Recent environmental turbulence including financial crisis, intensified competitive forces, rapid... more Recent environmental turbulence including financial crisis, intensified competitive forces, rapid technological change and high market turbulence have dramatically changed the current business climate. The managers firms have to plan and decide what the best approaches that best fit their firms in order to pursue superior performance. This research aims to examine the influence of strategic reasoning and top level managers- individual characteristics on the effectiveness of organizational improvisation and firm performance. Given the lack of studies on these relationships in the previous literature, there is significant contribution to the body of knowledge as well as for managerial practices. 128 responses from top management of technology-based companies in Malaysia were used as a sample. Three hypotheses were examined and the findings confirm that (a) there is no relationship between intuitive reasoning and organizational improvisation but there is a link between rational reasoni...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of intermediate knowledge mechanisms on ... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of intermediate knowledge mechanisms on the participative leadership–employee exploratory innovation relationship using a distal mediation model. Design/methodology/approach Deploying a time-lagged questionnaire method implemented over four business quarters, data are generated from 1,600 responses in R&D units of Taiwanese technology firms. Findings The structural equation modeling results reveal that participative leadership is positively related to employee exploratory innovation; coworker knowledge and absorptive capacity partially mediate the relationship between participative leadership and employee exploratory innovation independently; and coworker knowledge sharing in combination with absorptive capacity partially mediates this relationship. Originality/value The findings contribute new knowledge on the relationship between participative leadership and employee exploratory innovation by uncovering intermediate knowledg...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to ascertain how today’s international marketers can perform... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to ascertain how today’s international marketers can perform better on the global scene by harnessing spontaneity. Design/methodology/approach The authors draw on contingency theory to develop a model of the spontaneity – international marketing performance relationship, and identify three potential moderators, namely, strategic planning, centralization, and market dynamism. The authors test the model via structural equation modeling with survey data from 197 UK exporters. Findings The results indicate that spontaneity is beneficial to exporters in terms of enhancing profit performance. In addition, greater centralization and strategic planning strengthen the positive effects of spontaneity. However, market dynamism mitigates the positive effect of spontaneity on export performance (when customer needs are volatile, spontaneous decisions do not function as well in terms of ensuring success). Practical implications Learning to be spontaneous when ...
Product-market planning remains an important activity but paradoxically firms take considerable s... more Product-market planning remains an important activity but paradoxically firms take considerable steps to guard against the rigidity and inflexibility that can become apparent from doing so. We propose a conceptual model of product-market planning capability which is based on knowledge and contingency perspectives. We test this with both primary and secondary data generated from UK-based high-technology firms. Using structural equation modeling, we find that market information processing activities have differential effects on product-market planning capability; this capability is significantly and positively related to performance and this strengthens as competitive intensity and technological turbulence increase; differentiation strategies are shown to positively moderate the relationship but there are negative implications for those with cost leader and focus strategies.
Strategic Management Society 35th Annual International Conference Strategy Expanding Making Sense of Shifting Field and Firm Boundaries Denver Colorado Usa 3 6 October 2015 Conference Proceedings, Oct 6, 2015
The authors contend that structural and managerial antecedents of strategy failure exist and the ... more The authors contend that structural and managerial antecedents of strategy failure exist and the extent to which these determine failure is different under conditions of high and low adherence to strategy. Our results support these arguments and demonstrate that the drivers of failure differ according to the unusual strategy process environment of both types of firms. Resource scarcity is found to be a common antecedent to strategy failure in organizations regardless of adherence. From there, managerial conditions (symbolic information use, strategy championing, and tenure) drive strategy failure in high-adherence firms. However, only structural conditions (formalization and resource scarcity) are antecedents of strategy failure in low-adherence firms, while failure is mitigated by centralized decision making.
International Journal of Operations & Production Management
Purpose Developing and implementing strategies to maximize profitability is a fundamental challen... more Purpose Developing and implementing strategies to maximize profitability is a fundamental challenge facing manufacturers. The complexity of orchestrating resources in practice has been overlooked in the operations field and it is now necessary to go beyond the direct effects of individual resources and uncover different resource configurations that maximize profitability. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on a sample of US manufacturing firms, multiple regression analysis (MRA) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) are performed to examine the effects of resource orchestration on firm profitability over time. By comparing the findings between analyses, the study represents a move away from examining the net effects of resource levers on performance alone. Findings The findings characterize the resource conditions for manufacturers’ high performance, and also for absence of high performance. Pension and retirement expense is ...
