Search results

1 – 10 of over 4000
Article
Publication date: 1 August 2018

Manami Suzuki, Naoki Ando and Hidehiko Nishikawa

The purpose of this paper is to address intra-organizational communication between parent firms and foreign subsidiaries and examine how such communication effectively facilitates…

1973

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to address intra-organizational communication between parent firms and foreign subsidiaries and examine how such communication effectively facilitates knowledge sharing between parent firms and their subsidiaries.

Design/methodology/approach

This study approaches the relationship between intra-organizational communication and the effectiveness of knowledge sharing from the viewpoint of foreign subsidiaries. The data have been collected from local managers in subsidiaries operating in Japan using a questionnaire survey. The hypotheses are tested by employing a robust regression model.

Findings

This study finds that intra-organizational communication between parent firms and foreign subsidiaries is positively associated with the effectiveness of knowledge sharing. The benefits from intra-organizational communication are greater for service firms than for manufacturing firms. Subsidiaries established through acquisition are found to enjoy a greater positive effect from intra-organizational communication than those established through greenfield investment.

Practical implications

The results of this study suggest that multinational corporations should facilitate intensive intra-organizational communication for knowledge sharing that can lead to the effectiveness of foreign subsidiaries. In particular, service firms should appreciate the value of communication. This study also indicates that foreign subsidiaries established through acquisition should promote communication with their parent firms for successful knowledge sharing.

Originality/value

This study demonstrates that the effect of intra-organizational communication on knowledge sharing differs among industries and among entry modes. This is the initial step to further investigations on the industry and the entry strategy effects of intra-organizational communication.

Details

Management Decision, vol. 57 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0025-1747

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 May 2019

Scott J. Grawe and Peter M. Ralston

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, using survey data, how a firm may be able to leverage innovation or processes specifically developed for one customer across its…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, using survey data, how a firm may be able to leverage innovation or processes specifically developed for one customer across its entire customer network using on-site, or implanted, employees.

Design/methodology/approach

Data collected from a survey of 309 implanted logistics service provider (LSP) representatives are analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Findings

The findings show that intra-organizational task interdependence and face-to-face communication can lead to a greater understanding of firm processes developed for specific customers and greater diffusion of these new processes to other customers. Rather than separating customers that require implanted employees, these implants can be a conduit of valuable information and process enhancements that can positively impact a firm’s customer network.

Originality/value

The current research shows how LSPs can effectively use their customer networks to provide process improvements for multiple customers. Specifically, transferring processes between customers can lead to efficiencies and contribute to supply chain robustness not possible without process diffusion.

Details

International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, vol. 49 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0960-0035

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 2 April 2008

Bhaskar Prasad and Rudy Martens

Innovation competence has become an essential requirement for technology-based organizations to survive in the new economy. Commitment to long-term objectives and learning are…

Abstract

Innovation competence has become an essential requirement for technology-based organizations to survive in the new economy. Commitment to long-term objectives and learning are considered as indispensable for building innovation competence. Communication networks play a crucial role in both these aspects. In this context management faces the question of how the characteristics as well as the contents of communication present in the network will influence the innovation competence. In this paper a literature study is done to present an understanding of the relationships between communication networks and innovation competence. The paper proposes that the characteristics of communication (frequency, diversity, and centrality) along with the content of communication (shared vision, shared task knowledge, and shared social knowledge) significantly affect the elements necessary to build technological innovation.

Details

Competence Building and Leveraging in Interorganizational Relations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-521-5

Article
Publication date: 1 January 2012

Maqsood Sandhu and Mian Ajmal

This research aims to investigate the adoption of electronic communication tools and seeks to shed more light on their diffusion process, a challenging task for project‐based…

1513

Abstract

Purpose

This research aims to investigate the adoption of electronic communication tools and seeks to shed more light on their diffusion process, a challenging task for project‐based (PBO) and traditional business organizations (TBO).

Design/methodology/approach

The data for the study were collected through three surveys, one total population survey in the Finnish and Swedish house building industries representing traditional business organizations, together with a focused and a total population survey in project‐based organizations.

Findings

The main findings from the survey indicate a difference in attitude between the employees of TBOs and PBOs. Moreover, electronic document management and scheduling were more prominent among PBOs, because these firms exhibit more inter‐organizational communication.

