Kjell Grønhaug

NHH Norwegian School of Economics | NHH · Department of Strategy and Management

The role of organizational structure as an important contextual variable has long been recognized in affecting a host of employee attitudes and behaviors, but there is a dearth of theoretical and empirical research that examines the ways in which organizational structure influences the occurrence of self-efficacy and its performance effects. This s...

We investigate the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on consumer advocacy behaviors toward corporate brands. We focus on the mediating roles of positive moral emotions (awe, gratitude, and elevation) and attitudes. The moderating effects of social justice values and empathy on such mediation processes are further explored. A between-sub...

Several challenges face the notion of accountability in the context of non-profit organizations. Included among these are multiple principle stakeholders with different objectives, interests, and level of influence, as well as output that is intangible or difficult to measure. In order to align stakeholders’ contradictory interests, for-profit orga...

(The Nordic Journal of Business, 66(3)) This paper examines how variations in consumption situations and cultural settings impact decision making in food prosumption by applying an extended version of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Our results show that in an individualistic culture, people go through a more deliberative process when prepar...

The chapter analyses Carlson Rezidor, a global hotel group, quoted on the Stockholm Stock Exchange with the Radisson SAS, later Radisson Blue brand as a key asset. The company is an exemplary case in the travel and service industry. Its program of Responsible Business is aligned with the company’s 4D strategy (Develop Talent, Delight Guests, Drive...

This paper seeks to advance the understanding of the corporate university phenomenon by addressing the role that a corporate university plays in coordinating the flows of organisational knowledge. Drawing on the longitudinal in-depth case study of Severstal Corporate University, we illustrate how a corporate university contributes to dynamic knowle...

Scandinavian Journal of Business Research (Beta), 31 (1), 43-64. This paper asks whether (positive) corporate identity influences performance, exploring the direct linkage from corporate identity to performance, and the indirect linkage from identity to reputation that, in turn, is assumed to influence performance, reflected in a tentative theory-d...

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to contribute to the understanding of the coordination of knowledge flows – an important for organizational performance theme. In this article, we identify, describe and compare two perspectives on coordination of knowledge flows: the “knowledge-enabling” and the “control” perspective. The “knowledge-enabling...

This paper reports on a study exploring master students’ ability to apply their knowledge when solving an internal pricing problem in a supply chain. Analyses of 33 negotiation progress reports and 8 recordings of discussions demonstrate that most of the students were not able to apply relevant concepts and models to guide their handling of the tas...

In this chapter, we argue that trust can be better understood in relation to people’s attempts to deal with vulnerability in social interactions. Different situations afford different forms of adaptation that correspond to different forms of trust. We describe three forms of trust: trust as a decision, trust as a performance and trust as an uncontr...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how buyers and sellers in cross-cultural business relationships manage cultural differences to ensure functional, successful business relationships. Failure to consider specific cultural issues may lead to the failure of business ventures crossing national borders. To succeed in today’s global b...

We investigate the mediating role of moral emotions and their contingency on individual characteristics in consumer responses to corporate green and non-green actions. Two between subjects experiments were conducted to test our hypotheses on samples of adult consumers. The results show that, for corporate non-green actions, various individual diffe...

A perspective focusing on production and use of marketing research as influenced by market environments and other basic conditions is introduced as basis for characterizing the Norwegian research enterprise. Production and use of marketing research is described, its value estimated, and specific characteristics of the marketing research system high...

Classical agency theory and its associated practice focus almost exclusively on extrinsic motivation and the design of monetary incentives for explaining managerial effort levels and effort alignment. In this article, we challenge the realism and usefulness of this assumption for the purpose of corporate governance. Using data from a large-scale su...

In this paper we seek to disentangle goals and trust, and argue that people’s goals while interacting with other people is likely to influence the experience of trust. This again builds on the assumptions that trust is not merely a basis for decisions but a factor that influences (often favorably) other valued outcomes. Our experience of trust help...

