Critical Management Division

The Academy of Management

2009 Main Program

 

 

Sunday

 

Tuesday

5:45- 7:10PM

The Politics of Sustainable Coffee

8:00 - 9:30AM

The Political Economy of Management

 

Monday

8:00 - 9:30AM

Understanding Organizational Legitimacy

8:00 - 9:30AM

Development Politics and Management

9:45 - 11:15AM

Gender and Management Practice

8:00 - 9:30AM

Research on Ethics and Corruption

9:45 - 11:15AM

The Employee Free Choice Act and the Prospects for a New Green Social Contract

9:45 - 11:15AM

Knowledge Unbound: The Postcolonial Ferment and Critical Management Scholarship

9:45 - 11:15AM

Innovation and Networks

9:45 - 11:15AM

Institutionalization and Roles

9:45 - 11:15AM

Organizational Learning in Context

9:45 - 11:15AM

The Mortgage Meltdown: Organizational Explanations of the U.S. Housing Crisis

11:30 - 1:00PM

Critical Analysis of Management Knowledge

11:30 - 1:00PM

CMS Visual Papers

11:30 - 1:00PM

Management and Labour Relations

11:30 - 1:00PM

Power and Management Practice

11:30 - 1:00PM

A Deeper Understanding of Financial/Capital Markets

11:30 - 1:00PM

Employee Training, Transfer, and Evaluation

11:30 - 1:00PM

The Promise and Reality of Management Education: A World View

1:15 - 2:45PM

Keynote Speaker Charles Mills

1:15 - 2:45PM

Life for Sale: Commodification and its Consequences

3:00 - 4:30PM

The Practice of Studying Management Critically

1:15 - 2:45PM

Practicing Capitalism as if the Earth Matters: Teaching Sustainability to MBA Students

3:00 - 4:30PM

Models of Firm Evolution & Transformation

3:00 - 4:30PM

Resistance and Organizing

3:00 - 4:30PM

Models of Entrepreneurship

3:00 - 4:30PM

Knowledge Management: Culture and Context Matter

3:00 - 4:30PM

Toward a Better Understanding of Governance

 

 

3:00 - 4:30PM

Current Research on Expatriates

 

 

4:45 - 6:15PM

After the Fall: Saving Management Knowledge from Itself

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PDW Schedule

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Meeting and Social Schedule

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Session

 

Session Type

Sponsor(s)

Date & Time

Hotel & Room

 

Sunday, Aug 9 2009

 

 

 

 

 

502

The Politics of Sustainable Coffee

 

Chair: Roy Stager Jacques; Massey U. Auckland;

This theme session features the founders of two coffee businesses working to create fair and environmentally sustainable coffee production.

Theme Session

(CMS)

5:45PM - 7:10PM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Toronto

 

Monday, Aug 10 2009

 

 

 

 

 

560

Development Politics and Management

Chair: Mary Reidy; Case Western Reserve U

 

CMS: Organizational Accounting in Non-Governmental Organizations: Between Text, Experience and Modernity    

Author: Sadhvi Dar; Queen Mary U. of London;

This paper’s empirical focus is International Non Governmental NGOs working in India. The paper critiques accounting practices in their widest application including reporting structures. It attempts to challenge the West’s claim on modernity by identifying ‘other modernities’ located in Indian NGO accounting practices and performatives. The empirical case describes alternative accounting practices, such as indigenous theatre and group songs. In conclusion, the paper cites local, grassroots accounting tools as representing and containing valuable contestations against the modernist market-management (Parker, 2002) way of organizing work. However, the paper acknowledges prevailing NGO idealism that ignores how such ‘indigenous’ alternatives can also reinforce management discipline in organizations.

 

CMS: Restoring the Authority of Public Strategists and Administration    

Author: Alex Faria; EBAPE-FGV;

Author: Takeyoshi Imasato; EBAPE-FGV;

Author: Richard Marens; California State U. Sacramento;

In accordance with the basic tenets of neoliberalism, the transfer of strategic management knowledge from U.S. to Latin America was taken as necessary to raise the legitimate authority of big corporations and their strategists over the last fifteen years. Drawing upon a critical postcolonial standpoint, this paper argues that the effective power of big corporations and their strategists in Latin America has been based not only on the disciplinarian construction of their legitimate authority, at expense of other strategists and organizations, but also on historical processes within U.S. that have been ignored even by critical scholars. Going beyond more typical discursive frameworks mobilized by critical postcolonial researchers, this paper argues that the field of strategic management has been historically important to the construction of legitimate authority of strategists of big corporations in developing countries, mostly at expense of public administrators and public organizations, but also on behalf of the U.S. government and public administration. It concludes by arguing that the relevance of critique within strategic management in Brazil, as much as in the relevance of critique in the Anglo-American world, requires restoring the authority of public strategists and construction of a strategy of international cooperation aimed to create a strong field of public administration from a critical perspective.

 

 CMS: The Dark Heart of the Dark Continent: Postcolonial Feminist Analysis of Immigrant Education    

Author: Viktorija Kalonaityte; Växjö U.;

Best Paper on International Business

The central themes of this paper are the intersections of ethnicity and gender in a municipal school for adults. The analysis draws on Foucault’s view of disciplinary power and postcolonial theory, more particularly Said’s work on the Orientalist discourse, and Third world feminist theory in order to investigate the relationship between the Orientalist conceptualizations of a gendered Third World Other and the teaching practices of the school. The study shows that the stereotyping view of the students shapes the disciplinary techniques within the teaching practices, and holds the students and the personnel of the school prisoners of a censuring and limiting world-view.

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Paper Session

(CMS)

8:00AM - 9:30AM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Toronto

 

 

600

Research on Ethics and Corruption

Facilitator: Daniela Truty; Northeastern Illinois U

 

OB: The Effects of Leadership on Follower Ethical Decision Making   

Author: Weichun Zhu; Claremont McKenna College;

This study examined the effects of transformational and active transactional leadership behavior on follower moral identity and ethical decision-making. Results from an experimental study revealed that both transformational and active transactional leadership behavior has a positive effect on follower moral identity and ethical decision-making. Moreover, follower moral identity mediated the effect of transformational and active transactional leadership behavior on follower ethical decision-making. Results also revealed that moral intensity has a positive effect on follower ethical decision making. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

 

 

 

CMS: Critical business ethics in economics and management    

Author: Jacob Dahl Rendtorff; Roskilde U.;

In this analysis of the epistemology of business ethics I will begin with a discussion of the relation between business ethics and the epistemology of economic sciences. After this I will define the epistemological basis for business ethics as emerging in the intersection between descriptive positivist economics and deconstructive discourse analysis (1). A further basis for my methodology of business ethics is the perspective of ”critical hermeneutics” as well as an interdisciplinary approach to social science and institutional sociology in business (2). From this point of view I go on to discuss the concept of the firm in organization theory and I propose to define business ethics in close relation with institutional theory (3). In the broader perspective of ethics and society we can talk about “integrative business ethics” integrating business ethics, economics and social sciences in the study of business ethics in practice in organizations (4). Thus, the function of this epistemological chapter is to propose business ethics not as something external and fundamentally different but rather as an integrated part of social sciences, management and economics as “moral sciences”.

 

OB: If it Feels Right, Lie About It: Conscientiousness, Regulatory Focus, and Escalation of Corruption    

Author: Adam Barsky; U. of Melbourne;

Author: Michael Sankey; U. of Melbourne;

Author: Christina E. Shalley; Georgia Institute of Technology;

Escalating commitment to an unethical course of action can be extremely maladaptive, both for individuals and organizations. In this manuscript, we examined the phenomenon of escalation of deception, focusing our attention on identifying why this behavior occurs from an individual perspective. Data collected from 170 participants through a managerial simulation showed that those low in conscientiousness were more prone to escalating their commitment to an initial act of deception. Furthermore, this effect was exacerbated when individuals possessed strong regulatory orientations (both promotion and prevention foci). Theoretical and practical implications for researchers and managers are discussed and suggestions for future research outlined.

 

BPS: Corruption in Emerging Countries. A matter of Mimetism.    

Author: Bertrand Venard; Audencia Nantes School of Management;

Relying on neo-institutional literature, this paper focuses on the influence of organizational isomorphism on corruption in emerging countries. A questionnaire was administrated in face-to-face interviews with top executives in firms across various economic sectors in emerging countries. Major contributions of the papers are also to show that corruption is influenced by coercive, mimetic and competitive isomorphism. Hence, we conclude a firm is more likely to use corruption if its competitors already employ unfair behaviours.

 

SIM: Tales from the front: Mid-level managers & (un)ethical encounters    

Author: Kathy Lund Dean; Idaho State U.;

Author: Jeri Mullins Beggs; Illinois State U.;

Author: Timothy P. Keane; Saint Louis U.;

In the research that has examined destruction wrought by major ethics scandals, the interactionist model of ethical decision-making has taken significant prominence. This paper reports on research outcomes detailing real issues MBAs occupying entry-level and mid-level management positions face day-to-day. Results offer qualitative validation for multi-faceted decision-making relationships and offer defined examples of the stressors these managers face in the workplace. The study includes lower-level managers, essentially excluded from extant literature, and focuses on actual workplace behaviors both undertaken and observed. Results indicate that pressures from organization sources and ambiguity in letter vs spirit of rules account for over a third of the most frequent unethical situations encountered, and that most managers did not expect to face those issues. Various cultural factors accounted for 32% of the organizational factors that affected decisions. We discuss implications for ethics in the workplace, including the unique challenges for newer managers.