Research limitations/implications

The findings are limited to project‐based and traditional business organizations. The research emphasises the fact that PBOs make more inter‐firm collaboration efforts and thus require more extensive communication systems for inter‐organizational links. Further research is needed in other industries to validate the present findings.

Practical implications

By looking at the use of ICT, the aim was to determine which e‐communication tools are more tightly coupled to management and how firms can benefit most from these tools for organizational governance.

Originality/value

This is one of the few studies to have examined the uses of ICT in a PBO and TBO context and especially in Finnish and Swedish background.

Article
Publication date: 1 June 2001

Eddie W.L. Cheng, Heng Li, Peter E.D. Love and Zahir Irani

Multiple parties are involved in completing a construction project. Such parties possess different skills and each sets out to be self‐sufficient. However, it is accepted that…

7501

Abstract

Multiple parties are involved in completing a construction project. Such parties possess different skills and each sets out to be self‐sufficient. However, it is accepted that communication between parties is critical to the success of an alliance. A supporting mechanism is developed, which determines the roles of inter‐ and intra‐organisational communication, and helps to achieve efficient and effective communication. Communication between construction alliance parties consists of several aspects. First, inter‐organisational communication should take place in the alliance team. Representatives from individual organisations take the role for communication in the team. Second, communication channels are created for either close contacts or distant connections. Finally, the choice of channels depends on the amount of information, how instant it needs to be, and the efficiency and effectiveness of communication.

Details

Corporate Communications: An International Journal, vol. 6 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1356-3289

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 September 2012

Marian Oosterhuis, Taco van der Vaart and Eric Molleman

The literature on supply chain management has focused on the benefits of frequent and strategic communication in supply chains. However, it has paid much less attention to the…

1743

Abstract

Purpose

The literature on supply chain management has focused on the benefits of frequent and strategic communication in supply chains. However, it has paid much less attention to the difficulties and conflicts associated with day‐to‐day communications in supply chains. This discrepancy is surprising because operational communications play a crucial role in supply chain management. In this paper, the aim is to investigate when operational, day‐to‐day communications in supply chains become linked with conflicts and how these conflicts can be prevented.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors surveyed respondents from the partner firms of 81 different supply chains. The data from 380 surveys were examined with moderated regression analyses.

Findings

The findings indicate that operational communications are linked with conflicts if upstream parties in supply chains do not recognise the importance that their downstream partners attach to certain performance objectives.

Research limitations/implications

First, the paper goes beyond the benefits of communication and demonstrates that communication in supply chains can also have drawbacks. Moreover, the paper shows how upstream goal recognition helps parties avoid conflicts in their day‐to‐day communications.

Practical implications

The study points to the importance of developing upstream goal recognition in supply chains and provides several suggestions to promote upstream goal recognition.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to supply chain communication research by going beyond the benefits of communication and highlighting the difficulties that can accompany day‐to‐day operational communications. Moreover, it provides an explanation for the conditions under which operational communications are associated with conflict.

Details

Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, vol. 17 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1359-8546

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 12 January 2021

Milo Shaoqing Wang and Michael Lounsbury

Narrow, managerially centered notions of organizational culture remain hegemonic, marginalizing richer, anthropological approaches as well as efforts to understand how the beliefs…

Abstract

Narrow, managerially centered notions of organizational culture remain hegemonic, marginalizing richer, anthropological approaches as well as efforts to understand how the beliefs and practices of organizations are fundamentally shaped by the wider societal dynamics within which they are embedded. In this paper, the authors draw upon recent efforts to explore the interface of scholarship on practice and the institutional logics perspective to highlight the utility of a practice-driven institutional approach to the study of organizational culture that brings society back in. Empirically, the authors present a longitudinal case study of a Chinese private enterprise, and analyze how the unfolding dynamics of a strong community logic increasingly affected by a rising market logic, shaped the formation of political coalitions internally and externally as organizational members aimed to maintain truces between the push and pull of logics over a period of 22 years. Through an analysis of seven episodes that we conceptualize as “cultural encounters,” the authors find that a combination of compartmentalization and overall integration of logics contributes to provisional truces, and that people in the same cohort who share common geographic socialization are more likely to form allies. Our aim is to encourage future scholars to study how societal beliefs and practices work their way into organizations in a variety of explicit as well as more mundane, hidden ways.

