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Strategies For Theorizing From Process Data
Abstract
In this article I describe and compare ct number of alternative generic strategies for the analysis of process data, looking at the consequences of these strategies for emerging theories. I evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the strategies in terms of their capacity to generate theory that is accurate, parsimonious, general, and useful and suggest that method and theory are inextricably intertwined, that multiple strategies are often advisable, and that no analysis strategy will produce theory without an uncodifiable creative leap, however small. Finally, I argue that there is room in the organizational research literature for more openness within the academic community toward a variety of forms of coupling between theory and data.
... We conducted a single in-depth case study that draws on techniques from grounded theory method (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) to build theory, particularly process theory (Langley, 1999). Single case studies allow researchers to develop a deep understanding of a phenomenon in its socially embedded context and to study novel and emergent phenomena (e.g., Davidson & Chismar, 2007). ...
... The interviews allowed us to understand the law-making process from the perspectives of those involved (Rubin & Rubin, 2012), including what they deemed to be important about the technology and how they saw the understanding of the regulatory target evolving over time. Time-stamped documents were especially helpful in constructing a time-ordered account of events (Langley, 1999). They also provided insights into how collective meaning was constructed over time, as these documents reflected the conceptualizations of the technology at various points in time. ...
... The process of making a blockchain law can be described as a sequence of interrelated phases (Langley, 1999) based on the occurrence of certain events (Abbott, 1990). We constructed a temporal order of how the case developed along three key phases: closed-circle sensemaking, extended-circle sensemaking, and regulatory implementation (Table 5). ...
Emerging digital technologies require regulation that will avoid harmful effects but that also, ideally, fosters innovation. We report on a case study of how actors, representing a variety of perspectives (legal, regulatory authority, government, industry, and technology), interacted to construct a law on trustworthy technology in the European state of Liechtenstein. This regulatory construction was enabled by collective prospective sensemaking relying on the interrelated processes of abstraction and elaboration, through which actors collectively reconceptualized the regulatory target in terms of the technology (from blockchain to trustworthy technology), its uses (from cryptocurrency to token economy), and required roles (from financial service provider roles to trustworthy technology systems roles). Abstraction allowed the group of actors to extract and generalize essential properties to support the regulatory goals of technology neutrality and innovation-friendliness. Elaboration allowed the group to identify and specify details and requirements to support the regulatory goals of creating legal certainty and protecting users. Through these processes, actors could construct a shared, collective understanding that accommodated various viewpoints and paved the way for writing a law. From this case study, we develop a theory of collective prospective sensemaking in regulating emerging technologies.
... Table 1 summarizes our steps to analyze our interview data on the IS integration processes and the salient context conditions that influenced them. Next, using interviews and archival data, we applied a "visual mapping strategy" (Langley, 1999) to better capture the sub-processes involved for different types of IS resources. To begin our analysis, we utilized a categorization scheme consistent with a multidimensional construct developed by Tanriverdi and Uysal (2011) to measure the acquirer's IT integration capability. ...
... 6 Using an iterative process, we developed an input-process-output (IPO) model for each of the five domains. Then, for each IPO model, we utilized a "temporal bracketing" strategy (Langley, 1999); we graphed the sequence of major integration activities (planned and unplanned) at a sub-process level across the same T0 -T35 timeline for our study. Abstraction: Review interview data on context themes; group themes into context elements; and categorize context elements into four organization-level context factors: ...
... As shown in the first column of Appendix B: Table 1, our analyses of the IS integration activities included several "strategies for sensemaking," as Langley (1999) described. In an iterative process beginning with the first round of interviews, we coded each transcript using an initial scheme that included the Round 1 interview guide topics. ...
IS integration projects for horizontal mergers of large organizations have received scant attention from IS researchers. This study addresses this shortcoming by collecting and analyzing Technology and Social integration process data during the integration planning and implementation phases of a multi-year IS integration project for the horizontal merger of two large competitors. Using a power-dependence perspective to interpret our findings, we develop a mid-range propositional theory to explain how and why organization-level context factors influenced the cooperative behaviors of legacy employees participating in horizontal mergers and the success of IS integration processes.
... A qualitative approach was adopted for this article, using strategies for theorizing from process data (Langley, 1999), with a case study on the extractive fishing ecosystem in the state of Amazonas. Data collection is described in the next subsection. ...
... Despite the primary focus on events, process data analysis tends to draw in phenomena such as changing relationships, thoughts, feelings and interpretations of activities and choices (Langley, 1999). We have used the circular ecosystem management theoretical framework proposed by Gomes et al. (2023) to analyze the proposed circular value for the extractive fishing ecosystem in the case in question, focusing our analysis on theory elaboration (Ketokivi & Choi, 2014). ...
... According to Figure 2 (below), despite a broad network of actors, actions are almost always isolated, seeking individual benefits. In the following sections, the sequence of fish extraction, storage and transport processes observed on two routes will be described through a narrative strategy (Langley, 1999): Tapau a-Manaus and Manacapuru-Manaus. After the boats arrive at the distribution points at the Manaus Fishing Terminal, the Panair Fair and the Manaus Moderna Fair, the activity and commercial relations between fishermen, intermediaries and final consumers will be detailed, up to the management of the waste generated by the processing and sale of fish. ...
Purpose
This study aims to answer the question of how to structure a circular ecosystem for extractive fishing in the Amazon region. It explores possibilities for implementing a circular ecosystem management model in an imperfect market with low technological availability, high informality and limited public assistance.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative approach was adopted for this paper, with a case study on extractive fishing in the state of Amazonas. Data was collected through 35 interviews and direct observation of the processes of collecting, storing and transporting fish on two routes: Tapauá-Manaus and Manacapuru-Manaus.
Findings
Through the data collected, it was possible to observe the importance of an orchestrating agent – such as an association or even a public authority – for the establishment and development of a circular ecosystem for extractive fishing in the region.
Research limitations/implications
The paper makes theoretical contributions by presenting how a circular ecosystem management model could be implemented for an imperfect market in the Global South, as well as contributing to the literature on how the circular economy contributes to mitigate the threat to biodiversity posed by the linear economy.
Practical implications
It contributes to the management practice of structuring circular ecosystems.
Social implications
The role of public authorities and the collective organization of fishermen as orchestrators connecting the network of actors that develop the extractive fishing ecosystem is fundamental, guaranteeing effective social participation in solving local problems.
Originality/value
The idea of circular ecosystems was applied to imperfect contexts, with high informality, weak institutions and bioeconomy, topics still little explored in the literature.
... Variance approaches simply assume that failures are present or absent, and that the effects are positive or negative. In contrast, a process theorizing approach (Cloutier and Langley, 2020;Langley, 1999;van de Ven, 1992) would examine how failure diversity arises within and from an innovation process. A process model of innovation failure would strive to depict how the concept unfolds and develops as it journeys through the process (Langley, 1999). ...
... In contrast, a process theorizing approach (Cloutier and Langley, 2020;Langley, 1999;van de Ven, 1992) would examine how failure diversity arises within and from an innovation process. A process model of innovation failure would strive to depict how the concept unfolds and develops as it journeys through the process (Langley, 1999). This treatment of innovation failure relates to two goals of this Special Issue, as well as calls by others (Baxter et al., 2023;Forsman, 2021;Hartley and Knell, 2022;Maslach, 2016) for (i) more nuanced conceptualizations of innovation failure, that (ii) help understand how to capitalize from innovation failure. ...
... This is because changes in divergent-convergent thinking are useful for understanding the emergence and variation of conceptssuch as types of innovation failurewithin the process over time. Given that process theorizing involves understanding how a concept may vary during a process (Mohr, 1982;Langley, 1999), the divergent-convergent aspects of the double-diamond model reflect conditions that likely influence how we should view and respond to innovation failure. In contrast, other innovation process models either do not explicitly portray how divergent-convergent thinking changes across the process (e.g., Tidd and Bessant, 2020;Hansen and Haas, 2001), or only consider the convergent aspects such as the funneling and filtering of innovation ideas (e.g., Clark and Wheelwright, 1992;Docherty, 2006). ...
... In paper 1 the analysis consisted of constructing a more focused data structure (Gioia et al., 2013) which was supported by the creation of narrative vignettes of significant sensemaking events that helped pin-pointing the core issues in the rich empirical material (Barter & Renold, 1999;Miles et al., 2020). Paper 2 utilized the data from a process perspective (Langley, 1999), entailing a narrative approach, focusing on providing a thick description of the project. Two storylines were written that described the sensemaking of near-and distant-future. ...
... A case that provides rich material to learn and generalize from and a narrative description has attempted to give sufficient understanding of the case to the reader to permit comparison with other cases (Miles et al., 2020). The narrative and visual mapping data analysis strategies (Langley, 1999) supported staying relatively close to the data. Any additions to theory have been explicitly stated and related to prior theoretical understandings and limitations and further studies for confirmation of the findings have been suggested (Miles et al., 2020). ...
