James M. Bloodgood

The Impact of Psychological Contract Fulfillment on the Performance of In-Role and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors:

This research examines the relationships between psychological contract fulfillment and three types of employee behavior: in-role performance, organizational citizenship behavior directed at the organization, and organizational citizenship behavior directed at individuals within the organization. Using a sample of 134 supervisor-subordinate dyads, this study suggests that the extent of psychological contract fulfillment is positively related to the performance of all three types of employee behavior. In addition, the results indicate that psychological contract fulfillment is more strongly related to citizenship behavior directed at the organization than to citizenship behavior directed at one’s colleagues. Finally, this research investigates if employees’ attributions regarding the reasons that psychological contract breach occurred also impact their work performance. However, the data provide only limited support for the idea that employees are most likely to reduce their work effort when they perceive that the organization has intentionally failed to live up to its commitments.

Understanding the influence of organizational change strategies on information technology and knowledge management strategies

Abstract While discussion about knowledge management often centers around how knowledge may best be codified into an explicit format for use in decision support or expert systems, some knowledge best serves the organization when it is kept in tacit form. We draw upon the resource-based view to identify how information technology can best be used during different types of strategic change. Specifically, we suggest that different change strategies focus on different combinations of tacit and explicit knowledge that make certain types of information technology more appropriate in some situations than in others.

Supply Chain Contagion

Drawing on research from the interfirm relationship, marketing channels, operations management, and network theory literature and on the basis of qualitative depth interviews, the authors identify a new phenomenon they call “supply chain contagion.” Supply chain contagion is the propagation of interfirm behaviors from one dyadic relationship to an adjacent dyadic relationship within the supply chain. Contagion can occur inadvertently and with or without the knowledge of the affected parties. Using institutional theory, the authors develop a conceptual model that predicts the conditions under which contagion is likely to occur. Although contagion may take the form of any number of interfirm behaviors, operationally, the authors focus on whether the downstream influence strategies that manufacturers use with their dealers are imitated by these same dealers with end customers. They conduct conclusive research using a sample of 151 vertically linked manufacturer–dealer–customer supply chain triads and explain a large variance (R2 = .30) in the use of downstream influence strategies in terms of supply chain contagion. Given extensive prior empirical support for alternative antecedents to influence strategy usage, the explanatory power of supply chain contagion is impressive and suggests that how intermediaries treat end customers is explained, to a large degree, as the intermediaries simply imitating how their suppliers treated them. In addition to the identification of a new theoretical concept, the study provides empirical support for the effects of both macro- and microinstitutional factors on interfirm behavior. Specific factors that are positively related to the level of manifest contagion are environmental uncertainty and the perceived similarity and frequency of contact between boundary personnel; dependence asymmetry has a negative effect on manifest contagion. Managers and boundary-spanning personnel who are aware of supply chain contagion effects should be better able to influence strategically the behavior of channel partners and may be better inoculated against their own unintended imitation of other organizations within their supply chain.

Strategic Organizational Change: Exploring the Roles of Environmental Structure, Internal Conscious Awareness and Knowledge

We argue that strategic organizational change is best viewed as a multidimensional phenomenon consisting of various degrees of environmental structure and internal conscious awareness. And, by combining this conceptualization of change with a model of organizational knowledge transfer developed by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), we gain a better understanding of the types of change strategies that firms will pursue, the processes they should use to implement these strategies and the likely performance outcomes from these strategies. Specifically, we suggest that the levels of tacit and explicit knowledge needed to implement the new strategies are key determinants of firm performance following strategic organizational change. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003.

Review: The paradoxes of knowledge management: An eastern philosophical perspective

This article proposes paradox as a novel lens for viewing and understanding KM and the role of information technology. The article builds a paradoxical framework that integrates extant understandings of paradox from philosophy and organization studies. The framework includes the discussion of the nature of paradox, its usefulness for understanding KM, its management and finally an alternative, paradoxical view of KM. Using the proposed view of KM we then review KM-related studies mainly in the field of information systems and organization studies and identify exemplary tensions and paradoxes in KM phenomena. This review serves three purposes: (1) it organizes and structures the jumble of topics in KM by analyzing critically the way the literature approaches those topics; (2) it illustrates the implicitly unitary view of KM by extant studies; and (3) it illustrates the potential value of the paradoxical framework for fostering creative and complex insights into future inquiry of KM. Then, we discuss how to embrace and even nurture KM tensions and paradoxes and, from a paradoxical view, discuss organizational characteristics and information technology necessary for successful KM practices. Finally, several implications for research and practice are drawn.

