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Organizational Boundaries and Theories of Organization
Abstract
Organizational boundaries are a central phenomenon, yet despite their significance, research is dominated by transaction cost economics and related exchange-efficiency perspectives. While useful, it is time to engage in a broader view. Our purpose is to provide a deeper understanding of organizational boundaries. First, we develop four boundary conceptions (efficiency, power, competence, and identity) and their distinctive features including organizational and environmental assumptions, unique conception of boundaries, theoretical arguments, empirical validity, contributions, and limitations. Efficiency takes a legal-ownership view of atomistic boundary decisions. In contrast, the power conception emphasizes the sphere of influence of the organization, while competence focuses on the resource portfolio and its related configuration, and identity centers on the often unconscious mind-set by which organizational members understand "who we are." We also indicate relationships, both coevolutionary and synergistic, among the conceptions. Second, we juxtapose these conceptions with the current literature to create a springboard for a renewed research agenda. This agenda includes greater focus on nonefficiency perspectives, relationships (not competition) among boundary conceptions, studies that take the normative implication of theories more seriously, and problem-driven research on contemporary boundary issues such as contract employment and business ecosystems.
... Thus, if a researcher categorizes the unit of analysis as a "project", it is important to reflect on how this is done, i.e., whether the "project" is defined based on how the studied actors conceptualize and structure their reality, or if the researcher defines the studied "project" independently of how the studied actors understand their world. In addition, the brackets can be drawn in different ways (c.f., Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005), highlighting or obscuring different empirical elements as pertaining or not pertaining to the "project" at hand. As shown in the following section, these various ways to distinguish and demarcate "projects" from their "non-project" environments have several research implications. ...
... Thus, with an object as a point of departure, there is no a naturally intrinsic principle for how to demarcate the "project" in time and space. Instead, it is the researcher's responsibility to determine which activities, actors, events, processes, dependencies, etc., that should be conceptualized as within the boundaries of the "project", and those which that should be conceptualized as belonging to the environment (compare Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). On the other hand, with an actor-based demarcation on the other hand, the "project" is constituted by the specific actor's temporary assignment. ...
... One of the most classic ontological distinctions is the difference of conceptualizing "projects as plans" versus "projects as temporary organizations" (Packendorff, 1995), which together with Lundin and Söderholm (1995) catalysed a break with the prevailing textbook tradition and paved the way for connecting organizational theory to project management . While Packendorffs (1995) categorization might show some resemblance with the object-actor distinction, it takes neither the point of departure nor the issue of demarcation into account (c.f., Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). ...
... For example, consider a manufacturer contracting for components essential to its operation. The challenges faced by a manufacturer in contracting challenges can be analyzed through theories of cost-minimizing efficiency, competence, and power (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005;Ketokivi & Mahoney, 2016), each directing scholarly attention to different facets of the phenomenon and leading to various methodological choices. Attempts to rationalize the choice to pursue one theory over another are challenging because empirical evidence alone cannot determine theory selection (Kuhn, 1970;Feyerabend, 1975;Laudan, 1990). ...
... First, suppressing or overlooking anomalies is a natural tendency (Kuhn, 1970;Lakatos, 1970) -notably, anomalies in the firm and managerial roles were neglected for decades. Second, anomalies can be examined in various ways, such as employing different assumptions, which leads to diverse problem formulations and solutions (Laudan, 1990;Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). ...
... TPS takes seriously the thorny problem of the underdetermination of theories by evidence (Blaug, 1980;Laudan, 1990) and regards all knowledge claims as potentially fallible. In this light, it recognizes that multiple theories can explain the same phenomenon and that various approaches can address problems (Barnes, 1977;Bhardwaj, 2025a;Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). 3 This perspective allows TPS to acknowledge the significant role that epistemic communities play in the growth and advancement of research programs (Kuhn, 1970;Cronin et al., 2021). ...
The growth of knowledge in strategic management hinges on developing novel research programs. However, the path from the discovery to the justification of research programs is fraught with hazards-most research directions that scholars pursue are unlikely to be fruitful. This paper introduces the logic of pursuit to strategy science to aid researchers in navigating these hazards and ascertaining whether they should continue working on a particular line of inquiry. Specifically, this paper considers theorizing as a problem-solving activity. It provides a five-phase trial-and-error approach that focuses on resolving doubt generated by anomalies and a lack of understanding of complex phenomena. At each phase of this journey, non-empirical indicators such as the economy of research guide scholars on whether to pursue their research program or to try alternative paths. Research programs that effectively address the problem they were devised are considered highly warranted and worthy of pursuit.
... Organizations, as open and dynamic systems with intersecting contours and shared elements, render it difficult to delineate their precise boundaries (Blackler, 1993;Santos and Eisenhardt, 2005). For example, firms and industries can be viewed as systems of modularized knowledge (Brusoni and Prencipe, 2001;Garud and Kumaraswamy, 1995) or as modularized resources that can be combined for greater synergistic effect (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000;Karim, 2006;Pil and Cohen, 2006). ...
... Organizations continually grapple with managing the tensions sparked by trying to align collective activities and the duality of organizational purpose, exemplified by the balance between value creation and value capture (Blackler, 1993;Puranam et al., 2014). The situation is exacerbated by inconsistencies in motivations and differing cognitive frames among the organizational actors (Santos and Eisenhardt, 2005;Sund et al., 2021). For example, novel activities and innovations explored in structurally separated research and development (R&D) units are not easily internalized for exploitation, and are often met with resistance (Donada et al., 2021). ...
... The interdependence becomes apparent when making a specific alteration in one activity necessitates making corresponding adjustments in related activities. These interdependencies play a principal role in the organizational structures and configurations of business activities (Santos and Eisenhardt, 2005). ...
Licence: CC BY-NC
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to bring conceptual clarity to the business model and ecosystem literature.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a systems thinking approach to develop a conceptualization of business model and ecosystem constructs that seeks to integrate their divergent literature streams.
Findings
This paper posits that ecosystems and business models are concepts that emerged simultaneously for the same reasons. They also share several common attributes, while being firm-centric and industry-centric concepts respectively. This study expounds the relationship between the two, classifying them as distinct levels within a single dimension.
Research limitations/implications
The contribution of this study is in bringing conceptual clarity to these widely used terms and providing direction for the integration of their divergent literature streams.
Practical implications
This paper also offers heuristics to help practitioners understand how the viability of a system rests, to a great extent, on the alignment of its modular configuration.
Originality/value
Building on this understanding, the study suggests that business models and ecosystems together exhibit a clear system–module relationship, where business models, rather than firms per se, represent units within their respective ecosystems. Furthermore, it explains why sustaining system-level equilibrium is contingent on facilitating value appropriation at the modular level.
... Understanding systemic and complex organizational changes benefits from using synergetic, complementary, and interdependent theoretical lenses to investigate how organizations reposition themselves within an ecosystem (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005, 2009. Strategic repositioning requires a simultaneous change in identity (Who are we as an organization? ...
... (Bigdeli et al., 2021;Salonen & Jaakkola, 2015). These four lenses are co-evolutionary and help organizations better understand the demarcation between an organization and its operating environment, mainly when studied longitudinally (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). The interplay of different theoretical lenses makes the dynamics between different strategic themes more explicit as organizations are shaped by internal decisions (e.g., investments, acquisitions, alliances, managerial attention, see Huikkola et al., 2020) and responses to external forces (e.g., competition, effects from other ecosystems, changes in institutional norms and individual behavior; see Stabler et al., 2024). ...
... Organizational identity is theoretically rooted in the managerial cognition literature (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). Identity change refers to an organization's DNA change and addresses fundamental questions regarding its existence, purpose, and meaning in the business world (Corley & Gioia, 2004). ...
This study aims to understand how organizations within modern waste-management ecosystems pursue strategic change from a linear economy to a circular economy logic. This paper draws on complementary firm theory perspectives to examine the interplay of management practices that enable organizations in waste-management ecosystems to become circular by altering their identities, capabilities, power positions, and boundaries. Based on an in-depth study of organizations in one waste-management ecosystem in Finland, this study identifies several management practices associated with identity and capability-building, repositioning, and boundary decision-making that facilitate the green transition. This study enables managers to benchmark systemic transitions in established, conservative, and regulated organizations and ecosystems and highlights that the implications of strategic practices extend beyond focal companies.
... Since theories can act as substitutes to explain the same phenomenon (Laudan & Leplin, 1991;van Fraassen, 1980), the task of persuading peers of the goodness of their theory poses a significant challenge for theorists. For example, organizational boundaries can be explained using theories of power and efficiency, among others (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). Evidence alone does not suffice for the purpose of persuasion as it is often open to interpretation (Ziman, 1968). ...
... That said, alternate theories accounting for vertical integration continue to exist and thrive (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). Even peers who were steeped in the tradition of transaction cost economics developed alternatives to it, which, in turn, has furthered the development of the field (Nagle, Seamans, & Tadelis, 2024;Zenger, Felin & Bigelow, 2011). ...
... 3). The legitimacy of warrants then naturally varies from community to community, and might even be incommensurate (Kuhn, 2012(Kuhn, , [1962; Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). ...
