Search results
1 – 10 of over 18000Grant Samkin and Christa Wingard
This uses a framework of systemic change to understand the contextual factors including stakeholder, social, political, cultural and economic, which contribute to the social and…
Abstract
Purpose
This uses a framework of systemic change to understand the contextual factors including stakeholder, social, political, cultural and economic, which contribute to the social and environmental narratives of a conservation organisation that has and continues to undergo transformation.
Design/methodology/approach
The social and environmental disclosure annual report narratives for a 27-year period were coded to a framework of systemic change.
Findings
The end of apartheid in 1994 meant that South African society required transformation. This transformation impacts and drives the social and environmental accounting disclosures made by SANParks. The social and environmental disclosures coded against a framework of systemic change, fluctuated over the period of the study as the format of the annual reports changed. The systems view was the most frequently disclosed category. The political ecology subcategory which details the power relationships showed the most disclosures. However, 25 years after the end of apartheid, the transformation process remains incomplete. Although the evidence in the paper does not support Joseph and Reigelut (2010) contention that the framework of systemic change is an iterative process, it nevertheless provides a useful vehicle for analysing the rich annual report narratives of an organisation that has undergone and continues to undergo transformation.
Originality/value
This paper makes two primary contributions. First, to the limited developing country social and environmental accounting literature. Second, the development, refinement and application of a framework of systemic change to social and environmental disclosures.
Details
Keywords
The aim of this paper is to deconstruct the organizational capability of ambidexterity into a typology of hierarchical dimensions that includes each type’s enabling mechanisms and…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to deconstruct the organizational capability of ambidexterity into a typology of hierarchical dimensions that includes each type’s enabling mechanisms and capabilities.
Design/methodology/approach
This work reviews and integrates extant literature on ambidexterity and the hierarchy of capabilities to distinguish dimensions of ambidexterity and link each type to capabilities identified in prior research.
Findings
A hierarchy involving zero-, first- and second-order ambidexterity is developed. Mechanisms and capabilities for creating and sustaining each type of ambidexterity are described.
Research limitations/implications
As only an initial and conceptual foray toward the purpose stated above, this research does not attempt to argue a comprehensive theoretical framework. Nor does it intend to extend or propose new theory regarding the origins of ambidexterity capabilities or the specific causal relationships between them.
Practical implications
Although prior literature emphasizes approaches for achieving and maintaining ambidexterity, these generally refer to what is described here as zero-order ambidexterity. The hierarchical and holistic system view offered in this research suggests greater importance for second-order ambidexterity and capabilities of top managers for exercising cognitive, behavioral and process leadership complexity.
Originality/value
Recent literature on ambidexterity begins to suggest varied types or levels of ambidexterity. No known work, however, has expressly deconstructed ambidexterity into component dimensions via the hierarchy of capabilities framework.
Details
Keywords
Mark Paul Sallos, Alexeis Garcia-Perez, Denise Bedford and Beatrice Orlando
The purpose of this paper is to frame organisational cybersecurity through a strategic lens, as a function of an interplay of pragmatism, inference, holism and adaptation. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to frame organisational cybersecurity through a strategic lens, as a function of an interplay of pragmatism, inference, holism and adaptation. The authors address the hostile epistemic climate for intellectual capital management presented by the dynamics of cybersecurity as a phenomenon. The drivers of this hostility are identified and their implications for research and practice are discussed.
Design/methodology/approach
The philosophical foundations of cybersecurity in its relation with strategy, knowledge and intellectual capital are explored through a review of the literature as a mechanism to contribute to the emerging theoretical underpinnings of the cybersecurity domain.
Findings
This conceptual paper argues that a knowledge-based perspective can serve as the necessary platform for a phenomenon-based view of organisational cybersecurity, given its multi-disciplinary nature.
Research limitations/implications
By recognising the knowledge-related vectors, mechanisms and tendencies at play, a novel perspective on the topic can be developed: cybersecurity as a “knowledge problem”. In order to facilitate such a perspective, the paper proposes an emergent epistemology, rooted in systems thinking and pragmatism.
Practical implications
In practice, the knowledge-problem narrative can underpin the development of new organisational support constructs and systems. These can address the distinctiveness of the strategic challenges that cybersecurity poses for the growing operational reliance on intellectual capital.
Originality/value
The research narrative presents a novel knowledge-based analysis of organisational cybersecurity, with significant implications for both interdisciplinary research in the field, and practice.
Details
Keywords
Presents an interdisciplinary literature review and research agendaand suggests a number of propositions, in advance of new fieldwork, todiscover a revised or new theory of…
Abstract
Presents an interdisciplinary literature review and research agenda and suggests a number of propositions, in advance of new fieldwork, to discover a revised or new theory of internal marketing as it relates to organizational change management. The literature on marketing, services marketing, corporate strategy, total quality management, operations management, human resource management, and organizational development reveals a body of work referring to or describing an “internal marketing” concept or internal customer concept. This seems to have grown out of an organizational internal communications perspective and the notion of an “inner market” in the organization comprising “internal customers”. Provides an extensive overview of tactical and strategic issues relating to internal marketing. Presents a resulting model and includes a comprehensive bibliography is included, with suggestions for some themes for possible fruitful research in this area of change management and service quality management.
