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Recently, some biologists have argued that the time has come to replace separation between Lamarckism and Darwinism with their connection. The aim of this paper is to understand whether this paradigm shift in the interpretation of biological evolution offers useful insights for dealing with the unresolved issue of how industries and their organizational populations evolve.

Lamarckism and Darwinism are two approaches that have contrasted or interwoven with each other in the study of biological evolution, just as they have in the study of organizational evolution. This paper provides a critical analysis of the long history of the debate through to the recent, revolutionary discoveries in evolutionary microbiology obtained in the wake of the genomic revolution.

From this new research frontier emerge three important findings: adaptive variations are no longer an anomaly that is peculiar to human organizations, but rather correspond to a widely observed phenomenon in the biological world; the same can be said for the process of horizontal replication; Lamarckism and Darwinism are not two mutually exclusive interpretations of evolution but two dimensions of evolution that coexist in various ways. Lamarckian dimension of evolution and the Darwinian one, handled in the light of these results, may help to understand the evolutionary logic that underpins specific stages of the history of industries.

The paper presents a new way of looking at industries and their firms from an evolutionary perspective.

Variation, replication and selection processes are acknowledged as key constructs in studies on how industries evolve, but no theoretical and empirical contributions have applied these key constructs to analyzing industries in specific stages of their history. This paper aims to fill this gap, taking for reference the firm and its strategic action in particular.

After delineating and discussing the three processes of interest – variation, replication and selection – this paper analyzes three very different evolutionary contexts: “red” industries, that reached maturity maintaining a polypolistic structure, and that continue to evolve in this phase; the oligopolistic transformation undergone by certain industries; and the emergence of new market spaces around new products developed by firms.

Variations are mainly reactions to the competitive environment in the evolution of red industries or environment-modifying in the case of industries evolving toward an oligopoly, and in the creation of new market spaces. Horizontal replication through employee mobility prevails in red industries, while in the other two contexts firms driving the evolution raise barriers to replication, inhibiting both horizontal and vertical replication. While selection does not come about in a new market space as long as the barriers erected by the first comer remain in place, it occurs in the form of subset selection in the other two settings.

This paper takes an entirely novel approach and proposes a pluralist framing of how industries evolve, interpreting the different evolutionary situations on the strength of the key variables of variation, replication and selection.

Presents a study which derives relationships between the personality/cultural variables of vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism, on the one hand, and the organizational criteria of intrapreneurship and organizational commitment on the other. Suggests that horizontal individualism may explain intrapreneurship jointly with a supportive organizational climate. Vertical collectivism demonstrates a direct positive relationship with organizational commitment. Horizontal collectivism varies jointly with work‐group and supervisor commitments in a negative relationship with organizational commitment, indicating a perception of conflict between work‐group and supervisor goals on the one hand and organizational goals on the other. Concludes that, while the basis of the vertical collectivist’s commitment seems unclear, horizontal collectivists base their commitment on compliance or rewards. Discusses theoretical and a few practical implications.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to identify how horizontal leaders (within project teams) execute their leadership task in the context of balanced leadership; and to pinpoint scenarios that can occur when horizontal leaders are identified and empowered by the vertical leader (senior or project managers) and a project task is handed over to them to lead. This research is based on the concept of balanced leadership, which conceptualizes leadership as a dynamic, situation-dependent transition of leadership authority from a vertical leader (like a project manager) to a horizontal leader (a project team member) and back again, in order to contribute positively to a project’s success. Balanced leadership consists of five events (nomination, identification, empowerment, horizontal leadership and its governance, and transition). This paper focuses on the fourth event, and its specific aspect of leadership distribution between horizontal and vertical leader. This event begins when a team member(s) accepts the empowerment to assume the role of horizontal leader. This paper explicitly links the leadership style of the vertical leader based on Frame’s (1987) leadership styles and the nature of decisions taken by both the vertical and horizontal leaders to deliver the project.

The method used for this paper is the qualitative phase of a sequential mixed methods (qualitative-quantitative) study. Data were collected through case studies in four different countries, using a maximum variety sampling approach. Data collection was through interviews of vertical leaders (senior leaders who were often sponsors of projects or members of senior management or project managers) and horizontal leaders (team leaders or members) in a variety of industry sectors. Data analysis was done through initial coding and constant comparison to arrive at themes. Thematic analysis was used to gain knowledge about the split of leadership and decision-making authority between the horizontal and vertical leader(s).

The results show that for Canadian and Australian projects, a combination of autocratic and democratic leadership styles were used by vertical leaders. In the case of Scandinavian projects, a democratic leadership style has been observed. Linked to these leadership styles, the horizontal decision making is predominantly focused on technical decisions and to daily task decisions to deliver the project. Delegation occurs most of the time to one specific team member, but occasionally to several team members simultaneously, for them to work collaboratively on a given issue.

The paper supports a deeper investigation into a leadership theory, by validating one particular event of the balanced leadership theory, which is based on Archer’s (1995) realist social theory. The findings from this paper will guide organizations to facilitate an effective approach to balancing the leadership roles between vertical and horizontal leaders in their projects. The findings can also be used to develop horizontal leaders to take up more responsibilities in projects.

The originality lies in the new leadership theory called balanced leadership, and its empirical validation. It is the first study on the leadership task distribution between vertical and horizontal leadership in projects. Its value is new insights, which allow practitioners to develop practices to find and empower the best possible leader at any given time in the project and academics to develop a more dynamic and, therefore, more realistic theory on leadership as it unfolds in projects.

