Chaos and Transformation Theories: A Theoretical Analysis with Implications for Organization Theory and Public Management

Chaos and transformation theories have emerged as new currencies in social sciences in general and in systems design and management, and in futuristic studies in particular. This article analyzes chaos and transformation theories in historical and contemporary perspectives, their contributions to social science in general, and organization theory and public management in particular. The notions of chaos and order, change and continuity, and uncertainty and certainty are analyzed along with the growing realization of complexity and non-linear dynamic features of modern organizations and the hard reality of a constant necessity to acquire new knowledge and learn to manage organizations with flexibility and innovation. Finally, the article addresses some of the limitations of chaos theory and outlines a number of implications for organization theory and public management in the age of globalization.     

基于协同效应的企业内外部RD与创新绩效研究

内部R＆D投资和外部技术并购作为提升创新能力的重要源泉均受到学术界和实务界的关注。从内在机理和外部表现分析内外部R＆D间存在的协同效应,并从正、反两个角度论述关联并购对协同效应的影响。基于医药企业技术含量高、R＆D投入强度大、属于重点推进并购重组行业的特征,以2002年至2010年在沪、深证券交易所上市的A股医药行业公司为研究样本,构建OLS回归模型,通过LR检验进行实证研究。研究结果表明,内外部R＆D的协同效应存在于医药行业企业,能够提升企业绩效,单纯的进行内部R＆D投资或者只进行外部技术并购,都不是提升企业价值的最优技术创新模式;与大型企业和国有企业相比,该协同效应主要存在于小型企业和非国有企业中;不同于已有研究关注的控股股东利益驱动下的关联交易,关联并购作为一种特殊的关联交易,其具有的信息优势有利于企业内外部R＆D协同效应的实现。     

学习型组织的学习能力系统、学习导向人力资源管理系统及其相互关系研究——自然科学基金项目（70272007）回顾和总结

主要回顾了国家自然科学基金项目学习型组织的学习能力系统、学习导向人力资源管理系统及其相互关系研究(70272007)所提出的理论观点和实际应用成果,包括组织学习和学习型组织的概念、模型、组织学习能力测量问卷OLCQ;学习导向人力资源管理系统的概念、维度、测量问卷LOHRMQ;学习导向人力资源管理对组织学习能力的影响;其他与人有关的管理措施对组织学习能力的影响;所提出的组织学习和学习型组织、学习导向人力资源管理的理论在中国企业的应用研究及研究发现。最后,介绍了取得的学术成果和实践成就,指出了未来的发展方向。     

Conquering ‘the tyranny of distance’: Australian–European economic and geopolitical relationships past,present and future

Australia today remains a continent adrift in a rapidly transforming world. It is economically dependent on China, aligned militarily with the US and yet socio-culturally still profoundly European in outlook. In this article, we reflect on the trends, challenges and opportunities that are likely to define and redefine Australia's interaction with Europe at a macro-level. We focus on eight key macro-level themes: historical connections, labour and migration, geopolitics and security, macro-economic relations and prospects, business relations and investment, technology and innovation, entrepreneurship, and environment and sustainability. We find that while Europe and Australia remain poles apart regarding several pressing global matters, from military and security alliances to official policy on climate change, there are also areas in which the potential for closer engagement are increasingly promising, including trilateral trading relationships with Asia, foreign direct investment and business-to-business relations, digital business, innovation and entrepreneurship, and business-driven innovation to combat global warming.     

Leadership, affect and emotions: A state of the science review

This paper presents a selective, qualitative review of affect, emotions, and emotional competencies in leadership theory and research published in ten management and organizational psychology journals, book chapters and special issues of journals from 1990 to 2010. Three distinct themes emerged from this review: (1) leader affect, follower affect and outcomes, (2) discrete emotions and leadership, and (3) emotional competencies and leadership. Within each of these themes, we examine theory (construct definition and theoretical foundation) and methods (design, measurement and context) and summarize key findings. Our findings indicate that the study of affect and emotions in leadership fares well with regard to construct definitions across the first two themes, but not in the last theme above. Design and measurement issues across all three themes are a little less advanced. One serious gap is in a lack of focus on levels-of-analysis theoretically and methodologically. Our review concludes with recommendations for future theoretical and empirical work in this area.     

