Narratives as sources of stability and change in organizations:approaches and directions for future research

Although narrative analysis has made significant advances in organization and management studies, scholars have not yet unleashed its full potential. This review provides an understanding of key issues in organizational narrative analysis with a focus on the role of narratives in organizational stability and change. We start by elaborating on the characteristics of organizational narratives to provide a conceptual framework for organizational narrative analysis. We elaborate on three key approaches to narrative analysis on stability and change: realist, interpretative and poststructuralist approaches. We then review several topic areas where narrative analysis has so far offered the most promise: organizational change, identity, strategy, entrepreneurship and personal change. Finally, we identify important issues that warrant attention in future research, both theoretically and methodologically

The process of post-merger integration:a review and agenda for future research

Mergers and acquisitions continue to be prevalent despite frequently yielding disappointing outcomes. Post-merger integration plays a critical role in M&A success, yet many questions about M&A implementation remain unanswered. We review research on post-merger integration, which we organize around key themes of reconfiguration and renewal; culture; identity; justice; trust; and learning. We lay out a research agenda that centers on understanding and explicating dynamic processes. We focus on opportunities related to temporality; emotions; practices, tools and learning; networks; and decision-making processes

Breaking boundaries to creatively generate value : the role of resourcefulness in entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurial resourcefulness is a concept that resonates with practitioners and scholars alike from a diverse set of theoretical and empirical backgrounds. Despite the prevalence and promise of this concept, the literature on entrepreneurial resourcefulness is fragmented and lacks cohesion in how it is labeled, conceptualized, measured, and deployed. In many cases, it appears that bringing resources to bear for entrepreneurial purposes is taken for granted, which limits theoretical development of if and how ventures emerge and grow. In this editorial, we explore the theoretical underpinnings of resourcefulness, offer a definition, and provide a roadmap for future scholarship. In addition, we introduce the six articles that comprise the Special Issue on entrepreneurial resourcefulness, discuss their contributions, and explore how they relate to our overall perspective on resources and resourcefulness. It is our hope that this Special Issue will mobilize additional scholarship to enhance our knowledge on resourcefulness, which we view as a fundamental part of entrepreneurship

Boundary Capabilities in MNCs: Knowledge Transformation for Creative Solution Development

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.The management of knowledge across country units is critical to multinational corporations (MNCs). Building on the argument that boundary spanning leads to the development of creative problem solving outcomes, this study advances the concept of MNC knowledge transformation and examines its relationship with solution creativity. Using questionnaire data on 67 problem solving projects, we find that opportunity formation is an underlying mechanism linking MNC knowledge transformation to the development of creative solutions. These insights contribute to our understanding of boundary spanning in global organizations by substantiating MNC knowledge transformation and elaborating the relationship between boundary spanning and creative solution development. If successful at knowledge transformation, collaborators from across the MNC can construct previously unimagined opportunities for the generation of creative outcomes.This study was funded by the Irish Research Council with co-funding from the European Commission (Marie-Curie Fellowship). We are very grateful for the insightful comments of Phillip C. Nell, the three reviewers, editors and participants at the paper development workshop at Ivey Business School

Improvising Prescription: Evidence from the Emergency Room

© 2016 British Academy of Management. Global medical practice is increasingly standardizing through evidence-based approaches and quality certification procedures. Despite this increasing standardization, medical work in emergency units necessarily involves sensitivity to the individual, the particular and the unexpected. While much medical practice is routine, important improvisational elements remain significant. Standardization and improvisation can be seen as two conflicting logics. However, they are not incompatible, although the occurrence of improvisation in highly structured and institutionally complex environments remains underexplored. The study presents the process of improvisation in the tightly controlled work environment of the emergency room. The authors conducted an in situ ethnographic observation of an emergency unit. An inductive approach shows professionals combining ostensive compliance with protocols with necessary and occasional 'underlife' improvisations. The duality of improvisation as simultaneously present and absent is related to pressures in the institutional domain as well as to practical needs emerging from the operational realm. The intense presence of procedures and work processes enables flexible improvised performances that paradoxically end up reinforcing institutional pressures for standardization

Communicating and constructing meaning during the implementation of strategic change.