... It discusses different approaches to theory building and reflects on the similarities and differences among the works of Eisenhart, Gioia, and Langley. (Eisenhardt, 1989;Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007;Eisenhardt et al., 2016;Gioia et al., 2013;Langley, 1999;Langley and Royer, 2006). ...
... Before writing the discussion chapter, the researcher referred back to the works of Eisenhart, Gioia, and Langley (Eisenhardt, 1989;Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007;Eisenhardt et al., 2016;Gehman et al., 2018;Gioia et al., 2013;Langley, 1999;Langley and Royer, 2006) to find the best way to "make sense" of the data. The article written The research unfolded in a way that was very much in line with the process that Eisenhart describes in the article written by Gehman et al. (2018). ...
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With the increasingly fierce competition among cities, place managers must provide an environment capable of not only attracting visitors and investments but also keeping residents satisfied. Therefore, local development goes beyond public policy and becomes a market challenge. Furthermore, there is a growing recognition among governments and other stakeholders that a dynamic music scene boosts a city’s economy by creating jobs, attracting tourists, and strengthening the city’s brand. Within this context, the present study investigates how the live music industry affects the process of building a city’s brand.
The project analyzes the components and dimensions of the live music industry and also shows how a city can articulate them in order to foster the development of its live music industry and strengthen its brand. This analysis was based on a multiple-case study conducted in Rio de Janeiro and in Montreal, cities with strong and long-standing traditions of live music. A theoretical model was developed as a result of this inquiry. It proposes the breakdown of the city cultural infrastructure into two parts: a live music infrastructure geared towards major events, and a live music infrastructure geared towards what happens year-round, outside of major events. The findings show that major events have a strong influence on city branding. Yet the research also shows that it is what happens throughout the year that nourishes a city’s cultural identity, which in turn has a strong influence on the city’s brand.
The results highlight that: (a) strong music scenes can be a tourism argument because they are an element of differentiation; (b) cities must protect their small and medium-sized venues because these spaces can make music events more accessible and relevant to the population of different territories; (c) the protection of the live music industry of a city and the preservation of its musical heritage go hand in hand. Musical heritage influences music composition, consumption and other aspects involved in a city’s music scenes; (d) ensuring the continuity of public policies for culture and establishing a more inclusive process that considers the diversity of the audience is key; and (e) considering the scarcity of resources, public funding should prioritize support for music education, year-round live music events, and the preservation of the city’s heritage.
The study also emphasizes that the Tourism Office and Bureau of Cultural Affairs should work together to keep city branding authentic, since what is not uniquely linked to a place can easily replicated, and therefore can’t be considered an element of differentiation. This study intends to provide information for academics, music industry professionals, political leaders and government officials involved in economic and/or cultural development, and tourism and business leaders looking for ways to boost local economies through culture.
... The methodological approach of this research is a single case study (Yin, 2003), specifically a longitudinal case study using narrative strategies (Langley, 1999) to build detailed stories from raw data to prepare a chronology leading to theory presentation. Our approach was inspired by ethnographic approaches (Van Maanen, 2011). ...
... After identifying these patterns, we proceeded to the chronological coding of the quotes to understand how Open Strategy was communicatively enacted, and how polyphony and monophony were balanced. We identified four temporal brackets (Langley, 1999). The first bracket involved the need to listen to multiple, different, and new voices to kick off the Open Strategy movement at Kiabi. ...
In this paper, we adopt a Communication as Constitutive of Organizations (CCO) perspective to investigate how organizations implementing Open Strategy initiatives maintain openness and closure in tension by attending to a plurality of voices and their diversity (polyphony), while at the same time speaking in one strategic voice (monophony). Based on the Kiabi case, we explore what we name the voice dilemma by focusing on the ways different stakeholders involved in strategy making manage the co-authoring of strategy through voicing, negotiating, and legitimizing matters of concern. We contribute to extant literature by focusing on the management of polyphony and monophony as a way to embrace the paradox of openness that characterizes Open Strategy. More precisely, we show how some form of closure needs to be nurtured during the opening process (the co-authoring process during which multiple employees are invited to contribute to strategizing). However, we also argue that some form of opening needs to be nurtured during the closure process (the process during which the official authoring/positioning of the organization is finally defined). This study offers a longitudinal case that allows showcasing how the opening and closing strategies evolve over time.
... We deployed a combination of different strategies for the data analysis, due to the vast and eclectic empirical material of the study. To follow transformative service processes over time, we relied on process data, which can be chaotic and complex to analyse (Langley, 1999). ...
... However, different strategies are available to help make sense of and structure process data. As a structuring device, we used a temporal bracketing strategy, which creates a temporal decomposition of the flow of events in the overall process (Gehman et al., 2018;Langley, 1999). Regarding the two main phases of "design before use" and "design after design", we perceived the data from the two phases as having different characteristics: data from the first for, while the data collected in the second phase reflected how the village was enacted and experienced in practice. ...
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to explore the role of frontline employees (FLEs) as mediators in transformative service processes within services targeting vulnerable users.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on a case study of the development and implementation of a dementia village, and the data consist of documents, in-depth interviews and field observations.
Findings – The analysis identifies FLEs as mediators in six different roles. These roles highlight how FLEs perform as mediators, acting in between and for vulnerable users and thus supporting their well-being. Specifically, the roles explicate the mediating role of FLEs in the design and planning of transformative changes and in daily work practices.
Practical implications – The different mediating roles of FLEs presented here should inform care providers and managers of how employees can become assets for supporting vulnerable users’ well-being during the design and planning stages of transformative change and through daily service work.
Originality/value – This paper offers novel insights into the multifaceted roles of FLEs in transformative services. The findings add to the current debate on mediation in transformative services and contribute to the literature by extending and refining the established conceptual and empirical understandings of the role of transformative service mediators in consumers’ well-being.
Keywords Service innovation, Service design, Employees, Co-creation, Proxies, Transformative service mediator, Transformative service design
... We conducted a process study (Langley, 1999) to explore how trolls emerge from the interactions between offline and online democratic processes. As monsters are primarily a matter of perception (Cohen, 1996;Thanem, 2006), we longitudinally explored how union leaders and online participants perceived the online-offline interactions. ...
... Our analysis strategy consisted of three stages, as proposed by Langley (1999). ...
The proliferation of trolls may be one of the main reasons why democratic organizations fail to use social media to renew. The literature predominantly assimilates these trolls to psychologically deviant individuals. This article questions this individual-centric approach by suggesting that trolls may well be socially constructed organizational monsters. To investigate this phenomenon, for 2 years, we studied the interactions on a Facebook group between the leaders and members of a trade union. We identified three bi-directional effects at the heart of what we call the monstrification process: discording, disordering, and disgusting effects. The paper contributes to the troll and organizational monster literature by evidencing the four-stage process through which trolls are organizationally constructed as deviant online participants. Our work also adds to the democratic organization literature by metaphorically underlining actors' emotional and moral distress caused by the dysfunctional encounter of offline and online democracy.
... However, in a later phase, the findings were related to existing theories in the research field. The ethnographic research methods enabled a deep insight into the dynamic phenomena of multiple actions to manage the level of standardisation, which is valuable when developing theory from process data (Langley, 1999;Marin-Garcia, Garcia-Sabater & Maheut, 2022;Säfsten, Gustavsson & Ehnsiö, 2020). ...
Purpose: This paper aims to explore and describe how companies manage the level of standardisation of improvement practices in a multisite context. It seeks to explain the managerial strategies applied to change the standardisation level in manufacturing companies with multiple production sites worldwide.Design/methodology/approach: This paper collects data through interviews, observations and company documents from a large multinational producing company and, specifically, from of the largest production sites in the company. The research design resembles a grounded theory approach by being reflexive and open to emerging themes. The standardisation strategy was analysed at a company that strived to increase the standardisation of problem-solving practices within about 20 production sites as part of their corporate lean programme.Findings: Several managerial tools were applied at the corporate level to increase the standardisation level of problem-solving practices, such as developing standards and a company-specific toolbox aligned with an in-house maturity model. In addition, deploying change leaders and global implementation targets enabled audits and progress. However, consequences at the production-site level became minor adaptations of standards, the design of training models as a "roll-out", and a resource-demanding implementation process.Originality/Value: This paper empirically demonstrates strategic tools that corporate management teams apply to influence the company's standardisation level of practices. The study describes the purpose and consequences of the design of the toolbox, maturity model, training model, and implementation targets, which aims to simplify the complex task of managing standardisation in a corporate group. By applying a knowledge-based view, four processes (i.e. adaptation, integration, upskilling, and learning) were identified to improve the management strategies in multisite contexts.
... To address these questions, the research team adopted an abductive methodological approach, and developed a theorybuilding from cases strategy (Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007;Gehman et al. 2018) coupled with a process methodology (Langley 1999). This strategy led the team to understand farmers' differentiated responses to socio-ecological struggles derived from the waste crisis, and more relevantly to investigate and theorize sustainability transitions, using the Land of Fires as a rich empirical context. ...
