Search results

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

Bases itself on the premise that the categorisation of people who may adopt innovations is not the sole answer to the length of time taken for diffusion of innovations, but that a major factor is the characteristic of the innovations as perceived by adopters or non‐adopters. Says that marketers have an interest in decreasing the time taken for an innovation to diffuse throughout an industry by changing people from one category into another which is more progressive in outlook. States that two main industries were chosen to be used in this study – the flour milling industry and, to a lesser degree, the malting and dairying industries. Decided that the relationships between the time taken for innovations to diffuse throughout industry, and the characteristics of the innovations as perceived by technologists responsible for their introduction. Lays out the research method in detail and discusses this. Sums up that the research illustrates a method of studying the perceived characteristics technological innovation and shows a strong relationship between innovations and time taken.

This is the final article of a series of three which deal with Quality Circle failures. The first two papers, based on a review of the literature, dealt with the possible reasons why quality circles may fail. To carry the investigation further the authors visited five companies to examine in more detail the main reasons for quality circle failures, how to prevent such failures and plans to revive entire circle programmes. In no way do these case studies purport to be representative. However, they do highlight some important determinants of success or failure and also some aspects which may be important in maintaining the long‐term viability of circles. The investigation was carried out by structured interviews with the appropriate member(s) of the company.

This article reports the results of a longitudinal study of some of the earliest quality circle (QC) programmes to be established in the United Kingdom. The 27 companies in question were first contacted in 1981. A second survey, conducted in April/May 1985, aimed to find out how many of the QC programmes have survived the test of time and in what circumstances. Reasons for the termination of individual circles and programmes were also sought. Forty per cent of the programmes unequivocally remain operative in organisations where senior management tend to be committed to the QC concept; the trade unions have been reasonably receptive or indifferent, the working environment is conducive to this type of initiative, and there have been no major crises, such as redundancy or serious retrenchment. The main reasons for QC programme termination were closure of sites or redundancy, and lack of support from senior management. Regarding those organisations in which QCs did not survive, the majority of respondents nevertheless felt that the technique has the potential to make a valuable contribution to British industry, primarily in relation to employee involvement.

Introduction Technological innovation is a subject of increasing importance in industrial life. There is a general feeling in Britain, that our relatively poor industrial performance compared with countries such as the United States, Japan and West Germany is because they are more advanced in adopting new technology. It is vitally important, in a situation changing as rapidly as at present, for organisations to keep abreast or even ahead of technological developments and to adopt innovations successfully. This article attempts to inter‐relate the findings of researchers who have examined the process of diffusion of innovations, in the hope that an increased understanding of this process will assist in the spread of new technology.

A questionnaire sent to facilitators of 12 engineering companies and thence distributed to operational blue‐collar circles resulted in a 68 per cent response rate and established that the expectations, their realisation, the benefits, training, co‐operation and participation of all parties within an organisation are important to circle members. It is vital for management to demonstrate prescience and sensitivity to these areas when operating quality circles.

The evidence presented in this article was elicited by group discussion from Quality Circle facilitators of 22 companies at a recently held North West workshop organised by the National Society of Quality Circles. The typical issues discussed and reported here include: sustaining quality circle programmes over time, monetary rewards, evaluation, management resistance and conflict with the roles of trade union representatives. Amongst the main findings are: that the support of all grades and levels of management and sustained top management recognition for circles are vital for their long‐term growth, direct cash contributions given to circle members are alien to the quality circle philosophy; circle programmes should be evaluated in terms of the quality of working life and cost benefits; middle managers are more likely to resist circle activities than are top and first‐line management, and circle activities do not conflict with the roles of trade union representatives.

This paper presents the results of a state of the art postal questionnaire survey from 132 manufacturing companies based in the UK. Also outlined are the trends in the profile of quality circle programmes of some 40 companies over a period of around 12 months. The main trends include circle leadership passing from supervision to a member of the shop floor workforce, an increase in the number of circles selecting quality as a project theme and a decrease in the circle meeting frequency. From the findings it is clear that some middle managers feel threatened by quality circle activities. A list of reasons for this is given along with suggestions to reverse such attitudes. It is also pointed out that a number of companies are still trying to short‐circuit the factors that are important in quality circle programme success.

