Anthony R. Wheeler, Eve Richter and Sajith Sahadevan
The article synthesizes the interview responses from ten authors who have published heavily cited research in the fields of organizational behavior and human resource management…
Abstract
The article synthesizes the interview responses from ten authors who have published heavily cited research in the fields of organizational behavior and human resource management. The authors of these “great works” provided insights on their own works while also providing guidance to authors who aspire to produce future great works in management. The article utilizes facets of the grounded theory approach to analyze the qualitative responses of the authors, which enabled the presentation of common themes of the authors’ responses that might be useful to both management scholars and practitioners engaged in the research process.
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David J. Ketchen and Donald D. Bergh
Welcome to the fourth volume of Research Methodology in Strategy and Management (RMSM). The publication of our fourth volume provides a source of satisfaction because our original…
Abstract
Welcome to the fourth volume of Research Methodology in Strategy and Management (RMSM). The publication of our fourth volume provides a source of satisfaction because our original contract with Elsevier only guaranteed a three volume run for the series. The popularity of RMSM led our contacts at the publisher to be eager to continue beyond their original commitment. We are excited about the future of the series, and have begun assembling Volume 5.
Stephen Cummings, Urs Daellenbach, Sally Davenport and Charles Campbell
While the benefits of open innovation (OI) and crowdsourcing (CS) for solutions to R&D problems have been widely promoted in the last ten years, their appropriateness for…
Abstract
Purpose
While the benefits of open innovation (OI) and crowdsourcing (CS) for solutions to R&D problems have been widely promoted in the last ten years, their appropriateness for organisations specialising in providing R&D services has not been explicitly considered. This paper aims to examine an R&D organisation's response to increased adoption of OI and CS, highlight their drawbacks in this context, and analyse how and why the alternative of problem‐sourcing (PS) proved more effective.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper provides an in‐depth documentation and analysis of an initiative called: The “What's Your Problem New Zealand?” (WYPNZ) challenge. The use of a single case and qualitative approach allows the development of an illustrative, rich description and is suited to studying unique and novel events.
Findings
In the context of professional R&D organisations, a range of benefits of CS for R&D problems rather than solutions were identified, including generating a potential pipeline of projects and clients as well as avoiding the challenge to the professional status of the organisation's research capability. An unexpected side‐effect was that the reputation of the research organisation as open, accessible and helpful was greatly enhanced. The success of the PS approach to CS for R&D provides insight into how some of the pitfalls of OI/CS can be better understood and potentially managed.
Originality/value
The PS model provided by the “WYPNZ” initiative represents a new strategic possibility for R&D organisations that complements their traditional competencies by drawing on the openness that OI and CS seek to leverage. As such, it can provide insights for other organisations wishing to make use of the connectivity afforded by OI/CS in an alternative mode to that typically in use and reported in the literature.
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Andreas Wallo, Henrik Kock and Peter Nilsson
The purpose of this article is to present the results of a study of an industrial company's top management team (TMT) that fought to survive an economic crisis. Specifically, the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to present the results of a study of an industrial company's top management team (TMT) that fought to survive an economic crisis. Specifically, the article seeks to focus on describing the TMT's composition, group processes, and work during a period of high external pressure; analysing the TMT's work in terms of an organisational learning process; and discussing factors that may have enabled the TMT to make appropriate strategic decisions during the crisis.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical foundation of this article is a longitudinal case study of a Swedish industrial company during the economic recession of the late 2000s. Data were collected through observations of meetings involving the TMT from 2009 to 2011 and through semi‐structured interviews with TMT managers.
Findings
Two empirical themes – “accelerating” and “braking” – illustrate actions taken by the TMT during the crisis. Accelerating involves activities aimed at accelerating the company out of the downturn, whereas braking involves activities aimed at reducing costs. The findings suggest that the TMT exhibited the ability to handle processes of exploration and exploitation during the crisis and that learning occurred at the individual, group, and organisational levels.
Practical implications
A practical implication of this study is the importance for TMTs to work simultaneously with processes of exploration and exploitation when fighting to survive an economic crisis and to designate time for learning processes in daily work.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the field by empirically showing the processes of organisational learning in practice and by highlighting the relevance of organisational learning research to understanding the performance and work of top management teams in organisations.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine how mindless/mindful classroom practices affect the quality of learning and overall experiences of children in an early childhood…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how mindless/mindful classroom practices affect the quality of learning and overall experiences of children in an early childhood educational setting.