This study investigates how farmers develop place-based relations when subject to structural conditions of violence and environmental crime. We particularly focus on environmental crimes perpetrated by the Camorra, the Neapolitan Mafia, at the expense of farming communities in the metropolitan areas of Naples and Caserta, in Italy. Farmers located in this area have struggled to mobilize collectively, with only a group of farmers enable to re-act to land exploitation, illegal burning or dumping, and more in general to the waste crisis. Stimulated by this rather puzzling empirical evidence, our research team engaged in a deeper investigation of the waste crisis, exploring how farmers located in the Land of Fires reacted to conditions of violence and environmental crime by developing a differentiated set of place-based narratives and practices. Using the Land of Fires and the waste crisis as an empirical context, in this study we focus particularly on conceptualizing place-based processes emerging in the context of organized violence and environmental crime. In our approach, these are structural conditions produced by the Camorra and the state, to which local agencies, such as farmers, respond.
... Our analytical approach was informed by general methodological guidance on inductively coding qualitative data (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) and building theory from case studies (Eisenhardt, 1989), as well as more specific methods for qualitatively analyzing institutional logics (Reay & Jones, 2016). Our analysis of the large volume of data was supported by data management tools, including NVivo software, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, and visual-mapping (Langley, 1999). Analysis proceeded in three stages. ...
Seeking to better understand how nonprofit organizations (NPOs) manage hybridity, we investigated what distinguishes NPOs that combine multiple logics in productive and unproductive ways. We collected and analyzed data from six case studies of NPOs delivering social services in Australia. Our findings reveal that organizational members of NPOs take a perspective on their hybrid nature which comprises four elements: motivational framing, actor engagement, resourcing attitude, and governance orientation. NPOs that combine multiple logics in productive and unproductive ways, respectively, are distinguished by (1) a compelling or confused motivational framing for combining logics; (2) actors having active and shared, or passive and isolated, engagement with multiple logics; (3) attitudes toward resourcing multiple logics that are either coherent or competitive; and (4) a governance orientation toward multiple logics as opportunities to leverage or problems to resist. Our findings contribute to the literature by deepening understanding of the interplay between complex constellations of multiple logics in NPOs, including religious and professional logics. We also develop a model of organizational perspectives on hybridity and their implications for distinguishing NPOs that productively harness tensions between logics.
... Emotions, actions, and meaning can all be richly described using qualitative data. The coarse-grained outcroppings of variables and events, which tend to barely skim the surfaces of processes, make this a challenging task for quantitative approaches (Langley 1999). Interviews that were semi-structured or unstructured were thought to be appropriate for gathering data. ...
In the introductory part of this paper, we provide a brief overview of the research subject matter, research topic, research problem, thesis topic, research questions, and disposition of this paper. Background Industry 4.0 brings about a major transformation in automotive manufacturing. It is characterized by the use of advanced information analytics, networked machines, and digitalization within organizations. In addition, it is characterized by the integration of internet technologies with forward-looking technologies in the domain of "smart" objects. However, there is no single definition of the term "industry 4.0" in the literature, which restricts theory building and the comparability of research. However, Lasi (2014) argues that industry 4-0 is a "new paradigm shift" in industrial production because of the advanced digitalisation within factories. A paradigm shift is a significant change that occurs when the normal way of thinking or doing something changes to something new and different. In industry 4-0, emerging technologies integrate with each other to bring about a change in manufacturing processes.
... Interviews were transcribed verbatim, read and reflected upon to enhance data familiarity, generate discoveries and insight into events in a chronological storyline (Langley, 1999), such as those relating to power struggles, the lack of a clear hierarchy and speciality knowledge in relation to voice and silence. Interview transcripts were then uploaded into NVivo 12, where the first author did an open coding by breaking down direct words of participants into common issues, ideas and events. ...
... Throughout our analysis, we sought to remain aware of the temporal order of the organisational activities, choices, and events recounted by participants. In the last stage of our analysis, we followed the guidance of Langley's (1999) temporal bracketing approach, which flows from Gidden's (2001) structuration theory. Temporal bracketing is a sensemaking strategy that advocates for collected data to be organised into a series of connected blocks to describe processes that take place over time. ...
... Paay, Kuys, & Taffe, 2021;Zhang, 2024). This approach fits with our research question because it effectively reveals the micro-dynamics in organisational contexts over time (Creswell, 1998;Langley, 1999;Langley, Smallman, Tsoukas, & van de Ven, 2013) and across levels (Kouam e & Langley, 2018). We used analytical generalisation (Maxwell & Chmiel, 2014), focussing on producing theoretical understandings with the potential to transfer across contexts from deep, case-specific data. ...
Real-world design projects often involve designers and non-design professionals from the same or different organisations. Power asymmetries permeate such projects. However, prevailing design research implicitly assumes that framing—an essential practice that pervades the design process—unfolds within relatively equitable interpersonal negotiations. The dynamics in framing across the individual and collective levels under power asymmetric conditions remain largely underexplored. We conducted a cross-level analysis of 48 early-stage product design sessions, drawing on a field study conducted at a design consultancy. Our findings reveal how power asymmetries infiltrate and shape frame evolution, starting from individual proposals to eventual collective acceptance. This research extends framing theory in design research by reconceptualising framing as a power-laden, cross-level practice.
... Discussion of philosophicalmethodological underpinnings of process research is significant (e.g. how to capture movement in academic research outputs, such as papers, models) but largely absent from the literature, in spite of the existence of important technical discussions, such as Langley's (1999) work on how to theorize with process data. The present paper can be read as an invitation to organizational sociology scholars to discuss the methodological implications of conceptual choices and reconsider the existence of an unnecessary cleavage between strong and weak versions of organizational process. ...
In processual approaches to the sociology of organizations, there are prevalent assumptions differentiating ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ process research. In this paper, we challenge this assumption and suggest a novel, non-dualistic hybrid approach that is methodologically strong-weak. This approach integrates both flux (becoming) and its temporary material instantiations (being), addressing tensions between slow-moving and mid-range elements of process. We argue that both strong and weak process views can contribute to understanding organizing. We explore how their dualism can be overcome methodologically through the combination of time horizons, incorporating substantialist and flux views, as well as proximal and distal perspectives. Using a strong-weak dualism creates an unnecessary theoretical and methodological divide between process as flow and process as material instantiation. We advance three hybrid approaches which we call reifying, liquefying, and embedding. Our contribution consists of strategies to overcome strong-weak dualism for conceptualizing organizations in a sociologically dynamic and holistic manner.
... This may involve conducing field research in the cotton fields of Pakistan or Uzbekistan if, for example, one was investigating the fashion industry. We also see merit in longitudinal processual studies (Langley, 1999) where changes can be observed over time, whether the living conditions of victims have improved, and how they have reskilled themselves to re-enter the work force. In addition, with the disclosure-based legislations gaining currency and numerous modern slavery reports being analyzed, it will be important to gauge whether reporting of modern slavery incidents leads to change of behavior and influences reporting for other organizations in similar industries. ...
... The situation is a concrete, observable place in time and space where creative processes temporarily manifest (see also Knorr Cetina 1981, Hargadon andBechky 2006). In this approach, the "situated and concrete dynamics of creative productions" (Farías and Wilkie 2015, p. 4) are at the center of analysis, allowing the potentially creative situation (rather than creative individuals, or organizations) to be considered as a temporally bracketed unit of analysis (e.g., Langley 1999, Garud et al. 2013, Langley et al. 2013. In line with the social process perspective, this prevents the researcher from focusing exclusively on a novel outcome or its singular origin, which would reduce many ongoing, interrelated aspects of a situation to a single stream of events. ...
In creativity research, time is rarely conceptualized as a multidimensional phenomenon. Instead, it is conceived either as an external variable, for coordinating successive phases of an idea journey, interaction patterns, and moments of insight—or as an individual experience, encompassing aspects like stress or timelessness. Based on an ethnography of a music studio, I show how these temporalities coexist and how time is organized as a linear coordination process as well as an experience to enable and align individual and collective creativity. Time is thereby available in three dimensions, as planned time for linear sequencing of collective work steps, as assigned meantime for the spontaneous and parallel allocation of tasks to free time slots, and as idle meantime for indeterminate waiting periods afforded by the material temporality of artifacts and bodies. My findings elucidate that organizing the interplay of all three temporal dimensions favors both individual ideation in indeterminate situations of idleness and collective creative work on predefined tasks in planned phases and ad hoc structured situations. Importantly, I found how the time afforded by artifacts and bodies in creative work is key to enabling and aligning individual creative processes by providing opportunities for relaxation, defocusing, and humor during collective creative processes, based on coordinated interaction. My findings contribute to a social process perspective on creativity by reconsidering the role of individual experiences in creative collaboration from a temporal perspective.
Funding: This research was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [Grant 10.55776/I4884].
... To further organize the findings and make it easier for the reader to follow the game's structure, I applied temporal bracketing to account for key game activities and events (Langley 1999). Although the identified practices are not limited to certain parts of the game but enacted throughout, the resulting structure offers the reader additional information clarifying the developed findings. ...
