In an era of hypercompetition, research and development (R&D) investments are vital for organizations to stay competitive. This microlevel study draws on dynamic managerial capability (DMC) theory to explore the mechanisms contributing to competitive advantages. It posits that DMCs enhance firm performance by increasing R&D spending, and explores the moderating role of slack resources due to their effect on resource availability. Employing hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping methods on a longitudinal sample comprising 31 German DAX firms, the findings robustly demonstrate that DMCs facilitate firm performance by fostering R&D expenditures and confirm the moderating effect of specific slack resources. However, only internal but not external slack resources amplify the relationship between DMCs and R&D intensity. Overall, this study emphasizes the critical role of managers’ microlevel capabilities in determining firm performance and sheds light on how different slack resources influence the relationships between DMCs, R&D intensity, and firm performance.

Globally, organizations have little insight into mechanisms that enable them to leverage their resources and capabilities successfully. In that endeavor, this study demonstrates that organizations can achieve competitive advantages through resource transformation and capability reinforcement. Using a conceptual framework grounded in the resource-based view and the dynamic capabilities theory in combination with Miles and Snow typology, we show how different types of organizations can succeed in the currently evolving competitive landscape by developing mechanisms that match the strategic performance measures of the organizations, such as return on assets or Tobin's Q. Notably, analyzing data obtained from 114 firms with seemingly unrelated regression, the findings reveal central roles of alternating mechanisms that drive differential organizational performance and enable the organizations to successfully deploy resources and capabilities.

We explored the interactive role of an organization's sector prototypicality (the extent to which the organization embodies the prototype of its market sector) and employees' identification with their organization in buffering crises' negative effects on perceived organizational performance. We propose (1) that highly prototypical organizations are perceived as more able to cope with organizational crisis, because of their capacity to reduce the threat associated with crisis, and (2) that this effect is augmented when employees more strongly identify with their organization, presumably because of a higher trust in the organization's capacity to efficiently cope with crisis. Findings from two studies confirmed the hypotheses, by manipulating (study 1) and measuring (study 2) organizational crisis and the organization's sector prototypicality, and by focusing on potential employees (study 1) and on employees of a company facing a financial crisis (study 2). Theoretical and applied implications of results are discussed.

Drawing on the new institutional theory and the resources based view of the firm (RBV), this study tries to shed light upon the idea that isomorphic organizational changes seek legitimacy over efficiency. Using data from 102 Spanish companies and employing partial least squares, a variance-based structural equation modeling technique, this study concludes that both objectives are achievable simultaneously when firms implement total quality management (TQM) as an integrative stream of both theories. Furthermore, empirical results reveal that: (i) institutional pressures (IP) condition significantly the implementation of TQM, (ii) TQM exerts a double mediating role in the IP-legitimacy and IP-efficiency relationships, and (iii) both efficiency and legitimacy objectives are achieved by means of TQM. However, we observe a dual phenomenon: (i) while we find a significant positive effect of TQM on overall performance (OP) via efficiency and (ii) we failed to find support for the TQM-OP link via legitimacy.

Top management plays a central role in interpreting the organization’s performance and communicating to stakeholders. Management’s performance attributions set the tone for accountability and shape organizational climate. However, prior studies of the relationships between attribution patterns and subsequent performance have been limited and reported mixed results. This study extends this literature stream by examining the relationships of four different types of attribution and subsequent performance concurrently and testing them in a two-country sample. We find a significant positive relationship between positive internal attribution and subsequent performance, and reaffirm prior findings on negative external attribution and performance.

This study analyzes the effects of gender diversity in management on organizational performance using Korea Workplace Panel Survey data for 2005, 2007, and 2009. Few studies have examined this relationship for firms outside the United States, particularly in Asian countries. Similar to previous research, our findings show that gender diversity in management has a U-shaped relationship with firm productivity. Second, the curvilinear relationship between gender diversity in management and firm productivity is stronger in service-oriented industries relative to manufacturing industries, with the highest level of employee productivity within homogeneous management groups. Third, we include a measure of workplace family-friendly policies to moderate the relationship between gender diversity in management and organizational performance. We find that the U-shaped pattern also holds in firms with a large number of family-friendly policies. This suggests that gender diversity in management has considerable influence on the productivity of Korean firms through interactions with family-friendly policies.

Researchers have advocated various perspectives on the relationship between strategic consistency and organizational performance. This inconclusive debate has created an inadequate theoretical foundation in strategic consistency literature. Therefore, the present study uses strategic planning, strategic change, upper echelons theory, and other literature as the theoretical foundation to empirically examine the moderating roles of organizational slack, environmental dynamism, and top management team attributes in the relationship between strategic consistency and organizational performance. Using 439 electronics companies in the Taiwanese stock market as sample data, the empirical results show that organizational slack, environmental dynamism, top management team tenure, and top management team tenure heterogeneity moderate the relationship between strategic consistency and organizational performance.

Strong performing companies often have intents that state their ambitions for the future and this will be clearly communicated to stakeholders by the chief executive officer. The chief executive officer should lead company strategy and play the key role in establishing and communicating the strategic intent. This conceptual paper uses insights mainly from the strategy process and corporate governance literature to build better understanding of how a business can achieve a strong sense of strategic intent to inform their strategy work. Three dimensions of the strategic intent construct are identified – shared vision, resource focus and foresight. Through the development of a series of research propositions a substantial future research agenda is offered in an area where the literature is quite limited. Points of interest to the strategy practice field are also discussed.

