{"title":"History of Japanese Labor and Production Management","authors":"W. Tsutsui","doi":"10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.124","url":null,"abstract":"Tracking with Japan’s macroeconomic fortunes since World War II, global interest in Japanese management practices emerged in the 1950s with the start of Japan’s “miracle economy,” soared in the 1980s as Japanese industrial exports threatened manufacturers around the world, and declined after 1990 as Japan’s growth stalled. Japanese techniques, especially in labor and production management, fascinated Western scholars and practitioners in their striking divergence from U.S. and European conventions and their apparent advantages in creating harmonious, highly productive workplaces. Two reductive approaches to the origins of Japan’s distinctive management methods―one asserting they were the organic outgrowth of Japan’s unique cultural heritage, the other stressing Japan’s proficiency at emulating and adapting American models—came to dominate the academic and popular literature. As historical analysis reveals, however, such stylized interpretations distort the complex evolution of Japanese industrial management over the past century and shed little light on the current debates over the potential convergence of Japanese practices and American management norms.\u0000 Key features of the Japanese model of labor management—“permanent” employment, seniority-based wages and promotions, and enterprise unions—developed between the late 1800s and the 1950s from the contentious interaction of workers, managers, and government bureaucrats. The distinctive “Japanese Employment System” that emerged reflected both employers’ priorities (for low labor turnover and the affirmation of managerial authority in the workplace) and labor’s demands (for employment security and respect as full members of the firm). Since 1990, despite the widespread perception that Japanese labor management is inefficient and inflexible by international standards, many time-honored practices have endured, as Japanese corporations have pursued adaptive, incremental change rather than precipitous convergence toward a more market-oriented American model.\u0000 The distinguishing elements of Japanese production management—the “lean production” system and just-in-time manufacturing pioneered in Toyota factories, innovative quality-control practices—also evolved slowly over the first century of Japanese industrialization. Imported management paradigms (especially Frederick Taylor’s scientific management) had a profound long-term impact on Japanese shop-floor methods, but Japanese managers were creative in adapting American practices to Japan’s realities and humanizing the rigid structures of Taylorism. Japanese production management techniques were widely diffused internationally from the 1980s, but innovation has slowed in Japanese manufacturing in recent decades and Japanese firms have struggled to keep pace with latest management advances from the United States and Europe.\u0000 In sum, the histories of Japanese labor and production management cannot be reduced to simple narratives of cultural determinism, s","PeriodicalId":294617,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133468712","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Vertical Integration and the Theory of the Firm","authors":"Jongwook Kim","doi":"10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.27","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.27","url":null,"abstract":"How do firms organize economic transactions? This question can be thought of as a question of firm boundaries or as a decision about a firm’s scope, encompassing the choice along a continuum of governance structures, including spot markets, short-term contracts, long-term contracts, franchising, licensing, joint ventures, and hierarchy (integration). Although there is no unified theory of vertical integration, transaction cost economics, agency theory, and more recently property rights theory have been influential not only in analyzing make-or-buy decisions but also in understanding “hybrid forms” or inter-firm alliances, such as technology licensing contracts, equity alliances, joint ventures, and the like.\u0000 Before Coase’s work became widely known, whatever theoretical underpinnings there were of vertical integration were provided by applications of neoclassical theory. Here, the firm was viewed as a production function that utilized the most technologically efficient way to convert input into output. In particular, neoclassical theory was concerned primarily with market power and the distortions that it created in markets for inputs or outputs as the main driver of vertical integration. Hence, the boundaries of the firm—that is, where to draw the line between transactions that occur within the firm and those outside the firm—were irrelevant within this framework. It was Coase’s question “Why is there any organization?” that first suggested that price mechanisms in the market and managerial coordination within firms were alternative governance mechanisms. That is, the choice between these alternative mechanisms was driven by a comparative analysis of the costs of implementing either mechanism.\u0000 Oliver Williamson built on Coase to provide the theoretical foundations for vertical integration by joining uncertainty and small numbers with opportunism in defining exchange hazards, and consequently established comparative analysis of alternative governance forms as the way to analyze vertical integration. More recently, property rights theory brought attention to ownership of key assets as a way to distinguish between the governance of internal organizations and those of market transactions, where ownership confers the authority to determine how these assets will be utilized. And lastly, agency theory also provides important building blocks for understanding contractual choice by placing the emphasis on the different incentives that vary with different contractual arrangements between a principal and its agent.