Diversity or divide? In search of flexible specialization in the UK television industry

"In ihrem Beitrag über die britische Fernsehindustrie untersuchen die Autoren ausgehend von der These einer zunehmenden flexiblen Spezialisierung, die Organisation der Produktion und Distribution von Programminhalten. Angesichts neuer technologischer Möglichkeiten und ökonomischer Notwendigkeiten sowie unter Betonung des in Großbritannien wichtigen Einflusses der Reregulation dieser Industrie, finden die Autoren tatsächlich einen Trend zur Produktionsorganisation in flexibel spezialisierten Unternehmensnetzwerken, gleichzeitig aber auch die Weiterexistenz von Inhouse-Produktionen und eine Zunahme von Unternehmungsübernahmen in diesem Bereich. Der zunehmenden Diversität in der Produktionsorganisation stellen die Autoren die Konzentration im Bereich der Programmdistribution durch Fernsehsender gegenüber und geben eine Einschätzung der sich vor diesem Hintergrund verändernden Beziehungen zwischen Produktion und Distribution." (Autorenreferat, IAB-Doku)"Competitive pressures are driving firms in many industries towards more flexible organizational forms. In particular, stable, vertically integrated organizations are being challenged by those drawing together resources in unique, 'flexibly specialised' webs or 'networks'. Some analysts suggest that the growth of network organizations marks a major 'industrial divide' and that, with the decomposition of mass markets, organizations based upon the principles of economies of scale are no longer viable. This paper questions the interpretation of the flexible specialization thesis as a production paradigm via an examination of the UK television industry. In particular, the diversity of emerging organizational forms in UK television is explored by presenting flexible specializations as a 'mode of production' which can manifest itself in a diversity of organizational models. As a result of such analysis, it is concluded that emergent forms of organization in television are not subject to any one particular categorization, and indeed that to search for a dominant production paradigm is counter-productive." (author's abstract, IAB-Doku

The Metcalfe County Supervisory in Action

It is the plan of this study to present an accurate picture of the work done by Miss Eva Barton in her effort, through supervision, to establish for the rural schools of the county increasingly effective teaching. The writer hopes that from this study other counties may through comparing their program gain suggestions that will aid in their development

The Development of Architectural Ambidexterity: Information Technology in an Age of Hypercompetition

How does an organization, operating in what has been historically a relatively stable environment such as banking, use IT to transform itself as that environment changes to one of hypercompetition? We argue that a key contribution of IT in this context is its potential role in the development of architectural ambidexterity which we define as the capacity to manage complex and apparently conflicting task demands ' such as efficiency and innovation, commoditization and customization, control and entrepreneurship - through the dynamic reconfiguration of resources and capabilities. The concept of architectural ambidexterity is developed building upon organization design and dynamic capabilities literature. Architectural ambidexterity is a collective ability that enables an organization to integrate know-how and processes and systems to enact forms of connectivity that ensure endurance and accommodation to an unpredictable future by building an overarching basis for stability, requisite uniformity, facilitatory flexibility and anticipative connectivity

The impact of business schools: increasing the range of strategic choices

The notion of impact is becoming important for international business schools, which are under increasing pressures related to their legitimacy. Although the term impact has gained in popularity, common approaches to business school impact rely either on academic publications or alumni’s salaries. To help uncover the potential for other approaches, we develop a conceptual framework as a basis for studying business school impact. The pluralism of approaches in terms of business school impact opens new spaces for original strategic choices, therefore limiting pressures for organizational isomorphism. Nevertheless, the notion of impact also has some limitations that need to be considered

Remember Icarus! Seven risks that threaten Business Schools

Business schools, according to certain measures, have been a major success story in the recent past of the university, enjoying significant demand growth. We suggest that their future may be more problematic. We offer different possible scenarios for business schools and identify seven key risks that they face. We argue that the most significant challenge business schools must negotiate is to redefine and clarify their mission and redesign themselves to meet these risks. We conclude that the business schools best able to survive and prosper in the future are likely to be very different from those that currently exist

Who Controls the Looking Glass? Towards a Conversational Understanding of Organizational Theatre

This paper presents a longitudinal study of interactive organizational theatre. Managers of a large home care organization used 30 instances of organizational theatre over a one year period to effect organizational change. We found that neither management, who had hoped that employees would accept and internalize the messages accompanying the play, nor employees, who used the liminal spaces to express their own take on the organization’s issues, achieved their aims directly. Yet a year later, organizational performance and satisfaction were significantly improved—much of this was attributed to the play. To explain this, we develop a conversational theory of change, one where ‘conversation pieces’ are central. We also speculate on the properties that conversation pieces and conversational systems like organizational theatre must have if they are to effect change.N/

Management education and the theatre of the absurd

In this paper we adopt a humanities perspective to reflect on the nature of business schools and management education (Vargish, 1991; March & Weil, 2005; Adler, 2006; McAuley & Sims, 2009). Business schools have been criticised for becoming the “hired hands” of business (Khurana, 2007) to the detriment of a higher purpose, institutions that champion a utilitarian morality, the shallowness and indeed the dangers of which are revealed in various business scandals and especially the financial crisis of 2007-8, the effects of which cast a long shadow over today’s economic and social landscape. This has led to the criticism that business schools have lost part of their essential “philosophic connection” to issues of humanity and human identities (Augier & March, 2011: 233-4). We argue that one way to encourage philosophical reconnection is to expand management education’s engagement with the humanities (Czarniawska & Gagliardi, 2006)

Management Research and the New Logics of Discovery and Engagement

This paper develops an argument that leads to a vision of management research as a form of design science. Such an approach to research requires an inversion of the relationship between rigour and relevance. Giving primacy to the pursuit of rigour, as tends to be the current norm, de-emphasizes the importance of relevance and leads to research that interests very few beyond the community of management scholars. We argue that we should re-imagine relevance as a necessary condition for rigour and that this will lead to new forms of engagement with theory and practice that have the potential to create a new science of management

Careering Alone: Careers and social capital in the financial services and television industries

The relationship between career and social capital is an important but relatively unexplored research topic. In this article, we draw on the literatures on social capital and careers, and on empirical studies of the shifting nature of careers in financial services and television production firms, to argue that, in labour markets where key skills are in short supply, the concept of social capital constitutes a rich resource for understanding the implications of changing forms of organization. We argue that social capital has a particularly important impact on an organization's ability to leverage knowledge and is, thus, of strategic significance. The ability to manage social capital might, therefore, prove to be a major management competence. Use of the social capital concept gives us an important insight into the changing nature of careers and organizations.</p