This article is an attempt to increase knowledge of the best conditions for application of a programme of quality circles. It suggests that before applying such a programme, the top management team must clarify: the purpose of application, the ways to use the circles, and analyse the organisational characteristics, especially the organisation culture. The search for such coherency will contribute to the success of the programme.

Quality circles are organisational interventions that seek to increase an organisation's productivity and the quality of its products through direct employee participation. The underlying assumption is that such participation will result in useful suggestions for improving work methods and quality, and for increasing employee commitment to implement these changes. Quality circles typically are small groups of volunteers from the same area who meet regularly, under the leadership of their supervisor, to identify, analyse and solve quality and related problems in their respective areas of responsibility.

Sixty‐seven British companies took part in a survey to determine causes of failure of quality circles. The main reasons determined were: rejection of the concept by top management and trade unions; the disruption caused by redundancies and company restructuring; labour turnover; lack of co‐operation from middle and first line management; and failure by circle leaders to find enough time to organise meetings. The author was optimistic about the findings since growth in the number of companies using circles and the average number of circles per company is still taking place.

One of the main difficulties with the Quality Circle (QC) technique is that, to the uninitiated, it appears attractively simple in concept. This attraction has been enhanced by the many claims made for it in the management literature. Such claims though, are often based on experiential rather than research evidence. However, a longitudinal study covering the four‐year period 1981‐1984 did indicate that QCs can survive for reasonable periods of time, and with varying degrees of success, outside Japan, providing the organisational environment and circumstances are conducive. The study also showed that the QC technique is not universally applicable; it has real limitations as well. The article aims to examine some of these limitations and to suggest what may be reasonably expected from a QC programme.

ONE or two questions raised by the writer of “Letters on our Affairs” this month are of some urgency. The first, the physical condition of books, is one that is long over‐due for full discussion with a view to complete revision of our method. The increased book fund of post‐war years, and the unexpected success of the twopenny library, have brought us to the point when we should concentrate upon beautiful and clean editions of good books, and encourage the public to use them. “Euripides” is quite right in his contention that there is too much dependence upon the outcasts of the circulating library for replenishing the stocks of public lending libraries. We say this gravely and advisedly. Many librarians depend almost entirely upon the off‐scourings of commercial libraries for their fiction. The result, of course, is contempt of that stock from all readers who are not without knowledge of books. It is the business of the public library now to scrap all books that are stained, unpleasant to the sight, in bad print, and otherwise unattractive. Of old, it was necessary for us to work hard, and by careful conservation of sometimes quite dirty books, in order to get enough books to serve our readers. To‐day this is no longer the case, except in quite backward areas. The average well‐supported public library—and there are many now in that category—should aim at a reduction of stock to proportions which are really useful, which are good and which are ultimately attractive if not beautiful. The time has arrived when a dirty book, or a poorly printed book, or a book which has no artistic appeal, should be regarded as a reproach to the library preserving it.

What constitutes a success, survivor, or failure regarding UK quality circle programmes, is not a clear‐cut issue, according to results from four questionnaire‐based surveys carried out by the Department of Management Sciences at UMIST, 1982–4. It is an open question whether some quality circles have a limited life‐span and should be allowed to die off naturally when appropriate; circle activity often appears to resume once labour conditions have stabilised. The success of individual circles seems to depend greatly on how well their members work and integrate together, and how well the circle philosophy has been evolved to fit the company's style. A circle will only work as part of a policy of worker involvement and open management and if it is coupled with a specific long‐term company‐wide commitment to quality.

Despite the optimism which surrounded the advent of quality circles a decade ago, recent research suggests that there are few programmes still functioning. The data on which this article is based were collected in five organisations in central Scotland in the period 1983‐86, when quality circles were in operation or were being introduced. Since then, all but one of the programmes has ceased. The research indicates that the barriers encountered by quality circles are of two kinds: some general to any form of organisational change; others specific to quality circles. In addition, quality circles cannot easily be assimilated into existing organisational power structures but require changes to systems of reward, communication and decision making. Specifically the role played by middle managers is examined. They may see quality circles as a threat to their managerial prerogative and are in a position to impair the circles by denying them the resources (such as time, information, people and finance) they need to operate. Without the co‐operation of middle managers, the circles cannot select appropriate projects, collect data or implement solutions, and may find it impossible to continue.

