318 research outputs found
Chit-chat matters: work-related knowledge flows through informal inter-organizational ties
No full textIndustrial clusters are characterized by an intense actors interacting with the effect of sharing existing knowledge and creating new one. In this environment knowledge unevenly flows across organizational boundaries and a significant part is exchanged via informal channels. Despite some scholars argued that only general and low-value information can be shared through this kind of channels (Breschi & Lissoni, 2001), empirical research show that specific and critical knowledge diffuses through informal networks as well (Dahl & Pedersen, 2004). Indeed, informal ties between firms represent the fertile ground for the so-called 'information trade', according to which firms must give useful information in order to obtain it (Rogers, 1982). Von Hipple (1987) considers informal information trade between firms as an important form of cooperative R&D, likely to occur in industries where proprietary knowledge is critical for firms' success. Although such knowledge spillovers are recognized to be not a critical factor for firms' willingness to cluster (Krugman, 1991), they are an important form of knowledge transfer and their existence within clusters is undoubtedly linked to the one of informal networks. Scholars argue that formal ties among firms are important in explaining innovation exactly because they enable access to informal spillovers within a regional ecology (Owen-Smith & Powell, 2004, p. 9). This argument is motivated by the fact that a large portion of the knowledge exchanged across organizational borders is tacit in nature, which is informally transmitted by face-to-face interaction (Giuliani, 2010). It descends that informal inter-organizational networks represent interesting subjects of study for their pivotal role as conduits for information and knowledge diffusion. Although several studies recognize the importance of informal networks for the dissemination of knowledge, they mostly fail in assessing the extent to which inter-organizational informal ties represent conduits of work-related knowledge. The data belongs to an original dataset that we have built over time since the establishment of the ITC Pole of Abruzzo Region. First results highlight that a considerable part of informal ties represents conduits of work-related knowledge. The paper tries to contribute to the literature by emphasizing the importance of informal inter-organizational networks; when studying industrial clusters as knowledge ecosystems, informal ties among cluster actors do exist and a considerable part of those are exclusively devoted to share work-related knowledge
Taking up the challenge of organizational inclusion: A conceptual framework for including “diverse” individuals in organizations.
No full textIn the last few decades, inclusion has captured the attention of corporate leaders and prominent researchers. Business organizations, as non-spontaneous social systems, are particularly prone to be non-inclusive venues due to diversity among organizational populations which consist of groups of coworkers who are usually not entitled to choose their colleagues. This paper aims to enrich the understanding of inclusion within organizations, investigating its social dimension (the extent to which individuals feel woven into the social fabric of their organization) and the occupational dimension (the extent to which organizational members are involved in critical organizational processes). Building on the different bodies of literature on diversity and inclusion, leadership, human resource management, and organizational culture, the present study develops a conceptual framework on the dynamics of inclusion at the individual-organization level, emphasizing the roles of leadership and human resource management practices in establishing an inclusive culture and the subsequent synergistic inclusion of diversity within the workplace
People, Technology, and Processes: A further reflection in pandemic times
No full textThe Covid-19 pandemic has forced organizations to change the way they work. More specifically, to cope with the emergency situation, people within organizations have been required to confront an array of changes and related issues, such as “setting up” their offices inside their homes or getting used to technologies that were available but never really used. In the cases of physical isolation (e.g., quarantine), technology became the only access to the external world, either professional or personal. More than ever, technology has progressively become part of our lives. The subject of how technology and human lives interact is not new, whether humans are considered as individuals or organized collectives (groups, teams, companies, communities). In analytical scholarly terms, technology, people, and processes have traditionally been investigated as “boxes and arrows,” with boxes representing the elements and arrows signaling the causality of potential dominance of one upon the other(s). In fact, the understanding of companies, and other social entities, as “socio-technical systems” dates to the 1960s. In the 1990s, technology seemed to take advantage of the human dynamics, by incusing a form of “imperative” upon them, shaping and reshaping business process (e.g., technology-supported business reengineering). Later, the emphasis on humans as owners and carriers of knowledge and the rediscovery of their decision-making capacity opened the door to the possible prevalence of individual agents upon the tools, with technology considered (just) a “socio-material” construction, that is, the idea of technology making sense only to the very extent that it can be used by individuals and that it assumes different meanings according to the users (e.g., emails, social network platforms, mobile phones). However, other interpretations are possible. Rather than having technology dominate the organization, or organizational settings crafting the actual use (and sense) of technology, we may accept an osmotic relation between the two which dynamically generates organizational processes. This osmosis does not always happen spontaneously; it might instead be governed by the organizational leaders. The craft of the organizational processes is going to differ dramatically based on whether leaders adopt a “top-down” or “bottom-up” approach in decision making
