Laura B. Cardinal

Balancing and Rebalancing in the Creation and Evolution of Organizational Control

This research examines data collected as part of a 10-year case study of the creation and evolution of organizational control during organizational founding. Past research has taken a cross-sectional approach to examining control use in mature, stable organizations. In contrast, this study examines organizational controls during the founding period and takes a longitudinal perspective on organizational control. By examining how organizational controls are created and evolve through specific phases of the founding period, the research also provides new data and insights about what drives shifts in the use of various types of control. Specifically, this research sheds light on the role of imbalance among formal and informal controls as the key driver of shifts in control configurations, and provides a step toward making organizational control theory more dynamic.

Organizing for Product Development Across Technological Environments: Performance Trade-offs and Priorities

This study examines how designing for product development influences project performance in distinct technological environments. Drawing on a series of computational experiments and paired-case comparisons of six product development projects, we specifically examine how new product development performance is affected by project design and the technological environment. By triangulating across the computational experiments and case studies, we find the existence of performance trade-offs in product development as well as the importance of performance priorities in influencing project design. These findings permit us to elaborate on existing contingency-based perspectives of new product development and put forward a novel mediating model. In this mediating model of product development, we suggest that the technological environment shapes performance priorities, which in turn influence project design and ultimately the performance outcomes of new product development efforts. This model further highlights that project designs can evolve as a function of performance outcomes, although this process can be inhibited by the presence of design evolution constraints. This research contributes significantly to our understanding of designing projects for new product development.

Stronger Than the Sum of Its Parts? The Performance Implications of Peer Control Combinations in Teams

Integrating theorizing on situational strength and complementarity with control theory, we investigate the mediating processes that transmit peer control combination effects to team performance. We argue that two critical peer control mechanisms-norm strength and peer pressure-complement each other such that their joint impact on team members becomes stronger than the sum of their parts. In a multiple mediator model, we identify effort and trust as two distinct mediating processes that explain the relationship between peer control combinations and team performance. Multisource, multiwave data from 41 self-managing healthcare teams largely support our model. The pattern of mediation was more complex than we anticipated, revealing an indirect effect of peer controls on effort via trust. Together, our findings offer insight into how controls complement each other and the processes through which they do so.

Research Design for Mixed Methods A Triangulation-based Framework and Roadmap

All methods individually are flawed, but these limitations can be mitigated through mixed methods research, which combines methodologies to provide better answers to our research questions. In this study, we develop a research design framework for mixed methods work that is based on the principles of triangulation. Core elements for the research design framework include theoretical purpose, i.e., theory development and/or theory testing; and methodological purpose, i.e., prioritizing generalizability, precision in control and measurement, and authenticity of context. From this foundation, we consider how the multiple methodologies are linked together to accomplish the theoretical purpose, focusing on three types of linking processes: convergent triangulation, holistic triangulation, and convergent and holistic triangulation. We then consider the implications of these linking processes for the theory at hand, taking into account the following theoretical attributes: generality/specificity, simplicity/complexity, and accuracy/inaccuracy. Based on this research design framework, we develop a roadmap that can serve as a design guide for organizational scholars conducting mixed methods research studies.

Control is fundamental

Organizational control is a fundamental aspect of organizing that has been largely neglected by organizational scholars for several decades. This volume brings together new approaches to organizational control theory and research by a diverse group of scholars with different scholarly viewpoints to show the vibrancy and future potential of the domain for generative scholarship. The purpose is to provide a springboard and touchstone for a renewal of work in this area. Priming a renaissance in control research Control systems have long been recognized as a fundamental aspect of all organizations (Scott, 1992) through which managers seek to align employee capabilities, activities, and performance with organizational goals and aspirations (Cyert and March, 1963; Merchant, 1985). Despite the fundamental nature of the phenomenon, its recognized importance, and some significant foundational work on organizational control, this area of study has been and remains seriously neglected. Specifically, organizational control is today underconceptualized in terms of its key constructs and its determinants and effects. As a result, organizational control has been subjected to only minimal theoretical and cumulative empirical study in recent years. The atrophy of control research in the domain of organization and management presents a striking contrast with a rise in recent attention to control in the managerial accounting literature, where it has achieved some prominence (Birnberg and Snodgrass, 1988; Davila, 2005; Davila and Foster, 2007; Henri, 2006; Hopwood, 2005; Merchant and Simons, 1986; Simons, 1991, 1994, 1995; Whitley, 1999).

How controls influence organizational information processing: insights from a computational modeling investigation

In this study, we use a series of computational models to investigate an information processing perspective on organizational control use. We evaluate and compare the information processing capabilities of various formal and informal control configurations under different information uncertainty conditions. We find that a wide range of formal controls can be used to direct subordinates performing interdependent tasks while a more narrow range of informal controls are most effective for directing subordinates who perform complex tasks. Results of this study provide a basis for formalizing an information processing perspective on organizational control implementation that differs but is complementary to the current emphasis on agency in organizational control research.

The role of top management teams in the development of resources and capabilities

In this manuscript, we bridge two important, but often separate, streams of strategy research on the core competence perspective and upper echelons theory. We develop a model of how top management team characteristics influence the choices made concerning resources and capabilities pursued by pharmaceutical firms and how those choices impact innovative productivity. In particular, we propose how top management team tenure, education level and functional background, as well as heterogeneity in top management team tenure and functional background, influence product line breadth and the frequency of new product market entry, in-house R&D efforts and strategic alliances.

Feature Topic at Organizational Research Methods: How to Conduct Rigorous and Impactful Literature Reviews?

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The location of corporate research and innovative productivity in the US pharmaceutical industry

In an exploratory study, we investigate the criticism directed towards diversification by testing whether having a corporate research laboratory helps firms overcome potential dissynergy problems within a diversified setting in the pharmaceutical industry. We find that a separate corporate research laboratory does in fact enhance innovative productivity of diversified firms.