Dan Marlin, John W. Huonker and Robert B. Hasbrouck
This study confirms and extends previous research by providing a detailed longitudinal examination of the strategic group and performance relationship in the hospital industry…
Abstract
This study confirms and extends previous research by providing a detailed longitudinal examination of the strategic group and performance relationship in the hospital industry from 1983 to 1993. Based on a deductive approach using Porter's (1980) typology, we find that matching strategy to environment affects hospital performance, that the appropriate match between strategy and environment changed over the 1983 to 1993 time period, and that hospitals combining a low cost and differentiation strategy (i.e., a best‐cost approach) performed well during most of the time period examined. We also find significant movement between strategic groups, thus calling into question the degree to which mobility barriers affect between group performance differences. Finally, our research suggests the existence of multiple groups following the same strategic approach, a result that calls into question the view that groups within an industry are monolithic.
The strategic management literature has developed several typologies and taxonomies concerning large, established firms. Yet, to date, no study has attempted to classify newly…
Abstract
The strategic management literature has developed several typologies and taxonomies concerning large, established firms. Yet, to date, no study has attempted to classify newly formed organizations based on their strategic intent. The study of biotechnology firms undergoing an initial public offering presents a rare opportunity to study recently formed organizations within an emerging industry. Drawing from the strategic management and entrepreneurship literature, the present study offers a typology for these firms.
Aki Roberts and John M. Roberts
Police agency networks are likely to be important for the adoption of policing innovations and the visibility of demonstration projects. This study of police network data has four…
Abstract
Purpose
Police agency networks are likely to be important for the adoption of policing innovations and the visibility of demonstration projects. This study of police network data has four main goals: to use multivariate models for the influence of agency characteristics on the sort of agency it contacted; to investigate the extent of symmetry of ties in the police network; to examine models for the specific departments chosen as agencies' network contacts; and to identify, through network data, agencies as “relative experts” in several different policing domains.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses Weiss agency survey data to conduct a variety of analyses of agencies' choices of informal communication partners.
Findings
The analysis showed regularities in agencies' choices of contacts. Whether a contact was of the same type or from the same state as the respondent was influenced by the respondent's population and type. There was some evidence of size‐based asymmetry in contacts. The choice of a particular contact was influenced by agency type, population and geographic distance. There appeared to be “relative experts” in specific policing domains.
Originality/value
The results increase understanding of the structure of the agency network. By describing the nature of communication ties on planning issues, the results give essential background for any efforts to encourage the diffusion of policing innovations (or successful practices) by inducing ties between particular agencies. Results can also help predict the potential visibility of demonstration projects if placed in particular agencies.
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Preparing for a potential bioterroism is a difficult task for health care leaders because of the fundamental unpredictability of bioterroist acts. Complexity science thinking is…
Abstract
Preparing for a potential bioterroism is a difficult task for health care leaders because of the fundamental unpredictability of bioterroist acts. Complexity science thinking is presented as an approach that can help in this task. Basic concepts from complexity science, especially the role of relationships, are presented. Specific recommendations for action including sensemaking, learning, and improvisation are made. A case study is used to illustrate the power of complexity science thinking in assisting health care leaders addressing potential bioterroism. Questions for further research are presented.
Howard L. Smith, J. Deane Waldman, Jacqueline N. Hood and Myron D. Fottler
This paper analyzes health care as a context for building value through human capital and culture. We examine how health care managers can nurture a favorable culture for…
Abstract
This paper analyzes health care as a context for building value through human capital and culture. We examine how health care managers can nurture a favorable culture for providers enabling them to focus on customer service. A case study of a large medical center examines how organization culture affects clinicians versus support and managerial staff while adversely impacting patient satisfaction and organizational costs associated with turnover and the cost of replacing personnel. An agenda for managing internal customers and organization culture is presented.
