Identidad organizacional y memoria

El concepto de identidad organizacional se refiere a las creencias y los entendimientos de sus miembros sobre las características más centrales, duraderas y distintivas de las organizaciones. La cultura y el patrimonio de la organización se encuentran entre los referenciales más comunes y poderosos para su identidad. Cuando los miembros de una organización reflexionan sobre lo que esta es y representa, suelen encontrar sus raíces en la historia organizacional. En este artículo, se discute cómo la memoria organizacional y las prácticas mnemotécnicas son importantes para la conservación o redescubrimiento de la identidad organizacional así como sirven de soporte a las iniciativas orientadas al futuro del diseño, de la marca y de la gestión de recursos humanos.The concept of organizational identity refers to members’ beliefs and understandings about the most central, enduring, and distinctive features of the organizations. Organizational culture and heritage are among the most common and powerful referents for organizational identity. When members of an organization reflect on what their organization is and stands for, their beliefs are often rooted in the organizational history. In this paper, I discuss how organizational memory and mnemonic practices are important for the preservation or rediscovery of organizational identity and for supporting future-oriented initiatives in design, branding, and human resource management.O conceito de identidade organizacional diz respeito às crenças e aos entendimentos de membros sobre as características mais centrais, duradouras e distintas das organizações. Cultura e patrimônio cultural estão entre as mais comuns e poderosas referências para a identidade organizacional. Quando os membros de uma organização refletem sobre o que esta é e representa, suas crenças são frequentemente baseadas na história organizacional. Neste artigo discute-se como a memória organizacional e as práticas mnemônicas são importantes para a preservação ou redescoberta da identidade organizacional e para apoiar iniciativas orientadas ao futuro em design, gestão de marcas e gerenciamento de recursos humanos.

How individuals cope with institutional complexity in organizations: a case study in the energy transition

International audienceThe present article examines how employees cope with an organizational setting that is institutionally complex. The empirical setting is a French energy corporation that simultaneously pursues a logic of science and a logic of market through multiple research partnerships with public and private actors engaged in the energy transition. We draw on the literature on institutional logics and hybrid organizations to examine how employees of this French energy corporation deal with this institutionally complex environment. Our findings point to three strategies that individuals use to cope with institutional complexity in their organizational setting: aggregating, selective coupling and compartmentalizing. Each individual uses only one strategy. The findings further suggest three psychological factors that seem to explain which of these strategies a given individual adopts for coping with institutional complexity: tolerance for ambiguity, preference for holism, and preference for reductionism. We integrate these findings into a two-dimensional model. These findings contribute to illuminating how individuals cope with institutional complexity in their organizational setting, an insight that can help shed light on why organizations respond somewhat differently to the same institutionally complex field

Why do some multinational firms respond better than others to the hostility of host governments? Proximal embedding and the side effects of local partnerships

Using a multiple-case study of alleged expropriations reported before the World Bank, we examine how multinational companies (MNC) react to the escalating hostility of host governments. Our study reveals how different choices regarding the interaction with local nonmarket stakeholders – which we refer to as proximal vs. mediated embedding – shape how managers respond to these disputes by affecting their ability to collect, process and interpret information, and to act upon it in a way that effectively mobilizes local and international support. In contrast to the prevailing view that local partners in international joint ventures shelter MNCs from abuse from political authorities, our findings show that primary reliance on local partners to manage the local nonmarket environment can actually reinforce a liability of outsidership and even create a ‘liability of insidership’, to the extent that relying on local partners prevents the MNC from establishing quality connections with a broad range of nonmarket stakeholders, reducing its alertness and responsiveness to hostile acts from host governments

Criação de Valor Simbólico

Os consumidores compram bens não só por suas funções práticas, mas também pelos significados que estão imbuídos e aos quais os consumidores querem ser associados. Neste artigo, apresentamos a noção de valor simbólico e descrevemos como ele é construído coletivamente na interação entre produtores, consumidores e outros atores sociais. Com base em estudos anteriores, bem como em nossa própria pesquisa, propomos um modelo que começa a revelar como os produtores podem se envolver sistematicamente na produção de bens que são valorizados como símbolos culturais e por suas propriedades expressivas

Family firms as institutions:Cultural reproduction and status maintenance among multi-centenary shinise in Kyoto

Our study investigated how multi-centenary family firms in the area of Kyoto – collectively known as shinise – maintain a high social status in the community. Our analysis unpacks the socio-cultural practices through which the ongoing interaction among these actors re-enacts and reproduces the social order that ascribes shinise a distinct social standing in exchange for their continued commitment to practices and structures that help the community preserve its cultural integrity and collective identity. By doing so, our findings trace a connection between status maintenance and the expressive function that a category of firms performs within a community. At the same time, our study reveals a dark side of high status, by showing how their commitments lock shinise in a position of ‘benign entrapment’ that may impose sacrifices on family members and severe limitations to their personal freedom

Managing cultural specificity and cultural embeddedness when internationalizing: Cultural strategies of Japanese craft firms