\u0000 Transaction cost economics, property rights theory, and agency cost theory complement one another well in explaining vertical integration in terms of alternative governance forms in a world of asymmetric information, bounded rationality, and opportunism. These theories have also been utilized in analyzing “hybrid” organizational forms, in particular strategic alliances and joint ventures. Together, vertical integration and alliances account fo","PeriodicalId":294617,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management","volume":"65 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131182855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sources of Knowledge in Firms","authors":"H. Pinto, M. Fernández-Esquinas","doi":"10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.217","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.217","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management. Please check back later for the full article.\u0000 \u0000 In order to obtain competitive advantages, firms have to make use of knowledge as the main element of their capacities for innovation and management. Innovation is a complex and collective process, resulting from different contexts, socioeconomic aspects, and specificities of firms that create nuanced management and policy implications. Sources of knowledge are varied, as each firm interacts with multiple types of actors to pursue its mission: partners and strategic allies, suppliers, customers, competitors, specialized organizations such as knowledge intensive business services, universities, technology centers, public research organizations, innovation intermediaries, and public administration bodies.\u0000 Different kinds of knowledge are relevant for the firms, both tacit and codified knowledge. Knowledge needs to be translated into capacity to act. Knowledge generation and absorption can be understood as two sides of the same coin. It is necessary to take into account factors that shape both facets and the relationship between the production, transfer, and valorization of knowledge. Influential factors concerning knowledge characteristics are related to tacitness and to the existing knowledge base. Contextual factors, such as the economic sector, technological intensity, the local buzz, and the insertion in global value chains are essential as environmental enablers for generating and absorbing knowledge. Finally, the internal characteristics of the firm are of crucial relevance, namely the existing innovation culture, leadership, and also the size or internal R&D capacities. These factors reinforce the dynamic capacities of the firm and the decision to engage in open innovation strategies or to give more importance to strategies that protect and codify knowledge, such as industrial property rights.","PeriodicalId":294617,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132225352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Minority Employees’ Ethnic Identity in the Workplace","authors":"N. Carrim","doi":"10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.196","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.196","url":null,"abstract":"With an increase in the number of diverse groups of individuals (including ethnic minorities) entering organizations, managing diversity in the 21st-century workplace has become imperative. The workplace provides employees with opportunities to work interactively with others in diverse situations and to express their identities, including ethnic identity. Despite Western-based organizations’ adoption of strategies such as affirmative action in an effort to integrate diverse employees into their workplaces, members of ethnic minority groups may still experience great difficulties in obtaining instrumental and social support in these organizations. While some minorities may not outwardly manifest their ethnicity, in the majority of cases, ethnic identity forms a core identity of many individuals and employees do not leave this identity at the doorstep of the organization. In some countries, ethnic minorities have refused to assimilate into the majority workplace culture, and have maintained strong ethnic identities. By outwardly expressing their identities, ethnic minority employees face discrimination, stereotyping and micro-aggressive behaviors within the workplace, and in the majority of cases are relegated to dead-end lower level posts and face barriers to their career advancement. Also, having strong ethnic identities results in a conflict between minorities ethnic identities and the workplace culture. This is especially apparent in terms of religious beliefs and values. Embracing ethnic identity of migrants into organizational cultures is especially challenging for organizations these days, as many immigrants are highly skilled professionals that enter western corporations. They experience discrimination and not receiving support in order to advance their careers.","PeriodicalId":294617,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125675578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Agency Theory in Business and Management Research","authors":"G. Tyge Payne, O. Petrenko","doi":"10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.5","url":null,"abstract":"Agency theory is one the most prominent theoretical perspectives utilized in business and management research. Agency theory argues—using fundamental assumptions that agents are: (a) self-interested, (b) boundedly rational, and (c) different from principals in their goals and risk-taking preferences—that a problem occurs when one party (a principal) employs another (an agent) to make decisions and act in their stead. Essentially, the value of a principal-agent relationship is not optimized because the two contracted parties may have different interests and information is asymmetric (not equal). Agency costs are the result of principal and agent conflicts of interest and disagreements regarding actions that are taken. As such, monitoring and incentive-alignment systems are used to curb costs associated with opportunist behavior.