Knowledge that Transforms

Contrary to perspectives that credit firms with only limited abilities to undertake significant change successfully, recent research has demonstrated that firms often improve their performance after undertaking major expansion to their operations. In this paper, we build on a study by Mitchell and Singh (1993) to test for differences in expansion effects, depending on whether the new goods substitute for old products and whether the firm is a generalist or specialist participant in the industry. The analysis helps us understand when a business can undertake major change successfully. The results have implications for ecological and other definitions of the core of a business and highlight the necessity for firms to undertake changes even at considerable risk to their existing operations.

This study examined the orientations of 125 executive officers and board members from seven financial institutions concerning the composition of their firm’s sociometrically-defined dominant coalitions. Hypotheses testing found that in seven small banks, dominant coalition members could be distinguished from non-members by their orientation toward internal organizational factors. In contrast to prior research, the study found no evidence of a significant relationship between board members’ tenure, relative to that of the CEO, and their membership in the organization S dominant coalition.

This paper presents techniques for use in meta-analytic research to estimate effect sizes when studies involve complex ANOVA, ANOVA with repeated measures, and complex ANOVA with repeated measures. Real examples are also provided to show the application of the techniques.

This paper presents a model which suggests that four factors-national and ownership structure, an industrial encouragement policy, barriers to entry and the labor market-combine to produce a situation in which Japanese management is freed from all the major threats to its dominance-shareholders, trade unions, government, domestic competitors, domestic speculators, foreign competitors and foreign capital. Hence, in line with classical managerial theories of the firm, Japanese managers have developed the long run strategies and policies that are typical of the large Japanese corporations-market share emphasis, slow personnel evaluation, MIT systems, etc. Some suggestions for further work are offered.