Scandinavian Journal of Business Research (Beta), 28 (2), 154-172. The paper investigates how a strategic idea to operate offshore service vessels in an environmentally sustainable way was transformed into practical realities. The research case was a campaign to reduce the consumption of diesel-fuel, in the paper referred to as the case of “green...

This article addresses some of the challenges of conducting qualitative research across cultures, focusing on the challenges of being a Western researcher conducting in-depth interviews in Russia. To conduct quality business research in a foreign cultural setting, it is important to gain understanding of cultural differences that may influence the...

News media are central in forming public opinion images of other countries. In this longitudinal and multinational study of news media coverage of one small country we identify three types of images: brother-land image, acquaintance image, and foreigner image. The three types of images vary along dimensions such as media salience, cognitive versus...

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of the prior relationship length and employments of supplier specific investments on buyers' control, and compare this effect across international and domestic business-to-business relationships. Design/methodology/approach – The sampling frame consisted of members of a National Associat...

In this article we argue that the experience and effects of trust are influenced by how people construe trust in specific situations – people are not merely passive receptacles of information but bring their own understanding of trust to social situations (Bandura, 1989). Drawing on the literature on conceptual metaphors we describe these as three...

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of how to handle organisational innovation projects involving custom-made enterprise systems effectively. We report on a longitudinal study following the transformation of a Norwegian window production firm. The purpose of the change project was to improve competitiveness by increasing the r...

This paper seeks to expand our understanding of initial trust by looking at how variation in risk influences the nature of trust and the process of initial trust formation. Four hypotheses were tested in two experiments involving participants with and without work experience. A first hypothesis suggested a positive relationship between a general p...

Purpose – In Brazil, bacalhau dishes represent strong cultural, religious and traditional values. The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical perspective integrating theories on social identity, role-based identity, and cultural capital to explore multi-phase bacalhau prosumption. The aim is to understand how consumers maintain their soci...

This paper presents an extended version of the critical success factors method for establishing a first version of a demand-driven requirements specification for a data warehouse. The purpose is to help managers and consultants develop data warehouses that really satisfy managers’ needs for data to improve decision-making. The extensions of the met...

Purpose This paper aims to address how firms cope when input due to primary uncertainty is unpredictable, and thus timely and adequate supply to customers are impossible to guarantee. Design/methodology/approach Two sets of data are applied to capture uncertainties, flexibilities and adaption strategies amongst suppliers and producers respectively...

The current study has tested the prediction that CEO cooperative behaviour has an impact upon organizational performance. This is a fundamental organizational issue that is in clear need of illumination through studies of practice. We pursued the issue through a study of leadership in organizations located in the Norwegian socio‐cultural context in...

Purpose Twenty years ago, Senge's, 1990 pioneering article, ”The learning organization,” published in MIT's Sloan Management Review , received center‐stage attention. The concept received much support and was followed with articles by prominent writers and educators, Margaret Wheatley amongst them. Only ten years later, however, another prominent w...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into why shareholders often claim dissatisfaction with the results delivered by their boards. A central reason is that boards fail to get their critical decisions effectively implemented. The paper also focuses on whether boards apply essentials developed in the change management discipline....

Tourist organizations are destination-based institutions that draw together stakeholders with interests in tourism. Our present knowledge of the governance of such organizations is limited. The aim of this research was to explore directors' roles and responsibilities, and determine whom they see themselves working for. Focus group interviews with 3...

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the impact of a firm's marketing strategy on involving customers in new product development. Special attention is to be paid to three facets of a marketing strategy: product differentiation, competitor orientation and brand profiling emphasis. Design/methodology/approach A survey with quantitative questionnai...

Purpose This paper seeks to address how major companies adjust their behaviour and definitions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) when exposed to “critical incidents”. Design/methodology/approach This is a qualitative explorative study including two cases from the Norwegian oil and gas industry, both reflecting critical incidents that are in...

