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Perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) is a foundational concept in organization studies. The PEU typologies used in organizational research were developed using private sector managers. But, do public sector managers perceive the same uncertainty sources? We asked public sector managers in Hong Kong to identify and group uncertainty sources facing their organizations. Multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis yielded classes of uncertainty sources that differ from those developed using private sector managers.

Evaluates Wroe Alderson’s general theory of marketing as a possible platform for further developing Michael Porter’s ideas on strategic management. Alderson’s “transvection” and Porter’s “value system” are compared, and the uses of these concepts by their authors in developing approaches to achieving sustainable competitive advantage are contrasted. The potential for extension of each theory based on their similarities and differences is discussed. Presents examples showing how Alderson’s ideas may be used to resolve impasses in Porter’s work, and how recent empirical work testing Porter’s value system may be useful in extending and justifying Alderson’s transvection ideas. More generally, we suggest that Alderson’s general theory may provide a starting point for integrating Michael Porter’s ideas with the concepts from the “resource‐based view” of strategy, and that instances of independent formulation of nearly‐identical theories present special opportunities for scholars interested in both theory building and theory testing.

Entrepreneurship-related research in management and organizational journals has experienced rapid growth, particularly in the last several years. The purpose of this study is to identify the researchers and universities that have had the greatest influence on entrepreneurship research since the turn of the century. Using a systematic and comprehensive study identification protocol, the authors delve into the individual and institutional actors contributing to scholarship in entrepreneurial studies for the period from 2000 to 2015. Examination of top-tier management and organizational journals revealed that a total of 371 entrepreneurship-related articles were published during this period by 618 authors from 303 different institutions. Rankings for the most prolific individuals as well as institutions, adjusted and unadjusted for journal quality, are presented. The article concludes with a discussion of the limitations and implications of the research undertaken here.

The purpose of this paper is to describe, explain and provide context for relationships between translation, trust and distrust using accounts of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake given by foreign residents who experienced the disaster.

This research provides a qualitative analysis of ethnographic interview data drawn from a broader study of communication in the 2011 disaster using the cases of 28 foreign residents of the disaster zone from 12 different countries of origin.

The study confirms the general importance, the linguistic challenges and the context dependency of trust in disaster-related communication at the response phase. It found that translation was involved in some trust reasoning carried out by foreign residents and that translation was an ad hoc act undertaken by linguistically and culturally proficient acquaintances and friends.

The research examines a limited range of trust phenomena and research participants: only reason-based, social trust described by documented foreign residents of the 2011 disaster zone in Japan was considered. Furthermore, generalisations from the case study data should be approached with caution.

This paper adds to the literature on trust and disaster response as opposed to trust and disaster preparedness, which has already been comprehensively studied. It responds to calls for more studies of the role of context in the understanding of trust and for greater attention to be paid in research to relationships between trust and other phenomena.

We use a resource‐based perspective to discuss firm idiosyncrasies in valuing goods. Previous research has suggested that asymmetric valuation processes form an early and often pivotal step in the development of uniqueness (Barney, 1986; Jacobson, 1992; Rumelt, 1987; Winter, 1995). We go beyond this work in clearly differentiating between the aspects of the valuation process that are idiosyncratic and those that are not. Indeed, we attempt to shed light on the following questions: (1) Which factors determine the value a firm places on a good that it is considering for purchase? (2) Can these factors vary across firms? (3) To what degree, and in what ways, can valuation discrepancies lead to competitive advantages? A model of valuation is developed and propositions are discussed based on the logic and model.

A burgeoning literature refers to the effect of hypercompetitive conditions on organizations. The new orthodoxy involves reference to the disintegration of vertical, rational bureaucracies and the corresponding emergence of widespread innovation in new organizational practices such as delayering, outsourcing, and reducing organizational boundaries. Differing assumptions occur regarding the compatibility of new organizational practices with more traditional practices such as centralization and formalization. We present systematic, survey‐based data in order to assist in assessing these differing assumptions about compatibility. Our results confirm greater use of new organizational practices by organizations operating in dynamic environments. They also show that greater use of new organizational practices is not associated with less use of either centralization or formalization—indeed it is associated with an increased use of formalization. We argue the need to move beyond a compatibility/incompatibility dichotomy and propose a research agenda for achieving this. The implications for management include the need to view with caution evangelical calls for radical restructuring that ignore the subtleties of the relationship between traditional and new organizational practices.

One of the crucial questions confronting strategy and entrepreneurship scholars continues to be: where do new industry sectors come from? Extant literature suffers from a supply-side “skew” that focuses unduly on the role of heroic figures and celebrity CEOs, at the expense of demand-side considerations. In response, the purpose of this paper is to examine societal demand for entrepreneurial innovations. Employing historical data spanning nearly a century, the author assess more completely the role of latent demand-side signaling in driving the quantity and diversity of entrepreneurial innovation.

