Flore Bridoux

The Management of Resources: Temporal Effects of Different Types of Actions on Performance

This article contributes to the understanding of competitive dynamics and resource management by studying empirically the element of time in the relationship between resource management actions and firm performance. It shows that four types of actions identified on the basis of the literature on competitive dynamics and resource management, namely, actions to structure, bundle, and leverage resources in product and regulatory arenas, differ in the time they take to positively affect firm performance, in the persistence of this positive impact, and in their total impact on performance over time. Better understanding of the temporal dimension of the action–performance relationship is important for theory and practice. On the theory side, time is a dimension of competitive strategy that has long been argued to be important but that is often neglected by researchers. In particular, existing theories in competitive strategy offer very few arguments that can be used to predict the timing of the impact of firm actions on performance. Regarding practice, managers need to know which actions can improve their firm performance in the short, medium, or long term and how sustainable the improvement is likely to be.

Telework: a challenge to knowledge transfer in organizations

Over the last decade, teleworking has gained momentum. While it has been portrayed as both employer- and employee-friendly, we question the positive normativity associated with teleworking by showing how it may endanger an organizations knowledge base and competitive advantage by threatening knowledge transfer between teleworkers and non-teleworkers. Drawing on the literature on knowledge we present the cognitive and relational components of organizational socialization as key facilitators of knowledge transfer and we demonstrate that teleworking may negatively affect these cognitive (shared mental schemes, language and narratives, and identification with goals and values) and relational (quality of relationships) components, depending on its frequency, location(s), and perception. Finally, we suggest some managerial avenues for addressing these potential negative side effects of teleworking.