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Interactive

Paper Session

(IP)

8:00AM - 9:30AM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Regency C Table 4

660

Knowledge Unbound: The Postcolonial Ferment and Critical Management Scholarship

Chair: Anshuman Prasad; U. of New Haven;

Organizer: Anshuman Prasad; U. of New Haven;

Presenter: Anshuman Prasad; U. of New Haven;

Presenter: Roy Stager Jacques; Massey U. Auckland;

Presenter: Pushkala Prasad; Skidmore College;

Presenter: Raza A Mir; William Paterson U.;

 

This presenter symposium proposes to explore the ways in which postcolonial theory may help channel critique in management scholarship in new and unique directions. The first presentation discusses how postcolonial theory can meaningfully enhance the current critical understanding of globalization. While so doing, this presentation also draws attention to some of the differences between postcolonial theory and other critical approaches (e.g., Marxism, postmodernism, post-structuralism, etc.), and explains how postcolonial theory can uniquely add to current approaches for critically analyzing globalization. The second presentation examines the processes that seem to blunt the edge of critical scholarship in management, and looks at the radical nature of the epistemological challenge posed by postcolonial theory to organizational scholarship. The third presentation analyzes the discourse of the Islamic veil in contemporary Scandinavia and its effects on Muslim immigrant workers in private and public organizations. Employing Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism, this presentation argues that, contrary to the position adopted by some critical management scholars, discourses are not merely textual/literary artifacts but devices that have decidedly material aspects and consequences. Finally, the last presentation relies upon the postcolonial idea of the ‘fragment’ in order to critically interrogate the current notion of corporate citizenship. This presentation demonstrates how the idea of corporate citizenship leaves out a variety of actors in the shadows of theoretical debates on corporate behavior, and highlights ways in which those marginalized actors can make their presence felt in the political as well as theoretical realm.

 

Toward a Postcolonial Reading of Globalization: Revisiting the East Asian Financial Crisis   

Presenter: Anshuman Prasad; U. of New Haven;

 

The “Diversity Threat” to Epistemological Hegemony: Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Knowledge   

Presenter: Roy Stager Jacques; Massey U. Auckland;

 

Discourse and Materiality: Postcolonial Imaginations and the Veil in the Scandinavian Workplace   

Presenter: Pushkala Prasad; Skidmore College;

 

Interrogating Corporate Citizenship: Postcolonial Lessons for Organizational Theory   

Presenter: Raza A Mir; William Paterson U.;

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Symposium

(CMS, OMT)

9:45AM - 11:15AM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Toronto

684

Institutionalization and Roles

Facilitator: Rich DeJordy; Boston College;

 

OM: HRM within Intra-Firm Supply Relationships: An Institutional Perspective    

Author: Marie Koulikoff-Souviron; CERAM;

Author: Alan Harrison; Cranfield U.;

While there are several studies on HRM at the level of the inter-firm dyadic relationship, the HR aspects of intra-firm strategic supply relationships have been largely ignored. Yet the interdependence context requires coordination between functions, sites and stages of the internal supply chain. Drawing on a case study in the pharmaceutical industry, we first explore the influence of HR practices on the intra-firm relationship and then test the relevance of institutional theory for explaining the evolution of the relationship. Our findings show the disruptive effects of HR practices focused on site-based objectives and the improved coordination that resulted from redesigning HR processes to achieve internal operational integration. Building on recent interest in relational approaches to HR practices, this study is the first to operationalize the need for aligning HR practices on end-to-end objectives at different stages of the intra-firm supply chain. Our findings have practical implications for the design of HR practices within MNCs characterized by complex and fragmented internal environments.

 

MED: Management Education: Classifying Business Curricula and Conceptualizing Transfers and Bridges      

Author: Davar Rezania; Grant MacEwan College;

Author: Mike Henry; Grant MacEwan College;

Traditionally, higher academic education has favoured acquisition of individualized conceptual knowledge over context-independent procedural knowledge. Applied degrees, on the other hands, favour procedural knowledge. We present a conceptual model for classifying a business curriculum. This classification can inform discussion around difficulties associated with issues such as assessment of prior learning, as well as transfers and bridges from applied degrees to baccalaureate degrees in business education.

 

OMT: Institutional Work Taken Literally: How Logics Shift as Banking Lawyers 'Get the Deal Done'    

Author: Michael Smets; Said Business School;

The role of interest and agency in the creation and transformation of institutions, in particular the “paradox of embedded agency” (Seo & Creed, 2002) have long puzzled institutional scholars. Most recently, Lawrence and Suddaby (2006) coined the term “institutional work” to describe various strategies for creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions. This label, while useful to integrate existing research, highlights institutionalists’ lack of attention to work as actors’ everyday occupational tasks and activities. Thus, the objective of this study is to take institutional work literally and ask: How does practical work come to constitute institutional work? Drawing on concepts of “situated change” (Orlikowski, 1996) I supplement existing macro-level perspectives of change with a microscopic, practice-based alternative. I examine the everyday work of English and German banking lawyers in a global law firm. Located at the intersection of local laws, international financial markets, commercial logics and professional norms, banking lawyers’ work regularly bridges different normative settings. Hence, they must constructively negotiate contradictory meanings, practices and logics to develop shared routines that resonate with different normative frameworks and facilitate task accomplishment. Data show how new practices gain shape and legitimacy over a series of dialectic contests unfolding at work and how, in turn, these contests shift institutional logics as lawyers ‘get the deal done’. These micro-mechanisms suggest that as practical and institutional work blend, everyday working practices come to constitute a form of institutional agency that is situated, emergent, dialectic and, therefore, embedded.

 

CMS: The production of normative social roles by texts: An inquiry into an investment procedure    

Author: Claire Dambrin; HEC Paris;

Author: Anne Pezet; U. Paris-Dauphine, DRM;

This paper brings to light how normative social roles are created by procedures, focusing on their very form (Goody, 1977; 1986; 2000; Norman, 1991; 1993; Phillips & Hardy, 2002; Phillips, Lawrence & Hardy, 2004). Using a content analysis of an investment procedure conducted in 2004 in a European pharmaceutical multinational, this paper shows how this specific form takes effect during the institutionalisation of investment ideals (e.g. competitiveness, value creation) into normative roles. We show that the texts of investment procedures as well as the cognitive artefacts (formulae, drop down lists, typologies, etc.) that make them up shape each phase of the institutionalisation process: objectivation, stabilisation and subjectivation (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Hasselbladh & Kallinikos, 2000). This paper’s contribution is three-fold. First, using the concept of normative social roles, studying the investment procedure enables us to illustrate how a discursive text is already a practice in and of itself. Next, it brings to light the complexity of a procedure through an intertextuality made up of different texts but also of technologies of the intellect, and thus contributes to bolstering the interest of discourse analysis in understanding the mechanisms of institutionalisation. Finally, this paper contributes to neo-institutional sociology (NIS) by focusing on the micro-social level and especially by analysing the material vehicles enabling social roles to be constructed.

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Interactive

Paper Session

(IP)

9:45AM - 11:15AM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Regency B Table 1

727

The Mortgage Meltdown: Organizational Explanations of the U.S. Housing Crisis

Organizer: Paul M Hirsch; Northwestern U.;

 

Presenter: Marcus Alexis; Former Chair, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago/Northwestern U.;

 

Participant: Gerald F Davis; U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor;

Participant: Mitchel Abolafia; U. at Albany, SUNY;

Participant: Donald A Palmer; U. of California, Davis;

Participant: Paul M Hirsch; Northwestern U.;

 

Author: Razvan Lungeanu; Northwestern U.;

Author: Michael Maher; U. of California, Davis;

 

Winner of OMT Division Best Symposium Proposal Award

 

The recent mortgage crisis provides an opportunity for management theories to draw lessons from, and suggest ways to prevent organizational, market, and oversight failures in key sectors of the economy. For organization research, the mortgage meltdown – its roots, and the policies developed to manage what may arguably be seen as a “normal accident” - provides a plethora of interpretive challenges. Five topics and theoretical areas we see as important to improve our understanding of, and extend explanations for this crisis include: the social construction of markets; the multiple (political, economic, and social) logics of managing financial organizations and institutions; the behavior and decisions of managers and organizations when rules are unclear; the impact of ideology on administration; and the response and coordination of national and international government agencies to prevent global crises. These issues raise questions concerning strategy (e.g., planning and risk management), critical perspectives (where were the whistle-blowers?), and social issues (the ethics of pushing subprime contracts on poor risks). The goal of the proposed symposium is to assess how management theories provide intriguing and provocative perspectives on these issues. In addressing them, our expert presenters provide creative and original interpretations of the reasons for this crisis, its unfolding and likely resolution. The symposium features leaders in the study of economic organizations and development of theories of management and organization. Each presenter will also relate his own work to the mortgage crisis, and consider its implications for further research and theory development.