Gibrat’s Law mandates the independence of firm size and growth, while the resource-based view of the firm implies a positive relationship between firm size and profits, to be concluded in a profit–growth trade-off. Empirical studies of entrepreneurial success however, have demonstrated firms’ ability to reach a state of high growth and profitability, despite the trade-offs encapsulated within the profit–growth nexus. Upon assessing the relationships between past profitability, current firm growth and size in Australian ICT SMEs, results demonstrate positive relationships between all three indicators. This suggests that profitability can be considered the most important precursor of entrepreneurial success, and also that successful businesses do not suffer from the trade-offs implied by theory.

National cultures have a strong influence on the performance of organizations and should be taken into account when studying the traits of high performing managers. At the same time, many studies that focus upon the attributes of successful managers show that there are attributes that are similar for managers across countries. This article reports on the development of empirically validated profiles of Dutch and British high performing managers. Based on a sample of 808 Dutch and 286 British managers and using the cross-cultural framework of Excellent Leadership by Selvarajah et al., the profiles of excellent Dutch and British managers was derived. The profiles of Dutch and British high performing managers can be described by a four-dimensional factor structure consisting of Managerial behaviours, Environmental influences, Personal qualities and Organizational demands. Based on these validated profiles, the similarities and differences in attributes for managerial success between Dutch and British high performing managers can be identified.

In this paper, I review the history and current practices of enterprise culture management in China from an insider's perspective. Based on a systematic analysis of case study reports on enterprise culture published in the academic and practitioners' journals, I analysed how enterprise culture was understood and implemented in organizations of different ownership forms. I also discuss the Chinese characteristics and the influence of Western management techniques in the manifestation of Chinese enterprise culture. I argue that the configuration of Chinese organizational culture is heavily influenced by societal culture, in that there is a relatively heavier focus on relationship management than on performance management, at least based on the rhetoric of the enterprise managers.

There is widespread agreement that organizational learning (OL) and firms' innovative culture (innovativeness) positively influence organizational innovation (OI), which ultimately fosters long-term competitiveness. However, there is more limited empirical evidence on the role of OL as a forerunner of innovativeness, or on the combined effects of OL and innovativeness on OI and how performance is ultimately improved. In this research, OI is evaluated as a firm's actual ability to regularly adopt and implement more technical and administrative innovations with a greater degree of incorporated novelty relative to their main competitors. The aim is to approach innovation from a comprehensive viewpoint and to assess the attainment of superior competitive advantage in the innovation field. Effects on performance are evaluated at both the organizational level and in the commercialization of new services by means of two different conceptual model. These models are tested on a sample of 246 knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) located in Spain. We used polychoric correlations (Lee, Poon, & Bentler, 1995), together with a robust methodological approach, to analyze categorical variables in structural equation systems in EQS. The empirical results show that OL is an important antecedent for innovativeness, and that the latter plays a key role in the adoption of more technical and administrative innovations with a greater degree of incorporated novelty. Organizational learning exerts a direct effect on administrative innovation efforts although, contrary to previous research, the mediating role of innovativeness is required for the former to affect technical innovation. The research also supports the influence of OI on the attainment of competitive advantages at the business level and in the performance of new services. The greater ability of KIBS to innovate thus constitutes an invaluable resource to foster customer performance and profitability at the business level and in the commercialization of new service offerings.

During the past decade, a great deal of research has been carried out on the importance of employee engagement. In various studies, engagement is viewed as a positive state of mind of overwhelming satisfaction, which is characterized by feelings of vigour, dedication and absorption. In this article, ‘vigour’ refers to a state of mind in which individuals feel energetic, fit, strong and indefatigable. ‘Dedication’ refers to a state of mind in which individuals feel highly engaged by their work, which inspires them, and makes them feel proud and enthusiastic. ‘Absorption’ refers to a pleasant state of mind in which individuals are fully immersed in their work. This article provides an overview of a number of perspectives on leadership and discusses which leadership factors are likely to be the most effective in ensuring that employees remain engaged and productive. It also provides a conceptual model for further research on the relationship between leadership styles and work engagement.

Firms face a rapidly changing market environment under the pressure of difficult challenges such as limited resources and increasing costs. Organizations may actively seek to cooperate with other members for benefits from knowledge sharing. Establishing quality network ties among suppliers and customers is a significant study subject. Here, we assessed the impact of the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement on Taiwan flat glass industry and study measures adopted by the manufacturers. The effective sample size is 250. We found that through the intermediary of organizational agility and strong network ties, a firm can enhance its organizational performance.

In light of growing demands for public accountability, the broadening scope of health technology assessment organizations (HTAOs) activities and their increasing role in decision-making underscore the importance for them to demonstrate their performance. Based on Parson's social action theory, we propose a conceptual model that includes four functions an organization needs to balance to perform well: (i) goal attainment, (ii) production, (iii) adaptation to the environment, and (iv) culture and values maintenance. From a review of the HTA literature, we identify specific dimensions pertaining to the four functions and show how they relate to performance. We compare our model with evaluations reported in the scientific and gray literature to confirm its capacity to accommodate various evaluation designs, contexts of evaluation, and organizational models and perspectives. Our findings reveal the dimensions of performance most often assessed and other important ones that, hitherto, remain unexplored. The model provides a flexible and theoretically grounded tool to assess the performance of HTAOs.