A brief glance at the evolution of strategic focus reveals dramatic shifts in relevant context with potent implications for organization and control, rooted in the reversal of a century-old “long wave { XE "long wave "} ” centered on internalizing various economic activities to control them that gave rise to the integrated firm, the corporation and the conglomerate (Chandler, 1977; Chandler & Salsbury, 1974). Where companies from the mid-1860s to roughly the 1980s created strategic advantage by internalizing activities for greater stability, efficiency and control, increasingly since then advantage has centered more and faster learning and innovation (IBM { XE "IBM "}_Global_Services, 2006; Prahalad & Krishnan, 2008; Schramm, 2006). But no company can control all the resources needed for innovation (Prahalad & Krishnan, 2008), so creating strategic advantage has increasingly required collaborative, outsourced, strategic alliances

This study evaluates a model of the relationship between HR strategy and organizational performance in locally owned Taiwanese companies and in Taiwanese-owned firms operating in China. The pressure many East Asian economies feel as a consequence of globalization and the fallout from the 1997 Asian financial crisis means that flexible and adaptive employment systems are potentially useful in aiding these economies to regain competitiveness. We use structural equation modeling techniques to demonstrate the high performance work systems have a strongly positive impact on perceived firm performance, but there is no appreciable reverse effect of firm performance on the proclivity of firms to use high performance work systems. 1

Despite much research, debate continues about the impact of risk taking on a firm’s future performance. Unlike prior studies, we propose that risk-return relationships evolve as firms age and learn, particularly in high-velocity settings where accumulated knowledge affects how firms respond to technological change. Discerning this requires three things absent from prior analyses: (1) studying an entire population; (2) modeling evolutionary processes; and (3) using separate models to capture how a firm’s gains and losses (i.e., its strong and weak performances) unfold across time. Using this framework, we found that (a) risk-return relationships generally evolved from positive to negative as firms aged; because (b) firms learned to avoid large losses at younger ages than they learned to sustain large gains; yet (c) the risk taking that followed below-aspiration performance moderated those effects such that major setbacks prompted large future gains and large future losses among older firms and downward spirals among younger ones. 1 Relationships between risk and return are central to our lives. In the hope of emotional or monetary rewards, some people take risks by climbing mountains, changing employers, or switching careers. Some executives take risks in pursuit of better pay and enhanced reputations, and some firms pursue risky strategies in a quest for higher sales and profits.

ABSTRACT: This study examines determinants of professional HRM practices within a sample of approximately 700 small- to medium-sized firms. Predictions from agency theory and the resource based view of organizations lead to alternate hypotheses regarding the direct and indirect negative effects of family ownership and management on the usage of professional HRM practices. Results support predictions for both direct and indirect effects, thus lending partial support to both theories. Organization complexity variables that also predict professional HRM practices (and that may explain some of the indirect effects) include firm size, (presence of a) formal business plan, export strategy and HRM specialization.

This paper has not undergone formal review or approval of the faculty of the ILR School. It is intended to make results of Center research available to others interested in preliminary form to encourage discussion and suggestions. Page 1Theoretical and Empirical Challenges in Studying WP 00-04 Over the past 10 years a plethora of research has been conducted seeking to establish a relationship between human resource (HR) practices and firm performance. While this research has demonstrated promising results, a significant number of problems exist. This paper seeks to identify the theoretical and empirical challenges facing researchers who wish to further establish the impact of HR practices on firm performance. We conclude with some recommendations for future research in this area that might more accurately assess this relationship in ways that will be useful for both researchers and practitioners. Page 2Theoretical and Empirical Challenges in Studying WP 00-04 The increasingly competitive global economy pushes firms to exploit all of their available resources as a means of achieving competitive advantage. One resource recently recognized

The role of multinational corporations (MNCs) in the global economy is enormous. “Few sectors of the economy and few firms are free from its pervasive influence ” (Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1995, p.4). Through their network of subsidiaries, MNCs by operating in an international rather than a domestic arena, can explore many new opportunities. With these

Note: The authors wish to thank the participants of the Group of Management Education Researchers seminar group at Washington University in St. Louis for their helpful comments. This paper refines and extends research on organizational control, justice, and trust by examining the actions managers take regarding three critical managerial functions: control, trustbuilding, fairness-building. Whereas past work has primarily evaluated responses to managerial actions, this paper introduces and develops a theory of the determinants of three types of managerial actions: task controls, trust-building activities, fairness-building activities. Specifically, we focus on how the presence of various forms of superior-subordinate conflicts (concerning goals, tasks, and interpersonal issues) stimulate managerial concerns around subordinate task performance and their own managerial legitimacy. We argue that managers attempt to address these concerns using particular combinations of task control, trust-building, and fairness-building initiatives. The paper concludes with a discussion about how the theory we pose here refines and extends research on organizational control, organizational trust, and organizational fairness. 2

Software Development The performance of firms in the software industry depends considerably on the quality of their software development processes. How should such firms manage software development projects so that their development processes are flexible and predictable- resulting in products that meet quality goals, which are delivered within budget and are also developed on-time? Managing software development is a challenging task as management controls need to impose discipline and coordinate action to ensure goals are met while simultaneously incorporating autonomy to motivate software developers to be innovative and produce quality work. The management literature suggests two approaches to control: the process approach and the structure approach. The process approach recommends control of activities through specifying methods (behavior control) and through specifying performance criteria (outcome control). In contrast, the structure approach recommends control through centrally devised standards for activities (standardization) and by discriminating choices related to the delegation of authority for decision-making (decentralization). This study synthesizes these two approaches to propose a new theoretical construct-control process structure, to

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This paper explores the role of social capital in human resources management. We suggest that the recent interest in social capital has neglected the possibility that social networks may contain negative ties, and that attention to these negative ties may provide additional insights into understanding relationships and social networks in organizations. Research focusing on the antecedents and consequences of social networks in organizations is reviewed. We consider the effects of the "social ledger" (social capital and negative relationships) on "social" resources management outcomes such as recruitment, selection, socialization, training, performance, career development, turnover, job satisfaction,