P. Devereaux Jennings

Late Adoption of the Multidivisional Form by Large U.S. Corporations: Institutional, Political, and Economic Accounts

In a system and method for automatically starting, synchronizing and operating a steam turbine, control means for valve position limiting wherein such limit can be changed non-linearly. Means are provided whereby the system operator has the ability to manually select a minimum incremental change of the valve position limit as a keyboard-entered constant. If the operator enables a continuing change in the limit it is introduced arithmetically, permitting large swings in a reasonably short period of time.

The BP Oil Spill as a Cultural Anomaly? Institutional Context, Conflict and Change

This article argues that the BP Oil Spill is, potentially, a “cultural anomaly” for institutional changes in environmental management and fossil fuel production. The problem as defined by the spill’s context, the potential solutions provided by the competing logics in that context, and the selection of problem—solution bundles through the fortuitous timing of events, and more calculative efforts of institutional entrepreneurs within that context have come close to acting as a catalyst for deeper change, but not quite. For reasons that this article discusses, true change in the approach to handling issues related to oil drilling, oil consumption, and environmental management have yet to occur.

Commentary on the Multidimensional Degree of Family Influence Construct and the F-PEC Measurement Instrument

In this commentary, we provide suggestions for further establishing the validity of the multidimensional degree of family influence construct and the reliability of the family influence on power, experience, and culture (F–PEC) measurement instrument. We also delineate a number of creative ways in which future researchers can incorporate this rigorous, relevant, and rich construct into their own research agendas.

Talking About the Natural Environment A Means for Deinstitutionalization

In this article, the authors argue that discourse in organizations about the natural environment challenges the traditionally enacted boundaries between the firm and the environment and therefore is an important source of deinstitutionalization. Using data gathered from their research project on sustainability, the authors show that attention by organizational members to meaningful cues embedded in terminology, expressions, and stories undermines existing institutional logics operating in firms and helps establish newer ones.

Institutional Theory and the Natural Environment Research in (and on) the Anthropocene

This review article summarizes the main tenets of institutional theory as they apply to the topic of the Anthropocene in the domain of organization and the natural environment. But our review is distinctive for two reasons: First, it is focused on providing avenues researching the Anthropocene Era. Second, while based on the trajectory of current, accumulated theory and research, our review is forward-looking in its orientation and thus aimed at guiding future work to explore the emergence of a new social reality in Anthropocene Society. We begin by summarizing the scientific research on the Anthropocene Era, then move to its implications for grand and midrange institutional theory principles, and of institutional principles for the study of it. We end with a call to reenergize and reradicalize the organization and the natural environment field to properly address the magnitude and scope of this shift to the Anthropocene.

Institutional sources of technological knowledge: a community perspective on nanotechnology emergence

Although the cottage industry of neoinstitutional research gained its momentum through a conceptual architecture that was centred on a bifurcation of technological/material forces and cultural dynamics, current research in this genre has begun to re-examine the utility of such distinctions. One of the downsides of such a conceptual distinction is that the institutional approach to technology is anachronistic, treating it as an exogenous force. Even though early work by Woodward and others usefully contributed to our understanding of organizations by highlighting how different technologies correlate with various organizational forms, recent scholarship has enhanced our more functional understanding of technology by highlighting processes of coevolution and structuration. In this chapter, we draw on such social constructionist developments in the study of technology to reanimate institutional analysis. More specifically, drawing on the case of the development of nanotube intellectual property, we focus on how technological knowledge production is embedded in community cultures. Our arguments and evidence suggest that there are distinctive community cultures around intensive versus extensive knowledge-generating patents, highlighting how an approach that appreciates the interactive dynamics of technology and culture can yield important insights into the institutional dynamics of technology development.

Living the Dream? Assessing the “Entrepreneurship as Emancipation” Perspective in a Developed Region

This paper seeks to stimulate additional research on the entrepreneurship–as–emancipation perspective. We extend extant work by specifying the practices within developed regions from which entrepreneurs arguably pursue liberation and then developing hypotheses pertaining to the incidence, determinants, and outcomes associated with departure from such norms. Our survey findings offer evidence to question not only the prevalence with which entrepreneurs in such contexts deviate from the status quo, but also the characteristics of those who enact greater departure. On average, women are not more likely to do so; moreover, they tend to be less satisfied overall when they do deviate highly.

Is It Better to Govern Managers via Agency or Stewardship? Examining Asymmetries by Family Versus Nonfamily Affiliation:

This article examines whether agency or stewardship is the more effective form of managerial governance within family firms. Synthesizing arguments regarding the differential tendencies of nonfamily versus family managers and the bifurcated manner in which they are likely to be governed, we propose asymmetric responses to agency versus stewardship mechanisms. Our empirical results provide evidence challenging common assumptions regarding the behavior exhibited by nonfamily versus family managers and the mechanisms by which each is governed. Although our findings also provide evidence of response asymmetry, they nevertheless point to the greater effectiveness of stewardship over agency governance irrespective of a manager’s family affiliation.

The Strategic Positioning of Professional Service Firm Start-Ups: Balance Beguiles but Purism Pays

How do new professional service firms strategically position themselves in fields where developing a favourable external reputation is critical to performance? Are certain positioning strategies more effective than others? This study reveals that most professional service firm start-ups attempt to establish themselves by pursuing a strategy of moderate divergence from a fields institutionalized practices. Those that do so, however, do not perform as well as those that either conform more closely to these institutional prescriptions or depart more radically from them. In other words, balance beguiles but purism pays.

Canadian Human Resource Management at the Crossroads

In this review, we employ an organization theory framework for understanding Canadian human resource management. We first examine the environment surrounding organizations in which the HR function is performed, then the HR function itself, and finally the HR managers values, beliefs and actions within this system. Many of the changes that are occurring in the management of human resources are due to the pressure the environment is exerting on business organizations—pressures which the HR specialist helps manage. Among the most significant changes that face HRM are the increases in the amount of government policy concerning HR and the amount of HR-related legislation. HR specialists have responded by encouraging their organizations to adopt new personnel practices, such as employment equity and TQM, and by increasing their own level of training and professionalization. As a consequence of handling these pressures, many practitioners surveyed maintained that human resource management now has a higher profile in their firms and a greater set of responsibilities. However, human resource management faces some tough challenges from the global and national economy. As a result, the HR function continues to be a primary target in downsizing efforts, and HR expertise has continued to move out of large firms into small, part-time consulting units or into the hands of other corporate managers with working HR knowledge.