The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, ... more The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full DRO policy for further details.
The International Journal of Human Resource Management
Abstract In this paper we contribute to the strategy and OCB literature by empirically exploring ... more Abstract In this paper we contribute to the strategy and OCB literature by empirically exploring how middle managers as strategic actors in product-market strategy making are enabled or constrained in the strategy process. We explore the role of organizationally targeted organizational citizenship behaviour (OCBO) as a conduit for strategy effectiveness. This is a departure from most OCB studies which concentrate on organizational effectiveness. We assess the mediating role of social and extrinsic rewards as organizational structural processes underlying the OCBO-strategy effectiveness relationship. Our results reveal that while OCBO has no direct influence on strategy effectiveness, participation as a form of social reward partially mediates the OCBO strategy effectiveness relationship. However, the negative mediation effect reveals that excessive participation reduces strategy effectiveness. In terms of extrinsic reward practices, process rewards partially and positively mediate the relationship. Focusing on OCBO our results contribute to the call for more nuanced studies into OCB relationships and performance and to the recent debate surrounding whether certain OCB behaviours are perceived as rewarded. We highlight that whilst OCBO is not in itself an important precondition for fostering effective strategy performance, organizational structural processes in the form of reward practices can foster beneficial OCBO which supports strategy effectiveness.
Delivering consistently high quality services at the public level requires organisational respons... more Delivering consistently high quality services at the public level requires organisational responsiveness to changing public needs. However, few efforts have been made to examine the learning environment that organises and translates the externally acquired knowledge obtained through these behaviours into a sustainable advantage, or how an organisation’s management context might impact the nature of its return. In an examination of public leisure organisations, we examine the role of organisations’ absorptive capacity in sustaining exclusive returns from market orientation and account for two opposing management contexts. We conclude that internal provision with a superior absorptive capacity should increase the quality, effectiveness and speed of response to market intelligence, over that of external approaches to provision.
Recent environmental turbulence including financial crisis, intensified competitive forces, rapid... more Recent environmental turbulence including financial crisis, intensified competitive forces, rapid technological change and high market turbulence have dramatically changed the current business climate. The managers firms have to plan and decide what the best approaches that best fit their firms in order to pursue superior performance. This research aims to examine the influence of strategic reasoning and top level managers- individual characteristics on the effectiveness of organizational improvisation and firm performance. Given the lack of studies on these relationships in the previous literature, there is significant contribution to the body of knowledge as well as for managerial practices. 128 responses from top management of technology-based companies in Malaysia were used as a sample. Three hypotheses were examined and the findings confirm that (a) there is no relationship between intuitive reasoning and organizational improvisation but there is a link between rational reasoni...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of intermediate knowledge mechanisms on ... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of intermediate knowledge mechanisms on the participative leadership–employee exploratory innovation relationship using a distal mediation model. Design/methodology/approach Deploying a time-lagged questionnaire method implemented over four business quarters, data are generated from 1,600 responses in R&D units of Taiwanese technology firms. Findings The structural equation modeling results reveal that participative leadership is positively related to employee exploratory innovation; coworker knowledge and absorptive capacity partially mediate the relationship between participative leadership and employee exploratory innovation independently; and coworker knowledge sharing in combination with absorptive capacity partially mediates this relationship. Originality/value The findings contribute new knowledge on the relationship between participative leadership and employee exploratory innovation by uncovering intermediate knowledg...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to ascertain how today’s international marketers can perform... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to ascertain how today’s international marketers can perform better on the global scene by harnessing spontaneity. Design/methodology/approach The authors draw on contingency theory to develop a model of the spontaneity – international marketing performance relationship, and identify three potential moderators, namely, strategic planning, centralization, and market dynamism. The authors test the model via structural equation modeling with survey data from 197 UK exporters. Findings The results indicate that spontaneity is beneficial to exporters in terms of enhancing profit performance. In addition, greater centralization and strategic planning strengthen the positive effects of spontaneity. However, market dynamism mitigates the positive effect of spontaneity on export performance (when customer needs are volatile, spontaneous decisions do not function as well in terms of ensuring success). Practical implications Learning to be spontaneous when ...
