A discourse perspective on creating organizational knowledge: the case of strategizing

This chapter outlines a discursive epistemology of knowledge production through an analysis of the role of time and context in the social construction of organizational insights, outcomes and theories. While the role of time and context has been widely acknowledged in organizational discourse analysis, it has remained unclear what is specific to knowledge generation. Drawing upon a case study of an attempted company acquisition, we illustrate how knowledge is discursively produced and consumed during a process of strategizing. Our analysis shows how knowledge producing processes (e.g. strategizing, theorizing, conceptualizing and hypothesizing) extend both the time horizon of discourses that relate to the future, and the context horizon for discourse(s) that relate to the broader context. This reconstructs the tapestry of interwoven discourses that make up a local discourse and enable new managerial knowledge to be produced

Discovery and Creation: Alternative Theories of Entrepreneurial Action

As oportunidades empreendedoras existem, independentemente, das percepções dos empreendedores, esperando apenas para serem descobertas? Ou, estas oportunidades são criadas pelas ações dos empreendedores? Duas teorias, internamente, consistentes com as oportunidades empreendedoras são: teoria da criação e teoria da descoberta- as quais serão descritas. Enquanto, será sempre possível, descrever a formação de uma oportunidade particular, como exemplo, de um processo da descoberta ou da criação de oportunidade, estas duas teorias têm implicações importantes para a eficácia de uma variedade ampla de ações empreendedoras em contextos diferentes. As implicações destas teorias para sete destas ações serão descritas, acompanhadas de uma discussão sobre algumas das implicações teóricas mais amplas destas duas teorias para os campos do empreendimento e do gerenciamento estratégico

Corporate boards and the performance of Asian firms: A meta-analysis

The prevalence of ownership concentration in Asian firms presents a challenge to the influential agency theory-based understanding of the role of corporate boards. In this paper we develop and test hypotheses about board attributes and firm performance that reflect Asian institutional conditions. We present the first meta-analysis of the relationship between board attributes and performance of Asian firms using a varied set of meta-analytical techniques on a database of 86 studies covering nine Asian countries. First, we find that board structure and composition preferences are influenced by the identity of the concentrated owner. Second, consistent with US data, we find very limited evidence of a direct relationship between board attributes and firm financial performance in the Asian context. Third, we find that the relationship between board structure and composition and firm performance is mediated by the revealed strategic preferences of Asian firms specifically by the level of R&D investment

Dynamics of resource slack and constraints: Resource positions in action

Previous studies of the effects of resource slack and constraints on creativity and performance offer contradictory findings. To resolve this debate, some authors operationalize resource slack and constraints in ways that actually may have concealed their underlying complexity and dynamics. This study seeks to demonstrate how perceived resource positions influence entrepreneurial decision making and creativity by drawing on in-depth case studies of three high-tech start-ups. The authors show that resource positions are perceived, relative, transient and multidimensional; that is, they reflect the entrepreneur’s perception of available resources relative to demand. Moreover, perceived resource positions are not static but change over time, and entrepreneurs can experience different types of resource constraints and slack simultaneously. The influence of perceived resource positions on decision making in turn depends on individual, temporal and resource position dynamics. These findings link perceptions of resources to the emergence of organizational ingenuity, by explaining how perceived resource positions influence decision making

Stakeholder Salience for Small Businesses : A Social Proximity Perspective

This paper advances stakeholder salience theory from the viewpoint of small businesses. It is argued that the stakeholder salience process for small businesses is influenced by their local embeddedness, captured by the idea of social proximity, and characterised by multiple relationships that the owner-manager and stakeholders share beyond the business context. It is further stated that the ethics of care is a valuable ethical lens through which to understand social proximity in small businesses. The contribution of the study conceptualises how the perceived social proximity between local stakeholders and small business owner-managers influences managerial considerations of the legitimacy, power and urgency of stakeholders and their claims. Specifically, the paradoxical nature of close relationships in the salience process is acknowledged and discussed.Peer reviewe

Is maximising creativity good? The importance of elaboration and internal confidence in producing creative ideas

While knowledge management researchers acknowledge that individuals transition from generation to implementation of ideas, these transitions are not fully understood. The current article focuses on idea elaboration–defined as the transition of an idea from an individual’s mind to one that is expressed in a work context–as a critical step towards creative output–the number of creative ideas an individual generates. Several related hypotheses were explored with a psychologically realistic simulation of creativity. A total of 100,000 trials of the creativity task was simulated to examine the relationship between creativity and creative output. Results suggest that low degrees of creativity combined with the elaboration of conventional ideas may lead to a greater number of creative ideas. The current article contributes to the field of knowledge management by leveraging the dynamics of cognition and stressing the importance of idea elaboration and the role that internal confidence plays

Performance configurations over time: implications for growth- and profit-oriented strategies

Strategic entrepreneurship can be described as simultaneous opportunity seeking and advantage seeking. Younger firms are generally more flexible and therefore enjoy 'discovery advantages', whereas established firms tend to be resource rich and more experienced and consequently enjoy 'exploitation advantages'. The resulting evolution of the two important performance dimensions 'growth' and 'profitability' by firm age is not well understood. In this paper we integrate several theoretical arguments concerning profit-growth relationships to develop a dynamic model of firm development which suggests different development pathways for young firms. This leads to several unidirectional, competing hypotheses that we examine by studying the profitability-growth configurations of approximately 3,500 small firms and how these configurations evolve over time. We find that for both young and old firms, a focus on achieving above-average profitability and then striving for growth is a more likely path towards achieving sustained above-average performance than is first pursuing strong growth in the hope of building profitability later. In line with our hypothesis we find that younger firms are over-represented as 'Stars' (high on both growth and profitability) and under-represented as 'Poor' (low on both growth and profitability). However, young firms in the 'Star' category are also less likely than their older counterparts to maintain that position. Furthermore, our results indicate that young firms are over-represented not only among 'Stars', but also among growth-orientated firms regardless of the level of profitability. The findings strongly caution against the blind pursuit of growth for young firms, in favor of a thoughtful analysis of how both growth and profitability might be developed by firms. The results also question whether simultaneous high performance in terms of growth and profitability among young firms usually reflects a successful entrepreneurial strategy. The results can also be interpreted as luck on the part of a sub-group of young firms who indiscriminately pursue growth opportunities with varying profit prospects, and in many cases the high growth-profit performance will be short lived