European Management Journal最新文献

How various central government agencies (CGAs) in Sweden respond to the contemporary and highly digitalized media landscape and explore intricate patterns of the ambiguity in organizational and media relations are discussed in this study. Organizational responses caused by the perceptions of the media landscape on governmental agencies are analyzed as a process of bureaucratization. This study suggests that the agencies do not attempt to defend themselves; their efforts are directed toward maintaining internal trust and trust of the public. The studied responses turned out to result in decision-making aspects as preemptive measures, casting light on the significances of the ideal hierarchical authority. Furthermore, the extent of openness in relation to the communication showed rule-based actions. Additionally, the consequences of the media pressure for the more general codes of conduct among the bureaucrats led to the ideal of professional staffing. Our contribution is twofold. First, we argue that the contemporary media landscape – including all institutionalized (i.e., both digital and conventional) forms, structures, platforms, and interfaces – has led to an increased self-control in CGAs; and secondly, that the bureaucratization turns professional employees into “passionate bureaucrats.”

The organizational response to performance feedback is a collective process in which groups of decision-makers face uncertainty about the future when making organizational decisions based on past performance feedback. Culture is an important variable to explain the context of collective decision processes, but it is not well understood by Organizational Performance Feedback Theory (PFT) research. The current internationalization trend of PFT research poses the question if empirical results are comparable across different cultural settings, and whether culture is a general condition of organizational performance feedback. We analyze the role of national culture as a proxy for collective interpretive processes that influence the organizational decision-making process in response to performance feedback, and we resolve some of the unexplained variances in the empirical results. We use a meta-analysis to understand if national culture poses a general condition for the organizational performance feedback process. We analyze the empirical results of 153 PFT studies covering organizations from 16 countries, and we examine the impact of four dimensions of national culture: uncertainty avoidance, performance orientation, future orientation, and institutional collectivism. We demonstrate that national culture is an important concept for PFT development.

When launching a new venture, the new venture team (NVT) determines the ownership split, a decision which has implications for the venture's performance. We develop a novel theoretical framework by extending the relational-models theory to the type of ownership split chosen and explaining the choice of an equal or unequal split with the preferred model of social interaction. The models differ in terms of contribution organization and valuation, as well as the primary motivations of NVT members. We hypothesize that NVTs with unequal splits perform better and are more open to NVT entry. Furthermore, NVT entry is hypothesized to act as a partial mediator in the ownership split–performance relationship. We find support for our hypotheses using mediation analysis on a large sample of 24,194 German start-ups. Our research contributes to a better understanding of the performance implications of NVT's internal organization. Our findings, however, do not imply that all NVTs should choose an unequal split. Importantly, our research demonstrates that, depending on owners' preferences, both equal and unequal splits are distinct and viable models for organizing NVTs, even though performance differences should be taken into consideration.

In this paper, we investigate the process by which organizational commitment is influenced by job crafting among knowledge workers. To address this aim, we conducted a longitudinal qualitative case study in a software solutions development firm in Denmark. The findings from the study suggest that relational and cognitive job crafting encourage affective, normative, and continuous commitment among knowledge workers, which ultimately has a positive influence on retention. The study also highlights the considerable overlap between different types of job crafting, with task job crafting appearing to be a precursor to relational and cognitive job crafting. This paper contributes to the job crafting literature by providing a process-focused account of how it engenders knowledge workers’ organizational commitment and to practice by suggesting how managers can support job crafting efforts to increase knowledge worker retention.

This study investigates whether and how pairing two firms with the same priority – either a customer or a selling orientation – affects the two sides of the dyad's ability to ensure firm-level outcomes from Relationship-Specific Investments (RSIs). We find that pairing firms with a customer orientation positively moderates the effects of RSIs on the firm's performance of both the buyer and the seller. Conversely, pairing firms with a selling orientation has negative influence on RSIs effects, but only for the seller's performance. We discuss this study's contributions to the body of research on RSIs and strategic orientations and, specifically, to literature that focuses on the joint effect of strategic orientations across firms. Additionally, we highlight the implications of our findings for research on inter-organizational relationship development and, particularly, for the task-contingent interpretation of the homophily effect.

Employee activism, in which employees collectively press an organisation on societal issues, is a growing phenomenon. Many employees have been motivated by the climate crisis to demand more sustainable business practices and insist that employers tackle the issue. Ignoring such activism can have negative reputational effects. This paper examines two employee initiatives that tackled climate change in a global professional service firm and sheds light on how organisations can influence employee-driven undertakings and integrate them with more sustainable business models. Reflecting on best practices, but also on lessons learned from the cases, the article also suggests how organisations can help employee activists stay motivated and pursue their passion sustainably.

This study delves into the gap in the literature on the analysis of the antecedents/microfoundations of dynamic capabilities. Thus, the main aim of this study is to analyse how pioneering orientation influences the generation of dynamic capabilities. To do so, it explores how two key facets of interorganizational relationships moderate this relationship—cognitive proximity with firm's contacts and bridging ties. The study is based on a sample of 292 Spanish agri-food companies. The ordinary least-squares (OLS) approach was used to analyse the survey data. Our findings show the positive effect of pioneering orientation on dynamic capabilities. This effect is reduced when companies have high cognitive proximity and is reinforced when companies have bridging ties. Therefore, companies should conduct their networks of relationships in such a way as to avoid high cognitive proximity with their contacts and seek out contacts that are unconnected to their main network of contacts.

Although novelty-centered business model design (NBMD) has attracted much attention, how it is affected by supply chain integration (SCI) is still inconclusive. Based on organizational learning theory, this study investigates how three dimensions of SCI (i.e., information integration, operational integration, and relational integration) affect NBMD via inter-organizational learning and the moderating role of big data analytics skills. We test hypotheses by utilizing survey data from 277 Chinese manufacturing firms. Our results indicate that both information integration and operational integration have positive impacts on NBMD. In addition, inter-organizational learning partially mediates the impacts of information integration and operational integration on NBMD. Our research also reveals that big data analytics skills strengthen the positive impact of relational integration on inter-organizational learning. This study provides theoretical and managerial insights for NBMD.