In a marketplace of ideas where theories can act as substitutes, theorists seek to persuade peers to engage with their theories. Given this critical role of persuasion, how do theorists do so? To address this question, the current study adopts a pragmatist perspective and employs the Toulmin model of arguments to examine how Oliver Williamson persuaded his peers to engage with transaction cost economics. The study unpacks how Williamson structured his arguments, introduced new constructs and language, and employed analogies and metaphors to foster a consensus, giving rise to an epistemic community. The study highlights that not only do values influence how arguments are crafted and evaluated, but also appealing to them plays a key role in persuasion. In doing so, the study considers both the rational and non-rational aspects of theorizing and persuasion. Finally, the study discusses the significance of argumentation in the context of AI and theorizing in strategic management.
... Organizational boundaries represent various demarcations, tensions, influence, and logics that are at play within and around an organization (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). They represent the physical boundaries of the organization and can be, for example, impacted by people (boundary spanners/spanning), activities (boundary work), and artifacts (boundary objects). ...
... As the analysis depicted, the different types of boundaries and boundary activities are vast, which only supports the need for organizations to create a clear overview of which boundaries are at play within their business models. Boundaries such as system boundaries (Broman & Robèrt, 2017), knowledge boundaries (Carlile, 2002), power/authority/hierarchical boundaries (Hernes, 2004;Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005), and identity boundaries (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005) are just examples of boundaries that can be at play within the business model, and that organizations need to identify. ...
... As the analysis depicted, the different types of boundaries and boundary activities are vast, which only supports the need for organizations to create a clear overview of which boundaries are at play within their business models. Boundaries such as system boundaries (Broman & Robèrt, 2017), knowledge boundaries (Carlile, 2002), power/authority/hierarchical boundaries (Hernes, 2004;Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005), and identity boundaries (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005) are just examples of boundaries that can be at play within the business model, and that organizations need to identify. ...
Social and environmental challenges are forcing organizations to develop sustainable business models (SBMs). Literature on SBMs has identified the importance of stakeholders and collaboration. Collaboration and positions of stakeholders within the value‐chain opens the discussion about organizational boundaries and their role in enhancing or hindering sustainable business model innovation. Through a literature review, this study analyzes 53 papers at the intersection of SBMs and boundaries to clarify how SBMs change organizational boundaries, and how these boundaries affect the sustainability values of organizations. We aim to identify key stakeholders, who hold negotiation power at organizational boundaries. The paper identifies important managerial questions that may assist organizations in the process of unpacking sustainable value and broaden their scope of key stakeholders. Finally, we formulate future research areas to advance research at the intersection of SBMs and organizational boundaries.
... Organizational boundaries are demarcations that differentiate an organization's internal workings from its interactions with the external environment (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). However, boundaries also exist within organizations, such as between organizational units or individuals (Lomi et al., 2014;Waizenegger et al., 2023). ...
... Existing boundaries, in turn, can be breached to undermine the legitimacy of a boundary (Postmes et al., 1998). What studies concerning these traditional forms of working at and across boundaries (spanning, closing, breaching) have in common is that they understand boundaries as relatively static and crisp (Levina & Vaast, 2005;Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). ...
Digital nomads are knowledge workers who leverage information technology (IT) to perpetually travel while working independently of any organizational membership. Corporate nomads are individuals who adopt a nomadic lifestyle but remain permanent employees, which places them in a field of tension between corporate work and digital nomadism-two conceptions of work previously deemed incompatible. To resolve this professional paradox, we conducted qualitative interviews with corporate nomads to better understand how they succeeded (or failed) in holding together two disparate fields with competing values and worldviews. Drawing on ideas from the boundary work literature, we developed a process model of boundary coworking in the context of corporate nomadism. The model incorporates the finding that corporate nomadism unfolds along three phases: (1) splintering, (2) calibrating, and (3) harmonizing. This requires mutual engagement in IT-driven boundary work from both the corporate nomad and their organizational environment. Consequently, corporate nomadism can be understood as an extreme form of "working from anywhere" in which individuals work as spatiotemporal outliers within otherwise settled organizational structures. Practitioners may find value from this study because it discusses managerial implications for recruiting, leading, and retaining corporate nomads.
... Scholars of organizational theory have taken a slightly different approach, with leading scholars arguing there are four general perspectives that guide the study of boundaries in this field (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). Specifically, boundaries arise in a place that (1) maximizes efficiency and minimizes transaction costs (Coase, 1993;Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005, p. 492;Williamson, 1975Williamson, , 1981; (2) "maximizes strategic control over crucial external forces" (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005, p. 495); (3) "maximizes the value of the firm's resource portfolio" (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005, p. 497); or (4) helps to "achieve coherence between the identity of the organization and its activities" (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005, p. 500). ...
... Distinctions of identity or which stakeholder was most important did not seem to override these views. In this case, we might think of these issues arising from different perspectives of boundaries-i.e., while the real problem at hand involved workflows, and in our minds the perspective of boundaries that emphasized control (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005), the issue was often being discussed within the perspectives on boundaries that emphasized differences in competence and identity. ...
Strategic management practices have been said to hold significant promise for public sector organizations. While the focus has long been on understanding the strategy-performance link, some scholars have made recent calls to understand how strategizing happens in the public sector. We engage this literature through an advising experience with an agency in the U.S. Department of Defense. Using planning resources that are well-respected in the field, we noticed the value in considering participants’ mental representations about strategic issues. In doing so, we were able to better understand the organization and meet its needs. While strategic cognition is not a subject commonly found in research on strategic planning in public sector organizations, management scholars have developed a significant body of literature on the subject. We encourage scholars interested in strategic planning in the public sector to consider how and why strategic representations influence strategic planning activities and ultimately performance.
... While internalization to safeguard proprietary knowledge and align operations is the focus of TCE, DCF views firm boundaries as flexible, emphasizing strategic adaptation and learning as key exchanges with the ecosystem. In this way, the DCF perspective challenges the static confines of TCE by proposing a dynamic, evolutionary approach to firm boundaries and internalization processes (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005;Teece, 2014). ...
... DCF extends the TCE's perspective on internalization to a different vantage point. TCE posits that MNEs internalize operations to reduce transaction costs associated with market imperfections (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). It argues that MNEs are better positioned than domestic firms to manage these costs due to their global footprint, leading to decisions around mergers, acquisitions, and alliances primarily driven by cost-efficiency considerations. ...
Dynamic capabilities refer to an organization’s ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competencies to address a rapidly developing environment. In his highly influential 2014 JIBS paper, David Teece provides a holistic explanation of how firms can: achieve sustained competitive advantage, adjust and preserve superior performance, and adapt to changing environments. The article, along with Teece’s related contributions, is remarkable in that it has led us to rethink and reframe our conventional understanding of markets, strategy, competitive advantage, and the firm. In this commentary, we reflect on the transformative contributions of the article. We argue that the dynamic capabilities framework provides a foundation for theorizing and developing a coherent logic that guides theory development.
... The business sector plays a pivotal role in implementing and advancing sustainability (Schaltegger et al. 2012). As the transition towards more sustainability is a multidimensional task that extends beyond organizational boundaries (Brundtland et al. 1987;Santos and Eisenhardt 2005;Schoormann et al. 2022), companies have started to join forces (Popp et al. 2014) in the form of ecosystems (Adner 2017). Ecosystems are often governed by one or a few focal actors (Gawer andCusumano 2008, 2014) and have already been proven to be capable of managing grand challenges (Moore 1993(Moore , 1996. ...
... Following their digital nature, retail transactions among actors involving digital and physical products in those systems are conducted via digital means (Choi et al. 1997;Holsapple and Singh 2000;Yi and Ming 2011). Informed by organizational boundary theory (Santos and Eisenhardt 2005;Teece 2007;Tsujimoto et al. 2018), such ecosystems are dynamic concerning actors, product assortment, and leaders, as well as have fuzzy boundaries (Gao et al. 2019;Kawa and Walesiak 2019;Moore 1996;Teller and Elms 2010). They are complex networks of platform-mediated actor-to-actor interactions in which independent participants are linked by shared goals (Adner 2017;Corallo 2007;Wareham et al. 2014). ...
Single organizations encounter intricate challenges in meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on their own and thus are increasingly concerned with forming ecosystems. This is also the case in the e-commerce domain. It is assumed that particularly focal actors of such ecosystems have the power to foster initiatives towards more sustainability. We conducted an embedded multi-case study with 135 initiatives collected from three types of e-commerce ecosystems to uncover what sustainability goals are addressed by different ecosystem participants. This paper’s analysis explores (1) what sustainability initiatives are reported from focal actors and differences depending on a specific type of ecosystem, (2) dependencies between SDGs within the initiatives, and (3) the degree of involvement of other ecosystem actors and how they contribute to certain SDGs. Our work synthesizes existing initiatives towards sustainable development to give orientation and impulses for practice and academia as well as outlines avenues for future research at the intersection of ecosystems and sustainability.
... Concepts relating to theoretical explanation within the organizational boundary domain explain the emergence of boundaries on an abstract level. Boundary drivers (Santos and Eisenhardt 2005) -like tension drivers -are on the highest level of abstraction and explain why boundary perceptions may form. For example, market dynamism can explain why firms build boundaries around efficiency: in an established, slow market, cost-efficiency would be a primary consideration for gaining a competitive advantage. ...
... However, in a novel, quick-moving market, costefficiency might not be as important as other strategic considerations for gaining a competitive advantage. Second, and similar to tension categorizations, boundary perceptions (Santos and Eisenhardt 2005) are also context-independent explanations of why the observable phenomena occur, albeit on a lower level of abstraction. For example, boundaries are often built around efficiency, i.e., whether pursuing certain activities internally versus using external providers is more efficient. ...