When entering international markets, manufacturers of consumer products are expected to adapt their products in order to meet local consumption practices. Doing so is particularly challenging for producers of culturally-specific products —that is, products that are little known, understood, or valued outside theiroriginal cultural milieu—whose operations are often deeply embedded in local conventions and traditions. To examine how SMEs navigate tensions between the cultural specificity of products and the cultural  embeddedness of operations when expanding internationally, we conducted a multiple case study ofJapanese producers of heritage craft located in Kyoto. Our findings reveal three strategies available to address these tensions—namely, selective targeting, cultural adaptation, and cultural transposition—and highlight the pivotal role played by local distributors and foreign designers, serving as culturalintermediaries, in bridging systems of domestic and foreign cultural practices and meanings. Our findings portray product adaptation as an ongoing process that unfolds along with a firm’s international expansion, as producers and intermediaries explore ways to bridge cultural differences. They illuminate thelengthy processes of learning and unlearning, adjusting, and rethinking that underlie managers’ efforts to strike a balance between standardization and adaptation as they internationalize.</p

Managing cultural specificity and cultural embeddedness when internationalizing : cultural strategies of Japanese craft firms

When entering international markets, manufacturers of consumer products are expected to adapt their products in order to meet local consumption practices. Doing so is particularly challenging for producers of culturally-specific products—that is, products that are little known, understood, or valued outside their original cultural milieu—whose operations are often deeply embedded in local conventions and traditions. To examine how SMEs navigate tensions between the cultural specificity of products and the cultural embeddedness of operations when expanding internationally, we conducted a multiple case study of Japanese producers of heritage craft located in Kyoto. Our findings reveal three strategies available to address these tensions—namely, selective targeting, cultural adaptation, and cultural transposition—and highlight the pivotal role played by local distributors and foreign designers, serving as cultural intermediaries, in bridging systems of domestic and foreign cultural practices and meanings. Our findings portray product adaptation as an ongoing process that unfolds along with a firm’s international expansion, as producers and intermediaries explore ways to bridge cultural differences. They illuminate the lengthy processes of learning and unlearning, adjusting, and rethinking that underlie managers’ efforts to strike a balance between standardization and adaptation as they internationalize

Managing design and designers for strategic renewal

For producers of traditional or high-tech consumer durables seeking to differentiate themselves from their competitors, the role of the product designer is increasingly taking a key role. In fact design and designers can contribute to corporate strategic renewal, and this paper proposes a framework for understanding how this can be achieved. Building on a study of outstanding innovators in product design – names such as Apple, Alessi and Bang & Olufsen – the authors describe design-driven renewal as a four-phase process stimulated and supported by design, combining continuous product innovation with the periodic revision of the strategic course of the company. For each phase, it discusses the specific role of managers and the most common pitfalls that arise from poor management of the process

The cultural side of value creation

The question of how organizations create value has become a central question for understanding inter-firm competition and performance differentials. Much of the work on the topic emphasizes the importance of technological innovation for improving operational efficiency and/or product functionality . Accordingly, much of the work in the area has focused on understanding the development of technological capabilities and the dynamics of competition among different technologies. Whereas this line of research has contributed greatly to our understanding of value creation through technology performance improvement, it has also left unexplored the strategies for differentiating products on the basis of their cultural significance. Yet, research in a wide variety of disciplines ranging from anthropology, to cultural sociology, and consumer behavior shows that consumers value products not only for their functional and technical performance, but also for their cultural meanings. The infusion of products with cultural meanings enables consumers to use these products to make statements about their personal and social identity and status. It is therefore well understood that consumers derive value not only from what products do (functional value), but also from what they signify in a given social group (symbolic value). While strategy scholars recognize that product meanings are a source of differentiation and generate price premia (Porter, 1980), they also tend to view the activities that generate them – e.g. branding – as a part of the marketing strategy of the firm. More generally, strategy research has been criticized for its reluctance to delve into the demand side of value-creation. Rooted in disciplinary assumptions about atomistic consumers with idiosyncratic preferences, strategy researchers view demand as largely exogenous and ignore its cultural embeddedness in social conventions that define the cultural meanings of objects and shape consumption choices. As a result, they have given limited attention to the question of how firms can strategically manage the symbolic value of their products. In this paper we propose a cultural perspective on value creation that can direct strategic organization research toward the systematic investigation of how producers engage with the cultural meaning systems that supply frameworks for interpretation and valuation of goods. To guide research in this direction we first discuss how products acquire cultural significance and then outline three core implications of these ideas for the strategy and organization of firms. First, we discuss how recognizing the cultural significance of products shifts attention from technological innovation that alters product functionality to cultural innovation that alters their cultural significance. Second, we explain the need to develop distinct cultural resources that enable firms to identify and exploit opportunities for cultural innovation. Third, we draw attention to the need for cultural intent defined as developing an explicit strategy for utilizing cultural resources to achieve specific cultural positioning for the firm’s products