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Symposium

(OMT, BPS, CMS)

9:45AM - 11:15AM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Grand A

766

CMS Visual Papers

Facilitator: Craig Prichard; Massey U

CMS: Conscious Consumption in Brazil: "Greening the Corporation" Through Organizational Discourses.    

Author: Denise Franca Barros; EBAPE-FGV;

Author: Alessandra Mello Costa; EBAPE-FGV;

Author: João Felipe Rammelt Sauerbronn; EBAPE-FGV;

Author: Eduardo André Teixeira Ayrosa; EBAPE-FGV;

Being green is the new fad and corporations are aware of it. Today, “green” refers not only to environment, but also to many complex issues. Our aim is discuss “conscious consumption” discourse in Brazil having as an organizational reference a powerful voice born among private corporations: Akatu Institute for Conscious Consumption. Critical discourse analysis conducted on Akatu’s texts published in its homepage suggested that there is a gap between organizational discourse of conscious consumption and corporation practices. We detected a perverse shift of responsibility from producers to consumers, and a strong marketing bias underlying the idea of “greening the corporation”.

 

CMS: Unfolding creative process in GDT: Brazilian team work with SW, FR & IN counterparts     

Author: Rosana Silveira Reis; U. of Bologna - UNIBO;

Author: Françoise Chevalier; HEC;

The actual complexity of economic, social, technological and business environments in which modern organisations are inserted, have determined new forms of working relationships and configurations. The aim of this study is to explore and analyse how the creative process unfolds in globally distributed teams. With a qualitative approach, we have as a case study Volvo 3P project and more specifically the New Product Development team based in Brazil, which works alongside with teams distributed in Sweden, France and India. Our empirical evidence shows that clear project goals, shared values and vision, commitment, and willingness are conditions that enhance the creative process, which likewise is underpinned and enhanced by communication.

 

CMS: The Constitutive Role of Roadmaps and Timelines in Joint Project Development     

Author: Senem Guney; State U. of New York, Albany;

Author: James R Taylor; -;

This study extends previous research on project management tools as boundary objects and examines the constitutive properties of these tools as organizational maps (Taylor & Van Every, 2000) in joint project development. Data for this paper comes from an ethnographic study of the distributed development of a high-technology project between the internal organizations of a large corporation. This study investigates the insights we can take from the communication-as-constitutive approach in the study of organizing processes, especially concerning the discursive construction of legitimacy and authority in collaborative work settings where these constructs can not be fixed in existing structures.

 

CMS: Negotiated locally and marketed globally       

Author: George Kandathil; Cornell U.;

Recently, scholars of postcolonial technoscience have suggested an important research direction: understand the mutual influence of the local notions of the colonized on the technoscience of the colonizer, especially the influence of the local notions on the colonizer’s technoscience (reverse influence). Through an illustrative case study I describe such a mutual influence, highlighting the reverse influence and the political dynamics involved in it. This approach not only challenge the assumption that the Western knowledge is objective, authoritative and universally applicable but also unmasks how Western knowledge achieves universality and objectivity through absorption of multi-cultural notions and exercise of power. I describe how the global discourse that Western conceptualizations about time are scientific, objective, and universally applicable is locally reproduced and reinforced at some point in time, and resisted at another point in time during the process of embedding temporal notions into a modifiable standard packaged software--Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). The context of the study is an implementation of ERP in a Western multinational organization in India. During the implementation, ERP, with its Western origin, design, and embodiment of Western business practices encounters non-Western business practices that have different temporal assumptions and the users who enact such temporal assumptions. This cross-temporal cross-cultural encounter occasioned various modalities of exercise of power, which resulted in the reproduction of and the resistance to the global discourse and technology modification. The modification increased the applicability of the software and thereby its univerasality.

 

CMS: Masculinities under Threat: Visual Representations of Symbolic Violence     

Author: Rafael Alcadipani; EAESP-FGV;

Author: Maria Jose Tonelli; Fundação Getulio Vargas;

This paper aims to analyze sketches done by newspaper press operatives. The sketches analyzed in this article have been gathered during an in-depth ethnographic study carried out by one of this paper’s author in one of the largest newspaper printing sites in Europe. The newspaper factory was undergoing a major technology change where four of its main newspaper presses were being replaced by state of arte machines. As a result, workers were made redundant. We will argue that the sketches contents make explicit the symbolic violence pervasiveness in that organizational context which is associated with sexuality, oppression and self-destruction. All of them are related to (management) male dominance that can threaten the shop-floor worker’s sense of masculinity. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and current debates in the field, we aim to contribute to discussions about masculinity, violence and sexuality in management and organization studies.

 

CMS: The limits to accessibility: Body politics in an urban planning organization     

Author: Torkild Thanem; Stockholm U.;

This paper examines how project implementation in an urban planning organization is disrupted and undermined by body politics. Drawing on disability studies and feminist organization theory, and employing a method of qualitative discourse analysis, the paper investigates an urban planning project in a large Northern European city aimed to enhance accessibility to the urban environment for disabled people. The paper argues that despite “good intentions”, these efforts are disrupted and undermined by ableist and male-stream body politics and by intersectionalities between able-bodied young female accessibility planners and accessibility issues. The conclusion discusses what implications this has for future research on implementation processes and body politics in management and organization studies and for future practices of planning and implementation processes.

 

CMS: The Problematization of Garbage and the Scavenger’s Governmentality in Rio de Janeiro City, Brazil     

Author: Luis Cesar Araujo; Escola Brasileira de Administração Publica e de Empresas;

Author: Scarlet Carmo; Unigranrio, EBAPE/FGV;

Following a Foucauldian analysis approach (1972, 1991b), and Escobar´s (1995) problematization of poverty, trash is considered as a discourse (regularity). By an analysis of two opened interviews with an administrator of the Solid Waste Department and the president of the scavenger's union, this article illustrates the conditions that enable scavengers to participate in that regularity. Problematization means the social enhancement of trash (its commoditization) and the municipal policies as an attempt to improve their work conditions (governmentalization). This article presents some elements which engender the scavenger as recyclers—or subjects that are not enabled to accede to the rules of that discourse.

 

CMS: Transforming and negotiating organizational space: A visual study of university libraries     

Author: Sharon Schembri; Griffith U.;

Author: Maree Veronica Boyle; Griffith U.;

This paper reports on a visual study of how organizational space is transformed and re-negotiated through the construction, consumption and transformation of space as a contested phenomenon. Assuming that the physical dimensions of organizations structure the physical, social and emotional experiences of the members within them, this study of seven Australian university libraries demonstrates that traditional individualistic and didactic interaction with between organizational gatekeepers and consumers and other consumers are challenged through the transformation of corporate space into multiple spaces that are more consumer-focused and controlled. Theoretical implications of this work include challenge of functional perspectives by demonstrating how users of organizational space actively redefine that space through the explicit construction of emotional geographies and territories.

 

CMS: An Exploration of Factors Predicting Work Alienation of Knowledge Workers     

Author: Nisha Nair; Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad;

Author: Neharika Vohra; Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad;

There is limited research on work alienation of knowledge workers in management studies. This paper seeks to address this gap by exploring the extent and reasons for the alienation of knowledge workers. In the absence of a comprehensive framework for understanding work alienation, various factors such as structural elements of centralization and formalization, work characteristics of autonomy, variety, creativity, meaningfulness and self expressiveness, quality of work relationships and justice perceptions were examined as predictors of work alienation. Using survey data collected from six different organizations in the information technology sector (N = 1142), results indicate that one in every five knowledge worker was more or less alienated. The strongest predictors of work alienation for knowledge workers were found to be lack of meaningful work, inability of work to allow for self expression and poor quality work relationships. Implications for practice and future directions for research are also discussed.

 

CMS: What is wrong with food waste?     

Author: Sharon Sze Lun Chan; Monash U.;

Author: Jan Schapper; Monash U.;

However it is measured, Australians waste a lot of food. In this paper we use Australian food practises to offer an analysis of what is wrong with food waste. To answer the question what is wrong with food waste, we will begin with an exploration of some of the many concepts of waste in general, before detailing the specific meaning of food waste to be used in this paper. The paper then identifies what we consider to be the major dimensions of what is wrong with food waste, followed by an examination of some individual and collective responses to the situation of ‘surplus’ food. With this as a background, the paper offers a critical analysis of both the problem of food waste as well as responses to that problem. We then indicate the limitations of current research in the area of food waste and highlight future areas worthy of study. Conscious of the conference theme we conclude our paper with a call for sustainable business practises that minimise food waste and its impact on the environment.