Quality circles are now a worldwide phenomenon but their survival depends on many factors. Some of the problems faced by quality circle facilitators were highlighted by this research in the NW of England.

The topic discussed in this monograph is how to make training more effective by fitting it more closely into the organisational context. Models of training are examined to consider the difference between training an individual and changing the way in which the individual performs in the work context. In order to highlight the ways in which individual and organisational needs can be integrated, the identification of training needs is discussed. To emphasise the essentially cyclical nature of learning, the learning experience is broken down into a sequence of events. Most of these attempts to define effective training imply that it is often an attempt to change the way the organisation functions. In the final section therefore, the problems of using the training department as an agent for change are discussed.

A postal questionnaire survey of quality circles in the UK service sector has been completed. It was revealed that there are no major differences in the characteristics of circle programmes in the service and manufacturing organisations. However, service industries need to be aware of the individuality of each organisation before adoption of programmes.

Quality Circle is a very effective program and low‐cost tool for implementing total quality management (TQM) in industry. A good number of manufacturing industries have so far adopted the Quality Circle program successfully, however the Quality Circle concept has failed in many other cases. To make successful use of the Quality Circle tool in manufacturing industries, knowledge and awareness of the probable reasons behind the failures of the Quality Circle is essential.

In this general review paper, after thoroughly reviewing literatures, the authors consolidate and highlight the probable reasons behind the failures of the Quality Circle, especially in manufacturing industries.

This study reveals that organizational Issues at the background stage; circle‐formation Issues at the implementation stage; and operational Issues at the operating/running stage of Quality Circle implementation, are the three main key areas of the problems which generally limit the success of the Quality Circle.

If the management is aware of and takes care of such anticipated problems, it is more likely that the Quality Circle programme will definitely be a success, leading to the effective implementation of TQM in the organization.

Reports the effects of an employee involvement programme on members of a small, emerging high tech firm. (Names of firm, industry, and officers used in this study have been disguised). The attitudes of these employees towards management and their perceptions of behavioural changes are described. A consultant’s experience in the development and implementation of such a programme is presented.

The objective here is to critically assess the essential characteristics of quality circles and to focus attention on the factors and conditions which are crucial to the successful implementation of quality circles at Cosalt Holiday Homes. The proposed quality circle programme for Cosalt is discussed and methods of implementation, together with progress to date and recommendations for the future are given. Amongst the main findings is a view that there is a need for a clear commitment from top management, together with a proper organisational climate and favourable shopfloor attitudes for successful implementation of a quality circle programme.

The purpose of this paper is to understand and measure the impact of goal clarity, goal difficulty, and management support on five social and technical outcomes for quality circles (QCs) in a Chinese company.

Survey scales were developed based on previous research and validated using principal component analysis. Analysis of variance confirmed the validity of aggregating individual responses to team-level measures. Models for five outcomes (team member understanding of continuous improvement, team member skills, team member attitudes, team member motivation, and technical success) were developed using multiple regressions.

Goal clarity was found to impact all outcomes. Goal difficulty was found to impact QC team member attitudes. Management support was related to employee's understanding of the value of continuous improvement and to the technical success of QC activities.

All the QCs included in the study were part of a single manufacturing organization. To generalize the findings, data from additional companies are needed.

The results imply that management support is critical to improvement of processes. Even if employees wish to learn new skills, employee's efforts need to be directed, so they are closely aligned with the company's goals and objectives.

This appears to be the first published research study to identify the role of goal clarity, goal difficulty, and management support on both social and technical systems outcomes for Chinese QCs. The findings highlight the value of and need for clearly defined, challenging goals for QC members work on and the need for management support of QC members and QC activities.

Non-participation in outpatient dual diagnosis services presents a challenge for providers assisting clients in their recovery. To better understand factors that facilitate participation, the purpose of this paper is to examine positive recovery states – hope, meaning, and empowerment – as they relate to motivational interviewing (MI) and service use.

Six dually diagnosed adults completed four baseline assessments, four MI sessions, a post-MI tape-assisted recall interview, and one-month follow-up measures. Simulation modeling analysis of phone survey responses, comparisons of baseline and intervention phase data, and grounded theory analysis of interviews were conducted to determine MI's relationship to the dependent variables.