Firms seeking to implement generative artificial solutions (GenAI) encounter several tensions, such as sharing data to improve GenAI model performance while retaining control over data. These tensions are paradoxical, as they are persistent and require continuous management rather than resolution. This study investigates these paradoxical tensions in the GenAI enterprise context through an exploratory qualitative study, based on interviews with 13 GenAI experts and analyses of secondary data. We construct a two-part theoretical lens to analyze our insights: paradox theory to understand the tensions, and boundary work theory to explore firms' responses to these tensions. Our preliminary findings identify three main elements-performance, convenience, and control-that explain these paradoxical tensions. Additionally, our results reveal that the strategies for responding to these tensions are intricately linked across various GenAI activities and firms within the GenAI ecosystem. Our research contributes to organizational AI/GenAI, paradox theory, and boundary work literature.
... Firms must manage this complexity while ensuring they can integrate and coordinate activities across their networks. The ideas in this paper expanded the understanding of firms' boundaries; many others followed this approach to document how boundaries evolve in other industries (Burger-Helmchen et al., 2011;Santos and Eisenhardt, 2005). ...
Purpose
The current landscape of management scholarship faces criticism for prioritising theoretical development over practical relevance, leading to a disconnect between academic research and industry practices or applications. By exploring Pavitt’s work, the authors aim to highlight the importance of contextual understanding in innovation processes and to advocate for recognising diverse scholarly contributions that challenge established norms. A pragmatic theorist and mentor to a whole generation of innovation science and policy scholars worldwide, especially in Europe, Keith Pavitt left a legacy that is insufficiently acknowledged. Ultimately, this paper seeks to bridge the gap between theory and practice and to defend an innovation management that is responsive to contemporary organisational challenges.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors review the most relevant works by Keith Pavitt as a practitioner and as a “pragmatic theorist” and his network of author relationships, including all papers, special issues and reports published after his passing. Then, the authors discuss how those seminal papers or reports have been used and could be used in the future. This paper argues for a balanced approach that integrates rigorous academic inquiry with practical insights, emphasising the contributions of Keith Pavitt as a pioneering figure in Innovation-as-Practice.
Findings
The authors highlight that much of the current understanding of science and policy of innovation can be traced back to Pavitt’s work and that many future debates about technology could be enhanced by considering his findings. He has the stature of a parental figure, and his taxonomy, based on practice and empirical data, much like other management analysis tools, is widely used but not widely recognised yet, especially by industry managers or employees.
Originality/value
This paper sheds new light on an unacknowledged transdisciplinary pioneer, whose work is situated at the intersection of theory and praxis in Innovation Management: Keith Pavitt. It also advocates for a more transdisciplinary and circumstantial historical approach to management scholars.
... The research employs a regional ecosystem approach, emphasizing the role of territorial dynamics in fostering innovation (Saxenian, 1994;Radziwon et al., 2017). Regional development is conceptualized as an "innovation ecosystem" (Oksanen and Hautamäki, 2014), comprising networks of actors and processes that address challenges, drive innovations and enhance competitiveness (Moore, 1996;Teece, 2007;Santos and Eisenhardt, 2005). This ecosystem includes businesses, research institutions, policymakers and other stakeholders who collectively shape innovation dynamics (Tang and Beer, 2022). ...
Purpose
The paper aims to interpret sustainable regional development (SRD) as an exchange ecosystem in which stakeholders provide reciprocal access to resources, benefiting both individual and systemic levels. This paper suggests that knowledge, as a shared and value-transcribed critical resource, nourishes a community’s motivational system (CMS), orienting it toward SRD. This inherently raises questions regarding the nature of social business models (SBM) that can best support community’s motivational system, as well as their sustainable regional development derivatives.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper employs the Fuzzy Expert System (FES) to analyze companies participating in the three most representative Italian consortia, aiming to empirically address the knowledge gap regarding the influence of social business model on sustainable regional development.
Findings
Applying our theoretical framework to Agro-food Protection Consortia – a specific type of hybrid social, regional value-oriented business organization – this paper demonstrates that knowledge sharing along environmental, social and economic dimensions enhances sustainable regional development. Using the IF (condition) → THEN (action) logic of fuzzy method, the study identified knowledge exchange as a key condition motivating actors to contribute to sustainable regional development. This dynamic approach enables better alignment between stakeholders and regional goals.
Originality/value
This paper presents practicable participatory strategic guidelines that balance informal and formal governance mechanisms with the catalytic and enhancing connection of strategic business initiatives for Sustainable Regional Development.
... However, the organizational mechanisms that form the operational spectrum of social services receive less attention in this debate, leaving aspects such as social services' organizational boundaries as fixed and functional, presumably blocking the organizational possibility of operating from a critical point of view. Organizational boundaries are mostly articulated under functionalist approaches and are thus perceived as firmly supporting organizational functioning (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). ...
The normative construction of social services’ organizational boundaries may operationally exclude marginalized people by neglecting their specific needs and placing them outside the organization's domain. In order to develop a critical outline of social services’ organizational boundaries, we present a qualitative study involving 10 transgender women in Israel, aged 18–25, exploring their interactions with social services.
Findings
The study present cases of organizational neglect and rejection, alongside cases of radical acceptance. These experiences of rejection and acceptance enable us to articulate social services’ organizational boundaries from a critical social work perspective, emphasizing customization, flexibility, and dialog.
Applications
Building on the concept of radical acceptance, social workers and social services are encouraged to broaden their professional and organizational boundaries through a critical social work lens.
... It is therefore interesting to outsource a non-strategic activity -based on common and imitable resources and skillsto a specialized company if it is less costly. However, more broadly, openness is linked to the notion of frontier , and the demarcation between the company and its environment can be established according to organizational objectives of efficiency, power, competency, and identity (Santos and Eisenhardt, 2005). Thus, the outsourcing of an activity can also be linked to the need to control a larger share of a market under another brand (power) while preserving the identity coherence of the organization (identity). ...
... The rapid development of ubiquitous information technology has led to the disintegration of the traditional competition paradigm, and the dissolution of industry boundaries and competition barriers has reconfigured inter-firm cooperation relationships (Kruse, 2024;Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). The cross-domain cooperation between manufacturing enterprises and service factor providers can bring consumers the ultimate experience, driving more and more manufacturing enterprises to engage in servitization transformation or service innovation. ...
Despite the rapid development of the servitization process, few studies pay attention to the distribution of benefits in the servitization cooperation. Furthermore, existing researches mainly focus on coupled enterprises, neglecting to explore the issue from the perspective of cross-chain cooperation among multiple entities of manufacturing enterprises. Accordingly, this paper takes the idea of “value appropriation” as a starting point and combines social capital theory and profiting from innovation theory. From the perspective of the value chain, the paper explains the joint impact of knowledge characteristics and asset status on the value of servitization innovations possessed by manufacturing enterprises. Based on the empirical analysis of 517 sample enterprises, the results show that in the process of servitization cooperation (i) manufacturing enterprises establish tight networks in the manufacturing value chain and loose networks in the service value chain; (ii) establishing complementary assets with upstream and downstream enterprises in the manufacturing value chain that are highly complementary and weakly mobile, and establishing complementary assets with service providers in the service value chain, enables enterprises to capture more newly created value. The contributions of this paper are as follows: (i) it reveals how manufacturing firms can capture more new value creation in servitization cooperation by carefully structuring the micro-cooperation between the manufacturing value chain and the service value chain based on the knowledge and asset characteristics; (ii) although this paper takes the servitization cooperation as the object of the study, it further develops the PFI theory and expands its analytical framework to the cross-domain cooperation level. These findings can help enterprises participating in servitization cooperation to clarify their position and function in the cooperation network and even determine how to capture more new creation value by shaping the micro-industrial structure in various types of business ecosystems based on the analytical framework of this paper.
... The characteristics of boundaries are central topics in many theories on organization. Santos and Eisenhardt (2005) present four different conceptions of organizational boundaries with different theoretical foundations. These conceptions are useful to explain why intermediary organizations exist in transition processes. ...
Intermediary actors are key catalysts in accelerating sustainability transitions. Over the last decade, the literature on intermediaries and intermediation has expanded rapidly, leading to inconsistent use of the concept, proliferating lists of intermediary activities, and questions about their impact on transition processes. These challenges risk making the concept inaccessible and limiting its practical relevance. This chapter provides an accessible introduction to intermediaries in sustainability transitions, followed by a historical account of the concept's development. It then presents empirical examples of intermediaries and their activities, highlighting a key gap: the lack of an explicit theory on why intermediaries exist in transition processes. To address this gap, we propose a theory on why intermediaries exist in transitions and position intermediaries alongside other actors such as system entanglers, orchestrators, and champions. The chapter ends with future research directions, emphasizing the need to move beyond individual intermediaries to ecologies of intermediation as multiple transitions accelerate and interact.
... The many organizational boundaries that exist can reduce the value of the crowdsourced solution, or even lead to a rejection to use it. Santos and Eisenhardt (2005) propose a representation of organizational boundaries, and Penin and Burger-Helmchen (2012) highlight the implications that these boundaries have on the optimal conduct of crowdsourcing activities (Table 1). We observe that the power boundary plays a central role in determining the type of crowd an organization can engage. ...
