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The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of middle managers in the corporate entrepreneurship process that drives new capability development. Middle managers are highlighted as key entrepreneurial agents because of their special position in an organization.

The paper draws on existing capability development and corporate entrepreneurship literature and develops a conceptual model and research propositions that are illustrated through three examples from a Chinese private firm.

This paper contends the dual role of middle managers, both as change implementers to follow pre-set rules of an existing corporate entrepreneurship system and as change initiators to bring new rules to improve the existing system.

The paper is conceptual in nature, advancing the understanding of middle managers’ role in corporate entrepreneurship. The paper provides directions for future empirical research.

The interactions between middle managers and other organizational agents are discussed in the propositions. This paper suggests the importance of empowering middle managers to facilitate changes in complex internal environments.

The paper provides a unique theoretical contribution by introducing the interface-based, multi-level conceptual model of corporate entrepreneurship toward new capability development.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a process model on how mindfully performed organisational routines can simultaneously enable organisational stability and organisational change.

Via conceptual analysis, the authors develop several propositions and a process model integrating the theory of mindfulness and performative aspects of organisational routines with organisational stability and change. To do so, the authors review the literature on organisational routines, mindfulness, stability, inertia and change.

First, the authors demonstrate that, based on levels of mindfulness employed, performative aspects of organisational routines can be categorised as mindless, mindful and collectively mindful (meta-routines). Second, in the process model, the authors position the mindless performance of routines as enabling organisational stability, mediated through inertial pressure and disabling change, mediated through constrained change capacities. Finally, the authors state that engaging routines with mindfulness at an individual (mindful routines) or collective (meta-routines) level reduces inertia and facilitates change. Such simultaneous engagement leads to either sustaining stability when required or implementing continuous organisational change.

The framework uses continuous, versus episodic, change; future research can consider the model’s workability with episodic change. Future research can also seek to empirically validate the model. The authors hope that this model informs research in organisational change and provides guidance on addressing organisational inertia.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to categorise the performative aspects of organisational routine based on the extent of mindfulness employed and propose that mindfulness-based practice of routines stimulates either inertia-induced or inertia-free stability and continuous change.

The purpose of this paper is to disentangle and elaborate on the constitutive elements of the concept of path dependence (initial conditions and lock‐in) for a concerted and in‐depth application to the study of organizational change.

The approach takes the form of a combination of a longitudinal and a comparative case‐study, based on secondary literature.

External initial conditions acted less as “imprinting” forces than is suggested in the literature on the genesis of the Toyota production system (TPS); a firm‐specific philosophy in combination with a critical sequence of events mainly shaped and locked‐in TPS.

The empirical sources are limited to publications in English, so relevant factors explaining the path taken may not all have been included. The importance of a salient meta‐routine might be firm‐specific.

The study contributes to understanding the factors underlying corporate performance by a critical re‐examination of a much heralded production system (TPS).

The paper highlights the use of the concept of meta‐routines to connect the core elements of path dependence, that is, sensitivity to initial conditions and lock‐in mechanisms.

In this chapter, the authors enter the world of ballet to be inspired by artistic teams. This original point of view proposes a complementary understanding of the dynamics of routines replication where preserving the authenticity of the project’s intent is emphasized over economic efficiency considerations.

The authors propose that analyzing the remounting of a ballet as an in-depth extreme case study provides an opportunity to learn more about other aspects that can be relevant in transfer stories: the importance accorded to the intent of the routine to be transferred; the existence of a dialogical dynamic that engages artifacts and memories of this intent; the existence of a meta-routine that structures and enables the transfer of sub-routines across geographical distance in another context. The authors will see that, in this case, routines replication is also made possible through sharing of a routine’s ostensive aspect which is embedded in a professional culture.

The overarching priority in remounting a show is strict respect for the choreographer’s original intent. As replicator and imitator teams encounter the consequences of a new location and its characteristics, the authors will examine how they face the replication dilemma, coordinate themselves, and use innovation to achieve replication.

This article positions actor–-network theory (ANT) as a practice perspective and deploys it to explore the performative practices of internal consultancy teams as they implemented major programmatic change projects within a global telecommunication company. The change process required the creation of a “change network” that emerged as a boundary spanning and organising network as the consultants sought to implement and translate a highly structured change methodology and introduce new meta-routines within the organisation.

By combining the methodological datum of ANT to “follow the actors” (whatever form they take) with the guiding principle of practice theory to focus on practices rather than practitioners, the research explored the in-between temporal spaces of performative practices as they unfolded in relation to standardised routines, material artefacts and the tools and techniques of a systematic change methodology. By a method of “zooming out” and “zooming in” the research examined both the larger context of action and practice in which the change network emerged and the consultants' performative practices; but without falling into static macro–micro dualism, or a purely ethnographic “thick description” of practice. The research is based on interviews (25), participant observation and a review of the extensive documentation of the change methodology.

The findings indicate both how consultants' performative practices are embedded in the social and material arrangements of a change network, and why the intentional, expert or routine enactment of a highly standardised change methodology into practice is intrinsically problematic. Ultimately, the consultants could not rely on knowledge as a fixed, routine or pre-given empirical entity that predefined their actions. Instead, the consultants' performative practices unfolded in temporal spaces of in-betweenness as their actions and practices navigated shifting and multiple boundaries while confronting disparate and often irreconcilable ideas, choices and competing interests.

As an ANT practice perspective, the research blends mixed methods in an illustrative case study, so its findings are contextual, although the methodological rationale may be applicable to other contexts of practice.

The theoretical framing of the research contributes to repositioning ANT as practice theory perspective on change with a central focus on performative practice. The illustrative case demonstrates how a boundary spanning “change network” emerged and how it partly defined the temporal spaces of in-betweenness in which the consultants operated.