MI was associated with modest improvement in levels of participation, hope, empowerment, and with greater change in life purpose. Key recovery themes were: positive sense of self, increased self-efficacy, and improved relationships. Feelings of safety and trust were tied to greater self-disclosure while more active emotions were more closely linked to the discussion of recovery progress.

The paper's finding are limited by small sample size and phone survey response sets.

To better help dually diagnosed clients sustain treatment involvement, MI practitioners should pay special attention to recovery accomplishments, values, abilities, and self-esteem, while linking these attributes to service participation where appropriate and creating a safe, valuing atmosphere conducive to self-disclosure.

This is the first paper to measure key recovery constructs within MI process, and to explore the role of positive emotions related to MI, recovery, and service participation.

This paper aims to address the generic research question of how promising management practices such as total quality management (TQM) initiatives affect employee relations in South Eastern European (SEE) countries by focusing on managers' professional lives. In particular, this study focuses on the effects of TQM programmes on middle managers' (MMs') career prospects and job security.

A multi‐modal research approach was applied based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. A total of 1,800 middle managers from 73 service organizations in both the public and private sectors participated in the research (19 and 54 respectively).

The implementation of TQM programs was found to have a positive impact on MMs' careers and job security. Nevertheless, it was related mostly to the “hard”, rather than the “soft”, side of TQM. The strong impact of TQM practices on MMs' responses to various aspects related to their physical work, as compared to the small impact of the “soft” side, implies a more pragmatic view of restructuring of the employment relations covenant due to the application of management models in SEE region.

The business literature has presented limited measurement tools for the “soft” and “hard” aspects of TQM. This paper provides a new, more reliable, and valid measurement of both sides of TQM. More research is required in order to further verify the use of such a measurement tool.

Managers should be aware of a somewhat more linear path to career progression and job security through the use of “hard” quality management practices while anticipating less importance to be given to concepts such as empowerment and employee involvement.

This study expands our understanding of how industrial relations can be formed from the application of promising management practices. In particular, it argues that managers' familiarity with the “hard” side of TQM seems to both positively and negatively influence career development and job security, while being influenced by employment sector and educational background.

Discusses the results of a survey into the factors which motivate individuals to adopt, participate in and implement total quality (TQ) in their own work environments. A considerable literature survey was carried out in order to derive a framework which could be used to assess the many factors which might influence individuals. Concentrates on the results of the survey which was carried out to test the frame‐work. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire sent to 220 employees in the sales division of one company, achieving a response rate of 54 per cent, which was considered to be high for this type of project. Uses the responses to assess the influence of organizational culture, environmental and organizational change and TQ training on individuals′ decisions to practise TQ.

World competition is forcing organisations to re‐examine and refocus their operations and business strategies. It has been argued that price‐based competition has given way to quality‐based competition. Several management techniques such as quality circles and “zero‐defects” have been developed and applied in order to improve the quality of products and processes. Here, a concept, operator self‐inspection (OSI), based on the integration of quality assurance responsibilities into individual workers′ jobs is advocated.

The purpose of the article is to show, through a case study, that the reasons motivating members and non‐members of a quality circle to improve quality are not limited to those formulated in the literature. We thereby concur with Fiona Wilson who, in an article published in a recent issue of Employee Relations, showed that the psychological reward is not enough. In the workshops under study, members and non‐members obtained better working conditions – for example lay‐offs have stopped, transfer of employees from one workshop to another or from one job station to another is a thing of the past – by improving quality through the direct impact that their action was having on the organisation′s position in the market and, consequently, on the increase of production volumes.

