Knowledge that Transforms

AbstractWe develop an activity‐focused process model of how new ideas can be transformed into front line practice by reviving attention to the importance of habitualization as a key component of institutionalization. In contrast to established models that explain how ideas diffuse or spread from one organization to another, we employ a micro‐level perspective to study the subsequent intra‐organizational processes through which these ideas are transformed into new workplace practices. We followed efforts to transform the organizationally accepted idea of ‘interdisciplinary teamwork’ into new everyday practices in four cases over a six year time period. We contribute to the literature by focusing on de‐habitualizing and re‐habitualizing behaviours that connect micro‐level actions with organizational level theorizing. Our model illuminates three phases that we propose are essential to creating and sustaining this connection: micro‐level theorizing, encouraging trying the new practices, and facilitating collective meaning‐making.

AbstractIn this study, we seek to further delineate factors that condition the relationship between slack resources and firm performance. To do so, we develop and test a model that establishes the role of venture capital (VC) and angel investors as powerful external stakeholders who positively moderate the slack–performance relationship. In addition, we provide more insight into this relationship by examining differences between these two types of private investors and by examining the role of their ownership stakes. We test our hypotheses using a sample of 1215 private firms, including VC‐backed firms, angel‐backed firms, and similar firms without such investors. We find that the presence of VC investors positively moderates the relationship between both financial and human slack resources and firm performance, while angel investors only positively moderate the effect of human resource slack. Further, VC investors are only marginally better at helping entrepreneurs to extract value from human resource slack than angel investors and they are no better when it comes to financial slack. Finally, we find that the impact of financial and human resource slack on firm performance is more positive in VC‐backed firms when investors hold high ownership stakes, an effect which is significantly stronger than when angel investors hold high ownership stakes.

AbstractWe examine the growing disconnect between the process‐oriented conception of entrepreneurship taught in the classroom and theorized about in premier journals and the variance‐oriented conception of entrepreneurship that characterizes empirical studies of the phenomenon. We propose that a shift in inquiry from entrepreneurship as an act to entrepreneurship as a journey could facilitate process‐oriented research by initiating a dialogue about the nature of the entrepreneurial journey, when it has begun and ended, whether it might be productively subdivided into variables or events, and what if anything remains constant throughout the process. Finally, we propose that a clearer understanding of the entrepreneurial journey is necessary to distinguish the field horizontally from research on creativity and strategy, and vertically from research on more practical business functions or more abstract systems‐level concepts.

AbstractCorporate turnaround research has described retrenchment and recovery as contradictory forces that should be addressed separately. While a few scholars have argued that retrenchment and recovery are interrelated and may have to be integrated, others have contended that such arguments are flawed since they downplay the contradictions between the two activities. In this paper, we clarify the nature of the retrenchment–recovery interrelations, as well as their importance for turnaround performance. Drawing on the paradox literature, we argue that retrenchment and recovery form a duality: they are both contradictory and complementary. Integrating the two activities allows turnaround firms to create benefits that exceed the costs of their integration, which affects turnaround performance positively. We test our arguments through an empirical study of 107 Central European turnaround initiatives and find evidence for the assumed duality between retrenchment and recovery. Our main contribution is integrating the hitherto disparate theory perspectives of corporate turnaround into an overarching framework.

abstractWe advocate for more tolerance in the manner we collectively address categories and categorization in our research. Drawing on the prototype view, organizational scholars have provided a ‘disciplining’ framework to explain how category membership shapes, impacts, and limits organizational success. By stretching the existing straightjacket of scholarship on categories, we point to other useful conceptualizations of categories – i.e. the causal‐model and the goal‐based approaches of categorization – and propose that depending on situational circumstances, and beyond a disciplining exercise, categories involve a cognitive test of congruence and a goal satisfying calculus. Unsettling the current consensus about categorical imperatives and market discipline, we suggest also that audiences may tolerate more often than previously thought organizations that blend, span, and stretch categories. We derive implications for research about multi‐category membership and mediation in markets, and suggest ways in which work on the theme of categories in the strategy, entrepreneurship, and managerial cognition literatures can be enriched.

Abstract This article reflects upon Willmott's 1993 article (‘Strength is ignorance; slavery is freedom: managing culture in modern organizations’) by revisiting the idea of ‘Corporate Culturism’ and its relevance for contemporary developments in management and organization, including higher education. It incorporates a commentary on how 1984 and ‘Strength is ignorance’ have been read and some reflections on the genesis of the original 1993 article. It then expands on themes in ‘Strength is ignorance’ which are of continuing relevance, and draws out implications for our research and professional lives, as scholars, working in business schools.

AbstractThe sustainability problems with regard to the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services increasingly challenge the legitimacy of corporations. The literature distinguishes three strategies that corporations commonly employ to respond to legitimacy problems: adapt to external expectations, manipulate the perception of their stakeholders, or engage in a discourse with those who question their legitimacy. We discuss three approaches to determine the appropriate response strategy: one‐best‐way approach, contingency approach, and paradox approach. We argue that in the face of heterogeneous environments with conflicting demands, corporations that follow a paradox approach are likely to be more successful in preserving their legitimacy than those that adopt one of the other two approaches. We develop a theoretical framework for the application of different response strategies and explore the management of paradoxes by way of structural, contextual, or reflective means.

Abstract The study investigates how local actors pursue two paradoxical aspects of legitimacy in a global institutional framework: the need for global conformity and the need for local distinctiveness. Drawing on the notion of glocalization, it explicates how this pursuit is accomplished by actors' selective fidelity to global norms and adaptation of these norms to local conditions. The empirical work consists of a five‐year qualitative case study of the Ontario wine industry. It provides empirical evidence for the presence of several non‐mutually exclusive paths through which local actors seek legitimation in a global context. The study offers important implications for future research on legitimation and globalization.

AbstractBuilding upon the perspective that narcissism is a leadership trait with both ‘bright’ and ‘dark’ sides, the present study examines the question of whether companies led by narcissistic CEOs exhibit higher levels of entrepreneurial orientation (EO). Moreover, this research examines whether EO partially explains why narcissistic CEO‐led firms experience greater variability in firm performance. Using survey data collected from 173 CEOs, and an archival measure of firm performance variance, we find support for our model. These findings offer an improved understanding of how CEO narcissism influences performance variance, and why the firms they lead may even, at times, be viewed as on a path to success. Study implications are discussed.

abstractDespite the huge increase in the number of management articles published during the three last decades, there is a serious shortage of high‐impact research in management studies. We contend that a primary reason behind this paradoxical shortage is the near total dominance of incremental gap‐spotting research in management. This domination is even more paradoxical as it is well known that gap‐spotting rarely leads to influential theories. We identify three broad and interacting key drivers behind this double paradox: institutional conditions, professional norms, and researchers' identity constructions. We discuss how specific changes in these drivers can reduce the shortage of influential management theories. We also point to two methodologies that may encourage and facilitate more innovative and imaginative research and revisions of academic norms and identities.