Knowledge that Transforms

This paper attempts to bridge a gap between organizational economics and strategy research through an analysis of knowledge and communication in organizations. We argue that organizations emerge to achieve the intensive use of the knowledge that is acquired to perform specific tasks and to integrate dispersed knowledge that is embodied in different human minds. The attributes of the tasks undertaken determine the optimal acquisition and distribution of knowledge. Depending on the codifiability of knowledge, different communication modes arise as a coordination mechanism to deepen the division of labor, leverage managerial talent, and exploit the increasing returns to knowledge. Organizational processes can be adapted through codes and culture to facilitate coordination; organizational structure can be designed to complement the limitations of human ability. We stress that organizational process and structure construct the core of organizational capital, which generates rent and sustains organizational growth. From the analysis, we draw implications for the strategic management of knowledge and human resources in organizations.

This paper uses a practice perspective to study coordinating as dynamic activities that are continuously created and modified in order to enact organizational relationships and activities. It is based on the case of Servico, an organization undergoing a major restructuring of its value chain in response to a change in government regulation. In our case, the actors iterate between the abstract concept of a coordinating mechanism referred to as end-to-end management and its performance in practice. They do this via five performative–ostensive cycles: (1) enacting disruption, (2) orienting to absence, (3) creating elements, (4) forming new patterns, and (5) stabilizing new patterns. These cycles and the relationships between them constitute a process model of coordinating. This model highlights the importance of absence in the coordinating process and demonstrates how experiencing absence shapes subsequent coordinating activity.

We propose that performing an independent task alongside a coactor who is an outstanding performer will improve a focal actor's performance. In three studies that ranged from laboratory participants solving anagrams and playing video games to professional golfers competing in the Masters Tournament, performance improved more in the presence of a high-performing coactor than in the presence of a weak-performing coactor. However, when people were asked to compete directly with a strong performer, their own performance declined. In sum, when faced with the anxiety of performing alongside a high-status coactor, independent coaction led people to become “psyched up,” whereas direct competition led them to become “psyched out.”

strategy and policy, competitive strategy, managerial and organizational cognition, organizational culture

In this paper we focus on the temporal and historical conditions under which bridging ties from the past affect current organizational outcomes. Whereas previous research has shown that bridging ties have high decay rates and short-term effects, we explore the possibility that bridging ties may produce benefits over an extended period of time. In particular, we contrast the conventional view of bridging ties having rapidly decaying effects with two alternative network dynamics suggesting “accumulating” and “imprinting” effects. We propose that bridging ties have accumulating effects as a result of learning and redeployment of cumulated knowledge. We also predict that bridging ties exhibit an imprinted effect whereby the founding conditions surrounding the formation of some, but not all, ties yield long-lasting network benefits. We test our theory in the context of Nashville's legal industry, studying the formation and evolution of the professional network of lawyers' coemployment ties between 1933 and 1978. Consistent with our theory, we find that bridging ties produce network benefits over an extended period of time and trace back to the point of tie formation. Surprisingly, we also find that the imprinted effect is more robust than the rapidly decaying effect of bridging ties.

We examine how partners in vertical exchange relationships actually resolve disputes that are sufficiently serious to get lawyers involved. Reaching beyond the usual domain of organizational and management research, we leverage findings from law and economics to offer a novel organizational perspective on litigation and private dispute resolution, and we develop hypotheses about the likelihood of litigation in different exchange settings. Our empirical analysis generates three sets of new findings: First, counter to the received wisdom, we see that the involvement of lawyers does not necessarily signal the bitter end of an exchange relationship, because firms frequently manage to avoid litigation and resolve their disputes privately, and they do so in a manner that accords with our theoretical predictions. Second, we see that familiarity with exchange partners does not automatically lead to increased willingness to work things out; rather, our empirical results suggest that the impact of exchange duration on parties' willingness to resolve disputes privately is contingent on the development of norms of cooperation: in the event that such norms do not develop, the probability of a litigated outcome actually increases over time. Finally, we see that firms' willingness to work things out privately is also influenced positively by the shadow of the future. These findings are suggestive of a “discriminating alignment” between exchange characteristics and the choice of dispute resolution procedure, and they thus inject important new evidence into ongoing discussions about the legal underpinnings of different governance forms.

It is a popular assumption that women and racial minorities who are numeric minorities in high-prestige work groups will advocate for a demographically similar other as a potential work group peer. However, these individuals may face special challenges in fulfilling this role. We discuss how three factors—the general social status associated with a specific demographic characteristic, the demographic composition of the work group, and the differential prestige accorded within organizations to work groups—interact to impact individuals' concerns about being considered valued members of work groups to which they belong (i.e., value threat). Based on an integration of sociological and psychological theories, we argue that value threat adversely affects individuals' propensity to support demographically similar others in selection and promotion processes. We identify three forms that value threat may take in situations involving such personnel decisions: collective threat, favoritism threat, and competitive threat, and we specify factors that may shape the intensity of each form.

Recent scholarship on nonmarket strategies has sought to understand organizational decisions to target specific institutional venues for nonmarket actions. We contribute to this emerging literature by studying institutional targeting between specialized and general-purpose tribunals, which are available to resolve disputes in a number of settings. Whereas prior work on institutional targeting has primarily focused on the differences in the policy preferences of public actors and the susceptibility of policy positions to influence activities, we focus on the differences in expertise and procedural flexibility that typically accompany tribunal specialization. We develop a theory about targeting decisions (forum shopping) in such contexts, which suggests two main drivers of tribunal targeting—expected settlement and expected returns. Drawing on these mechanisms, we formulate hypotheses linking tribunal targeting decisions to firm-level attributes such as (market) strategic stakes, institutional distance from competitors, and tribunal-specific capabilities. Our hypotheses are tested using a novel data set of patent enforcement against U.S. imports, which also sheds light on nonmarket strategies in patents.

Research has shown that employees' affective and normative commitment to change (ACC and NCC, respectively) positively influence their behaviors supporting change; however, organizations are frequently unsuccessful in motivating appropriate levels of employee commitment to change. Using longitudinal, multilevel data collected from a large federal government agency implementing radical organizational change, we extend extant research related to antecedents of commitment to change by examining how employees' hierarchical distance (the number of reporting levels between an employee and the top management team) and the transformational leadership of their direct (immediate) manager both relate to their ACC and NCC. We also shed light on important mechanisms that explain these two relationships by examining the mediating role of employees' perceived effectiveness of top management's change-related communications (TMCs), including the top-down and bottom-up components of TMC. Taking advantage of a longitudinal field design, we tested these antecedents of commitment to change at Time 1 and the longitudinal effects of the Time 1 predictors on commitment to change 12 months later (Time 2). At Time 1, findings supported both the predicted direct and mediated effects. Hierarchical distance and perceived TMC remained significant predictors of ACC and NCC over a one-year follow-up period; however, direct managers' transformational leadership behaviors did not. The study extends previous findings related to antecedents of employee commitment to change and also shows the interplay between different levels of leadership in shaping employee affective and normative commitment to radical organizational change.