 

CMS: Finding Fame: The Creation of the Celebrity Chef     

Author: Natasha Slutskaya; Brunel Business School;

Author: Andre Spicer; U. of Warwick;

In this paper we seek to examine the identity work which is involved in creating a celebrated self. In particular, we are considering how a humble identity can be transformed into a celebrated identity. To explore this question we will examine how the identity of the celebrity chef was created in England. We trace out how two English chefs sought to shift the identity of the chef from being a modest food technician to being a potential culinary celebrity. We find they did this through copying the identity of French chefs. However doing so created a sense of loss associated with their Englishness. This suggests that celebrated selves are locked in a dialectic tension between attempts to create wholeness through copying and a persistent sense of loss this copying implies.

 

CMS: US Press and the Highest Glass Ceiling: WSJ Coverage of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin    

Author: Linda A Krefting; Texas Tech U.;

The 2008 US Presidential election made history not only for the election of the first African-American President, but also for the campaigns of Senator Hillary Clinton and Governor Sarah Palin to break “the highest glass ceiling.” Significant concerns about gender bias in press coverage were raised during the campaigns of both women. This paper reports critical discourse analysis of extensive coverage in the Wall Street Journal, which first published the phrase “glass ceiling” and holds an influential position in the intertextual chain of management discourse. Although there are differences in the coverage of the 2 women, both are portrayed in ways consistent with reservations about women in leadership. There is ambivalent sexism, tension between competence and likeability, with emphasis on gendered issues, including family. Letters to the editor reflect no consensus on either candidate or proper media coverage. The excessive discourse about both Clinton and Palin reflect continuing ambivalence about appropriate gender roles and powerful women.

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Paper Session

(CMS)

11:30AM - 1:00PM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Riverside Center VV CMS 1

767

Power and Management Practice

Chair: Kathleen Marshall Park; Massachusetts Institute of Technology;

 

CMS: They should listen to us. A process of accomodation to unexpected resistance in the workplace    

Author: David Courpasson; EM Lyon;

Author: Françoise Dany; EM Lyon;

Author: Stewart Clegg; U. of Technology, Sydney;

The paper investigates a case in which managers overtly resist decisions from above, not to engage in dissent per se but in order to mobilize organizationally enclavic regimes promoting an alternative vision of organizational action. We highlight how processes of accommodation can make such resistance productive, in the sense that they influence top management decisions through forced interactions between resistors and top managers. Thus, our research provides empirical data that challenges the terms of dominant accounts of resistance in the workplace. It also contributes to the conceptualization of resistance through the introduction of the concept of productive resistance and an analysis of the conditions in which such resistance is productive. New explanations about the processes enabling intra-organizational social movements to emerge and influence organizational practices are advanced.

 

CMS: The emergence of Israel’s field of management as a dynamic of overlapping fields    

Author: Michal Frenkel; Hebrew U. of Jerusalem;

The paper draws on the case of the institutionalization of the Israeli field of professional management to propose a new way to theorize the role of power relations and power dynamics in shaping the cross-national transfer of management practices and forms of corporate control. Building on Bourdieu’s reflections on the emergence of new fields, and specifically his discussion of power as a manifestation of social, cultural and symbolic capital, I argue that instead of focusing on the dynamics within an organizational field, we should understand the emergence of a new field as a dynamic occurring in a zone in which two or more existing fields overlap. If we think of social fields as a kind of magnetic force subjected to a specific logic of action, I argue that the institutionalization of the field of professional management in Israel takes place in a zone in which the gravitational pull of two magnetic fields comes to bear at one and the same time. As I argue throughout the article, the actors who succeeded in advancing the institutionalization of the new field of management, and who were largely responsible for determining its nature, were those who possessed cultural capital perceived as legitimate in both fields, and whose various social resources could be converted from one field to the other.

 

CMS: Silenced musicians: the major labels’ discursive work in the reproduction of the institutional order    

Author: Antoine Blanc; U-Paris Dauphine;

Author: Isabelle Huault; U-Paris Dauphine;

We examine in this paper the issue of how institutions are maintained and the role of agency in this process. We investigate more specifically the efforts of actors to maintain the institutional order through discourse. We approach this issue through an in-depth and longitudinal study of actors’ efforts to maintain institutions in the French Music Industry from 2004 to today. Our study focuses on the discursive work of some actors in fixing meaning about artists and then maintaining institutions. To do this, we resort to a discourse analysis and more particularly to a lexicometric study. We contribute to the study of institutional maintenance in two ways. First, we argue that maintaining institutions is the outcome of agency and not an automatic or a mechanical mimetic process. Secondly, we demonstrate the reproduction of institutions through discourse.

 

CMS: Busting Stereotypes? A Critical Analysis of Recruitment Messages from ICAO    

Author: Peggy Wallace; Trent U.;

Critical hermeneutics is used to critique recent recruitment messages emanating from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario (ICAO). The new campaing, targeted at secondary school students, invites them to become CAs and RULE THE WORLD. I argue that while the materials may dispel or eliminate certain stereotypes of accountants, they perpetuate other stereotypes through the use of text and images invoking masculinity, power and elitism. This is accomplished through the presence of gender subtexts. The paper concludes with personal reflections and suggestions for future research.

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Paper Session

(CMS)

11:30AM - 1:00PM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Toronto

800

Employee Training, Transfer, and Evaluation

Facilitator: Bradford S Bell; Cornell U.;

 

CMS: Understanding intercultural training – an Actor – Network Perspective     

Author: Betina Szkudlarek; Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus U.;

In this project I apply Actor-Network Theory in an analysis of one of the HRM practices, namely: a reentry training. Through a processual deconstruction (Lee & Hassard, 1999) I point out in what ways new orders of causality are generated (Akrich, 1992) and a seemingly “natural” order is achieved (Callon, 1986b). This analysis helps in achieving two goals. First, I want to reveal the highly questionable decisions and processes which accompany setting up and execution of many organizational undertakings. Second, I want to show the usefulness of the process-centred frameworks, such as ANT, for the analysis of modern organizations.

 

HR: Revisting Transfer Through a Qualitative Analysis of Reflective Learning Journals      

Author: Travor C. Brown; Memorial U. of Newfoundland;

Author: Martin McCracken; U. of Ulster;

Author: Paula Marie O'Kane; U. of Ulster;

Transfer of training is a critical issue for developmental programs. While considerable quantitative work has examined issues related to transfer, few studies have assessed transfer using qualitative techniques. In this paper, we review open-ended qualitative data contained in 75 reflective learning journals from union and supervisory participants who took part in an 11½ day leadership skills program. Approximately three months post-training, trainees completed reflective learning journals. In these journals, trainees responded to three statements/questions for each module: (1) what they learned (learning/retention); (2) how they applied or planned to apply their learning (transfer); and, (3) barriers they experienced in applying the learning (barriers). We then used a combination of content analysis and grounded theory techniques to analyze the data contained in these journals. Our results confirmed several of the transfer of training relationships found in previous quantitative studies (e.g., importance of managerial support and opportunity to use skills at work); however, we did uncover new relationships (e.g., importance of reflective learning techniques, environmental factors related to unionization). Overall, we believe that the results suggest that additional qualitative techniques can, and should, be used in order to better understand the transfer of training process. As such, we conclude with several suggestions for future research that involve qualitative and blended methods.

 

HR: Variability as a Criterion in Training Evaluation: The Example of Frame-of-Reference (FOR) Training    

Author: S. Duane Hansen; Purdue U., West Lafayette;

Author: Deidra J Schleicher; Purdue U., West Lafayette;

About a decade ago, Alliger and Katzman (1997) proposed that the effects of training on between-person variability should be examined in addition to the mean differences approach typically used in training evaluation research and practice; yet this call has gone unanswered in the empirical training evaluation literature. The current study uses the Alliger and Katzman (1997) five-factor model for predicting changes in variability to evaluate training programs (two separate samples) in which such changes are particularly germane: frame-of-reference (FOR) training. For both samples, participants (N=83 and N=122) were randomly assigned to FOR or control training and completed pre- and post-measures on factors of the five-factor model. In support of the hypotheses (and the model), we found that, across both samples, FOR training generally reduced variability among the criteria, and that such changes were generally in accordance with the five-factor model’s predictions. Results are discussed with regard to both the value of examining variability as a criterion in FOR training evaluation specifically and implications for models of predicting variability change in training interventions more generally.

 

HR: Training evaluation in italian corporate universities : a stakeholder based analysis    

Author: Marco Guerci; Politecnico di Milano;

Author: Emilio Bartezzaghi; Politecnico di Milano;

Author: Luca Solari; U. degli studi di milano;

Corporate Universities emerged as a mechanism that provides companies with a wide variety of training and educational programs. Assessing the performance of training by both Corporate Universities and stakeholders is critical. This exploratory study focuses on understanding performance monitored by the Corporate Universities and by the stakeholders. Six cases within the Italian context were investigated. The results suggest that Corporate Universities integrate the traditional training evaluation models with the evaluation of other training performances in order to satisfy their stakeholders’ needs. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

 

OB: Feedback Specificity, Information Processing, and Transfer of Training    

Author: Jodi S. Goodman; U. of Connecticut;

Author: Robert E. Wood; U. of Melbourne;

Author: Zheng Chen; U. of Connecticut;

Specific feedback is generally considered beneficial for performance and learning, but evidence for this generalization is limited. We argue that specific feedback discourages information processing during training and undermines the learning needed for later, independent performance. Study results demonstrated that increasing feedback specificity reduced information processing during training and interacted with information processing to differentially affect the learning and transfer of rules for performing in favorable and unfavorable task conditions. Our results suggest that those who received specific feedback learned mainly through an associative learning process, while those who received less specific feedback relied more heavily on inductive learning processes.