Product-market planning remains an important activity but paradoxically firms take considerable s... more Product-market planning remains an important activity but paradoxically firms take considerable steps to guard against the rigidity and inflexibility that can become apparent from doing so. We propose a conceptual model of product-market planning capability which is based on knowledge and contingency perspectives. We test this with both primary and secondary data generated from UK-based high-technology firms. Using structural equation modeling, we find that market information processing activities have differential effects on product-market planning capability; this capability is significantly and positively related to performance and this strengthens as competitive intensity and technological turbulence increase; differentiation strategies are shown to positively moderate the relationship but there are negative implications for those with cost leader and focus strategies.
Strategic Management Society 35th Annual International Conference Strategy Expanding Making Sense of Shifting Field and Firm Boundaries Denver Colorado Usa 3 6 October 2015 Conference Proceedings, Oct 6, 2015
The authors contend that structural and managerial antecedents of strategy failure exist and the ... more The authors contend that structural and managerial antecedents of strategy failure exist and the extent to which these determine failure is different under conditions of high and low adherence to strategy. Our results support these arguments and demonstrate that the drivers of failure differ according to the unusual strategy process environment of both types of firms. Resource scarcity is found to be a common antecedent to strategy failure in organizations regardless of adherence. From there, managerial conditions (symbolic information use, strategy championing, and tenure) drive strategy failure in high-adherence firms. However, only structural conditions (formalization and resource scarcity) are antecedents of strategy failure in low-adherence firms, while failure is mitigated by centralized decision making.
International Journal of Operations & Production Management
Purpose Developing and implementing strategies to maximize profitability is a fundamental challen... more Purpose Developing and implementing strategies to maximize profitability is a fundamental challenge facing manufacturers. The complexity of orchestrating resources in practice has been overlooked in the operations field and it is now necessary to go beyond the direct effects of individual resources and uncover different resource configurations that maximize profitability. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on a sample of US manufacturing firms, multiple regression analysis (MRA) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) are performed to examine the effects of resource orchestration on firm profitability over time. By comparing the findings between analyses, the study represents a move away from examining the net effects of resource levers on performance alone. Findings The findings characterize the resource conditions for manufacturers’ high performance, and also for absence of high performance. Pension and retirement expense is ...
The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, ... more The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full DRO policy for further details.
The International Journal of Human Resource Management
Abstract In this paper we contribute to the strategy and OCB literature by empirically exploring ... more Abstract In this paper we contribute to the strategy and OCB literature by empirically exploring how middle managers as strategic actors in product-market strategy making are enabled or constrained in the strategy process. We explore the role of organizationally targeted organizational citizenship behaviour (OCBO) as a conduit for strategy effectiveness. This is a departure from most OCB studies which concentrate on organizational effectiveness. We assess the mediating role of social and extrinsic rewards as organizational structural processes underlying the OCBO-strategy effectiveness relationship. Our results reveal that while OCBO has no direct influence on strategy effectiveness, participation as a form of social reward partially mediates the OCBO strategy effectiveness relationship. However, the negative mediation effect reveals that excessive participation reduces strategy effectiveness. In terms of extrinsic reward practices, process rewards partially and positively mediate the relationship. Focusing on OCBO our results contribute to the call for more nuanced studies into OCB relationships and performance and to the recent debate surrounding whether certain OCB behaviours are perceived as rewarded. We highlight that whilst OCBO is not in itself an important precondition for fostering effective strategy performance, organizational structural processes in the form of reward practices can foster beneficial OCBO which supports strategy effectiveness.
Delivering consistently high quality services at the public level requires organisational respons... more Delivering consistently high quality services at the public level requires organisational responsiveness to changing public needs. However, few efforts have been made to examine the learning environment that organises and translates the externally acquired knowledge obtained through these behaviours into a sustainable advantage, or how an organisation’s management context might impact the nature of its return. In an examination of public leisure organisations, we examine the role of organisations’ absorptive capacity in sustaining exclusive returns from market orientation and account for two opposing management contexts. We conclude that internal provision with a superior absorptive capacity should increase the quality, effectiveness and speed of response to market intelligence, over that of external approaches to provision.
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Papers by Paul Hughes