Services are based on the needs of the clients. The needs are satisfied by the activities implemented in service processes, which have service interfaces with the client, service actors and process flow as their components. Service actors may be human or information systems. The service flow connects the service actors to each other and the connect...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate Chinese food retailers' positioning strategies. Specifically, retail segments and critical factors related to the nature of the food supplier relationships that may be influenced by the positioning strategies are investigated. Design/methodology/approach The retail markets in Guangzou and Chengdu...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine suppliers' adaptation to a major buyer, and to contribute to the findings of past research. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on a survey conducted among the suppliers to a major manufacturing firm as well as personal interviews with key personnel in the buying firm. Findings – I...

IBM CEO Tom Watson made the claim, that ‘Good design is Good Business’ at one of the first Aspen conferences on design in the 1950s (Watson and Petre, 1991). It seems generally accepted, that companies such as Apple, Alessi and SONY have gained competitive advantages from design (Dumas and Mintzberg, 1989; Kotler and Rath, 1988). Books like ‘Winnin...

This paper addresses challenges in managing knowledge worker teams – and the role of psychological contracts in doing so. This is important for several reasons. In today's organizations confronted with complex tasks, teams possessing specialized and complementary competencies and skills are often needed to succeed. Members of such teams are knowled...

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the insights of whether and, if so, how equilibrium models can enhance managerial team learning in complex and ever-changing situations. To handle this research challenge we first clarify the concept of managerial team learning. Then, we present an example of an equilibrium model, VisualGas, which has been de...

Developments in information and communication technology enable managers to rethink their business and management processes in order to increase effectiveness. However, incomplete understanding of how to manage the organisational change process may seriously prevent the successful implementation of enterprise systems, such as ERP systems. This pape...

Established theories on trust-development explain trust as a product of information, portraying individuals as passive receptacles of trust-related information. These theories tend to portray the development of trust as a decision problem while ignoring the goals of the trustor. In this paper we suggest an alternative perspective of trust and trust...

Purpose The concept of atmosphere is often considered vague and difficult to capture, which hampers adequate feedback on atmospheric investments. This paper aims to report a systematic effort to capture the concept and enhancing factors, making adequate feedback for efforts to improve atmosphere possible. Design/methodology/approach Owing to limit...

Attaining a distinctive atmosphere has become a pivotal concern for hospitality managers, since atmosphere is perceived an essential factor to attract and satisfy guests. An exploratory study of 369 hotel guests at six Norwegian hotels identified four stable and robust factors of atmosphere, namely, distinctiveness, hospitability, relaxation, and r...

It is usually assumed that the co-creation of value requires a close relationship between producers and customers. Typically, this is easier in a business-to-business context, where the numbers of customers and suppliers are relatively low and the capabilities and needs of each partner can readily be assessed. On the other hand, it could be assumed...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to clarify how IT managers' decision styles affect their evaluation of information technology. Design/methodology/approach Four different decision styles were assessed in a leadership test directed towards IT managers. Each style included two dimensions: confidence judgment ability and decision heuristic usage....

Purpose This review article aims to develop an integrating overview of the present status of the theory of corporate social responsibility (CSR) applied in the marketing context and asks whether, to what extent and how the discipline of marketing has addressed CSR. Design/methodology/approach After clarifying core concepts and proposing a new defi...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how responding positively to requests from customers may lead firms astray, a neglected topic in past research. Design/methodology/approach The paper utilizes a single case, describing how a business enterprise responded positively to a request from a customer, leading to a substantial, yet, from an...

An experimental study was conducted to estimate the impact of subjects' mood states on their responses to evaluative ratings. Four experimental groups were induced by either a very negative, mildly negative, neutral or positive mood-inducing film. As hypothesized, systematic differences were found between the groups in their evaluations. Factual kn...

Corporate change initiatives trigger a series of activities aimed at implementing change. It is often assumed that successful implementation requires consistent action based on a shared understanding of the changes among employees. This article examines how implementation activities affect individual and organizational sensemaking processes and the...