Social capital and business and management: Setting a research agenda

This paper adopts the template of systematic reviewing and provides an up-to-date synthesis of the literature on social capital and business and management. The review demonstrates that social capital research is concentrated into three core dimensions: structural, relational and cognitive. First, structural social capital includes social interaction and the frequency of contact and connectivity levels among and between actors' network relations. Secondly, relational social capital refers to the underlying normative conditions of trust, obligation, expectation and identity that guide actors' network relations. Thirdly, cognitive social capital refers to the meaningful contexts of communication among and between actors, and includes the shared language, codes and narratives used to create understanding. However, the rich linkages between structural, relational and cognitive social capital across equivalent/hierarchical social space and geographical boundaries are neglected. A further research focus identified is that the role of face-to-face and the increasingly routine tool of electronic mediated communication may produce different characteristics and levels of social capital. The paper also discusses the ways in which critical realism and mixed methodology may enhance understanding of the process-based linkages between structural, relational and cognitive social capital.     

节能减排补贴政策下的企业与政府信号博弈模型

我国对节能减排实施了范围较广的补贴政策。本文在考虑政府节能减排补贴政策的情况下,构建了企业与政府补贴信号博弈模型以分析两方策略的选择机制及影响因素,研究表明:由于信息的不对称性和不完全性,政企博弈将出现市场部分成功、完全成功、完全失败三种均衡,且市场均衡效率受到作假的伪装成本和期望风险成本的影响,故实现市场完全成功均衡的关键条件是提高企业造假的伪装成本和期望风险成本,由此得出相应的解决对策应聚焦于进一步细化政策、标准,并提高检查复查效率、设置较大的惩罚力度、建立基础性数据库等方面;通过对政府与企业合谋情形进行分析,认为建立更全面、多维度的考核指标,发挥社会公众、媒体第三方的质询和监督权可有效约束政企合谋行为。     

ICT-based solution approach for collaborative delivery of customised products

Growing interest on business collaboration motivates today’s industries, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to establish and manage dynamic and non-hierarchical business networks to respond to market opportunities with added business benefits. This business environment requires concurrent work and real-time information sharing between key business partners in order to design and develop customised products. The use of traditional communication media such as e-mail, phone and fax is not satisfactory to get real-time information and is time-consuming and most often ineffective. In such environments, an Information and Communication Technology (ICT)/Web-based technology supports real-time information sharing among networked SMEs for the collaborative design and manufacturing of customised products. This study proposes an innovative ICT platform supporting SMEs collaboration, through Web and the Internet of Things technologies, which follows the Net-Challenge conceptual approach and methodological guidelines for SMEs to form and operate virtual organisations for the collaborative development and delivery of customised products. The ICT Platform was assessed in three different industry domains, namely the textile and apparel, the footwear and the machine tools, respectively. This ICT solution promotes collaboration, with substantial advantages for SMEs including the reduction of costs and delivery time and improvement of the innovation potential.     

The evolution of intellectual property strategy in innovation ecosystems: Uncovering complementary and substitute appropriability regimes

In this article, we attempt to extend and nuance the debate on intellectual property (IP) strategy, appropriation, and open innovation in dynamic and systemic innovation contexts. We present the case of four generations of mobile telecommunications systems (covering the period 1980–2015), and describe and analyze the co-evolution of strategic IP management and innovation ecosystems. Throughout this development, technologies and technological relationships were governed with different and shifting degrees of formality. Simultaneously, firms differentiated technology accessibility across actors and technologies to benefit from openness and appropriation of innovation. Our analysis shows that the discussion of competitiveness and appropriability needs to be expanded from the focal appropriability regime and complementary assets to the larger context of the innovation ecosystem and its cooperative and competitive actor relations, with dispersed complementary and substitute assets and technologies. Consequently, the shaping of complementary and substitute appropriability regimes is central when strategizing in dynamic and systemic innovation contexts. This holds important implications for the management of open innovation, innovation ecosystems, platforms, and coopetition.     

