Suchergebnisse

The hypothesis that managers believe risk to be a major component of strategy formulation, with a corresponding effect on the strategic decision‐making process, was subjected to empirical examination. A total of 93 top executives of Israel's largest industrial companies, representing various business sectors, responded to the research questionnaire. Although the data supported the major research hypothesis, they also showed that managers are not inclined to use risk‐assessment models. In‐depth interviews with 21 participants supported the findings and suggested possible explanations. Recommendations regarding the formation of risk strategy and the incorporation of risk assessment models to strategic decisions are suggested.

The present study examined the relations between perceived environmental/technological uncertainty among managers and intensity of use of organizational learning mechanisms. Confirming the research hypotheses, negative relations were found between the intensity of use of each of the five factors of organizational learning mechanisms (formal learning processes, information dissemination, training, information gathering, information storage and retrieval) and perceived environmental/technological uncertainty. These correlations were higher in the organizations that function under uncertain as opposed to certain environments. Finally, when perceived uncertainty was regressed on the five factors of organizational learning mechanisms, information gathering came out with a positive regression weight, that is, when organizational learning mechanisms like information dissemination, training or information storage and retrieval are held constant, information gathering is positively related to uncertainty.

The present study focuses on the reporting of administrative and disciplinary irregularities. The reasoned action model (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) is applied to predict officers' intentions to report illegal or irregular activities in the Israeli Defense Forces. The findings show that although the model's two predictors (attitude toward reporting and subjective norm) significantly predicted intention to report, the effect of subjective norm was much stronger than the effect of the attitude component. In spite of the military's strong formal system and although social forces have great potential to impose the reporting norm on an organization's members, actual reporting does not meet expectations. The results are discussed in light of the organizational culture that develops as the combat unit struggles to survive in an extremely turbulent environment.

Ss (N = 288) in a shopping mall in suburban Chicago, Ill, were approached with a request to participate in a survey. Of Ss, 50% were touched & gazed at by interviewers & the other 50% were not. These nonverbal techniques increased compliance to participate in the interviewing task & somewhat decreased respondents' perceived burden. The touch & no-touch groups did not differ in response quality, apparent response bias, or volunteer bias. Compliance was related to the gender of the interviewer but not related to that of the respondent. Implications for mall intercept surveys are discussed. 3 Tables, 18 References. HA

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction -- 2. A Framework for Genealogical Evolution -- 3. Economic Conditions at the Time of Founding and the Founding Parents of the Genealogies -- 4. Genealogies in the Making -- 5. Founding and Genealogical Evolution -- 6. Concluding Remarks -- Appendix: History of the Israeli High-Tech Industry -- Notes -- References -- Index

This research investigates how boundaries are utilized during the postmerger integration process to influence the postmerger identity of the firm. We suggest that the boundaries that define the structures, practices, and values of firms prior to a merger become reinforced, contested, or revised in the integration process, thus shaping the firm identity that emerges. In a field study of a series of four sequential mergers, we find that the boundary negotiation process acts as an engine for identity creation in postmerger integration. Our analysis of the process through which postmerger identity is created reveals two stages of identity creation. In the first stage, boundaries are negotiated to leverage and import certain practices and values of the premerger firms; in the second stage, these boundaries are blurred as managers build on the set of imported practices and values to impose further systems that define the postintegration firm. Our research contributes to the identity literature by drawing attention to the important role of boundaries and practices that define the identities of the merging firms. We show how these boundaries get repurposed to create an organization whose identity ultimately represents a departure from the premerger firms while it preserves the aspects of identity that allow members to uphold key values. We also contribute to the literature on postmerger integration by demonstrating the steps through which identity evolves by the staged demarcation and negotiation of boundaries, thus complementing previous treatments of merging firms as a set of fixed organizational attributes in merger contexts.

The study investigated the interrelations among use of organizational learning mechanisms, organizational mental models, and organizational outcomes. It was conducted in a bank, 10 of whose branches were soon to undergo organizational change designed to improve customer service and another 10 were to undergo the same organizational change a few months later. The results demonstrated that customer satisfaction was greater for branches that used organizational learning mechanisms intensively than for branches that used these mechanisms less intensively. The learning branches also showed richer shared knowledge (more constructs and causal links within their cognitive cause maps) and more congruent mental models (cause maps). Furthermore, the content of the learning branches' shared knowledge reflected more closely the messages delivered by organizational management in favor of the structural change. The hypothesis that the use of organizational learning mechanisms moderates the success of an organizational change program was supported by the cause maps data but only partially supported by the customer satisfaction data. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.