Hari Bapuji

From Questions to Answers: Reviewing Organizational Learning Research

Prior reviews of organizational learning (OL) have noted an exponential growth in the literature through the 1990s and have expressed concerns about the lack of empirical research. In this paper, we review the literature published during the period 1990-2002 and take stock of the state of empirical research in OL. Based on the 123 articles reviewed, we note a phenomenal growth in empirical research and the emergence of a learning perspective. We discuss key research findings pertaining to internal and external learning, and the facilitators of organizational learning. We discuss the implications of the empirical research and suggest directions for future research.

Toy Recalls and China: Emotion vs. Evidence

Product recalls in 2007 raised serious questions about the safety of products made in China and resulted in widespread outrage. Our analysis of toy recalls in the USA between 1988 and 2007 revealed that the vast majority of recalls were due to flaws in product designs, conducted in the corporate headquarters of toy companies, rather than to poor manufacturing by factories in Asian countries. We also found that the recalls have increased over the years, due both to design and manufacturing flaws. Our findings generated widespread interest and influenced the course of debate on import product safety. Our findings and experiences have significant implications for the research on product quality in international operations and the role that systematic research evidence can play in shaping management practice and public debate.

Institutional Work Amidst the Financial Crisis: Emerging Positions of Elite Actors

We draw on the institutional work literature to analyse the rhetoric in mainstream media spawned by the global financial crisis. We identify the emerging positions (status quo, neutral and change) of actors on major themes (policy, practices, recovery and regulation) related to the crisis and the rhetorical processes used (appeals to expert authority, finding someone to blame, use of scenarios, and avoidance of critical discussion) to communicate these positions. We find that academics lead the charge for change in policy, relying mostly on rhetorical processes that involve the use of past scenarios and blame, but also often avoid critical discussion through over-generalization. In contrast, banks focus on changes in practices, mostly using future scenarios, finding specific others to blame, and also appealing to expert authority. The US Federal Reserve takes the lead on maintaining the status quo on regulation-related issues, largely through using various scenarios and appeals to expert authority. We also find a large number of neutral positions and interpret this as tacit support for existing institutions. We conclude by charting out a broader research agenda for further investigation of the actors-institutions interplay, particularly within the context of the financial crisis.

Intentions, Intermediaries, and Interaction: Examining the Emergence of Routines

A thorough understanding of how routines emerge is necessary to derive the performance benefits they yield for organizations. In this paper, we suggest that a routine emerges from interactions between actors, interactions that are enabled by the exchange of intermediaries. Specifically, intermediaries transmit the intentions of one actor to another and thus potentially align the actions and responses of those actors. If, however, the intermediaries that are exchanged do not clearly transmit the intentions of one actor to another, then a weak routine emerges. Conversely, if intermediaries clearly transmit the intentions, a strong routine emerges in which a given action more often meets with the expected response across iterations. We substantiate our arguments with a field experiment on the towel‐changing routine in a hotel where we manipulated the procedure to exchange towels, which resulted in the emergence of a stronger routine. Our study offers several implications for theoretical and empirical research on routines, including to the burgeoning research on micro‐foundations.

Individuals, interactions and institutions: How economic inequality affects organizations

Research in a number of disciplines has shown that high levels of economic inequality adversely affect individuals and societies. Surprisingly, research examining the business consequences of societal level economic inequality is virtually nonexistent. In this article, I present a framework to study how economic inequality affects organizational performance. I suggest that economic inequality indirectly affects organizational performance via human development in the society, and directly via its effects on individual employees and their workplace interactions, as well as via the institutions in which the organizations are embedded. Further, I present a brief research agenda that seeks to illuminate the relationship between economic inequality and management and conclude with an overview of this special issue.

Income inequality ignored? An agenda for business and strategic organization:

Despite a vibrant body of scholarship and a growing public discourse around the socio-political consequences of rising income inequality around much of the world, very little is known about the organizational consequences of societal-level income inequality. In this essay, we draw upon previous literature on the socio-political consequences of high income inequality to help identify its potential business consequences. In particular, we suggest that high levels of income inequality can give rise to (1) social movements that coerce and constrain firms’ actions, (2) alternative organizational forms that displace existing organizations and (3) new political and regulatory risks that undermine firms’ performance or survival. Using this argument, we emphasize the broader point that income inequality matters to firms and markets and that the study of inequality needs to be ‘brought in from the cold’ by organizational researchers. Furthermore, we outline a specific research agenda aimed at better understanding income inequality and how organizations can respond to it.

Offshoring, exit and voice: implications for organizational theory and practice

Purpose – This paper seeks to explore the impact of corporate offshoring moves on the economic and psychological contracts between firms and their employees.Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws upon literature from diverse social sciences to explore the phenomena of social contracts and offshoring. Especially deploying the exit‐voice theory of Alfred Hirschman, it is argued here that offshoring decreases the regenerative power promised both by exit and voice in helping organizations recover from decline.Findings – Organizational systems and processes designed to deal with the “post‐offshoring worker” only serve to accentuate the sense of alienation felt by workers at the way they are regarded. This scenario poses a serious challenge to researchers and practitioners who need to make sense of these effects and deal with them accordingly.Originality/value – This paper highlights, honors and legitimates everyday relations at the workplace on both sides of the offshoring divide, as sites of class stru...

Value Creation, Appropriation, and Distribution: How Firms Contribute to Societal Economic Inequality:

Firms are central to wealth creation and distribution, but their role in economic inequality in a society remains poorly studied. In this essay, we define and distinguish value distribution from value creation and value appropriation. We identify four value distribution mechanisms that firms engage in and argue that shareholder wealth maximization approach skews the value distribution toward shareholders and top executives, which in turn contributes to rising economic inequalities around the world. We call on organizational scholars to study the value distribution role of firms and its consequences for society, and introduce the articles in this volume of the special issue on economic inequality, business, and society.

Influence of institutional profiles on time to recall

Purpose – This paper aims to understand why firms expedite or delay product recall decisions involving international sourcing. Design/methodology/approach – This paper combines US toy recall data from the Consumer Products Safety Commission database for the period from 1988to 2011 with World Economic Forum data on institutional environments to predict the effect the host country conditions have on recall timing decisions. Findings – Firms tend to expedite decisions to recall defective products sourced from countries where the informal institutional profile is perceived to be unfavorable for quality manufacture. Research limitations/implications – The reported research is empirical in nature and uses pooled cross-country, single-industry data. Practical implications – Managers should be careful not to allow their biases to affect their product recall timing decisions. Originality/value – Whereas previous research has examined recall timing decisions, this study is the first to consider the institutional en...

Knowledge Sharing Among Scientists: Why Reputation Matters for R&D in Multinational Firms, first ed., Prescott Ensign. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY (2009).

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