The study of individual agency, innovation and entrepreneurship is currently experiencing a new birth in management and organization research. As a matter of fact, the dynamics of institutional entrepreneurship, of path creation and disruptive change, have reached the general discourse on organization and management. While this is certainly welcome, one runs the danger of overlooking the power of self-reinforcing processes in and among organizations. Such dynamics run, to a large extent, beyond the control and attention of individuals and organizations and may thus constitute tenacious limits to the innovative endeavors aforementioned. This volume is dedicated to the theoretical and empirical study of self-reinforcements and decidedly redirects attention to these processes, including: escalating commitment, organizational imprinting and path dependence, and sheds light on the genesis and rise of their pervasive influence. It includes a selection of papers, most of which have were presented and discussed at the sub-theme on "Self-reinforcing organizational processes" of the 27th EGOS Colloquium held in 2011 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Demystifying Talent Management questions the explanation of talent, that anyone who has 'more' has a talent, and demonstrates how the term 'talent' has become an empty signifier. The book asks if talent exists at all, and reflects on what the consequences for talent management within business and sports would be if this were the case.

Modern manufacturing requires information systems that integrate process design and costing data, allowing rapid assessment of 'what if' scenarios. This book details the development of such systems with a focus on the data schema and user interface design.

The Poetic Organization explores the inherent aspects of organization that revolve around poetic processes. This book is a commentary on poetic elements in organization that are critical to developmental areas of organizations, yet poetics are rarely given the attention deserved.

Some vanguard companies have evolved to a higher level of decentralization originating in the enabling-and-autonomy paradigm. A new kind of deep leadership is practiced by these spirit-driven organizations. This book brings together theory and case studies to cover historical origins and developments of both types of decentralization.

Success in solution business starts by accepting that solution" "business is a separate business model, not simply another product category or an extension of the existing product business. This book identifies the business model areas that firms need to focus on when transforming into solution business. It further organizes these areas into three sets of capabilities and practices: commercialization, industrialization and solution platforms. This is the first book to take a comprehensive view of success in solution business and its relevance therefore extends to all functions of firms wanting to become solution providers as well as to many managerial levels. The book will also help you self-assess how ready your organization is for success in solution business.

Rapid social change requires that major institutions adapt. Management professionals who are called in to help presumably know what to do, but in fact their typical ways of working are anachronistic. Many professionals tacitly assume stability and a level of knowledge that no longer exists. They devise change programs that, while consistent with cultural expectations and professional standards, are flawed from the start and may actually reduce institutional capacity to adapt. Their practices and culture were developed for a different time and are ill-suited to fluid and highly interconnected situations. The very people who are relied upon for adaptive solutions are preventing what they should be providing.

Weaknesses of four familiar patterns of professional thinking are reviewed. Each puts society at risk:

- a rational pattern locks in optimal solutions that rapidly become obsolete

- a focused pattern is blind to reconfiguration options and the influence of external relationships

- a principled pattern fails to apprehend and develop the unique opportunities of a situation

- a interested pattern undercuts common interests that are already imperiled

An ominous feature of these at-risk patterns is the lack of awareness of limitations or of how the professional is included within the problematic situations to be addressed.

A different pattern is described - "reflexive practice" - that takes turbulence seriously and does not make convenient, traditional, and incorrect assumptions about stability, certainty, and the capacity of the professional for insight, foresight, and separation from the problem. These practitioners promote adaptive strategies appropriate for turbulent situations. Distinguishing features of these strategies include rapid generation and pruning of options, building capacity and readiness for continuous modification and reconfiguration, a greater comprehension of external changes, and reliance on mutual interaction through networks across boundaries.

Examples of reflexive practice, and the contrasting failures of at-risk practices, are traced through domains where the need for adaptation is acute - in national security, economics, energy, and environment. Personal characteristics and education of the reflexive practitioner are examined in greater detail. A simple survey of guests on C-SPAN illustrates the prevalence of the various types and their difference.

Reflexive practice is the most appropriate pattern for thinking and action for management professionals under current conditions, and in particular when devising responses to global threats. The thinking pattern remains fallible, however, and will often violate standards and appear weak in comparison with other types. This condition will persist until professional cultures themselves become adapted to the times.

Consumers, producers, critics, and other market agents rely on socially constructed categories like 'craft' beers, houseware 'collectibles', and 'thriller' films for their understanding of products and producers in markets. Although organizational and sociological accounts often take such categories as given, researchers increasingly acknowledge that category emergence, development, and functioning represent key aspects of how markets work. Take, for example, the U.S. brewing industry, which has become segmented into mass versus specialty producers. Many beer lovers who appreciate the characteristics of a beer made by small, specialty breweries are not willing to buy an equivalent beer made by an integrated, major producer. Knowledge of what specialty beer has come to mean and represent to consumers as the product of an authentic, artisanal production process and delivery is crucial for our understanding of how this market and competitive dynamics within it have evolved. This volume focuses on how market categories shape processes of production and consumption and how these activities in turn shape category systems. This volume consists of original contributions to theory and empirical research by a diverse group of esteemed authors. Topics explored include how new categories emerge, become enacted and gain consensus, how categories are used by market agents (including as tools for interpretation, as mobilization frames, and as cognitive infrastructures for learning), and how category systems change over time. These topics are explored from a variety of perspectives: new institutional theory, organizational ecology, social movement theory, and socio-cognitive theories of markets. The breadth of perspectives in this volume attests to the importance of this topic to sociological studies of market processes.

This book explores the reasons why American industry was so slow to respond to the challenge of high quality goods from Japan in the postwar period.