Improvising Around and About Boundaries in Open Organizations
No full textIndividuals improvise, teams improvise, organizations improvise, and collectivities improvise. Improvisation has been convincingly approached in several extant studies. Nonetheless, the dissolution of organizational boundaries in the morphing into “open organizing” creates unexplored and uncharted territories in which improvisation unfolds. In fact, the encounter between organizations that are traditionally delineated by their boundaries with unknown yet active contributors (e.g., crowd members participating in online challenges, temporary “involvees”) creates the conditions for a novel form of improvisation. This novel form takes place at the (open) gates of the organizational boundary or across multiple organizational boundaries. As in other forms of improvisation, this peripheral improvisation is not immune from dark sides. Non-employed yet involved individuals may be exposed to liminality
Creating shared value: A systematic review, synthesis and integrative perspective
No full textCreating shared value (CSV) refers to a strategic process through which corporations can turn social problems into business opportunities. CSV's strategic approach in solving societal problems and its close relationship with strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stakeholder theory have kept the concept in the spotlight in both the corporate and academic worlds. As a result, the literature on CSV is riddled with ambiguities, weak theoretical foundations and contradictions. To better understand and address these ambiguities, we conducted a systematic literature review of 242 articles published from 2010 to 2020. We begin with a comprehensive review of the field and develop a definition of CSV that distinguishes it from related concepts. Our review and analysis reveal, firstly, that CSV is a meaningful, incremental addition in the extant literature and not a revolutionary concept, nor a buzzword. Secondly, assuming that firms are rational, a firm's decision function when it comes to adopting a CSV strategy depends on opportunity costs and transaction costs. Thirdly, there is no single universal way to create shared value: multiple external and internal factors influence a firm's ability to pursue a CSV strategy effectively. Our discussion delineates the key differences between scholars of strategy and scholars of business ethics, and directs avenues for more constructive research. We also believe that this study will act as a guide for managers in adapting to CSV strategies, helping corporations adopt society‐friendly policies
Made in Italy, strategia e tradizione: l’innovazione strategico-organizzativa nelle microimprese e nelle piccole imprese vitivinicole e calzaturiere tra cambiamento e “non-cambiamento”
No full textLa tesi dottorale studia come le microimprese e le piccole imprese che operano in settori maturi come quelli tipici del Made in Italy possano far leva sull’innovazione nei modelli di business, e quindi sul cambiamento pianificato negli elementi chiave del business model e dell’architettura che mette questi in relazione tra loro (Foss & Saebi, 2017, p. 201) quale forma di innovazione strategico-organizzativa, per poter rimanere competitive. Oltre che studiare il cambiamento come leva per l’innovazione strategico-organizzativa, la ricerca approfondisce la possibilità di optare per il “non-cambiamento” quale strada percorribile e strategicamente valida; ove per non-cambiamento si intende la scelta di mantenere invariato uno specifico elemento dell’architettura organizzativa, ossia – nel caso specifico – il processo produttivo, a fronte di mutate condizioni. La tesi evidenzia come anche le microimprese e le piccole imprese operanti in settori low-tech, le quali, proprio per la caratteristica della bassa intensità tecnologica della propria attività, vengono solitamente tralasciate o considerate come scarsamente innovative, riescano a perseguire molteplici e variegati cambiamenti architetturali che si configurano, de facto, come innovazioni strategico-organizzative importanti. Inoltre, la tesi mostra che, talvolta, dietro a delle situazioni di apparente inerzia ci possono essere delle scelte deliberate relative al non-cambiamento, le quali, al pari delle scelte relative al cambiamento, possono essere comprese guardando al soddisfacimento dei livelli di aspirazione dell’impresa. Tale non-cambiamento richiede un certo sforzo, per certi versi maggiore di quello richiesto dal cambiamento, contrariamente a quanto sarebbe lecito intuire. Infine, la tesi mostra che il non-cambiamento può portare all’ottenimento di una posizione competitiva più sicura di quella derivante dal cambiamento: quando la maggior parte dei concorrenti abbandona il processo produttivo tradizionale, una volta trascorso il tempo necessario al ricambio generazionale, la conoscenza alla base di tale metodo produttivo diventa più rara e scarsamente reperibile, a beneficio dei pochi detentori
Cosa ci insegna la pandemia: Il lavoro agile e il rapporto tra persone, tecnologie e processi
