Donde Plowman

• PhD University of Texas at Austin
• Head of Faculty at University of Nebraska–Lincoln

In an inductive case study of the Columbia space shuttle disaster response effort, we use observations, archival records, and in-depth interviews with representatives from several responding agencies to explore factors that facilitated this interorganizational collaboration. The Columbia response effort defies conventional theories of collaboration...

Objectives. To (1) describe participation in decision-making as a systems-level property of complex adaptive systems and (2) present empirical evidence of reliability and validity of a corresponding measure. Method. Study 1 was a mail survey of a single respondent (administrators or directors of nursing) in each of 197 nursing homes. Study 2 was a...

Our model of emergent organizational capacity for compassion proposes that organizations can develop the capacity for compassion without formal direction. Relying on a framework from complexity science, we describe how the system conditions of agent diversity, interdependent roles, and social interactions enhance the likelihood of self-organizing a...

Business schools, like many organizations, exist in increasingly turbulent environments, making them vulnerable to unexpected events. Making mistakes in such environments is less likely when organizations are "mindful"-when they pay close attention to what is happening around them and maintain the capacity to act on unexpected signals (Weick & Sutc...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the role that gender plays in choice of research methods. Design/methodology/approach The publication patterns of men and women in four prominent management journals over two decades were analyzed in three North American journals – Academy of Management Journal , Administrative Science Quarterly , an...

Despite pressures to change the role of hospital boards, hospitals have made few changes in board composition or director selection criteria. Hospital boards have often continued to operate in their traditional roles as either "monitors" or "advisors." More attention to the direct involvement of hospital boards in the strategic decision-making proc...

Regulatory oversight is intended to improve the health outcomes of nursing home residents, yet evidence suggests that regulations can inhibit mindful staff behaviors that are associated with effective care. We explored the influence of regulations on mindful staff behavior as it relates to resident health outcomes, and offer a theoretical explanati...

The authors conducted in-depth interviews and on-site visits with successful plant managers to understand similarities in their management approaches. Across 11 different plants, representing nine different industries, the authors found each plant manager actively engaged in shaping how employees viewed the organization and its values through what...

There has been little systematic study of what plant managers actually do on a day-to-day basis that accounts for their success in achieving organizational outcomes. In our field interviews and observations of high-reputation plant managers from 11 manufacturing plants, we found that effective political skill enabled them to influence subordinates...

Organizations have difficulty learning from rare and unusual events because of their inability to interpret these events. Because organizations develop habitual ways of interpreting events---often top down---they can easily miss the novelty of rare and unusual events, which prevents them from experiencing events “richly.” We propose a multilevel, m...

Complexity science reframes leadership by focusing on the dynamic interactions between all individuals, explaining how those interactions can, under certain conditions, produce emergent outcomes. We develop a Leadership of Emergence using this approach, through an analysis of three empirical studies which document emergence in distinct contexts. Ea...

We examine the idea that mental models shared among paid and volunteer leaders are associated with improved financial performance in nonprofit organizations. Our empirical analysis of thirty-seven churches yields evidence that organizations are more effective if paid and volunteer leaders have a shared task mental model—that is, if they report simi...

The traditional view of conflict, as a problematic condition always requiring reduction or elimination and whose conditions or outcomes can be predicted, is incompatible with a complex adaptive systems view of organizations. Thus, conventional approaches to reducing conflict are often futile because the fundamental properties of complex adaptive sy...

As complex systems, organizations exist far from equilibrium where the ongoing interaction of system components leads to emergent and self-organizing behavior. What, then, is the role of leadership in systems where change often emerges in unexpected ways? In this paper, we build on the work of Marion and Uhl-Bien who suggest that in complex systems...

A decision to offer breakfast to homeless people led to radical change in a church and its environment. Existing theories of change do not fully explain observations from our qualitative study; however, complexity theory constructs suggest how and why such change emerged. We offer four key findings. First, the radical change was unintended, emergen...

Workplace spirituality is defined as a workplace that recognizes that employees have an inner life that nourishes and is nourished by meaningful work that takes place in the context of community. This definition, based on three fundamental spiritual needs, has implications for how leaders can enhance work unit performance by nurturing the spirit at...

This paper uses a complex adaptive systems view to examine two different organizational responses to turbulent, complex environments. We examined the internal make-up of eight organizations that saw their environment the same way – as rapidly changing, complex and requiring aggressive change strategies. Half of these organizations chose a complexit...

