Knowledge that Transforms

The current study sheds additional light on how and when firms improve their performance after having filed for Chapter 11 reorganization protection. Based on the work of Hrebiniak and Joyce [Administrative Science Quarterly 30 (1985) 336] and Marlin, Lamont and Hoffman [Strategic Management Journal 15 (1994) 229], a framework is developed that identifies which distressed firms have the best chances of surviving bankruptcy and the extent to which refocusing, a popularly prescribed remedy for these ailing firms, will aid their plight. The results demonstrate the utility of viewing bankruptcy reorganizations as different choice situations, where firms have varying levels of strategic choice, determined largely by their stockpiles of redeployable resources, and face different degrees of environmental constraint. Only firms with relatively high strategic choice or low environmental constraint were found to benefit from refocusing actions. That is, the performance effects of at least one popular remedy, refocusing-type business portfolio initiatives, appear contingent on the choice situation confronting firms under Chapter 11 protection.

The emergence of global society does not necessarily mean that a new sense of community will follow. A new sense of community must be cultivated in order to transform human society into a cohesive global community in the new century. This theoretical paper further argues that this global community can be and should be treated as the new cultural home of human beings. The author first conceptualizes the concept of “home” and then employs four key concepts, including the contextuality of intercultural communication, boundary game, boundary wisdom, and global ethics, to theorize the global community as the new cultural home. The paper concludes with delineating future challenges regarding research on the global community.

We tested the effects of positive and negative framing on risky decision making in a simulated managerial judgement task. Until now the extensive research on framing effects has been characterized by static contexts, explicit probabilities, and hypothetical gambles. In contrast we simulated a more realistic decision making environment in which individuals chose more or less risky goals in a complex dynamic task that featured uncertain outcomes and meaningful consequences. Decision makers chose a series of performance goals under conditions of either potential losses or gains and also received feedback about their goal attainment. Our results failed to replicateProspect Theory predictions about initial gain vs.loss framing typically found in static decision making contexts. In addition, we tested competing hypotheses derived from Prospect Theory and Quasi-Hedonic Editing (QHE) Theory about the effects of performance outcome feedback on subsequent decisions. Consistent with QHE Theory, decision makers who had failed to reach their goals set lower, less risky goals in subsequent decisions. Our findings illustrate the need for further risk taking research in environments that more closely resemble managerial decision making.

Using an institutional perspective, I analyze the historic circumstances surrounding the shift from a management as a vocation model to one that is scientifically based. I argue that prior to World War II, the management education field was fragmented but dominated by a vocational model in which specific trade practices and skills were taught. I trace how the institutional field shifted to embrace a model of management education that was tightly linked to empirical research. Using the Academy of Management Journal articles as a marker for this paradigm shift, I test hypotheses about the diffusion pattern of science-based concepts of management education.

Recently, there has been increased interest in the organizational gains that can be achieved by decentralizing decision-making authority to lower level employees. Yet, literature examining the relationship of decentralization to organizational performance is both scarce and equivocal. The current study examines decentralization's influence on financial performance in a sample of behavioral healthcare treatment centers. As expected, the decentralization-financial performance relationship is moderated by key organizational characteristics. Implications of the findings are presented.