My dissertation consists of three interrelated empirical papers using data collected from a Fortune 500 retailer attempting to structurally integrate two divisions. Paper one is an explanatory case study using tools from narrative analysis. It explains change implementation as coming from intertwined plots of managers and employees that get enacted to implement strategic change. My findings support two mechanisms which explain strategic change implementation: an enactment mechanism explains how strategic change unfolds from the situated meaning-making and corresponding responses of individuals and a symbolic mechanism explains the relationship between meaning transfer and meaning construction processes. In paper two, I examine the relationship between meaning-making and change implementation behaviors. Formal and informal communication influences how employees make meaning of change, and this meaning-making creates three motivational resources: commitment to change, unit identification and perceived change efficacy. These resources, in turn, explain in-role and extra-role change implementation behaviors. I test my theory with content analysis and survey data using structural equation modeling. For paper three, I use a case study to examine how strategic issues get reconstituted to become ethical issues. I develop a process model of how this meaning-construction occurs: First, managers present starting issues, in which they frame a key business issue in ways that do not emphasize ethical content. Second, trigger points interrupt employees' expectations set by managerially prescribed meaning. Third, ambiguity prevents employees from creating meaning that resolves the interruption in ways consistent with the managerial view. Fourth, given the inability to construct meaning using a managerial view, employees turn to their own perspectives to construct meaning using an employee welfare frame. Collectively, the three papers offer complementary perspectives on the way in which meaning-making explains strategic change implementation. They address different models of meaning-making, the antecedents and outcomes of meaning-making, and variation in meaning making across levels in an organization-all while drawing from a variety of methodologies. A meaning-making perspective explains how organizational members think, feel and act during change implementation, and how these thoughts, feelings and actions affect the process of strategic change implementation.Ph.D.ManagementSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/126825/2/3276297.pd

Creating Collaboration: How Social Movement Organizations Shape Digital Activism to Promote Broader Social Change

Social movement organizations (SMOs) have increasingly embraced digital activism, using social media and networking tools to advocate for a cause, to mobilize globally distributed consumers and pressure businesses to change their practices. Past research has primarily focused on how SMOs have used viral social media posts to prompt businesses to take immediate action on an issue. This article proposes a shift in the discourse to explore how SMOs’ digital activism can promote broader social change through collaborative agreements rather than merely demanding narrow concessions or compliance. We examine the online campaigns of a large international SMO and how the campaigns influenced three global businesses to alter their environmental practices and industry standards. We find that the SMO used contrasting combinations of content positioning and social networking strategies to mobilize consumers, ultimately achieving collaboration agreements through influencing the businesses\u27 risk perceptions and the potential strategic gains from collaboration with the SMO. The comparative analysis yields insights into how SMOs may vary their digital activism strategies depending on consumers’ loyalty to a business and its offerings, including its products and services. We develop a theoretical perspective that explains why and how consumer loyalty can shape SMOs’ selection of digital activism strategies and the process of achieving collaboration agreements. The findings also advance the literature on digital activism strategies by introducing the notion of ambivalent content positioning and emphasizing the significance of social networking for risk management and sustaining SMOs\u27 digital activism

How accounts shape lending decisions through fostering perceived trustworthiness

We examine the roles of social accounts in influencing lenders' decisions about loaning money to borrowers. Using field data and a laboratory experiment, we show that lenders will lend money depending on the accounts borrowers tell. In Study 1, field data from a peer-to-peer lending website reveal that two-account combinations (explanation-acknowledgment and explanation-denial) increase the likelihood of favorable lending decisions. A laboratory study helps explain the important role of accounts by unpacking the process of perceived borrower trustworthiness in lending decisions. A final field study assessing the performance of loans 2 years after origination shows that accounts, despite having a positive effect on the loan decision process, negatively predict loan performance. Collectively, the three studies show that accounts facilitate economic exchanges between unacquainted transaction partners because of their role in increasing perceived trustworthiness, but that ironically, accounts can negatively relate to loan performance.Accounts Trustworthiness Auctions Decision making under uncertainty Lending Peer-to-peer