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Interactive

Paper Session

(IP)

11:30AM - 1:00PM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Regency C Table 3

870

Keynote Speaker Charles Mills

Free Session

(CMS)

1:15PM - 2:45PM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Toronto

975

The Practice of Studying Management Critically

Chair: Rafael Alcadipani; EAESP-FGV;

 

CMS: MANaging with Power”?: Re-reading Pfeffer’s Teachings on Power in Organizations     

Author: Tiffany Galvin; U. of Massachusetts, Amherst;

Author: Lindsey Pilver; Pennsylvania State U.;

Jeffrey Pfeffer’s 1992 book entitled, Managing with Power is a prominent example of a management textbook that serves a particular ideological purpose in the education of business students, and ultimately, future managers in society. This paper offers a re-reading of this important and influential management text with a focus on the discourse invoked in this book. We argue that a deconstructed, critically informed, reading of this text illuminates certain hegemonic and gendered based notions of managing and managers that can often go unchallenged or unnoticed. In doing so, the book serves to legitimize a certain social order in which certain characteristics, forms of behaviors, and power relationship re naturalized while others are silenced or marginalized. Our critique builds in the tradition of work by critical management education scholars who problematize the gendered (as well as raced, class, heterosexist) underpinnings of management values and practices that are being taught in our MBA programs through the subtext of the textbooks that are used.

 

CMS: An exploratory analysis of the Research Excellence Framework for academic accounting in England.    

Author: Douglas Renwick; U. of Sheffield;

An exploratory analysis of the new proposed Research Excellence Framework (REF) in academic accounting in England is made. Finds that issues arising from adopting it include: barriers to entry in publication; manipulation in the new framework; a skewing of academic research agendas; unintended consequences for new universities, researchers, and minority groups; systematic and technical barriers; increasing commodification, control, and intensification of academic labour; and specific faults carried over from previous research selectivity exercises. Conclusions are that as such, the REF needs to be challenged and resisted as form of assessment for research and funding in academic accounting in English universities.

 

CMS: Organizing Derrida Organizing    

Author: Andreas Rasche; U. of Warwick;

This paper explores the connection between the philosophy of Jacques Derrida (i.e. deconstruction) and organizational analysis from an aporetic perspective. In the first part, I introduce Derrida’s philosophy as a way to expose the aporetic nature of theorizing about organizations. I label this part of the discussion ‘Organizing Derrida’ as I attempt to organize parts of his philosophy (although, strictly speaking this is not possible). In the second part of the paper, after reviewing the existing literature on Derrida and organization theory, I discuss three aporias – regarding environmental adaptation, decision-making, and rule following – and show how Derridian philosophy can help us to better understand how the experience of the impossible acts as a necessary limit to our theorizing about the functioning of organizations. I argue that the recognition of aporias turns against well-established oppositions within organization theory and helps us to better understand the rich interplay between the formerly separated poles of these oppositions. This second part is labeled ‘Derrida Organizing’ as it shows what implications Derridian philosophy can have for organization theory.

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Paper Session

(CMS)

3:00PM - 4:30PM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Toronto

996

Models of Firm Evolution & Transformation

Facilitator: Karen D. W. Patterson; U. of New Mexico;

 

TIM: From a life cycle to a life spiral model in committee-based standardization   

Author: Anke Piepenbrink; Rutgers U.;

This paper proposes an adoption of the Tushman-Rosenkopf life cycle model for complex open systems with network externalities. The mutual interdependence, high uncertainty and costs require an ex-ante coordinated search process in a standard-developing organization (SDO). The emergence of the first standard provides the retention mechanism and serves as platform for the next search process. The overlap of the era of ferment and era of increment result in a composition of simultaneous incremental, modular and architectural innovations. The continuous search process leads to a life spiral model rather than a life cycle model. The cellular telecommunication technology serves as example.

 

BPS: Industry Transformation and its Microfoundations. Conceptual Contributions to How Industries Change    

Author: Martin Gersch; Freie U. Berlin;

Author: Christian Goeke; Freie U. Berlin;

The paper aims at starting a discussion on how to describe and analyze the transformation of industries and their architectures based on its microfoundations. From the theoretical side the authors suggest a co-evolutionary conceptual framework for the analysis of industrial dynamics being based on the interplay of market process theory and a competence based theory of the firm. Industry, supply chain architecture, market, organization and individual are modelled as interdependent levels of analysis and their coevolution is illustrated with the case of the German pharmaceutical distribution.

 

CMS: Sustainability in employment ecology models of the modern firm        

Author: Charles Thomas Tackney; Copenhagen Business School;

At the core of the present global crisis lies an ideological oversight that indicates standard business models are subject to fail due to moral hazard: managerial prerogative, particularly the U.S. variant, is not self-regulating in respect to either corporate risk or the stewardship of stakeholder trust. We know there is variance in national political economies, but less is known about legal factors informing firm-specific variance, especially as these regards trust and transparency. This paper reports research seeking to bridge this ‘gap’ by the introduction of comparative legal ecology employment models of the enterprise. The construct is derived from reflection upon industrial relations research into the existence and nature of Japan’s ‘lifetime employment system’. Construct parameters include employment security, labor unions and the degree of employee participation permitted (if any); model schematics are offered for the United States of America, Germany, Japan, Denmark, and the People’s Republic of China. The comparative models help to account for variance in the legal extent and nature of managerial prerogative, job security, and the degree of information, power, and resource transparency of any enterprise. These offer, in consequence, clear and clearly comparative benchmarks of industrial democracy.

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Interactive

Paper Session

(IP)

3:00PM - 4:30PM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Grand E Table 1

997

Models of Entrepreneurship

Facilitator: Benyamin B. Lichtenstein; U. of Massachusetts, Boston;

 

ENT: Effects of Theoretical and Methodological Rigor on Article Impact in the Field of Entrepreneurship   

Author: Valentina V. Kuskova; Indiana U., Bloomington;

Author: Nathan Philip Podsakoff; U. of Arizona;

Author: Philip M. Podsakoff; Indiana U.;

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect that an article’s theoretical contribution and the rigor of its construct validation procedures have on its impact on the field. An analysis of 91 articles in the field of entrepreneurship showed that both theory development and the rigor of the construct validation procedures used in the research significantly predicted an article’s impact. In addition, theory development, construct validation rigor, journal quality, and article age accounted for 63% of the variance in an article’s impact on the field. Implications of these findings for researchers in the field of entrepreneurship are discussed.

 

CMS: An Inquiry into the Metaphysical Underpinnings of the Question of the Entrepreneur   

Author: Stratos E Ramoglou; Cambridge U.;

Although the asymmetry of action has emboldened the confidence that there must be something special about people who act entrepreneurially, the long-standing research question of the nature of the entrepreneur has not yet yielded satisfying results. Whilst researchers committed to the question commonly think that it is only methodological inadequacies which are hindering us from unlocking the mystery of the entrepreneur, this paper offers a different diagnosis. According to that diagnosis, the question remains unanswered because it is unanswerable. It is not a genuine question stemming from our experiences of the world but a pseudo-question following the projection of our metaphysical prejudices onto the world. In a nutshell, the asymmetry of action never led to the question of the entrepreneur but it had instead been fallacious presuppositions on asymmetry, supplied through the distorting lenses of causal determinism, which entrapped us in ruminating that there must be something special in entrepreneurs. Having identified the root of the problem in the lenses of causal determinism, we have the option of throwing them away, to the end of letting valid questions emerge. The analysis leads to the conclusion that from a “down-to-earth” standpoint it is questions of agency that are now confronting the scholar of entrepreneurship studies who is sincerely interested in entrepreneurial action and not the mysteries of the entrepreneurial essence.

 

 

TIM: The Schumpeterian Entrepreneur is Alive and Well    

Author: Serguey Braguinsky; Carnegie Mellon U.;

Author: Steven Klepper; Carnegie Mellon U.;

Author: Atsushi Oyama; U. of Illinois at Urbana Champaign;

In contrast to Schumpeterfs vision of the entrepreneur, analyses of the self employed have left the lingering impression that entrepreneurship on average is not rewarding and may be as much the domain of misfits as talented individuals. In this paper we lay out a theoretical model of the Schumpeterian entrepreneur and derive various predictions. We then test these predictions using a novel data set on the self employed that allows us to focus on highly educated individuals that exploit their education in their work. The results suggest that the Schumpeterian entrepreneur is alive and well, particularly among younger individuals.

