| Which Institutional Environment for Organizational Change? Perceptions of Barriers to Innovation and R&D cooperation in Europe |
| | Delmas, Magali A. | U. of California, Santa Barbara | delmas@bren.ucsb.edu | (805) 893-7185 |
| | This paper proposes a comprehensive treatment of firms’ incentives to rely on R&D cooperation, comparing hypotheses from the knowledge-based approach, transaction cost economics and the new institutional economics. In our model, innovative firms make a choice between governance efficiency and the value that they might gain from innovating. The evaluation is between transaction costs, risk reduction and knowledge acquisition. This choice is influenced by the institutional context, which facilitate or hampers the use of cooperative strategies. The method is based on a survey questionnaire of innovator’s perceptions of barriers to innovation. The analysis, based on 3400 European companies, shows that each of the theoretical approaches partly predicts the use of R&D cooperation but none of them is sufficient on their own. Innovative European firms use R&D cooperation to develop dynamic capabilities as well as to reduce the uncertainty and cost of innovation. The utilization of R&D cooperation is dependent on the institutional context in terms of protection of innovation, the possibility to develop cooperation and the availability of complementary assets. |
| | Keywords: Institutional Environment; Cooperation; Knowledge |
| Changing institutions, types of resources and capabilities, and firm strategies: The case of Korea |
| | Park, Choelsoon | Seoul National U. | cpark@plaza.snu.ac.kr | 82-(0)2-880-8259 |
| | Seo, Jeongil | Seoul | cpark@plaza.snu.ac.kr | 82-(0)2-880-8259 |
| | Yi, Minyoung | Seoul National U. | cpark@plaza.snu.ac.kr | 82-(0)2-880-8259 |
| | This article is concerned with strategic challenges facing firms in the economy that experiences a dramatic shift in its institutional context. As a research setting, this article chose Korea since Korea has undergone significant pressure to change its institutional context for the last decade. This article suggests that the effectiveness of a firm's strategy depend on how effective the strategy is in building the resources and capabilities (R&Cs) that are critically important to its businesses, which are in turn determined by institutional context. Therefore, institutional context determines the effectiveness of a particular strategy by specifying the types of R&Cs.
This article provides evidence that prior to the late-1980s, most strategies for building general R&Cs, such as government support, financial resources, managerial resources and capabilities to secure those resources, were highly effective. However, strategies for building more industry-specific R&Cs, such as technologies and marketing capabilities, were not effective. This article also anticipated that due to the changes in institutional context, strategies for developing the general R&Cs are not successful after the mid-1990s whereas strategies for developing the industry-specific R&Cs are. Unlike our anticipation, however, the results of this article showed that strategies both for the general R&Cs and industry-specific R&Cs were effective after the mid-1990s. Some implications of this study are also discussed.
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| | Keywords: institutions; strategies; Korea |
| Post-Privatization Restructuring and Firm Performance in Russia: Theory and Evidence |
| | Peng, Mike W. | Ohio State U., Columbus | pengshaohong@hotmail.com | (614) 292-2666 |
| | Buck, Trevor | Leicester Business School | tbcor@dmu.ac.uk | (0116)-250-6439 |
| | Filatotchev, Igor | U. of Nottingham | Igor.Filatotchev@Nottingham.ac.uk | (44 115)951 5265 |
| | In the context of privatization and restructuring in Russia, we test two
standard agency theory hypotheses, namely, (1) outside board members and
(2) new managers are positively related to firm performance. Based on a
survey of 314 firms which on average were privatized 31 months earlier,
the evidence offers little support for the hypotheses. Historically,
evidence refuting theories has been launching pads for scientific progress.
Our findings, therefore, raise interesting questions about whether the
underlying theory is appropriate, whether there are methodological
problems, or whether there are institutional factors in Russia's
transitional economy that need to be accounted for when we test agency
theory in a new setting. We address these questions and discuss their
implications for theory, practice, and public policy. |
| | Keywords: Restructuring; Performance; Russia |
| Organizational Identities and Strategies in the French Retailing Industry |
| | Bouchikhi, Hamid | ESSEC | Bouchikhi@edu.essec.fr | +331-3443-3066 |
| | Kimberly, John R. | U. of Pennsylvania / INSEAD | kimberly@wharton.upenn.edu | (215)-898-7937 |
| | Bensedrine, Jabril | U. of Marne-la-Vallee | bensedri@univ-mlv.fr | (331) 60 95 70 55 |
| | Organizational identity has been recently the object of growing interest among management scholars. As is often the case with new concepts, researchers coming from different intellectual traditions favor different definitions of organizational identity. While the concept appeals to many in the academic community, its theoretical and empirical potential have yet to be demonstrated and exploited.
This paper proposes a definition of organizational identity (OI) as an objective, externally observable configuration of four enduring, central, and distinctive components answering four foundational questions: why (purpose), who (people), what (core business), and how (operating principles).
Following from this very general definition, any single organization can be represented by a specific arrangement of these four dimensions that, together, form its identity and ensure its uniqueness and continuity over time.
To illustrate how OI shapes organizations' strategies over long periods of time, we examine the development of three large French retailers over the last 25 years. While these organizations had to cope with the same institutional environment limiting their expansion options, the specific strategies they enacted to cope with this environment reflect deeply rooted idiosyncratic identities.
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| | Keywords: Organizational identity; Strategy; Retailing |