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1 – 10 of over 18000Nishant Kumar and Dharam Deo Sharma
The purpose of this paper is to explore how organisational culture affects the internationalisation proclivity of international new ventures (INVs).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how organisational culture affects the internationalisation proclivity of international new ventures (INVs).
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, a resource advantage (R-A) framework is adopted to examine how organisational culture can be a resource for INVs to leverage efficiently and/or effectively in order to make up for their challenges in internationalisation and create value for their international customers. In doing so, this study makes use of examples of five INVs from India, which have successfully achieved international business prowess and superior performance immediately after their foundation.
Findings
The findings reveal that an organisational culture including continuous learning, creativity and innovation, collaboration and sharing, and customer-centricity as traits have a positive influence on INV internationalisation proclivity. Most importantly, fostering a culture of collaboration and sharing can help INVs address resource limitations and augment opportunity discovery in the international market. Furthermore, INVs can benefit more from the “learning advantages of newness” by nurturing continuous learning as part of their culture.
Research limitations/implications
A key limitation of this study is that all the firms selected here are from a single country, India, and it may have effects on the way firms leverage these cultural traits.
Practical implications
Founders of INVs should develop organisational arrangements that encourage openness, creativity, and allows employees to contribute freely and fearlessly through new ideas, process innovations, and so on, and firms should recognise such contributions regularly. INVs can adopt policies and develop mechanisms that encourage employees to share knowledge and resources freely with others in the organisation.
Social implications
Growth of INVs is closely linked to job creation and economic progress. Policy makers in emerging economies can benefit from this study by developing infrastructure and creating social conditions that support the survival and growth of INVs. Adopting the findings of this study could possibly help INVs succeed in international markets and avoid failures, and thus save societal resources.
Originality/value
The paper highlights the critical role of organisational culture in INVs’ internationalisation thrust. The paper develops testable propositions that delineate both the main effects as well as the other effects of organisational culture on INV internationalisation.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the findings from longitudinal study conducted with women leaders in tech cities to understand the cultural and discursive burden affecting…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the findings from longitudinal study conducted with women leaders in tech cities to understand the cultural and discursive burden affecting their professional experiences and the dominant cultural boundaries they regularly have to cross to legitimise their knowledge and expertise.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on research from the Gender in Tech City project that included serial interviews with 50 senior women leaders over three years at three different tech city sites.
Findings
The paper illustrates the differing spatialities that women continue to face within tech culture and how terms such as “women in tech” are problematic.
Research limitations/implications
This study adds to the conceptualisation of tech culture and gendered constructions within a spatial context; there is a need to strengthen this path of investigation beyond gender as a lone issue.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the literature on spatial context, examining a new micro-context within tech culture that amplifies hidden biases and restricts the movement of women professionals.
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Joel R. Malin, Thomas S. Poetter, Jon Graft, Marni Durham and William T. Sprankles III
Although much can be learned from schools that regularly foster deeper learning, little research has been undertaken into how and why these schools have been effective or to…
Abstract
Purpose
Although much can be learned from schools that regularly foster deeper learning, little research has been undertaken into how and why these schools have been effective or to elucidate key leadership and cultural characteristics. Moreover, there has been limited attention toward deeper learning within schools that focus on career and technical education (CTE), a major omission given the potentially elevated potential for deeper learning in these contexts. This study aims to partially rectify these issues by examining the intersections of leadership and culture at an innovative school that has demonstrated excellence whilst providing a curriculum centered on CTE.
Design/methodology/approach
This instrumental, insider, single-case study is focused on how leadership–cultural interactions have fostered and shaped students' opportunities to experience deeper learning. The authors take the perspective that it is largely through these leadership–cultural intersections that an organization and the work that happens within it takes on a particular meaning, direction and value. This study applies ethnographic methods, drawing upon formally and informally collected data over the past three years – e.g. from field notes, from leadership meetings and site visits; focus group interviews with students, parents, teachers, partners and school leaders; and additional artifacts.
Findings
The authors detail three interrelated features at this school, noting that it is: (1) driven by moral purpose; (2) open, collaborative and trusting; and (3) ambitious and entrepreneurial. The authors explain how/why such a culture has developed and to what effects, especially in relation to facilitating deeper learning.
Originality/value
Study findings meaningfully add to the literature regarding leadership for deeper learning, broadly and in relation to career and technical education and yield recommendations for educational leaders and policymakers.
