Julie Gore

Learning by example: Benchmarking organizational culture in hospitality, tourism and leisure SMEs

Purpose – To provide positive benchmarking examples ofhospitality, tourism and leisure small management enterprises in the area oforganizational culture Design/methodology/approach – Extreme case sampling was used; locatinginformation-rich key informants or critical cases. A total of 89 smallbusinesses were researched including hotels (and guest houses), restaurants,pubs, visitor attractions and leisure opportunities. Findings – Semi-structured interviews were analysed using an iterativeapproach based on the assumptions of Argumentation Theory. Results suggest thatbest-performing small to medium-sized (SME) operations in the hospitality,tourism and leisure industry share certain elements of culture including:supporting values such as building the future together, cooperative setting ofmissions and strategies, development of teamwork and organizationallearning. Research limitations/implications – The research completed is illustrativeof positive benchmarking elements of organizational culture. Further research,however, could also look at negative features which may hinder the success ofhospitality, tourism and leisure industry SMEs. Practical implications – The work provides clear suggestions forhospitality, tourism and leisure industry SMEs to improve managerial practice,focusing on five main cultural dimensions: organizational performance,teamwork, building the future together, building the ability to learn, andcollaborative setting of strategies. Originality/value – This paper begins to fill the gap of a veryunder-researched area: benchmarking organizational culture in hospitality,tourism and leisure industry SMEs. Both academics and practitioners will findit very illuminating. (Publication abstract)

Behavioral Agency Theory New Foundations for Theorizing About Executive Compensation

This article describes new micro-foundations for theorizing about executive compensation, drawing on the behavioral economics literature and based on a more realistic set of behavioral assumptions than those that have typically been made by agency theorists. We call these micro-foundations “behavioral agency theory.” In contrast to the standard agency framework, which focuses on monitoring costs and incentive alignment, behavioral agency theory places agent performance at the center of the agency model, arguing that the interests of shareholders and their agents are most likely to be aligned if executives are motivated to perform to the best of their abilities. We develop a line of argument first advanced by Wiseman and Gomez-Mejia and put the case for a more general reassessment of the behavioral assumptions underpinning agency theory. A model of economic man predicated on bounded rationality is proposed, adopting Wiseman and Gomez-Mejia’s assumptions about risk preferences, but incorporating new assumptions about time discounting, inequity aversion, and the trade-off between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. We argue that behavioral agency theory provides a better framework for theorizing about executive compensation, an enhanced theory of agent behavior, and an improved platform for making recommendations about the design of executive compensation plans.

Naturalistic Decision Making and Organizations: Reviewing Pragmatic Science

This article examines the similarities and differences between the traditions of naturalistic decision making and organizational decision making. Illustrative examples of successful NDM inquiry in healthcare organizations are reviewed, highlighting an area where these two pragmatic research paradigms overlap. Not only do researchers in these areas aim to improve our understanding of decision making, they provide practical and realistic alternatives to laboratory-based research on decision making. The article presents a number of propositions for future research on NDM and organizations.

Unpacking intuition:a process and outcome framework.

In recent years, the topic of intuition has become an important focus of attention in psychology. It is often assumed to be a unitary construct; however, recent research suggests that intuition is multifaceted. This article disaggregates intuition by discriminating between domain-general mechanisms and domain-specific processes of intuiting and primary types of intuition and secondary types of intuition. The theoretical relationships between and within processes and types are examined and analyzed at behavioral and information processing levels, noting the importance in advances in social cognition research. As a result of this analysis, we provide a conceptual framework that connects intuitive processes and outcomes. The article concludes by outlining some of the implications of the framework and in particular highlights future methodological challenges faced by intuition researchers in laboratory and organizational field settings.

