Mirroring or misting: On the role of product architecture, product complexity, and the rate of product component change

This paper contributes to the literature on the within-firm and across-firm mirroring hypothesis – the assumed architectural mapping between firms’ strategic choices of product architecture and firm architecture, and between firms’ architectural choices and the industry structures that emerge. Empirical evidence is both limited and mixed and there is evidently a need for a more nuanced theory that embeds not only whether the mirroring hypothesis holds, but under what product architecture and component-level conditions it may or may not hold. We invoke an industrial economics perspective to develop a stylised product architecture typology and hypothesise how the combined effects of product architecture type, product complexity and the rate of product component change may be associated with phases of mirroring or misting. Our framework helps to reconcile much existing mixed evidence and provides the foundation for further empirical research

Guest Introduction Quaker Business, Industry and Commerce: New Critical Perspectives and Pathways

This themed edition of Quaker Studies assembles a collection of papers by Quaker and other scholars from the fields of management and organisation to examine Quakerism in business, industry and commerce. These papers arise out of the joint Quaker Studies Research Association/Centre for Research in Quaker Studies conference held at Woodbrooke on 21 June 2018. The themes explored in them cover a wide, and previously under-explored, terrain that encompasses both a retrospective look at the influence and impact of Quaker-owned businesses and practices on society and vice versa and the often uneasy relationship between contemporary management theory and practice and Quaker tradition. Furthermore, the papers I have selected for this themed issue either adopt a critical perspective or elaborate new and interesting ways to understand the interface between Quakerism and business, with the ambition to open new pathways for future research. In other words, it has been the intention both to break new ground in Quaker Studies and to excite and interest management scholars to (re)turn to Quaker practice as a means to interpret contemporary phenomena

Mindful reflexivity: Unpacking the process of transformative learning in mindfulness and discernment

Can spiritual practice encourage transformative learning? In this article, we unpack how spiritual practices from the Buddhist tradition—mindfulness—and the Quaker tradition—discernment—encourage the attainment of moral reflexivity and the capacity to transform self in individual and relational organizational contexts, respectively. We also show how moral reflexivity and self-transformation are mutually reinforcing and promote a transformational cycle of management learning. We propose that “mindful reflexivity”, a foundational model of spiritually informed moral reflexivity, can contribute to new ways of management learning through its context sensitivity and ethical orientation to foster the kinds of reflexivity needed for responsible management. Our article concludes with implications for management learning theory and practice, and we offer pathways for future research

Moral identity and the Quaker tradition: moral dissonance negotiation in the workplace

Moral identity and moral dissonance in business ethics have explored tensions relating to moral self-identity and the pressures for identity compartmentalization in the workplace. Yet, the connection between these streams of scholarship, spirituality at work, and business ethics is under-theorized. In this paper, we examine the Quaker tradition to explore how Quakers’ interpret moral identity and negotiate the moral dissonance associated with a divided self in work organizations. Specifically, our study illuminates that while Quakers’ share a tradition-specific conception of “Quaker morality” grounded in Quaker theology and the Quaker testimonies to truth, integrity, peace, equality, and simplicity, they often foreground the pursuit of an undivided self through seeking work that enables an expression of Quaker moral identity, or by resigning from work organizations that do not. In most cases, however, Quakers’ face moral dissonance at work and engage in either identity compartmentalization and draw upon the metaphor of a ‘spiritual journey’ as a form of self-justification, or reframe, compartmentalize and engage in work tasks that are both subjectively moral and meaningful. We present a model that elaborates these negotiation processes and invite further research that examines how the spiritual traditions influence moral identity construction at work

Spiritual Discernment, the Incorporated Organization, and Corporate Law: The Case of Quaker Business Method

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which practices from the spiritual traditions—in our case, spiritual discernment—may offer opportunities for management innovation in non-religious organizations in designing collaborative and participative decision-making processes. We examine the case of a spiritual discernment practice associated with the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in the UK—known as the Quaker Business Method (QBM)—to help illuminate the opportunities of spiritual discernment in private limited companies. Given that the majority of non-religious, trading organizations are structured as private limited companies, our paper addresses the extent to which QBM can be utilized by such entities. Thus, we bring religion and corporate law into conversation to address this under-explored terrain. We find that embedding many elements of Quaker spiritual discernment in private limited companies pose non-trivial challenges. However, many of these challenges can be overcome so long as those involved in managing and owning organizations actively engage with corporate law, and specifically consider the benefits of adopting bespoke articles of association or entering into a separate shareholder agreement to reflect the practice of spiritual discernment. We necessarily adopt a practice-orientated perspective, and conclude by proposing new pathways for future research