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The influx of mainland capital to different media sectors in Hong Kong has been commonly seen throughout the last decade (Leung, 2019). While the changes in ownership have been…
Abstract
Purpose
The influx of mainland capital to different media sectors in Hong Kong has been commonly seen throughout the last decade (Leung, 2019). While the changes in ownership have been shaping the ecology of Hong Kong’s media industry, the rapid development of digital technology such as the internet and social media has also been important in the industry’s transformation. This study aims to investigate how and to what extent technology has shaped the Hong Kong media work culture.
Design/methodology/approach
Alibaba, the powerful e-commerce conglomerate, has sought to advance its development in the media industry and leverage its technological expertise by acquiring the century-old Hong Kong English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) in 2016. This essay, by using the SCMP as a case study, focuses on the workers and their use of technologies in their daily work practices, which offers an alternative lens to investigate the influence of a Chinese tech ownership in transforming a Hong Kong media outlet’s culture.
Findings
This case study illustrates how the implementation of Alibaba work culture at the SCMP through technological application remained minimal over the four years following this Chinese tech giant’s acquisition, whereas a Silicon Valley-style start-up culture and techno-organisational gaze were profoundly found at this workplace and received both acceptance and resistance by the employees.
Originality/value
This study results in a revealing unique type of techno-organisational culture change that deviates from the previous Chinese organisational studies within and outside the Chinese contexts.
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Barbara Czarniawska and Gideon Kunda
The purpose of this paper is to understand the persistent ambiguity of socialization practices in US and Swedish organizations, which promote a mature work identity while…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the persistent ambiguity of socialization practices in US and Swedish organizations, which promote a mature work identity while infantilizing their employees.
Design/methodology/approach
Application of the insights from modernist authors' analysis of modernity as experienced by a human subject within professional organizations (Gombrowicz and Musil) and as responsible for proliferation of layers of reality (Eco), to contemporary practices of socialization.
Findings
The conflict between the need to conform to the corporate culture and the temptation to subvert them for creative or destructive purposes results in production of a “person without qualities,” and in the rise of the contemporary form of hyperreal infantocracy, which requires sophisticated irony in order to deal with organizational practices.
Research limitations/implications
Paying more attention to literary analysts of contemporary condition such as Gombrowicz, Musil, Eco, and Kundera will allow to understand paradoxes of contemporary organizing beyond the limits of traditional social sciences.
Practical implications
Combating apathy and disillusion among both employees and human resource management practitioners requires a reconceptualization of the programs of organizational socialization in terms of a sustainable and responsible corporate citizenship.
Originality/value
Few authors have managed to mine the humanist heritage in order to salvage insights, which might have practical implications for a more balanced, sustainable, and humane organizational reality.
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In this paper the author aims to examine his own life and work in order to understand how an ethnographic sensibility emerges and develops.
Abstract
Purpose
In this paper the author aims to examine his own life and work in order to understand how an ethnographic sensibility emerges and develops.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper examines the personal and institutional context in which his book Engineering Culture: Commitment and Control in a High Tech Corporation was researched and written, from formative moments in his life that led him to the study, through the process of finding, entering and exploring his field, to the acts of interpretation and writing that culminated in the book.
Findings
The paper illustrates the institutional pressures that constrain conceptual and methodological freedom and undermine the logic of inquiry, and suggests ways of circumventing them. It also illustrates how interpretation is rooted in symbolic resources developed over a lifetime that are far beyond a grounding in social theory, and shows the intricate connections between question formulation, data collection, interpretation and writing that transcend the standard approaches to teaching and executing social research.
Originality/value
The paper offers a revealing behind‐the‐scenes view of the process of ethnographic inquiry, challenges the accepted view of the method and offers practical advice to researchers, teachers and students.
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Fabian Maximilian Johannes Teichmann and Chiara Wittmann
The European Union’s Whistleblower Directive (WBD), or formally the “Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of…
Abstract
Purpose
The European Union’s Whistleblower Directive (WBD), or formally the “Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons reporting infringements of Union law” seeks to establish a uniform standard for whistleblowing protection across member state jurisdictions. Considering the international reach of the directive, it inevitably confronts divergent national attitudes towards whistleblowing. This paper aims to examine various cultural attitudes which have contributed to the common understanding of whistleblowing, under the directive.
