Administrative Science Quarterly articles from March 1999

Administrative Science Quarterly archives from March 1999

Exploring the black box: an analysis of work group diversity, conflict, and performance.
March 1, 1999... If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. - John F. Kennedy In the past decade, demographic diversity has become one of the foremost topics of interest to managers and management...

The influence of organizational acquisition experience on acquisition performance: a behavioral learning perspective.
March 1, 1999... The vast majority of research on organization experience adopts a learning-curve perspective that predicts positive returns to experience. This work has been restricted, however, to the narrow context of manufacturing settings, where gains in...

The time famine: toward a sociology of work time.
March 1, 1999... Corporate lawyers, investment bankers, computer programmers, and many other types of workers routinely work seventy- or eighty-hour weeks, putting in extra effort during particularly hectic times (Kidder, 1981; Schor, 1991). These men and...

The search-transfer problem: the role of weak ties in sharing knowledge across organization subunits.
March 1, 1999... Why are some subunits in an organization able to share knowledge among themselves whereas others are not? Addressing this question, organization scholars have analyzed factors that inhibit knowledge sharing among subunits, in particular, the...

Industry categories and the politics of the comparable firm in CEO compensation.
March 1, 1999... Organizations are complex social configurations that can be categorized in many ways. The query, "What kind of organization is this?" has many different answers depending on the context and descriptive purpose of the questioner. Research has...

Taking Coase seriously.(economic modeling in organizational research)
March 1, 1999... In 1937, Ronald Coase launched the modern economic theory of the firm by asking, "If markets worked perfectly, why would there be firms?" Coase argued that firms will exist only in environments in which firms perform better than markets could....

Coase encounters and formal models: taking Gibbons seriously.(response to article by Joseph Gibbons, in this issue, p. 145)
March 1, 1999... Professions, of which academic disciplines are a special case, compete with one another for resources and authority based on their claim to specialized expertise (see especially, Abbott, 1988). Thus, interdisciplinary cooperation is normally...

Efficiency and rationality in organizations.(response to article by Robert Gibbons, in this issue, p. 145)
March 1, 1999... In "Taking Coase Seriously," Robert Gibbons considers the use of formal economic modeling in organizational research. He makes three claims: that internal organization is often imperfect; that such imperfections are consistent with both the...

Organizational Decision Making.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Zur Shapira, ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. 397 pp. $59.95. The study of organizational behavior has witnessed a dramatic shift toward a more cognitive perspective. Inspired by the early work of the Carnegie school (Simon,...

Escalation in Decision-Making: The Tragedy of Taurus.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Helga Drummond. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 265 pp. $60.00. Escalation of commitment has been of interest to social scientists since the 1970s (e.g., Staw, 1976). In fact, much of this work has appeared in the Administrative...

Translating Organizational Change.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Barbara Czarniawska and Guje Sevon, eds. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1996. 284 pp. DM 138.00, cloth; DM 58.00, paper. The chairman of the board of directors of a large multinational company whom I recently interviewed in the course of a...

Research in Organizational Change and Development, vol. 10.(Review)
March 1, 1999... William A. Pasmore and Richard W. Woodman, eds. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1997. 322 pp. $78.50. There is little argument that organizational change is increasingly important. Turbulent organizational environments, hyper-competition, and...

The Mechanisms of Governance.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Oliver E. Williamson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 429 pp. $45.00. Oliver Williamson's work has had enormous influence on the study of organization, bringing issues of governance to the center stage of analysis. The basic...

From Heresy to Dogma: An Institutional History of Corporate Environmentalism.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Andrew J. Hoffman. San Francisco: New Lexington Press, 1997. 253 pp. $53.00, cloth; $26.00, paper. From Heresy to Dogma provides a fascinating tale of how the unfolding of the 1960s environmental social movement led to corresponding...

Industry as a Player in the Political and Social Arena: Defining the Competitive Environment.(Review)
March 1, 1999... John F. Mahon and Richard A. McGowan. Westport, CT: Quorum, 1996. 216 pp. $59.95. The main point of this book, that firms pursue political strategies that are every bit as important as their competitive strategies, is taken for granted in...

Kitchens: The Culture of Restaurant Work.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Gary Alan Fine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. 315 pp. $48.00, cloth; $17.95, paper. For over five decades now, sociologists have set about studying the nature and dynamics of work and occupations, and yet, despite their...

Policing the Risk Society.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Richard V. Ericson and Kevin D. Haggerty. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. 487 pp. $65.00, cloth; $24.95, paper. Early research defined the police as a problem profession; they were held to be suspicious, secretive, and formed...

Generating Social Stratification: Toward a New Research Agenda.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Alan C. Kerckhoff, ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996. 358 pp. $59.00 cloth. This volume is the result of a conference organized by Alan Kerckhoff with the aim of bringing together specialists on stratification processes that occur early in...

Enhancing Organizational Performance.(Review)
March 1, 1999... Daniel Druckman, Jerome E. Singer, and Harold Van Cott, eds. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997. 284 pp. $39.95. This book is the fourth report in a series from the National Academy of Sciences that was commissioned by the Army...