When hospitals are viewed as complex adaptive systems, simple rules can lead to behavior that emerges as complex and that enables creative, adaptive organizational responses. Based on empirical findings from a decade of research on hospital strategic decision making this article offers the simple rule of letting physicians help decide strategic iss...

One way hospitals complicate themselves is by increasing the participation of clinical professionals and middle managers in making strategic decisions. Using a survey methodology this article investigates the relationships between the participation of clinical professionals (MDs and RNs) and middle managers with hospital costs, as well as the possi...

Each time managers are faced with a strategic decision they decide how to decide. Specifically, they make choices about who has necessary information and, therefore, who needs to participate in the decision. Such responses to strategic issues are believed to be affected by the way in which decision makers interpret issues. However, organizations de...

A qualitative longitudinal study of the enactment of TQM in two semi-conductor supplier firms revealed that adoption, implementation, and institutionalization of TQM in one firm was mechanistic, with a ritualistic use of specific TQM methods, procedures, and language while the other firm used an organic approach in which a local adaptation of TQM e...

Theory suggests that organizations should respond to external complexity with internal complexity. We examine whether "environmentally sensitive" hospitals are more internally complex than "environmentally insensitive" hospitals. Results, show that environmentally sensitive and insensitive hospitals differed on three of the measures of internal com...

This paper explores the role of critical task specialists in strategic decision making and presents a theoretical model relating critical task specialist participation in decision making to the organization's overall strategy and the nature of the decision. This exploratory study examines scope and intensity of physician participation in hospital d...

Theory suggests that organizations should respond to external complexity with internal complexity. We examine whether "environmentally sensitive" hospitals are more internally complex than "environmentally insensitive" hospitals. Results show that environmentally sensitive and insensitive hospitals differed on three of the measures of internal comp...

This study examines the participation of six internal stakeholder groups in hospital strategic decision-making. Results show that internal stakeholder group participation is affected by strategic decision content and by the nature of the hospital's strategy. Results show that the participation of internal stakeholdergroups is associated with lower...

A conceptual design of an organizational decision support system (ODSS) is proposed for the limited domain of hospital-based clinical decisionmaking (H-CDM). The design is a first step in the research program to evaluate the viability of an ODSS for H-CDM. The design is also used as a basis for evaluating two other issues. First, the adequacy of br...

A model introducing image compatibility as a moderator of information use is proposed and tested with data from a laboratory study involving 96 masters-level business students. Findings indicate that the use of problem space information to guide resource allocation decisions varies with perceptions of image compatibility. When image compatibility i...

An exploratory study examined variation in the participation of physicians in hospital strategic decision making as a function of (1) strategic decision content or (2) hospital strategy, or both. The findings revealed that who participates is a function of decision content while how physicians participate is a function of decision content and the i...

Understanding the differences in perceptions among organization leaders of the strategic decision-making process and who participates in it can help leaders manage potential conflict. Although differences in perception occur because of differences in roles and group membership, these differences in perception may be exacerbated by the content of th...

A new study performed in conjunction with THA uncovers how different types of hospitals involve physicians in strategic planning and operations decisions, and how they can do a better job of getting doctors to play a role in making key decisions.

This article presents several abstracts related to business and commerce. Some of the articles featured discuss topics such as; the business strategies for supermarkets, the benefits of industrial diversification and an examination of the factors that influence group decision making processes for physicians.

Two mistaken beliefs have appeared repeatedly in the organization theory literature concerning application of the systems paradigm to organizations. This paper identifies and corrects these beliefs. Three opportunities for using the systems paradigm to further the development of organization theory have been overlooked. The paper identifies these o...

Organizational design is presented as a decision process, with specific structures seen as providing alternative choices. To illustrate this, the authors present the case of a major metropolitan hospital that used the process to coordinate service delivery (nursing care versus patient care) and service focus (product oriented versus function orient...

The nature of the strategic problem faced by health care institutions is identified. Physicians are urged to be involved in the strategic decision-making process and are offered several alternative roles that they might play in strategy development. A set of conceptual frameworks from the generic management decision-making literature is used to org...

After spending over one million dollars on a major study, a major state agency found that the information was not used by decision makers. Interviews with the decision makers indicated that three heuristics from behavioral decision theory may explain the data neglect. A marketing strategy, rather than a training strategy, was proposed and adopted b...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1988. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 269-282). Microfiche. s