Research in organizational learning has demonstrated processes and occasionally performance implications of acquisition of declarative (know-what) and procedural (know-how) knowledge. However, considerably less attention has been paid to learned characteristics of relationships that affect the decision to seek information from other people. Based on a review of the social network, information processing, and organizational learning literatures, along with the results of a previous qualitative study, we propose a formal model of information seeking in which the probability of seeking information from another person is a function of (1) knowing what that person knows; (2) valuing what that person knows; (3) being able to gain timely access to that person’s thinking; and (4) perceiving that seeking information from that person would not be too costly. We also hypothesize that the knowing, access, and cost variables mediate the relationship between physical proximity and information seeking. The model is tested using two separate research sites to provide replication. The results indicate strong support for the model and the mediation hypothesis (with the exception of the cost variable). Implications are drawn for the study of both transactive memory and organizational learning, as well as for management practice.

Abstract not found

One of the most common early forecasts for commerce in the information age was the removal of wholesalers, distributors, and other intermediaries in a firm's value chain. This "disintermediation" offered the prospect of greater efficiency in supply and marketing channels. More recent evidence suggests that such forecasts were shortsighted, and today new "cybermediaries" have lodged themselves in the value chain between goods manufacturers and customers. This paper explains the phenomenon of cybermediation by looking beyond transaction cost economics toward newer theories of consumer economics and several theories drawn from the organization sciences: institutional theory, social exchange theory, social network theory, and theories of organizational knowledge creation. By acknowledging the potential contributions of these diverse theoretical perspectives, researchers may gain greater leverage in their attempts to explain the emergence of cybermediaries in electronic commerce. Key Words:...

Abstract not found

Researchers criticize the transaction cost economics (TCE) paradigm for over-generalizing the assumption of opportunism as human nature. We suggest that opportunistic propensity is affected by cultural prior conditioning of individualism–collectivism (I–C). Specifically, we propose that individualists have a higher opportunistic propensity in intra-group transactions, and collectivists in inter-group transactions. Our cultural specification of opportunism helps TCE to more effectively accommodate some criticisms and more realistically deal with problems of economic organization in today’s global economy. © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. “Culture serves as a check on opportunism.” — Williamson (1993b: 476) First proposed by Coase (1937) and later popularized by Williamson (1975, 1985), transaction cost economics (TCE) has become a major paradigm in social science research (Masten, 1993). One of its key building blocks is the assumption of opportunism, because individuals “will not reliably self-enforce promises but will defect from the letter and spirit of an agreement when it suits their purposes, ” and “a healthy regard for opportunism is essential

Multi-contracting practices prevail in many organizations be they public (governments) or private (markets). This article surveys the literature on common agency, a major example of such multi-contracting settings. I first highlight some specific features of common agency games that distinguish them from centralized contracting. Then, I review the tools needed to describe allocations which are implementable as common agency equilibria. Economic examples are used to characterize equilibria under both complete and asymmetric information. Particular focus is put on the multiplicity problem and the (interim) efficiency properties of those equilibria. The comparison of those equilibria with the outcomes achieved under centralized contracting allows us to assess the transaction costs of multi-contracting. I also argue that, in some specific contexts, common agency may implement the optimal outcome that would be achieved under centralized contracting if collusion between agents were an issue. More generally, common agency might outperform centralized contracting when either collusion or limited commitment matters.

Traditional Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) focuses on the integration of application interfaces by pipelining different middleware technologies like message queuing or remote method invocations. Web Service enabled Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) used in EAI were a step towards providing an abstraction layer for the involved interfaces by using the Web Service Description Language (WSDL) [9]. We enlarge the notion of SOA by applying Semantic Web Services (SWS) technology to it. The architecture employs principles developed in work already published on SWS architectures [18, 40] to demonstrate their applicability in EAI. We examine what current SWS technology offers in respect to the requirements imposed by EAI scenarios. The major focus of the paper is to point out the potentials current SWS technology offer for EAI. This analysis includes some challenges for SWS frameworks to fully enable dynamic discovery and invocation in EAI. It further concludes that both are already possible in intra-EAI scenarios under certain assumptions. We demonstrate the applicability of the Web Service Execution Engine (WSMX), as first kind of a Semantic Service Oriented Architecture (SSOA) in a high-level use-case to exemplify the activities within the lifecycle of such an architecture.

Researchers in all management specialties have discussed and investigated the important role values play in personal and organizational phenomena. However, because research on values has been performed in a wide range of social science disciplines and at different levels of analysis, much of this work has been uninformed by other work and is neither well integrated nor systematized, resulting in a great deal of confusion concerning the topic. This article attempts to add order and clarity to this area of research by proposing a framework of values research based on level of analysis and by cataloguing and reviewing the vast theoretical and empirical research in light of this framework. It concludes with a critique of the extant literature and recommendations for further research. At a recent annual meeting of Eli Lilly and Company, Chairman and CEO Randall Tobias extended the meeting by over 2 hours to discuss the core values of the company and their importance to the future of the organization. Similarly, in a recent interview in Organizational Dynamics (Lee, 1994), Herb Kelleher, Chairman and CEO of Southwest Airlines, discussed the central role that values play in that organization. Fortune magazine reported that over 50 % of U.S. corporations have a values statement, more than double that of a decade ago (Farnham, 1993). With all the attention being given to values in the business world, it is important to assess the status of the academic literature on values in business. A brief review suggests that academicians have spent a great deal of time thinking about and investigating the role of values in business. Values have become a central construct in all of the social sciences and in the

In this paper we analyze how factors of electronic data interchange diffusion evolve over time. Our premise is that factors that capture the diffusion of complex, standard-based and networked technologies are not static but change over time as the technology matures, the institutional arrangement changes and industries become more sophisticated in their technology application. Based on longitudinal field study data collected in 1994, 1995, and 1998 we deliver an account of the EDI diffusion factors in Hong Kong and how they evolved over time. The field study collected organizational, industry and environmental factors that together help explain the diffusion of EDI in Hong Kong. Our analysis shows that factors can change dramatically. This can provide interesting insights into how and why changes in EDI use have happened. On a theoretical level we call for more in-depth field studies when trying to capture and understand the diffusion of complex, standard-based, and networked technologies.

articles Abstract. This article seeks to illustrate the utility of a semiotically grounded approach to the analysis of organizational aesthetics. Developed from a critique of the tendency to romanticize the notion of aesthetics within both organization studies and the social sciences more generally, it is argued that such a tendency tends to overlook the ways in which organizational imagery and artefacts are imbued with aesthetic meaning—which in turn can be understood to function as what Gell (1992) has described as cultural ‘technologies of enchantment’. Commencing with a brief review of increasing practitioner interest in the possibility of harnessing the aesthetic as a managerial resource, the article then considers the nature of the aesthetic as an essentially contested concept within both philosophy and organization studies. In doing so, it outlines the dominance of what it considers to be a romanticized understanding of the aesthetic amongst those who believe it to