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1 – 10 of 390This study aims to explore a range of institutional, environmental and policy conditions that influence the creation of “bossless” or “flat” companies, i.e. firms with little or…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore a range of institutional, environmental and policy conditions that influence the creation of “bossless” or “flat” companies, i.e. firms with little or no formal hierarchy.
Design/methodology/approach
The author builds on the theory and evidence presented by Foss and Klein (2022) in their study of the costs and benefits of organizing without hierarchy. The author also draws on a variety of related theoretical insights and empirical evidence. The paper is exploratory and anecdotal though and is intended to motivate further research rather than provide a definitive account of bossless organizing.
Findings
The paper develops nine propositions. It suggests that high levels of economic freedom create maximum scope for entrepreneurs to experiment with different organizational forms (1). Likewise, a lack of economic freedom increases the scope for the government to experiment (2). Markets characterized by technological innovation and uncertainty are likely to discourage bossless organizing (3 and 4), while stagnating industries with major capital requirements are likely to encourage it (5). Labor market interventions that increase the cost of employment contracts sometimes encourage firms to flatten (6), but more generally, these interventions encourage expanding management layers (7). In environments with strong intellectual property (IP) laws, companies with more modular and knowledge-based work are more likely to flatten (8). The creation of low-hierarchy firms such as cooperatives is encouraged by public subsidies, access to cheap credit and preferential tax treatment (9).
Originality/value
Studies of bossless or flat firms focus almost exclusively on describing their internal organization and evaluating their performance; little attention is paid to the conditions that encourage or discourage the emergence of these firms. This paper focuses on the latter, with a view to encouraging more scholarly interest in this field.
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Shangkun Liang, Rong Fu and Yanfeng Jiang
Independent directors are important corporate decision participants and makers. Based on the Chinese cultural background, this paper interprets the listing order of independent…
Abstract
Purpose
Independent directors are important corporate decision participants and makers. Based on the Chinese cultural background, this paper interprets the listing order of independent directors as independent directors’ status, exploring their influence on the corporate research and development (R&D) behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper studies A-share listed firms in China from 2008 to 2018 as the sample. The main method is ordinary least square (OLS) regression. We also use other methods to deal with endogenous problems, such as the firm fixed effect method, change model method, two-stage instrumental variable method, and Heckman two-stage method.
Findings
(1) Higher independent directors’ status attribute to more effective exertion of supervision and consultation function, and positively enhance the corporate R&D investment. The increase of the independent director’ status by one standard deviation will increase the R&D investment by 4.6%. (2) The above effect is more influential in firms with stronger traditional culture atmosphere, higher information opacity and higher performance volatility. (3) High-status independent directors promote R&D investment by improving the scientificity of R&D evaluation and reducing information asymmetry. (4) The enhancing effect of independent director’ status on R&D investment is positively associated with the firm’s patent output and market value.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to understanding the relationship between the independent directors’ status and their duty execution from an embedded cultural background perspective. The findings of the study enlighten the improvement of corporate governance efficiency and the healthy development of the capital market.
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Bertrand Audrin, Stefano Borzillo and Steffen Raub
This paper aims to uncover how employees make sense of the implementation of holacracy in their organization.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to uncover how employees make sense of the implementation of holacracy in their organization.
Design/methodology/approach
Our research is based on a case study of a Swiss SME (of 160 employees) that is about to implement a holacratic mode of governance. Data was collected using questionnaires (completed by 57 employees) and 12 interviews.
Findings
At the level of individual, team and organization, driving forces toward implementing holacracy are stronger than restraining forces.
Practical implications
Implementing holacracy requires careful planning, detailed communications, strong support and training of employees by managers to ensure that they are less fearful of holacracy’s structures and more positive and understanding of its benefits.
Originality/value
This study contributes to a better understanding of holacracy and employees’ sensemaking of the added value of this unconventional structure.
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This study aims to explore the effects of expertise diversity on project efficiency and creativity in health-care project teams.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the effects of expertise diversity on project efficiency and creativity in health-care project teams.
Design/methodology/approach
This study analyzes hierarchical linear models using multi-source data from 50 project teams in a large health-care organization in the USA. This data set includes self-reported survey responses from 274 team members and human resource information for all 515 members across the 50 teams. Expertise diversity is operationalized by professional diversity and positional diversity reflecting two dimensions, domain and level, of the concept of expertise.
Findings
This study reveals that professional diversity is negatively related to project efficiency and project creativity, whereas positional diversity is positively related to project efficiency.
