Aaron J. Nurick

Entrepreneurial Teams in New Venture Creation: A Research Agenda

Although new ventures are commonly started by entrepreneurial teams, relatively little has been written about the process of effectively assembling and maintaining them. Systematic, descriptive research is needed to define the dimensions of entrepreneurial teams, to identify the costs and problems of assembling teams, and to identify successful strategies for resolving the problems.

The stages of team venture formation: a decision-making model

This model of multi-founder organizational formation assumes that organizations emerge In stages, following an a priori sequence of transitions. The idea stage comes first. In it, individuals or groups within the context of their social networks make decisions about the business concept and what Is needed to implement it. The second stage consists of implementation decisions, Including who will supply resources, what Inducements will be used to attract more partners if necessary, and how the team will be kept together. Feedback loops Indicate that the process may return to the concept and implementation needs decisions, depending upon choices made at certain critical points.

Participation in Organizational Change: A Longitudinal Field Study

This study was carried out as part of a long-term Quality of Work Life experiment in one division of a utility. The experiment is part of a national effort to examine collaborative union-management problem-solving and change implementation. The purpose of the study was to determine the impact of a formal participative process of implementing change established as part of the experiment. Participation occurred in two levels or intensities: (1) direct via membership on either a joint committee or on one of several task forces, and (2) indirect or nonmembership. Subjects were measured at three points in time on a variety of perceptual and attitudinal measures. An analysis of covariance revealed that when job level and pretest scores were held constant, direct participants increased in their perceptions of influence in decision-making and in organizational attitudes in comparison to indirect participants. A second analysis indicated that the changes persisted during an additional time interval. It was concluded that the participative process was a major intervention in the experiment. Recommendations for enhancing formal modes of participation were provided.

Management consulting in the schools

Presents a case study of a year‐long consulting project in an urban school system. Drawing on a multi‐method, stakeholder‐driven field design, describes the consulting process and intervention. In the analysis and discussion, focuses on the lessons learned from this project and the ramifications posed by the unique nature of school systems for external consultants.

Teacher and Therapist: an Integration of Educator Roles

As a teacher of organizational behavior and interpersonal relations for eight years, I have been intrigued and in some cases awed by the power of the teacher-student relationship. Courses that deal with interpersonal behavior often hit close to home as sensitive issues are raised and intensified for students. Often routine office visits about assignments and the like will result in students seeking advice about more personal concerns that were related to a particular class discussion. My graduate training in organizational psychology was largely empirical and, although useful and thorough, did not go far enough in exploring the dynamics of the human experience in organizational life. I became fascinated by such works as Zaleznik (1984), Levinson (1984) and Kets de Vries and Miller (1984) that employed psychoanalytic theory as a guide for understanding human behavior in organizations. Eventually my interest was sufficiently strong to lead me to pursue formal training in psychodynamic psychotherapy and to augment my role of teacher with a new identity as therapist. As a consequence of my training, I have become much more aware of the similarities between the roles of teacher and therapist, particularly in courses that emphasize human behavior. The purpose of this article is to explore what happens in the classroom from a psychodynamic frame of reference according to the following assumptions:

Exploring the Variation in Student Project Team Knowledge Integration Competency

Organizations are increasingly using cross-functional project teams to increase flexibility. The belief is that individuals will be able to share and combine their different knowledge and expertise, i.e., integrate their diverse knowledge, in order to develop more creative solutions. However, project teams of all kinds often fail to meet their objectives. In this paper, we explore the knowledge integration process in student project teams and identify what learning tool interventions might facilitate improved knowledge integration. The results from this initial study suggest that teams do differ significantly in their knowledge integration competence and that this is related most strongly to their use of social capital. Reflective learning tools appeared to be helpful in improving this knowledge integration competency. However, teams were more or less able to take advantage of the intervention. Our research, therefore, identifies that an important area for future research is to explore what team factors influence its ability to use learning tool interventions.

Beyond the Facts: Teaching what We Do Not Know

Several years ago a student presented me with a quote stating that a great teacher is not one who imparts knowledge to students, but one who arouses their interest enough that they seek it for themselves. This statement aroused my own interest in what I actually do as a teacher. I have long identified myself as a teacher and have engaged in stimulating discussions with colleagues about what effective teaching is. My recent experience of being a student of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, while continuing in my position

Mourning Becomes Elective: Teaching about and Managing Termination in the Classroom

This article suggests that termination is an important, and often neglected, topic for management educators. It discusses termination both as part of management course content and as an influence on classroom dynamics. Basic termination issues are explored from a theoretical perspective. The authors then present suggestions for integrating specific ideas about termination into course content and for managing termination in the classroom in a manner that enhances learning.

An Autoethnographic Account of Knowledge Creation: Seeing and Feeling Knowledge Creation in Project Teams

An autoethnographic study was used to explore the combination capability of a project team that facilitates knowledge creation. Both emotional and analytical approaches contributed to the ability to ‘see’ knowledge creation. An emotional ‘ahha’ was associated with acknowledgement the team created something new. This ‘ahha’ occurred when an individual team member(s) had done some independent ‘percolation’ work and introduced this work as a boundary object. Team members had to authorize the individual to introduce the stimulus and the individual presenting the object had to be willing to see their ideas ‘torn apart’ in the process of achieving joint understanding and subsequently knowledge creation. In this process of joint sense-making our data shows that it is important for ideas to be visually captured in a shared space and for each member to demonstrate care of and about the ideas of others.