Entrepreneurship is an elusive phenomenon and its meaning has been vigorously debated. This study seeks to contribute to critical perspectives on entrepreneurship by investigating how entrepreneuring participates and intervenes in the dominant discourse, and thus, in the practices that constitute meaning. To explore this crucial question, I use the framework of entrepreneuring as a mode of critical engagement. This perspective is supplemented by the performative notion of provocation, which helps in conceptualizing entrepreneuring and its artefacts as critical participants of the discourse. Next, I build a case around a video game as an artefact produced by an entrepreneurial venture. The findings reveal three practices that emerge from entrepreneuring: caricaturing, metaphorizing, and devaluing. I develop a model that illustrates how entrepreneuring provokes (i.e. problematizes and establishes) different versions of entrepre-neurship. This study contributes to entrepreneuring and its critical capacity by theorizing entrepreneuring as provocation. Provocation highlights the various practices of critical engagement, draws attention to the involved material artefacts, and informs our understanding of the implicated ethics.
Resumo Nosso estudo de caso longitudinal investiga o surgimento de uma empresa embrionária a partir de um hobby. À medida que o hobby evoluiu para se tornar um empreendimento empresarial, as dimensões de diversão e trabalho se envolveram em uma tensão paradoxal que persistiu dinamicamente, em espiral, à medida que o negócio se desenvolveu. O processo de transformar um hobby em um negócio imbricou progressivamente duas disciplinas opostas, as de diversão e trabalho. Como resultado, as tensões inerentes entre elas precisam ser gerenciadas. Transformar essas tensões em uma fonte de vitalidade a ser nutrida, em vez de enquadrar a tensão como uma dicotomia a ser resolvida, é considerado vital para a continuidade do empreendimento.
Our longitudinal case study investigates the emergence of an embryonic business from a hobby. As the hobby evolved to become an entrepreneurial venture, the dimensions of play and work engaged in a paradoxical tension that dynamically persisted, spiraling, as the business unfolded. The process of turning a hobby into a business progressively imbricated two opposing disciplines, those of play and work. As a result, inherent tensions between them have to be managed. Turning these tensions into a source of vitality to be nurtured, rather than framing the tension as a dichotomy to be solved, is seen to be vital to the continuation of the venture.
This article explains how employees construct inconsistencies between two separate mandated changes and use these inconsistencies to progressively resist the realization of both changes. Specifically, they use three practices – (1) demonstrating interdependencies between change elements, (2) framing these change elements as inconsistent and (3) establishing the consequentiality of specific change elements by constructing poor outcomes for these – to build capacity to critique, revise and eventually reject elements of both changes. As a result of this resistance, neither mandated change is fully realized. Our findings contribute to the literature on strategic change by illuminating the specific processual dynamics through which actors construct and manipulate the relationship between changes. This also allows us to contribute to the literature on resistance to change by illuminating the dynamics that over time enable actors to resist even mandated – that is, externally imposed – changes, by camouflaging resistance as non-resistance.
As corporate social responsibility research increasingly focuses on the role of grassroots organizations in challenging business practices, there remains a gap in understanding how these organizations prefigure alternatives to the prevailing business status quo. This study addresses this gap by developing a framework of prefigurative imaginaries, drawing from a qualitative study of a grassroots organization confronting the social irresponsibility of the Kenyan banking system in serving the poor. The framework captures how grassroots organizations use imaginaries to prefigure an alternative community currency system for enacting and foreshadowing social change. However, when attempts were made to scale up the system, these actions became disjointed, resulting in cracks within the imaginaries and the eventual abandonment of the system. Our study contributes to corporate social responsibility research by broadening its scope to include grassroots organizations and unveiling how they prefigure social change in marginalized contexts. By highlighting the significant influence of imaginaries on experiences and practices, this study underscores their role in shaping the acceptance or rejection of grassroots initiatives by the communities they aim to serve. It has implications for scholars and practitioners interested in understanding the role of imaginaries in shaping community-driven initiatives and advancing social change agendas.
Purpose
This study aims to explore the strategic decisions at innovation level implemented by firms to thrive and transform themselves during crises. This study also aims to provide insights to answer the question: Why do some firms decide to implement certain types of innovation during a crisis?
Design/methodology/approach
This research was carried out through a multiple case study involving 22 firms. The methods were implemented in three steps to increase rigor and the replication of the study: identification and selection of cases, data collection through interviews triangulated with online information and analysis based on aggregating themes and finding patterns.
Findings
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the companies analyzed focused their activities mainly on developing new features or functionalities for their products or services. Most of the firms implemented innovations across nearly all ten categories outlined by Keeley et al. (2013). Many of the implemented innovations involved personalized and superior service enhancements, process efficiency optimizations, channel diversification initiatives and new ways to collaborate to generate value. In general, the main drivers that led firms to decide to implement these innovations include reducing costs, enhancing operational efficiency, generating new revenue streams, augmenting sales and enhancing client relationships.
Practical implications
This research significantly advances the convergence of innovation, strategy and crisis in three impactful ways. First, it constructs a pragmatic and evidence-based framework, consolidating the primary catalysts, innovation categories and strategies adopted by firms in response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis. Second, it offers insights for guiding decision-making processes related to innovation, presenting actionable recommendations derived from the study’s findings. Thirdly, this study highlights critical perspectives that can guide governmental intervention, facilitating the formulation of more tailored and effective policies to assist companies during crisis periods.
Originality/value
This study centers on developing countries, specifically examining Colombian firms, considering their unique characteristics and priorities. Surprisingly, there is a scarcity of studies delving into the innovation and transformation of firms during the COVID-19 crisis in nations sharing cultural, economic and political similarities with Colombia.
The literature on sustainability strategies has focused on outcomes at the micro or meso level of analysis, such as changes in the indicators of people, organizations, or supply chains. However, sustainable development involves a set of macro‐level issues such as the atmosphere, oceans, and societal phenomena. There is scarce research linking business actions to planetary‐ or national‐level outcomes. Therefore, this research focuses on how the process of framing a sustainability strategy shapes the enactment of social or environmental actions with an intended positive macro‐level impact. We use five longitudinal case studies in Ecuador to create a framework that links the framing of sustainability strategies with the enactment of actions with a positive macro‐level impact. This research finds that sustainability strategies framed as environmental impacts following science‐based methods, and integrative cross‐sector partnerships mobilize explorative sustainable innovation capabilities and partnerships for collective actions with macro‐level impacts. We also find that temporal ambidextrous management, purpose alignment, and perceived competence in monitoring resource allocation are enablers of the transition of these framing processes. Finally, managers should be aware that macro‐level impacts are more likely to be generated through collective actions and innovation efforts deployed using ecosystem logic for value creation.
Organizing an effective crisis response requires that actors collectively make sense of a situation by exchanging their interpretations and understandings. Current sensemaking studies predominantly adopt a short-term perspective on this process, focusing on how actors recognize and respond to deviant cues. This focus tends to obscure how organizational politics influences the sensemaking process. In this paper, we study how actors exert influence over sensemaking processes by analyzing how organizational members frame situations and challenge one another’s understandings. Empirically, we focus on the response of Dutch Border Security Teams to the “migration crisis” at Chios, Greece, drawing from a 2-year multisite study consisting of two field visits and 47 interviews. Our analysis shows that organizational members used discursive, symbolic, and situated framing practices to influence one another’s sensemaking. Based on these theoretical constructs, we are able to explain how frame hegemony emerged that entirely countered initial adaptive sensemaking at the frontline. We contribute to the sensemaking literature by theorizing the politics of sensemaking in turbulent environments.
The loose spatial and temporal coordination of national and transnational governmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies enables multinational corporations (MNCs) to externalize irresponsible behaviours. Political CSR (PCSR) and ‘government and CSR’ studies show how governmental authority shapes CSR at the domestic and transnational levels but provide only limited insights into how to govern MNCs across levels and over time . Combining the concept of orchestration with insights from power transition theory, we theorize cross‐level governmental orchestration as power‐imbued, dynamic, and involving multiple modes of orchestration. Through an analysis of how the South Korean state has deployed CSR domestic and transnational strategies over 30 years, we induce three configurations of cross‐level governmental orchestration, blending coercive, directive, delegative and facilitative modes of orchestration, and identify the mechanisms behind Korea's transition from one configuration to another. Our results: (1) contribute to PCSR and ‘government and CSR’ studies by conceptualizing a systemic and dynamic view of cross‐level orchestration of governmental CSR strategies; (2) advance transnational governance studies by consolidating orchestration theories and considering coercive power, and (3) add to power transition theory by explaining how regulatory capacity‐building enables shifts of cross‐level orchestration configurations.
Purpose
This study investigates how the interrelated elements of organizational roles – activities, motives, resources and relationships – are mobilized to construct a code of conduct for the proxy advisory (PA) industry in Europe.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study uses archival documents from three consecutive regulatory consultations and 16 interviews with key stakeholders. It analyzes how different stakeholder groups (i.e. PA firms, investors, issuers and the regulator) perceive and mobilize the elements of PA firms’ role to construct the accountability regime’s boundaries (accountability problem and action, and users and providers of accounts).
