Organizational Renewal: The Management of Large-Scale Organizational Change in Norwegian Firms

A study of large organizational change projects was done in 228 private and public sector firms across Norway to examine the causes and consequences of renewal efforts and the strategies used by firm level management and union leaders to involve the workforce in the planning, design and execution of change. The research focus was on management\u27s choice of different forms of worker participation and their effects on the project outcomes. Data came from structured interviews with the top manager and an elected employee representative in each firm. The results showed that most major changes occurred in organizational structures and administration, undertaken primarily to increase efficiency and as a response to financial difficulties. In the private sector, the planning and design phases of change projects were dominated by top management, with very little involvement by non-managerial employees. Public sector employees played a larger role in the early phases of the projects, mostly through their elected representatives in legally prescribed forums. In both the private and public sector, there was more worker participation in the execution of change, both through elected representatives and more direct worker involvement of an ad hoc, firm-specific, nature. Neither the extent nor form of participation contributed to the success of the change projects. Instead, the project outcomes were primarily a function of external pressures experienced by the organization, the importance of renewal for organizational survival, and the flexibility of management and labor to accommodate to change. Resistance to change did not decrease as a function of worker participation, but it was influenced by the degree of labor-management agreement in the firm

Doing less but getting more: Improving forced-choice measures with IRT.

Multidimensional forced-choice (MFC) questionnaires typically show good validities and are resistant to impression management effects. However, they yield ipsative data, which distorts scale relationships and makes comparisons between people problematic. Depressed reliability estimates also led developers to create tests of potentially excessive length. We apply an IRT Preference Model to make more efficient use of information in existing MFC questionnaires. OPQ32i used for selection and assessment internationally is examined using this approach. The latent scores recovered from a much reduced number of MFC items are superior to the full test?s ipsative scores, and comparable to unbiased normative scores

Leveraging Regional Assets: Insights from High-Growth Companies in Kansas City

As a typical Midwestern city, Kansas City and its successful entrepreneurs often are overlooked in economic development studies. We find, however, compelling evidence that the region has ample entrepreneurial success to celebrate, study, and share since numerous Kansas City area firms have appeared on Inc.magazine's list of the fastest-growing companies. We recently interviewed the founders of some of these firms in the city's information technology, biotechnology, and business services sectors about their views on the strengths and viability of Kansas City's entrepreneurial ecosystem. We gained valuable insights for area policy and economic leaders. Key findings of our interviews include:-Lack of venture capital or angel investment does not hinder the growth of Kansas City firms. Only a small percentage of the high-growth firmsinterviewed reported receiving investment from Venture Capital or Angel investors. Instead, most high-growth firms were self-financed or received financial assistance from founders' close friends and families. Some bootstrapped by adapting their firms to customer needs to achieve growth, while others scaled up only as revenues increased and additional customers were found. No matter how they were funded, the firms successfully grew their revenue. -Kansas City firms enjoy a substantial pool of talent in the region. Growing firms often have a long-term employee development strategy to hire young people and train them to be first-class professionals, including technical experts. Entrepreneurs also find the region's low cost of living and strong, Midwestern work ethic to be major strengths.-Most Kansas City entrepreneurs find support from customers, vendors, and/or collaborating firms in the region. This finding runs somewhat contrary to Swiss researcher Heike Mayer's recent conclusion that firms in the Kansas City region are disconnected. These regional connections lead to the firms' innovations and growth. -A number of high-growth firms serve only the Kansas City area or a limited market of regional cities, yet they see this limited regional focus as a business strength. Entrepreneurs and their support community should take note that a firm does not have to capture a national or global market to be highly successful. -Most Kansas City entrepreneurs report that locally based mentors have played a significant role in their success. Whether through informal or 2 formal channels, connecting experienced entrepreneurs to aspiring or nascent entrepreneurs and allowing mentor-mentee relationships to grow organically should be goals of the city's entrepreneurial support community. Further research is needed on how best to create and implement local mentorship programs

Improvement in Competitiveness of Serbian Small and medium enterprises

During last decade SME became important factor of Serbian economy. Although encouraging achievements were made in their development, due to late transition process, comparing to other transitory economies and to EU, SME in Serbia are well bellow, especially in efficiency. During the World economic crisis small and medium enterprises suffered like other companies, but most severe problems are related to shops. In spite of Government increasing help shops in 2010 had a negative net demographical effect. SME are vital and very important in the phase of economic recovery, which already started, and have to be supported. In the future SME supportive policy ought to be oriented toward a) competitive improvement and b) innovation development. With more efficient small and medium scale companies only Serbian economy has better prospects on the Global market.