培育、强化企业核心能力:亟待划清的十个界限

核心能力是企业的生命线,是贯串企业全部战略管理的主线.而培育、强化企业核心能力要获得成功,就必须认真、科学地从企业资源同企业能力、消费者剩余同战略差异性、3C(Cl、CS、CL)同2C(Cl、CS)、理查德租金同垄断租金、潜在市场同现实市场、世界极品牌同非世界级品牌、“克隆”多元化同随机多元化、顾客偏好技术同原理和制造技术、规模经济同范畴经济、单纯的人以“人力”为本同以“人力+人格”为本等若干方面划清界限.     

Multi-level issues in evolutionary theory, organization science, and leadership

Multi-level issues are critical in the physical, social, and behavioral sciences. We articulate issues related to multiple levels of analysis in theory building and theory testing and explore them from evolutionary theory (ET) and organization science and leadership (OSL) perspectives. Specifically, analogous multi-level concepts and notions in ET and OSL are identified, aligned, and illustrated. Ideas from evolutionary psychology are included in the ET perspective, while notions from the varient approach are included in the OSL perspective. Several exemplars in OSL that incorporate ET and multi-level perspectives are presented. Numerous examples and lessons learned from ET and implications of multi-level issues and multiple levels of analysis for future theory building and theory testing in OSL are discussed as well.     

激发你的正能量! 使整个企业建立积极、正向、阳光的文化

近期,"正能量"这个词在企业界非常风靡。它指一切可以使人们积极向上、促使人们不断追求、让生活变得圆满幸福的动力和感情。在经济不景气的大环境下,释放和挥洒正能量,让整个团队和企业家自身都能乐观向上、积极进取,勇于面对一切困难和挑战,对企业来说至关重要。那么,个人和团队的正能量如何激发和提升?如何将正能量充分而完整地释放出来,推动企业     

Book Reviews

Books are reviewed in this article:
Monitoring Human Tissues for Toxic Substances By the Committee on National Monitoring of Human Tissues, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, and Commission on Life Sciences Washington, D.C: National Academy Press
Drought and Natural Resources Management in the United States: Impacts and Implications of the 1987-89 Drought By William E. Riebsame, Stanley A. Changnon, Jr., and Thomas R. Karl Boulder
Groundwater Chemicals Desk Reference By John H. Montgomery and Linda M. Welkom
Probability Is All We Have: Uncertainties, Delays and Environmental Policy Making By James K. Hammit
Sharing Environmental Risks: How to Control Governments'Losses in Natural Disasters By Raymond J. Burby Boulder
Environmental Change in Iceland: Past and Present Edited by Judith K. Maizels and Chris Caseldine Boston
Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy By Silvio O. Funtowicz and Jerome R. Ravetz Boston
Injury and Litigation Prevention: Theory and Practice By Stanley H. Freeman
Engineering Risks: Evaluation and Valuation By Ulrich Hauptmanns and Wolfgang Werner
Uncertainty: A Guide to Dealing with Uncertainty in Quantitative Risk and Policy Analysis By M. Granger Morgan and Max Henrion with Mitchell Small
Introduction to Modeling of Transport Phenomena in Porous Media By Jacob Bear and Yehuda Bachmat Boston
Statistics in Toxicology Edited by Daniel Krewski and Claire Franklin
Robin K. White Vicki G. Vest The Toxicity of Anticancer Drugs Edited by Garth Powis and Miles P. Hacker
W. Michele Simmons Curtis C. Travis     

Strategic planning for social and political change

Formalized planning is currently applied to planning for operations and capital investment, planning for products and markets, and occasionally for manpower. However, there is little evidence that companies are producing formal plans and programmes to deal with social and political change. Unfortunately, public opinion is moving against business, action groups inside and outside companies are challenging the authority of management, and public officials and politicians are already framing new laws and regulations. Unless managers begin to get more involved in the framing of these controls they are likely to find laws enacted and enforced by people who have little knowledge or sympathy with business. In this article the author points up the necessity to assess the social and political challenge to their business, and formulate and implement social and political strategies and plans aimed at ensuring the survival and prosperity of their organisations.     