David Butcher and Martin Clarke
The purpose of this paper is to show that, with demands from a widening range of stakeholders for more democratic approaches to governance, there is an evident need to develop…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show that, with demands from a widening range of stakeholders for more democratic approaches to governance, there is an evident need to develop alternative models of organizing. In seeking to understand how to conceptualise this alternative, an analysis of the organizational and political institutional contexts for leadership is provided.
Design/methodology/approach
Analyses the main precepts of democracy to establish the basis upon which a comparison between these two contexts might be made. It distinguishes between the value premises of democracy and the structural mechanisms through which those principles are enacted and identifies the significant leadership processes that underpin these values. This analysis is then used as a basis for analyzing the leadership role in organizations.
Findings
The paper demonstrates that differences between the two settings are a matter of perspective: the structural mechanisms of democracy are not enacted rationally. In particular, the pre‐eminence of micro‐political activity is highlighted as a vehicle for the enactment of ethical behaviour and civic virtue in both settings.
Practical implications
Applying a political institutional approach to leading suggests the need to reconfigure the role of hierarchy to encourage self‐organization, valuing conflict, protection of weaker stakeholders, the legitimization of political activity and helping groups to forge their own identity.
Originality/value
Most similar analyses are typically constructed within the canons of rational organization. Applying to businesses the principles of institutional leadership implies a significantly different model in which leaders promote and legitimise both the distribution and coalescing of power and the necessary dissent and debate required to reconcile a plurality of interests with the establishment of organizational coherence.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore how participation can be investigated as an open and non‐exclusive sociomaterial practice.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how participation can be investigated as an open and non‐exclusive sociomaterial practice.
Design/methodology/approach
Framed by translation discourse and a view of the social world as a sociology of associations, participation in organisations is conceptualised as a network building practice. Actor‐network theory (ANT) is used as an analytical method to describe the character of everyday constructions of participation practice related to changes in curriculum and its delivery in an Australian independent school.
Findings
It was found that participation was performed as an uncertain practice. People in relation with technology and other material entities, co‐constructed and re‐constructed multiple participation practices.
Practical implications
For researchers, an ANT account of constructing participation practices provides an additional analytical tool for investigating participation in terms of relationality. The idea of constructing participation as networked practice provides practitioners with a reflective tool for detecting and enabling multiple (and sometimes inconsistent) participation practices.
Originality/value
Compared to participation research approaches that predetermine and predict variables of relevance, this paper is concerned with the everyday management of participation as an uncertain sociomaterial practice. In pursuing a critical line of inquiry, managerialist informed notions of planning, organising and coordinating are not debunked form relevance. Rather, it is proposed that translation and managerial discourses are co‐implicated in complex investigations of participation practice.
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Jane McKenzie, Nick Woolf, Christine van Winkelen and Clare Morgan
The purpose of this paper is to challenge an over‐reliance on past experience as the cognitive underpinning for strategic decisions. It seeks to argue that, in complex and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to challenge an over‐reliance on past experience as the cognitive underpinning for strategic decisions. It seeks to argue that, in complex and unknowable conditions, effective leaders use three distinct and complementary thinking capacities, which go beyond those normally learned during their rise to the top.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual model of thinking capacities is justified through a review of the psychology literature; the face validity of the proposed model is supported through six in‐depth interviews with successful CEOs.
Findings
A model of non‐conventional thinking capacities describes how strategic decision‐makers make choices that are better adapted to the conditions of uncertainty, ambiguity and contradiction, which prevail in complex situations. These capacities are complementary to the more conventional approaches generally used in thinking about decisions.
Practical implications
The paper aims to stimulate awareness of the limitations of habitual mental responses in the face of difficult strategic decisions. It challenges leaders consciously to extend their abilities beyond conventional expectations to a higher order of thinking that is better suited to multi‐stakeholder situations in complex environments.
Originality/value
The paper responds to the challenge of McKenna and Martin‐Smith to develop new theoretical approaches to complex environments. It extends conventional approaches to decision making by synthesising from the literature some essential thinking capacities, which are well suited to the demands of situations dominated by uncertainty, ambiguity and contradiction.