Melissa Intindola

Exploring absorptive capacity in cross-sector social partnerships

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore cross-sector partnerships (CSSPs) from a strategic perspective to consider collaborations that are long lasting and transcend initial objectives. The authors integrate the concept of absorptive capacity (ACAP) with the CSSP literature and derive two new antecedents of ACAP, trust and goal interdependency, with relevance to this context. This work responds to a call from ACAP scholars to consider the construct in alternative settings and from collaboration scholars to employ strategy research that approaches CSSPs from a viewpoint beyond a mere transactional approach. Design/methodology/approach – This manuscript presents a thorough analysis of the process literature regarding CSSPs and the construct of ACAP to consider the importance of knowledge sharing and participatory decision making in the success of collaboration efforts. The combination of these research streams results in a refined model of ACAP to be used in the CSSP context. Findings – This manus...

Strategic Human Resource Management of Volunteers and the Link to Hospital Patient Satisfaction

This article uses strategic human resource management theory to consider the ways in which volunteers can potentially enhance hospital patient satisfaction. Results of a structural equation modeling analysis of multi-source data on 107 U.S. hospitals show positive associations between hospital strategy, volunteer management practices, volunteer workforce attributes, and patient satisfaction. Although no causality can be assumed, the results shed light on the volunteer–patient satisfaction relationship and have important implications for hospital leaders, volunteer administrators, and future research.

It Was the Best of Times; It Was the Worst of Times: The Expiration of Work–Life Balance

The importance of work–life balance has increased dramatically in recent years. Hyperconnected employees are struggling to balance the “spillover” between internal work and external life demands. We questioned whether there was a difference in organizationally supported work–life balance at Fortune Magazine’s “Best Places to Work For” versus Wall St. 24/7’s “Worst Places to Work.” We analyzed 1,100 unsolicited, open-ended employee reviews from a major career web site and conducted a contextual analysis of the differences between the “best” and “worst” places to work. Our findings show clear differences in the time benefits offered and governance structures used to support these benefits. Our findings also reveal that employees today are not seeking “balance.” Instead, they are seeking “work–life flexibility,” a new, complex way of looking at the employee today. Findings are discussed and implications for work–life flexibility are provided.

With a little help from my friends: Multi-sector collaboration and strategic decision-making

Purpose Studies of multi-sector collaborations have increased in recent years. However, the topic is still complex and lacks synthesis. Toward that end, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how collaboration is addressed in the public administration and nonprofit sector journals, and applies well-established strategic decision-making theories to shed light on possible research directions that would provide rigor to the field of collaboration. Design/methodology/approach The authors conduct a literature review of the top nonprofit and public administration journals, believing these most likely to contain articles on the topic of multi-sector collaboration. Findings The authors identify a number of themes, including need for clarity, temporality, call to collaborate, funding, partnering issues and processes, benefits of collaboration across three different collaborative types. Originality/value The authors embed well-known strategic decision-making theories into the themes emergent from this review and offer suggestions as to how future researchers may test strategic decision-making processes within multi-sector collaborations.

Collaborating Smartly: The Role of Open Strategy in Absorptive Capacity

Research on open strategy suggests that shared knowledge through collaboration can generate co‐created value. We explore this idea by assessing it as a predictor of absorptive capacity (ACAP) in cross‐sector partnerships in pursuit of social innovation. The findings of our study indicate that aspects of strategic openness, including a shared sense of interdependence toward a mutual goal, are the primary mechanisms that enhance knowledge accretion in cross‐sector partnerships. The data also suggest that formalized organizational mechanisms are more influential for producing ACAP than informal mechanisms.

