Prior studies on strategic management and entrepreneurship have argued that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is positively associated with performance when firms face certain contingencies, specifically, the dynamism of the external environment and the attributes of resources/capabilities owned by the firm. However, the current empirical evidence is inconclusive. This study advances the argument that the interactive effects of EO, environmental dynamism, and the rareness of resource–capability (rareness) combinations positively influence firm performance. By combining data collected via a secondary database and a questionnaire survey from 237 public firms in Taiwan, this study finds that EO positively influences firm performance. The EO–performance relationship is further moderated by the rareness of resource–capability combinations and environmental dynamism. It is also found that firm performance is collectively determined by the three-way interactions of EO, rareness, and environmental dynamism. That is, when firms own rare resources and are located in a dynamic environment, EO will lead to improved performance.

Definitions are social constructions rather than objective descriptions. They set clear boundaries for what is considered normal in a situation. Common words in organizations, like effectiveness or success, carry different meaningss in different contexts. In this paper, we evaluate the Delphi Technique as a method for explicating context-specific definitions and illustrate its use in formulating a context-specific definition of ‘an effective health care team’. Eight multi-disciplinary organization members participated in the study and reached consensus on characteristics assigned to team effectiveness in three rounds. The final definition implies the influence of organizational values, underscoring the importance of context specificity in organization studies.

This study examines whether a responsible downsizing strategy and employee-oriented leadership are complementary in strengthening firm performance after downsizing. This study investigated 154 firms that have used an organizational downsizing strategy with surveys and follow-up focus groups. Results of both the empirical evidence and qualitative data demonstrates that for firms adopting an employee-oriented leadership style, the level of responsible downsizing strategy is high and firm performance is significantly increased. Specifically, the results of the focus groups indicate that a responsible downsizing strategy deepens the loyalty and faith of employees to their employer. These theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

This study has extended existing research on CEO power, pay structure, and firm performance, offering models based mainly on agency theory and managerial power theory, and testing hypotheses using data from 112 companies across a five-year span (2001–2005) in computer-related industry groups in the United States. The results indicated that power from executive directorship positively impacts a firm's return on assets and return on equity, and that CEO power from duality negatively impacts CEO long-term pay and total pay, while CEO power from tenure positively impacts CEO long-term pay and pay leverage, and composite power negatively impacts short-term pay. Evidence for CEO pay as a mediator between CEO power and firm performance revealed that CEO short-term pay positively impacts a firm's return on assets and international performance but negatively impacts its market value, regardless of which source of power is being controlled. CEO total pay positively impacts a firm's return on assets and international performance, with power from CEO duality, directorship, or composite power being controlled. Hence, and in general, CEO pay fails to significantly mediate the relationships between CEO power and firm performance. The contributions include a multiple-perspective study of CEO power, compensation, and firm performance to comprehensively discover each of their respective relationships. This study has further extended the debate over agency perspectives with stewardship perspectives to fill knowledge and theoretical gaps. Thus, evidence-based findings provide boards of directors with practical knowledge for sound governance with another avenue for future research in corporate governance.

Both managers and the staff they supervise bring unconscious and unresolved personal issues into their relationships in the workplace. This phenomenon is called ‘transference’. Transference generally interferes with the positive working relationships that are essential to achieving organizational objectives. This article provides a conceptual framework for differentiating transference from other complex emotional interactions that can occur in the workplace as well as a set of clear action steps for how the manager can respond to transference constructively. Examples of both staff and manager transference are presented to illustrate how managers can detect and then respond effectively to transference. It is noted that managers are not psychotherapists; knowledge about transference should therefore be used with caution. It is a manager's job is to help staff to succeed with their work, not to help them resolve personal problems.

Investigation of customer participation in new product development (NPD) performance has yielded conflicting results. This study explores the idea that intensive customer participation is not always better. Instead, the usefulness of customer participation in NPD is determined by the fit between product innovativeness and customer participation as information providers and as co-developers. An empirical study of 196 NPD projects of Taiwanese high-tech firms is analyzed by structural equation modeling. The findings show that product innovativeness negatively moderates the impact of customer participation as information providers on NPD outcome. Thus, the greater the involvement of customer participation as information providers in radical innovation projects, the lower the NPD outcome. Moreover, our results also indicate that product innovativeness positively affects the relationship between customer participation as a co-developer and NPD outcome, which suggest that the more customer participation as a co-developer in a radical innovation project, the better the NPD outcome.

Data from the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey (1999–2002) is used to assess the take-up of family-friendly benefits provided by employers. We distinguish benefit availability from the actual use of benefits and are able to account for worker selection into firms. We find that selection is important to understand the take-up of family-friendly benefits and that there is little difference between genders regarding benefit use. Overall, it seems that some family-friendly benefits (like flexible time) are relatively little help in the management of work-family conflict, while others (like childcare or eldercare) are unavailable to those who would benefit from them the most.