Design/methodology/approach
The rhetoric on whistleblowing from a combination of business and national cultures is examined herein. A focus is cast on the information technology sector, which has traditionally protected trade secrecy over whistleblowing, under the guise of protecting of innovation. Moreover, the juxtaposition of American and German employment culture is testimony to the discrepancy in national narratives.
Findings
The WBD is both a symptom and a yardstick of modern employment culture in Europe. There are crucial clashes with trade secrecy which the directive has not resolved as well as an acknowledgement of the paradigm of legal thought which the directive pushes.
Originality/value
By reference to both business and national culture, this paper highlights the heterogenous conception of whistleblowing which the directive aims to reconcile. Whilst a vast amount of literature has covered isolated criticism of the WBD, a wider lens has not been cast to consider the pervasive influence of specific aspects on business culture.
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Hong Liu and Peter Barrar
The purpose of this paper is to test the positive effect of strategy‐technology integration on performance in comparison with the impact of other types of strategies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to test the positive effect of strategy‐technology integration on performance in comparison with the impact of other types of strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
General conclusions are drawn and strategic implications derived from a survey of 355 UK manufacturing companies which had expressed interest in the introduction of new computer‐based technology.
Findings
It was found that the companies with strategy‐technology integration showed better financial and operational performance. Strategies of technology leadership and market orientation were also associated with enhanced financial performance. However, a number of organisational conditions were found to be necessary for the pursuit of these strategies.
Research limitations/implications
Further research is needed to examine the process and structure in which strategy technology can be better integrated.
Practical implications
Firms should strive to achieve strategy‐technology integration to maximise the benefits of adopting new technologies.
Originality/value
The empirical research presented in this paper fills a gap in the existing literature.
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Stella M. Nkomo and Akram Al Ariss
– The purpose of this paper is to trace the genealogy of ethnic (white) privilege in US organizations and its continuing significance in organizations today.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to trace the genealogy of ethnic (white) privilege in US organizations and its continuing significance in organizations today.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper relies upon the historical literature on work, culture, and society found primarily in the fields of labor history and sociology. It also references contemporary organization studies and sociological literature to illustrate the continuing significance of ethnic (white) privilege in the workplace.
Findings
There is an inexorable link between European global expansion and colonization, industrialization, and the racialization/ethnicization of nineteenth and twentieth century US organizations. Furthermore, the particular manifestations of ethnic (white) privilege today must be understood within its historical development and the new meanings whiteness has acquired within the workplace if scholars and practitioners are to be successful in creating inclusive workplaces.
Research limitations/implications
The focus in this paper is on the USA and ethnic (white) privilege to the exclusion of other forms of difference and contexts. Suggestions for future research are provided along with managerial implications.
Originality/value
This paper provides historical insight into the formation of white privilege in organizations and constitutes a prelude to fully understanding its contemporary manifestations in the workplace. These insights suggest ways to disrupt inequality and create inclusive organizations that do not privilege one ethnic or racial group over another.
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M Muzamil Naqshbandi, Sharan Kaur, Rashmi Sehgal and Indra Devi Subramaniam
The role of organizational culture in determining success or failure of firms stands proven beyond doubt in numerous studies. The purpose of this paper is to examine…
Abstract
Purpose
The role of organizational culture in determining success or failure of firms stands proven beyond doubt in numerous studies. The purpose of this paper is to examine organizational culture of the Malaysian high-tech sector and highlights the organizational culture dimensions most and least dominant in this sector. The study also examines differences with respect to organizational culture across the high-tech industries and different ownership types.
Design/methodology/approach
Questionnaire survey method is used to collect the data from middle and top managers working in Malaysian high-tech industries.
Findings
Five dimensions of organizational culture emerge in this study. Results indicate that harmony and social responsibility are the most and least dominant dimensions of organizational culture respectively. Significant differences are found in organizational culture across industries and ownership types.
Originality/value
While organizational culture seems to be a fairly well-researched topic in Malaysia, there seems to be a dearth of studies investigating the issue of culture prevalent in the high-tech industries in Malaysia; this despite the paramount contribution of the high-tech industries to the Malaysian economy. This study identifies the culture of Malaysian high-tech industries, examines what cultural dimensions they focus on and do not, and compares organizational culture differences across industries and ownership structures.
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