This study examines how crowdsourcing can support innovation in companies. It focuses on the Not Invented Here (NIH) syndrome—a reluctance to adopt external ideas—that varies depending on which organizational boundaries are considered, such as power, competence, and culture. By analyzing how these boundaries influence resistance to crowdsourced solutions, this study finds that although crowdsourcing brings valuable diversity and insights, many organizations struggle to leverage these effectively. Moreover, with the rise of generative AI, many organizations are increasingly focused on internal data and AI-driven innovation, which further intensifies NIH syndrome by deprioritizing external insights. We discuss why and how companies that have managed NIH syndrome effectively may be better positioned to overcome resistance to AI.
... Capabilities are likely to develop into sets of routines (Becker 2004(Becker , 2005Nelson and Winter 1982;Winter 2003) or paths (Gruber 2010;Sydow et al. 2009;Vergne and Durand 2011) that document experiences and provide guidelines for action. Capabilities set boundaries that distinguish an organization from its environment and define its domain of action (Brusoni et al. 2001;Penrose 1995;Santos and Eisenhardt 2005). ...
This paper explores the evolution of innovative organizational capabilities. Using a longitudinal, embedded case study, we analyze how the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), a Taiwan-based public research institute, developed and advanced its capability over time through a series of technology development projects from the 1970s to the early 2010s. Our study reveals that capability development is linked to the way organizations exploit and utilize their capabilities and continually renew, develop, and transform their capability paths by exploring and interacting with new technology.
... Organizational boundaries exist in various forms, including visible, formal elements such as physical boundaries as well as invisible, informal elements such as identity (e.g., Hernes, 2004;Santos and Eisenhardt, 2005). Among those different types, identity-based boundaries are the 'socially shared distinctions between aspects of an organization's identity' (Sundaramurthy and Kreiner, 2008, p. 418). ...
The use of coworking spaces – flexible, shared workplaces for mobile knowledge workers – has gained popularity among entrepreneurs, small‐business owners, and freelancers over the last decade. Coworking spaces shape a social setting for a community, within which mobile knowledge workers can network, collaborate, and share ideas. This study adopts a social‐symbolic work perspective to explore how founders and community managers create and curate the communities in their coworking spaces. Based on qualitative data gathered from 16 coworking spaces, we elaborate on how founders and community managers can integrate boundary work and social identity work in their social‐symbolic work practices to create a sense of community.
... i.e., organization scientists about what is theory and what is not (Pfeffer, 1993;Chia, 1995;Bacharach, 1989;Astley & van de Ven, 1983;Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005;Sutton & Staw, 1995;Weick, 1995;Whetten, 1989), the role of the graphics, tables, pictures, metaphors, formula, and style in presenting scientific works is not denied (Fisher, 1994). Hence, the strategic use of these elements serves the rhetorical objectives of 17 convincing the audiences and gaining acceptance among the respective academic community. ...
The present study is an effort to tap the relationship between narrative practices and
strategy-making in the context of city planning of Tirana (TR030). It tries to do so by
providing answers to the following questions: How strategy emerges from stories
narrated by contending parties in an urban planning context? What power devices are
accommodated in the stories of strategy? What rationality serves as a selection
criterion for effective strategic storytelling? Coupling narrative paradigm with
qualitative grounded theory this inquiry extracts a conceptual framework for
describing and explaining the triumph of the narrative rationality of the strategy�makers and the justification and mystification of a pre-set imagination of the future of
the city. Three are the major findings of the study. First, for a narrative rationality to
succeed in a social setting, a narrative ecosystem must be established in advance.
Second, good reasons underpinning narrative rationality are informed by values
embedded in stories. Third, the narrative effect of the stories is only warranted by a
unitary narrative rationality farmed in a friendly ecosystem.
Keywords: Strategy-as-practice, narrative practice, narrative ecosystem, narrative
rationality, power relations.
... The term "framework of reference" here refers to the mental models applied when interpreting the internal and external environments surrounding the organization. When all stakeholders share such mental models of understanding, the boundaries of identity extend beyond the physical and legal limits of the organization, transcending them (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005). Because companies are subjectively and socially constructed. ...
... 14 This makes it challenging to draw a clear boundary around the systems -an aspect important to understand the organization and function of complex systems. 15 However, researchers studying complex systems can determine the system boundaries based on their research questions and methodologies. 16 Complexity theory is not a unified perspective. ...
This paper discusses the ontological (in)security management routines of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It highlights how Afghanistan’s stable routines keep Pakistan in a reactive mode. It also notes that Pakistan has at least one stable routine: integration of Pashtun of settled districts in the state structure of Pakistan. Moreover, it emphasizes that the complex Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship could not be fully explained by theories so far used to study it and advocates for the use of new theories, such as complexity theory, to uncover unexplored aspects of the relationship.
... However, the initial conditions of boundaries can be rearranged through boundary-spanning activities. Such activities foster collaboration across organizational boundaries to enhance an organization's effectiveness (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005;Schotter et al., 2017). At the EE level, there is limited consensus about the conceptual boundaries of EEs (Cobben et al., 2022;Han et al., 2022). ...
This study examines the digitalization of entrepreneurial ecosystems and its implications for its conceptual boundaries. In particular, it explores opportunities to catalyze the early evolution of entrepreneurial ecosystems stemming from digitalization. Surprisingly, the role of digitalization has not been fully considered in the entrepreneurial ecosystem literature despite its significant impact on its conceptual boundaries. Consequently, it remains unclear how digitalization provides opportunities to overcome regional resource scarcity. Therefore, this study investigates how an entrepreneurial ecosystem can leverage exogenous trajectories and mobilize and integrate external resources. Based on an exploratory qualitative single-case study on the Estonian entrepreneurial ecosystem, this study theorizes digital boundary spanning and identifies necessary entrepreneurial ecosystem capabilities by drawing from the concept of dynamic capabilities. The findings contribute to entrepreneurial ecosystem research by incorporating digital trajectories into the conceptual understanding of entrepreneurial ecosystems and providing a more nuanced view of evolutionary dynamics.
The aim of this study is to examine how the permeability of organizational boundaries shapes corporate sustainability (CS) integration. The literature suggests that CS should be integrated throughout the organization and in its relationships with key, external stakeholders, but limited knowledge exists on the relationship between CS integration and the characteristics of the multiple, co‐existing boundaries which define the organization (hierarchies, functions, professions, etc.). Based on a partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS‐SEM) analysis of survey responses from over 7000 organization members in three Nordic countries (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), this study demonstrates that the permeability of organizational boundaries increases the level of CS integration and reduces the level of organizational tensions. Moreover, the findings show that boundary permeability becomes increasingly important for understanding CS integration as the size of the organization increases. The findings deepen our knowledge of organizational boundaries and show how these “sites of difference” influence the level of CS integration.
As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are progressively integrated across life domains, religious organizations are negotiating opportunities and tensions as AI applications are incorporated into their daily practices. Given the limited and growing research on AI and religion, this study explores how religious leaders perceive and manage emerging automation to align with institutional values. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with pastors in Christian churches in the United States, this study reveals how they understand and prioritize their mission, community solidarity, and beliefs regarding human dignity and agency in their AI adoption. This study helps shed light on the significance of faithful adherence to values in advancing responsible AI and religious human–machine communication. Findings also highlight the performance of religious authority amid the plurality of institutional logics in current church settings. This paper concludes with a call for future research to extend our understanding of the socio-cultural implications of automation and recognize efforts by key religious leadership to influence AI adoption, ethics, and governance.
Purpose
The study investigates how sustainability reporting constructs a narrative about an organization that provides its members with a reality they can accept, with the consequence of producing organizational stability.
Design/methodology/approach
The article reports a research engagement concerning the “backstage” of sustainability reporting in one Spanish savings bank, which the researchers engaged with for more than three years.
Findings
The article describes how sustainability reporting operates as a boundary object occupying the space between the organization’s loosely coupled systems and facilitating the cooperation of members with different interpretations of the organization. Different translations of discourses and actions ensure that the sustainability report conveys a ductile narrative that can be tailored to specific interpretations. At the same time, the editing inherent in sustainability reporting ensures that any narrative that may challenge the organization’s dominant perspective is ignored and marginalized. In this way, sustainability reporting produces a discourse that inscribes a narrative of the organization and eventually ensures organizational inertia.
Research limitations/implications
The article highlights the relevance of investigating sustainability reports by exploring the backstage of their production rather than solely the final document.
Originality/value
In contrast to prior research that has been concerned with exploring the extent to which sustainability reporting is associated with organizational change, this study applies different lenses to show how and why sustainability reporting is implicated in the construction of the organization and the maintenance of its stability and inertia.
Research on digital platforms has paid scant attention to the entanglement of digital platforms with physical spaces, their interactions, and associated tensions. The entanglement is of increased consequence in the wake of ontological reversal wherein digital constructs the physical. Using Lefebvre's spatial triad of perceived, conceived, and lived space to study digital platform ecosystems, this paper argues that digital platforms through the production of digital space have dramatically transformed the access, experiences, and meanings of the offline physical spaces, thereby emerging as co-producers of contemporary physical space. We illustrate that this process of co-production can lead to gradual emergence of tensions that arise due to the divergence between conceived and lived space and the essential differences in the rationalities of physical and digital space. In doing so, we develop a new spatial understanding of how tensions emerge and build in digital platform ecosystems.
This HDR thesis falls within the field of organizational theory and focuses on the concept of meta-organization. Building on my past and ongoing work, I aim to develop a perspective that emphasizes the need to theorize the diversity of meta-organizations and fully recognize them as autonomous organizational actors.