Originality/value
Successfully managing a project team of experts within a limited time frame is a challenge for organizations. This study advances the understanding of the double-edged sword effect of expertise diversity on project teams, focusing on professional and positional diversity. It provides important insights for human resource development in terms of the composition of project teams regarding members’ expertise.
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Susana Gago-Rodríguez, Laura Lazcano and Carmen Bada
Identity regulation is part of a management control package. Organizations regulate employees’ self-identity to influence their behaviors. The success of this regulation depends…
Abstract
Purpose
Identity regulation is part of a management control package. Organizations regulate employees’ self-identity to influence their behaviors. The success of this regulation depends on its trade-off with employees’ work identities and personalities. Organizational discourse nurtures this dynamic and interactive process. We focus on the regulation of an (undesired) organizational identity that is born at the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, sex and migrant discrimination in accounting-related positions. We aim to analyze how Latina accountants who migrate to Spain perceive that their triple status as Latina, women and migrants affects their careers as accountants and interpret whether this triple intersectional discrimination aims to create a Latina accountant’s self-identity.
Design/methodology/approach
This critical study follows a phenomenological approach to analyze the experiences of women born in Latin America who migrated to Spain to occupy accounting-related positions. A thematic analysis of their semi-structured interviews allowed us to examine the challenges faced by Latina accountants in their accounting careers in Spain.
Findings
Our interviewees' narratives display an internalization of, even resignation to, a self-identity that we label “Latina accountant identity.” This identity is based on explicit discrimination discourses that cause them to suffer from the intersection of racism, sexism and migrant conditions and is nurtured by the discourses of their senior managers, co-workers and subordinates.
Originality/value
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to frame the regulation of an intersectional discriminatory identity that is used to control Latina accountants from the inside, acting on the triple condition of Latinas, women and foreigners, influencing their self-perceptions regarding work and personal lives.
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Melanie Durowse and Jane Fenton
This research was conducted as part of a PhD study. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors taken into consideration when multi-agency practitioners were considering…
Abstract
Purpose
This research was conducted as part of a PhD study. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors taken into consideration when multi-agency practitioners were considering financial harm in the context of adult protection and how this influenced their decision-making processes.
Design/methodology/approach
An adapted q sort methodology initially established the areas of financial harm considered to have additional factors, which led to complexity in adult protection decision making. These factors were further explored in individual interviews or focus groups.
Findings
The data identified that the decision-making process varied between thorough analysis, rationality and heuristics with evidence of cue recognition, factor weighting and causal thinking. This highlighted the relevance of Kahneman’s (2011) dual processing model in social work practice. Errors that occurred through an over reliance on System 1 thinking can be identified and rectified through the use of System 2 thinking and strengthen social work decision-making.
Originality/value
This paper considers the practice of multi-agency adult protection work in relation to financial harm and identifies the influences on decisions.
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Katariina Juusola, Krishna Venkitachalam, Daniel Kleber and Archana Popat
This study aims to explore the use of knowledge sharing (KS) in delivering open social innovation (OSI) solutions for sustainable development in the context of economically…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the use of knowledge sharing (KS) in delivering open social innovation (OSI) solutions for sustainable development in the context of economically marginalized, rural societies in India.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is guided by an exploratory, qualitative approach using an embedded case study design with four social enterprises. The study approaches the use of KS in three stages of OSI: (1) the stages of ideating and prototyping, (2) the initial stages of experimenting and business development and (3) the more current and future-oriented stages of organizations’ strategies for expanding market opportunities for maximizing impact.
Findings
The first stage used KS for collaborative efforts among diverse stakeholders to recognize the needs of marginalized people and ideate suitable ecological solutions. The social enterprises acted as orchestrators in this stage. The second stage involved a more dynamic role of KS in the refinement of social enterprises’ market offerings, generating additional innovations and value propositions, which diversified the scope of the social enterprises. This was facilitated by enterprises’ ability to be open systems, which change and evolve through OSI processes and KS. In the third stage, social enterprises’ use of KS was shifted towards future business development by expanding market opportunities with solutions that tackle complex societal and ecological problems, thereby contributing to sustainable development goals.
Originality/value
The present study contributes to studies on OSI, focusing on sustainable development and the role played by social enterprises operating in rural, economically marginalized areas, which have been an understudied phenomenon in the open innovation literature.