Studies two Northern Ireland manufacturing companies, Shirtco and Carpetco, to generate some quantitative data concerning possible attitudinal and behavioural outcomes of quality circle (QC) participation. Attention focused on three variables: (1) the attitudes of QC participants and those of comparable non‐participants to the work situation; (2) the quantity and quality of output achieved by QC participants and by comparable non‐participants; and (3) the short‐term absence rates of QC participants and comparable non‐participants. An attempt also was made to measure participants′ attitudes to the QC programmes. The findings at Carpetco were not encouraging, as attitudes towards QC participation were ambivalent, and there was little statistically significant evidence of QC participation producing a positive influence on attitudes or on the quantity and quality of output. Nor was there any evidence of the QC programme having generated significant cost‐savings. However, QC participation may have reduced the tendency to take casual days off work. The situation at Shirtco was rather different, as in one of the three work sections studied, QC participation may have had a positive influence on attitudes, quantity of output and amount of time spent on productive work, but not on attendance. The position regarding the other two work sections studied at Shirtco was much more equivocal. There was no evidence of any significant cost‐savings having emanated from the QC programme at Shirtco. Concludes that unless a QC initiative is accompanied by other changes in the general work situation, it will almost certainly produce marginal benefits at best. Quality circles are probably used to best effect when they comprise part of a wider initiative such as total quality management (TQM). Perhaps it is as a means of helping to put aspects of TQM into effect that the real value of QCs will be demonstrated.

This paper, which is part of a wider research process, identifies the categories of quality management, from the answers provided by those responsible for quality in 106 certified firms, in order to determine the importance of these categories, identify areas for improvement to progress beyond ISO 9000 quality management system series and compare our results with other studies in Spain. We conclude by indicating a set of recommendations for managers of certified firms which wish to progress beyond ISO 9000 series registration advancing towards total quality.

Scholarship on reputation in and of organizations has been going on for decades, and it always has separated along level of analysis issues, whereby the separate literatures on individual, group/team/unit, and organization reputation fail to acknowledge each other. This sends the implicit message that reputation is a fundamentally different phenomenon at the three different levels of analysis. We tested the validity of this implicit assumption by conducting a multilevel review of the reputation literature, and drawing conclusions about the “level-specific” or “level-generic” nature of the reputation construct. The review results permitted the conclusion that reputation phenomena are essentially the same at all levels of analysis. Based on this, we frame a future agenda for theory and research on reputation.

The purpose of this paper is to determine how the media constructs images of infamous chief executive officers (CEOs) through the use of recurring themes, terms and phrases in the popular press.

This research conducts content analyses of secondary data from three popular press business sources over a two‐year period to identify the journalistic construction of 12 infamous CEOs.

The findings reveal 18 themes and eight categories of images constructed by the media, an integrated framework of CEO infamy as constructed by the media and a definition of CEO infamy.

To date, little research has focused solely on the media's construction of the infamous CEO. This paper also begins to bridge positive and negative CEO celebrity concepts.

We discuss the contributions of Jack Katz to the field of criminology with a particular focus on his 1988 book, Seductions of Crime. This book emerged out of a time in American history when criminal justice policy was shaped in part by moral panic over the 1980s’ American crime wave. We argue that SOC’s pragmatic approach to phenomenology owes much to this historical context. The vision outlined in the book represents an ideal foundation on which to build a future criminology in tune with the direction of innovation in the field. In making this case, we review the core contributions of the work from our perspective. We then explore the complicated “politics” of Katz’s argument – defying easy labels of left and right, and discuss the significance of a growing divide between the opinions of lay persons and expert accounts of crime. The modes of inquiry that Katz reawakened with his analysis have many as of yet untapped riches to offer, not only to criminological theory but also to criminal justice reform. In particular, we argue that urgent contemporary trends toward “public criminology,” “convict criminology” both could find, in SOC, an ideal epistemological starting place.

I. INTRODUCTION This study attempts to extend and expand previous research conducted by the Department of Marketing at Strathclyde on the adoption and diffusion of industrial products.

The M&A literature lacks coherence and consistency when explaining the role of CEO power in influencing post-acquisition firm performance in both theoretical and empirical terms. This study uses meta-analytic techniques to quantitatively synthesize and evaluate the impact of 11 CEO power constructs (CEO duality; compensation; ownership; founder CEO; acquisition experience; functional area experience; outside directorship; elite education; CEO celebrity; age; and tenure) on acquiring firms’ post-acquisition performance. Results of 85 independent studies show that CEO ownership, functional area experience, and tenure are significantly positive predictors for better acquisition performance. At the same time, CEO duality and CEO elite education are significantly negative predictors of different measures of acquisition performance. These findings indicate the importance of integrating different theories to enhance our understanding of the nature of strategic leadership in acquisition performance.