The effect of technology and regulation on the co-evolution of product and industry architecture

This paper explores the co-evolution of product and industry architecture by drawing on a longitudinal study of the UK personal pensions industry between 2005 and 2020. It provides qualitative evidence for the way in which institutional structures, particularly regulation, entwine with firm strategic choices to shape the contours of an industry value chain (IVC). We draw upon modularity theory and the literature on industry architecture to consider how strategic bottlenecks emerged and how value shifted between layers of the IVC. Furthermore, we examine the interplay between the agendas of the regulator and firm strategic responses to unpack how firms (product providers) responded by pursuing integrative innovation and less specialization to mitigate the effects of value migration to strategic bottlenecks. Our findings extend recent work on product and industry architecture, highlighting how markets evolve toward less modular product configurations and less industry specialization in response to these dynamics

Modularity, value and exceptions to the mirroring hypothesis

The mirroring hypothesis suggests a correspondence between product, firm and industry architecture, however, empirical support to date has been mixed. Drawing upon an inductive study of the UK pensions industry, we break new ground by investigating the extent to which product, firm and industry architectures correspond in the face of changing institutional dynamics – most notably dynamic regulatory change. In considering periods of both correspondence and non-correspondence at the aggregate sector level, our results show that firms in the sector seek the efficiency benefits of product component-level mirroring, but only to the extent that the component has low value. In contrast, where components provided an opportunity to capture value, managers strategically chose non-correspondence by developing stronger relational ties with suppliers and, in a later period, through vertical (re)integration, despite the systemic modularity of the product

Religion and social network analysis: the discipline of early modern quakers

Purpose: The importance of networks has been established in the development of commerce and capitalism, with key concepts reflecting both the dynamic and permeable characteristics of networks. Such attributes are exemplified by religious networks, which have been typically dismissed in terms of economic contribution as being both risk-averse and bounded by ethical barriers imposed by theology. This paper aims to examine the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in the long 18th century to evidence the multi-plexity and density of connections and suggest that adherence to the Quaker discipline acted as a trust-based attribute and substituted for repeated iteration. Design/methodology/approach: The archival investigation centres upon an analysis of “The Catalogue of Quaker Writing” and a close re-reading of the seminal text “Quakers in Science and Industry”, an authoritative account of Quaker firms and families in industry and commerce. By identifying multiple possible social network connections in Raistrick’s work, this paper reviewed and analysed The Catalogue of Quaker Writing to examine the presence or absence of these connections in the Quaker network in the long 18th century. Findings: This paper shows how the Quaker network was an unusually dense network that benefited co-religionists by enabling commerce through its unique topography. In a period characterized by the absence of formal institutional mechanisms to regulate behaviour, Quaker discipline acted as a quasi-regulatory mechanism to regulate membership of the network and to govern member moral behaviour. Originality/value: The Quakers offer an opportunity to examine an early modern network to gain important insights into key aspects of network topography. By using social network analysis, this paper shows how Quakers performed a multiplicity of roles, which encouraged multiple modes of contact between members of the society in a dense network of contexts, which, in turn, provided high levels of connectedness between individuals. This unique range of roles, shared among a relatively small group of individuals, ensured that the degrees of separation between roles were very few; similarly, the plethora of connections resulted in a density, which not only allowed for multiple ways to engage with other individuals but also ensured no individual would become a bottle-neck or indeed a gateway that would prevent access. This unique topography was also highly unusual in that it was permeable to any aspirant member upon acceptance of the discipline – neither poverty nor lack of social status was barriers to membership. This unusual network offered atypical commercial advantages for its members

The light and the dark of mindful social capital: right mindfulness and social capital development

Despite the literatures on spirituality and social capital development remaining largely disconnected, we address how right mindfulness encourages organizational‐level social capital. We connect the philosophical foundations of ‘right mindfulness’ to bonding and bridging social capital, and the structural, relational and cognitive dimensions of social capital. We conclude that a skilful approach to right mindfulness, coupled with organizational learning heuristics, has much to offer the conversation on social capital development, and yet its potential has not been fully recognized. Despite this promise, we draw attention to a ‘dark side’ to the co‐optation by organizations of mindfulness practices and draw some further boundary conditions. We argue that a secular interpretation of right mindfulness limits its potential in organizational contexts. We conclude with managerial implications and pathways for future research