Shmuel Ellis

Tel Aviv University, Coller School of Business

This article discusses the influence of intra-group processes on the development of information systems. Two alternative models of the Trinity Concept were compared in terms of the influence of communication patterns and group working procedures on productivity and intra-group relations. The first model has been characterized by individual work and...

This study examines how members of core (engineers) and peripheral (technical writers) professional communities are creating new knowledge. Base of field observation and interviews from DigTel, an innovative technology firm, we explore how specific interaction mechanism, the chavruta, borrowed from Judaic religious tradition, creates dialogical pra...

We offer an organizational lineage inheritance theoretical framework for understanding the longevity of imprinting effects of two consecutive eras with distinct environmental conditions, values, and norms. Adopting a genealogical approach, we find that erabased imprinting is contingent on lineage-based transmissions. Era-based initial conditions st...

This study examines the effects of timing in high-tech acquisitions by analyzing how deviation from routines affects the value captured by the acquirer as well as the price paid. It examines the context of information and communication technology (ICT) acquisitions in which multinational technology incumbents are known to habitually acquire product...

Studying the relationship between pure science and applied science in an institute of basic research we extend Gieryn's (1983, 1999) conceptualization of boundary-work, adding a new layer to the three genres of boundary-work: expulsion of rivals, expansion of authority and protection of autonomy. We observe legitimization of organizational identity...

The economic turmoil that characterizes the contemporary work environment has spurred the interest in business failures and other severe workplace adversities, and their impact on different organizational levels. This symposium aims to improve our understanding of the developmental impact of workplace adversities at the individual level of analysis...

This paper analyses the investment decisions of venture capitalists (VCs). Drawing on March's conceptual exploration-exploitation framework, we examine whether organisational slack and organisational horizons can predict exploration and exploitation behaviours. Using data on VC funds that operated in Israel between 1990 and 2004, we explore two cen...

This research investigates how boundaries are utilized during the postmerger integration process to influence the postmerger identity of the firm. We suggest that the boundaries that define the structures, practices, and values of firms prior to a merger become reinforced, contested, or revised in the integration process, thus shaping the firm iden...

If venture capital's role in clean energy is to be more transformative in creating a sustainable society then the trends we reveal in this paper must gain momentum, but whether these trends will continue to gain momentum is not certain. We therefore encourage organization and natural environment scholars to follow up on the claims we make in this p...

This book traces the emergence and growth of the Israeli hi-tech sector to provide a new understanding of industry evolution. In the case of Israel, the chapters here reveal how the hi-tech sector built an entrepreneurial culture with a capacity to disseminate intergenerational knowledge of how to found new ventures, as well as an intricate network...

Drawing on a growing stream of empirical findings that runs across different psychological domains, we demonstrated that systematic reflection stands out as a prominent tool for learning from experience. For decades, failed experiences have been considered the most powerful learning sources. Despite the theoretical and practical relevance, few rese...

The study investigated the interrelations among use of organizational learning mechanisms, organizational mental models, and organizational outcomes. It was conducted in a bank, 10 of whose branches were soon to undergo organizational change designed to improve customer service and another 10 were to undergo the same organizational change a few mon...

An after-event review (AER) is a learning from experience procedure that gives learners (individuals, teams or larger organizational units) an opportunity to systematically analyze the various actions that they selected to perform or not to perform in carrying out a particular task or responding to a particular event, to determine which of them was...

Mergers of equals are often considered simply symbolic. Whereas existing literature on the topic views equality as underscoring the importance of distributive justice, power, or identity, the role of culture remains relatively obscure. In this study, the authors explore equality as a dynamic construct associated with two major processes in mergers...

In this paper, we seek to extend existing understandings of how sensegiving is associated with conflict and power games. We look specifically at sensegiving by managers that promotes strategies and actions geared toward preserving their positions against change. Formulating a conceptual framework about sensegiving and power games in organizations m...

The purpose of this chapter is to describe cleantech venture capital investment decisions in innovative renewable and energy efficiency start-up companies as a process of path dependence and creation. Path dependence implies steadiness of investment choice and lack of change, though not necessarily outcomes that are uninformed or suboptimal (Sydow,...

In the current study, we compared the effect of personal and filmed after-event reviews (AERs) on performance, and the role that self-efficacy plays in moderating and mediating the effects of these 2 types of AER on performance. The setting was one in which 49 men and 63 women participated twice in a simulated business decision-making task. In betw...

Two studies (one field, one experimental) found that the more accurately individuals evaluated their performance, the better they performed on a subsequent task. The first study also found that the more individuals overestimated their previous performance, the lower was their performance on the next task. In contrast, the evaluation accuracy of the...

We compare and critique two measures of risk perception. We suggest that a single question --- ``How risky is the situation?'' --- captures the concept of risk perception more accurately than the multiple-item measure used by Sitkin and Weingart (1995). In fact, this latter measure inadvertently captures notions of attractiveness or expected return...

This study investigated actual and perceived sexual harassment (SH), as well as the discrepancy between them of women in the workplace, as related to several factual and perceptual variables which were selected on the basis of theoretical considerations and previous findings (i.e., harasser status, workplace sex ratio, and perceptions of intensity...

The study investigated the effect of self-ascribed epistemic authority (SAEA) on proclivity to choose information either about job content or about job context. Subjects expressed their attitudes toward a job offer on the basis of information either about job content alone or about job content and job context. It was found that in the process of ev...

The claim that appropriate "after-event review (AER)" may increase the relative value of drawing lessons from successes, as compared with failures, was examined in the present study. The study was a laboratory experiment in which the effect of type of AER (failure-focused, success-focused, failure- and success-focused, and no AER review) on perform...