Mergers and acquisitions can be a mechanism used by firms to access innovative knowledge, including intellectual property, and to strengthen and expand their core capabilities. In the mergers and acquisition context, the creation of value depends on the transfer of capabilities and knowledge being carried out successfully during the post-acquisition integration process. The paper adopts this view. It examines the role of the top management and personnel who hold knowledge and skills linked to the capability of the acquired firm considered most valuable by the acquiring firm in the transfer of knowledge from the acquired firm to the acquiring firm. The paper also examines whether the impact of the retention of the acquired firm's high-value human resources (HVHR) on knowledge transfer is moderated by the degree of embeddedness of the knowledge to be transferred. Furthermore, the study identifies the factors that influence the retention of the acquired firm's HVHR. We tested the model using data from a sample of 57 domestic, related, friendly Spanish mergers and acquisitions belonging to a wide variety of industries. The results support the notion that the more embedded the knowledge, the greater the impact of the acquired firm's HVHR retention on the knowledge transfer. They also show that the autonomy granted to the acquired firm, the frequency of use of rich media among the personnel of both firms, and the acquired firm's pre-acquisition profitability are factors encouraging the acquired firm's HVHR to remain. The study contributes to the literature on knowledge transfer in mergers and acquisitions by highlighting the relevance of retention of the acquired firm's HVHR for knowledge transfer, as well as demonstrating the importance of taking into consideration the nature of the knowledge to be transferred. It also contributes to the literature on the implementation process in mergers and acquisitions by identifying factors available to managers to favor HVHR continuity in the acquiring firm or the one resulting from the merger.

Research into workplace bullying has only recently begun to investigate preventative measures. This paper continues that emphasis by examining the management of bullying in a sample of New Zealand organisations. In this study, the survey results from 252 occupational health and safety practitioners were analysed to examine how bullying is understood and managed, along with factors that predict preventative efforts. Results indicate that bullying was perceived to impact significantly on organisations, although the organisations had limited preventative measures in place. The findings confirm the importance of leadership and the establishment of an effective bully-free environment as preventative measures.

The article provides the results of research carried out within the organizational social capital theory and the network theory of organizations. The research contributes to these theories by identifying, through an analysis of the literature, 10 informal network sources of intra-organizational social capital. A model for representing and measuring intra-organizational social capital based on the 10 informal organizational networks identified and on three different conceptual perspectives (structural, relational and cognitive) is subsequently proposed. The model is validated through an empirical study conducted within five divisions of a knowledge-intensive company. The research results suggest that among the 10 informal relationships studied, the accessibility of individuals primarily predicts the emergence of more informal relationships, which are the real source of intra-organizational social capital through resource exchange and combination. Furthermore a continuous working cooperation and the willingness of colleagues to make themselves available for cooperation also create a shared organizational culture in terms of language, norms and values and maintain a stable working information flow within organizations.

Our study develops a new conceptual framework in which guanxi practices (managerial use of interpersonal ties to benefit their organizations) are analyzed by their focus (resources flowing inward or resources flowing outward) and their base (familiar – based on friendship ties; or family – based on kinship ties). Using this framework, we highlight the linkage between costs and benefits from using guanxi in Chinese business organizations, and show how the linkage depends on the guanxi base. Finally, we show how guanxi focus and guanxi base importantly affect employee responses to the use of guanxi practices in their organizations.

This research aims to complement resource-based view with a cluster approach in identifying which elements, both internal to the firm and locally available, improve firms’ export performance. While in the resource-based view exporting firms are contingent upon the development of intangible resources, from a cluster approach exporters exploit local externalities, mainly related to local information, knowledge and resource spillovers. We present empirical evidence from the Iberian ham cluster in Spain, which confirms the relevance of intangibles such as R&D and marketing promotion, but also of cluster linkages with local institutions – technological centres, universities and use of Designation of Origins – in improving export performance. Contrary to expectations, employee education, organizational experience, and information and knowledge-based spillovers from proximate exporters have no significant effect. These findings suggest that an augmented framework may improve the predictive elements of export performance in clusters.

The knowledge-based view of the firm portrays knowledge assets as the basis of sustainable competitive advantage. However, leveraging the knowledge available to the firm is not straightforward. The transfer of best practices within the firm or the replication of a certain routine poses challenges for managers. Causal ambiguity of knowledge makes it difficult to transfer practices into other contexts within the firm. In this paper, a new framework is proposed that identifies four antecedents to causal ambiguity: complexity, tacitness, relevance to the existing knowledge base, and the locality of knowledge. The paper concludes with the implications of the framework.