Supply chain management (SCM) is an important way to enhance competitive strength. This paper focuses on the importance that commercial companies place on competence development in relation to SCM and the extent to which they are prepared to work systematically in order to develop the competence needed to meet the SCM challenges. Findings from a na...

Marketing management and design is assumed to be well performing when well integrated. Seen from a marketing management perspective, design is complementary and provides useful tools like visualisation and prototyping as well as empathy with the consumers. Jointly this can increase the performance of the company. Due to different cultures, language...

Ambience has become a pivotal concern for tourism and hospitality managers worldwide. In an effort to improve the ambience, different groups of professionals are involved, in particular hospitality managers and outside experts, e.g. designers and architects.Despite the wide management interest, there is an apparent lack of empirical research that a...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to participate in the discussion related to why IS projects, both in Western and in Eastern European countries, e.g. Poland, often fail. One major reason is claimed to be poor implementation, and the article asks whether the stakeholders involved overlook the challenge of and the need for knowledge in change man...

This paper addresses the under-researched question of how firms cope when their competitive advantage erodes. An interpretive or cognitive view of strategy is utilised to enlighten this question. The actual research context is the fish filleting sector of the Norwegian seafood industry. The fish filleting sector has been exposed to several external...

Purpose Given that marketing practitioners often perceive theory as something abstract, with little relevance to their work, the objective is to explain why and how competent application of theory can be highly useful and even lead to competitive advantage. Design/methodology/approach Conceptualisation and personal interpretation, with real‐world...

Quality assessment is frequently applied in business-to-business marketing. It is usually assumed that quality assessment builds on the use of “objective” rules and criteria, but this is not always true. In a longitudinal study it was found that an institutionalized practice of quality assessment was based on both “objective” product characteristic...

This paper examines to what extent firms in the competitive hospitality industry know their customers. In a study of manager assessments and customer self-reports on customer satisfaction with a product/service, it was found that a firm's knowledge about their customers is modest, indicating that market knowledge does not come easily. The study als...

A conventional assumption within sociology of markets is that social ties are crucial in economic life, but that too strong relationships between sellers and buyers can create role conflicts and restrict business. Using qualitative interviews with Norwegian exporters and Danish importers, this article examines transactions in the international fish...

Purpose – Due to their limited resources small‐ and medium‐sized firms are often assumed not to influence or “drive” their industries or markets. However, based on insights from social cognition and studies of firms' reputations it is argued that small firms might benefit from actively influencing their reputations as well as the standards against...

This paper addresses perspectives underlying the project management literature. Content analysis of selected textbooks and formal articles revealed that this literature is primarily based on a few perspectives, and that the perspectives emphasized have changed over time. Today the leadership perspective is the dominant one, while the task perspecti...

The importance of atmosphere for accomplishing a high‐quality service delivery in the hospitality industry has for long been recognized both among practitioners and researchers. However, present insights are limited and scattered. This paper provides a systematic overview of atmosphere, including its antecedents and consequences, to guide hospitali...

Little is known about how managers interpret and elaborate strategic stimuli into further decision-making activities in novel, unstructured situations. Protocol analysis was conducted among a small sample of experienced managers and novices (managers to be) exposed to unstructured, strategic stimuli situations. The observed activities were found to...

This article treats the individual purchase as an event produced by the household. It is hypothesized that household resources and perceived product importance will be positively related to the probability of making overt complaint for a given purchase. It is also hypothesized that purchases made in the private market more than purchases made in th...

The present paper focuses on strategic household purchase decisions; i.e., major, complex buying decisions with long-term bindings of economic resources. An in-depth study of house buying in two-career households demonstrated preferences (goals) to be ambiguous, and consequences to be modestly understood and partly uncovered after the purchase. Onl...

Consumer policy is an important part of total welfare policy. A prime political goal in many societies is equality among their members. On the basis of secondary data from several countries the manifest and latent functions of anti-smoking policies are evaluated. The main conclusion is that in several cases they contribute to increasing inequality...