This paper illuminates the distinction between individual and organizational actors in business-to-business markets as well as the coexistence of formal and informal mechanisms of coordination in multinational corporations. The main questions addressed include the following. (1) What factors influence the occurrence of personal contacts of foreign subsidiary managers in industrial multinational corporations? (2) How such personal contacts enable coordination in industrial markets and within multinational firms? The theoretical context of the paper is based on: (1) the interaction approach to industrial markets, (2) the network approach to industrial markets, and (3) the process approach to multinational management. The unit of analysis is the foreign subsidiary manager as the focal actor of a contact network. The paper is empirically focused on Portuguese sales subsidiaries of Finnish multinational corporations, which are managed by either a parent country national (Finnish), a host country national (Portuguese) or a third country national. The paper suggests eight scenarios of individual dependence and uncertainty, which are determined by individual, organizational, and/or market factors. Such scenarios are, in turn, thought to require personal contacts with specific functions. The paper suggests eight interpersonal roles of foreign subsidiary managers, by which the functions of their personal contacts enable inter-firm coordination in industrial markets. In addition, the paper suggests eight propositions on how the functions of their personal contacts enable centralization, formalization, socialization and horizontal communication in multinational corporations.

In this paper, we review the literature on pay variation (e.g., pay dispersion, pay compression, pay range) in organizations. Pay variation research has increased markedly in the past two decades and much progress has been made in terms of understanding its consequences for individual, team, and organizational outcomes. Our review of this research exposes several levels-related assumptions that have limited theoretical and empirical progress. We isolate the issues that deserve attention, develop an illustrative multilevel model, and offer a number of testable propositions to guide future research on pay structures.

This paper aims to examine how team familiarity, as a social resource accumulated through vertical and horizontal exchanges, in teams with undifferentiated member roles may satisfy the functional needs of a fluid team by facilitating operational effectiveness and contributing to its financial performance.

To analyze how vertical and horizontal team familiarity impacts team financial job performance, this paper collected three years of archival data from a moving services firm yielding a final sample of 306 moving jobs. This paper used a cross-sectional design and structural equation modeling to test the impact of vertical and horizontal familiarity on team financial job performance.

This paper found empirical evidence that vertical team familiarity affects horizontal team familiarity among teams with undifferentiated member roles. In addition, the analysis shows that horizontal team familiarity positively impacts financial team job performance. Finally, the results indicate that team leaders are capable of indirectly impacting financial job performance through their discretion to influence horizontal familiarity.

This study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the role of team familiarity in the organizational practices of organizing and assembling fluid teams with undifferentiated member roles. In particular, organizations relying on these types of fluid teams need to appoint the right leaders that, familiar to team members, allocate the right mix of member familiarity to increase team coordination and team performance.

This study aims to generalize the research findings about the impact of individualism-collectivism, ethical idealism and inter-personal trust on ethically questionable negotiation tactics, such as pretending, deceiving and lying, in a Germanic culture, namely, that of Austria.

Survey questionnaires translated from English to German were collected from 304 respondents. A regression analysis was used to test the contribution of the independent variables to the explanation of negotiators’ attitudes towards questionable negotiation tactics.

The research empirically corroborated a classification of three groups of negotiation tactics, namely, pretending, deceiving and lying, in Austria. Austrian negotiators who scored high on vertical individualism tended to score high on the endorsement of the pretending tactic; those who scored high on horizontal collectivism tended to score low on the endorsement of the deceiving and lying tactics; those who scored high on vertical collectivism tended to score high on the endorsement of the deceiving and lying tactics; and those who scored high on inter-personal trust tended to score low on the endorsement of the pretending negotiation tactic. Idealistic negotiators tended not to endorse the use of pretending, deceiving and lying negotiation tactics.

The study investigated the respondents’ perceptions, rather than their actual negotiation behavior. Findings are limited to Germanic culture.

The study provides negotiators in Austria with a tool that has the potential to predict the extent to which Austrian negotiators would use various ethically questionable negotiation tactics.

This is the first study to present a model of the antecedents of negotiation tactics in a Germanic cultural context, where negotiation studies are limited. This study validates in Austria three questionable negotiation tactics groups of varying severity, which had previously been studied only in non-Germanic cultures. This research significantly contributes to the generalization of a model of the antecedents of the endorsement of questionable tactics across cultures.

This paper aims to proposes a framework, labeled strategic alignment matrix, to attain organizational alignment by integrating the horizontal dimension of performance (results driven by activities carried out by multiple organizational units) and the vertical one (results of single units) through the use of a sophisticated information structure composed by quantitative measures and management processes.

A science-based design approach was adopted. A review of the literature on strategic performance measurement systems (SPMS) and coordination allowed the identification of a set of design principles (guidelines reflecting the accumulated knowledge in the literature). The design principles guided the design of the proposed framework. The framework was tested in a tiles company on the new product development process.

Five design principles are presented for the design of a working SPMS as follows: to integrate the horizontal and vertical dimensions of performance; to have all the relevant information in one place (package); to understand how actors contribute to the overall performance; to favor the emergence of integrating conditions for coordination; and to enrich the role of quantitative non-financial information to attain inter-functional integration. During the test of the framework, managers highlighted the increased ability to coordinate actions and the existence of double-loop learning.

The model was tested in one organization. The study should be replicated in other contexts connecting the strategic alignment matrix to the budgeting and incentive systems.

Working at the interface between science and design helps to address the theory-practice gap that has been a priority in management studies for long.