No full textLa pandemia di Covid-19 ha costretto le organizzazioni a cambiare il proprio modo di lavorare. In particolare, per far fronte alla situazione di emergenza, le persone all’interno delle organizzazioni sono state chiamate ad affrontare una serie di cambiamenti e le relative problematiche, come ad esempio “allestire” gli uffici all’interno delle proprie abitazioni o acquisire dimestichezza con tecnologie che sino ad allora, sebbene disponibili, non erano mai state realmente utilizzate. Nei casi estremi di isolamento fisico (es. quarantena), la tecnologia si è configurata come l’unica interfaccia con il mondo esterno, sia quello professionale sia quello personale. Conseguentemente, e ora più che mai, la tecnologia è diventata progressivamente parte integrante della nostra vita
Early internationalising ventures facing ageing and sizing: international growth, entrepreneurial, and market orientation
No full textThis study explores the relationship between the earliness of internationalisation (EOI) and international growth using a sample of 168 high-tech (computer, electronics, telecommunications, and other digital services) Italian SMEs surveyed at two points in time (2007 and 2018). We investigate the moderating role of firm age and size on the relationship between EOI and international growth, conceptualised in terms of both, international scale and geographic scope. More specifically, we evaluate the impact of firm entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and market orientation (MO) on this moderating role. We find that size and age reinforce internationalisation growth, but its effect is stronger when firms have low EO and high MO. Thus, ageing more than sizing seems able to sclerotise early international ventures, thus reducing their ability to enlarge their international scale and scope. Our results highlight the complexity of the relationship between EOI and post-entry international development
Being resilient for society: evidence from companies that leveraged their resources and capabilities to fight the COVID-19 crisis
No full textThis study adopts a resilience perspective to explain how companies managed to contribute innovative solutions to fight the COVID-19 crisis. We studied how five companies operating in different industries (three in automotive, one in printing, and one in rubber and plastic products manufacturing) managed to reorganize activities and employ their R&D and innovation capabilities to enhance their resilience. Simultaneously, they increased the health system’s capacity to cope with the outbreak. Through a qualitative inductive study, based on interviews with company managers, we found that the firms mobilized their resources and capabilities to expand their ability to adapt and cope with adversity at the organizational level. In addition, moved by the sensitivity to the extreme context and a perceived sense of urgency, the firms deployed the same endowments to strengthen the community’s response to a crisis. Our study shows that an organization can directly and positively foster the broader social system’s resilience. This study contributes to the innovation literature by identifying innovation capabilities as fundamental antecedents of resilience building for organizational response, paving the way for strengthening the link between resilience and innovation
Knowledge transfer when the plug is disconnected
No full textPurpose – Cluster initiatives are projects established by local or national governments to foster the competitiveness of organizations and territories through the facilitation of informal and formal ties among firms that may improve knowledge diffusion, innovation, and new product development. Such projects are managed by project managers, or sometimes by organizations, whose main objectives are a) ensuring network development through the facilitation of interfirm linkages and b) envisioning the path for cluster development. The paper represents an attempt to investigate what happens when the agglomeration project terminates and clustered organizations are not anymore subject to the stimuli toward knowledge transfer exerted by cluster managers. Design/methodology/approach – We study the knowledge network underlying an Italian high-tech cluster initiative through Social Network Analysis. We coded networks of formal and informal ties with a variety of contents, observed at two points in time, namely 2015 (when the cluster project was terminated) and 2017. We compare the observations of the network at the two points in time in order to assess the changes occurred after the cluster manager’s facilitation activity ceased, particularly focusing on whether clustered firms changed their networking behaviour when “the plug was disconnected”. Originality/value – The original element of this study lies in the analysis of the networking behaviour of the firms after the termination of the cluster initiative. While there exist abundant research and evidence about both geographical clusters and public policies aimed at fostering ties among clustered firms, far less is known about how lasting the effects of these policies are. This study contains evidence that clustered firms did not maintain the same relational behaviour two years after the termination of the facilitation activity of the cluster manager. Practical implications – When designing cluster initiatives due care should be had to ensure that cluster managers adequately support clustered firms in the development of the knowledge network, throughout the whole project life cycle. In this regard, our work suggests that the facilitation activity of cluster managers should be terminated only once cluster members have interiorized a networking attitude, in order for them to continue knowledge-transfer activities when the stimuli by cluster manager have ceased. The sharp interruption of the facilitation activity of the cluster manager is likely to nullify the beneficial effects of the cluster project
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