Design/methodology/approach
The method used in the study is auto‐ethnography. This qualitative research is based on self‐reflexivity in ethnographic research and intrinsic case study. The study draws substantially from the theory of mindfulness/mindlessness.
Findings
Quality can be marred through mindlessness. The same can be improved through mindfulness, child centric and friendly practices, recognising the needs of each individual child, and enhancing their learning experiences, as against merely fulfilling curriculum obligations. It is suggested that when mindful approaches are applied to classroom practices, the needs of young learners can be better met, thereby improving the experiences of learners, and eventually the curriculum quality.
Research limitations/implications
The scope of the study is limited to early childhood education in one location; more studies in other cultural settings are suggested.
Practical implications
The paper concludes that mindful classroom practices are effective strategies for improving the quality and overall performance of students and teachers, whereas mindless approaches will achieve the exact opposite.
Originality/value
Through auto‐ethnography, the paper adds value to existing approaches to understanding quality and how mindfulness/mindlessness can affect education quality.
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The death of John F. Kennedy (JFK) was one of the most remarkable facts of the second half of the twentieth century. Not surprisingly, it was reflected numerous times in popular…
Abstract
The death of John F. Kennedy (JFK) was one of the most remarkable facts of the second half of the twentieth century. Not surprisingly, it was reflected numerous times in popular culture, including in popular music. In this chapter, I discuss songs published in the 1963–1968 period in which the image of JFK was represented as an idea, a cultural motif or a political myth created, transformed and maintained by artistic means. In song lyrics, a real person (who was a genuinely influential politician) was portrayed as a person who acquired a certain mythical status, stemming from JFK's charismatic features and augmented by his tragic death. Thus, separate from the real political career as the president, JFK serves as a kind of mythological structure used by several artists to generate meanings and mirror cultural iconography present in American culture.
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Stuart Roper, Robert Caruana, Dominic Medway and Phil Murphy
The aim of this paper is to offer a discursive perspective on luxury brand consumption.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to offer a discursive perspective on luxury brand consumption.
Design/methodology/approach
Discourse analysis is used to examine how consumers construct their luxury brand consumption amidst countervailing cultural discourses in the market (Thompson and Haytko). Consumer discourse is generated through in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews.
Findings
In the context of countervailing discourses that challenge the notion of luxury (e.g. “masstige”, “chav” and “bling”), respondents construct an ostensibly distinct and stable version of luxury expressing its subjective, experiential, moral and artistic constructs. Analysis demonstrates how these four themes operate at a linguistic‐textual level to delineate important cultural categories and boundaries around luxury. Luxury brand discourse operates strategic juxtapositions between normatively positive (ideal) and normatively negative (problematic) categories, which are paradoxically interdependent.
Research limitations/implications
A qualitative study of high‐income residents from an affluent UK region is reported upon. The study is exploratory, focussing on interrelations between discourse, content and context. This invites future studies to consider contextual elements of luxury branding.
Originality/value
The paper proposes a new way of thinking about luxury brands as a socially constructed concept. The paper concludes by arguing that luxury brand management necessitates a deeper appreciation of the mechanics of consumers' luxury discourses.
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This article brings a new, broad conceptual framework to the quest for understanding dynamic capability in organizations (i.e., “managing on the edge of chaos”). This approach…
Abstract
This article brings a new, broad conceptual framework to the quest for understanding dynamic capability in organizations (i.e., “managing on the edge of chaos”). This approach rests on two major ideas: (i) a duality–paradox perspective and (ii) new typologies of organizational learning (OL) and individual action/thinking. A case of radical innovation at Microsoft provides a multilevel stimulus. Understanding it requires a focus on two dualistic challenges. For use in future ODC research and practical assessment, this broad new conceptual framework includes: (i) collaboration as a central concept; (ii) duality–paradox as a key source of conflicts that can threaten collaboration; (iii) five types of OL, (iv) four types of individual action/thinking, including paradoxical thinking, and (v) the proposition that “golden dualities” can be created from once-troubling duality situations (where critical collaboration was in danger) which have been transformed from the metaphorical “odd (contentious) couple” into a “productive (collaborative) partnership.”