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21 – 30 of 99Research in educational administration is in need of a general theoretical perspective which could be used to guide the development of an empirical base for a comprehensive…
Abstract
Research in educational administration is in need of a general theoretical perspective which could be used to guide the development of an empirical base for a comprehensive, ecologically valid, theory of administration. This paper presents a description of Roger Barker's Behavior Setting Theory and attempts to argue its utility as a broad‐based conceptual framework for research on educational administration.
Pingsheng Tong, Jean L. Johnson, U.N. Umesh and Ruby P. Lee
This paper aims to advance interfirm relationship (IR) research by applying a theoretically based typology in IR settings and empirically investigating the association of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to advance interfirm relationship (IR) research by applying a theoretically based typology in IR settings and empirically investigating the association of information technology (IT) and relational reciprocity with IR types.
Design/methodology/approach
This study draws on Fiske's relational models theory to conceptualize an IR typology. In a business service context, a questionnaire was administered and IR types modeled via a multivariate logistic regression with IT pervasiveness, IT customization, reciprocity and embeddedness as predicting variables.
Findings
The IR typology comprises communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing types. The authors find that reciprocity is more likely to associate with an equality‐matching relationship and a communal sharing relationship than with a market‐pricing relationship. Pervasive use of IT fosters an equality‐matching IR, but IT‐enabled customization distances an IR from an equality‐matching relationship.
Research limitations/implications
A theoretical implication flows from the innovative application of Fiske's relational models theory to a context of business interactions and investigation of IT in association with IR types. The affirming findings empirically validate the IR typology and offer a new perspective in studying IR structures. This research also exemplifies the theoretical value and great potentials for further exploration of the theory in IR research.
Practical implications
The IR typology equips marketing managers with a useful tool in comprehending the intricate IRs and developing appropriate strategies for effective IR management. In designing IT use in IR interactions, both the scope and specific function of IT should be considered in order to ensure that all aspects affect consistently. Managers may encourage reciprocal exchange in shifting an IR away from a calculating relationship but consider intensive IT to foster an IR emphasizing balance and correspondence.
Originality/value
The novelty of this paper lies in the innovative application of Fiske's relational forms in IR settings and the empirical examination of the IT‐IR structure association. The IR typology advances IR research by offering a theoretically compelling and practically advantageous framework in studying IR structure, and the examination of IT‐IR associations brings to light the significance of IT in IR structures, which has been largely under‐explored.
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Henrico Plantinga and André Dorée
– The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the reasoning behind the development of new procurement approaches by public sector clients.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the reasoning behind the development of new procurement approaches by public sector clients.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study approach focuses on a procurement development process by a public sector client. It investigates the reasoning behind various applications of the project alliancing concept in rail infrastructure projects over a period of 15 years. Alliancing applications are singled out and mapped against a number of criteria derived from literature on alliancing. The reasoning behind these applications and their differences are reconstructed from contextual documentation. Theories and concepts from the fields of strategic management and knowledge management literature are used to analyse the results.
Findings
The development process seems to be evolutionary rather than deliberately planned. The uncovered variations in alliancing applications can only to a very limited extent be explained by the reconstructed reasoning. This suggests that the applied designs are mostly based on implicit reasoning by individual project teams. From a strategic management perspective, the development pattern resembles the emergent type of strategy formation.
Originality/value
This study offers an initial insight into the reasoning processes behind the (re-)design of procurement approaches within a public sector client organization. A unique feature of this study is that these reasoning processes are explored from the strategy formation perspective that conceptually links the design of new procurement approaches to strategic management theory.
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Jagjit Singh Srai and Mike Gregory
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of configuration on supply network capability. It was believed that a configuration perspective might provide new insights on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of configuration on supply network capability. It was believed that a configuration perspective might provide new insights on the capability and performance of supply networks, a gap in the literature, and provide a basis for the development of tools to aid their analysis and design.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology involved the development of a configuration definition and mapping approach extending established strategic and firm level constructs to the network operational level. The resulting tools were tested and refined in a series of case studies across a range of sectors and value chain models. Supply network capability assessments, from the perspective of the focal firm, were then compared with their configuration profiles.
Findings
The configuration mapping tools were found to give new insights into the structure of supply networks and allow comparisons to be made across sectors and business models through the use of consistent and quantitative methods and common presentation. They provide the foundations for linking configuration to capability and performance, and contribute to supply network design and development by highlighting the intrinsic capabilities associated with different configurations.
Research limitations/implications
Although multiple case networks have been investigated, the configuration exemplars remain suggestive models. The research suggests that a re‐evaluation of operational process excellence models is needed, where the link between process maturity and performance may require a configuration context.
Practical implications
Advantages of particular configurations have been identified with implications for supply network development and industrial policy.
Originality/value
The paper seeks to develop established strategic management configuration concepts to the analysis and design of supply networks by providing a robust operational definition of supply network configuration and novel tools for their mapping and assessment.
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Raanan Lipshitz and Baruch Nevo
Examines the practical utility of research on managerial behaviourand managerial effectiveness for training and development programmes.Casts doubt on the relevance of models in…
Abstract
Examines the practical utility of research on managerial behaviour and managerial effectiveness for training and development programmes. Casts doubt on the relevance of models in the literature that tell managers what they should do. Reviews studies of effective managers. Concludes that the design of programmes in particular settings requires a study of who is an effective manager in that setting; that the concepts and methods available in the literature will be used; that such research has potential use for programmes where training is a stepping stone to change.