Findings
This study shows how PA firms, investors, issuers and the regulator refer to the perceived motives behind PA firms’ activities to construct an accountability problem. The regulator accepted the motives of an information intermediary for PA firms’ role and required PA firms to develop a corresponding accountability action: a code of conduct. PA firms involved in developing the code of conduct formalized who is accountable to whom by aligning this accepted motive with their activities, relationships, and resources into a common role.
Originality/value
The study highlights how aligning role elements to reflect PA firms’ common roles enables the construction of an accountability regime that stakeholders accept as a means of regulation. Analyzing the role elements offers insights into the development and functioning of accountability regimes that rely on self-regulation. We also highlight the role of smaller regional firms in helping shape transnational accountability regimes.
Incumbents are increasingly establishing digital ventures to explore the potential of digital technologies, yet this introduces unique tensions and management challenges. Focusing on the case of German insurance company DEVK and its digital subsidiary freeyou, our study delves into the complexities and tensions prevalent in such associations. Through a longitudinal study encompassing interviews, archival data, and observations over seven years, we offer detailed insights into the development, intertwinement, and management of these tensions. Our research contributes to understanding the nuanced interplay of tensions in digital ventures within established firms, addressing a gap in both academic discourse and practical application in the field of digital venturing and digital innovation.
Following the literature on entrepreneurial framing and identity change, we examined how Chinese shan-zhai phone entrepreneurs have drawn on their cultural resources to reframe their businesses to claim new identities and gain legitimacy over time. Through qualitative procedures, we found that a staged process of collective identity development underlies this entrepreneurial process, consisting of building (a) niche-market identity via pragmatic reframing, (b) socio-political identity via nationalistic reframing, and finally (c) professional identity via comprehensive reframing. There has also been a clear change in the sources of legitimacy from the indigenous market through the wider Chinese society to the more globally defined industry. Our central contribution is a processual model of identity change through cultural reframing specifically focused on how informal entrepreneurs grow into formalization and global competition.
Purpose
This paper presents a new conceptualization of digital service anchored in a coconstitutive ontology of digital “x” phenomena, illuminating the pivotal role of the digital qualifier in the service context. Our objective is to provide a theoretically grounded conceptualization of digital service and its impact on the nature of the value cocreation process that characterizes digital phenomena.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing from scholarly works on digital phenomena and fundamental principles of service-dominant logic, this paper delineates the essence of digital service based on the interplay between digitization and digitalization as well as the operational dynamics of generativity and its constitutive dimensions (architecture, community, governance).
Findings
The paper defines digital service as a sociotechnical process of value cocreation, where participants dynamically architect, govern and leverage digital resources. This perspective highlights the organic development of digital service and the prevalence of decentralized control mechanisms. It also underscores how the intersection between generativity’s dimensions—architecture, community and governance—shapes the dynamic evolution and outcomes of digital services.
Originality/value
Our conceptual framework sheds light on our understanding of digital service, offering a foundation to further explore its nature and implications for research and practice, which we illustrate using the case of ChatGPT.
In this article, we study how a luxury fashion engineering company strategically introduced sustainability-oriented innovations (SOIs) over time through an in-depth longitudinal analysis of a leading Italian business-to-business (B2B) firm. We apply a strategic management perspective to this first-tier engineering manufacturer to bring new insights into how upstream firms deploy SOIs and to what effect, thus determining long-term technological choices in the industry. We observe that such innovations evolved dynamically from the process dimension to the supply chain and, lastly, to the product dimension, thereby spanning explorational, procedural and communi-cational practices. We find that the company sustained significant growth over a decade while implementing its sustainability transition, thanks to three elements: a broad and wide-ranging experimentation in all areas of the company, a continuous dynamic process of learning-by-doing and a commitment of the top management to prioritize new sustainable practices. The propositions developed from this case study can inform future strategic analysis and management of SOIs in other firms/industrial sectors.
Research Summary
We develop new theory on incumbent firms' strategic decision‐making and the associated emotional dynamics at platform transitions. Based on in‐depth interviews with Nokia's senior leaders about their decision to adopt the Windows platform in 2011, we suggest that highly capable platform companies' entry into the established phone industry invalidated senior leaders' long‐held core assumptions about the industry, triggering existential anxiety and stunting self‐regulation. Distinct mechanisms then influenced senior leaders' emotions toward external platform options—myopic appraisals of firm competitiveness inside a platform (vs. platform competitiveness against other platforms), appraisals of changing firm boundaries, and emotional resonance of potential partners. These emotions contributed to emotional drift, with top managers ultimately favoring the emotionally attractive option. Our theorizing extends theory on platforms, strategy, and emotion.
Managerial Summary
This research provides fresh insights into how emotions play a crucial role in incumbent firms' strategic choices, especially in the context of evolving technology platforms and major industry shifts. Our research focused on Nokia's 2011 decision to adopt the Windows platform. We discovered that when new players, like platform companies, enter a market, they can unsettle longstanding beliefs, causing anxiety and decision‐making challenges among top management. Specifically, we found that executives often focus too narrowly on their firm's ability to compete within a new platform rather than the platform's overall competitiveness. Additionally, changes in company boundaries and the emotional appeal of potential partners significantly influence these decisions. Executives' analyses emotionally drift such that they start favoring the emotionally attractive options.
A dinamikus képességek irodalma az üzleti tudományok egyik kiemelkedő jelentőségű kutatási területének tekinthető. E képességek támogatják a szervezeteket abban, hogy stratégiai szintű változásokat tudjanak eszközölni, amelyekkel képessé válnak arra, hogy reagáljanak a környezeti kihívásokra. Bár a terület irodalma széleskörű, a képesség kialakítása még kevesebb figyelmet kapott. Mind a dinamikus képességek, mind azok kialakulása útfüggő, abban számos egyedi jellemző figyelhető meg, ugyanakkor azokban hasonlóságok azonosíthatóak. A dinamikus képességek kialakulása szervezetektől függetlenül három fő szakaszban valósul meg. Az első szakasz az egyéni szint, a megalakulás időszaka, amikor összeállnak azok az egyének, amelyek a kialakítást végezni fogják. A második az emberközi, interakciós szakasz, ahol a képességet létrehozó egyének egymással interakcióba állnak. A harmadik és utolsó szakasz az érettség szakasza; ekkorra már nem csak egyéni és egyénközi, de szervezeti szinten is értelmezhető dinamikus képességet tudott az adott szervezet előállítani.
Remanufacturing is a life‐cycle renewal process recognised as one of the most effective circular strategies that can be adopted to achieve sustainable production. However, its potential has been hindered by the absence of an integrated perspective across various business domains to catalyse successful remanufacturing efforts. This paper aims to explore how such an integrated perspective can facilitate the creation of sustainable value within remanufacturing business models. To fill this gap, an in‐depth longitudinal case study was conducted on how remanufacturing practices can be effectively implemented in the white goods sector. The research identifies four fundamental mechanisms that, when used synergistically, pave the way for a successful remanufacturing approach yielding triple‐bottom‐line benefits. The study contributes to the remanufacturing literature by illustrating how (i) moving from products to solutions that fulfil customer priorities, (ii) resequencing business processes according to customer‐oriented logic, (iii) enhancing the clock‐speed of decision‐making and (iv) sharing risks within the supply chain, can unveil new strategic positioning for sustainable value creation. From a practical perspective, it advocates for the adept management of remanufacturing uncertainties through continuous, active questioning of “Who‐What‐How” choices and the cultivation of circular and organic interdependencies.
Profound changes caused by digital transformation are reshaping organizations in many sectors. This article presents a longitudinal exploratory case study of a project management office (PMO) in the banking sector, which participated in its organization’s digital transformation. The focus is on the evolution of the PMO’s participation during the transformation process. This study provides a rich understanding of the evolving tensions and challenges faced by PMOs and their connection as boundary spanners and contributors to the ongoing transformation from a multilevel process perspective.
Although grassroots initiatives in the renewable energy transition are flourishing, their embeddedness in local contexts challenges their capacity to spread their impact on a broader scale. Certainly, while scaling up has been described as difficult to combine with local embeddedness, little is known on the specific nature of the tensions involved in combining the two. Studying a federation of citizen renewable energy (RE) cooperatives in the south of France, we show that the engagement in a scaling-up process at a regional level generates three main kinds of tensions associated with specific dimensions of local embeddedness: natural, cultural, and political. We emphasize how these dimensions are likely to be threatened when the federation engages the cooperatives in a rapid scaling-up dynamic in which the drive to industrialize projects and find funding is dominant. We acknowledge the effects of these tensions on grassroots sustainability initiatives and collective organizing processes.