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Abhishek Gupta and Lalatendu Kesari Jena
This paper aims to introduce two draft concepts, spiritual self-managed teams and holacracy, as solutions for reducing the friction within neo-enterprises and the issues of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to introduce two draft concepts, spiritual self-managed teams and holacracy, as solutions for reducing the friction within neo-enterprises and the issues of hierarchical leadership dynamics and mindset present within orthodox organizations’ structures and communications and they help businesses to grow further, achieve their goals, and become self-sustainable.
Design/methodology/approach
To counter the popular maxim, “management and leadership are what cause many problems for organizations and its people,” the authors argue for six novel propositions constructed around the two draft concepts following a critical review and meta-analysis of notable business/leadership cases, presented in a narrative-based descriptive style.
Findings
This article presents a list of novel propositions for entrepreneurs, managers and researchers who may investigate further and possibly test it in organizations. The findings merit opening new frontiers for perceiving leadership, group dynamics and decision-making in organizations using spiritual ideas.
Originality/value
Adopting the paper’s content can benefit organizations’ management, efficiency and sustainability. Implementation of the two novel concepts – spiritual self-managed teams and holacracy – and their combination can significantly reduce friction within organizations’ structures and communications.
Details
Keywords
- Spirituality
- Self-managed teams
- Organizational structure
- Human resource management
- Organizational behavior
- Espiritualidad
- Equipos autogestionados
- Estructura organizacional
- Gestión de recursos humanos
- Comportamiento organizacional
- Espiritualidade
- Equipes autogestionadas
- Estrutura organizacional
- Gestão de recursos humanos
- Comportamento organizacional
Mishari Alnahedh and Abdullatif Alrashdan
This paper aims to integrate insights from the behavioral theory of the firm and the dynamic capabilities perspective to explain how the historical and social attainment…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to integrate insights from the behavioral theory of the firm and the dynamic capabilities perspective to explain how the historical and social attainment discrepancies motivate firms to change. Specifically, this paper proposes that a negative historical attainment discrepancy encourages the firm to engage in strategic change to solve its performance problems. In contrast, this paper advanced that a positive social attainment discrepancy motivates strategic change as a mechanism to bolster the firm’s position within the industry. Further, this paper integrated the moderating effects of industry dynamism and industry munificence.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper tests hypotheses using panel data on 2,435 US public firms over the years from 1996 to 2018. This paper uses a fixed-effects regression model to empirically test these hypotheses.
Findings
This paper finds empirical support for the effects of both the negative historical attainment discrepancy and the positive social attainment discrepancy on the firm’s tendency to engage in strategic change. As for the hypothesized moderating effects, this paper finds that industry munificence accentuated the effects of both attainment discrepancies on the firm’s tendency to engage in strategic change. However, the results do not support the hypothesized moderating effect of industry dynamism on either of these attainment discrepancies.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the research on the separate effects of historical and social comparisons within the context of strategic change. Further, the paper bolsters our understanding of how performance feedback increases the firm’s tendency to change. Finally, the paper integrates theoretical views from the behavioral theory of the firm and the dynamic capabilities perspective on how socially high-performing firms may build and sustain their competitive advantage through organizational change.
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Although current strategic communication research is particularly interested in deviations from normative ideals, there is a surprising lack of interest in the structures that…
Abstract
Purpose
Although current strategic communication research is particularly interested in deviations from normative ideals, there is a surprising lack of interest in the structures that lead to such deviations from formal specifications. To this end, this paper explores the classic, but of late largely forgotten concept of informality. The aim is to develop a theoretical framework and a systematization that can be used to answer central questions in strategic communication research. The focus is on three research questions: How can formal and informal structures of strategic organizational communication be systematized? How are formal and informal organizational structures thematized in strategic organizational communication? What is the relationship between (in)formal structures of strategic organizational communication and the thematization of (in)formal organizational structures?
Design/methodology/approach
The conceptual contribution is based on systems theoretical organization theory, which understands formal structures as decided decision premises and informal structures as undecided decision premises.
Findings
The understanding of informal expectation structures presented here has enormous potential for describing and researching central issues in strategic communication research in a far more significant way, both theoretically and empirically. For example, decoupling can be described in a much more differentiated way than is possible using the neo-institutionalist perspective.
Practical implications
The systematizing framework for researching informal structures enables a deeper understanding of informal structures and thus a better handling of them in practice. In addition, the framework provides a basis for future empirical studies.
Originality/value
Informal phenomena and structures seem to be the elephant in the room in many discourses in strategic communication research. With the theoretical perspective and systematization presented here, these phenomena can finally be explored in a differentiated and meaningful way.
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