This chapter features the concept of ascribed epistemic authority offered as a unique perspective on source effects in social judgment. It assumes that both the self and external sources may be assigned different degrees of epistemic authority in different domains and that this determines the ways in which individuals process information, make deci...

The claim that appropriate after-event review might decrease the relative advantage of drawing lessons from failures over drawing lessons from successes was examined in a quasi-field experiment. The results show that performance of soldiers doing successive navigation exercises improved significantly when they were debriefed on their failures and s...

In this study of willingness to learn from experience, it was hypothesized that managers would show a negative outcomes bias, that is, a stronger tendency to initiate "learning-from-experience" processes after negative outcomes than after positive outcomes. Another aim of the study was to explore the impact of the existence of early warning signals...

The hypothesis that managers believe risk to be a major component of strategy formulation, with a corresponding effect on the strategic decision-making process, was subjected to empirical examination. A total of 93 top executives of Israel's largest industrial companies, representing various business sectors, responded to the research questionnaire...

The present study examined the relations between perceived environmental/technological uncertainty among managers and intensity of use of organizational learning mechanisms. Confirming the research hypotheses, negative relations were found between the intensity of use of each of the five factors of organizational learning mechanisms (formal learnin...

The argument that an organization’s risk strategy is a unified whole and an integral component of the organization’s Total Strategy was subjected to empirical examination. Ninety-two of the 450 top executives of the largest industrial companies in Israel, representing various business sectors, responded to the research questionnaire. Contrary to th...

The argument that an organization’s risk strategy is a unified whole and an integral component of the organization’s Total Strategy was subjected to empirical examination. Ninety-two of the 450 top executives of the largest industrial companies in Israel, representing various business sectors, responded to the research questionnaire. Contrary to th...

The present study explored the relationship between level of employees’ help-seeking behavior and their overall job evaluations. It was hypothesized that employees would seek more help from others whom they perceive as more knowledgeable than they are and that they would seek more help from superiors than from coworkers. Regarding the link between...

We report the results of a field study that examined the application of benchmarking and the nature of its relationship to organizational learning practices. The study addresses two issues: the relationship between familiarity with the concept of benchmarking and the application of the elements of the benchmarking methodology (which are also, for t...

We report the results of a field study that examined the application of benchmarking and the nature of its relationship to organizational learning practices. The study addresses two issues: the relationship between familiarity with the concept of benchmarking and the application of the elements of the benchmarking methodology (which are also, for t...

We report the results of a field study that examined the application of benchmarking and the nature of its relationship to organizational learning practices. The study addresses two issues: the relationship between familiarity with the concept of benchmarking and the application of the elements of the benchmarking methodology (which are also, for t...

This paper describes a vignette study of help-seeking and help-giving by technology users and technical specialists in response to problems with technologies-in-use. It was found that decisions both to seek and to give help were affected by task variables, such as problem urgency and problem difficulty. They also found evidence that technology user...

This study examined the effect of error criticality on the likelihood of the development of a learning organizational culture. Four types of organizations differing in error criticality (the severity of the costs of potential error) were compared in terms of the intensity of learning culture, operationalized as shared values of issue orientation, v...

The traditional argument that failure is a necessary condition for learning from experience was subjected to an empirical test. Under the assumption that people tend to rethink their failures but not their successes, we created an experimental opportunity for learners to contemplate success. Two squadrons of cadets of the Israeli Air Force, taking...

The present study focuses on the reporting of administrative and disciplinary irregularities. The reasoned action model (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) is applied to predict officers' intentions to report illegal or irregular activities in the Israeli Defense Forces. The findings show that although the model's two predictors (attitude toward reporting and...

The present study focuses on the reporting of administrative and disciplinary irregularities. The reasoned action model (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) is applied to predict officers' intentions to report illegal or irregular activities in the Israeli Defense Forces. The findings show that although the model's two predictors (attitude toward reporting and...

Systematic Multiple Level Observation of Groups (SYMLOG) was applied to studying images of political leaders. Three left wing and three right wing Israeli leaders were evaluated by left and right wing voters along the SYMLOG's three dimensions—friendliness, task orientation, and dominance. It was found that right wing voters rated right wing leader...

A field study was conducted in a job-interview setting among female secretarial job applicants with previously expressed preferences for receiving information either about job content or about job context. The results showed that (a) under high as opposed to low need for closure, job applicants requested more job information, whether for job conten...

Organizations are today making considerable efforts to become learning organizations, skilled in creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and in modifying their behavior to reflect their new knowledge and skill. Project organizations are faced with the learning issue both within and across projects. A diagnostic tool was developed to help m...

Environment is shifting the power balance between the organization and its members, providing the individual with the power to bargain with the organization. The present article explores the sources and consequences of this change for the individuals who are members of strategic alliances as well as for the organizations they are affiliated with. ©...

This research defines self-ascribed epistemic authority as an individual's perception of his or her own expertise and knowledgeability in a domain. It was predicted that: (1) individuals with high self-ascribed epistemic authority would benefit more from experientially-based information than individuals with low self-ascribed epistemic authority, a...

This article discusses the influence of intra-group processes on the development of information systems. Two alternative models of the Trinity Concept were compared in terms of the influence of communication patterns and group working procedures on productivity and intra-group relations. The first model has been characterized by individual work and...

Subjects in a shopping mall were approached with a request to participate in a survey. Half the subjects were touched and gazed at by interviewers and the other half were not. These nonverbal techniques increased compliance to participate in the interviewing task and somewhat decreased respondents' perceived burden. The touch and no-touch groups di...