Details
Keywords
Stakeholder theory has become one of the main theoretical foundations of corporate social performance (CSP) (Clarkson, 1995; Margolis & Walsh, 2003; van der Laan, van Ees & van…
Abstract
Stakeholder theory has become one of the main theoretical foundations of corporate social performance (CSP) (Clarkson, 1995; Margolis & Walsh, 2003; van der Laan, van Ees & van Witteloostuijn, 2008). There are three interconnected constructs related to CSP in the literature, and referring to different aspects of business involvement in social issues. First, corporate social responsibility (CSR, or CSR1) refers to the business philosophy that directs managers making policy and management decisions towards normatively correct performance regarding expectations of multiple stakeholders of the firm (Dentchev, 2009; Van der Laan et al., 2008). Carroll (1979, 1991) distinguishes social expectations as four dimensions of CSR: economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary.
Scholars of ambidexterity focus on the need for strategic leaders to explore and exploit opportunities synergistically. Yet it remains unclear how such dynamic capabilities…
Abstract
Scholars of ambidexterity focus on the need for strategic leaders to explore and exploit opportunities synergistically. Yet it remains unclear how such dynamic capabilities develop. Addressing this question, this chapter investigates the role of social cognitive self-regulation in fostering ambidexterity as a dynamic capability among entrepreneurs. Results of a mixed method, multiple case study of founder managers suggest that complex patterns of self-regulation are associated with ambidextrous thinking and decision making among entrepreneurs, often in combination with strong values and a sense of emotional engagement. I propose a new model of these processes and discuss its implications.
Details
Keywords
Eureta Rosenberg, Heila Betrie Lotz-Sisitka and Presha Ramsarup
The purpose of this paper is to share and analyse the methodology and findings of the 2016 Green Economy Learning Assessment South Africa, including learning needs identified with…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to share and analyse the methodology and findings of the 2016 Green Economy Learning Assessment South Africa, including learning needs identified with reference to the competency framings of Scharmer (2009) and Wiek et al. (2011); and implications for university and work-based sustainability education, broadly conceptualised in a just transitions framework.
Design/methodology/approach
The assessment was conducted using desktop policy reviews and an audit of sustainability education providers, online questionnaires to sector experts, focus groups and interviews with practitioners driving green economy initiatives.
Findings
Policy monitoring and evaluation, and education for sustainable development, emerged as key change levers across nine priority areas including agriculture, energy, natural resources, water, transport and infrastructure. The competencies required to drive sustainability in these areas were clustered as technical, relational and transformational competencies for: making the case; integrated sustainable development planning; strategic adaptive management and expansive learning; working across organisational units; working across knowledge fields; capacity and organisational development; and principle-based leadership. Practitioners develop such competencies through formal higher education and short courses plus course-activated networks and “on the job” learning.
Research limitations/implications
The paper adds to the literature on sustainability competencies and raises questions regarding forms of hybrid learning suitable for developing technical, relational and transformative competencies.
Practical implications
A national learning needs assessment methodology and tools for customised organisational learning needs assessments are shared.
Originality/value
The assessment methodology is novel in this context and the workplace-based tools, original.
Details
Keywords
Simone Guercini and Christian Lechner
The purpose of this guest editorial is to present an overview of the contributions in this special issue and proposes a positive approach to heuristics deriving from the growing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this guest editorial is to present an overview of the contributions in this special issue and proposes a positive approach to heuristics deriving from the growing interest in the decision-making topic with respect to the new challenges emerging in uncertain environments in management and marketing research.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors explore the reasons for a positive view of business actors' judgments and choices based on heuristics, not only in terms of effectiveness in practice, but their fit with human cognition and behavior, and the potential distinctiveness in contexts where technological devices and algorithms are more widespread, but not necessarily more appropriate.
Findings
The authors present and discuss the emergence and evolution of heuristics as a topic in the management literature, and the themes and insights proposed in the papers published in this special issue contributing to research aimed at systemizing a managerial perspective of the concepts and tools that may be useful for practitioners and researchers in this field.
Originality/value
The paper discusses the positive role that heuristics can play, offering some propositions for future research by framing heuristics as a set of tools (toolbox) for business actors in uncertain contexts, without constituting a cognitive limitation for effective solutions.
Details
Keywords
Karl Aschenbrücker and Tobias Kretschmer
The authors examine how firms can achieve organizational ambidexterity, that is, how they can successfully engage in concurrent exploitation of existing competencies and…
Abstract
The authors examine how firms can achieve organizational ambidexterity, that is, how they can successfully engage in concurrent exploitation of existing competencies and exploration of new competencies in their search for new products. Existing research has identified three enablers to manage these fundamentally different activities: temporal separation, structural separation, and the creation of context. Studying the strategic orientation, organization design, and performance of a unique sample of mid-sized German manufacturing firms, the authors find that the controlled interplay of decentralized decision making and formalized processes and goals is another effective means to manage the challenges of pursuing an innovation strategy balancing both exploitative and exploratory activities. The findings of this study suggest that this balanced control constitutes a fourth enabler of ambidexterity.
Details