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The purpose of this paper is to examine international decision making, information processing, and related performance implications. The authors aim to explore the relationship between international decision making and problem-solving dissensions related to entry mode decisions. In addition, they aim to investigate the effects of dissension on entry mode performance, and the moderating effect of the foreign direct investment (FDI) vs non-FDI decision as it relates to dissension-mode performance. Despite their significance from an information processing perspective, these issues have not been sufficiently explored in international entry mode research.

This research presents data collected from 233 privately owned internationalized Chinese firms. The analysis in this investigation includes hierarchical ordinary least squares regression.

The findings suggest an inverse U-shaped relationship between dissension and entry mode performance, as opposed to a linear one, and a moderating effect of FDI vs non-FDI decisions on this curvilinear dissension-performance association. These findings support and refine the rationale of the information processing perspective.

These findings add realistic elements to the alleged “rational” international decision-making doctrine assumed in previous entry mode literature. The findings show the importance of the heterogeneity of information processing in entry mode strategic decision-making processes (SDMPs), and its effects on specific decision types. The authors believe that this is the first empirical study to use an information processing perspective to examine the effects of SDMPs on entry mode performance.

Seeks to investigate the extent to which CEOs shape the process of making strategic decisions (SDs). Despite the significant research interest in this topic, knowledge is still incomplete.

Using evidence from a sample of 107 SDs, studied in Greece, the present paper explores the influence of CEO personality and demographic characteristics on the process of making SDs. A number of environmental and internal organisational variables are used as control variables measuring the broader context.

The results suggest that the broader context is on average more influential than the CEO. However, the CEO's demographic characteristics appear to influence several process characteristics (i.e. rationality, hierarchical decentralisation and politicisation). CEO personality characteristics do not appear to have any significant influence on the process.

This paper focuses on only a few personality and demographic characteristics. The use of a different set of CEO characteristics (e.g. functional specialisation, etc.) as well as the characteristics of the top management team is more than welcome. More empirical studies are needed to replicate and extend this study by examining variables not included here.

Conventional wisdom as well as recent empirical evidence holds that the management style of Greek companies tends to be rather centralised, and dominated by one powerful individual. The results contradict this belief. It seems that in order to survive and achieve long‐term viability, Greek companies were forced to introduce changes in their management style, including a more team‐based style of decision making. In such a context, personality characteristics of the CEO or any other single influential player may not decisively affect the SD process.

Few studies have examined empirically the influence of such a combination of factors on strategic decision processes.

The paper presents the development of a continuous improvement process for the customer relations department at Severn Trent Water in the UK. In‐company research was carried out to identify the main barriers to continuous improvement in the areas of leadership, training, communication, motivation, teamwork, and change management. The study concluded that the company should develop an organisational culture and management style to support continuous improvement of daily working processes, and that change should be managed against the achievement of appropriate quality targets. A continuous improvement process was developed based on a structured problem‐solving model incorporating the application of established quality tools, to be applied by problem solving teams from the customer relations department. It was recommended that the team members should be trained in the problem solving process, and the related quality tools and techniques. Also, management should lead and support this approach by concentrating on team (rather than individual) performance achievement.

To develop hypotheses aimed at finding ways to take full advantage of the benefits associated with selecting and hiring dissimilar employees such as creativity, productivity, and problem solving, while avoiding negative consequences such as lower job satisfaction and increased turnover.

A review of the diversity, socialization, and culture literature was conducted. In addition, this research is based on configurational theory and the idea that all the constructs interact with one another in order to affect outcomes in an organization.

The literature review and theory development support the idea that, in order to benefit from the positive outcomes related to diversity, organizations should implement individualized socialization tactics within a collectivistic organizational culture.

The hypotheses need to be empirically tested.

This research suggests that it is possible for managers to get the most out of a diverse workforce while minimizing the negative effects. One of the main issues with diversity is the increased conflict and turnover. By implementing individualistic socialization tactics within a collectivistic culture, organizations will benefit from employees' backgrounds and experiences, while promoting teamwork and a cohesive organization.

This paper fills a void in the diversity literature by suggesting that it is through socialization and culture that one can overcome the negative effects of diversity.

This review explores the parallels between the characteristics of learning organizations and the characteristics of ethical organizations.

A review of the literature was conducted to examine the characteristics of learning organizations and those that encourage and support ethical behavior.

There are significant parallels between the characteristics of learning organizations and those of ethical organizations. These include leadership, culture, communication, systems thinking, and problem-solving orientation, which are important in creating learning organizations and in encouraging ethical behavior. These parallels encourage social network stimulation, acceptance of new ideas, open discussion, the ability to disagree without rancor, a lessening of hierarchy, employees seeing themselves as part of a larger whole. All of these elements create an environment wherein organizational members are able to contend with and resolve ethical problems.