The dissertation is organized into four chapters, each corresponding to a key idea, to highlight both the complexity of the meta-organization concept and the richness of the associated research field.
The first chapter addresses a fundamental duality: their ontological ambivalence. It underscores the fact that meta-organizations simultaneously belong both to the field of organizations and to the field of inter-organizational relationships.
The second chapter explores a second fundamental duality: their epistemological ambivalence. It highlights that the concept of meta-organization refers both to an empirical category of organizations and to a theoretical framework that provides a distinctive analytical perspective on that same category.
The third chapter focuses on the diversity of meta-organizations and reflects my efforts to contribute to the development of a comprehensive analytical framework that accounts for this diversity.
Finally, the last chapter centers on the theme of organizational actorhood, examining the conditions that enable meta-organizations—despite their inherently inter-organizational nature—to assert themselves and be perceived as autonomous organizational actors in their own right.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) on the identity formation processes of individuals and organizations. Within the framework of symbolic interactionism and looking-glass self-theories, it is investigated how AI transforms social interactions and identity perceptions. The study aims to understand how AI reshapes individuals’ self-perception in the organizational context and to provide a theoretical explanation of these processes.
Design/methodology/approach
This article uses qualitative research and a grounded theory approach to examine the effects of artificial intelligence on individual and organizational identity. Data obtained through literature review and thematic analysis are analyzed to theoretically explain the effects of artificial intelligence on identity formation processes. With the grounded theory method, new theoretical implications are presented regarding the effects of artificial intelligence on identity and social roles.
Findings
AI reshapes individual and organizational identities by automating routine tasks and providing rapid feedback, which enhances self-perception and collective identity while potentially introducing identity threats or development opportunities depending on task alignment.
Originality/value
This article provides a novel perspective by integrating symbolic interactionism and the looking-glass self-theories with AI interactions, offering fresh insights into how AI affects identity construction in both individuals and organizations. It uniquely examines the dynamic influence of AI on self-perception and organizational identity, contributing to the understanding of AI’s role in identity reconfiguration and the cognitive processes behind it.
This article contributes to expanding the literature on and understanding about urban circular economy (CE) transitions towards circular cities, with a particular focus on the circularity of critical raw materials (CRMs), by identifying barriers in the transition’s exploration phase. We collected our empirical research data from 7 Finnish cities by interviewing 14 administrative officers responsible for procurement and for CE development and strategies. According to our findings, financial, institutional, policy and regulatory, technical, knowledge, and social factors are both internal and external barriers that city governments face in preventing urban CE transition of CRMs. Our findings suggest that an overarching problem with the identified barriers is regarding knowledge. Furthermore, we argue that intervening in local transformation paths towards circular cities requires the understanding and development of multilevel interactions between actors and their possibly conflicting interests. This contributes to the current understanding of early phases of urban CE transitions, that is, how knowledge deficits between multilevel systemic urban CE transitions should be addressed.
This chapter focuses on business models and the role of internal standardization in business models. We develop a typology that outlines the role of internal standardization for a set of value configurations that serve as representations of generic business models. The topic is of importance for both managers and researchers in relation to firm level innovation and strategy, as well as how business models relate to internal and external standardization. With regard to business model innovation, this chapter can aid in identifying shifts in the firm's internal standardization focus associated with changes in its business model.
Purpose
Given the contradictory findings of standardization/adaptation of marketing strategy in explaining export performance in the extant research, this study aims to examine the contingent effects of managerial ties and born global orientation in the standardized advertising-export performance conceptualization.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used two-respondent method in the survey research by a sample of 155 exporting firms operating in the industrial marketing based in Australia and New Zealand and applied hierarchical regression analysis to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that standardized advertising has a significant effect on export performance and this relationship is positively moderated by business ties. Such effect is particularly enhanced for born global firms (than nonborn global firms). However, political ties negatively influence the impact of standardized advertising on performance and such effect is stronger for born global firms.
Research limitations/implications
A broader perspective of contingent variables should be included to examine the underlying relationship between standardized advertising and export performance in capturing the dynamism in international marketing contexts, such as institutional frameworks or sociocultural environments in host countries.
Practical implications
Standardized advertising is critical for born global firms’ export performance as it can increase efficiency and speed up internationalization processes. Such positive impact of standardized advertising on export performance is further enhanced if born global firms allocate resources to develop strong business ties with host country partners instead of building political ties with host country governments, because smooth business networking can facilitate standardized advertising on industrial marketing, yet justifiable political relations require intricate negotiations that often prolong internationalization progress.
Originality/value
This study incorporates managerial ties and born global orientation as contingent factors in fixing the theoretic interlock between standardization advertising strategy and export firm performance.
In a period, when the risk of environmental distortions becomes higher and more unpredictable, business struggle to carry on or even stay in business is obvious, unless they are able to adjust their strategies properly. This paper takes business model innovation as the primary strategic response to environmental turbulence into account. Through an advanced empirical methodology, this study looks at the long-term results of diverging businesses from various industries moving toward a cutting edge adaptation plot instead of those that contended for the simple replication of those that already existed. The analysis, first and foremost, demonstrates significant disparities in prosperity rates, which may be attributed to interplay of evolving business strategies and market dynamics along with organizational resources and capabilities. In addition to this, the document presents strategic foresight and the imperative of agility as a means of creating a platform where innovation and sustainable growth are realizable. The results provide a detailed framework for CEOs, owners and politicians, underscoring the imperative of avant-garde techniques that will enable them to adapt effectively to the continuously evolving market environment.
Si les territoires ont toujours été confrontés à de multiples défis, l’addition des questions de transition aux enjeux économiques, culturels et sociaux complique largement la donne. La transition entraîne en effet l’impérieuse nécessité d’un autre regard.La réinvention des territoires par la solidarité apparaît comme une piste particulièrement pertinente en ce qu’elle permet de s’appuyer sur les très nombreuses innovations portées par les acteurs de l’économie sociale et solidaire (ESS). Pour illustrer ce propos, l’ouvrage rassemble des études de cas qui témoignent de leur étonnante capacité à articuler économie et démocratie locale afin d’asseoir la soutenabilité de leurs activités. Ces études de cas illustrent une vision renouvelée du développement territorial reposant sur la coopération entre ESS, collectivités, entrepreneurs et citoyens. En cela, elles inaugurent un nouveau regard où il s’agit de penser une action publique « recomposée » laissant une place importante aux acteurs de la solidarité pour co-construire avec les acteurs publics locaux des dispositifs à même de relever les grands défis contemporains.
Purpose
This study aims to establish a robust evaluation framework for suppliers within the automotive supply chain, specifically in the stamping sector. The primary objectives are to elucidate the performance criteria of suppliers, identify indicators and scales for measuring these criteria and find the importance of the criteria.
Design/methodology/approach
The evaluation framework comprises a criteria hierarchy and indicators developed based on the evaluation criteria of major automotive manufacturers. Specific indicators and measurement scales are recommended for assessing suppliers. Importance weights for the criteria are assigned based on the input of nine experts using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Finally, four sheet metal stamping tooling (SMST) suppliers are evaluated by four specialists using the proposed evaluation framework.
Findings
The study introduces a novel classification of criteria, encompassing financial and commercial perspectives, delivery capability, supplier facility and cultural approaches and business process necessities. The findings underscore the significance of financial and commercial stability in the selection of SMST suppliers, emphasizing their role in mitigating risks associated with disruptions, bankruptcies and unforeseen events. Additionally, several SMST evaluation factors identified in this study contribute to the development of resilience capabilities, highlighting the crucial importance of their inclusion and assessment in the proposed evaluation framework.
Originality/value
This research presents a comprehensive model for evaluating SMST suppliers, which tackles the multidisciplinary challenges within the automotive supply chain. Given the inadequacy or nonexistence of current SMTS selection models, this study bridges the gap by exploring potential and necessary criteria, alongside 116 specific indicators and measurement scales.
Purpose
Although digital transformation (DT) has emerged as an important phenomenon for both research and practices, the influences remain inconclusive and inadequate. The emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies further complicate the understanding and practices of DT while understudied yet. To address these concerns, this study takes a process perspective to empirically investigate when and how digital-intelligence transformation can improve firm performance, aiming to enrich the literature on digital-intelligence transformation and strategic information systems (IS) field.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on the dynamic capability view and business agility, we took a process perspective to conceptualize and empirically examine the influence of digital-intelligence transformation and the process characteristics. Taking a continuous panel dataset of listed Chinese firms covering 2007 to 2020, we investigated digital-intelligence transformation’s effect on firm performance and the moderating roles of three strategic aspects: pace, scope and rhythm.
Findings
This study found that digital-intelligence transformation positively affects firm performance and is moderated by the characteristics of transformation processes (i.e. pace, scope and rhythm). Specifically, the high-paced and rhythmic transformation processes facilitate the positive relationship, while the large scope undermines the benefits of transformation. These relationships hold across various endogeneity and heterogeneity analyses.
Originality/value
Our findings provide valuable implications for digital-intelligence transformation and strategic IS field. First, this study enriches existing literature on digital-intelligence transformation by empirically investigating the influence from a process perspective. Moreover, this study provides insights into a comprehensive understanding of the complexity of digital-intelligence transformation and the influences of AI. Finally, this study provides practical implications on how to make digital-intelligence transformation to benefit firm performance.