Applying the methods of historical econometrics, this study employs historical artifacts and cliometric models to analyze textual data in drawn from three distinctive sources: Popular Science Monthly magazine, from its founding in 1872 to 1969; periodicals, newsletters, club minutes, films and radio transcripts from the Science Society, from 1921 to 1969; and programs and news accounts from the US National High School Science Fair, from 1950 to 1969. In total, 2,084 documents containing 33,720 articles and advertisements were coded for content related to pure science, applied science and commercialized science.

Three key findings are revealed: vast opportunity spaces often exist prior to being occupied by individuals and firms; societal preferences play a vital role in determining the quantity and diversity of entrepreneurial activity; and entrepreneurs who are responsive to latent demand-side signals are likely to experience greater commercial success.

This study intentionally draws data from three markedly different textual sources. The painstaking process of triangulation reveals heretofore unobserved latencies that invite fresh perspectives on innovation discovery and diffusion.

This paper constitutes the most panoramic investigation to-date of the influence wielded by latent demand-side forces in the discovery and commercialization of innovation.

The study aims to identify and examine the construction organisational environments and its dimensions that have an impact on the performance of contracting companies in South Africa.

The study reports the result of quantitative research that obtained data from 72 construction organisations registered with the South African construction industry development board via a questionnaire survey. Descriptive statistics, non-parametric and exploratory principal component analysis were used to summarise forms of correlations among observed variables and to reduce a large number of observed variables to a smaller number of factors that provide an operational definition for the underlying dimension.

This study identified six exogenous and three endogenous environmental factors that have a varying degree of impact on construction organisation performance. Four dimensions of the environment were also examined, and environmental complexity has the highest variance explained which implies that the complexity of the construction business environment significantly influences the performance of construction firms.

This paper studies the environment of the South African construction industry using cross-sectional data in exploratory research. A confirmatory study should be conducted using a longitudinal panel design with a larger sample in similar future research.

The study offers practical implications to construction organisation owners operating in the South African construction industry to understand the need to acquire market and environmental data and process them in a way that will reduce its uncertainty when making strategic decisions.

This study contributes to the current discourse on organisations’ business environments to better understand their influences on organisational performance.

This study seeks to identify antecedents of trust among top managers representing partners in international joint ventures (IJVs) and to show how this trust influences IJV performance.

The paper proposes that the national cultural distance of the foreign partner, the business similarity of partners' organizations and behavioural integration are antecedents to trust, and that trust is a key mediator through which these antecedents affect IJV performance. Data are collected through a field survey from IJVs in Beijing and Shenzhen, PRC, and employ regression analysis to test these propositions.

It is found that: trust across IJV factional subgroups is influenced by partners' business similarity and by the behavioural integration of top managers representing the partners from both sides; and this trust mediates the relationship between the behavioural integration of top managers in Sino‐foreign IJVs and overall venture performance. The effects of business similarity and partner national cultural distance on overall performance were not mediated by trust.

The sample of the study used is limited to one country only – China. Besides, the paper's measures of cultural distance and categorization of national origin of foreign partners of IJVs may be subject to criticism.

First, the paper explicitly hypothesizes and tests the role of trust as a mediator of the relationships between trust antecedents and IJV performance. This is done in order to develop a more detailed understanding of how fixed partner characteristics and adjustable group processes affect IJV outcomes. Second, the study finds evidence that supports situational perspective and developmental perspective of trust development, but not the deterministic perspective. This is also consistent with some additional qualitative evidence which the authors collected through interviews. Third, the results indicate that some trust antecedents have direct effects on IJV performance, while others affect IJV performance through partner trust.

The study's exploratory results offer important new information for IJV researchers and for managers of IJVs.

The fundamental problem of the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm is its lack of predictive ability and its inability to identify, ex ante, those resources and capabilities leading to competitive advantage and superior profitability. This paper aims to propose an extension of the RBV model that incorporates the demand‐based variables of customer needs and size of addressable market segment in the definition of the resources and capabilities that enable competitive advantage and superior profitability.

The paper's approach is to use a literature review and two case studies.

In this model a company has a competitive advantage if its resources and capabilities are valuable, rare, non‐imitable, organized, and if these resources and capabilities address unmet customer needs in market segments large enough to cover organizational fixed costs.

The proposed extension of the RBV is based on current literature and two qualitative case studies. Future longitudinal studies should establish causal links between current resources and capabilities meeting the proposed criteria and future performance.

The model appears to be able to guide decisions about investment in resources and capabilities to further develop existing competitive advantages and to build new ones. The benefit of this model lies in its ability to identify, ex ante, those resources and capabilities leading to competitive advantage and superior firm profitability.

An improved ability to predict future firm performance based on more rigorous tests of current resources and capabilities improves the resource allocation process in firms and thus benefits society.

The benefit of this model lies in its ability to identify, ex ante, those resources and capabilities leading to competitive advantage and superior firm profitability.