The evolution of devolution in HR

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of a multi-level approach consisting of individual, human resource management (HRM) team, and organizational contingency factors when considering the efficacy of HR devolvement efforts. The authors accomplish this through a review of the relevant devolvement literature to show how outcomes are impacted by contingency factors, which highlights a gap in extant scholarship, and the authors organize the literature in a way that is meaningful to future researchers interested in the topic as well as practitioners involved with its implementation. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a narrative review approach to describe previous devolvement research (e.g. Hammersley, 2001; Harvey and Moeller, 2009). In contrast to a systematic review more commonly seen in quantitative meta-analyses, a narrative review allows for a more descriptive and detailed analysis and critique of quantitative, qualitative, and theoretical research (Bezrukova et al., 2012; Posthuma et al., 2002). This methodology produced over 300 books, journal articles, magazine articles, and discussion papers. In this review, the authors chose to focus only on those peer-reviewed papers reporting empirical findings or developing theoretical arguments surrounding devolvement. Findings While the studies reviewed herein are admirable and help call attention to an important topic in HRM, they nonetheless fail to provide a comprehensive understanding of contingencies affecting devolvement as they do not consider the multi-level nature of the phenomenon. Therefore, the authors’ contribution lies in the identification and categorization of contingency factors affecting the occurrence of devolvement operating at the individual, HRM team, and organizational levels. Originality/value As devolvement continues to be a viable means for assigning HR responsibilities from the human resources department to managers, its effects can have an impact on organizational performance, the strategic positioning of HR, and various job attitudes of line managers. Therefore, a clearer picture of devolvement in order to understand its continued significance is an important contribution.

The episodic spiral model: a new approach to organizational processes

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a new model for depicting organizational processes: the episodic spiral model (ESM). Design/methodology/approach On the basis of a strong process view as the orienting paradigm, the authors demonstrate the need for the ESM by discussing the shortcomings of two specific spiral types in the organizational literature – the knowledge creation spiral and the efficacy spiral. Findings A review of each spiral type through the lens of nonlinear assumptions reveals the treatment to date of organizational spirals as uni-directional and insufficient for understanding organizations. The authors propose that managers must undertake a paradigm shift in order to gain a greater awareness of both the environment in which they operate, as well as their process actions. To facilitate this shift, the ESM depicts choice points, chosen and rejected trajectories, and upward and downward environmental drafts, as well as a multi-dimensional environment, as a way of re-conceptualizing approaches to space, time, and change in organization studies. Originality/value The authors propose that the model provides a way for scholars to enhance the study of organizations by understanding that organizations exist in a more dynamic environment than previously studied; recognizing that the organization has a wider range of choices available, and acknowledging the long-lasting ramifications of both choices made and choices discarded; and obtaining a more comprehensive look at the way the organization moves through space and time at any given moment. Taken together, the authors hope that these contributions allow organizational scholars a new approach to theorizing, exploring, and writing about the organizations they study.

'COPE'ing with institutional pressures: a reintroduction of pragmatism to the study of organisations

Recent organisational scholarship has begun to rekindle an interest in the study of pragmatism and our goal in this manuscript is to demonstrate that pragmatist thought has important implications for organisational studies that have been overlooked due to contention over nuances of the theory. As such, we propose a synthesis of pragmatism through the COPE typology (Boje, 2014) that represents our view of the four main tenants of pragmatism: critical, ontological, positivistic and epistemic. Further, we utilise COPE by applying it to the question of organisational heterogeneity within institutional theory. In doing so, this manuscript makes important contributions to the study of pragmatism and institutional theory while providing new insights to predict how internal organisational processes are developed and how organisations respond to environmental pressures.

Web-based recruiting’s impact on organizational image and familiarity: too much of a good thing?

Abstract Little is known about the efficacy of many of the newer forms of online recruitment. Using a quasi-experimental design, we tested the impact of individual exposure to corporate recruitment websites and Facebook on perceptions of organizational familiarity and organizational image over time. Most interestingly, we found evidence of a curvilinear or non-linear relationship between frequency of exposure to organizational communications and perceptions of organizational familiarity across time. Implications of our findings for HR theory and practice are discussed.

Multisector Team Collaboration at the Child Advocacy Center

An experienced child advocacy center (CAC) executive director has just encountered a pivotal moment. The nonprofit CAC she runs is being asked to perform fewer child forensic interviews. This has led to a loss of clients served and raised concerns about the organization’s financial future, as funders commonly request statistical data to ensure that the organization is a necessary part of the community and deserves funding. In 2011, the cross-sector collaborative CAC model, with its accompanying use of the multidisciplinary team (MDT), was established as the best practice model for investigating crimes against children. 1 Labeled multilevel governance in the public administration field, 2 such collaborations include issues of power, accountability, communication, and turnover. This case is presented as a meeting of the collaborating parties in which the executive director must address decreasing requests for interviews by the collaboration’s government partners.