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Content analysis of archival records is proposed as a useful mechanism to develop adolescent theories. Using Bacharach's (1989) framework on theory-evaluation, we identify and develop a list of protocols of content analysis that facilitate theory development. We argue in favor of using a combination of the deductive and inductive approach in identifying variables. Next we explain how a code-book can be created to ensure consistent application of coding criteria. The quantification of variables facilitates performance of statistical tests of variance, and also the identification of relationship between variables. Such an approach done over multiple organizations and over longitudinal periods facilitates theory development and falsification of key hypotheses. Finally, the paper offers a brief example of how one such adolescent theory --attention-based view of the firm -- might be developed using archival records in the domain of healthcare in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper advances a prospective case study research design in social sciences as an alternative to traditional post-hoc case study research in deductive theory testing. It is argued that some limitations of post-hoc qualitative methods in deductive theory testing can be alleviated by using a prospective case study design, where the researcher formulates a set of theory-based hypotheses in respect to the evolution of an on-going social process and then tests these hypotheses at a pre-determined follow-up time in the future by comparing these hypotheses with the observed process outcomes using "pattern matching" or similar technique. Some of the challenges of conducting prospective research in social sciences are discussed. An illustration of the application of this method in deductive testing of two competing theories is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike the majority of literature, this paper conceptualizes deviance as both destructive and constructive. While workplace deviance can be harmful to the organization, employees who engage in discrepant behaviors may also contribute to the overall well being of the organization. This study empirically examines the moderating and mediating effect of role breadth self-efficacy in explaining the relationship between job autonomy and workplace deviance in Canada and Mexico. The results suggest that destructive deviance is positively related to constructive deviance. Partial support was found for both the mediating and moderating role of constructive deviance. Practical implications and future research directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I explore inter-related processes in the geographic agglomeration of industry: that of entry into, and the survival and growth of firms in, industry clusters. Building on recent work in economic geography, evolutionary economics, and international business, I examine how firms that enter from outside a region alter the knowledge and opportunity structure for potential entrants and indigenous incumbents in that region. In particular, I examine the short and long run effects of both greenfield and acquisition entry on entrepreneurial entry, as well as on the exit and growth of indigenous incumbents in regions. I use a comprehensive dataset of all firms in the Canadian biotech industry between 1978 and 2002 to study the dynamic effects within all regions that have experienced an external entry. This work has both managerial and public policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper combines an ethnostatistics approach (Gephart, 1988) with Weick's (1995; 2001) sensemaking framework to explore how and why Canadian Business Schools seek accreditation from the AACSB and use the data from various magazine's Annual University Rankings to position themselves in their academic markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses radical change in corporations by examining the role of discourse between an organization and its external constituents and combining a stakeholder theory approach with an institutional theory perspective. The study examined case studies and historical accounts of the restructuring experience of the Canadian federal government during the 1990s to investigate its theories. The article states that the most important part of the analysis is to identify the role of legitimacy in understanding organizational responses to stakeholder pressures. The article concludes that the relative transparency of the change process facilitates examination of the interplay between the convergence of isomorphic forces wielded by various stakeholders.

This article presents a study that examined the development of inter-organizational trust at the beginning of a cross-cultural alliance for trustors from Canada and Japan. Trust is a critical factor in alliance formation and management. At the beginning of the collaboration, partners have insufficient background information about one another to form trusting beliefs and intentions. Thus, initial trust is fragile. While first impressions and preliminary interactions can provide essential opportunities for developing initial trust, in cross-cultural collaborations differences in expectations and interaction styles, language barriers and geographical distance raise significant obstacles to trust building. The study found strong support for the hypothesized link between formal assurances and trusting outcomes in Canada and for the hypothesized link between informal assurances and trusting outcomes in Japan. The types of assurances that serve as effective signals of credibility and trustworthiness for trustors from different cultures may indicate which types of trust-building processes are more characteristic within that culture. As a practical implication, being sensitive to which cues trustors from different cultures pay most attention to in their assessment of the trustee can increase the trustee's odds of receiving a favorable initial evaluation, thus contributing to a higher level of trust from the very beginning of the alliance.