Despite widespread interest in “behavioral strategy,” it is not clear what this term, or its associated academic subfield, is all about. Unless a critical mass of scholars can agree on the meaning of behavioral strategy, and professionally identify with it, this embryonic community may face a marginal existence. We describe three alternative conceptions for the academic subfield of behavioral strategy, along with assessments of the pros and cons of each. The “small tent” version amounts to a direct transposition of the logic of behavioral economics to the field of strategic management, specifically in the style of behavioral decision research. The “midsize tent” view is that behavioral strategy is a commitment to understanding the psychology of strategists. And the “large tent’ view includes consideration of any and all psychological, sociological, and political factors that influence strategic outcomes. We conclude that the midsize tent represents the best path forward, not too narrow and not too broad, allowing rich scope but with coherence. The large tent conception of behavioral strategy, however, is not out of the question and warrants serious consideration.

Attempts to recontextualize the study of empowerment in management by (re)tracing the linkages between the concepts of participation, democracy and empowerment. Reforging the linkages between these concepts, proceeds to analyze the various conceptions to show the often neglected complexity of this area of debate, a debate seemingly lost in much of the management literature. Attempts to analyze the extent to which this loss of academic debate is mirrored by a loss of debate and representation in the workplace.

Intercultural competence has been found to be increasingly important. The purpose of this paper is to understand how intercultural competence impacts service providers’ ability to recognition faces of both black and white consumers.

Two experiments were administered to understand how intercultural competence impacts recognition of black and white consumer faces.

The authors find that the more intercultural competence that respondents report with blacks, the better they are at distinguishing between black regular customers and black new shoppers in an experiment. The authors find no impact of intercultural competence on the ability of respondents to differentiate between white consumers. These findings hold for respondents in the USA and South Africa.

One limitation of this research is that the studies were conducted in a controlled lab setting. Thus, one could imagine additional noise from a true consumer setting might increase the effects of these results. Another limitation is the focus on only black and white consumer faces. In this paper, the authors focused on these two races, specifically to keep the factorial design as simplified as possible.

The implications of this research are important given that the ability of employees’ recognizing customer faces can affect customers’ day-to-day interactions in the marketplace.

The horizons ring me like faggots Tilted and disparate, and always unstable. Touched by a match, they might warm me, And their fine lines singe The air to orange (Plath, 1977).I first read Sylvia Plath’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ almost twenty years ago, when I taught it as part of a poetry anthology. I am a keen walker, and I have often repeated these lines to myself when out walking, to encourage myself over particularly difficult terrain. At times, I have wondered why Sylvia Plath, an American, had written a poem entitled ‘Wuthering Heights’. It was only this year, when I read Sylvia Plath’s Letters Home (Plath, 1999) and Elaine Feinstein’s biography (Feinstein, 2001) of Plath’s husband Ted Hughes, that I realized that Ted Hughes’ family lived near Wuthering Heights. In short, to enrich my understanding of the poem, I needed biographical detail.

Anchored in the role of a social arbiter, the purpose of this study is to examine whether and how media coverage has an impact on CEO overconfidence and further explore how media ownership and Confucianism affect the relationship in the Chinese context.

Using a sample of 1,492 Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2015, the study adopts random effects models to empirically analyze the effect of media coverage on CEO overconfidence and the roles of media ownership and Confucianism.

The paper finds that media coverage is significantly and positively associated with CEO overconfidence, and the positive relationship between media coverage and CEO overconfidence becomes stronger for state-controlled media. What is more, the influence of media coverage on CEO overconfidence is attenuated for those firms located in stronger Confucianism atmosphere. A further analysis reveals that different tenors of media coverage yield asymmetric effects.

The paper provides a new and solid support for the argument that media praise stimulates CEO overconfidence and increases the knowledge about under what conditions CEO overconfidence varies, broadly speaking which fosters the development of upper echelons theory (UET). Meanwhile, the results extend the literature on media effect and information processing. The findings are also beneficial to improve corporate decisions and government regulation on Chinese media systems.

