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The article discusses emerging market theory development and identifies and describes a couple of approaches to theory development. The results of a survey in which 25 scholars working in emerging markets responded to several questions, including some the main challenges they face when trying to publish conceptual research, are also presented.

Once upon a time, there was a group of management scholars. They spent their time in an ivory tower, thinking great thoughts. Sometimes, when the scholars had an especially exciting thought, they would try to share it with end users. The scholars would rush to the tower's windows and toss paper airplanes out into the air. But, alas, their thoughts were not relevant to the end users. The scholars' paper airplanes crashed to the ground, and so the scholars' work had very little impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the preceding paper, Schweiger extends the present authors' review of cognitive style measurement and finds fault with some of their classifications and descriptions. The present paper is a response to his criticism. It clarifies the original intentions and gives reactions to several of his other points. It closes by noting the significance of one's own cognitive style in dealing with the larger concerns of cognitive style measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Support systems for early venturing efforts need to be harmonious with the emergent nature of those efforts. With the current literature treating the conceptions of new ventures as exogenous, there has been a limited focus on the transition of venturing efforts from nebulous, open-ended, and accidental toward becoming scalable, focused, and deliberate. We develop a dynamic model for organizing support systems for the early phases of new venture creation, where scattered ideas evolve into venture concepts as tokens, frames, and premises for further action. By viewing venturing efforts and opportunities as emergent and drawing on the literature on complexity and organizational space, we propose openness, self-selection, visibility, and connectivity as the defining characteristics for organizing support systems. In contrast to the literature's predominant focus on a predictive, linear approach, we expand the theoretical scope of support systems to include organizing that is more attuned to the uncertain and nonlinear nature of new venture creation that they support. Our work has broader implications for organizing uncertain early-phase development processes. A video abstract of this paper can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDUZgGapMnM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is provided to articles within the issue on organizational and corporate uncertainty, or indeterminacy, imagination and managerial choice within the context of limited knowledge.

In 2015 we issued a call for papers for a Special Topic Forum (STF) on Diversity at a Critical Juncture in response to contextual shifts that raised questions regarding the assumptions, scope, and implications of prevalent theorizing on diversity in management. Four years later, societal trends have made this call even more urgent and relevant. Although these trends are both ominous and disruptive to the current state of knowledge, they also provide opportunities to pursue new questions and develop new theories on the topic of diversity. The articles published in this STF advance diversity theory by addressing several aspects of our changing context and the complexities associated with it. We begin this introduction to the STF by first tracking the trajectory of diversity theorizing over the past five decades, highlighting various epochal shifts at the societal level as well as within the Academy of Management that marked the ascendancy of the field of diversity. We then describe the current critical juncture, highlighting how the articles address the issues identified in our initial call. We close by offering several pathways for further theorizing that incorporate the complexity, unpredictability, and importance of studying diversity at this current critical juncture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent interest In studying "managerial cognitive styles" has led to the development and use of a variety of instruments. This paper discusses the importance of instrument description, classification, and evaluation by taking issue with several points made by Robey and Taggart (1981) in a recent issue of the Academy of Management Review. Recommendations also are made concerning those criteria that are critical in the development and/or evaluation of cognitive style instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humor has been suggested as an effective management tool. Reviewed in this paper is the existing research on humor appreciation or what is funny to whom; the influence of humor on group characteristics such as cohesiveness, communications, power, and status; and the linkage, if any, between group dynamic variables and human performance. A list of guidelines for management in matching humor with the situation is given, and some priorities are suggested for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a response to Jaco Lok and Hugh Wilmott's comments on a 2004 paper by Professors N. Phillips, T.B. Lawrence, and C. Hardy on the discursive approach to institutional theory. The authors believe that the exploration of discourse analysis as a new avenue for future institutional research was a useful and feasible project. They also feel that it could help overcome some of the problems currently faced by institutional theory, particularly when explaining processes of institutionalization or the nature of institutions. Lok and Willmott's two key issues are identified and discussed. Lok and Willmott question our definition of discourse and claim that the authors have not gone far enough in their attempt to reconciling institutional theory with a better developed concern for power and politics.

The article presents a list of publications received, including: "Bhopal: Anatomy of a Crisis," by Paul Shrivastava, "Business Not as Usual," by Ian I. Mitroff, and "The Business of Public Relations," by E. W. Brody.