This article investigates individuals' trust decisions following takeovers in a cross-national sample of German, Singaporean and Canadian employees. Few attempts have been made to examine the role that trust plays in the integration process following mergers and acquisitions (M&A). This is despite evidence from M&A case studies as well as interviews with managers and employees of acquired organizations indicating that trust is of critical importance to the success of M&A. Various characteristics of the takeover situation and the post-acquisition integration process influenced trust decisions of respondents. However, the proposed antecedents of target firm members' trust in the acquiring firm management were not equally important in influencing trust decisions. Attractiveness of the human resource system of an acquirer was found to be the most important antecedent of trust. This finding is consistent with prior research that has shown that employee reactions to acquisitions depend primarily on the personal benefits and losses attributed to them. Mode of takeover was found to be the second most important factor influencing trust. Thus, aspects of the takeover situation and the integration process that have an immediate impact on employees' work situation and careers, such as takeover friendliness and quality of reward changes, are more important in affecting trust than such aspects as the interaction history or cultural distance between the combining firms.

This article discusses the multilevel determinants and processes of institutional change in the British Columbia coastal forest industry. Institutional change is attracting increasing attention among organizational scholars. Individual organizations change first, often stimulated by changes in the broader environment. Innovations are later mimetically adopted by other organizations under certain conditions. Within an organization, the need for change is noticed and championed by an individual or team, and the adoption of change requires adjustments in the interpretations of other organization members. For years in British Columbia, environmentalists and forest companies engaged in a War of the Woods. Environmentalists protested clearcutting (a logging practice in which all of the trees in an area are cut), by blockading roads and chaining themselves to logging equipment. Clearcutting was institutionalized by practice, by legislation, and normatively. Forest companies staunchly defended clearcutting as tree farming, the safest way to log, and the only way they could stay in business. In 1998, forest company MacMillan Bloedel (MB) shocked its industry and stakeholders, and earned environmentalists' accolades, when it announced it would completely replace clearcutting with variable retention logging. MB subsequently pressured other firms to adopt variable retention and negotiate with environmentalists. Several of the largest companies did, and the institutional environment changed radically.

For years differences between French- and English-Canadian businessmen have been the subject of controversies and polemics. In this paper, we report the results of a comparative study about French- and English Entrepreneurs' managerial and organizational practices, strategies for expansion and sources of information. The study shows that English- and French-Canadian entrepreneurs do not always stand apart in their business philosophy and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational, environmental, and CEO characteristics were examined as predictors of propensity to engage in interorganizational relationships and actual interorganizational outcomes. Results of a national study of Canadian hospitals suggest that propensity to engage in IOR is best predicted by perceptions of performance and competition, and actual interorganizational outcomes are best predicted by size, CEO characteristics, and market share. It is now well recognized that interorganizational relationships (IORs) are a mainstay of North American health services systems. In the U.S. and Canada, hospitals are increasingly engaging in complex IORs with other organizations and groups. It has been suggested that an increasingly competitive and financially constrained environment has led hospitals to engage in IORs. Canada's hospitals are largely protected from issues of survival and competition. Recent evidence, however, suggests that Canadian hospitals face an increasingly competitive environment (Fried, et al., 1989). In this paper we examine a range of factors associated with IORs among Canadian hospitals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the use of power in four Canadian universities. It shows that different power configurations exist as a result of the distribution and use of power by key interest groups. The study examines the impact of these configurations on how the universities have responded to funding restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes some results from a four year longitudinal research study of Canadian government controlled corporations engaged in business activities. It summarizes findings with respect to the characteristics of their strategic evolution, the form and degree of external intervention, and the autonomy and discretion of corporate managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a research related to the role of moral self-worth in moral self-regulation. Topics discussed include the self-worth theory suggesting individual difference in the extent to which people consider certain specific values to be important to self-conception, the importance of moral identity in defining morality, and engagement in moral cleansing to restore threatened self-perception. It also informs that undergraduates from a large Canadian university reported moral identity and demographics in an ostensibly unrelated online survey.