Behavioral integrity refers to the consistency of an individual's words and actions. This consistency facilitates trust. Nevertheless, an individual's behavioral integrity often changes, to various extents, with one's surroundings. This study employs social contracts and scenarios to examine the underlying behavioral assumptions made by a specific gender within definite contexts in Taiwan. This study demonstrates that gender differences exist in behavioral integrity with contextual variations. Males under conformity pressures in public possess higher behavioral integrity, but exhibit lower behavioral integrity in private under pressure to protect themselves. This knowledge helps improve understanding within organizations as well as workplace communication between genders.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether outsourcing frontline functions warrants equivalent level of customer-orientated behaviors as provided by a principal organization, and, if not, what the causes of the differences are. A total of 753 frontline workers of a leading South Korean telecommunications company and its partner companies responded to a survey regarding their levels of customer-oriented behaviors, their supervisor's degree of customer orientation, and their organization's training on customer orientation. Structural equation models were then utilized to examine the proposed relationships. The results show that the frontline workers of the partner organizations have a significantly lower level of customer-oriented behaviors compared with those of the principal organization. The immediate supervisor's degree of customer orientation and customer-orientation training accounted for a significant amount of difference found between the principal and partner organizations.

Entry into graduate programmes is highly competitive. Although careers advisors working within higher education do their best to prepare students for engagement with these programmes; anecdotal reports suggest many graduates remain unsure what it is these employers are seeking, and how it is assessed. Our study examines both selection criteria profiles and practices, drawing comprehensive data from 20 New Zealand firms and finds that regardless of a firm's characteristics, most seek a very similar graduate profile, with the concepts of candidate ‘well roundedness’ and ‘fit’ considered most vital. Selection practices employed are tightly connected to this graduate profile. These findings shed some much needed light for graduates on what is, but also what is not, highly sought after by employers in the recruitment and selection process. They should also be of benefit to universities by assisting them to better prepare their graduates for successful transition into the employment market.

This research reviews the constructs and measurements of guanxi and concludes that colleague guanxi is appropriately conceptualized as a multidimensional construct that describes Chinese colleague relationships. The development of a colleague guanxi scale with four dimensions is described. Two studies test the convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity of the guanxi scale. In validation tests guanxi intensity increases with cognition features (subjective fit and cognitive trust) and results in a positive affect (affective trust). Contributions of the colleague guanxi scale are offered.

This exploratory study examined the workplace violence problem in a sample of 96 New Zealand organisations. Just over one-half of participating organisations reported cases of violence, with a total of nearly 2,500 cases reported in 2009. The incidence rate for all violence cases was high compared with internationally reported rates. Highest violence incidence rates and lost-time were reported for the health sector, where patients, customers/clients and family members were rated as sources of violence of particularly high importance. Risk factors with highest mean importance ratings were related to exposure to unstable persons, including: alcohol and drug use, harassment, and mental and physical instability/distress. Workload and time-pressure were also identified as risk factors for some organisations. Just 50% of organisations formally recognised violence as a hazard in the workplace, while interventions were largely limited to employee training and technological factors.

This study examines the association between the use of three types of controls (input, behaviour and output) and Miller and Friesen's organisational life cycle (OLC) stages (birth, growth, maturity, revival and decline). Data were collected by a survey questionnaire from a random sample of 1,000 General Managers in Australian manufacturing business units. The results indicate that the extent of use of different controls is associated with OLC stages. Specifically, both behaviour and input controls were found to be used to a significantly greater extent than output controls in both the birth stage and the growth stage, while all three types of controls were used to a similar level in the maturity and revival stages. An examination of the extent of use of controls across OLC stages revealed that each type of control was used to a significantly greater extent in the growth and revival stages than the birth and maturity stages. The study contributes to the literature by linking management control system studies to OLC studies. Most importantly, the study assists Australian manufacturing business units in identifying the appropriate use of controls both in and across OLC stages.

In this research, I apply and extend Kohli's state-directed development framework to better understand country-level factors influencing cross-national differences in job characteristics and job satisfaction. Prior research has indicated that the nature of work has changed dramatically in recent years in response to economic shifts and an increasingly global economy. However, there is little agreement on whether the overall quality of work has improved or declined over that period and little is known about the overall comparative quality of work and job satisfaction across the global economy. In this study I use non-panel longitudinal data from the International Social Survey Program (survey questions on job characteristics and job quality) and various country-contextual variables. This article explores the impact of state-directed development on job satisfaction, first identifying and explaining the foundations of the statist literature, and then using various statistical methods to test for statistically significant impact and variation across countries.