产品创新与工艺创新协同发展分析模型与方法研究

本文从理论和实证两方面对产品创新与工艺创新协同发展问题进行了深入研究。系统分析和介绍了有关产品创新与工艺创新协同发展的匹配关系、策略选择等主要模型与方法,对其研究视角和结论进行了总结。在此基础上,运用文献计量法进一步阐述了产品创新与工艺创新协同发展分析方法研究的发展趋势。     

Risk Analysis for Biological Hazards: What We Need to Know about Invasive Species

Risk analysis for biological invasions is similar to other types of natural and human hazards. For example, risk analysis for chemical spills requires the evaluation of basic information on where a spill occurs; exposure level and toxicity of the chemical agent; knowledge of the physical processes involved in its rate and direction of spread; and potential impacts to the environment, economy, and human health relative to containment costs. Unlike typical chemical spills, biological invasions can have long lag times from introduction and establishment to successful invasion, they reproduce, and they can spread rapidly by physical and biological processes. We use a risk analysis framework to suggest a general strategy for risk analysis for invasive species and invaded habitats. It requires: (1) problem formation (scoping the problem, defining assessment endpoints); (2) analysis (information on species traits, matching species traits to suitable habitats, estimating exposure, surveys of current distribution and abundance); (3) risk characterization (understanding of data completeness, estimates of the "potential" distribution and abundance; estimates of the potential rate of spread; and probable risks, impacts, and costs); and (4) risk management (containment potential, costs, and opportunity costs; legal mandates and social considerations and information science and technology needs).     

Exposure to Psychological Aggression at Work and Job Performance: The Mediating Role of Job Attitudes and Personal Health

Despite the growing literature on workplace aggression and the importance of employee performance at work, few studies have examined the relation between workplace aggression and job performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relations between psychological aggression at work and two forms of job performance (task performance and contextual performance) and potential mediators of these relations. Based on Conservation of Resources theory and prior research, a model was developed and tested in which overall job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction and organizational commitment) and overall personal health (i.e., physical and psychological health) fully mediate the relations between exposure to psychological aggression at work and both task performance and contextual performance. Data were obtained from a national probability sample of US workers (N = 2376) and the model was tested using structural equation modelling. The results supported the hypothesized model, demonstrating that exposure to psychological aggression at work negatively predicted both task performance and contextual performance, and that these relations were explained by decrements in job attitudes and health associated with exposure to psychological aggression at work.     

Managing diverse risks: An integrative framework

Risk is a crucial part of any business and managing risk is an essential function for management. This paper reviews current managerial practice and academic research in managing diverse risks. There are numerous elements of risk, some exogenous to the firm and others that are endogenous. In recent years exogenous elements of risk have increased both in number and complexity, and distinctions have blurred between national and international elements of risks because of the integration across borders of markets, institutions, and political and operational risks. An explicit classification of risks as exogenous and endogenous will focus managerial attention to the changing exogenous elements, to the often ignored endogenous elements, and to the needed integration of managing exogenous and endogenous risks. While there is an increasing body of research examining risk, there is a need to examine exogenous risk elements as systems of risk rather than as independent elements and integrate endogenous elements including behavioral and incentive-related aspects with the systems of exogenous risks. Additionally, international case studies and surveys about risk perceptions and attitudes of managers across different organizations and within levels of organizations will improve our understanding of the diverse risks faced by multi-national corporations.     

小微企业的正规化与非正规选择——基于双重信贷市场的视角

考虑双重信贷市场的融资可得性及正规化成本与优势,小微企业该如何进行正规化与非正规化选择,是摆在理论界与实务界面前重要的决策问题。文章以道德风险框架下的连续投资模型为基础,从企业融资角度出发,构建了基于企业初始资产的小微企业正规化与非正规化选择模型。通过引入正规化成本与双重信贷市场的不同信贷机制,比较分析了不同初始资产水平下,小微企业选择正规化与非正规化的效用。研究结果表明:存在一个初始资产阀值,在阀值之上,小微企业应该选择正规化;在阀值之下则应该选择非正规化。此外,通过进一步拓展模型,探讨了正规金融部门的组织质量、企业提供抵押的可能性和新型金融机构为小微企业提供金融服务对该选择的影响。