Coordination, as the act of managing interdependencies between activities, is one of the central research issues in Distributed Artificial Intelligence. Many researchers have shown that there is no single best organization or coordination mechanism for all environments. Problems in coordinating the activities of distributed intelligent agents appear in many domains: the control of distributed sensor networks; multi-agent scheduling of people and/or machines; distributed diagnosis of errors in local-area or telephone networks; concurrent engineering; `software agents' for information gathering. The design of coordination mechanisms for group...

In this paper, we review and analyze the emerging network paradigm in organizational research. We begin with a conventional review of recent research organized around recognized research streams. Next, we analyze this research, developing a set of dimensions along which network studies vary, including direction of causality, levels of analysis, explanatory goals, and explanatory mechanisms. We use the latter two dimensions to construct a 2-by-2 table cross-classifying studies of network consequences into four canonical types: structural social capital, social access to resources, contagion, and environmental shaping. We note the rise in popularity of studies with a greater sense of agency than was traditional in network research.

Management research on diversity, heterogeneity, dissimilarity, and related concepts of within unit differences in organizations has proliferated in the past decade. However, few clear or consistent findings have emerged. We argue that the nature of these difference-based constructs requires closer examination. Using diversity as an overarching term, we contend that it has three distinctive types: separation, variety, or disparity. Failure to recognize the unique meaning, maximum shape, and assumptions underlying each type has held back theory development and contributed to mismatched operationalizations and research design. After presenting our diversity typology, we present guidelines for conceptualization, measurement, and theory testing, highlighting the special case of demographic diversity.

The capitalist and socialist societies of the 20 th century assigned firms different roles within their economic systems. Enterprises transforming from socialist to market economies thus face fundamental organizational restructuring. Many former state-owned firms in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe have failed at this task. These firms have pursued primarily defensive downsizing, rather than strategic restructuring, as a result of both internal and external constraints on restructuring strategies. Building on the organizational learning and resource-based theories, we analyze strategies available to management in privatized, former state-owned enterprises in transition economies to restructure their organization. Both internal forces promoting or inhibiting the restructuring process, and external constraints arising in the transition context are examined. A model and testable propositions are developed that explain post-privatization performance. Implications of our research point to the ways in which firms should manage and develop their resource base to transform to competitive enterprises.

Workforce population trends have increased the numbers and kinds of culturally diverse people who work together. Researchers in organizational behavior have often examined culture through values; however, cultural values can be based on collections of people other than traditional nation states. A cultural mosaic is presented as a framework to identify demographic, geographic, and associative features underlying culture. An individual’s unique collage of multiple cultural identities yields a complex picture of the cultural influences on that person. Developments in chaos and complexity theories are proposed as a theoretical base for study on the complexity of culture at the individual level. Additional developments in network theory serve as a theoretical base for cultural research at the group level. The cultural mosaic is described as a complex system with localized structures, linking cultural tiles in ordered and chaotic ways. Research propositions examining multiple cultural identities at individual and group levels are discussed.

We examine the drivers of diffusion of information through organizations and the effects on performance. In particular, we ask: What predicts the likelihood of an individual becoming aware of a strategic piece of information, or becoming aware of it sooner? Do different types of information exhibit different diffusion patterns, and do different characteristics of social structure, relationships and individuals in turn affect access to different kinds of information? Does better access to information predict an individual’s ability to complete projects or generate revenue? We hypothesize that the dual effects of content and structure jointly predict the diffusion path of information, and ultimately performance. To test our hypotheses, we characterize the social network of a medium sized executive recruiting firm using accounting data on project co-work relationships and ten months of email traffic observed over two five month periods. We identify two distinct types of information diffusing over this network – ‘event news ’ and ‘discussion topics ’ – by their usage characteristics, and observe several thousand diffusion processes of each type of information from their original first use to their varied recipients over time. We then test the effects of network structure and functional and demographic characteristics of dyadic relationships on the likelihood of receiving each type of information and receiving it more quickly. Our results demonstrate that the diffusion of news, characterized by a spike in communication and rapid, pervasive diffusion through the organization, is influenced by demographic and

Differences in competences are widely believed to be an important source of enduring competitive advantage. However empirical studies investigating the sources of firm differences in terms of both human resource types, levels and degrees of heterogeneity remain sparse to date. Because firm competence rest on human resources and their relation, this study demonstrates with a uniquely comprehensive data set that human resource types, levels, and heterogeneity in engineering consulting firms are empirically separable constructs that have significant and yet different influences on firm performance in terms of productivity and profitability. Our results indicate that educational diversity matters more for explaining performance differences than levels of experience and tenure of human resources.

This paper explores an additional alternative for understanding of organizational leadership, that of the praxis of leadership (Kakabadse, 1991). The argument put forth suggests that leadership acts are the results of each individual's interpretation of what they should or should not do, bounded by the discretion inherent in their roles. Thus, any consideration given to leadership as a construct, must incorporate an analysis of context, which in turn requires analysis of the economic, political and cultural relations of organization and society. Hence, the concept of leadership praxis provides a unifying concept for organizational and leadership understanding.

Individual attainment within organizational careers, or career mobility, has been explained by individual attributes and by demographic processes. These seemingly unrelated views can be reconciled by suggesting that employees develop a shared perception of their organization's career hierarchy, and that this shared perception produces systematic managerial selection preferences that influence individual attainment. A study that examines the first part of this process is presented. The results, based on questionnaire data from an electric utility, suggest that managers do develop a shared perception of their organization's career hierarchy. However, managers ' perceptions are not unanimous, and the analysis examines two explanations for perceptual variation. The implications of the proposed connection for further development of a multiple-level explanation of individual attainment are discussed.

ORIGINALITY Grant giving foundation leaders are increasingly concerned with understanding the primary role their institutions are pressured to play in financing the growing non-profit sectors of developed economies. Furthermore, many academics, political leaders and practitioners are expecting foundations to play the unique role of merchant banks and venture capitalists to foster the positive impact of non-profit organizations on societies, people and issues they affect. The main contribution of this study lies in proposing and testing a theoretical framework that foundations might implement in order to efficiently disseminate liquidity and managerial expertise among selected grantees as well as to improve grantees ‟ social outcome. OBJECTIVE The main objective of the paper is to debate if effective governance plays a major role in driving the foundations ‟ innovation and value creation processes. The argument being that only improved leadership and refined project screening will lead to greater