Tammy L. Madsen

Microfoundations of Routines and Capabilities: Individuals, Processes, and Structure

This article introduces the Special Issue and discusses the microfoundations of routines and capabilities, including why a microfoundations view is needed and how it may inform work on organizational and competitive heterogeneity. Building on extant research, we identify three primary categories of micro‐level components underlying routines and capabilities: individuals, social processes, and structure. We discuss how these components, and their interactions, may affect routines and capabilities. In doing so, we outline a research agenda for advancing the fields understanding of the microfoundations of routines and capabilities.

Knowledge Retention and Personnel Mobility: The Nondisruptive Effects of Inflows of Experience

Firms often bring in personnel from rivals to gain tacit knowledge and skills. Personnel new to a firm may broaden the firms knowledge stock, but may not disrupt the firms ways of organizing. Instead, personnel inflows may contribute to the retention of a firms traditional ways of organizing. This study tracks the flow of personnel within and across organizational boundaries (intrafirm and interfirm flows) and geographic boundaries (local and cross-border flows) for multiunit banks operating in the Foreign Exchange Trade Industry from 1973--1993. We test how a firms retention activity responds to inflows of personnel from different sources (e.g., intrafirm, interfirm, local, and cross-border). The findings show that inflows of personnel from different sources increase a firms retention activity. Rather than adopting changes in behavior in response to an influx of personnel from within or across spatial boundaries, firms in the foreign exchange industry tend to retain their existing ways of organizing. Personnel inflows from a combination of sources, such as local intrafirm, cross-border intrafirm, local interfirm, and cross-border interfirm, also positively affect retention. By examining the differences in the magnitudes of these effects, we empirically show that considering different sources of personnel inflows in combination is worthwhile.

Global account management: the new frontier in relationship marketing

Explains the concept of global account management and the forces driving it. Provides a framework to help managers to recognize why and when to use it and how to implement it successfully. Discusses examples from the advertising, computer, telecommunications, electrical component and banking industries and provides an in‐depth case study from one of the leading practitioners of global account management, the Hewlett‐Packard Company. Concludes with a guide to successful implementation.

The dynamics of knowledge flows: human capital mobility, knowledge retention and change

This empirical paper investigates the relationships between the amount of human capital that flows into a firm and two activities underlying a firm’s knowledge production, variation or change and knowledge retention. We track the flow of human capital within and across organizational and geographic space for all multi‐unit banks operating in the world foreign exchange trade industry from 1973 to 1993. The findings indicate that an increased reliance on past experience reduces how much human capital a firm imports in the future. This effect is moderated by a self‐reinforcing cycle of human capital inflow. Inflows of human capital also decline when a firm has recently adopted novel changes in its operations. The paper uses evolutionary thinking to define a model for intrafirm knowledge production.

Recovery Following Disruption to an Ecosystem The Effects of the Internet Bust on Community Evolution

Using data on all organizations operating in California from 1993 to 2006, this article explores the evolution of industries and communities before and after a disruption to the region (the dot-com bust). Our results indicate that an association with the Silicon Valley’s high-tech industry clusters explains more of the variance in organizational foundings in communities located in California after the disruption as compared with the predisruption time period. In contrast, the benefits of a Silicon Valley location for nascent organizations erode postdisruption. The findings also demonstrate that, pre and post the dot-com bust, organizational foundings are explained more by an organization’s high-tech industry affiliation than by its Silicon Valley location.

Entrant Growth and the Network of Interfirm Mobility in the Foreign Exchange Industry

In this paper we examine how personnel flows from incumbents to entrants affect entrant growth after a significant break in the rules governing competition in an industry. We argue that the time-varying network of personnel mobility between incumbents measures how technical knowledge and social resources are distributed among them. Consequently, where the prior employers of personnel are located in the incumbent network should determine the quality of knowledge these hires bring to an entrant and thus their contribution to the entrants growth. We analyze the time-varying mobility network among incumbents in terms of its global structure and in terms of the local structure surrounding each entering firm. Our analysis shows that the global structure converges over time to a stable core and periphery pattern, which can be considered emergent in Bearmans (1997) definition. Entrant employees with job histories in the core significantly decrease the entrants growth rate, whereas employees from the periphery increase growth. Also, entrants that occupy structural holes in the local network grow faster. The industry studied is foreign exchange trading among commercial banks from 1973 to 1993.