Search results

The purpose of this paper is to extensively discuss the performance management system characteristics of amoeba management and organizational ambidexterity to provide conceptual comparisons between the two and assist scholars and practitioners in their respective research design and adoption decisions.

Management databases that included Science Direct, ABI/INFORM Global, Business Source Premier and Scopus (and their Japanese counterparts), as well as a number of journals known for publishing work on amoeba management and organizational ambidexterity, were used to identify relevant published work. An initial identification of almost 2,500 books and articles was reduced to the paper’s approximately 100 references. Feedback from presenting the paper at management conferences and university seminars supports the comprehensiveness of the assembled literature.

This paper shows that prior research’s conflating of amoeba management and organizational ambidexterity is misguided. While the two performance management systems share a common overarching philosophy on how to successfully operate in highly competitive environments and adopt a similar urgency about the need for business units to feature relatively small numbers of employees, significant differences involving the enactment of strategy, organizational structure, organizational culture, planning horizon, performance measures, employee involvement, employee selection and leadership prevail.

By providing scholars and practitioners with better, more holistic understandings of amoeba management and organizational ambidexterity, the paper seeks to advance theoretical and practical understandings of the two performance management systems. The model provided helps scholars incorporate into their research more complete theoretical constructions and operational representations of these two performance management systems and helps practitioners make better informed adoption choices.

This paper aims to explore how researchers in general, and field researchers in particular, might respond to systems of governance of the researchers' activity in ways that can support rather than distort the quality of the research.

We draw upon literature on serendipity to develop a framework for engaging with the positive and negative potentials of systems of governance. We ground our analysis in discussion of participation in the field comprising two parts: first, the examination of our own activities and second, the accounts of participation found in two career-autobiographical interviews with emeritus professors of management accounting from Japan.

We highlight the potential for a productive tension between two contrasting perspectives that researchers might take on governance of their activity. A contractual perspective sees the value of targets and detailed pre-planning. A reflexive perspective sees the value of exploring the unexpected and considering many alternatives. We offer a framework for considering serendipity and the conditions that facilitate serendipity to help researchers maintain a productive tension between these perspectives.

We build upon retrospective accounts of two successful individuals whose careers evolved in a specific context. The intention is not to set out what might be generally achievable in a research career, nor to propose specific lines of action or planning in relation to specific systems of governance, since these vary across countries and over time. Rather, the paper draws on these materials to illuminate the more general challenge of preparing for serendipity in a way that goes beyond simple opportunism.

We analyse how researchers' mindfulness of serendipity and the nature of contexts that facilitate serendipity can encourage a productive tension between contractual and reflexive perspectives on governance of academic activity.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the “Kyocera approach” to business, i.e. the relationship between the Kyocera philosophy, the amoeba management system (AMS) and the associated management accounting system.

Utilising a variety of secondary sources, including semi-autobiographical works written by Inamori, the architect of AMS, the authors examine in detail the links between the underlying Kyocera philosophy and the management and accounting principles derived therefrom. These sources are used to examine the historical origins of these principles, their influence on both the AMS and the management accounting system, and how these have developed over time.

Both the AMS and the associated management accounting system can be shown to contain a mixture of influences, including traditional Asian/Japanese factors, but also Inamori/Kyocera-specific factors linked to Inamori's underlying philosophical approach to life and specific life experiences encountered by him. This suggests that while the Kyocera approach may be applicable more widely in Japan or Asia, outside of this context, the conflicts between Western and Asian cultures, although not necessarily insurmountable, may provide barriers leading to incomplete applications of the Kyocera approach

This study adds to the understanding of the interrelationship between management philosophy and management accounting practices, and the ability of individuals to determine culture within organisations. It illustrates the importance of historical research in obtaining a detailed understanding of the philosophical, cultural and religious underpinnings of current management and accounting practices.