Economic reason, especially managerial rationality, stands for the trivial inarguable truths in modern society. But where do they come from? Why are the truths of rational logic true? Are they the laws of nature perhaps to be found in the matter of the universe? Are they inscribed into our genes? The answer is 'no'. Reason is culture. The Production of Seriousness argues that capacities initially common to all higher living have developed into a cultural heritage of sophisticated and well articulated ideas about a logic of incontestably true rational choice. The first half of this book sorts out the basic elements in our ideas of rational choice; the second half is directed at the concept of 'culture'. The concept 'meme' is used to show how simple memetic mechanisms irresistibly lead to constant dynamic forces, driving cultural evolution and, thereby, to the formation of modern ideas about absolute and unassailable rational reason.

The current crisis has rocked the financial system worldwide and has cast doubt on the effectiveness of the existing regulatory regime. Thousands of firms have gone bankrupt and many financial institutions were bailed out by governments. The effects of the crisis have shaken emerging and developing markets alike and have not spared neither small nor large businesses.

Many scholars and practitioners attribute the roots of the crisis to failures and weaknesses in the way corporate governance has been practiced since the mid-1990s. Lax board oversight of top management, short-termism and self-interested behavior have been fingered as the culprits behind recent financial turmoil.

This book highlights the recent developments and new trends in corporate governance. The eighteen chapters, written by leading academics and experts, can assist corporate executives, governance bodies, investors, market regulators, and policymakers in having a global picture of major corporate governance issues.

This book highlights the recent developments and new trends in corporate governance. The eighteen chapters, written by leading academics and experts, can assist corporate executives, governance bodies, investors, market regulators, and policymakers in having a global picture of major corporate governance issues.

Industrial and Organizational Psychology Help the Vulnerable documents a new direction for industrial and organizational psychology. The chapters are written by psychologists who have used the methods, procedures and theories of industrial and organizational psychology to help the vulnerable people of the world.

Concerns about justice and fairness are ubiquitous within and between communities, social groups, organizations and states. People are concerned with the fairness of how decisions are made, how outcomes are allocated between and within groups, and how they are treated by authorities. This volume introduces cutting-edge justice theorizing and research at the intersection of justice and groups. Contributors to this volume explore topics such as: how group members come to have a shared understanding of the level of fairness within their group (i.e., justice climate), how social emotions influence justice judgments, the relationships between trust, respect, fairness, and group-serving behavior, resource allocation, reactions to injustice, appropriate ways to restore justice following transgressions, and perceptions of and remedies for intergroup inequality. "The Fairness and Groups" volume in the "Research on Managing Groups and Teams" series will be of interest to students and scholars in psychology, sociology, law and organizational behavior.

Chris Termeer is said to be one of the few people that can clearly explain the vast complexities of the oil and natural gas industry in non-technical language for an average person. His book, Fundamentals of Investing in Oil and Gas, uses 250 + detailed pictures, graphs, and necessary visual illustrations, combined with thorough, comprehensive descriptions and details to aid the reader.

Organizational trust is a subject which has over the past decade become of increasing importance to organizational theory and research. This book examines what trust is, how it is developed and maintained, its underpinnings, manifestations, and its fragility, through a presentation and discussion of key readings.

Making Innovation Last considers the long term success of a firm. Authored by a trio of top international scholars who present pioneering new work on what it takes to create long term growth, the book examines the internal conditions that are likely to encourage sustainable innovation, as well as what a culture of innovation should look like.

Highlights include a reflection on forty years of collaboration and provides an inside perspective on collegial partnerships; the first recipients of the Pasmore-Woodman Award (AOM 2015) consider personal recollections as well as general principles about successful academic partnerships; one of the first women in the field provides a perspective on the interdependence of research and practice through a gender lens; while reflecting on the role of women in ODC across a fifty-year time period; strategies for managing changes in the research question when conducting field-based action research advances our understanding of evidence-based practice through the application of theory; Dialogic OD, a relatively new perspective in the field, is explored by discussing a case in which 'social space' serves as 'transitional space' and the ODC practitioner is provided a theoretically informed set of principles that can be applied and evaluated across contexts; the nature and role of organization identity shades new insights about the potential impact of organization development work on company culture and effectiveness; the challenges of integrating business strategy and organization development in the fast changing newspaper industry.

Transnational Corporations and Transnational Governance examines the different kinds of distance-related barriers related to cross-border investment. Different forms of governance, whether inside the firm or as part of its network of external relationships, have the aim of reducing uncertainty and creating a more predictable environment.

This title presents an organisational perspective of social enterprises, which allows us to analyse issues such as their governing structure, their modes of operation and their marketing strategies, and to begin to formulate some theoretical constructs on how these entities can survive and thrive.

Hardbound. The series Advances in the Management of Organizational Quality is designed to stimulate thinking on quality-related issues and to facilitate bringing quality into the mainstream of organizational effectiveness. This volume spans a broad range of topics from the transference of quality practices across multinational boundaries to the role of performance feedback systems in achieving quality-based objectives. The papers push the boundaries of traditional conceptualizations of quality and shed new light on important topics.

Written by the world's leading academics in the outsourcing field, this books gives the most recent overview of developments in research and practice. It focuses on new practices in innovation, offshoring, onshoring, capabilities, project management and cloud services, offering a distinctive theory of outsourcing.

Much has been written about equal opportunity issues but little has been published about how organisations might provide more structure and support to ensure women's progress to the most senior business levels. This book looks at the career experiences of a group of women managers and consider what helps, and what still hinders their progress.