A large body of research has analyzed individual psychological characteristics as antecedents of strategic decision-making. However, this research has mainly focused on trait-based characteristics that explain impaired strategic decision outcomes. Recently, PsyCap has been proposed as an alternative driver of strategic decision outcomes that, in contrast to other drivers, can be influenced by management.

Drawing on research on psychological capital (PsyCap), a psychological construct conceptualized as a state-like individual strength that is malleable, the authors argue that PsyCap exerts an inverted curvilinear effect on strategic decision outcomes. The authors use a computerized strategic decision simulation involving 102 managers to empirically test our hypotheses.

The authors show that PsyCap improves strategic decision outcomes up to an inflection point, after which it negatively affects those outcomes. The authors also show that this effect is mediated by heuristic information processing.

For the empirical study the authors relied on a sample of 102 practicing managers from the financial services industry in Germany.

PsyCap has been shown to be malleable through, for instance, micro-interventions and dedicated web-based trainings. Therefore, depending on managers' PsyCap levels, either further increases in PsyCap or a regulation of this characteristic might be appropriate in order to optimize strategic decision outcomes.

As a state-like individual strength that is malleable, PsyCap might serve as a management characteristic that is particularly important in challenging situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper contributes to research on strategic decision making by introducing PsyCap as an important antecedent of strategic decision outcomes that – in contrast to other individual characteristics – is state-like and, hence, malleable.

This paper highlights that the strategic use of design, a competitive pattern typically associated with creative industries, those creating and trading meanings, also characterizes industries that produce functional or utilitarian goods not typically considered creative. The paper explores the origins of this phenomenon in the context of three industry settings: cars, speciality coffee and personal computers. The analysis theorizes three distinct strategic paths that explain how design may become an institutionalized aspect of competition in industries that are not creative. We explain how firms link their products to the identities of their users, how design is linked to stakeholders' emotions and visceral reactions to products and how intermediaries are relevant to enhancing attention to design. Illuminating these strategic paths allows harnessing some of the well-established understandings about competition in creative industries towards understanding competition in noncreative industries.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights to the impact of acquisition experience from prior acquisitions on the performance of subsequent ones. The authors base the analysis on the concept of mindfulness which has recently gained increasing attention in organizational learning theory. The aim is to extend prior research on mindfulness in organizational learning by empirically addressing how mindfulness in knowledge transfer affects task performance in the context of a rare organizational event, i.e. an acquisition, and how it is moderated by the conditions surrounding that event.

Employing a path-related approach, the authors analyzed large acquisitions of multiple US acquirers in a sequence to be able to clearly identify feedback from preceding acquisitions on subsequent ones. The authors adopt individual acquisition events as the unit of analysis to demonstrate the effect of mindfulness on task performance, and follow the widely used approach of measuring acquisition performance by abnormal stock market returns around the time of an acquisition announcement.

The analysis reveals an alternating relationship between an acquirer's acquisition experience and its acquisition performance. This relationship is positively moderated by an acquirer's cash reserves and by the temporal spacing of its acquisitions, but negatively moderated by an acquirer's market-to-book value.

Path-related approaches are rarely used in the mergers & acquisitions literature. The paper is based on the concept of mindfulness and identifies an up to now unrecognized pattern in the performance of multiple acquisitions.

People experiencing homelessness often have complex needs requiring a range of support. These may include health problems (physical illness, mental health and/or substance misuse) as well as social, financial and housing needs. Addressing these issues requires a high degree of coordination amongst services. It is, thus, an example of a wicked policy issue. The purpose of this paper is to examine the challenge of integrating care in this context using evidence from an evaluation of English hospital discharge services for people experiencing homelessness.

The paper undertakes secondary analysis of qualitative data from a mixed methods evaluation of hospital discharge schemes and uses an established framework for understanding integrated care, the Rainbow Model of Integrated Care (RMIC), to help examine the complexities of integration in this area.

Supporting people experiencing homelessness to have a good discharge from hospital was confirmed as a wicked policy issue. The RMIC provided a strong framework for exploring the concept of integration, demonstrating how intertwined the elements of the framework are and, hence, that solutions need to be holistically organised across the RMIC. Limitations to integration were also highlighted, such as shortages of suitable accommodation and the impacts of policies in aligned areas of the welfare state.