Research on de novo firms' entry into clusters has produced puzzling results. Studies find that the likelihood of failure is higher yet the performance of survivors is higher than in dispersed locations. In this paper we are addressing this seeming contradiction by opening up some of the processes that take place during the initial stages of the life of a firm in cluster and dispersal locations. Using a novel dataset covering all de novo entrants into the Canadian manufacturing sector during 1984-1998, we show that clusters attract entrants with different resource endowments. Fierce competition in clusters screens out weaker entrants early while survivors exhibit improved productivity due to greater learning opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do entrepreneurs simply recognize and act on opportunities or do they create opportunities? In this paper I use data from the emergence of the cable industry in Canada and the concepts of habitus, symbolic violence (Bourdieu, 1985; 1989; 1998) and structuration (Giddens, 1984) to theorize opportunity constitution as a social process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses research into the critical theory of management studies. Within the study, critical theory has been updated in conjunction with Freire's notion of Emancipatory Management. This study showed that local cultural differences had a large impact on both communitarian organizations in Bahia, Brazil and Quebec, Canada. The findings showed that local cultural perspectives influenced each organization and that individual or collective aspects took a secondary role to each other. Nevertheless, several conflicts arose in each organization in which organizational discourse was absent when it came time for external action within the communities.

While the adoption of proactive environmental strategies, such as environmental management systems (EMS), has increased worldwide, there has been little research evaluating why facilities adopt these strategies across different countries. Moreover, the link between EMS adoption and a company's business performance has yet to be demonstrated. This study draws on institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm to determine when a facility's environmental strategy may lead to improved environmental and business performance. We analyze these relationships using survey data from manufacturing facilities operating in Canada, Germany, Norway, and the United States and structural equation modelling techniques. Our results support the notion that facilities whose environmental strategies are mainly driven by institutional pressures may improve their environmental performance. On the other hand, facilities that are driven primarily by their resources and capabilities observe both positive environmental and business performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We tested whether the 6-factor model previously reported by Carlson, Kacmar, and Williams (2000) as underlying their 18-item work-family conflict measure was generalizable to samples of managers from New Zealand (N = 451) and Canada (N = 181). The 6-factor model yielded good fit to the data, although results show that respondents in both samples had difficulty distinguishing between behavior-based work interference with family (WIF) and behavior-based family interference with work. We also found that strain-based WIF appears dominant in terms of predicting general psychological and physical reactions to stress, and that these reactions play significant mediating roles in the positive link between strain-based WIF and managers' intentions to quit their job. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examined the experiences of early versus later adopters of new manufacturing equipment. The nature of the problems encountered during start up and operation and the factors affecting their occurrence were investigated in studies of 106 Canadian manufacturing concerns. In each instance a process innovation whose operation was important to the effectiveness of the manufacturing unit was investigated. The first and earlier adopters encountered problems greater and different from those of later adopters. Analysis indicates that there are significant factors affecting both the choice of becoming an early adopter and managerial considerations if early adoption is undertaken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We find a robust negative relationship between high investment HR systems (HIHRS) labor productivity in a sample of Canadian small firms, rebutting the view that HIHRS universally enhance firm performance. Furthermore, differentiation strategy magnifies this negative relationship, whereas capital intensity, firm age, and industry growth dynamism mitigate this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new behaviorally oriented performance appraisal and training evaluation instrument was developed for five large Canadian chartered banks. The new instrument has the advantage that it is valid across organizations. Twenty-five assistant bank managers were evaluated by their superiors, using three different appraisal instruments: Graphic Rating Scale, Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale, and Behavior Description Index. Campbell and Fiske's Multitrait-multimethod matrix was used to test the construct validity of the three tests employed. The Behavior Description Index demonstrated significant convergent and discriminant validity. In addition, it showed less halo and central tendency, and had a higher information content than the other instruments. Implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nurses involuntarily working full time reported more negative work attitudes than did full-time and part-time nurses with congruent work status. Compared to the pre-layoff period, nurses reported a significant decrease in job satifaction, increased perceived job insecurity, and greater intention to leave following the hospital downsizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The responses of surviving and defunct firms in the Canadian primary textile industry are studied, using Chandler's phases of strategic and structural development, to discuss the influence of government policy on the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The style of management and its ideology is viewed as a critical input into organizational strategy in this study. The participative, the autocratic, the mechanistic, the organic, the risk-taking, the conservative, the rational-comprehensive, and the seat-of-the-pants judgment-oriented styles are reviewed. Data from 103 Canadian firms is utilized to identify the kinds of external environments with which each of these styles is associated. The interrelationships of these styles are also examined. A number of propositions is developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which assessed how formal organizations manage the time paradox in relation to business sustainability. The researchers performed an inductive multi-firm investigation of the climate change-related activities and operations of five gas and oil firms in Canada. They determined four dimensions of the time paradox which described the orientation of companies to the concept of time, such as directionality, speed and linearity. They argued that by looking at these dimensions, researchers can analyze the abilities of enterprise to promote business sustainability.