This purpose of this article is to contribute to the research on the role of individual and group-level autonomy and absorptive capacity for inter-organizational knowledge transfer.

The study investigated a field sample of 274 individual participants in 82 groups who were taking part in a large-scale benchmarking project in the Norwegian public sector. Hypotheses were developed and tested by using multiple regression, structural equation modeling and hierarchical linear modeling and included an empirical test of moderator effects.

The findings suggest that individual and group autonomy, along with individual experiences of absorptive capacity, supports complementarily inter-organizational knowledge transfer.

The study reinforces the idea that individual and group autonomy are enabling conditions for knowledge transfer from project settings to parent organizations. Absorptive capacity, in line with more recent theorizing, is conceived of and measured as an organizational meta-routine, and we recommend replication of this study in various multi-level settings using longitudinal designs.

The study encourages managers to focus on distributing powers to individual facilitation and boundary-spanning roles and on creating cross-functional venues that promote the sharing of knowledge across different organizational units. The study also recommends that practitioners pay attention to the prominent role of autonomy at both the individual and group levels to support the dissemination of knowledge across boundaries.

The study provides empirical evidence regarding the simultaneous role of individual autonomy, group autonomy and absorptive capacity that together provide the explanatory power required for knowledge transfer in inter-organizational settings.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the value of using a systematic literature review to develop an integrated framework for information and knowledge management systems.

First, the systematic literature review method is introduced, differentiating it from traditional literature reviews in terms of value-added and limitations. Second, this methodology is used in a research application focused on absorptive capacity internal capabilities with regard to the processes of acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation. Third, an integrated framework for information and knowledge management systems is developed from this application.

The systematic literature review approach provides a rigor that can assist in reducing researcher bias while simultaneously enabling the definition of a precise scope of review, with a clear explanation of selection criteria with the objective to find and review all the studies that are relevant to the search definitions. As a research method, it effectively supports a qualitative, quantitative or mixed methodology.

This methodology was applied to one specific area of research. Specific limitations include the availability of articles in subscribed databases and the analytical capabilities of the tools used for text mining and analytics.

This paper demonstrates the usefulness of the systematic literature review methodology in developing an integrated framework for analysis.

Ambidexterity is the ability of an organization to balance exploitation and exploration. Ambidextrous organizations perform better in managing productivity-innovation dilemma. Although the literature on ambidexterity has expanded, much less attention has been paid to the antecedents of ambidexterity. The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of ambidexterity and develop a multi-level taxonomy of the antecedents.

Based on an extensive review of the literature, the paper develops criteria for categorizing the antecedents and then develops a taxonomy of the antecedents.

Two taxonomy frameworks have been developed: one is based on infrastructural elements, including organizational structures, processes, and context, while the other is based on different organizational levels (i.e. organizational, group, and individual) at which different antecedents exist. Most of the antecedents of ambidexterity reported in the literature fall in the category of “processes” – both individual/social and technical/procedural.

The paper provides an enhanced understanding of the antecedents of ambidexterity, how they relate to each other, and how they can be grouped together. The framework can help managers to apply the antecedents at various organizational levels, resulting in a more structured approach to ambidexterity.

The key contribution of the paper is in providing a multi-level understanding of the antecedents of ambidexterity. To the best of the author’s knowledge, such a taxonomy of the antecedents of ambidexterity has not been provided in previous publications.

The integration of industry 4.0 has become a priority for many organizations. However, not all organizations are suitable and capable of implementing industry 4.0 because it requires a dynamic and flexible implementation strategy. The implementation of industry 4.0 often involves overcoming several tensions between internal and external stakeholders. This paper aims to explore the paradoxical tensions that arise for health-care organizations when integrating industry 4.0. Moreover, it discusses how a paradox lens can support the conceptualization and proposes techniques for handling tensions during the integration of industry 4.0.

This qualitative and in-depth study draws upon 32 semi-structured interviews. The empirical case concerns how two health-care organizations handle paradoxical tensions during the integration of industry 4.0.

The exploration resulted in six recurring technology tensions: technology invention (modularized design vs. flexible design), technology collaboration (automation vs. human augmentation), technology-driven patient experience (control vs. autonomy), technology uncertainty (short-term experimentation vs. long-term planning), technology invention and diffusion through collaborative efforts among stakeholders (selective vs. intensive collaboration) and technological innovation (market maintenance vs. disruption).

A paradox theory-informed conceptual model is proposed for how to handle tensions during the integration of industry 4.0. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to introduce paradox theory for quality management, including lean and Six Sigma.

Post-acquisition integration matters for overall M&A outcome. However within this phase researchers have struggled to identify clear links between integration activities and post-acquisition outcome. This may be due to using organisational levels of analysis, where sub-organisational issues serve to confound findings. In order to unpack the post-acquisition phase, and to delve more deeply into organisations, this paper adopts a more granular perspective on integration activities by focusing upon the building blocks of organisations. Specifically we investigate ordinary routine amalgamation and their impact upon meta-routine outcome during acquisition integration. Drawing upon two longitudinal integration cases and using ‘retroductive’ analysis, two types of amalgamation are identified, namely ‘combination’ and ‘superimposition’. We find that, while the basic nature of routines, such as multiplicity and nestedness, inhibit routine amalgamation, external interference in the form of context, structural change or introduction of additional routines is needed to stabilise amalgamated routines. From our findings we are able to suggest a number of testable propositions about the factors that influence the amalgamation of routines. This empirical study contributes to the M&A literature by opening up the ‘black box’ of post-acquisition integration by providing details at a granular level of what actually happens during integrations.