When the stakeholder theory challenged the neoclassical shareholder theory, it was a step forward in the theoretical and practical debate about the role and responsibility of businesses in society and how wide the responsibility is. Today, neither of these theories go far enough to explain the responsibilities of businesses in society and neither do corporate social responsibility nor corporate sustainability given the complexity of the business environment in which companies operate and how far they are going, or how far they are pushed, to respond to grand challenges or the opportunities they may entail. The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretical exploration and a critical appraisal of the need for a paradigm shift from shareholders and stakeholders to future successors. This is grounded in a discussion about corporate social responsibility/corporate sustainability, and the relevance of environmental constraints, multilateral sustainability policies and pathways, and needs and requirements of corporate future successors that are important for businesses that want to prosper in the long-term. The findings suggest that forward-looking supranational political and economic unions, intergovernmental organizations, regional and local governments, and leading businesses have moved ahead of theory towards including intra- and intergenerational interests and the natural environment into their policies, regulations, and strategies. In doing so, they even go so far as to grant personhood to the natural environment, thereby recognizing the importance of the natural environment for their own and the prosperity of present and future generations who will be future successors of businesses. Consequently, the implication of the paper is to suggest a new theoretical lens which has a much wider scope than shareholder and stakeholder theories currently do, and a strategic roadmap, emphasizing the importance of future successors for corporate responsibility and successful business operations in the long-term and pinpoint ways forward in doing so.
Gig Work ist ein Phänomen der Plattformökonomie, bei dem Arbeitskräfte kurzfristig und unabhängig Aufgaben für unterschiedliche Kunden ausführen. In den letzten Jahren
hat Gig Work aufgrund technologischen Fortschritts, sich ändernder Präferenzen von Arbeitskräften und wirtschaftlicher Unsicherheiten ein starkes Wachstum erfahren. Gig Work hat potenziell erhebliche Auswirkungen auf Organisationen, denn sie
stellt traditionelle Praktiken des Personalmanagements, des Zugangs zu Talenten und der Organisation von Arbeit infrage. In diesem Beitrag untersuchen wir, wie Gig Work die Organisation von humanbasierter Leistung, die Offenheit organisationaler Grenzen und die Flexibilität von Organisationen beeinflusst. Wir argumentieren, dass sich Unternehmen an die Gig-Economy anpassen müssen, indem sie sich neue Formen der Zusammenarbeit zu eigen machen. Wir diskutieren zudem die potenziellen Vorteile, aber auch Risiken von Gig Work für Arbeitnehmer, Unternehmen und die Gesellschaft.
Purpose
The paper investigates English National Health Service (NHS) organisations partnering with private companies, a form commonly known as a Public-Private Partnership (PPP). Successive governments have promoted PPPs as a way of improving the delivery of health care, making the best of the different skills/experience which both sectors bring. However, the task of making these relationships work on the ground often falls to individual leaders/practitioners (“boundary spanners”) whose role has been under-researched in this type of partnership.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper opted for a comparative three case study approach, including 13 semi-structured interviews and questionnaires with employees representing middle and senior management involved in managing the partnerships. The data were complemented by documentary analysis, including minutes, descriptions of internal processes and press releases.
Findings
The paper provides conceptual and empirical insights by creating a framework called the “boundary wall” that indicates the ways in which different elements of the boundaries between organisations influence the role and activities of boundary spanners (managers of the partnership).
Research limitations/implications
This is an initial framework in an under-researched area, so will need further testing and application to other case study sites in future research.
Practical implications
The paper includes implications for both practice and policy.
Originality/value
While we know an increasing amount about the role of boundary spanners in public partnerships, the paper makes a unique contribution by exploring these concepts in the context of relationships between the public and private sectors.
This research investigates how organizational members respond to events that threaten their perceptions of their organization's identity. Using qualitative, interview, and records data, we describe how members from eight "top-20" business schools responded to the 1992 Business Week survey rankings of U.S. business schools. Our analysis suggests that the rankings posed a two-pronged threat to many members' perceptions of their schools' identities by (1) calling into question their perceptions of highly valued, core identity attributes of their schools, and (2) challenging their beliefs about their schools' standing relative to other schools. In response, members made sense of these threats and affirmed positive perceptions of their school's identity by emphasizing and focusing on their school's membership in selective organizational categories that highlighted favorable identity dimensions and interorganizational comparisons not recognized by the rankings. Data suggest that members' use of these categorization tactics depended on the level of identity dissonance they felt following the rankings. We integrate these findings with insights from social identity, self-affirmation, and impression management theories to develop a new framework of organizational identity management.
This study investigates how top management teams in higher education institutions make sense of important issues that affect strategic change in modern academia. We used a two-phase research approach that progressed from a grounded model anchored in a case study to a quantitative, generalizable study of the issue interpretation process, using 611 executives from 372 colleges and universities in the United States. The findings suggest that under conditions of change, top management team members' perceptions of identity and image, especially desired future image, are key to the sensemaking process and serve as important links between the organization's internal context and the team members' issue interpretations. Rather than using the more common business issue categories of ''threats'' and ''opportunities,'' team members distinguished their interpretations mainly according to ''strategic'' or ''political'' categorizations.(.)
In hypercompetitive environments, the established paradigms of sustainability of competitive advantage and stability of organizational form may have limited applicability. Using an in-depth case analysis of the firms Yahoo! and Excite, this study examines how the organizational form, function, and competitive advantage of these firms dynamically coevolved. The study introduces the concept of continuous morphing to describe the comprehensive ongoing transformations through which the focal firms sought to regenerate their transient competitive advantage on the Internet.
Organizations are prone to ego defenses, such as denial, rationalization,
idealization, fantasy, and symbolization, that maintain collective self-esteem and the
continuity of existing identity. These defenses are dysfunctional when they militate against
necessary organizational change. Maladaptive identity defense mechanisms can be
mitigated through processes of organizational learning in the form of critical self-reflexivity
and an identity-focused dialogue, which promote attitudes of wisdom.
This paper integrates content-based predictions of transaction cost economics with process-based predictions of organizational change to understand adaptation to deregulation in the for-hire trucking industry. We predict and find that firms whose governance of a core transaction is poor (according to transaction cost reasoning) will realize lower profits than their better-aligned counterparts and that these firms will attempt to adapt so as to better align their transactions. Results show that several organizational features affect the rate of adaptation: (1) firms with large investments in specialized assets adapt less readily than firms that rely on generic assets, (2) firms with unions adapt less readily than firms without unions, (3) firms that must replace employee drivers with owner-operators adapt less readily than firms that must replace owner-operators with employee drivers, and (4) entrants adapt more quickly than incumbent carriers. There is evidence of institutional isomorphism in that although carriers move systematically to reduce misalignment, they do so less assiduously when this will make their governance of drivers look less like that of nearby, similar carriers. Finally, our results indicate that firms that ultimately exited adapted more quickly than firms that survived.
Over the past decade, transaction cost analysis (TCA) has received considerable attention in the marketing literature. Marketing scholars have made important contributions in extending and refining TCA's original conceptual framework. The authors provide a synthesis and integration of recent contributions to TCA by both marketers and scholars in related disciplines, an evaluation of recent critiques of TCA, and an agenda for further research on TCA.
In 1937, Ronald H. Coase published The Nature of the Firm, a classic paper that raised fundamental questions about the concept of the firm in economic theory. Coase proposed that the comparative costs of organizing transactions through markets, rather than within firms, are the primary determinants of the size and scope of firms. This volume derives from a conference held in 1987 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Coase's classic article. The first chapter gives an overview of the volume. It is followed by a re-publication of the 1937 article, and by the three lectures Coase presented at the conference. These lectures provide a lively and informative history of the origins and development of his thought. Subsequent chapters explore a wide range of theoretical and empirical issues that have arisen in the transaction cost economic tradition. They illustrate the power of the transaction cost approach to enhance understanding not only of business firms, but of problems of economic organization generally. Contributors: Ronald H. Coase, Sherwin Rosen, Paul Joskow, Oliver Hart, Harold Demsetz, Scott Masten, Benjamin Klein, Oliver Williamson, and Sidney Winter.