Purpose Aims to address the important but little researched question of why so many firms fail and so few succeed in their pursuit of opportunities. Design/methodology/approach By reporting investment behaviour and performance among firms in the turbulent seafood industry, it was possible to raise important questions that guide the analysis of why...

The driving question underlying this paper is whether computerised information systems may enhance organisational learning in management tasks, and, if so, in what ways. A distinction is made between cognitive and behavioural learning. Cognitive learning can take place both at the individual and team levels, and is considered a prerequisite for beh...

This paper discusses the nature and role of positive illusions in the exploitation of new ideas and innovation leading to the development of new enterprises and industries. Positive illusions imply misperceptions of oneself and the environment that can lead to faulty investments and bankruptcies. However, without the optimistic misperceptions of on...

A survey of recent research reveals that there is a growing interest in knowledge regarding the opinions and attitudes toward ethics amongst business school faculty members. Based on an empirical study conducted in Norway we address the following issue: “What do faculty members of the Norwegian Business Schools consider to be their responsibilities...

Since the attention-getting contributions by Kohli and Jaworski (1990) and others a decade ago the phenomenon of market orientation has received considerable interest among marketing scientists. Over the years the concept of market orientation has been refined and extended. In most research until now, market orientation has been utilised as a theor...

Purpose – This paper aims to address whether the order of entry yields competitive advantage in the discount grocery industry. More specifically, the paper aims to investigate whether such advantages are based on the effects of entry on consumer perceptions rather than factors such as technological leadership or cost efficiency. Design/methodology...

The early project phase is associated with uncertainty. In past literature on projects as well as in business, uncertainty (risk) is often conceived of as something unpleasant that should be avoided. This paper, in contrast, points at unexploited opportunities embedded in this uncertain early project phase. The key argument is that the profit poten...

Why do firms that make specific downstream investments as they start international operations, sometimes turn to more market-like arrangements as they gain international experience and their international sales increase? This paradox in international marketing is the key question to be addressed in this article. We use the concept of dynamic or tem...

This is a book and I do not have a copy to share. It is available at Amazon. There is a later edition (4th) also available: Research methods in busienss studies.

The quality of the execution of the early project phases may dramatically influence the project performance. In spite of this, early project phases have only attracted limited attention in past research. In this article we address two factors of key importance for project performance, i.e. uncertainty and the influence of project stakeholders. To s...

The early project phase is associated with uncertainty. In past literature on projects as well as in business, uncertainty (risk) is often conceived of as something unpleasant that should be avoided. This paper, in contrast, points at unexploited opportunities embedded in this uncertain early project phase. The key argument is that the profit poten...

This paper explores whether and how firms and their management are influenced by two types of environmental turbulence which have only been given scant attention in past research on market orientation, i.e. turbulence due to unpredictable supply conditions and turbulence created by frequent and unpredictable interactions with multiple market actors...

It is commonly assumed that a prime purpose of developing research-based marketing knowledge is that it should be useful to marketing managers and other practitioners. However, evidence suggests that academic marketing knowledge is only to a limited degree utilised in practical life. It is thus important to understand why this is the case, as well...

Flexibility is assumed to be one of the most important requirements for firms to survive and prosper in turbulent and unpredictable environments. In this article, we first define the concept of flexibility, showing that there are, in fact, several different types of flexibility, e.g., supply, production, and product assortment flexibility. A longit...

This paper studies the accuracy of small- to medium-sized (SME) managers' perceptions of their information exchanges with important market actors such as customers, competitors and suppliers. In this way, examines an important dimension of managers' network perceptions, which are assumed to be necessary for optimal utilisation of their networks. By...

The prosperity of new sectors within the aquaculture industry depends to a large extent on how and to what extent individual business firms are able to exploit new opportunities emerging from, e.g. breakthroughs in farming technology, favorable natural conditions, changing consumer preferences and so on. The farming of blue mussels is a new and eme...