From inception, start-ups are torn between two opposing legitimacy pressures: the need to differentiate from competitors and the need to conform to stakeholders’ expectations. In this study, we adopt an organizational identification perspective, coupled with a legitimacy-seeking lens, to explore the start-up legitimation progress for entrepreneurs who identify with their ventures either intrinsically or instrumentally. Applying a longitudinal multi-case study design and using rich interview data, we track the decisions and actions of ten Russian high-tech start-ups over a twenty-month period. Our findings reveal that start-up legitimation is a dynamic process guided by the organizational identification of the founders and bounded by identity tensions. The study extends the literature on new venture legitimation and its constraints. Theoretical and practitioner implications are discussed.
This article presents the results of a grounded theory analysis of observation, interview, and archival data collected at SEMATECH, a research, development, and testing consortium in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Three core categories of events and behaviors are described: (1) the factors underlying the consortium's early disorder and ambiguity, (2) the development of a moral community in which individuals and firms made contributions to the industry without regard for immediate and specific payback, and (3) the structuring that emerged from changing practices and norms as consortium founders and others devised ways to foster cooperation. We interpret results in terms of complexity theory, a framework for understanding change that has not been previously explored with detailed empirical data from organizations.
This study investigated the uses of sensemaking, influence, and symbolism in launching a strategic change effort at a university. It employed an ethnographic/interpretive approach in examining the ways that symbols, metaphors, and various subtle influence processes were used to lend meaning to concepts and possible courses of action by a task force instrumental to the strategic change process. Two distinct researcher perspectives were used: an ''insider'' perspective employing several informants along with an active participant-observer and an ''outsider'' perspective employing several researchers. Both perspectives were brought to bear as a means of countering the ''researcher arrogance'' that typifies organizational study by lending balanced voice to both insider and outsider interpretations of events. The findings showed that sensemaking and influence emerged as fundamental processes in the instigation of strategic change. Both processes were symbolically based and varied in directionality over the life of the task force (internally directed in the embryonic phases, and externally directed in the mature phases). Contrary to common wisdom, sensemaking and influence emerged as frequently coincident, interdependent processes that were difficult to distinguish from each other. The discovery of the common symbolic base for sensemaking and influence also indicated that symbols served both expressive and instrumental roles: suggesting that the accepted view of symbols as predominantly expressive devices does not present a complete picture of their dynamic nature. The use of symbolism also was shown simultaneously to reveal and conceal different aspects of the change process, thus providing task force members the means to circumvent resistance while accomplishing desired action. Symbols and metaphors thus facilitated both cognitive understanding and intended action in attempting to ''reinstitutionalize'' a major public university via the strategic change process. Overall, the study suggests that efforts to stabilize an organizational system in flux from the systematic upheaval represented by strategic change can be understood as the symbolic interplay between sensemaking and influence.
A widely accepted and usable taxonomy is a fundamental element in the development of a scientific body of knowledge. However, the creation of good empirical taxonomies of implementation processes is complicated by the need to consider the dynamics of the implementation process. This paper addresses this difficulty by using an optimal matching procedure to measure the pairwise distances among event sequences occurring in 53 computer-based information system (IS) implementation projects. Cluster analysis based on these inter-sequence distances is used to generate the empirical taxonomy of implementation processes.
The resulting taxonomy includes six distinct archetypical processes. One of the process types is labeled textbook life cycle (type 4) due to its close resemblance to the detailed, rational approach commonly prescribed in IS textbooks. The logical minimalist process (type 1) follows some of the basic steps of the textbook approach, but is characterized by little project definition and infrequent assignment of personnel. Whereas both textbook life cycle and logical minimalist approaches use external vendors and consultants to some extent, external dependence is much greater in traditional off-the-shelf (type 2) and outsourced cooperative (type 5) processes. The traditional off-the-shelf process simply involves purchasing the system from an external vendor, with little system construction or assignment of personnel. In contrast, the outsourced cooperative process consists of joint system development by internally assigned personnel and external vendors. The remaining two process types—problem-driven minimalist (type 3) and in-house trial and error (type 6)—are both considerably influenced by performance problems. The problem-driven minimalist process is initiated by such problems, with little project definition, and results in a reassignment of organizational roles. The in-house trial-and-error process begins like textbook life cycle, with a clear project definition, but involves frequent system modifications to respond to the performance problems encountered during the project.
The paper demonstrates how an empirical taxonomy that incorporates the dynamics of event sequences may be developed. The archetypes comprising the taxonomy are related to other implementation process models available in the literature. Some limitations of the study are acknowledged and its implications for future research and practice are discussed.
Strong forces of change---globalization, demographic shifts (e.g., aging population and declining fertility rates), advances in information technology, demassification of society, and hypercompetition---are reshaping the competitive landscape worldwide. As a result, companies in most industries are not only undergoing rapid and radical change, but are also experiencing a fundamental shift in the rules of competition and the way the game of competition is played. The old, genteel, stable oligopolies that defined competition during the 20th century are rapidly restructuring. In their place are emerging markets fraught with uncertainty, diverse global players, rapid technological change, widespread price wars, and seemingly endless reorganization. That transition is occurring not only in the United States, but also in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. In this issue, we demonstrate that (as predicted by those early researchers) a dramatic and far-reaching shift has occurred in the nature of competition in most industries. We present evidence that the shift has resulted in a new organizational paradigm that has been described as “hypercompetition”.
A critical challenge facing organizations is the dilemma of maintaining the capabilities of both efficiency and flexibility. Recent evolutionary perspectives have suggested that patterns of organizational stability and change can be characterized as punctuated equilibria (Tushman and Romanelli 1985). This paper argues that a learning model of organizational change can account for a pattern of punctuated equilibria and uses a learning framework to model the tension between organizational stability and change. A simulation methodology is used to create a population of organizations whose activities are governed by a process of experiential learning. A set of propositions is examined that predict how patterns of organizational change are affected by environmental conditions, levels of ambiguity, organizational size, search rules, and organizational performance. Implications of this learning model of convergence and reorientation for theory and research are discussed.
This paper urges organizational researchers to collect data from subjects in the form of pictures, diagrams, computer graphics, and other visual representations. Drawing on theoretical and empirical work in cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, linguistics, and artificial intelligence, it presents a rationale for collecting visual data, provides examples, and suggests research questions and settings where visual data may be preferable to verbal data.
This paper reports a case study of a religious order whose shared interpretive schemes (the schemata that map its experience of the world), especially its understanding of its mission, were being substantially changed. During this time the order underwent a major revision in structure. On the basis of the case, the paper explores ways interpretive schemes undergo fundamental change and ways these changes are linked to restructuring. The paper proposes that major changes in interpretive schemes occur through dialectical processes in which old and new ways of under-standing interact, resulting in a synthesis. The process of change in interpretive schemes is in a reciprocal relationship with changes in structure. This relationship is not direct, but rather is mediated by the actions of organizational members and their emotional reactions to change. Environmental forces are likely to initiate the change, but the way the environment is interpreted by organizational members affects the type of change that takes place. Similarly, the way the organization's leadership initiates or responds to alternate interpretive schemes limits the type of change in understanding that can occur.
This essay proposes that scholarly research is a craft and that significant research outcomes are associated with the mastery of craft elements in the research process. A tentative framework of the research craft is proposed, which includes error and surprise, storytelling, research poetry, nonlinear decision making, common sense, firsthand knowledge, and research colleagues.
The peculiar circumstances surrounding the demise of mass circulation magazines, such as Life, Look, and the old Saturday Evening Post, are explained from a systems point of view. The methodology of System Dynamics together with a corporate framework is applied to modeling a typical large magazine publishing company. The advantages and pitfalls associated with this methodology are discussed. The assumptions built into the model are tested by an empirical study of the old Saturday Evening Post. Experiments with a simulation version of the model lead to an understanding of how the system reacts, both in the short and long run, to changes to the management control variables such as subscription and advertising "rates." This understanding of the dynamic relation among the parts of the publishing system is used as a basis for interpreting the phases of the rise and fall of the old Saturday Evening Post. Similarities to other magazines are noted and some implications are drawn for this method of studying the systemic pathology of organizations.
This study examined the assimilation of innovations into organizations, a process unfolding in a series of decisions to evaluate, adopt, and implement new technologies. Assimilation was conceptualized as a nine-step process and measured by tracking 300 potential adoptions through organizations during a six-year period. We advance a model suggesting that organizational assimilation of technological innovations is determined by three classes of antecedents: contextual attributes, innovation attributes, and attributes arising from the interaction of contexts and innovations.
A methodology for conducting the case study of a management information system (MIS) is presented. Suitable for the study of a single case, the methodology also satisfies the standard of the natural science model of scientific research.This article provides an overview of the methodological problems involved in the study of a single case, describes scientific method, presents an elucidation of how a previously published MIS case study captures the major features of scientific method, responds to the problems involved in the study of a single case, and summarizes what a scientific methodology for MIS case studies does, and does not, involve.The article also has ramifications that go beyond matters of MIS case studies alone. For MIS researchers, the article might prove interesting for addressing such fundamental issues as whether MIS research must be mathematical, statistical, or quantitative in order to be called "scientific". For MIS practitioners, the article's view of scientific method might prove interesting for empowering them to identify, for themselves, the pint at which scientific rigor is achieved in an MIS research effort, and beyond which further rigor can be called into question, especially if pursued at the expense of professional relevance.