In this article we argue that the extant representations of the concept of organizational memory are fragmented and underdeveloped. In developing a more coherent theory, we address possible concerns about anthropomorphism; define organizational memory and elaborate on its structure; and discuss the processes of information acquisition, retention, and retrieval. Next, these processes undergird a discussion of how organizational memory can be used, misused, or abused in the management of organizations. Some existing theories are reassessed with explicit attention to memory. The paper closes with an examination of the methodological challenges that await future researchers in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, the place of ethics in business practices has been to supply a decision procedure or some formal normative orientation. This paper asserts that the role of ethics is much larger than that, going beyond "knowing that" to include "knowing how" as an important epistemological extension to traditional ethical theory. Ethics thus becomes, in part, a form of art, giving added credibility to the commonly heard phrase "the art of managing." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inducing commitment in contributors is an important concern for executives promoting courses of action. In this paper, the author draws on research in behavioral decision theory to develop a model of the process by which executives can encourage commitment in contributors through the promotion of specific cognitive heuristics and biases. An example of the possible uses of information in promoting commitment and a discussion of the ethical issues involved in using information in this way are also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptually, business political activity may have three major objectives: (1) to gain special monetary and anticompetitive favors from government-domain management; (2) to manage environmental turbulence created by governmental threats to the legitimacy of organizational goals and purposes-domain defense; and (3) to manage similar threats to the methods by which organizations pursue their goals and purposes-domain maintenance. This paper incorporates the political objective of domain maintenance into the existing typology of the strategic objectives of environmental management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorists In various fields have discussed characteristics of top managers. This paper attempts to synthesize these previously fragmented literatures around a more general "upper echelons perspective." The theory states that organizational outcomes-strategic choices and performance levels-are partially predicted by managerial background characteristics. Propositions and methodological suggestions are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to some authors, the field of business and society has suffered because it apparently lacks a dominant paradigm. This paper (I) concludes that such a paradigm is unlikely to emerge soon and (2) offers an "integrating framework" based on an interpenetrating systems model and focusing on the social control of business. This framework may serve as a unifying mechanism for existing research in the field as well as an agenda for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops Weick's (1979) notion of "complicated" understanding by linking it with concepts of complementarily, cognitive complexity, and adult development. The paper describes a rationale for, and design elements of, management education programs aimed at increasing complicated understanding in administrators, primarily by fostering differentiation and integration of perspectives on organizational problems. It suggests several outcomes of complicated understanding and indicates ways in which these outcomes, as well as programs aimed at producing them, can be assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the manufacturing production management system as an administrative structure intimately and interactively fitted into the context of the firm. Drawing on the literatures of organization theory and strategy, a contingent-theoretic view is posed, suggesting that the production administrative structure (PAS), along with its administrative context, must maintain a dynamic fit with the evolving strategy and environment of the firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the authors respond to comments made about a paper they published in a pervious issue that discussed that examined organizational decline. The authors proposed two models of the process in their original work, the second of which drew the most scrutiny. In this article they reexamine this model of organizational decline and address various aspects of the model more intensively. The main areas that they focus on are explaining why administrative ratios were not included in their model as well as offering a better argument for why the assumption of symmetry between decline and growth was not needed in their model.

This paper addresses the processes of reconciling hierarchies and American ideals and suggests ways in which the socially functional and radical traditions of corporate history could be extended to include such concerns. It focuses on the concepts through which hierarchies and managerial authority were rendered thinkable as positive components within American society and traces the formation of the notion of a dispassionate, professional managerial authority exercised through corporate hierarchies out of the ideals of American political culture. The reconciliation of hierarchy with American political culture is analyzed across the period 1900-1940 in three sections: the Progressive years, the 1920s, and the 1930s. This focus on a period that was decisive for both the modern corporation and the administrative literature associated with it provides considerable scope for extending critical studies of the corporation and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Declining organizations frequently, sometimes necessarily, reduce their work forces. This paper introduces a hierarchy of work force reduction strategies and advances a series of propositions focusing on organizational and environmental variables that influence the managerial choice of work force reduction strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizations use strategic issue management (SIM) systems to enhance their capacity to adapt. Despite increasing prominence, very little is known about the design and use of these systems. This paper presents typologies of the forms SZM systems can take and the functions SIM systems can serve, it describes how pressures imposed by different contexts affect both the form and function of SIM systems. implications for theory and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests an integrative framework for research on consensus in strategy formulation-performance relationships. The proposed model has two components. First, a descriptive component explores the environment-consensus relationship in which the environment is conceptualized along the dimensions of munificence, complexity, and dynamism. Second, a normative component investigates the role that the match between environment, consensus, and integrating structure plays in explaining differences in organizational performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the role cognitive scripts, a unique type of knowledge schema, play in generating purposive behaviors in organizations. Three separate but complementary areas of research (Scheme Theory, Control Theory, and Goal Setting Theory) clarify the processes that link script-type structures to purposeful behavior. Finally, implications and extensions of this comprehensive frame- work based on previously identified content structure, and process issues are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Equity theory proposes that individuals who perceive themselves as either underrewarded or overrewarded will experience distress, and that this distress leads to efforts to restore equity. This paper describes a new construct, equity sensitivity, and proposes that reactions to equity/inequity are a function of an individual's preferences for different outcome/input ratios. The construct is delineated through a series of propositions, and implications for equity research in organizations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a conceptual model combining ideas from organization theory and industrial economics. According to this model, objective industry environments influence managers' perceptions of their environments, and managers' perceptions influence structural adaptations. As well as industry environments, individuals' characteristics and organizational structures also influence managers' perceptions. In contrast with other models, this model examines managers' perceptions in terms of several dimensions. Managerial choice and organizational slack also influence structural adaptations to environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No theory or model of organizational learning has widespread acceptance. This paper clarifies the distinction between organizational learning and organizational adaptation and shows that change does not necessarily imply learning. There are different levels of learning, each having a different impact on the strategic management of the firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a debate within strategic management about organizational environments—are they objective, perceived, or both? Still another view of environments, derived from an interpretive worldview, claims that environments are enacted. This paper explores three major implications of the enacted environment concept for strategic management theory and practice: abandoning; the prescription that organizations should adapt to their environments; rethinking constraints, threats, opportunities; and considering the primary role of strategic managers to be the management of meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past 30 years, economists and management theorists have empirically investigated the compensation of top executives. An issue that has received critical attention is what appears to be a weak link between top executive compensation and performance. In contrast to rational models that have characterized most previous studies, this paper develops a political perspective to explain why the linkage between rewards and performance is weak. Implications for research and management practice are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Use of progress functions in strategic planning has led to the principle that firms can expect continuous cost improvements with cumulative output. But finding policies that result in continuous cost improvements requires a better understanding of the dynamics underlying firms' progress functions. This paper draws on more than 200 empirical and theoretical studies of progress functions in industrial engineering, economics, and management. Factors causing progress fall into four categories that vary in origin (exogenous or endogenous) and in type (autonomous or induced). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper derives a model of organization life cycles in three steps: (1) by considering relationships of power distribution inside an organization with that around it, a typology of six configurations of organization power is produced; (2) by considering intrinsic forces that work within each of these configurations to destroy it, the likely transitions between these configurations are identified; and (3) by stringing these transitions together in sequences over time as organizations survive and develop, the model is developed. Some implications of such a model in a society of large organizations are addressed briefly in conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current models on self-management in organizations generally have taken a bivariate perspective. This paper proposes a more complex conceptualization of self-management in which its control mechanisms are examined. It is argued that the self-managed employee is far from loosely supervised; such employee is closely controlled. It is argued further that the clientele's active participation in the operation of the organization mediates the widely held relationship between self-management and structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has failed to confirm a direct relationship between organizational design and group performance. The reason, as revealed by this literature review, may be that organization-level characteristics first affect group structural properties, which, in turn, have a direct impact on performance. In support of this view, this paper offers both a conceptualization of a moderated design-performance relationship and a set of literature-derived hypotheses to serve as guides for empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the development of the quality circle in Japan with reference to such traditions as permanent employment, nenko (seniority- based compensation), enterprise unionism, and management paternalism. Quality circles are examined as tools for motivating employees, reducing labor turnover, effecting employee "career expansion," and allowing employee participation in job redesign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Belief in the ideal of value-free organizational science still is widely expressed in the discipline. However, values are entailed in general models of organization; such models emphasize certain problems, minimize others, and so have implications for how organizations should be structured and managed. This paper illustrates how ethical criteria can be used to evaluate these implications and, in turn, the overall acceptability of alternative social models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a conceptual model in response to the lack of structural designs for professionals and professional organizations. The proposed model satisfies the unique role-creation, negotiation, and client/customer interface within the operations of professional organizations. The emerging structural form can best be described as a flexiform type. The unique features of the flexiform structure are presented, and implications and future research focus are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growth management strategies can fall, sometimes from lack of integrating political impacts into a firm's dominating market Ideas. This paper outlines a set of responses for a firm confronted with external demands for change. The firm's product and its Impact constitute a connected environment around the firm. Promotive thinking, seeing the product and impact environments as interdependent aspects In a political context and viewing impacts as new growth opportunities, can turn political pressures into an expansion of the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of business policy in the 1980's is a challenge for discussion. There are differences on what the subject is. Is it a course? Or a field of research? What is its literature? What is its future? Some want to make it a science. What does that mean? This paper addresses these questions, moving forward in phases. The perspective is that of a faculty member of the Harvard Business School, at which there has been a course called Business Policy since 1908. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The criteria traditionally used to classify organizations as manufacturing and service offer little utility to managers in planning and controlling operations. The identification of similarities that allow implementation of proven management techniques is critically important regardless of organizational classification. This paper briefly reviews criteria for classifying manufacturing and service organizations and suggests an extension of the dependent demand concept to planning and control for service organizations. Applications of this approach to service organizations are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that despite the current renaissance of interest in organizational power and politics, organization theory neglects individual political behavior within organizations. The need for a concern for individual political behavior is explored, and three key dimensions of political behavior are suggested: internal-external, vertical-lateral, and legitimate-illegitimate. A typology based on these dimensions is proposed, and predictions about the different types of political behavior are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the definitional problems surrounding the strategy concept, particularly the failure to define adequately the types of decisions that are strategic in character. A "strategic decision set" that can be applied across all firms and industries is developed, followed by a discussion of implications for teaching and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Repeated calls have been made for a general theory of strategic management that will enhance research, teaching, and application of subject matter in the area. This paper presents a social learning theory of strategic management (SLTSM) that encompasses earlier attempts to explain strategic management and offers a distinctive conceptual framework. SLTSM links the interdependent elements of executive cognition, stimulus and consequence environments, and strategic behaviors, through reciprocal determinism, providing a unique perspective on strategic management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategic management is the process through which a manager ensures the long term survival and growth of a firm. This paper provides a comprehensive framework for strategic management based on adaptation, a metaphor that succinctly captures the endeavors of an organization to be fitted better to its environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The business policy literature traditionally has emphasized the rational and normative aspects of strategy formulation in organizations. This paper develops a frame work to explicate strategic decision making from a political perspective, with particular reference to the evolution of coalitions around issues. The content of a strategic decision is posited as emerging from internal dynamics. The utility of the framework is demonstrated by its comparison with the rational model of strategic decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The content validity of the managerial assessment center approach is founded on the resemblance of the process as a whole to the job of a manager as a whole. Therefore, the primary threats to the content validity of the assessment center process are poor design and poor implementation, not a lack of sophisticated job analysis or of a close match between job activities and assessment dimensions or exercises. Dreher and Sackett's review of court cases regarding paper-and-pencil tests for police officers and firefighters does not provide a persuasive argument for concluding that managerial assessment center procedures lack content validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we discuss the nature of static and dynamic analyses and their implications for a systems theory of policy formulation. Our thesis is that dynamic analysis establishes the basis for formulating strategy to solve long-term problems. Static analysis can be misleading in that it may provide short-term improvements but undermine long-term survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central purpose of this paper is to identify a concept and an analytical framework for evaluating the capability of an organization to undertake strategic action. Implications for theory building and practical application are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that insight into organization functioning is related to the fit between language of description and type of organizational phenomenon. Natural language may be more powerful than mathematical language for understanding and describing many organization processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing work on legacy in management has focused on the upper echelons and on the "legator"—the person leaving the legacy. Drawing on the meaning maintenance model and concepts surrounding psychological ownership and identity, we build a model that focuses on "legatees"—the beneficiaries of the legacy—in the lower echelons. The departure of a manager, informal leader, or star serves as a disruption to legatees' mental representations of their working world. That disruption causes them to attend to issues of ownership (either psychological ownership or disownership of the legacy) and identity (either identification or rivalry with the legator) in order to fulfill salient needs. Fulfilling continuity and belonging needs results in two behaviors that enhance the durability of the legator's contributions: maintaining and evangelizing. Fulfilling distinctiveness and efficacy needs results in two behaviors that reduce the durability of the legator's contributions: neglecting and erasing. We theorize that these relationships are moderated by two aspects of the legacy: its magnitude and its content (in terms of whether the contributions are tangible or intangible). We describe the implications of our model for the legacy literature in management and lay out an agenda for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two articles--one by Anderson, Milkovich, and Tsui, the other by Stumpf and London--address the study of mobility within organizations from different perspectives. Both are motivated by societal as well as theoretical concerns, but the models and propositions developed in the two papers are more different than they are similar. Anderson et al. take a broader approach to intra-organizational mobility, but the propositions they offer are less testable than those of Stumpf and London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]