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The authors argue that organization design needs to play a more active role in the explanation of differential performance and outline a set of ideas for achieving this both in theoretical and empirical research. Firms are heterogeneous in terms of (1) how well they do things, capturing persistent productivity differences, and (2) how they do things – and both reflect firms’ organization design choices. Both types of heterogeneity can be persistent, and are interdependent, although they have typically been studied separately. The authors propose a simple formal framework – the “aggregation function framework” – that aligns organization design thinking with the emphasis on performance heterogeneity among firms that is characteristic of the strategy field. This framework allows for a more precise identification of how exactly organization design may contribute to persistent performance differences, and therefore what exactly are the assumptions that strategy and organization design scholars need to be attentive to.

We challenge the premise that the CEO's job is to keep the corporation alive and thriving at all costs and under all circumstances. We briefly review the differing normative views of strategic management theorists and organizational theorists about organizational inertia. We then develop an economic model of incumbent behavior in the face of challenger competition that accommodates complementary assets. The model predicts and describes conditions under which organizational inertia, as subsequent organizational failure, is optimal. We then extend the logic and propose that the failure of entrepreneurial firms does not necessarily imply the failure of entrepreneurs. We conclude with a call to study “exit” as a viable strategic option.

The authors herein carry out a literature review of retirement planning and highlights that proper retirement planning starts by looking at the level of income an individual is likely to continue receiving at retirement if they were to take no action, then comparing this to what they would need to lead the lifestyle they desire. The authors review the traditional economic theories that many are accustomed to when interpreting financial matters (i.e., rational behavior) and compares this to the various studies and articles found in literature. The authors then dig into retirement planning in Malta and the behavioral obstacles to proper planning and how these are tackled in different European countries.

The goal of interfirm contract research is to examine how formal contracts impact transaction success, firm relationships, and ultimately individual and collaborative firm performance when two or more firms interact. Most contract literature uses an economic lens to examine contracts: the property rights perspective, agency theory, and TCE. Property rights-based contract research (Coase, 1960; Demsetz, 1967; Alchian & Demsetz, 1973; Cheung, 1969) examines how efficient property rights assignment mitigates ex ante hazards. Similarly, agency theory-based contract research (e.g., Ross, 1973; Jensen & Meckling, 1976; Harris & Raviv, 1979) investigates how incentive alignment between the principal and agent leads to the mitigation of ex ante hazards. In contrast, TCE-based research (Williamson, 1975, 1985) examines contractual safeguards to mitigate both ex ante and ex post hazards (e.g., Joskow, 1985, 1987, 1990; Crocker & Reynolds, 1993). Because the three economic perspectives dominate, most research addresses how contracts are used to mitigate ex ante or ex post hazards. Therefore, many topics still need to be investigated to enhance our understanding of interfirm contracting.

Jean M. Bartunek is the Robert A. and Evelyn J. Ferris chair and professor of organization studies at Boston College as well as a Fellow (since 1999) and a past president (2001–2002) of the Academy of Management. Her Ph.D. in social and organizational psychology is from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her substantive research interests focus on organizational change, conflict associated with it, and organizational cognition, and her methodological interests center around ways that external researchers can collaborate with insider members of a setting to study the setting. She is an associate editor of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science and on the editorial boards of multiple other journals. She has published more than 100 journal articles and book chapters and 5 ([co]authored or co-edited) books.

Although recent public attention has focused on boom-and-bust cycles in industries and financial markets, organizational theorists have made only limited contributions to our understanding of this issue. In this chapter, I argue that a distinctive strategic insight into the mechanisms generating boom-and-bust cycles arises from a focus on entrepreneurial inertia – the lag time exhibited by organizational founders or investors entering a market niche. While popular perceptions of boom-and-bust cycles emphasize the deleterious effect of hasty entrants or overvaluation, I suggest instead that slow, methodical entries into an organizational population or market may pose far greater threats to niche stability. This proposition is explored analytically, considering the development of U.S. medical schools since the mid-18th century.

Although studies of “core competence” appear frequently, the concept lacks a clear definition that allows one to operationalize it and use it to develop falsifiable predictions. We propose a definition based on the phenomenon that core competence is typically applied to – adaptations to different external context. Sourcing insight form the paradigm of organizational ecology, we develop arguments rooted in theories of structural inertia and environmental imprinting. Empirical analyses of failure rates of entrants in the Italian automobile industry confirm our propositions that core competence is a source of competitive advantage when industry entry is based on relevant capabilities and a source of inertia and obsolescence when core competences need to be substantially altered. We conclude that whether core competence materializes as a dynamic capability or exposes the firm to liability to selection and obsolescence is a random process. Its outcome hinges on environmental variation and the resulting firm-environment (mis)alignment and is thus largely beyond managerial control.

Seeking an answer to the question “how does organizational identity change?” we analyze the visual identity marker of universities, namely logos, as time-related artifacts embodying visual scripts. Engaging with the Stinchcombe hypothesis, we identify five processes to the creation of visual identities of organizations: In addition to (1) imprinting (enactment of the contemporary script) and (2) imprinting-cum-inertia (persistent enactment of epochal scripts), we also identify (3) renewal (enactment of an up-to-date epochal script), (4) historization (enactment of a recovered older epochal script), and (5) multiplicity (simultaneous enactment of multiple epochal scripts). We argue that these processes work together to produce contemporary heterogeneity of visualized identity narratives of universities. We illustrate this, first, with a survey of the current-day logos of 814 university emblems in 20 countries from across the world. Second, drawing on archival and interview materials, we analyze the histories of exemplar university logos to illustrate the various time-related processes. Therefore, by interjecting history – as both time and process – into the analysis of the visualization of organizational identity, we both join with the phenomenological and semiotic analysis of visual material as well as demonstrate that history is not merely a fixed factor echoing imprinting and inertia but rather also includes several forms of engagement with temporality that are less deterministic. Overall, we argue that enactment engages with perceptions of time (imaginations of the past, present, and future) and with perceptions fixed by time (epochal imprinting and inertia) to produce heterogeneity in the visualization of organizational identity.

Organization change (OC) is increasingly important in today's volatile world. Understanding OC is a growing emphasis of management and organization (M&O) research and the singular focus of OC scholarship and practice. We show how selected M&O theories inform OC at the organization level. These theoretical perspectives diverge on issues central to OC. We explore what these conceptual differences mean for OC study and practice going forward.

The chapter develops a conceptual framework for linking the phenomena included in the field labeled “organizational change” (OC). The objective is to design an OC model that makes selective use of existing theories and creates a premise for further development but avoids proposing a unifying synthesis with a normative value. At the center is the critical circuit of the relationship between the processes of organizational learning, resource development and power management which originates the triple helix of change. The framework explains a variety of change management experiences along a continuum between two poles – “turnaround” and “continuous and fluid transformation.”