Details

On Practice and Institution: New Empirical Directions
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-416-5

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 May 2021

Stefan Peij and Pieter-Jan Bezemer

This study aims to examine the core challenges facing company secretaries in a two-tier board context. This study focuses on the key factors contributing to these challenges and…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the core challenges facing company secretaries in a two-tier board context. This study focuses on the key factors contributing to these challenges and how company secretaries can effectively address them.

Design/methodology/approach

An analysis of the narratives provided by 291 Dutch company secretaries in response to a series of open-ended questionnaire questions led to insights into the key challenges company secretaries face in their day-to-day work.

Findings

Company secretaries perceive a myriad of factors contributing to pressures on their time, the need to work for multiple organizational bodies and the processing of information. They believe process interventions and social interventions are needed to alleviate these issues.

Research limitations/implications

The research highlights the need to deeply study boards from a holistic and systems point of view that recognizes the various actors, such as the company secretary, and their relationships in a boardroom context. Furthermore, the research shows how the two-tier board model may complicate these relational dynamics owing to the formal separation of decision management from decision control.

Practical implications

This study identifies various pragmatic ways to address the core challenges facing company secretaries so as to improve their contributions to decision-making at the apex of organizations.

Originality/value

This study sheds light on an important organizational actor (i.e. the company secretary) that hitherto has received scant attention in the governance literature.

Details

Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society, vol. 21 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1472-0701

Keywords

Content available
Article
Publication date: 1 May 2006

227

Abstract

Details

International Journal of Operations & Production Management, vol. 26 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3577

Article
Publication date: 8 January 2019

Henning Ahlf, Sven Horak, Andreas Klein and Sung-Won Yoon

The purpose of this study is to understand how employees of an organization build and maintain successful business relationships by analyzing major antecedents of relationship…

1390

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to understand how employees of an organization build and maintain successful business relationships by analyzing major antecedents of relationship quality and relationship commitment.

Design/methodology/approach

In this study, the authors develop a conceptual framework and formulate hypotheses regarding the relationships between demographic homophily, interpersonal communication, trust and dependent variables of perceived relationship quality and relationship commitment. This paper tests hypotheses presented in this study with the help of a structural equation model, based on a data sample from South Korea.

Findings

Unlike common thinking, demographic homophily does not directly increase the perceived relationship quality. The authors find a significant direct effect of interpersonal communication on relationship commitment but no effect of commitment on perceived relationship quality. Both seem to play independent roles but are positively influenced through the emergence of trust.

Research limitations/implications

By applying demographic homophily and interpersonal communication as antecedents and trust as mediator and main driver, the authors research effects on perceived intra-organizational relationship commitment and perceived relationship quality. In detail, the authors confirm the hypothesized centrality of trust in intra-organizational relationships between demographic homophily, interpersonal communication and dependent variables of perceived relationship quality and relationship commitment. Nevertheless, the authors surprisingly find neither significant evidence that demographic homophily increases the perceived quality of a relationship, nor does it lead to higher communication intensity directly, even in an environment (i.e. Korea), where it would be expected.

Practical implications

Based on the findings of this study, there are several practical implications. Understanding the interpersonal relationship characteristics in an intra-organizational setting enables managers to optimize organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Intra-organizational relationships between employees’ are highly dependent on mutual trust as an indicator for relationship quality and relationship commitment. Organizations can also benefit from the understanding of the mechanisms of demographic homophily and interpersonal communication for the establishment of interpersonal trust as well.

Originality/value

Research about the effect of demographic homophily and interpersonal communication and the central role of trust in an intra-organizational approach to business relationships on perceived relationship quality and relationship commitment is scarce. The mutual testing of the effects and interaction of established constructs like demographic homophily, interpersonal communication and trust on perceived relationship quality and commitment constitutes the main contribution of this study to the literature on management and business relationships. The insights of this study about interpersonal bonding help companies to establish long-term business relationships.

Details

Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, vol. 34 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0885-8624

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 4000