Knowledge about work processes is a prerequisite for performing work. We investigate whether a certain mode of knowledge, knowing-why, affects work performance and whether the knowledge held by different work roles matters for work performance. We operationalize these questions in the specific domain of data production processes and data quality. We analyze responses from three roles within data production processes, data collectors, data custodians, and data consumers, to investigate the effects of different knowledge modes held by different work roles on data quality. We find that work roles and the mode of knowledge do matter. Specifically, data collectors with why-knowledge about the data production process contribute to producing better quality data. Overall, knowledge of data collectors is more critical than that of data custodians.

Cultural differences are often used as explanations of organizational problems following mergers. This paper argues that this literature is to a large extent based on a realist epistemology where too little emphasis has been placed on the constructive processes. To partially bridge this gap, this study adopts a sensemaking approach to studying the (re)construction of cultural conceptions in the merger context. The study is based on extensive ethnographic material from eight cases of Finnish-Swedish mergers and acquisitions. The analysis of this material leads to a specification of three concurrent cultural sensemaking processes through which the top decision makers involved in the post-merger integration processes make sense of and enact cultural conceptions. First, this cultural sensemaking involves a search for rational understanding of cultural characteristics and differences. Second, cultural sensemaking also includes more or less suppressed emotional identification with either of the merging sides. Third, cultural sensemaking also involves purposeful manipulation of the cultural conceptions for more or less legitimate purposes. Based on this distinction, this study leads to specific propositions concerning how cultural conceptions are formed in post-merger organizations.

Abstract Theorists have suggested that organizational culture is a strategic resource that has value in ensuring the continuing existence and success of organizations (Michalisin, Smith, & Kline, 1997; Barney, 1986, 1991; Hult, Ketchen, & Nichols, 2002; Gordon, 1985). This assertion is supported by various studies that have linked organizational culture to broad strategic outcomes such as an organization’s ability to

This research has been an adventurous story of four years. To me, it was like a nonswimmer plunging into water, then grappling with all available straws and somehow reaching the shore. For this to have been possible, I am indebted to several people. First and foremost, I wish to express my deep sense of gratitude to my mentor, Professor Mariam Ginman for helping me to move from India to Finland in my academic pursuit of higher research. I will always admire her decision in admitting me as her doctoral student and in showing confidence in the abilities of a stranger like me! For me, it was a long cherished dream which took a long time to come true when I received the needed push from her to start my research in autumn 2001. Her insightful comments on my research helped me to look things anew and gave a new dimension to my research. Her patience with reading and commenting on my several manuscripts and our dialogues has been a constant learning experience for me. Without her commitment and support to this enterprise, my dissertation would not have reached the potential it has today. I am also thankful to Professor Sara van Ungern-Sternberg for her comments on my

The notion of organizational culture has raised a considerable interest during the past two decades in the field of International Management for being a factor playing an important role in the various organizational processes leading ultimately to performance. However organizational culture is generally presented as a set of values and ideas that would be homogeneously shared by the entire organization, a monolithic vision generally rejected by most social scientists and psychologists. This paper examines how different disciplines have conceptualized organizational culture and identity, progressively revealing its complex and multidimensional nature. We argue that there is a considerable discrepancy between the claimed organizational culture expressed and promoted by the top management as an indirect control mechanism and the sub-cultures and identities coexisting in a firm. Using the example of research on identity and culture in Mergers and Acquisitions, we show that the shift from the traditional “monolithic culture ” analysis to the more complex “multiple culture ” perspective requires major change in the approach of human interaction in International Business and Management.