When endeavoring to foster an ethical organizational environment, managers can be aware of the benefits of creating a learning organization, as the two correspond closely. Additionally, managers in learning organizations can leverage this capacity to enhance ethical decision making and behavior.

Research on learning organizations has often centered on their value in encouraging innovation and on strategies for implementing the changes needed to establish them. This paper identifies and discusses the parallels between the characteristics of learning organizations and ethical organizations. This is an area that has not been directly explored in the extant literature.

The Times for 29th May 1867 carried on its correspondence pages letters from Earl Granville and Lord Taunton warning of the decline of British manufacturing industry and the need to establish industrial (technical) education along the lines of the Grandes Ecoles already established in France and on the Continent generally. Lord Taunton also called for the Government of the day to hold an official inquiry into industrial education on the Continent and wrote that it “should tell the people of England authoritatively what are the means by which the great States are attaining an intellectual preeminence among the industrial classes and how they are making this bear on the rapid progress of their national industries.”

The first two articles (See JEIT Vol. 1 Nos. 4 and 5) dealt with the concept of negotiation and the nature of conflict. In particular the interrelation of communication, trust and power was explored in the context of conflict. This third article is concerned with how these conflicts are resolved. In addition to offering a taxonomy of approaches to conflict resolution, it provides a detailed skill and knowledge breakdown of the negotiating process itself.

SO Sir Monty Finniston has got his way. Well almost. A draft of a Royal Charter to establish an Engineering Council has been laid before Parliament. We just hope that it will not create still further dissension among those who rightly can currently call themselves Engineers.

The purpose of this paper is to further adaptive structuration theory (AST) by associating technological appropriations with health information technology workarounds. The author argues that appropriating electronic health record (EHR) technology ironically – in a way other than it is designed to be used – and divergently across an organization results in enhanced perceptions of EHR technology and its implementation.

Data were collected from 345 healthcare employees in a single healthcare organization that was switching to EHRs from paper records. Two major constructs of AST – unfaithfulness and dissension in appropriation – were operationalized and analyzed using multivariate regressions to test the relationship between the type of appropriation and perceptions of EHR technology’s relative advantage and implementation success.

Results reveal that both ironic (unfaithful) technological appropriation and dissension in technological appropriation across the organization predicted employees’ perceptions of EHR’s relative advantage and perceptions of EHR implementation success. Furthermore, physicians are the least likely to perceive EHR’s relative advantage or EHR implementation success. These results exemplify that EHR workarounds are taking place and reaffirm AST’s principle that employees evolve technology to better suit their working environments and preferences.

The survey and scales used in this study further demonstrate that there are meaningful statistical measures to accompany the qualitative methods frequently used in the AST literature. In addition, this paper expands AST research by exploring the positive outcomes that follow ironic and divergent technology appropriations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine competing assumptions about the nature of resilience and selects those most appropriate for an entrepreneurial context. Assumptions are integrated into a theoretical framework highlighting how different threats require different resilience responses. Overall organizational resilience results from a portfolio of resilience capabilities.

Akin to theoretical sampling, the authors identify various theoretical insights about resilience across three disciplines of psychology, ecology and engineering. The authors use these insights to distill competing assumptions about what resilience is and evaluate those most appropriate for entrepreneurial contexts. Existing resilience literature in organization science is critiqued in terms of underlying assumptions and an alternative theoretical framework proposed based on more robust assumptions.

Other disciplines point to resilience being a process that differs for different threats and as either bouncing back, absorbing shocks or bouncing forward. When imported into entrepreneurship these characteristics lead to a conceptualization of resilience as being enacted through a capability portfolio. A routine-based capability response is preferred when threats are familiar, simple, not severe and frequent, following minimal disorganization and where resource slack is available. In contrast, heuristics-based capabilities are preferred when threats are unfamiliar, complex, severe and infrequent, following serious disorganization and where resource slack is unavailable. An absorption threshold point identifies when organizations need to switch from routine-based to heuristics-based resilience capabilities.

Building resilience across a range of adverse situations requires firms to develop a portfolio of resilience capabilities. Firms must learn to match the capability required for the specific threat profile faced. This includes a mix of routinized responses for returning to stability but also more flexible, heuristics-based responses for strategic reconfiguration.

The paper undertakes a first of its kind cross-disciplinary conceptual analysis at the level of identifying competing assumptions about the nature of resilience. These assumptions are found to be somewhat unconscious among organization researchers, limiting the conceptual development of resilience in entrepreneurship. The authors contribute a theoretical framework based on explicit and robust assumptions, enabling the field to advance conceptually.