The article discusses the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics' (PSED) introduction of a longitudinal approach to the systematic, large-scale study of representative samples of ongoing new venture start-up processes. A review was conducted of 78 journal articles that were based on PSED-type data sets from the U.S., Swedem, Norway, Netherlands and Canada. The review's purpose was to assist data set users and project designers in maximizing the use of PSED's representative, longitudinal, and real time approach to researching the creation of new firms. Elements of the PSED approach are discussed, such as the capture of samples of start-up efforts and longitudinal follow-up of their development.

The article focuses on the influence and prevalence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a Confucian culture and an individualistic culture. It states that CSR is considered a norm for businesses in Western societies, while Confucian societies have lower societal and normative expectations of businesses. It comments on the role of social identity theory in the categorization, identification, and comparison of self-image by individuals. It talks about how the influence of employee-oriented CSR on employee commitment is affected by societal differences in Confucian and individualistic cultures. It examines a cross-cultural study of companies in Taiwan and Canada to determine the moderating effect of society on the relationships between CSR and employee commitment and corporate image.

Using linked data for Canadian workplaces and employees, we find that product leadership business strategy is positively related to the likelihood of adopting work-life balance programs. Cost leadership business strategy is negatively related to the adoption of these programs. Moreover, high performance work system mediates the relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses institutional change caused partly by problems experienced by institutional rules. Three problem-related mechanisms are explored by the authors which include problem attraction, problem recognition, and problem engagement. How this research differs from previous studies on institutional rules is considered. The longitudinal data of water laws in British Columbia, Canada are used to test the authors' models. Why the authors chose to study water laws is explored. The history of the Water Act and the research's hypotheses, variables, and methods are outlined. It was found that institutions are run by internal mechanisms independent from external drivers.

A comparative analysis of business press articles relating to social issues in management and corporate social innovations finds wide differences among three otherwise comparable countries (U.S., Canada, France). These differences shed doubt on the validity of the convergence hypothesis. They are explained by differences in national policy styles and political culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates industrial values in eight national cultures: Argentina, Canada, France, West Germany, India, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It assumes that cultures influence employee perceptions of industrial values. The attitudinal results indicates that a communality based on employees' Industrial values, exists among the eight cultures. A ranking technique, used to expose perceptual differences, exhibits a fairly constant pattern of agreement on the value items across the eight cultures. Likewise, a Q-factor analysis of the eight countries in terms of the value items, reveals a single cultural cluster. Indicating that the Industrial values may reflect the attitudes of an industrial milieu, rather than "organizational" culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]