 

ENT: Austrian economics and the study of entrepreneurship: concepts and contributions    

Author: Henrik Berglund; Chalmers U. of Technology;

Entrepreneurship researchers’ growing interest in Austrian economics has not been matched by systematic efforts to tease out and incorporate this tradition’s basic ideas. This paper introduces the Austrian market-process tradition and also compares this to the influential equilibrium-focused neoclassical tradition. Taking this contrast as point of departure, three central questions in the field of entrepreneurship studies are reexamined: Who is an entrepreneur?, What is an opportunity?, and What is the role of planning? Based on the answers to these specific questions, the paper concludes with a broader discussion of how Austrian concepts can contribute to the theoretical and methodological development of entrepreneurship studies writ large.

 

ENT: Entrepreneurship within the Creative Industries: Looking back to go further     

Author: Eduardo Davel; TÉLUQ, U. of Quebec in Montreal, Canada;

Author: Fernando Fachin; Concordia U.;

This research scrutinizes the academic production involving entrepreneurship in the specific context of creative industries. Entrepreneurial endeavors within creative industries can be profitably conceptualized in a multitude of ways, considering many levels of correlation between artistic, cultural and commercial practices. Thus, in order to organize and analyze existing research on entrepreneurial studies in this context, we guide our research by two axes. The first axis follows the lead of Erich Fromm’s (1976) having and being modes to understand commercial and artistic orientations of research within creative industries. The second axis comprises two categories of structuration theory, namely agency and structure, as resources for understanding individual or collective (institutionalized) approaches to entrepreneurship. According to the analysis of publications, we discuss implications and suggestions for further research within entrepreneurship studies, such as orientating research towards a being mode and rethinking dichotomous polarities (e.g., agency-structure and having-being) from the idea of proportion (instead of balance or equilibrium).

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Interactive

Paper Session

(IP)

3:00PM - 4:30PM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Grand E Table 2

1003

Toward a Better Understanding of Governance

Facilitator: Deborah Blackman; U. of Canberra;

 

CMS: Parallel Or Colliding Universes Of Corporate Governance? European and Anglo-American Governance      

Author: Thomas Clarke; U. of Technology, Sydney;

The European (insider) system of corporate governance and Anglo-American (outsider) system have been described as ‘parallel universes.’ The international financial crisis exposed in high relief the different systems of corporate governance that exist in the United States and Europe. Though the financial institutions on both sides of the Atlantic succumbed to similar adventures with high yielding exotic financial instruments and pursued leverage to dangerous levels, there were important differences in the way European leaders and regulators responded to the ensuing financial crisis compared to their American counterparts. The commitment to reform the international financial regulatory structure was much greater among Europeans, which reflected their different approach to regulation and governance. Underpinning this divergence in regulatory and governance systems, was a different conception of the logic of capitalism and the role of markets. In preparing for the economic challenges ahead Europe is confronting two inescapable imperatives: the first is the necessity to rejuvenate mature industries and to create new, innovative industries; the second – and much greater challenge - is to achieve sustainability in all economic activity. It is difficult to imagine how economic reforms directed simply at developing the market mechanisms and shareholder value of the Anglo-American corporate governance model could possibly contribute effectively to either of these challenges.

 

PNP: Governance and New Public Management: Convergences and Contradictions in the Brazilian context    

Author: Alketa Peci; EBAPE-FGV;

Author: Octavio Pieranti; EBAPE-FGV;

Author: Silvia Rodrigues; EBAPE-FGV;

The purpose of this theoretical essay is to deliver a critical review of the principles guiding public administration reforms at the federal level, showing the closeness and divergence of governance and New Public Management concepts. Five basic dichotomies were analyzed: administration and politics; public policymaking and implementation; self-government and dependence; citizen and client; and transparency and efficiency. The conclusions of this work emphasize the prevalence of principles based on the NPM to detriment of its applicability in the governance network under construction in the Brazilian re-democratization and post-privatization process and point out the necessity of building own governance models.

 

BPS: Learning from the Past: How Effective are Structural Changes in Corporate Governance    

Author: Ashay B. Desai; U. of Wisconsin, Oshkosh;

Author: John D. Francis; San Diego State U.;

In this paper, we study the effects of changes in boards of directors during performance declines and any resulting impacts on corporate performance. From an agency theory perspective, decline in performance warrants changes in board monitoring. Our study examines changes in board monitoring as measured by the proportion of outside directors, shareholdings of outside directors, CEO duality, board size, and number of board meetings during the decline period. Consistent with the agency theory arguments, our results indicate that board monitoring intensity increases as measured by these changes in the period following decline in performance. However, the results indicate that the impact of structural changes on subsequent performance is negligible.

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Interactive

Paper Session

(IP)

3:00PM - 4:30PM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Regency B Table 1

1013

Current Research on Expatriates

Facilitator: Rebecca A. Bull; Illinois State U.;

 

IM: Job Factors and Work Outcomes of Expatriate Academics     

Author: Jan Selmer; Aarhus U.;

Author: Jakob Lauring; Aarhus U.;

The literature on business expatriates have been increasing rapidly, but research on expatriate academics has remained scant, despite the apparent increasing globalization of the academic world. This is unfortunate, since these two groups of expatriates may face different work situations at their foreign locations. Therefore, more research is needed to uncover such potential differences. A questionnaire was directed electronically towards expatriate academics occupying regular positions in science faculty departments in universities in the Nordic countries and in the Netherlands. Results showed that job clarity was the dominating job factor with strong relationships with all of the five investigated work outcome variables, work adjustment, work performance, work effectiveness, job satisfaction, and time to proficiency. Job conflict and job freedom had an association with some of the work outcome variables but not with all of them. Neither work load nor job novelty had a relationship with any of the work outcome variables of the expatriate academics. The findings are only partly consistent with previous research results concerning business expatriates suggesting that the work situation for expatriate academics could have both similarities and discrepancies as compared to that of business expatriates. Implications of these findings are discussed in detail.

 

 CMS: Expatriates, Migrants, Gender, Race, and Class   

Author: Daphne Perkins Berry; U. of Massachusetts at Amherst;

Best Student Paper

In the International Management (IM) literature on female expatriates, “expatriate” is used in reference to the transnational movement of employees by multinational corporations (MNCs). IM’s resulting expatriate analyses apply to a specific group of relatively privileged women. However, as clear in other literatures, many other ("migrant") women move across national boundaries for work. In this paper, I develop a critical framework on the narrow focus that this literature pays to women who migrate to work.

HR: Managing global talent: What do expatriate spouses really need?     

Author: Nina D Cole; Ryerson U.;

Spousal adjustment issues, increasingly career-related, are a major reason for expatriate assignment failure. Employer-provided spousal assistance programs have been proposed to address this situation. This field study of 238 expatriate spouses found that those who experience a severe disruption or cessation of employment have significantly lower interaction adjustment to the expatriate experience than others. For spouses with a career orientation to work, females had higher cultural and interactional adjustment than males. Only 18 percent of the spouses received employer-provided career assistance, and there was no significant difference in adjustment between spouses who received assistance and those who did not. Interviews with 100 spouses indicated that their greatest needs are for networking information to assist with their job search and for a ‘go to’ person for practical settling-in assistance.

 

IM: Partial Test of a Model of Cross-Cultural Coping    

Author: Roger N. Blakeney; U. of Houston;

Author: Laura Galarza; U. of Puerto Rico;

It is strategically important to understand better the expatriate adjustment process given their strategic implications for firms. However, the management literature on expatriate adjustment has presented two crucial, recurring problems: conceptualization and methods. Interchangeable and inconsistent use of terms and an over reliance on cross-sectional studies obscures our understanding of the coping process. Thus, in a longitudinal study, we tested the most basic assumption of a model and found there were two different patterns of coping in the new culture. Lastly, we discuss theoretical and research implications, including those propositions to be tested as part of the ongoing research program.

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Interactive

Paper Session

(IP)

3:00PM - 4:30PM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Regency D Table 3

1075

After the Fall: Saving Management Knowledge from Itself

Chair: Marta B. Calas; U. of Massachusetts - Amherst;

Chair: Linda Smircich; U. of Massachusetts, Amherst;

 

Presenter: Martin Parker; U. of Leicester;

Presenter: Rick Delbridge; Cardiff U.;

Presenter: Robyn Thomas; Cardiff U.;

Presenter: Raza A Mir; William Paterson U.;

Presenter: Gavin Jack; La Trobe U.;

 

Discussant: Hugh Willmott; U. of Cardiff;

Discussant: Stephen Dunne; U. of Leicester;

 

The social impact of business and management practices is currently at the forefront of public consciousness. The environmental consequences of long-term oil dependence together with the social consequences of the recession and the credit crisis are but two sides of a broader emergency that is provoking widespread pain, anguish and violence worldwide. These conditions have prompted a number of management scholars to reflect on just how the knowledge and practices they develop and reproduce through their research, teaching, and publishing have contributed to these conditions and to ask, in particular, if they are part of the problem or contributing solutions. Emerging from these reflections, the symposium has two aims: One is to sketch problems with current forms taken by management knowledge production - much of them well rehearsed - emphasizing the need to go beyond the simple reflective scholarly gesture to which we have become accustomed. The second aim thus follows: to outline parameters for new forms of management knowledge production – new theoretical and research agendas, new curricula and new ways of publishing - not only exploring the breadth of forms that this knowledge might take, but also the required institutional changes to make it possible, and the sustainable and ethical practices that might guide them. To this effect, the symposium is designed as an open forum for generative discussion and further engagement from our scholarly community: Can we save management knowledge from itself?

