Knowledge that Transforms

An important consideration in the design of educational programmes is the learning style of students. In the field of management education, Kolb's theory of learning styles has received particular attention. Research has shown, however, that his associated measure, the Learning Style Inventory (LSI), may be of doubtful utility. the present study of British and overseas managers examines the measurement properties of one alternative, Honey and Mumford's Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ). the results, calling into question Kolb's theory itself, suggest that the LSQ may be preferred to the LSI on account of the distribution of its scores, its temporal stability and its construct and face validity. Its predictive validity, however, remains in doubt.

The conflict approaches used by project managers in a matrix organization were described by 135 project team engineers. In project teams where the managers used a combination of co‐operative and confirming approaches to conflict, conflicts were judged to have a constructive impact and management was judged to be effective. Conflicts were seen as counterproductive and management was seen as ineffective when the project manager relied upon a combination of competitive and avoiding approaches to conflict. These results provided field data support for a theory of conflict management which has been tested and refined through extensive laboratory research.

This article argues that the prevailing dichotomization of organizational studies into voluntarist and deterministic orientations is too simple, and that this simplicity has dangerous consequences for accounts of strategic choice. Determinism has been equated exclusively with the operation of environmental constraint, with the implication that the agency necessary for strategic choice can be secured simply by the removal of this constraint. This focus on external constraint has obscured the continuing influence of ‘action determinist’ positions, in which action is determined by mechanisms internal to the actor him/herself. This article argues that many recent theorists of strategic choice have relied too much on the interpretive voluntarist dissolution of environmental structure and neglected to safeguard themselves from the action determinism latent in the Carnegie tradition. the article proposes an alternative Realist account that, by contrast with interpretive voluntarism, incorporates environmental structure as an essential precondition to actors’ internal and external capacities for strategic choice.

The progress made in strategic groups research is evaluated by identifying its relevance and importance to the field of strategic management. A classificatory scheme is developed using two dimensions: the operationalization of strategy; and the approach to group development. A review framework incorporating key analytical dimensions is drawn up to (a) develop a taxonomy for classifying the available empirical research on strategic groups; (b) assess the research and identify important summary patterns and (c) develop specific research directions from a stategic management perspective.

This article provides a conceptual framework for understanding industrial crises. These crises are organizationally‐based disasters which cause extensive damage and social disruption, involve multiple stakeholders, and unfold through complex technological, organizational and social processes. The characteristics of industrial crises are illustrated through a comparison of three diverse crises ‐ the Bhopal disaster, the Tylenol poisonings, and the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. Relationships among these characteristics are presented in a model of industrial crisis. Some issues for further research are identified.

The Challenger disaster illustrates the effects of repeated successes, gradual acclimatization, and the differing responsibilities of engineers and managers. Past successes and acclimatization alter decision‐makers’ beliefs about probabilities of future success. Fine‐tuning processes result from engineers’ and managers’ pursuing partially inconsistent goals while trying to learn from their experiences. Fine‐tuning reduces probabilities of success, and it continues until a serious failure occurs.

Strategic management researchers are showing increased interest in the cognitions of strategic decision‐makers. In this article, the importance of strategic cognitions is discussed and research on a number of major topics within the cognitive perspective is summarized. the paper concludes with an integrative model of cognitions in strategic decision making. This model provides the basis for questions for future research.