introductory piece, we take stock of research into the challenges of generating, recognizing, and legitimating novelty. We review each paper in this volume and highlight the new perspectives and insights they offer about how individuals, teams, and organizations search for novelty, see novelty, and sustain novelty. Finally, we outline several research themes that, we believe, are worthy of further scholarly attention.

This conceptual, multi-voiced paper aims to collectively explore and theorize family entrepreneuring, which is a research stream dedicated to investigating the emergence and becoming of entrepreneurial phenomena in business families and family firms.

Because of the novelty of this research stream, the authors asked 20 scholars in entrepreneurship and family business to reflect on topics, methods and issues that should be addressed to move this field forward.

Authors highlight key challenges and point to new research directions for understanding family entrepreneuring in relation to issues such as agency, processualism and context.

This study offers a compilation of multiple perspectives and leverage recent developments in the fields of entrepreneurship and family business to advance research on family entrepreneuring.