The data for this secondary analysis were not specifically focussed on integration which meant the themes in the RMIC could not be explored directly nor in as much depth. However, important issues raised in the data directly related to integration of support, and the RMIC emerged as a helpful organising framework for understanding integration in this wicked policy context.

Integration is happening in services directly concerned with the discharge from hospital of people experiencing homelessness. Key challenges to this integration are reported in terms of the RMIC, which would be a helpful framework for planning better integrated care for this area of practice.

Addressing homelessness not only requires careful planning of integration of services at specific pathway points, such as hospital discharge, but also integration across wider systems. A complex set of challenges are discussed to help with planning the better integration desired, and the RMIC was seen as a helpful framework for thinking about key issues and their interactions.

This paper examines an application of integrated care knowledge to a key complex, or wicked policy issue.

Advisors play a key role in the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) process, but research to date has rarely focused on how their influence impacts these transactions. The present chapter takes stock of the present literature on M&A advisors from finance, economics, and management in order to integrate the currently diverging research traditions into a coherent framework. The current research has focused on proximal acquisition outcomes, like acquisition premiums or expected performance in the form of cumulative abnormal returns, but there is limited theoretical understanding of the advisors impact on the post-acquisition period. Moreover, while the role of advisor reputation has been highlighted on both the management and finance literatures as an important aspect of the role advisors play in the M&A process, there seems to be much to be addressed. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, the nature of the relationship between the advisor and the acquirer or target presents challenges to researchers where the advisor acts both as a provider of expertise in the M&A process, but may be simply acting on their own best interest. The new framework that the authors present here provides management scholars with a roadmap into a cohesive research agenda that can inform our theoretical understanding of the role of M&A advisors.

This meta-analysis reviews and summarizes the results of 34 studies to investigate the relationship between overconfidence and financial decision-making.

A correlation meta-analysis was conducted with three moderators of the relationship between overconfidence and financial decision-making examined: the type of overconfidence construct, the type of overconfidence measuring method and the type of financial decision-making.

It was found that the effect of overconfidence on financial decision-making was significant, but the magnitude of this effect was low. Additionally, indirect measures of overconfidence showed to have stronger effect than direct measures, and the overconfidence was mostly related to investment, followed by trading and innovativeness.

This was the first attempt to meta-analytically integrate results concerning the relationship between overconfidence and financial decision-making. Although overconfidence is described as a keystone for understanding financial decision-making, it was shown that it has rather limited effect on individuals' financial decisions. The findings suggest that indirect measures increase the overall effect and may cause the overvaluation of overconfidence in literature. The results call for more rigorous and consistent conceptualization of overconfidence in behavioral research.

Haptic interfaces enable person‐machine communication through touch, and most commonly, in response to user movements. We comment on a distinct property of haptic interfaces, that of providing for simultaneous information exchange between a user and a machine. We also comment on the fact that, like other kinds of displays, they can take advantage of both the strengths and the limitations of human perception. The paper then proceeds with a description of the components and the modus operandi of haptic interfaces, followed by a list of current and prospective applications and a discussion of a cross‐section of current device designs.

This article looks at how capital equipment innovations are adopted. The reception of innovations by adoptors and non‐adoptors provides “profiles” of the characteristics of innovations, which can highlight good selling features and identify markets.

This paper examines the use of signaling theory in the M&A context. We review some of the most important developments in applications and extensions of this theory to the realm of M&A, indicating how this theory has been used to explain many M&A decisions and outcomes and has offered fresh perspectives in the mature literature on acquisitions. For example, we show how signaling theory provides a new view of the determinants of acquisition premiums, and it can contribute to an improved understanding of firms’ search for acquisition opportunities as well as target selection. We also provide a critique of existing research to identify gaps in understanding on the roles played by signals. For instance, we discuss how signals can create contracting problems during M&A negotiations, how the value of signals might vary across deals, and how bidder heterogeneity and bidders’ own signals matter for certain transactions. Finally, in addition to taking stock of this stream of research, we identify some of the most important areas that deserve research attention. Signaling theory can contribute to an improved understanding of acquisition performance outcomes, and signals need to be investigated along with other solutions to enhance M&A deal making and execution. We identify new research methods that would help to advance signaling theory in the acquisitions literature.