Search results

Change of leadership is a big and important incident in the life of a company. As important as it is for the company, it is equally a difficult decision to make for the board of directors. Most of the big companies have a committee dedicated toward laying out a succession plan of the existing chief executive officer (CEO). The big dilemma, however, is whether to appoint someone from within the company and let him or her lead as he or she has been associated with the company and knows the internal dynamics better or to induct some outsider and take advantage of his or her expertise/reputation in the market. The balance appears lopsided when the result of this chapter is perused. Companies on an average seem to reap more benefits if an existing executive is promoted to the office of CEO rather than hiring an outsider. The benefits which are talked here from promoting insiders are indirect ones and do not have a direct bearing with the finances of the company. As shown by the results that insiders are more likely to continue with the company for a longer duration as the CEO as well as not as the CEO which defers the hiring and firing costs (screening candidates, conducting interviews, huge severance packages, golden parachutes, etc., are the costs referred to) for a longer period. Other benefits arising from insider CEOs are upfront awareness about the company’s work culture, production/service capacity, efficiency, strategies followed till date, etc., which gives him or her a head start compared to an outsider.

This paper aims to investigate the relative importance of audit-team and audit-firm attributes in perceptions of audit quality by two groups of users of audit services: audit committee chairs/members (“insiders”) and financial analysts/fund managers (“outsiders”).

Using a survey questionnaire, data are gathered from 39 audit committee chairs/members and 42 financial analysts/fund managers and analysed using adaptive conjoint analysis.

The findings reveal that both groups perceive audit-team attributes as relatively more important than audit-firm attributes. This is consistent with expectations for “insiders”, but inconsistent with expectations for “outsiders”. Differences are also found in the internal ratings of some of the attributes, with “insiders” and “outsiders” placing different relative importance on some attributes.

The usual set of limitations that are present in a survey method also apply in this study, i.e. surveys rely on reports of behaviours rather than observations and are therefore susceptible to measurement error. A further limitation is that, in using adaptive conjoint analysis, the number of attributes that may be included in the survey is restricted and, consequently, the attributes selected may not be comprehensive or fully representative.

The study extends the scope of prior studies by examining the relative importance of audit-team and audit-firm attributes in perceptions of audit quality. In using conjoint analysis, the study makes a unique and innovative contribution by providing direct evidence on the relative importance of attributes in perceptions of audit quality for different users of audit services. The findings have implications for regulators and the accounting profession concerned with improving confidence in corporates and for audit firms in monitoring and promoting the quality of their audit services.

The classical insider‐outsider theory explains involuntary unemployment by the bargaining power of insiders that prevents wages decreasing to the level of the reservation wages of unemployed outsiders. Extends the traditional argument about wages to a conflict of interest between insiders and outsiders about the schedule of working time. Argues that attempts to liberalize shopping hours often fail because of the resistance and arguments of retail sector employees (insiders) who fear that this would cause deterioration in their working conditions. This resistance leads to a reduction of employment possibilities for outsiders who would have been willing to work during fringe hours.

This paper aims to revisit the debate on the insider-outsider positionality of the researcher in conducting qualitative research by highlighting the challenges of researching sexual harassment and harassment among stigmatized or hidden groups of individuals in a culturally value-laden backdrop in South Asia.

The authors drew on a bricolage of methods to analyze and write this paper. First, the authors borrowed from the case study approach to select three research projects that would shed light on the argument raised in the study. Then, narratives, together with self and critical reflexivity were used to write reflective narratives, which served as data for this paper. Next, the authors used the thematic analysis method to analyze the reflective narratives. Finally, the authors drew from literature and the experiences to provide recommendations for the challenges thus identified.

The critical reflections highlight three overarching challenges the authors encountered as insider-outsiders in researching a sensitive topic among stigmatized/hidden groups in a value-laden cultural backdrop: 1) difficulty in recruitment, 2) internalized gender norms and 3) unconscious biases. Based on these challenges, the authors posit that what is pertinent is not whether a researcher is an insider, outsider or in-betweener per se, but how to maximize benefits and minimize pitfalls of being an insider or outsider and employing other means of overcoming the drawbacks. The authors also claim that being more sensitive to the culture, reflexive, flexible and experienced would help overcome challenges faced when conducting research of this nature as insiders-outsiders.

There appears to be little empirically derived inquiry on the insider-outsider positionality of the researchers at the intersection of sensitive topics, stigmatized participants and culture. Our reflections and suggestions address this lacuna while revisiting the simplistic use of insider-outsider dichotomy and proposing other means to overcome the drawbacks brought on by the researcher positionality.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the fluidity of the fieldwork roles “insider” and “outsider.” The paper aims to move the discussion of insiders from an a priori categorized status and contribute to the literary insider–outsider debate by unfolding the micro process of how the role of an insider is shaped in situ. Grounded in empirical examples, the paper illustrates how the researcher’s role is shaped through interactions with organizational members and by context.

The paper is based on an ethnographic study in an IT department of a Nordic bank and draws on empirical material generated through a combination of data: shadowing, interviews, observations and documents. Excerpts from fieldnotes are included to invite the reader into “the scenes” played out in the field and are analyzed in order to illustrate the shaping of roles in situ.