Previous studies examining the relationship between uncertainty and vertical integration have produced a conflicting set of results. To clarify this puzzle we drew on the literature to conceptualize three distinct forms of uncertainty—primary, competitive, and supplier—and hypothesized that each had a different effect on vertical integration. The hypotheses were tested using experimental data collected from 308 managers. Consistent with our prediction of differential effects, we found that primary and competitive uncertainty were negatively associated with the decision to vertically integrate, but supplier uncertainty was positively related to the vertical integration decision. No interaction effects were found. Implications for theory and research are suggested. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This paper focuses on dynamic capabilities and, more generally, the resource‐based view of the firm. We argue that dynamic capabilities are a set of specific and identifiable processes such as product development, strategic decision making, and alliancing. They are neither vague nor tautological. Although dynamic capabilities are idiosyncratic in their details and path dependent in their emergence, they have significant commonalities across firms (popularly termed ‘best practice’). This suggests that they are more homogeneous, fungible, equifinal, and substitutable than is usually assumed. In moderately dynamic markets, dynamic capabilities resemble the traditional conception of routines. They are detailed, analytic, stable processes with predictable outcomes. In contrast, in high‐velocity markets, they are simple, highly experiential and fragile processes with unpredictable outcomes. Finally, well‐known learning mechanisms guide the evolution of dynamic capabilities. In moderately dynamic markets, the evolutionary emphasis is on variation. In high‐velocity markets, it is on selection. At the level of RBV, we conclude that traditional RBV misidentifies the locus of long‐term competitive advantage in dynamic markets, overemphasizes the strategic logic of leverage, and reaches a boundary condition in high‐velocity markets. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The imputation problem is how to account for the sources of the value of the firm. I propose that part of the value of the firm derives from its participation in a network that emerges from the operation of generative rules that instruct the decision to cooperate. Whereas the value of firm‐level capabilities is coincidental with the firm as the unit of accrual, ownership claims to the value of coordination in a network pit firms potentially in opposition with one another. We analyze the work on network structure to suggest two types of mechanisms by which rents are distributed. This approach is applied to an analysis of the Toyota Production System to show how a network emerged, the rents were divided to support network capabilities, and capabilities were transferred to the United States. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The imputation problem is how to account for the sources of the value of the firm. I propose that part of the value of the firm derives from its participation in a network that emerges from the operation of generative rules that instruct the decision to cooperate. Whereas the value of firm-level capabilities is coincidental with the firm as the unit of accrual, ownership claims to the value of coordination in a network pit firms potentially in opposition with one another. We analyze the work on network structure to suggest two types of mechanisms by which rents are distributed. This approach is applied to an analysis of the Toyota Production System to show how a network emerged, the rents were divided to support network capabilities, and capabilities were transferred to the United States. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Firms boundary choices have undergone careful examination in recent years, particularly in information services. While transaction cost economics provides a widely tested explanation for boundary choice, more recent theoretical work advances competing knowledge-based and measurement cost explanations. Similar to transaction cost economics, these theories examine the impact of exchange attributes on the performance of markets and hierarchies as institutions of governance. These theories, however, offer alternative attributes to those suggested by transaction cost economics or offer alternative mechanisms through which similar attributes influence make–buy choices. Traditional empirical specifications of make–buy models are unable to comparatively test among these alternative theories. By developing and testing a model of comparative institutional performance rather than institutional choice, we examine the degree of support for these competing explanations of boundary choice. Hypotheses are tested using data on the governance of nine information services at 152 companies. Our results suggest that a theory of the firm and a theory of boundary choice is likely to be complex, requiring integration of transaction cost, knowledge-based, and measurement reasoning. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This paper focuses on dynamic capabilities and, more generally, the resource-based view of the firm. We argue that dynamic capabilities are a set of specific and identifiable processes such as product development, strategic decision making, and alliancing. They are neither vague nor tautological. Although dynamic capabilities are idiosyncratic in their details and path dependent in their emergence, they have significant commonalities across firms (popularly termed ‘best practice’). This suggests that they are more homogeneous, fungible, equifinal, and substitutable than is usually assumed. In moderately dynamic markets, dynamic capabilities resemble the traditional conception of routines. They are detailed, analytic, stable processes with predictable outcomes. In contrast, in high-velocity markets, they are simple, highly experiential and fragile processes with unpredictable outcomes. Finally, well-known learning mechanisms guide the evolution of dynamic capabilities. In moderately dynamic markets, the evolutionary emphasis is on variation. In high-velocity markets, it is on selection. At the level of RBV, we conclude that traditional RBV misidentifies the locus of long-term competitive advantage in dynamic markets, overemphasizes the strategic logic of leverage, and reaches a boundary condition in high-velocity markets. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
- This paper describes the process of inducting theory using case studies from specifying the research questions to reaching closure. Some features of the process, such as problem definition and construct validation, are similar to hypothesis-testing research. Others, such as within-case analysis and replication logic, are unique to the inductive, case-oriented process. Overall, the process described here is highly iterative and tightly linked to data. This research approach is especially appropriate in new topic areas. The resultant theory is often novel, testable, and empirically valid. Finally, framebreaking insights, the tests of good theory (e.g., parsimony, logical coherence), and convincing grounding in the evidence are the key criteria for evaluating this type of research.
This paper outlines a theory of the multiproduct firm. Important building blocks include excess capacity and its creation, market imperfections, and the peculiarities of organizational knowledge, including its fungible and tacit character. A framework is adopted in which profit seeking firms are seen to diversify in order to avoid the high transactions costs associated with using various markets to trade the services of various specialized assets. Neoclassical explanations of the multiproduct firm are shown to be seriously deficient. © 2003 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved.
The dynamic capabilities framework analyzes the sources and methods of wealth creation and capture by private enterprise firms operating in environments of rapid technological change. The competitive advantage of firms is seen as resting on distinctive processes (ways of coordinating and combining), shaped by the firm's (specific) asset positions (such as the firm's portfolio of difficult-to-trade knowledge assets and complementary assets), and the evolution path(s) it has adopted or inherited. The importance of path dependencies is amplified where conditions of increasing returns exist. Whether and how a firm's competitive advantage is eroded depends on the stability of market demand, and the ease of replicability (expanding internally) and imitatability (replication by competitors). If correct, the framework suggests that private wealth creation in regimes of rapid technological change depends in large measure on honing internal technological, organizational, and managerial processes inside the firm. In short, identifying new opportunities and organizing effectively and efficiently to embrace them are generally more fundamental to private wealth creation than is strategizing, if by strategizing one means engaging in business conduct that keeps competitors off balance, raises rival's costs, and excludes new entrants. © 2003 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved.
A comparative model of organizations as interpretation systems is proposed. The model describes four interpretation modes: enacting, discovering, undirected viewing, and conditioned viewing. Each mode is determined by (1) management's beliefs about the environment and (2) organizational intrusiveness. Interpretation modes are hypothesized to be associated with organizational differences in environmental scanning, equivocality reduction, strategy, and decision making.
This paper focuses on dynamic capabilities and, more generally, the resource-based view of the firm. We argue that dynamic capabilities are a set of specific and identifiable processes such as product development, strategic decision making, and alliancing. They are neither vague nor tautological. Although dynamic capabilities are idiosyncratic in their details and path dependent in their emergence, they have significant commonalities across firms (popularly termed 'best practice'). This suggests that they are more homogeneous, fungible, equifinal and substitutable than is usually assumed. In moderately dynamic markets, dynamic capabilities resemble the traditional conception of routines. They are detailed, analytic stable processes with predictable outcomes. In contrast, in high-velocity markets, they are simple, highly experiential and fragile processes with unpredictable outcomes. Finally, well-known learning mechanisms guide the evolution of dynamic capabilities. In moderately dynamic markets, the evolutionary emphasis is on variation. In high-velocity markets, it is on selection. At the level of REV, we conclude that traditional REV misidentifies the locus of long-term competitive advantage in dynamic markers, overemphasizes the strategic logic of leverage, and reaches a boundary condition in high-velocity markets. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Unstable market conditions caused by innovation and increasing intensity and diversity of competition have resulted in organizational capabilities rather than served markets becoming the primary basis upon which firms establish their long-term strategies. If the strategically most important resource of the firm is knowledge, and if knowledge resides in specialized form among individual organizational members, then the essence of organizational capability is the integration of individuals' specialized knowledge. This paper develops a knowledge-based theory of organizational capability, and draws upon research into competitive dynamics, the resource-based view of the firm, organizational capabilities, and organizational learning. Central to the theory is analysis of the mechanisms through which knowledge is integrated within firms in order to create capability. The theory is used to explore firms' potential for establishing competitive advantage in dynamic market settings, including the role of firm networks under conditions of unstable linkages between knowledge inputs and product outputs. The analysis points to the difficulties in creating the "dynamic" and "flexible-response capabilities" which have been deemed critical to success in hypercompetitive markets.
I present argument and evidence for a structural ecology of social capital that describes how the value of social capital to an individual is contingent on the number of people doing the same work. The information and control benefits of bridging the structural holes-or, disconnections between nonredundant contacts in a network-that constitute social capital are especially valuable to managers with few peers. Such managers do not have the guiding frame of reference for behavior provided by numerous competitors, and the work they do does not have the legitimacy provided by numerous people doing the same kind of work. I use network and performance data on a probability sample of senior managers to show how the value of social capital, high on average for the managers, varies as a power function of the number of people doing the same work.
A new framework that addresses how tight fit among a firm's activities affects the firm's ability to react to environmental changes is presented. As part of the framework, a new classification scheme for environmental changes is developed. I argue that fit-conserving change, which leaves the internal fit among a firm's activities intact yet decreases the appropriateness of the set of choices as a whole, poses a particularly difficult challenge for managers. A longitudinal case study of the fashion apparel company Liz Claiborne illustrates the framework.
To examine the consequences of a period of extraordinary success for the long-term adaptive capability of a firm's strategy-making process, this comparative longitudinal study of Andy Grove's tenure as Intel Corporation's chief executive officer (CEO) documents how he moved Intel's strategy-making process from an internal-ecology model to the classical rational-actor model during 1987-1998. His creation of a highly successful strategy vector pursued through an extremely focused induced-strategy process led to coevolutionary lock-in with the personal computer market segment, in which Intel's strategy making became increasingly tied to its existing product market. Intracompany analysis of four new business development cases highlights the inertial consequences of coevolutionary lock-in. The paper examines implications of coevolutionary lock-in in terms of its effect on balancing induced and autonomous strategy processes and exploitation and exploration in organizational learning.