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Elmer Steensen and Ron Sanchez
This chapter proposes that organizational strategy formation should be characterized theoretically as a process that is subject to several interacting forces, rather than…
Abstract
This chapter proposes that organizational strategy formation should be characterized theoretically as a process that is subject to several interacting forces, rather than represented by separate discrete decision-models or theoretic perspectives, as is commonly done in the strategic management literature. Based on an extensive review of relevant theory and empirical work in strategic decision-making, organizational change theory, cognitive and social psychology, and strategy processes, seven kinds of “forces” – rational, imposed, teleological, learning, political, heuristic, and social – are identified as interacting in and having significant influence on the strategy formation process. It is further argued that by applying a holistic “forces-view” of the significant and interacting influences on strategy formation, we can better understand the dynamics and challenges in managing the process of defining and changing organizational strategies.
Hartmut Huebner, Richard Varey and Laurie Wood
Rational modes of decision‐making, followed by communication of the decision to stakeholders, leading to implementation of the decision is taken as a given in most management…
Abstract
Purpose
Rational modes of decision‐making, followed by communication of the decision to stakeholders, leading to implementation of the decision is taken as a given in most management theories. The role of corporate communication managers in many cases is to support this process via standard communication tools. This study aims to challenge the efficacy of this model by drawing on discourse and strategy‐as‐practice perspectives in order to explain the link between managed communication and performance in terms of enacting decisions.
Design/methodology/approach
Following an ethnographic case study approach, the research analyses communication discourse at Intech, a major international conglomerate based in Germany. Data was collected over a period of 15 months, structured and thematic analysis conducted, supported by ATLAS.ti computer‐aided qualitative data analysis software. Methods of discourse analysis were applied in order to explain concrete practices.
Findings
A key contribution is to provide a framework that enables researchers and practitioners to understand in‐depth the setting in which decision‐related communication takes place, as recently demanded by Suchan and Charles (2006). Three critical fields of action for effective communication and strategy implementation are identified: giving decisions voice; facilitating the legitimisation process for decisions; and developing alternatives to cascading as a mode of decision implementation.
Research implications/limitations
Researchers may adopt the alternative view of corporate communication proposed and test or apply it in further case studies or in more large‐scale, perhaps quantitatively oriented research projects across companies and cultural boundaries.
Practical implications
For practitioners, a key challenge lies in implementing modes of legitimisation into managed communication.
Originality/value
This paper makes the case for an alternative approach to enacting decisions via practices of managed communication, based on the insights gained from the Intech case.
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Sean Wise, Robert A. Paton and Thomas Gegenhuber
On the basis of the Collective Intelligence Genome framework, which was developed to describe private, for profit ventures, this study aims to review the recent public sector…
Abstract
Purpose
On the basis of the Collective Intelligence Genome framework, which was developed to describe private, for profit ventures, this study aims to review the recent public sector initiatives launched by the American federal government and the European Union. The study's goal is to examine if, and how, the Genome construct would apply to not for profit.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper builds on an existing classification methodology for collective intelligence initiatives and extends it to pubic sector initiatives.
Findings
The findings suggest that, although the framework offers a generally good fit, it does not fully address all the factors at play and the paper proposes expanding the gene pool. In addition, it confirms that Collective Intelligence initiatives do indeed co‐create value and conform to the emerging services dominant logic concept.
Originality/value
With the growing success of profit motivated internet‐based collaborative ventures, including Innocentive, VenCorps, Threadless and many others, governments have taken notice and engaged. Recent public sector initiatives, including Open.gov, Peer 2 Patent, innovation.ED.gov among others, have begun to leverage collaborative internet media through similar means. These initiatives not only engage a broader community in the co‐creation of value, but also foster what has been termed as Collective Intelligence. This paper details one of the first forays into what might be termed sense making within the public sector usage of Collective Intelligence using the Genome framework and, as such, provides researchers and practitioners with a means of assessing value, potential impact and making comparisons.
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A generic foresight process framework is outlined, based on prior independent work by Mintzberg, Horton and Slaughter. The framework was developed as part of work carried out by…
Abstract
A generic foresight process framework is outlined, based on prior independent work by Mintzberg, Horton and Slaughter. The framework was developed as part of work carried out by the author during the introduction of foresight into the formal strategic planning of a public‐sector university in Australia. The framework recognises several distinct phases, leading from the initial gathering of information, through to the production of outputs intended as input into the more familiar activities of strategy development and strategic planning. The framework is also useful as a diagnostic tool for examining how foresight work and strategy are undertaken, as well as a design aid for customised foresight projects and processes. Some observations and reflections are made on lessons learned from a two‐and‐a‐half year engagement as an organisationally‐based foresight practitioner.
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Liam P. Maher, Aqsa Ejaz, Chi Lan Nguyen and Gerald R. Ferris
The purpose of this paper is to review the scholarship on political skill and political will so that the authors might inspire future work that assesses these constructs…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the scholarship on political skill and political will so that the authors might inspire future work that assesses these constructs individually and in tandem.
Design/methodology/approach
The “political skill” and “political will” concepts were introduced about 40 years ago, but they only have been measured and produced empirical results much more recently. Since that time, substantial research results have demonstrated the important roles political skill and political will play in organizational behavior. This paper provides a comprehensive review of this research, draws conclusions from this work and provides a meta-theoretical framework of political skill and political will to guide future work in this area.
Findings
Scholarship in this area has developed quite rapidly for political skill, but less so for political will. The authors hope that recent developments in a political will can set the stage for scholars to create a theoretical and empirical balance between these two related constructs.
Originality/value
The authors corral the vast and widespread literature on political skill and will and distill the information for scholars and practitioners alike.
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