Sensemaking in Organizations: Taking Stock and Moving Forward

Sensemaking is the process through which people work to understand issues or events that are novel, ambiguous, confusing, or in some other way violate expectations. As an activity central to organizing, sensemaking has been the subject of considerable research which has intensified over the last decade. We begin this review with a historical overview of the field, and develop a definition of sensemaking rooted in recurrent themes from the literature. We then review and integrate existing theory and research, focusing on two key bodies of work. The first explores how sensemaking is accomplished, unpacking the sensemaking process by examining how events become triggers for sensemaking, how intersubjective meaning is created, and the role of action in sensemaking. The second body considers how sensemaking enables the accomplishment of other key organizational processes, such organizational change, learning, and creativity and innovation. The final part of the chapter draws on areas of difference and debate highlighted throughout the review to discuss the implications of key tensions in the sensemaking literature, and identifies important theoretical and methodological opportunities for the field.     

Paradox Research in Management Science: Looking Back to Move Forward

Paradox studies offer vital and timely insights into an array of organizational tensions. Yet this field stands at a critical juncture. Over the past 25 years, management scholars have drawn foundational insights from philosophy and psychology to apply a paradox lens to organizational phenomena. Yet extant studies selectively leverage ancient wisdom, adopting some key insights while abandoning others. Using a structured content analysis to review the burgeoning management literature, we surface six key themes, which represent the building blocks of a meta-theory of paradox. These six themes received varying attention in extant studies: paradox scholars emphasize types of paradoxes, collective approaches, and outcomes, but pay less attention to relationships within paradoxes, individual approaches, and dynamics. As this analysis suggests, management scholars have increasingly simplified the intricate, often messy phenomena of paradox. Greater simplicity renders phenomena understandable and testable, however, oversimplifying complex realities can foster reductionist and incomplete theories. We therefore propose a future research agenda targeted at enriching a meta-theory of paradox by reengaging these less developed themes. Doing so can sharpen the focus of this field, while revisiting its rich conceptual roots to capture the intricacies of paradox. This future research agenda leverages the potential of paradox across diverse streams of management science.     

Looking Forward,Looking Back: British Journal of Management 2000–2015

This paper reflects on 16 years of the British Journal of Management (BJM) and discusses what the future holds. The paper analyses publication statistics and submission figures, as well as Special Interest Group (SIG) affiliation of submissions over the more recent period of 2007–2015. It is found that human resource management has a clear dominance among the SIGs. Other fields that are well represented include strategy, work psychology, corporate governance and performance management. The paper also highlights that submissions to BJM are predominantly made by UK‐based authors, possibly reflecting the concentration of UK‐based academics among the pool of associate editors and the editorial board members.     

Strategy-as-Practice: Taking Social Practices Seriously

This article reviews research in Strategy-as-Practice (SAP) and suggests directions for its development. The power of this perspective lies in its ability to explain how strategy-making is enabled and constrained by prevailing organizational and societal practices. Our review shows how SAP research has helped to advance social theories in strategic management, offered alternatives to performance-dominated analyzes, broadened the scope in terms of organizations studied and promoted new methodologies. In particular, it has provided important insights into the tools and methods of strategy-making (practices), how strategy work takes place (praxis), and the role and identity of the actors involved (practitioners). However, we argue that there is a need to go further in the analysis of social practices to unleash the full potential of this perspective. Hence, we outline five directions for the further development of the practice perspective: placing agency in a web of practices, recognizing the macro-institutional nature of practices, focusing attention on emergence in strategy-making, exploring how the material matters, and promoting critical analysis.     

Gapping the Relevance Bridge: Fashions Meet Fundamentals in Management Research

The much lamented 'relevance gap' is as much a product of practitioners wedded to gurus and fads as it is of academics wedded to abstractions and fundamentals. The gap persists because practitioners forget that 'the' real world is actually 'a' world that is idiosyncratic, egocentric and unique to each person complaining about relevance. Greater attention to the conceptual underpinnings of fads and egocentric perception suggest the existence of more fundamental barriers to effectiveness such as ceilings on improvement, weak situations, ambiguous signals, non-obvious adaptive forms and preoccupation with vision. Joint practitioner-academic effort devoted to questions of how events come to be seen as 'real' could re-bridge a gap whose nature has been misidentified.     