The Dimensions of Tacit & Explicit Knowledge: A Description and Measure

abstraCt Knowledge workers are often employed to extract knowledge from domain experts in order to codify knowledge held by these experts. The extent to which workers rely on tacit or explicit knowledge may produce inefficiencies and reduce productivity if the information is not shared among those who need it or if it encapsulates strategic goals and is inadvertently shared with those who might undermine the firms competitive advantage. This article discusses the nature of tacit vs. explicit knowledge in terms of the dimensions thought to contribute to its degree of tacitness. We present the results of an exploratory study in which we develop an instrument designed to elicit perceptions regarding the nature of knowledge used by workers and their degree of reliance on tacit knowledge. It is an indirect form of measurement that eliminates the need to render the knowledge entirely explicit prior to measurement. As an additional benefit, it allows us to classify the knowledge along a continuum, ranging from entirely tacit to entirely explicit or somewhere in between. Use of this instrument by managers will help them identify pockets of tacit knowledge within the firm that could either be made explicit so that other workers can benefit from it or that could be prevented from becoming explicit should its strategic value require protection.

The effects of psychological contract breach on union commitment

This research investigates the relationship between psychological contract breach and union commitment among 109 union employees. As expected, psychological contract breach is positively related to commitment to the union. The results also suggest that union instrumentality moderates the relationship between psychological contract breach and union commitment. Specifically, the findings indicate that the relationship between psychological contract breach and union commitment is stronger when individuals perceive that their union is highly instrumental in protecting their rights and benefits. Implications of this study are discussed and recommendations for future research are offered.

Organizational paradoxes: dynamic shifting and integrative management

Purpose – The primary purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of viewing paradoxes, which are commonly‐accepted logical perspectives that appear contradictory, as being useful for organizational learning and to show why organizational paradoxes need to be managed integratively.Design/methodology/approach – The cultural industries (those that promote art, music and entertainment) are used as a backdrop for developing propositions that explain the benefits of dynamically shifting between poles of a paradox and the relationship between elements of managing multiple paradoxes integratively and organizational outcomes.Findings – It is expected that organizations which move between the poles of paradoxes are more likely to increase organizational knowledge about their capabilities and to enhance their ability to deal with paradoxes.Research limitations/implications – Organizational researchers should consider identifying the direction and rate of movement along the poles of paradoxes by organizat...

Strategies of supply communities

Only one customer really counts: the end customer. The final purchaser decides whether each supply chain member adds value, and is thus willing to pay for the added benefit, or whether by‐passing a particular link in the supply chain makes economic sense. It is in this context that profit, based on value‐adding behaviors, provides the primary incentive and reward for supply chain members to organize. This article suggests that successful supply chains are those that are evolving into supply communities. This article presents a framework for more thoroughly understanding the motivation that members of the supply chain have for developing consistent business strategies, thereby enabling the supply community to compete effectively.

Performance implications of matching adaption and innovation cognitive style with explicit and tacit knowledge resources

Some organizations are more effective at using their knowledge resources than are others, and this can lead to performance differences among organizations with equivalent resources. One aspect of organizations that helps to explain differences in effective use of organizational resources is the cognitive styles of organization members. We propose that a better matching of cognitive style and knowledge resources will improve organizational performance through improved knowledge resource utilization. In particular, and based on adaption-innovation theory (Kirton, 1976), we propose that teams of individuals with an adaptor cognitive style will perform better when explicit knowledge is available and teams of individuals with an innovator cognitive style will perform better when tacit knowledge is available. In addition, when there are significant differences in cognitive styles among a team of organizational members we suggest that training can improve the successful use of available organizational knowledge resources.