Raymond E. Miles

Causes of Failure in Network Organizations

This article forecasts the problems that the emerging network form of organization faces as the result of managerial actions which inadvertently damage the operating capabilities of network organization. It examines the managerial mistakes that have plagued and continue to plague earlier functional, divisional, and matrix forms of organization, actions that are most likely to constrain the network structure. By analyzing predictable mistakes as they begin to occur, the authors hope to help managers prevent these problems rather than become victims of them.

Some Conceptual and Research Barriers to the Utilization of Knowledge

Whether in high-tech, service, or traditional industries, the role of knowledge as a primary driver of development is being increasingly recognized. It is not clear, however, whether managerial approaches based on mindsets rooted in past practice are appropriate for, or capable of, fully realizing the potential value of knowledge within the firm and/or industry. At least three related issues stand in the way of full knowledge utilization: conceptualization and measurement of knowledge capital as a primary organizational asset, the integration of knowledge capital into the strategic management process, and the development of organizational forms and processes that facilitate the use and development of knowledge. While leading-edge firms are already wrestling with these issues, advances in theory and research are needed to help develop appropriate responses and provide frameworks that will help spread these new approaches. In doing so, advances may also be made that allow for the recognition of the central role of collaboration in the knowledge process.

Organizational Structure and Managerial Decision Behavior

The association between hierarchical position, organization size, and span of control and five dimensions of managerial decision behaviorperceived influence on superiors, autonomy from superiors, reliance on subordinates, personal initiation, and final choice-is examined for 190 managers in eight different companies. Hierarchical position was found to be the most important determinant of the decision behavior that a manager reports for the decisions studied. Span of control was found to be related only to the extent to which a manager reports relying on subordinates in his decision making. There is some indication that size had a differential effect on a managers decision behavior depending on his position in the hierarchy. L. Vaughn Blankenship is associate professor of political science and organization at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Raymond E. Miles is assistant professor of business administration, University of California, Berkeley.

The I-Form Organization

Every generation of managers experiments with new organizational forms – new business models and the organizational structures and management processes required to support them. Much of the current experimentation with business and organizational models is occurring in knowledge-intensive industries such as biotechnology, computers, telecommunications, and medical and scientific equipment. Based on our ongoing research, the principal business model that we see emerging in these and similar industries can be called market exploration. Market exploration is a firm’s pursuit of opportunities created by intersecting technologies and markets. The market exploration process is complex, involving technology development, product development and commercialization in collaboration with customers and other firms, and the orderly development of markets which have large but unknown potential. Firms that want to be effective at market exploration must organize specifically for innovation – they must be able to build and manage an I-form organization. In this article, we show how many firms are moving towards and improving the I-form organization, and we discuss its purpose, key features, and benefits.

The Future of Business Education

The business of business education is booming. But in the midst of this massive growth, business schools will need to answer questions about the relevance of their curriculum to the new organizational needs of business. As business evolves into a new organizational form—one based on network structures incorporating new technologies and new industries—business schools will have to restructure their educational approach. The need for both specialists and generalists will require a multilevel approach that offers a wider variety of programs and degrees. The problem is not that business schools are doing the wrong thing, but that they often try to do too much with a limited array of products.

Innovation and Leadership Values

U.S. leadership in technological innovation has remained an important source of national income and pride. Indeed, recognizing that advanced economies compete primarily on the basis of innovation, U.S. scholars were among the early leaders in studying and describing effective organizational approaches to knowledge creation, sharing, and utilization. Nevertheless, despite their established capabilities, U.S. firms apparently still make use of only a fraction of their available knowledge. While the U.S. still has the worlds leading research universities and is home to many world-class firms that champion technology and innovation, there are growing concerns that the business values and practices essential to the creation and sharing of knowledge and its full utilization in innovation initiatives may not be evolving at the same pace in the U.S. as they are in some of its leading foreign competitors. This article examines some of the current criticisms and concerns about management practices in U.S. firms and discusses the management theories and behavioral prescriptions that are critical to maintaining global leadership in innovation-based economic competitiveness.

Participative Management: Quality vs. Quantity

The theory of participative management has held the spotlight of debate in management literature. This article examines the purposes of participative management and, using different systems and models, discusses its advantages and disadvantages.

Attitudes Toward Management Theory as a Factor in Managers’ Relationships With Their Superiors

The article presents a study testing the hypothesis that high rated subordinate managers have attitudes toward management concepts and theories more similar to those of their superiors than do thei...

Organizational Leadership Satisfaction and Productivity: A Comparative Analysis*

Questionnaire responses were collected from nearly 400 managers in the six divisions of a manufacturing organization, along with company data on division performance. Analysis of aggregate scores f...

The ideology of innovation

Undaunted by over a decade of scholarly criticism (e.g. Bebchuk and Fried, 2005; Ghoshal and Moran, 1996), senior American executives have stood firm on their moral beliefs about the free-enterprise system – beliefs that justify extravagant increases in executive compensation despite declining firm competitiveness, and the preservation of corporate profits through outsourcing to low-wage countries, layoffs and reductions in benefits for American workers. Of course, moral positions are built to withstand rational critiques. The current moral foundation was laid in the 1980s when President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher successfully wrapped the US and British economies in a cloak of righteousness as part of their efforts to bring down what was often referred to as the ‘godless’ Communist regimes of the Soviet Union and its allies. Given the power of moral beliefs, and the fact that managers’ values reflect broader societal values – a linkage examined in depth in the 1950s and 1960s (Bendix, 1956; Parsons, 1959; Sutton et al., 1956; Weber, 2001; Weber and Parsons, 1968) but mostly ignored in the management literature today – we believe that any attempt to substantially reorient US firms must consider the moral underpinnings of the policies that guide them. A focus on business practices and the managerial values and beliefs underlying them is particularly important, we suggest, because the USA and other advanced countries compete primarily on the basis of knowledge-driven innovation and entrepreneurship (Baumol, 2002; Baumol et al., 2007). Knowledge is shared most freely in organizational settings where trust is anticipated and consistently maintained. Trust, in turn, is created and sustained when equitable treatment is valued and pursued by both the leaders and members of firms. In such settings, the excitement and pleasure of creating value through collaborative innovation is reinforced over time by the equitable sharing of rewards (Miles et al., 2005). It is our contention that the managerial values essential to the creation of conditions such as these have been eroding in the US marketplace for more than two-and-a-half decades, a decline that threatens to weaken the ability of US firms to compete through continuous product and service innovation. Indeed, the relative US position on key indicators of social and economic health has noticeably declined, a phenomenon that began in the midto late 1970s. While the disparity between executive and hourly employee wages is the most dramatic difference between US firms and their international competitors, STRATEGIC ORGANIZATION Vol 5(4): 423–435 DOI: 10.1177/1476127007083350 Copyright ©2007 Sage Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) http://so.sagepub.com