Knowledge that Transforms

Japan's industrial success has opened new opportunities in the area of business research and has generated particular interest in ‘the Japanese way of doing things’. One specific area of concern has been that of job satisfaction and its relation to productive achievement. The study carried out in the United Kingdom involving one American, two ideally‐matched Japanese subsidiaries and one British company, all involved in television manufacturing, refutes certain stereotypes about Japanese management. First, the study revealed that the two Japanese companies employed distinct personnel policies which were reflected in the differences in job satisfaction registered by their employees. Second, it showed that the paternalistic personnel policies instituted by one Japanese company were not preconditions for its high productive achievement but, selectively applied, generated appreciative feelings among its British work‐force.

Organizations in the voluntary sector have received relatively little attention from researchers in the field of organizational analysis. In particular, the strategy of organizations in the voluntary sector has been assumed to be passive, concentrating on a co‐operative role with commercial or public agencies. This article argues that such a picture is not necessarily accurate and examines the strategies of four leading British voluntary organizations. Data suggest that co‐operation is but one of many strategies pursued by some voluntary organizations. Two of the sample organizations deviate markedly from the stereo‐typical image of co‐operation, and variation in their strategy choice is argued to emanate from dependence relations created by organizational links. The paper argues that the influences which shape the choice of strategy in voluntary organizations are primarily those created by inter‐dependence, and that aspects of task and ambiguity are secondary sources of influence.

The current tendency to move decision making closer to those concerned with implementing decisions in order to make use of their local market and customer knowledge is timely, particularly in relation to marketing strategy. This tendency is reflected both in the shift away from broad strategic analysis and towards encouraging strategic thinking throughout the organization; and in the emergence of more decentralized strategy development through structural innovations such as Strategic Business Units. For the manager‐in‐the‐middle who has historically had the task of relating the broad corporate strategies to the detail of delivering products and services to the customer, this shift in emphasis creates new stresses, for it is not possible for him to assume, even in the most established consumer goods companies, that the strategic development of such activities can be construed within the traditional marketing mix (4Ps) framework. Under such circumstances, he needs a framework which enables him to take account of the crucial interactions going on within the market's infrastructure itself between customers, competition and channels (3Cs). If the manager‐in‐the‐middle is then to be effective in responding to his increasingly complex responsibilities in relation to such markets, he must also be given the ability to manage the micro‐organizational context within which he delivers products and services. This micro‐organizational context is crucial because it determines the quality of the relationship that can be sustained with the customer. The higher the quality of the relationship, the tighter the coupling that can be maintained with the local market. Such tight coupling makes the relationship with the customer more defensible against competition. It therefore provides the basis for sustaining and developing the profitability of value‐adding products and services so necessary to long term corporate survival.

This study of production operations in 95 New Jersey manufacturing firms explains the widely replicated curvilinear relationship between first line supervisory span of control and Woodward's technological complexity scale. Revisiting Woodward led to the initial proposition that the relationship was a by‐product of the differing degree of task variability among the major types of production operations. A subsequent literature review of administrative requirements suggested the importance of size, complexity and automaticity on supervisory span of control. Our data indicate that variations in the span of control of production operations classified according to Woodward's scale are attributable to the underlying effects of size and task complexity. Technology, whether operationalized as Woodward's production types or automaticity of machinery explained little variation in the span of control of first line supervisors.

The recent work on organizational configuration and quantum structural change by Miller and Friesen (1984), and on the population ecology of organizations by Hannan and Freeman (1978, 1983) suggests some integral relationships between eiivironments, structure and optimal adaptive strategies. These appear to warrant a more systematic and formal analysis. Towards that end a mathematical model is developed to show the way organizations adapt t o changing environments. Using a Markovian representation, three types of environments are examined t o test the implications that the model has for adopting strategies of generalism vs. specialism, concerted ‘quantum’ 71,s. piecemeal change, and batching changes together vs. changing gradually and promptly.

This paper attempts to develop the issue of the internalization of transactions (the make‐buy decision). Butler and Carney (1983) have developed the concept of managing markets where under certain conditions transactions will not be internalized. This paper, as well as attempting to complete this picture, also draws attention to a largely ignored aspect of organization theory ‐ the issue of when a transaction which is already internalized will be externalized. In examining the sale of subsidiaries by parent companies an attempt is made to draw the boundaries of Williamson's divisionalized form of organization. The necessary and sufficient conditions for sale to the management are developed in the theoretical discussion, followed in the second section by empirical evidence from a survey of management buy‐outs.

This paper focuses on the fundamental changes in the management of state enterprises that are taking place in China. Specifically, we discuss the expansion of enterprise autonomy and changes in the managerial decision‐making structure. The genesis of the reform programme is traced back to inefficiencies caused by the over‐centralized state planning system which reduced enterprise management to little more than an administrative function dominated by the Party secretary. As a consequence, managerial and technical cadres became demoralized and the growth of staff functions such as accounting, marketing and personnel management was stunted. From a series of experiments launched in 1978 has grown the realization that tinkering around with the state planning apparatus is insufficient to stimulate entrepreneurship and vigorous industrial expansion. Accordingly, reform has been launched on a broad front both within the state apparatus, in an endeavour to roll back external constraints on enterprise, and within the enterprise itself, by seeking to provide powerful incentives both to managerial cadres and workers through a system stressing individual responsibility and rewards commensurate with results. A number of severe constraints on the reform programme are analysed, in particular, the changing balance of power within the enterprise between the factory director, the Party secretary, the workers’congress and the trade union. Contradictions exist within the new structure of decision‐making but, given a period of political stability and sustained economic growth, there should be sufficient surplus to mollify discontent and stifle those who refuse to give up their belief in the virtues of having‘politics in command’of the industrial enterprise.