中国战略管理学的近期发展:一种本土视角的回顾与前瞻

早先"国际"视角的评估认为中国战略管理学仍处于"前现代"阶段,但从本土视角出发对近10年来中国战略理论发展的一个不完全梳理表明,中国战略管理学者在诸如战略领导、战略创新、制度环境与战略、文化环境与战略等问题上提出不少反映中国情境的战略概念,并在"环境-战略-绩效"的基本范式下开始了具有本土意识的问题研究与理论探索.中国战略管理学正处于转型发展的新阶段.在回顾的基础上,对中国本土战略研究的整体发展道路进行了探讨,特别是从中国作为现代战略知识生产的后来者和知识创新的"缄默知识观"出发,提出中国本土战略研究要走"自觉-能力-问题"三要素融合创新之路,即提高本土化研究的意识与自觉、学习经典理论与方法以提高研究能力,以及深入挖掘本土重要战略问题.以海外华人学者对"制度基础观"战略学说的贡献为例,阐述了这一道路的可行性.最后,对新阶段本土化战略研究的5个基本问题和中国战略管理学发展前景进行了展望.     

质量管理的核心活动与基础活动——重庆制造业的实证研究

质量管理活动的实证测度是国外运营管理领域的重要内容之一,但国内在此领域的研究却相对少见.本文以重庆市制造业企业为样本,通过两阶段问卷调查收集数据,采用探索性因子分析和结构方程的方法,对我国制造业企业质量管理活动的内容进行了实证研究.结果表明,我国制造业企业中的质量管理活动可以归纳为领导支持、员工参与、员工素质、统计控制、产品设计和流程管理等内容.同时,对质量管理活动的划分为基础活动与核心活动提供了实证支持.研究刻画了质量管理活动的运作机理,指出核心活动与基础活动的有机结合将有助于企业质量管理水平的提升.此外,研究还建议在我国企业质量管理实践中应加强对客户和供应商的重视与支持.     

Planning Forward by Looking Backward: Retrospective Thinking in Strategic Decision Making*

Retrospective thinking occurs whenever one remembers something from the past, but one can also think retrospectively about hypothetical future events, by imagining that the event has already transpired and then working backward in the mind from the future toward the present. Designers, artists, planners, and other creative individuals utilize retrospective thinking when they mentally envision the object they wish to create and then thinkabout how it might be constructed. Some theorists and some previous research have suggested that forward and backward thinking are different cognitive processes, but there has been little investigation on the nature of these differences. This article examines the literature and describes a laboratory study designed to investigate retrospective thinking as a technique for increased idea generation. Subjects (n=64) were professional planners and managers with an average business experience of over 20 years. In a planning task, significantly more ideas were generated in the retrospective thinking mode than in the prospective mode, but the ideas were not found to be of greater quality. Evidence emerged that a subset of subjects were better able to make use of the retrospective technique, suggesting that selection along with training may be appropriate for the technique's mosteffective use.     

文化视角下领导研究的回顾与展望

对文化概念和主流文化模型进行总结与评述,指出当前静态、片段式的概念界定的不足以及各模型间的共性特点和相关局限。梳理和分析现有文献,发现当前研究在内容上主要集中于领导力原型、领导风格、特定领导行为和相关领导要素4个方面;在研究方法上偏爱实证研究中的量化研究,对理论研究和质性研究的作用有所忽视;在研究策略上主要遵循"西方领导理论—本土文化背景—本土化解释与修正"的研究路线,不能对本土特有的领导要素进行很好的诠释。此外,提出厘清文化边界、完善和开发文化模型、机理探究、引入时间维度、构建基于本土文化的领导理论是未来基于文化领导研究的主要方向。     

Taking Stock of Temporary Organizational Forms: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda

This paper brings together the research on temporary organizational forms. Despite a recent surge in publications on this topic, there have been few attempts to integrate knowledge on what we know of such temporary forms of organization. In order to correct this, an integrative framework is proposed around four central themes: time, team, task and context. Within each of these themes, the paper offers an overview of the literature, the gaps in what we know, and what future directions might be taken by scholars hoping to contribute to this important and rapidly growing field.     

Customizing Quality Management Practices: A Conceptual and Measurement Framework

Quality management (QM) has often been promoted as a universal remedy, where organizations adopt these practices to enhance performance. However, implementation of QM has led to mixed results with some high‐profile failures. Some suggest that customizing QM practices to fit the organization's situational context can help avoid implementation failure and improve performance. However, research has not fully investigated how organizations should go about customizing quality practices. This article addresses this question by conceptualizing two fundamental yet different aspects of QM practices that have different learning objectives: quality exploitation (QEI) and quality exploration (QER). Drawing on experts and empirical data, we develop a reliable and valid set of measures for QEI and QER. Furthermore, the analysis shows the performance differences in the two sets of QM practices across different contextual settings. Specifically, the empirical results show that the benefits of different QM orientations depend on the level of competition and rate of product change. This research challenges prior conceptualizations of QM, and suggests a practical framework to guide decision makers in customizing QM practices.     

