Jerry Goodstein

Institutional Pressures and Strategic Responsiveness: Employer Involvement in Work-Family Issues

Organizational scholars are increasingly conceptualizing organizational responsiveness to institutional pressures as a strategic choice. This research identified a number of important institutional...

Turbulence at the Top: A New Perspective on Governance Structure Changes and Strategic Change

Organizational theorists have traditionally focused attention on the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) succession and strategic change. This study extends that perspective and explores the effects of changes in an organizations management, ownership, and board of directors on the process of strategic change. The results of this research suggest that changes in ownership and board have significant independent and interactive effects on strategic change.

PERFORMANCE AND SUCCESSOR CHOICE: THE MODERATING EFFECTS OF GOVERNANCE AND OWNERSHIP

This study examined influences on whether chief executive successors are chosen from inside or outside an organization. We examined the choice of a successor as a function of organizational performance as moderated by the composition of an organizations board of directors and its ownership structure. Results indicate that performance influences successor choice, but board composition, firm ownership, and ownership concentration moderate that relationship. These relationships were examined using data from 67 semiconductor producers over a 22-year period. Few events that occur in organizations are as substantively important or as open to potential contention as chief executive succession. The replacement of a chief executive can critically enhance or diminish the power of organizational members and have important consequences for an organizations future strategy and structure (Pfeffer, 1981). How a succession event occurs and who is appointed as the successor reflect the future direction of an organization and can indicate how organizational resources will be allocated in the future (Allen & Panian, 1982; Friedman & Olk, 1989). In particular, researchers have singled out whether a successor comes from inside or outside a firm as critical in succession (Reinganum, 1985). This study examined the influence of the composition of a firms board of directors and the structure of its ownership in the choice of a chief executive successor. Following past research, we predicted that the type of successor chosen will depend on the organizations past performance. However, the particular focus of this research was on how board and ownership influences moderate the relationship between performance and successor choice.

Character Is Not “Dead” in Management Research: A Review of Individual Character and Organizational-Level Virtue†

We propose that strength of character is a potentially important organizational research topic, one that has been largely untapped in applied research. Character (ethos) refers to those inter-penetrable habitual qualities within individuals and applicable to organizations that constrain and lead them to desire and pursue personal and societal good. In our review, we first provide an initial conceptualization of character, partly by distinguishing it from virtue and values. Second, starting with the Old Testament, we examine how character has traditionally been considered across time and culture. Next, we discuss the extant research on strength of character and organizational virtue. We conclude with promising research directions involving individual character strength and organizational virtue.

Values Enactment in Organizations: A Multi-Level Examination:

Business writers and practitioners recommend that core organizational values be integrated into employee work life for enhanced organizational productivity, yet no published studies have empirically examined the antecedents and outcomes of values enactment. Using longitudinal data on 2,622 employees, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) results revealed that tenure and department-level values enactment were significant predictors of individual values enactment. Furthermore, employees who demonstrated high levels of values enactment were less likely to leave, and employees of high or low levels of values enactment in departments whose levels of values enactment matched their own were the most likely to be promoted.

Professional interests and strategic flexibility : A political perspective on organizational contracting

In this research we consider the interrelationships between professional interests and strategic flexibility. We specifically consider how the relative power of professional and managerial interests facilitate or constrain organizational contracting with external suppliers and providers. We explore these issues by focusing on hospitals competing in the health care industry during a period of heightened competitive and regulatory change. Our findings suggest that professional interests significantly influence the degree of external contracting. These findings have important implications for maintaining strategic flexibility in highly competitive environments.

Fulfilling institutional responsibilities in health care: Organizational ethics and the role of mission discernment

In this paper we highlight the emergence of organizational ethics issues in health care as an important outcome of the changing structure of health care delivery. We emphasize three core themes related to business ethics and health care ethics: integrity, responsibility, and choice. These themes are brought together in a discussion of the process of Mission Discernment as it has been developed and implemented within an integrated health care system. Through this discussion we highlight how processes of institutional reflection, such as Mission Discernment, can help health care organizations, as well as corporations, make critical choices in turbulent environments that further the core mission and values and fulfill institutional responsibilities to a broad range of stakeholders.

Moral Compromise and Personal Integrity: Exploring the Ethical Issues of Deciding Together in Organizations

In this paper I explore the topic of moral compromise in institutional settings and highlight how moral compromise may affirm, rather than undermine, personal integrity. Central to this relationship between moral compromise and integrity is a view of the self that is responsive to multiple commitments and grounded in an ethic of responsibility. I elaborate a number of virtues that are related to this notion of the self and highlight how these virtues may support the development of individuals who are responsive and reasonable in moral discourse and discerning in establishing moral limits on compromise. I look at how moral regret is closely connected to moral compromise and emphasize its significance for reinforcing personal integrity. The paper closes with a discussion of the relevance of these topics to the field of business ethics.

Responsabilidad corporativa y de las partes interesadas: Volviendo la ética de negocios una conversación de doble vía

Teniendo en cuenta que las corporaciones se han convertido en las instituciones mas poderosas del planeta, ?como seria posible mantener en ellas una actitud etica que incluya las visiones de los proveedores y de los clientes? Se hace necesario iniciar un dialogo constructivo entre las partes interesadas. No se trata de culpabilizar a los actores, sino de lograr un acuerdo sobre lo esencial de sus relaciones. Los autores llaman este importante recurso Responsabilidad corporativa de las partes interesadas. Indican que existen dos formas de pensar acerca del termino responsabilidad. En la primera, se entiende que somos responsables “cuando respondemos por nuestra conducta y asumimos nuestras obligaciones”. En el segundo, es necesario volver a la raiz latina del termino, respondere que significa responder o comprometerse de nuevo. Para los autores, la palabra incluye los dos sentidos. Las partes interesadas no solo son los receptores de las acciones organizacionales, sino tambien actores que deben considerar como sus acciones pueden danar a las companias y a las otras partes interesadas. La responsabilidad de las partes interesadas incluye varias ventajas: reorienta la forma de pensar sobre la etica de los negocios; colabora en la explicacion de fallas morales en las organizaciones; ayuda a disenar corporaciones donde los desastres o fallas son raros; favorece el exito basado en la excelencia y el desempeno correcto, y desarrolla los conceptos que facilitan el desarrollo de nuevos negocios dentro del ambito del beneficio general.

Work and Family: An International Research PerspectivePoelmansSteven A. Y., ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 2005. 523 pp.

If you are a past, present, or future scholar directly working in the domain of work-family research, I would encourage you to explore Work and Family: An International Research Perspective. This volume, edited by Steven A. Y. Poelmans, who is on the faculty of IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain, includes seventeen chapters devoted to assessing the current and future state of work-family research. Much of the book presents a series of empirical studies focused on different levels (individual, organizational, societal) and situated in a variety of cultures and nations. A number of these chapters are concerned with research, in particular, reviews of workfamily research, surveying progress in this field, and providing recommendations for future development. The empirical studies bring together a variety of international researchers who draw on their understanding of the local context in their countries to conduct research that covers the globe: Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. This is a broad landscape, and it is to the credit of these researchers that they have been able to explore an array of work-family research questions across cultures and continents.