The issue of corporate control is examined through an analysis of the de-diversification activity of publicly held American firms from 1985 to 1994. Prominent accounts of such behavior depict newly powerful shareholders as having demanded a dismantling of the inefficient, highly diversified corporate strategies that arose in the late 1950s and the 1960s. This paper highlights an additional factor that spurred such divestiture: the need to present a coherent product identity in the stock market. It is argued that because they straddle the industry categories that investors—and securities analysts, who specialize by industry—use to compare like assets, diversified firms hinder efforts at valuing their shares. As a result, managers of such firms face pressure from analysts to dediversify so that their stock is more easily understood. Results indicate that, in addition to such factors as weak economic performance, de-diversification is more likely when a firm's stock price is low and there is a significant mismatch between its corporate strategy and the identity attributed to the firm by analysts.
This article discusses how executives in entrepreneurial firms addressing nascent markets organize the boundaries of their firms. Entrepreneurs need to establish themselves in an initial market, but do not usually have a strong resource base nor established competencies to leverage. By structuring the roles in the market, entrepreneurs are able to reduce the ambiguity they face and prevent competition in the market. Entrepreneurs use acquisitions of smaller firms to increase their market coverage, cancel possible entry points for more powerful competitors, and eliminate threatening business models. Entrepreneurs construct markets by structuring the nascent market around a perceived opportunity for the creation of value.
This article continues to operationally define and test the resource- hased view of the firm in a study of the major U.S. film studios from 1936 to 1965. We found that property-hased resources in the form of exclusive long-term contracts with stars and theaters helped financial performance in the stable, predictable environment of 1936-50. In con- trast, knowledge-based resources in the form of production and coordi- native talent and budgets boosted financial performance in the more uncertain (changing and unpredictable) post-television environment of 1951-65.
Opportunities associated with discontinuous change typically do not trigger organizational response until the opportunity is perceived as a threat. However, threat perception can then trigger a response that accentuates organizational rigidity. This cognitive paradox is explored using a multilevel, longitudinal case study of a newspaper organizations response to digital publishing. The results suggest that the competing frames of threat and opportunity can coexist within the firm when it creates organizationally differentiated subunits. Such a structure minimizes the need to integrate competing frames at the subunit level, enabling different behaviors to be enacted simultaneously across different units of the firm. This differentiated organizational form places an increased burden on senior teams that have to manage the inconsistencies across subunits. Insight into the structure of competing frames has broader implications for the structure of dynamic capabilities.
A bulk of the marketing research on distribution channel design attempts to resolve the question of when a direct company-owned sales operation would be preferred to an indirect independent distributor operation. The widely accepted theoretical rationale is provided by transaction-cost theory which indicates that the total costs of going-to-market, inclusive of distribution as well as its administration, is likely to be lower for the direct option when the sales transactions require investments in unique assets for effectively serving the end customer. Examples of unique assets are account-specific sales teams and account dedicated repair and maintenance facilities. Conversely, transaction-cost theory indicates that an indirect option would be the more efficient one for sales transactions that require investments only in nonunique assets, such as an inventory of standard parts. Since its formulation in 1975, the transaction-cost framework has been empirically confirmed in a variety of marketing channel settings.
It has been our observation, however, that most of these verifications have been of the easier rather than the more difficult problems in the field. Two such complex problems are: (1) the issue of hybrid channels, i.e., channel arrangements involving a sharing of going-to-market tasks between the direct and indirect channels, and (2) the evolution of channels from one form to the other, i.e., a direct channel evolving into an indirect channel and vice versa.
To resolve our curiosity regarding the applicability of transaction-cost theory to these complex channel issues, we interviewed 50 key informants in 15 carefully selected manufacturing firms and 20 key informants in 7 related distribution firms. Because the purpose of our field research was to enhance our understanding of complex channel phenomena rather than to test existing theory, we did not gather structured quantitative data. Instead, we let managers describe to us the rationale for their channel choice decisions.
In comparing the fit of our field observations to existing wisdom on transaction-cost theory, we reached the conclusion that the theory needs broadening in order to explain the variety and complexity of the real world channels we studied. In this paper, we attempt to suggest some useful directions for such enhancements. Specifically,
(1) transaction-cost analysis is more meaningful when applied at the level of a channel function,
(2) channel investments are influenced by a firm's uncertainty absorption mechanism, and
(3) channel investments serve to raise competitive entry barriers.
This paper explores the cognitive aspects underlying industries in hypercompetitive environments. Hypercompetition represents a state of competition with rapidly escalating levels of competition and reduced periods of competitive advantage for firms. In hypercompetitive industries member firms act boldly and aggressively to create a state of competitive disequilibrium. In this paper we explore the particular conditions that managers encounter in making sense of hypercompetitive industries and argue that the nature of these conditions is such that conventional sensemaking frameworks will not work. We then describe the 'adaptive sensemaking' practices established in the literature for dealing with temporary turbulence and suggest that in hypercompetition those processes continue indefinitely. We argue that these processes can become institutionalized as standard operating procedures within firms, and as shared recipes within industries, which in turn perpetuates hyperturbulent conditions.
This empirical study suggests that Japanese competitive advantage in complex-product industries is at least partly due to differences in value chain governance and interfirm asset co-specialization. Comparative data are offered which indicate that U.S. firms rely largely on markets and hierarchies to facilitate exchange, whereas Japanese firms rely largely on "hybrid" governance or alliances. The empirical findings suggest that Japanese automotive firms (value chains) have been able to achieve a competitive advantage over their U.S. counterparts by effectively using hybrid/alliance governance for three primary reasons: (1) Japanese automotive value chains are characterized by greater interfirm asset co-specialization than U.S. chains. In particular, greater human asset co-specialization between firms results in superior coordination, information sharing, and learning which is critical in complex-product industries, (2) hybrids/alliances as employed by Japanese automakers realize virtually all of the advantages of hierarchy (e.g., asset co-specialization) without the disadvantages (e.g., loss of market discipline, loss of flexibility, higher labor costs), and (3) Japanese automotive value chains incur lower transaction costs than U.S. value chains. Thus, alliances, as structured in Japan, simultaneously realize the benefits of decentralization and competition without sacrificing economies of scale, coordination, or co-specialization of assets. These findings support transaction cost theories which suggest that effectively aligning governance structures with transactions will result in efficiency advantages. However, inconsistent with extant transaction cost theory, findings from this study suggest that: (1) hybrid governance may be more efficient than hierarchical governance under conditions of uncertainty, and (2) transaction costs do not necessarily increase with an increase in asset specificity.
Fashion apparel is a highly competitive business where product life is short and differentiation advantages are built on brand image and product styling that can be quickly imitated. Over the past two decades, competition on price and quality has intensified as low cost global manufacturing became available to even small competitors. Recently, competition has shifted to the arena of timing and know-how where vertically integrated firms gained the lead in implementing a set of process innovations known as 'quick response.' designed to shorten the production cycle. Less integrated firms have begun to erode that advantage, but the integrated firms that have linked quick response into retailing continue to have superior capabilities. These firms demonstrate the elements of organization needed to link flexible and fast cycle manufacturing with rapid learning about demand and customer satisfaction.
The problem of vertical integration is a venerable but increasingly important focus of attention in profit-seeking organizations. Over the past ten years, many industries have seen increased cooperation between buyers and suppliers to achieve more difficult goals caused by rising product market competition. In many firms, this cooperation is balanced against the putative advantages of diminishing but still substantial in-house operations.
One way to compare the performance of cooperative suppliers with in-house operations is to focus on the buyer's choice of assets used to produce the inputs needed for the final product. For strategic reasons, some of these assets will be highly specialized and others standardized. The question this paper asks is whether this choice of specialized or standard assets influences the performance of the supplier, controlling for whether it is in the market or in-house.
The hypothesis is that the choice of specialized assets, for strategic reasons, is associated with lower supplier conformance with the buyer's target price for the input. In other words, for these assets the supplier's price, which is higher than the buyer would have liked to pay, reflects some of the strategic value of the input to the buyer. The supplier is simply appropriating some of this value, since it can raise its price with a low threat of termination by the buyer. For standard assets, in contrast the threat of termination is omnipresent, so that the choice of assets is irrelevant for supplier price performance.
The test is performed using data on both in-house operations and market suppliers from a quite large US manufacturing firm and on market suppliers to a very successful Japanese manufacturing firm. Interestingly, there is no difference between these firms in the applicability of the hypothesis. Also, in-house and market suppliers differ in price performance only for standard assets, market suppliers performing better. Organizations can therefore gain quite a bit from outsourcing the production of less specialized inputs but achieve roughly the same performance from in-house and market suppliers for more specialized inputs. This last result is controversial and should bc tested repeatedly using other micro-level data.
This study therefore addresses three sides of the current debate surrounding modern questions of vertical integration. First, does the strategic value of the input make a difference in supplier performance? The answer is yes, but only for specialized inputs. Second, do in-house and market suppliers differ in their performance? The answer is yes, but only for standardized inputs. Third, do US and Japanese firms differ in the performance of their suppliers, given variation in asset specialization and strategic importance? The answer is no, at least for the two firms studied here. All caveats regarding the generalizability of results from small sample studies apply.
The phrase "switching cognitive gears" is used to call attention to the fact that cognitive functioning involves the capacity to shift between cognitive modes, from automatic processing to conscious engagement and back again. Effectiveness may be as much a function of an actor's capacity to sense when a switch is appropriate, as to process in one or another mode. In this paper the authors develop a perspective on the switch from automatic to active thinking and the conditions that provoke it. They apply the perspective to work settings and identify types of situations in which actors are expected to switch from habits of mind to active thinking. They propose further work to develop a framework for understanding the switch from active thinking to automatic.