This paper examines how written research accounts based on ethnography appeal to readers to find them convincing. In particular, it highlights the role of rhetoric in the readers' interaction with and interpretation of the accounts. Extending relevant work in the literatures of organization studies, anthropology and literary criticism, the paper develops three dimensions-authenticity, plausibility and criticality-central to the process of convincing. Further, through the analysis of a sample of ethnographic articles, it discloses the particular writing practices and more general strategies that make claims on readers to engage the texts and to accept that these three dimensions have been achieved. Through authenticity, ethnographic texts appeal to readers to accept that the researcher was indeed present in the field and grasped how the members understood their world. Strategies to achieve authenticity include: particularizing everyday life, delineating the relationship between the researcher and organization members, depicting the disciplined pursuit and analysis of data, and qualifying personal biases. Through plausibility, ethnographic texts make claims on readers to accept that the findings make a distinctive contribution to issues of common concern. Plausibility is accomplished by strategies that normalize unorthodox methodologies, recruit the reader, legitimate atypical situations, smooth contestable assertions, build dramatic anticipation, and differentiate the findings. Finally, through criticality, ethnographic texts endeavor to probe readers to re-examine the taken-for-granted assumptions that underly their work. Strategies to achieve criticality include: carving out room to reflect, provoking the recognition and examination of differences, and enabling readers to imagine new possibilities. The empirical analyses, which highlight both the rhetorical and substantive aspects of convincing, suggest that at a minimum ethnographic texts must achieve both authenticity and plausibility-that is, they must convey the vitality and uniqueness of the field situation and also build their case for the particular contribution of the findings to a disciplinary area of common interest. These analyses also suggest that the most provocative task and promising potential of ethnography is the use of richly-grounded data to not only reflect on the members' world, but more importantly to provoke an examination of the readers' prevailing assumptions and beliefs.
Many authors have stressed the existence of continuous processes of convergence and divergence, stability and instability, evolution and revolution in every organization. This article argues that these processes are embedded in organizational characteristics and in the way organizations are managed. Organizations are presented as nonlinear dynamic systems subject to forces of stability and forces of instability which push them toward chaos. When in a chaotic domain, organizations are likely to exhibit the qualitative properties of chaotic systems. Several of these properties—sensitivity to initial conditions, discreteness of change, attraction to specific configurations, structural invariance at different scales and irreversibility—are used to establish six propositions. First, because of the coupling of counteracting forces, organizations are potentially chaotic. Second, the path from organizational stability to chaos follows a discrete process of change. Third, when the organization is in the chaotic domain, small changes can have big consequences that cannot be predicted in the long term. Fourth, from chaos, new stabilities emerge—the strange attractors—which are assimilated to organizational configurations. Fifth, similar patterns should be found at different scales. Finally, during one single organizational life span or between two different organizations similar actions should never lead to the same result.
Organized anarchies are organizations characterized by problematic preferences, unclear technology, and fluid participation. Recent studies of universities, a familiar form of organized anarchy, suggest that such organizations can be viewed for some purposes as collections of choices looking for problems, issues and feelings looking for decision situations in which they might be aired, solutions looking for issues to which they might be an answer, and decision makers looking for work. These ideas are translated into an explicit computer simulation model of a garbage can decision process. The general implications of such a model are described in terms of five major measures on the process. Possible applications of the model to more narrow predictions are illustrated by an examination of the model's predictions with respect to the effect of adversity on university decision making.
A qualitative and inductive study of eight organizational death is used to develop a model of how some dying organizations make the transition to death. The model focuses on the relationship between a dying organization and its members and on how leaders help orchestrate changes in the socially defined reality that members share about the organization's viability. The paper shows how the announcement that organizational death will occur encourages members to begin dismantling their organization. A key finding is that, contrary to leaders' predictions, members' efforts will often remain constant or increase after a closing is announced. A model to explain this phenomenon is created. The process of organizational death proposed here seems to best describe unambiguous organizational deaths that are announced in advance, those in which the organizations are dismantled through the efforts of their members, and those not characterized by severe conflict over the distribution of resources and obligations.
The process of theory construction in organizational studies is portrayed as imagination disciplined by evolutionary processes analogous to artificial selection. The quality of theory produced is predicted to vary as a function of the accuracy and detail present in the problem statement that triggers theory building, the number of and independence among the conjectures that attempt to solve the problem, and the number and diversity of selection criteria used to test the conjectures. It is argued that interest is a substitute for validation during theory construction, middle range theories are a necessity if the process is to be kept manageable, and representations such as metaphors are inevitable, given the complexity of the subject matter.
A field study of a decision process in the Canadian government bureaucracy is used to evaluate two perspectives on strategic decision processes. The first views decision processes as structured, as they follow an orderly but iterative progression from problem recognition to resolution; the second as anarchic, as decisions are inferred from the outcomes of fortuitous combinations of problems, solutions, and participants in organizational garbage cans. Both perspectives were judged to be useful for understanding organizational decision processes: the structured view when there is agreement on organizational goals, and the anarchic view when there is disagreement on goals. Both perspectives fail to specify how participation and contextual dependence influence strategic decision processes. A partial synthesis of the two models is presented.
This study examined whether strategic decision-making processes arerelated to decision effectiveness, using a longitudinal field study design.We studied 52 decisions in 24 companies to determine if proceduralrationality and political behavior influence decision success, controllingfor the favorability of the environment and decision implementation.Our results indicate that decision-making processes are indeed relatedto decision success. Results are discussed in terms of the importanceof strategic choice in organizations.
besteld dd.29 november 2000 tbv. Henk Elffers & Jan de Keijser
Analyses of the events that occur in the context of organization process are rapidly advancing. Scholars holding otherwise disparate views share the sense that social actors, including organizations, attend to, interpret, and act upon events. Analyses of events are converging from two theoretical and methodological starting points. Analyses that emphasize human subjectivity and contextual specificity are seeking increased cross-situational learning. Nomothetic analyses are building on their strength in cross-situational learning by striving to represent the way subjects themselves construct events in relation to context. Rather than continuing to analyze classic organizational and environmental dimensions like formalization, general uncertainty, munificence, and stability, scholars are increasingly analyzing the qualities of events and the meanings they are given. They are treating events as elements that social actors abstract from social processes, and social actors as parties who interact to give events meaning. The present paper defines event analyzes its origins and current uses, and indicates how using and going beyond lessons from physics can promote organization studies. These lessons come from the analysis of physical events as particles in relation to waves, fields, and perspectives. The uniquely social element of potential takes us beyond the experience of physical science.
This paper considers the technical problem of analyzing sequences of social events. Examples of such sequences from organizational behavior include organizational life cycles, patterns of innovation development, and career tracks of individuals. The methods considered here enable the analyst to find characteristic patterns in such sequences. Forces shaping those patterns can then be found by more conventional methods. After a brief definitional section, the paper begins by discussing three types of sequence questions: (1) questions about whether a typical sequence or sequences exist, (2) questions about why such patterns might exist, and (3) questions about the consequences of such patterns. The theoretical foundations of the first type of question, which is in fact the most important, are then considered. Having established the legitimacy of the approach here taken, the paper then introduces two exemplary datasets with which to focus discussion. These raise the issue of conceptualization and measurement of sequence data. Illustrative cases are presented to show the importance of extreme care in conceiving a sequence to measure and then choosing indicators for it. The paper then turns to methods proper, considering them in several categories. It first briefly mentions methods not employing "distance measures" between events: permutational techniques, stochastic (e.g., Markov) models, and durational methods. Most of these do not directly address sequence questions but can be used to do so if necessary. Turning to the methods based on event distance, the paper first considers the problem of measuring distance between events (1) in terms of elapsed time, (2) in terms of categories of events, and (3) in terms of observed successions. It then considers methods for unique event sequences (sequences in which no events repeat), proposing the use of multidimensional scaling and illustrating it with an analysis of data on medical organizations. For the separate case of repeating event sequences, the paper discusses optimal matching methods, which count the number of individual transformations required to change one sequence into another. These methods are illustrated by an analysis of data on musicians' careers. The paper then briefly considers the problem of finding subsequences common to several longer sequences (or repeated in one longer sequence). It closes with a discussion of assumptions made and caveats required when these types of methods are used.
One hundred and sixty-three decision cases were explored to determine how managers carry out formulation during organizational decision making. Four types of formulation processes were identified (called idea, issue, objective-directed, and reframing) as well as the tactics decision makers apply to carry out each process type. Decision adoption, merit, and duration were used to determine the success of each process and tactic. The implications of these findings for decision makers and researchers are discussed.
