Johannes Meuer

Archetypes of Inter-firm Relations in the Implementation of Management Innovation: A Set-theoretic Study in China’s Biopharmaceutical Industry:

Innovation research increasingly focuses on understanding why and how firms implement new management practices, processes or structures. Emerging in the shadow of research on technological innovation, growing evidence points towards the inter-firm relation as an important locus of innovation. Yet although organizational theory suggests discrete alternative inter-firm coordination mechanisms, the literature on management innovation has thus far treated the inter-firm relation as one broad mode of organizing. This study takes a configurational perspective to identify archetypes of inter-firm relations leading to the implementation of management innovation. Using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to analyse 56 firm partnerships in China’s biopharmaceutical industry, the empirical evidence identifies four such discrete inter-firm archetypes: organic coalitions, bureaucratic foundations, coalitions of intense interdependency and reciprocal foundations. The results suggest that the type of interdependency, rather than the coordination mechanisms governing inter-firm relations, leads to the implementation of management innovation.

Integrating QCA and HLM for Multilevel Research on Organizational Configurations

Mixed methods systematically combine multiple research approaches—either in basic parallel, sequential, or conversion designs or in more complex multilevel or integrated designs. Multilevel mixed designs are among the most valuable and dynamic. Yet current multilevel designs, which are rare in the mixed methods literature, do not strongly integrate qualitative and quantitative approaches for use in one study. This lack of integration is particularly problematic for research in the organization sciences because of the variety of multilevel concepts that researchers study. In this article, we develop a multilevel mixed methods technique that integrates qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) with hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). This technique is among the first of the multilevel ones to integrate qualitative and quantitative methods in a single research design. Using Miles and Snow’s typology of generic strategies as an example of organizational configurations, we both illustrate how researchers may apply this technique and provide recommendations for its application and potential extensions. Our technique offers new opportunities for bridging macro and micro inquiries by developing strong inferences for testing, refining, and extending multilevel theories of organizational configurations.

Influencing Policy and Civic Space: A meta-review of Oxfam’s Policy Influence, Citizen Voice and Good Governance Effectiveness Reviews

Oxfam’s Effectiveness Reviews evaluate the impact of the organization’s projects on the lives of those they are intended to help. This meta-review uses Qualitative Comparative Analysis to summarize the results of 24 Effectiveness Reviews carried out under the theme of Citizen Voice, Policy Influence and Good Governance between 2011 and 2017.

How hybrid change agents moderate innovation complementarities

Amounting evidence shows how, that is the development and implementation of new organizational practices, processes, and structures, increase firms’ propensity to develop new and improve existing p...

Expatriation strategies for the adaptation of employment modes to different market economies

Despite the strategic importance of expatriation for multinational companies (MNC) and its relevance for managing the workforce of overseas subsidiaries, how expatriation strategies are associated with the adaptation of employment modes to different market economies has only rarely been examined. This exploratory study combines three different bodies of literature, the Varieties of Capitalism approach, the international business literature and the expatriation literature, to examine the employment modes of 76 subsidiaries of U.S. MNCs in a Coordinated Market Economy (Germany), a Hybrid Market Economy (Switzerland), and a Liberal Market Economy (United Kingdom). We find substantial differences in the expatriation strategies of MNCs depending, first, on the differences between the institutional environment of the parent company and that of the subsidiary and, second, on the international focus of the MNC. By exploring the variations between these factors we explain four expatriation strategies of idiosyncra...

Withstanding the test of time - An empirical examination of the durability of organizational forms

Organizational forms play an important role in the literature on configuration theories and in the populations ecology literature. Although much of this literature takes the temporal stability of organizations largely for granted, there is no systematic research scrutinizing this fundamental assumption on the durability of organizational forms. Using a mix of set-theoretic and econometric methods to analyze a balanced panel of 446 Swiss firms in 2005 and 2008, we find that the durability of organizational forms in fact differs and that whereas organic forms are highly durable, mechanistic ones are only semi-durable. Other organizational forms are symbiotic in that they di- and converge over time. Our results suggest that the durability of organizational forms depends on their diversity, structure and composition.