Capturing the Overall Economic Impacts of HEIs

University of Strathclyde were commissioned on behalf of the Tripartite Advisory Group (TAG) on higher education in Scotland to evaluate the current state of knowledge on the overall impact of higher education in Scotland. The Strathclyde report examines evidence from Scotland, UK and international studies to draw conclusions about the impact of HE on the Scottish economy

Union Leadership and Member Attitudes: A Multi-Level Analysis

[Excerpt] Analyses of union leadership roles show that union presidents should have both a within-union focus and an external focus. The authors combined multi-level survey data from 3,871 union members in 248 local teachers’ unions with archival and field staff data to examine relationships between leadership and members’ perceptions of union instrumentality and justice, union commitment, and participation. The results showed significant union-level effects on members’ beliefs about, and attitudes toward, their unions, attributable to the presidents’ internal and external leadership, wage outcomes, and union characteristics. Relationships between internally focused leadership and members’ loyalty and willingness to work for the union were partially mediated by perceptions of union instrumentality and justice. These perceptions fully mediated the relationship between externally focused leadership and union loyalty

Structural Isomorphism in Australian Nonprofit Organisations

This paper assesses the extent of structural similarity or isomorphism among non-profit organizations in Australia. Based on neo-institutional theory, the paper explains such isomorphism in terms of these organizations’ subordination and dependency, the uncertainties they face, and the networks of experts of which they are a part. The analysis uses the non-profit component of a 2001-2002 random sample of Australian employment organizations. It finds surprisingly little isomorphism in this subsample and few differences in isomorphism according to the level of the factors thought to produce similarity. The discussion of the findings focuses on the suitability of the non-profit sector as the appropriate organizational field within which isomorphism involving these organizations is likely to be produced. Industries, which include all organizations that produce the same product or service, be they non-profit, for-profit, or government, may be more appropriate interactional fields for the development of isomorphis

Job Satisfaction as a Reflection of Disposition: A Multiple Source Casual Analysis

Dispositional sources of job satisfaction have been the subject of recent research in the organizational sciences. Problems in much of this research, which limit the conclusions one can draw from the results, are discussed. This study makes a distinction between affective disposition, defined as the tendency to respond generally to the environment in an affect-based manner, and subjective well-being, the level of overall happiness and satisfaction an individual has with his or her life. Affective disposition was hypothesized to lead to subjective well-being, and subjective well-being and job satisfaction were hypothesized to be mutually causative. A causal model was tested employing two different sources of data: self-reports and significant other evaluations. This biangulation of sources of data and estimation of nonrecursive relationships removes some problems often assumed to plague results based on single source data. Results indicated support for the overall hypothesized causal model and supported a dispositional influence on job attitudes. The influences are more complex than past research has suggested

Network dynamics in regional clusters: The perspective of an emerging economy

Regional clusters are spatial agglomerations of firms operating in the same or connected industries, which enable innovation and economic performance for firms. A wealth of empirical literature shows that one of key elements of the success of regional clusters is that they facilitate the formation of local inter-organizational networks, which act as conduits of knowledge and innovation. While most studies analyze the benefits and characteristics of regional cluster networks and focus on advanced economies and high tech Ôhot spotsÕ, this paper advances with the existing literature by analyzing network dynamics and taking an emerging economyÕs perspective. Using longitudinal data of a wine cluster in Chile and stochastic actor-oriented models for network dynamics, this paper examines what micro-level effects influence the formation of new knowledge ties among wineries. It finds that the coexistence of cohesion effects (reciprocity and transitivity) and the presence of inter-firm knowledge base heterogeneity contribute to the stability of an informal hierarchical network structure over time. Empirical results have interesting implications for cluster competitiveness and network studies, and for the burgeoning literature on corporate behavior in emerging economies.Regional clusters, knowledge networks, network dynamics, wine industry, Chile

Collective Bargaining Laws and Threat Effects of Unionism in the Determination of Police Compenstation

This study examines the effect of public sector unions on compensation packages. The model of the compensation determination process incorporates distinctive institutional aspects of public sector labor relations, particularly the differences in collective bargaining laws across states. The model is estimated using data on over 800 municipal police departments. Our results indicate that the effect of public sector unions depend critically on these institutional features of the public sector. First, unionism thrives only in those states with protective legislation. Second, in states where unionism has flourished,unionism exerts a strong upward pressure on both union and nonunion compensation packages. Cross section estimates for 1978 indicate that salaries of union and nonunion departments in highly unionized states are some 30% higher than are the salaries in states with low levels of unionism. However, no significant difference between union and nonunion salaries within states is observed. Before-after estimates of the "state-wide union effect" are more modest (9.9% to 18.1%). Finally, this "state-wide union effect" on union and nonunion departments appears to 'be even more pronounced on fringe benefits than it is on salaries. The net result is that in highly unionized states, a greater proportion of the larger compensation packages is paid in fringe benefits.