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Symposium

(CMS)

4:45PM - 6:15PM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Toronto

 

Tuesday, Aug 11 2009

 

 

 

 

 

1211

The Political Economy of Management

Discussant: Paul Adler; U. of Southern California;

Chair: Anna-Maria Murtola; Åbo Akademi U.;

 

 CMS: Diversity in the Lean Automobile Factory: Re-Doing Class along Socio-Demographic Identities    

Author: Patrizia Zanoni; Hasselt U.;

Best CMS Paper

The study investigates how diversity is discursively constructed in an automobile factory as 1) the inability of specific socio-demographically ‘different’ groups of workers to function within the lean production system and 2) individual workers’ resistant strategy to contain exploitation drawing on alleged inability. In both constructions, workers’ difference is systematically associated with lower surplus value. These discursive constructions are, on the one hand, firmly anchored in the material and discursive productive structure of the factory. On the other, they are deployed to legitimize the elimination of 1) phases of the production process that can be carried out by ‘different’ workers through outsourcing and 2) ‘different’ workers themselves in restructuring processes. Both modes of elimination are functional to increase the value extracted from labour. Based on these findings, a re-conceptualization of diversity as a mode of enacting contemporary class relations is proposed.

CMS: The Ideology of Opposition: Accounting for Managerial Hostility Towards Trade Unions   

Author: Brian Harney; Dublin City U.;

Author: Tony Dundon; National U. of Ireland, Galway;

Author: Niall Cullinane; National U. of Ireland, Galway;

This paper exposes the deficiencies of existing union avoidance typologies and argues that managerial ideology is central to a deeper and historically grounded understanding of employer hostility towards unionisation. In advancing this argument we explore the antecedents of managerial ideology and provide an illuminated meaning which enables us to better locate the dynamics of managerial opposition to trade unions. The paper then explores the critical issues of why and how this dominant ideological currency is sustained. The paper concludes that because ideology is what drives managerial decollectivizing sentiments, ideology deserves a central place in industrial relations research and analysis.

 

CMS: Self-fulfilling Processes at a Global Level: The Evolution of HRM Practices in Korea, 1987-2007    

Author: Johngseok Bae; Korea U.;

This paper analyzes the evolution of human resource management (HRM) practices in Korea as a self-fulfilling process at a global level. Korean HRM practices have experienced two paradigm shifts, in 1987 and 1997, going from a seniority-based, paternalistic employment relationship to a performance-based, market-like relationship. These revolutionary changes in HRM practices occurred when Korean society underwent major social upheavals, which created the conditions for accepting ¡°new¡± norms and practices. The rapid diffusion of ¡°American-style¡± management ideologies and practices to Korean firms can be explained by a self-fulfilling diffusion process taking place through international organizations and local institutions.

 

CMS: Buyers of Souls & Sellers of Souls – Some Dynamics of the Current Financial Crisis     

Author: Craig R. Littler; St. Andrews U.;

Arguably, the current financial crisis marked the true beginning of the 21st century. Mainstream economists have been asking questions of themselves and their models (Reinhart & Rogoff, 2009; Giles, 2008), but the financial crisis asks questions of us too. What can we contribute to understanding the financial crisis and, reflexively, what are some of the theoretical lessons? This paper analyses some of the contours of the financial crisis in terms of the transformation of the banking industry. Involved in this transformation has been the financialisation of personal income associated with the ‘de-subjectivization of identities’. These twin processes change the dynamics of events.

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Paper Session

(CMS)

8:00AM - 9:30AM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Toronto

1238

Understanding Organizational Legitimacy

Facilitator: Konstantinos Grigoriou; Georgia Institute of Technology;

 

OMT: A New Measure of Organizational Legitimacy for Institutional Research: Methodology and Illustration     

Author: Jean-Philippe Vergne; HEC Paris;

Despite a growing interest for institutional theory in organization research, there is no consensual methodology for measuring firm legitimacy. We review and discuss the three traditional measurement strategies (i.e., corporate code adoption, firm linkages, media perception) and show their limitations. In particular, none of the three supports cross-national comparison because of international divergence in regulative and cultural environments. This paper fills this gap, proposes a 3-step methodology to create a firm Raw Legitimacy Score (RLS) that supports cross-national comparison. We assess the validity of RLS against existing measures by providing an illustration in the global defense industry between 1997 and 2007. We discuss potential contributions for institutional research.

 

CMS: A Critical Perspective of Authority, Legitimacy and Strategy From an Emerging Economy     

Author: Alex Faria; EBAPE-FGV;

Author: Robin Wensley; U. of Warwick;

Author: Takeyoshi Imasato; EBAPE-FGV;

Authority and legitimacy are key concepts in strategy and organizations and hence in the field of strategic management (SM). Drawing upon the work of Max Weber from a critical standpoint this paper shows the importance of the territorial-international dimension of authority and legitimacy for academics and strategists. It is then argued that the SM literature delegitimises strategists and organizations that are crucially important in emerging economies. In the end the paper shows how the field of strategy in Brazil can help recognize and construct the legitimate authority of other types of strategists and organizations in emerging economies.

 

OMT: The Diffusion of Downsizing in Korea: From Legitimation to Rationalization    

Author: Sookyoung Lee; Korea U.;

Author: Hicheon Kim; Korea U.;

Previous studies of institutionalization indicated that economic pressures were the predominant driving force for change in early stages of diffusion, whereas institutional pressures were predominantly found to influence the later stages. However, we suggest, with early strong legitimation, a new practice can be institutionalized even before decision-making becomes more efficiency-oriented. With 407 listed manufacturing firms in Korea, we tested the effect of economic pressures and institutional pressures on downsizing during the financial crisis and afterwards. During the financial crisis period, both economic and institutional factors were found to positively affect downsizing. Nevertheless, during the post-crisis period, institutional factors were found to negatively affect downsizing, while economic factors were still found to positively affect downsizing.

 

OMT: (Re)producing Institutions: Meaning Construction in the Implementation of a Legitimate Template    

Author: Maria B Gondo; U. of Memphis;

Author: John Matthew Amis; U. of Memphis;

Author: Brian Janz; U. of Memphis;

Author: Amy Hennington; Department of Computer Information Systems Middle Tennessee State U.;

Drawing upon a 3-year ethnographic case study, we examined the process of meaning construction in an existing organization that was attempting to (re)produce a legitimate template. We offer insights into the process of meaning construction during institutional (re)production by suggesting that identifying a clear purpose for the change and emphasizing the differences between the template and current practices increases the likelihood actors will interpret the need to change their practices in manner that is consistent with each other.

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Interactive

Paper Session

(IP)

8:00AM - 9:30AM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Regency B Table 1

1308

Gender and Management Practice

Chair: Mary Godwyn; Babson College;

 

CMS: ´Macho´ Managers and Organizational Heroes:Discourses of Power and Resistance in Popular Cinema    

Author: Alexia Panayiotou; U. of Cyprus;

The representations of managers and management put forward by popular culture have not received the adequate scholarly attention of organization studies. Although several organizational researchers have studied aspects of popular culture, a consistent exploration of films is largely absent from the literature. Using a post-structuralist framework, this article deconstructs the representations of managers in several mainstream popular films and locates two seemingly competing discourses that encompass both a description of power (what does power look like?) and the resistance to this power. In this sense, it is argued that although popular films position subjects—managers and those managed—in very specific ways, at the same time their construct of power is highly contextual and open to change.

 

CMS: An alternative analysis of gender tokenism: implications for occupations and organizations    

Author: Lindsey Pilver; Pennsylvania State U.;

When women are police officers, construction workers, fire fighters, CEO’s, or employed in any other occupation historically occupied primarily by men, their gender immediately becomes salient. They stand out as tokens. As Kanter explains (1977b), tokenism can be understood in relation to ‘skewed’ groups—groups where there is a large proportion of individuals categorized in the same manner in relation to few individuals who do not (or cannot) claim membership in the dominant category (Kanter, 1977b: 965). An implication of Kanter’s work is that token employees must contend with identity-related stressors in addition to potentially negative emotional and professional outcomes that members of the dominant group do not experience. The work I present here diverges from the dominant understanding of tokenism in order to offer another reading of this organizational phenomenon. Using the analytical technique of deconstruction, my analysis positions tokenism as a site to question the socially constructed nature of both gender and gendered occupations. Doing so suggests that individuals and organizing may be constrained by categorical understandings of both gender identity and occupations as suited to individuals of a specific gender.