This paper examines processes of trial-and-error learning during the development of a technological innovation by an interorganizational joint venture created expressly for developing and commercializing products from the new technology. We develop a model of adaptive learning, which incorporates elements from laboratory models of learning and applies them to the field research setting. The learning model focuses on relationships between the goals, actions, and outcomes of an innovation team within the joint venture as it develops the innovation over time, and the influences that environmental events and external interventions by resource controllers in parent companies have on the learning process. The model is tested based on a real-time longitudinal study of the development of a biomedical innovation (therapeutic apheresis) from 1983 to 1988. Different patterns of learning were observed in different periods of innovation development. Event time series analyses clearly contradict the learning model during an initial expansion period, but strongly support the model during a subsequent contraction period. Explanations for why these different patterns of organizational learning occurred over time are provided, and focus on a set of organizational structures and practices which are commonly used to manage innovation development, but which inhibit learning.
Introduction - Andrew H Van de Ven and George P Huber Longitudinal Field Research Methods for Studying Processes of Organization Change Images of Imaging - Stephen R Barley Notes on Doing Longitudinal Field Work A Dual Methodology for Case Studies - Dorothy Leonard-Barton Synergistic Use of a Longitudinal Single Site with Replicated Multiple Sites Building Theories from Case Study Research - Kathleen M Eisenhardt Longitudinal Field Research on Change - Andrew M Pettigrew Theory and Practice Studying Changes in Organizational Design and Effectiveness - William H Glick et al Retrospective Event Histories and Periodic Assessments Methods for Studying Innovation Development in the Minnesota Innovation Research Program - Andrew H Van de Ven and Marshall Scott Poole Alternate Approaches to Integrating Longitudinal Case Studies - Robert D McPhee A Primer of Sequence Methods - Andrew Abbott An Empirical Taxonomy of Implementation Processes Based on Sequences of Events in Information System Development - Rajiv Sabherwal and Daniel Robey Theoretical and Analytical Issues in Studying Organizational Processes - Peter R Monge Organizations Reacting to Hyperturbulence - Alan D Meyer, James B Goes and Geoffrey R Brooks
Formulation of dynamic theories and process hypotheses is a crucial component in longitudinal research. This paper describes a framework for developing dynamic theory and hypotheses. The procedure require the theorist to address six dimensions of process in each variable: continuity, magnitude of change, rate of change, trend, periodicity and duration. Further, theorists are encouraged to explore the dynamic relations between sets of variables, including rate of change, magnitude of change, lag, and permanence. Consideration is given to the problem of feedback loops. A typology of analytical alternatives for studying dynamic processes and longitudinal research data is provided.
Set on its current course thirty years ago by Herbert Simon’s notions of bounded rationality and sequential stages, the research literature of organizational decision making is claimed in this paper to have suffered from three major limitations labeled reification, dehumanization, and isolation. In particular, it has been stuck along a continuum between the cerebral rationality of the stage theories at one end and the apparent irrationality of the theory of organized anarchies at the other. This paper seeks to open up decision making in three respects. First, the concept of “decision” is opened up to the ambiguities that surround the relationship between commitment and action. Second, the decision maker is opened up to history and experience, to affect and inspiration, and especially to the critical role of insight in transcending the bounds of cerebral rationality. Third, the process of decision making is opened up to a host of dynamic linkages, so that isolated traces of single decisions come to be seen as interwoven networks of issues. The paper concludes with a plea to open up research itself to the development of richer theory on these important processes.
This paper draws on a case study of a large public hospital to examine the processes of leadership and strategic change in organizations where goals are unclear and authority is fluid and ambiguous. The case history describes the evolution of leadership roles during a period of radical change in which a general hospital acquires a university affiliation while moving towards a more integrated form of management. The study traces the tactics used by members of the leadership group to stimulate change, and the corresponding impact of these tactics on both the progress of change and on leadership roles themselves. It is suggested that strategic change in these organizations requires collaborative leadership involving constellations of actors playing distinct but tightly-knit Ann Langley roles. Yet, collaborative leadership is fragile and can easily disintegrate due to internal conflict or to discreditation associated with more unpopular (although potentially effective) change tactics. Thus, under ambiguity, radical transformations may tend to occur in a cyclical non-linear pattern with periods of substantive change alternating with periods of political realignment. The paper concludes with a series of five propositions concerning the collaborative, cyclical, interpretative, and entropic nature of leadership and strategic change processes under ambiguity.
A simulation model that formalizes the conventional theory of punctuated organizational change highlights a problem: under a wide range of conditions, organizations appear to fail following reorientation. I propose additions to the theory to account for punctuated transformation. The first adds a routine for monitoring organization-environment consistency; the second is a heuristic that suspends change for a trial period following a reorientation. I show the necessity of the trial period in simulations demonstrating that, while external events may set the pace of organizational change in some environments, under turbulent conditions successful change requires internal pacing, which suspends performance evaluation for a period following a reorientation.(.)
This essay discusses the character and significance of strategy process research. Process research in strategic management is paradigmatically diverse and empirically complex. Strategy process research has been narrow in its focus and its undoubted contribution has sometimes been obscured by the lack of explicit discourse about its analytical foundations. The essay draws on a wide range of social science ideas to lay out a set of internally consistent insights and assumptions to guide thinking and empirical inquiry about the analysis of process issues in strategic management. The essay also provides a guide to the eight papers contained in this special issue.
How do executive teams make rapid decisions in the high-velocity mi- crocomputer industry? This inductive study of eight microcomputer firms led lo propositions exploring that question. Fast decision makers use more, not less, information than do slow decision makers. The former also develop more, not fewer, alternatives, and use a two-tiered advice process. Conflict resolution and integration among strategic de- cisions and tactical plans are also critical to the pace of decision mak- ing. Finally, fast decisions hased on this pattem of hehaviors lead to superior performance.
We examine how the learning, along several dimensions (environment, task, process, skills, goals), that takes place in strategic alliances between firms mediates between the initial conditions and the outcomes of these alliances. Through a longitudinal case study of two projects in one alliance, replicated and extended in another four projects in two alliances, a framework was developed to analyze the evolution of cooperation in strategic alliances. Successful alliance projects were highly evolutionary and went through a sequence of interactive cycles of learning, reevaluation and readjustment. Failing projects, conversely, were highly inertial, with little learning, or divergent learning between cognitive understanding and behavioral adjustment, or frustrated expectations. Although strategic alliances may be a special case of organizational learning, we believe analyzing the evolution of strategic alliances helps transcend too simple depictions of inertia and adaptation, in particular by suggesting that initial conditions may lead to a stable 'imprinting' of fixed processes that make alliances highly inertial or to generative and evolutionary processes that make them highly adaptive, depending on how they are set.
This paper describes the methods being used by the Minnesota Innovation Research Program to develop and test a process theory of innovation which explains how and why innovations develop over time and what developmental paths may lead to success and failure for different kinds of innovations. After a background description of the longitudinal field research, this paper focuses on the methods being used to examine processes of innovation development. These methods pertain to the selection of cases and concepts, observing change, coding and analyzing event data to identify process patterns, and developing theories to explain observed innovation processes. We believe these methods are applicable to other studies that examine a range of temporal processes, including organizational startup, growth, decline, and adaptation.
This paper attempts to address the question of whether organizational explanations produced through idiographic studies can be regarded as externally valid. It is argued that explanatory idiographic studies that are informed by a realist epistemology are, indeed, in a position to make general claims about the world. For realists, generality is distinguished from recurrent regularities; instead, it is ascribed to the operation of causal tendencies (or powers). The latter act in their normal way even when expected regularities do not occur. This is possible because the realization of causal tendencies is contingent upon specific circumstances, which may or may not favor the generation of certain patterns of events. Idiographic research conceptualizes the causal capability of structures, while at the same time it sheds light on the contingent manner through which a set of postulated causal powers interact and gives rise to the flux of the phenomena under study.
A small but significant portion of writing in the still expanding domain of organizational research and theory is devoted to debunking the essentialist and (allegedly) scientifically grounded ideas and programs of our peers. Some of my writing, including this effort, falls within this tradition. Debunking the would-be towers of power in our field bears a loose similarity to the work performed by voluntary firefighters. The fire of interest here is a call to draw in our topical and theoretical borders, and the intellectual incendiary is none other than Jeffrey Pfeffer whose 1992 Distinguished Scholar Address to the Organization Theory Division of the Academy of Management started a modest little blaze that was followed by my own 1993 Distinguished Scholar Address to the same group which was designed to put it out. A stroke of luck too, for what better theorist could a confessed anti-theorist wish to follow and what better foil for debunking could have been sent forward than an acknowledged desperado of the podium like Jeffrey, who courts controversy like a bear in search of honey. In what follows, I recreate in writing what I first committed to speech.
This article introduces four basic theories that may serve as building blocks for explaining processes of change in organizations: life cycle, teleology, dialectics, and evolution. These four theories represent different sequences of change events that are driven by different conceptual motors and operate at different organizational levels. This article identifies the circumstances when each theory applies and proposes how interplay among the theories produces a wide variety of more complex theories of change and development in organizational life.
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