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In this study, the authors unpack the micro-level processes of knowledge accumulation (experiential learning) and knowledge application (problem solving) to examine how task allocation structures influence organizational learning. The authors draw on untapped potential of the classical garbage can model (GCM), and extend it to analyze how restrictions on project participation influence differentiation and integration of organizational members’ knowledge and consequently organizational efficiency in solving the diverse, changing problems from an uncertain task environment. To isolate the effects of problem or knowledge diversity and experiential learning, the authors designed three simulation experiments to identify the most efficient task allocation structure in conditions of (1) knowledge homogeneity, (2) knowledge heterogeneity, and (3) experiential learning. The authors find that free project participation is superior when the members’ knowledge and the problems they solve are homogenous. When problems and knowledge are heterogeneous, the design requirement is on matching specialists to problem types. Finally, the authors found that experiential learning creates a dynamic problem where the double duty of adapting the members’ specialization and matching the specialists to problem types is best solved by a hierarchic structure (if problems are challenging). Underlying the efficiency of the hierarchical structure is an adaptive role of specialized members in organizational learning and problem solving: their narrow but deep knowledge helps the organization to adapt the knowledge of its members while efficiently dealing with the problems at hand. This happens because highly specialized members reduce the necessary scope of knowledge and learning for other members during a certain period of time. And this makes it easier for the generalists and for the organization as a whole, to adapt to unforeseen shifts in knowledge demand because they need to learn less. From this nuanced perspective, differentiation and integration may have a complementary, rather than contradictory, relation under environmental uncertainty and problem diversity.

Time considerations are an important element of entrepreneurial processes in organizations. The current study analyzes the interface between time and entrepreneurship in the firm, examining the relationships between organizational time norms that are shaped by the firm and individual time structures that reflect individual personality differences and how individuals perceive and interpret the organizational time norms. The study seeks to determine if, how, which, and to what extent organizational time norms and individual time structures impact employees’ attitudes toward undertaking entrepreneurial activities and practices related to corporate entrepreneurship in the organization. The chapter develops a model and five hypotheses that are empirically tested in an Israeli manufacturing company that encouraged its employees to pursue entrepreneurial activities within the company. The findings show that, as hypothesized, individual time structures moderate the relationship between organizational time norms and undertaking corporate entrepreneurial activities. It was found that under loose (flexible) organizational time norms, employees with defined time structures generated entrepreneurial proposals. In contrast, employees with vague time structures did not produce entrepreneurial proposals. The results highlight the importance of matching employee time structures with their firm's time norms as a means of promoting corporate entrepreneurial activities.

We examine the interactive effects of organizational culture and structure on the success of implementing activity-based costing (ABC) in Chinese manufacturing firms.

We applied contingency theory of management accounting and used a questionnaire survey of 106 respondents.

The results indicate that a formalized organizational structure significantly affects the success of implementing ABC. The organizational culture factors, outcome orientation and attention to detail, were significantly associated with the success of implementing ABC. Further, interactions between centralization and outcome orientation and formalization and innovation were associated with success in implementing ABC.

While this study is constrained to Chinese manufacturing firms, its findings have ramifications for organizations in both developed and less-developed economies as the study demonstrated that organizational structure and culture interact with each other to affect the implementation success of a management accounting system.

This paper presents the first attempt to demonstrate the interactive effect of organizational culture and structure on the success of implementing ABC in organizations.

We show how organizational forms shape job structures, specifically the variety and types of jobs employees hold, extending previous research on job structures in four ways. First, the social codes associated with wineries’ generalist and specialist forms constrain the number of jobs and functional areas delineated by job titles. Second, form-based constraints are weakened by institutional rules that impose categorical distinctions on organizations. Third, these constraints are stronger when there is more consensus around forms. Fourth, these constraints are contingent on the legitimacy and resources of organizations of varying ages and sizes.

This chapter draws on recent literature in I/O psychology, management and sociology to posit a relationship between organizational structure and temporal structure and develops the construct of layered-task time. Layered-task time is similar to polychronic time (P-time) in the inclusion of simultaneous, multiple tasks but includes additional dimensions of fragmentation, contamination and constraint. The chapter links the development of this new time and its resultant time-sense to variation in the degree to which organizations are hierarchical and centralized and develops propositions about these relationships. The chapter contributes to the growing literature on workplace temporalities in the contemporary economy.

We extend the classical garbage can model to examine how individual differences in ability and motivation will influence organizational performance. We find that spontaneous coordination provided by an organized anarchy is superior when agents are equally competent. The Weberian bureaucracy of planned coordination is effective when problems require specialist knowledge. However, errors in matching problems to specialized agents are a central challenge for bureaucracies. Actual organizations, therefore, combine elements of organized anarchies and bureaucracies. Heterogeneous motivation compounds coordination problems, but is usually less important than competence. Our findings point to matching and interactive learning as fruitful areas for further study.

We study organizational vocabularies as complex social structures emerging from the association between organizational participants and words they use to describe and make sense of their experiences at work. Using data that we have collected on the association between managers in a multi-unit international company and words they use to describe their organizational units and the overall company, we examine the relational micro-mechanisms underlying the observed network structure of organizational vocabularies. We find that members of the same subsidiary tend to become more similar in terms of the words they use to describe their units. Members of the same subsidiary, however, do not use the same words to describe the corporate group. Consequently, the structure of organizational vocabularies tends to support consistent local interpretations, but reveals the presence of divergent meanings that organizational participants associate with the superordinate corporate group.

Accounting for quality and improved organizational performance has recently received attention in management control research. However, the extent to which process innovation changes have been integrated into management control research is limited. This paper contributes to that integration by drawing from institutional adaptive theory of organizational change and process innovation strategies. The paper utilizes a 2 by 2 contingency table that uses two factors: environmental conditions and organizational change/learning strategies, to build a process innovation framework. A combination of these two factors yields four process innovation strategies: mechanistic, organic, organizational development (OD) and organizational transformation (OT).

The four process innovation typologies are applied to characterize innovations in accounting such as activity based costing (ABC). ABC has been discussed as a multi-phased innovation process that provides an environment where both the initiation and the implementation of accounting change can occur. Technical innovation can be successfully initiated as organic innovation that unfolds in a decentralized organization and requires radical change and double loop learning. Implementation occurs best as a mechanistic innovation in a hierarchical organization and involving incremental change and single loop learning. The paper concludes that if ABC is integrated into an OD or OT intervention strategy, the technical and administrative innovation aspects of ABC can be utilized to manage the organization’s operating activities.