Understanding Preferences in Experience-Based Choice A Study of Cognition in the “Wild”

The objective of this article is to improve our understanding of preferences in experienced-based choice. Positioned within the framework of naturalistic decision making, this article responds to the recent call to complement the examination of experience-based choice with studies of cognition in the “wild.” We document an exploratory field study that uses applied cognitive task analysis (ACTA) to examine financial day traders’ preferences. Providing real-world examples, our study illustrates how day traders construct their understanding of gains relative to losses and emphasizes the relevance of prospect theory for understanding the asymmetry of human choice. The fourfold pattern of preferences as studied in the wild is risk seeking for medium- and high-probability gains, risk averse for small-probability gains, risk averse for small-probability losses, and risk averse for medium- and high-probability losses. Our results differ from the fourfold pattern of preferences exhibited by experience-based choice when studied in the laboratory. The implications of this work for prospect theory and the distinction between “experience through learning” and “experience through professional training” are discussed alongside the merits of the ACTA technique for professional expert domain-based knowledge elicitation.

Hotel managers' decision making: can psychology help?

Examines some of the theoretical models of human decision making derived from the field of psychology and considers some of the important issues this raises for training in decision making. Discusses a small selection of results from a fieldwork investigation, which examines hotel managers′ cognitive decision‐making processes. Ends with a discussion of possible suggestions for training in decision making which utilize psychological theories.

Economic Determinism and Human Resource Management Practice in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry

The paper argues a case for the economic determinism of human resource management practice. The arguments put aside human agency and suggest that human resource management practice can best be understood through the influence of industrial and labour economics. The question has been asked in the HRM literature as to whether economic determinism has led to the collapse of the HRM metaphor. This paper suggests that the hospitality and tourism industry is a case of where economic determinism has prevented modern HRM paradigms from starting up. The friction between concerns for modern management practice and unchanging economic imperatives forms the basis of the paper. The conditions that might produce change are discussed.

Fairness, envy, guilt and greed: Building equity considerations into agency theory

In this article we examine the extent to which fairness considerations are salient to senior executives, and consider the implications for agency theory, tournament theory and the design of top-management incentives. We look for patterns in a unique data set of senior executive preferences and seek explanations for these patterns using a model of fairness first advanced by Fehr and Schmidt in 1999. We propose a number of amendments to Fehr and Schmidt’s model. We challenge some of the standard tenets of agency theory and tournament theory, demonstrating why equity considerations should be taken into account. We add to the growing literature on behavioural agency theory.

Developing cognitive task analysis and the importance of socio-cognitive competence/insight for professional practice

Accelerating the cognitive expertise of professionals is a critical challenge for many organizations. This paper reports a collaborative, longitudinal, academic practitioner project which aimed to elicit, document, and accelerate the cognitive expertise of engineering professionals working with the manufacture and management of petroleum additives. Twenty-five engineering experts were trained by three academic psychologists to use applied cognitive task analysis (ACTA) interview techniques to document the cognition of their expert peers. Results had high face validity for practitioners who elicited hot/sensory-based cognition, a number of perceptual skills and mental models, highlighting undocumented context specific expertise. We conclude from a peer review of findings, combined with experienced CTA analysts that ACTA techniques can be advanced in context by the explicit recognition and development of socio-cognitive competence/insight.

The Oxford Handbook of Expertise

The study of expertise weaves its way through various communities of practice, across disciplines, and over millennia. To date, the study of expertise has been primarily concerned with how human beings perform at a superior level in complex environments and sociotechnical systems, and at the highest levels of proficiency. However, more recent research has continued the search for better descriptions, and causal mechanisms that explain the complexities of expertise in context, with a view to translating this understanding into useful predictions and interventions capable of improving the performance of human systems as efficiently as possible. The Oxford Handbook of Expertise provides a comprehensive picture of the field of Expertise Studies. It offers both traditional and contemporary perspectives, and importantly, a multidiscipline-multimethod view of the science and engineering research on expertise. The book presents different perspectives, theories, and methods of conducting expertise research, all of which have had an impact in helping us better understand expertise across a broad range of domains. The Handbook also describes how researchers and practitioners have addressed practical problems and societal challenges. Throughout, the authors have sought to demonstrate the heterogeneity of approaches and conceptions of expertise, to place current views of expertise in context, to show how these views can be used to address current issues, and to examine ways to advance the study of expertise. The Oxford Handbook of Expertise is an essential resource both to those wanting to gain an up-to-date knowledge of the science of expertise and those wishing to study experts.