Zachary Sheaffer

The Life Cycle of an Internet Firm: Scripts, Legitimacy, and Identity

We study, longitudinally and ethnographically, the construction of legitimacy and identity during the life cycle of an entrepreneurial Internet firm, from inception to death. We utilize organizational scripts to examine how social actors enact identity and legitimacy, maintaining that different scripts, both contested and consent–oriented, become the source of action for acquiring legitimacy and creating organizational identity. We show that scripts enable entrepreneurs and other social actors to invoke a set of interactions within and outside the organization. Scripts construct values and interests, form social bonding and consented actions, and eventually shape and reshape the individual and institutional contexts of identity and legitimacy. We found that the strategic action of organizational members in pursuing and enacting their preferred scripts depends on their position and role in the organization. We observed that the institutionalization of simultaneously competing scripts created a path–dependent process leading to organizational conflict and eventual failure.

Early‐Warning‐Signals Management: A Lesson from the Barings Crisis

The collapse of Barings was not an isolated event of its type. Rather, it characterizes an increasingly prevalent aspect of business settings as we approach the end of the second millennium. This paper surveys theoretical references in the crisis-and-decline literature to factors triggering crises. In particular, it emphasizes perceived organizational failure to notice and act on early-warning-signals (EWS). The paper presents a framework of organizational crisis-causal factors. These factors are tabulated to form a basis for models illustrating causes of organizational crises and poor EWS management. Validity and usefulness of the framework are tested through application to the Barings crisis.The presentation of some causal factors framework provides a diagnostic/predictive tool for use by crisis management (CM) strategists and regulators. It permits the un-learning of a frequent, yet detrimental, repercussion of managerial ineptitude. The paper proceeds by, first, discussing EWS management as contributing to the CM theory base. These contributions are presented as general categories of crisis-creating and EWS management-averting factors. Categories of crisis sources and pertinent key issues are then tabulated, followed by formal propositions. Next, the paper presents, and analyses against the background of crisis-causal factors, the case of the Barings debacle of 1995. A research agenda is proposed aimed at enhancing the empirical approach to studying EWS. Finally, comment is offered on the validity of the framework presented in the paper and the ways in which it might be used by CM strategists.

How Learning Leadership and Organizational Learning from Failures Enhance Perceived Organizational Capacity to Adapt to the Task Environment

Organizational learning from failures is a key organizational process that can lead to improved outcomes. In this study, the authors address two key questions that have received only limited attention in the literature: (a) how learning leadership enables organizational learning from failures and (b) how these learning behaviors enhance organizational capacities for adaptation to environmental turbulence. Data from a sample of 121 organizations support a mediation model in which learning leadership is linked indirectly, through learning from failures, to perceived organizational capacity to adapt to environmental jolts. The authors discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for the importance of learning leadership, organizational learning from failures, and organizational adaptability.

Learning in Crisis: Rethinking the Relationship Between Organizational Learning and Crisis Management

This article introduces the concept of learning in crisis (LiC) as a new mode of learning especially in turbulent times. Drawing on a theoretical integration of the organizational learning and crisis management literatures, LiC challenges the basic assumptions that inform hitherto analyses of learning in relation to crisis-beset organizations. LiC promotes the importance of practising and provides a basis for rethinking the way learning is associated with organizational failure and crisis thus, revealing a range of additional questions that could inform both scholarship and business practice in crisis management and organizational learning.

Are women “cooler” than men during crises? Exploring gender differences in perceiving organisational crisis preparedness proneness

The paper examines how male and female executives’ leadership orientations are reflected in crisis awareness. Drawing on management‐related gender and crisis theories, it is argued that women’s proclivity to employ participative decision making is mirrored advantageously in coping with crisis‐related scenarios. Predicated on a sample of 112 Israeli executives it is shown that perceptions of crisis preparedness/proneness are gender‐based and that women are more likely to employ a holistic approach that facilitates crisis preparedness.

Downsizing strategies and organizational performance: a longitudinal study

Purpose – How does downsizing affect long‐ and short‐term organizational performance? The present study aims to address this important question and attempts to extend previous research by examining the effect of both personnel and assets reduction on long‐ and short‐term firm performance.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses data collected through secondary sources on 196 firms traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) between 1992 and 2001.Findings – Econometric analyses indicate the positive impact of a combination of downsizing strategies on short‐term performance, and the negative effect of this combination on long‐term performance and high‐tech industry performance is negatively related to assets and personnel cutbacks. Whereas downsizing affects the short‐term performance of larger and established companies positively, it generally affects long‐term performance inversely.Originality/value – This study offers a first examination of the effects of simultaneous cutbacks in personnel and asset...

Does participatory decision‐making in top management teams enhance decision effectiveness and firm performance?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how participatory decision‐making processes in top management teams (TMT) influence strategic decision effectiveness and firm performance.Design/methodology/approach – Data from 94 TMTs are collected from structured surveys. Each firms CEO provides data on strategic decision effectiveness, and a senior executive member of the TMT provided data on participatory decision‐making processes and firm performance.Findings – Results show that participatory decision‐making processes in the TMT are positively associated with decision effectiveness, but there is both a direct and an indirect relationship (through decision effectiveness) between participatory decision‐making processes and firm performance.Originality/value – This paper sheds light on the importance of joint decision‐making processes among TMT members for improving choices and enhances firm performance.

Leadership attributes, masculinity and risk taking as predictors of crisis proneness

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which leadership attributes, masculinity, risk taking and decision making affect perceived crisis proneness.Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws mainly on the literature about gender, leadership and organizational crisis to explore whether masculinity predicts crisis proneness, and the extent to which leadership attributes as well as risk‐taking and decision‐making style are efficient predictors of perceived crisis preparedness (CP). Utilizing pertinent literature and concepts, the paper evaluates a database of 231 female and male managers.Findings – As hypothesized, masculinity is positively associated, whereas transformational leadership is inversely associated with perceived crisis proneness. Both participative decision making and passive management predict higher degree of perceived crisis proneness and so does risk taking.Research limitations/implications – More in‐depth research as well as larger and more diverse sample is requ...

Economic Expectations, Optimistic Bias, and Television Viewing During Economic Recession A Cultivation Study

We examine the relationship between TV viewing and economic expectations during economic recession. A content analysis of 84 hours of local network primetime programming (news and nonnews) identifies a moderate bias toward economic pessimism in the broadcasts. A survey of the adult population (N = 356) points at a significant positive relationship between TV viewing (total viewing and viewing of news programming) and economic pessimism at both the national and the personal levels. A similar relationship exists between TV viewing and optimistic bias—the tendency to be more pessimistic on economic matters at the national than at the personal level. These results remain significant when controlled for demographics, trust in national institutions, evaluation of current economic situation and consumption of media other than TV, and corroborate a second-order cultivation effect in the economic context.

Ideology, Crisis Intensity, Organizational Demography, and Industrial Type as Determinants of Organizational Change in Kibbutzim

Kibbutzim were a pure missionary organization known for their egalitarian—communal lifestyle. However, like many other organizational forms, the kibbutz model has been subjected to significant pressures to become more market oriented. This challenges the existence of kibbutzim in many ways. Stressing ideological homogeneity as a key predictor of change, this study also examines the effect of crisis as assessed by financial distress, demographic depletion, and type of manufacturing industry, on change intensity. Using a sample of 171 kibbutzim over a 7 year-period, the findings indicate consistent effects of ideology, crisis intensity, demographic depletion, and organizational size on change intensity. Theoretical implications for atypical organizations are discussed.