The study finds that, independent of the researcher’s role as sponsored by the organization, the interactions with organizational members and context determine whether the researcher is assigned a role as insider or outsider, or even both within the same context.

The paper contributes with a new discussion of how the roles of insiders and outsiders are fluid by discussing the shaping of the roles in situ. By drawing on relational identity theories, the paper illustrates how interactions and context influence the researcher’s role, grounded in empirical examples. In addition, the paper discusses what the assigned roles enable and constrain for the ethnographer in that particular situation.

Managing Executives occupy a pivotal role in the acquisition process. It is virtually inconceivable that major Merger and Acquisitions (M&As) could proceed without their personal sponsorship (Hayward & Hambrick, 1997). They are central to the negotiation and signing for such deals and it is these negotiations that raise questions over how the target company should be run post-acquisition, how it should be configured to fit within the newly expanded group and what sort of strategy may be appropriate for the future. Managing Executives embody their firm’s strategies and so are intimately connected with these issues of organisational fit and strategic rational. With negotiations focussed upon the future of their businesses and their personal places in corporate history, these contests can be very dramatic. The high stakes are evident in the substantial levels of acquired Managing Executive departure post-acquisition. Whilst we can observe that many acquired Managing Executives subsequently leave the enlarged firm, little evidence to date answers the question of why they have been retained or replaced?

The purpose of this paper is to draw on the authors’ experiences as a team made up of both “insiders” and “outsiders” in order to investigate how an insider-outsider peer research method facilitates productive forms of research into the lives of young Muslims, and to contribute to debates about ways of knowing youth. The authors aim to shift focus from a common claim that peer research methods simply improve research about youth to more deeply investigate how they enable, as well as limit, the production of particular kinds of knowledge, in this case, about Muslim youth in Australia.

The research aimed to explore how “ordinary” young Australian Muslims engage in civic life. Yet the authors were faced with the challenge of accessing and recruiting “ordinary” youth in times of Islamophobia, wherein Muslim communities expressed serious concerns about their voices being misinterpreted, misused and misappropriated. Therefore, the authors sought to utilise an approach of outsider-designed and guided research that was then shaped and executed by insider peer researchers. It is this research design and its execution that the authors interrogate in this paper.

As well as affording the authors access and the elicitation of rich, complex and high-quality data, the approach also fostered more complex stories about young Muslim identities and experiences, and enabled the authors to contest some common and homogenising representations. It also allowed opportunities for fundamental issues inherent in these kinds of qualitative research methods to be made explicit. These include the politics of performativity and issues of positionality in the peer research process. The authors suggest that the “insider” and “outsider” approach succeeded not so much because it got the authors closer to the “truth” about young Muslims’ civic lives, but because it revealed some of the mechanics of the ways stories are constructed and represented in youth research.

The originality and value of this paper lie in its contribution to a debate about the politics of knowledge production about young people and Muslims in particular, and in its effort to move forward a discussion about how to be accountable in youth research to the various communities and to one another in insider-outsider research teams.

At the level of a cognitive schema, a business model is a mental map of a firm’s value-creating, value-delivering, and value-capturing activities and the linkages between them. An important question in the study of business models as cognitive schemas is whether and how schemas differ across industry actors and whether the differences are connected to the variation observed in actual business models in the industry. This chapter examines, in particular, the ways in which business model schemas of industry insiders differ from those of industry outsiders. Using data from interviews with chief executive officers (CEOs) of 30 legal-tech firms, we graphically construct and analyze the CEOs’ schemas of important causal interdependencies between their firms’ activities. The analysis shows systematic differences between insiders and outsider CEOs’ schemas. We theorize that these differences underlie insider and outsider CEOs’ distinct approaches to opportunity recognition, expertise perception, and value framing, and have consequences for actual business model evolution in the industry.

This chapter addresses authentic leadership at the intersection of tradition and modernity with a focus on insider-outsider dynamics. The authors develop a typology of insider-outsider perception of authentic leadership and four leadership types – detached leadership, integrative leadership, entrenched leadership and atomised leadership – to provide a conceptual tool that advances authentic leadership research and leadership-building strategies. Investigating the intersection of tradition and modernity, Lines and Turcan illustrate that authenticity and legitimacy are tightly coupled. Leaders need to develop insider legitimacy by alignment with contextual norms, traditions and customs. Lines and Turcan encourage future research to explore the question: Is leadership more about establishing contextual legitimacy or establishing authenticity?

We use collective learning theory to explain social movement strategic outcomes. Three movement strategies are conceptualized: insider, outsider, and generalist strategies. Generalist strategies are a combination of insider and outsider tactics. Movements learn in three main ways: retention of existing knowledge, adaptation based on past experiences, and via diffusion processes. Utilizing available data about the use of insider and outsider tactics in the state-level fight for woman suffrage, we find that state suffrage movements learned through retention of previously used strategies, adaptation in the face of major defeat, and through the diffusion of outsider tactics. Social movements exhibit structural inertia. Movement activists stick to what they know, unless they face a major defeat. Movement strategies are more complex and more flexible than suggested by the current focus in the social movement literature, suggesting the need to rethink the insider–outsider dichotomy.