网络舆情管理与股票流动性

投资者因认知资源的限制无法充分接收上市公司发布的信息,现实中往往依赖媒体等第三方市场信息中介获取信息,在网络技术大发展的今日,上市公司会采取主动策略来管理媒体渠道和公司舆情,以期保持良好的公司信息环境。 利用深交所等4家监管机构对深市上市公司网络舆情管理现状的调查数据,通过聚类和主成分分析构建企业网络舆情管理强度指标,研究上市公司主动管理网络舆情对其股票流动性的影响。 研究结果表明,高强度的网络舆情管理有助于提升股票流动性,这一结果在信息环境较差、“可见度”低的公司样本中更明显;当公司出现坏消息或面临负面媒体舆论情绪时,积极的网络舆情管理更有助于改善股票流动性。同时,网络舆情管理提升了股价特质性波动、降低了股价同步性,为主动管理媒体缓解信息不对称、增加股价公司特质信息含量提供了额外证据。 公司进行网络舆情管理能降低投资者信息收集成本和偏差、缓解信息不对称,从而产生与信息披露类似的资本市场效应。研究结果为媒体关注研究提供了新视角,为市场监管者建立以信息披露为中心的监管体系以及上市公司媒体和流动性管理实践提供实证参考。     

Author Correction: How Emotional Intelligence Promotes Leadership and Management Practices

Public Organization Review -     

中国管理实践导向的管理科学与工程理论与方法

本文通过文献评述、专家调查和典型案例分析,试图解释中国管理实践导向的管理科学与工程学科学术研究的基本特点和发展趋势。结果表明,近年来基于中国数据、中国案例和中国经验的管理学术研究成果越来越多。这些研究考虑了中国国情、国家战略、制度和文化等因素,也反映出中国情景下管理科学与工程研究的复杂性和学科交叉性等特点。同时,针对“基于我国领跑工程的管理科学与工程研究”、“面向‘卡脖子’技术的管理科学与工程研究”两个领域的关键科学问题和未来发展进行了初步探讨。     

“中魂西制”——中国式管理的核心问题

作为一种"式"的中国式管理不单纯是管理哲学或管理方法问题,还是贯通、跨越了从管理哲学到管理方法诸层次的,体现为一种与文明类型相伴的管理类型。在一体化组织理论框架的范畴体系中,中国式管理就是在中国组织中通行的目标整合、制度规范内在逻辑支配下,包含了部分相容的西方现代管理体系和方法在内的,体现了至今仍有现实价值的中国传统观念和意义的管理类型,即"中魂西制"。当前阶段,致力于探究中国改革以来成功企业管理经验,并在此基础上做理论总结和提炼,才可能形成能反映中国经验的管理学理论和体系。     

年报问询函与管理层业绩预告

作为政府监管理念转变的重要举措,年报问询函制度的监管效果受到政策制定者和学术界的广泛关注。本文基于业绩预告这一重要的前瞻性信息研究年报问询函的经济后果,研究的主要发现是:相比未被问询公司,被问询公司收到年报问询函后业绩预告积极性提高,预测精确度增加,且预告文本信息质量改善;当问询函越为严重、回函越为详细时,上述效果越为明显。进一步,本文分析年报问询函的作用机制,发现当法律风险较高或外部监督较强时,年报问询函的作用更为明显。本文研究结论表明,为应对年报问询函的负面影响,公司会提高业绩预告质量,以扭转市场负面预期。本文不仅丰富了年报问询函经济后果相关研究、拓展了前瞻性信息文本分析的文献,也对提高上市公司质量的监管机制具有重要启示。     

Human Resource Management Best Practices and Globalization: The Universality of Common Sense

Popular strategies for reform have come directly from the private sector in what is perhaps the most profound redefinition of public administration since the field first emerged as an identifiable specialty. The purpose of this paper is to examine the context out of which these reforms have grown, the challenges that have arisen as a result, and cases where private sector reform strategies have been successfully (and sometimes unsuccessfully) applied in human resource management (HRM). We discuss the benefits and hazards of many of the reforms and conclude that restoring a measure of confidence in the legitimate role of the civil service is essential for nations dealing with the challenges of globalization.     

以客户为中心的管理实践

从客户关系管理的观点出发,首先分析了实施客户关系管理不仅是适应激烈市场竞争,而且也是提升企业持久竞争能力的必然要求.然后剖析从以品牌资产向客户资产转变的必然趋势.最后通过实证案例分析,阐明了以客户为中心的管理实践过程.