 

CMS: So What’s a Nurse to Do? The Gendered Logic(s) of Nursing and Health Care Organizations   

Author: Paula Lentz; U. of Wisconsin, Eau Claire;

Author: Kristina A. Bourne; U. of Wisconsin, Eau Claire;

Our paper examines the experiences of nurses through Acker’s (1990; 1992) theory of gendered organizations to elucidate the gendered processes that produce and maintain the interdependent gendered hierarchies of occupations and organizations. To this end, we situate our analysis in the online texts produced by nurses with associate degrees who are enrolled in an online leadership and management course as part of a bachelor of science in nursing program. Specifically, we examine three forums in which they discuss their experiences in health care organizations with regards to conflict resolution, organizational structure, and nursing professional empowerment. Our analysis focuses on the dynamics of gendering involved in the interactions between individuals, organizational documents, and the presentation of self. Our findings show that the gendered hierarchy of health care organizations values scientific logic and reason over emotion and empathy – the hallmark of the nursing profession. The nurses in our study appear to make sense of their delegitimized and devalued position in their organizations through patient care rhetoric –“it’s for the good of the patient.” While this justification legitimates them professionally within the nursing community, we argue it ultimately sustains the gendered hierarchy of the organization in which things that are associated with females, femaleness, and femininity are subordinated.

 

CMS: A Critical Review of Theory and Methods in the Work-Life Literature    

Author: Mustafa F Ozbilgin; U. of East Anglia;

Author: T. Alexandra Beauregard; London School of Economics;

Author: Myrtle P. Bell; U. of Texas, Arlington;

In this paper we examine from a critical perspective the way work-life issues are conceptualized in the extant literature. We perform this review with particular focus on disparities of power induced by methodological and conceptual framing of the work-life interface across strands of diversity. In doing so, we make explicit the relations of power and power imbalances which remain implicit in current formulations of work-life issues in the literature. Reflecting on this critical review, we propose fairer, more inclusive and egalitarian ways of framing the work-life interface and identify directions for future research.

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Paper Session

(CMS)

9:45AM - 11:15AM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, San Francisco

1309

The Employee Free Choice Act and the Prospects for a New Green Social Contract

Participant: Lewis Maltby; National Workrights Institute;

Chair: David Jacobs; Morgan State U.;

Participant: Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld; U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign;

Participant: Mary Beth Maxwell; American Rights at Work;

Participant: Michael Peck; MAPA;

 

The New Deal delivered what economist Joseph Schumpeter called "laborist capitalism," a transformed capitalism affording workers rising wages and benefits as well as power in the enterprise. With intensified international competition, aggressive anti-union strategies by employers, and often hostile government, unions today are far weaker. Workers' wages have been stagnant since the 1970s and private benefits have seriously eroded. Labor activists believe that they have a new opportunity to restore balance in the American economy and boost labor organizing. The primary vehicle is the proposed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would require employers to recognize unions once a majority of workers sign authorization cards. A contemporary form of laborist capitalism might combine a renewal of unionism, a vibrant green high-wage sector, new patterns of equity and inclusion, and flexible technologies that enhance quality and sustain employment. The EFCA would facilitate worker organizing, expand and diversify the labor movement, and might thereby advance at least some of these goals.

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Symposium

(CMS, HR)

9:45AM - 11:15AM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Toronto

1331

Innovation and Networks

Facilitator: Paul Skilton; Arizona State U. Polytechnic;

 

ENT: Language as means for involvement in the entrepreneurial process    

Author: Björn Remneland; Gothenburg U.;

The use of language is central in entrepreneurship. This paper discusses how entrepreneurs utilize language to involve allies in venture creation. The study is based on empirical data from the emergence of two entrepreneurial ventures; The Idea Bank and Competence Arena West. It contributes to the body of research on entrepreneurship by highlighting the discursive aspects of the entrepreneurial process. Three rhetorical forms are emphasized: visualization work, navigation work, and association work. The paper shows that these language acts have the ability to create spaces for play by mobilizing resources and content for the innovations.

 

TIM: Workshopping for Innovation: Probing Knowledge Transformation Across Boundaries in Networks    

Author: Pauli Raafael Alin; Helsinki U. of Technology;

Author: John E. Taylor; Columbia U.;

Author: Riitta Smeds; Helsinki U. of Technology;

To survive, organizations and interorganizational networks must innovate. However, research addressing innovation in networks is equivocal as to whether the network form of organization is capable of achieving innovation. To address this paradox, we turn to research on knowledge transformation which describes difficulties at knowledge boundaries in networks. We probe knowledge transformation in interorganizational strategy workshops and find current theoretical constructs on knowledge transformation to be correct but inadequate in describing interorganizational settings. We further find that crossing organizational vs. specialization boundaries leads to different knowledge transformation outcomes. These findings have significant implications for networks seeking to achieve and sustain innovation.

 

CMS: Social Innovation in Sub-Political Arrangements      

Author: Suzanne Benn; Macquarie U.;

Author: Mel Edwards; School of Management, UTS;

Author: Ellen Baker; U. of Technology, Sydney;

Underpinning Ulrich Beck’s (1992) groundbreaking analysis of the impact of industrialization on society, in terms of the creation of tangible social and environmental risk, lies the assumption that new political arrangements – termed sub-politics - will enable society to innovate away from these conditions of risk. Recent crises have prompted organizational theorists to re-examine this thesis, that certain political arrangements can generate forms of innovation that could alleviate these problems. This paper aims to explore the antecedents of what is now termed social innovation within the broad context of sub-political arrangements that are formed around social and environmental meta-problems. Drawing on three separate case studies of evident social innovations, we examined the organizing processes that enabled their emergence and provided evidence of how social innovation was achieved. The first showed the effectiveness of temporary and non-coercive forms of interaction within clusters that were self-organizing, aiming to understand how to enact sustainability in their workplace. The second examined the emergence of interconnected social networks within a community coalition that created innovative processes for organizing across a diverse range of interests, whilst building the legitimacy of an innovative conservation concept. The third described three different strategies used by individuals within an urban community to create conditions that would nurture innovative problem-solving actions and encourage social change. Taken together, they underline the powerful impacts of non-traditional decision-making and leadership, and provide support for complexity-theory, emergence-oriented approaches within sub-political arenas as an alternative to traditional understandings of decision-making and leadership.

 

OMT: Innovating a New Management Practice: A Case Study of the Emergence of the ’Competence Pool’     

Author: Marjo-Riitta Parzefall; European Business School;

It is not until recently that management innovation and in particular the process through which management innovation emerges has started to attract the attention of academics and practitioners. In particular, empirical research on management innovation remains to date scarce. Drawing on a descriptive multi-method case study, I will in this paper 1) examine the emergence of a novel management practice named ‘Competence Pool’ that was developed to manage layoff pressures in a telecommunications company in Finland; and 2) compare and contrast the emergence of Competence Pool with the Management Innovation Process Model (MIPM) framework recently presented by Birkinshaw and his colleagues. The findings of this study are mainly in accordance with the MIPM framework, but highlight the role of internal change agents and innovation championing at the expense of external change agents. Further, the importance of legitimization throughout the innovation process is stressed. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

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Interactive

Paper Session

(IP)

9:45AM - 11:15AM

Hyatt Regency Chicago, Regency A Table 2

1333

Organizational Learning in Context

Facilitator: Claire A. Simmers; Saint Joseph's U.;

 

CMS: Organizational Learning and Competency Building: Trade Union Organizations in Brazil and the USA    

Author: Wilson Aparecido Costa Amorim; Fundação Instituto de Administração;

Author: André Luiz Fischer; U. de Sao Paulo;

Author: Elza Fátima Rosa Veloso; U. de Sao Paulo;

Author: Joel Souza Dutra; U. de Sao Paulo;

The objective of this article is to see if the phenomenon of organizational learning, traditionally studied in for-profit organizations, may also explain the changes that occurred in Brazilian trade unionism, generating new organizational skills. We chose as our research unit organizations that provide technical or political support to trade unions in Brazil. We built cases on two such organizations: the Departamento Intersindical de Estatística e Estudos Sócio-Econômicos – DIEESE and the American Institute for Free Labor Institute/American Center for International Labor Solidarity or AIFLD/Solidarity Center. These organizations – the former domestic, the latter international – have several characteristics in common, such as provision of support to Brazilian trade unions and exercise of their political leadership through the union movement. The research responds positively to the initial question whether it is possible that the processes of organizational learning explain changes in organizations outside the for-profit organizations. New competencies in organizational and DIEESE AIFLD / Solidarity Center were founded. However, research carried out has also shown that the development or maintenance of organizational competencies occurred in a few aspects of the Knowledge-Based Economy. When investigating the learning processes experienced by DIEESE and the AIFLD / Solidarity Center we could see the great importance of their relationship competency. Because of these competencies, it can be inferred that training, maintenance and administration of extensive networks of contacts in the activities of these organizations gained top priority in the two organizations over the 90s. This priority is justified by what's in the 80s, the relationship of the two organizations were key to search for new knowledge, maintain or enhance the credibility and, more objective, political and financial support.

 

BPS: The Dymanics of Replication and Template-Use in a Professional Service Firm    

Author: Shad S. Morris; Ohio State U.;

Author: Ryan Hammond; Massachusetts Institute of Technology;