\u0000 Agency theory is commonly utilized to understand and explain corporate governance phenomena, including executive incentive alignment, board monitoring, and control of top managers; this strand of the literature is founded in economics and represents the bulk of the research in business and management. However, other important principal-agent relationships are commonly seen in business and society, such as with politicians/voters, brokers/investors, and lawyers/clients, and have benefited from the vast stream of research that has explored the principal-agent relationship in various forms and contexts. Also, alternative theoretical perspectives have emerged to accommodate variations of the principal-agent relationship. Namely, principal-principal agency, behavioral agency, and stewardship theories are prominent alternative theories that challenge, expand, or relax the basic assumptions of the classic theory to extend our understanding of important relationships and mechanisms in business and management.","PeriodicalId":294617,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123604853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assessment for Learning in Management Education: A Practical Perspective","authors":"Sally Brown","doi":"10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.181","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.181","url":null,"abstract":"Good assessment and feedback are essential for high student achievement, retention, and satisfaction in contemporary higher education, and adopting a fit-for-purpose approach that emphasizes assessment for learning can have a significant impact, but it is a complex and highly nuanced process so needs careful and research-informed design principles. Here the crucial importance of assessment in contemporary higher education pedagogy is considered, the key principles of good assessment are reviewed, and some suggestions are made for a framework to effectively interrogate individual practice with a view to continuous improvement.\u0000 Additionally, different means of offering feedback can help students to get the measure of their learning and point them toward future enhancement strategies but must be achieved in ways that are manageable for all stakeholders. Taxing questions are provided here for use by curriculum designers and all those who deliver and assess it enabling them to draw together key issues into a workable framework for assessment enhancement.","PeriodicalId":294617,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133316061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mergers and Acquisitions","authors":"Paulina Junni, S. Teerikangas","doi":"10.1093/acrefore/9780190224851.013.15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190224851.013.15","url":null,"abstract":"There are many types of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), be they a minority acquisition to explore a potential high growth emerging market, a takeover of a financially distressed firm with the aim of turning it around, or a private equity firm seeking short- to medium-term returns. The terms “merger” and “acquisition” are often used interchangeably, even though they have distinct denotations: In an acquisition, the acquirer purchases the majority of the shares (over 50%) of another company (the “target”) or parts of it (e.g., a business unit or a division). In a merger, a new company is formed in which the merging parties share broadly equal ownership. The term “merger” is often used strategically by acquirers to alleviate fears and send out a message of friendly combination to employees. In terms of transaction numbers, the majority of M&A transactions are acquisitions, whereas mega-merger deals gain media attention owing to transaction size.\u0000 While M&A motives, acquirer types, and dynamics differ, most M&A share the aim of generating value from the transaction in some form. Yet a prevalent dilemma in the M&A practice and literature is that M&A often fail to deliver the envisioned benefits. Reasons for negative acquirer performance stem from overestimating potential synergies and paying high premiums for targets pre-deal. Another problem lies in securing post-deal value creation. Post-deal challenges relate to optimal integration speed, the degree of integration, change, or integration management, communication, resource and knowledge sharing, employee motivation and turnover, and cultural integration. Researchers are calling for more research on how pre-deal processes such as target evaluation and negotiations influence M&A performance.\u0000 A closer look at this literature, though, highlights several controversies. First, the literature often lacks precision when it comes to defining M&A. We call for future research to be explicit concerning the type of merger or acquisition transaction, and the organizational contexts of the acquiring and target firms. Second, we are still lacking robust and unified frameworks that explain M&A occurrence and performance. One of the reasons for this is that the literature on M&A has developed in different disciplines, focusing on either pre- or post-deal aspects. This has resulted in a “silo” effect with a limited understanding about the combined effects of financial, strategic, organizational, and cultural factors in the pre- and post-deal phases on M&A performance. Third, M&A studies have failed to critically scrutinize the M&A phenomenon, including aspects such as power, politics, and managerial drivers. Fourth, scholars have tended to focus on single, isolated M&A. We call for future research on M&A programs and M&A as part of broader corporate strategies. Finally, the study of M&A has suffered from a managerial bias, with insufficient attention paid to the rank and file, such as engineers, or marketing or admi","PeriodicalId":294617,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127612168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Corporate Governance in Business and Management","authors":"Erik E. Lehmann","doi":"10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.29","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.29","url":null,"abstract":"Corporate governance is a recent concept that encompasses the costs caused by managerial misbehavior. It is concerned with how organizations in general, and corporations in particular, produce value and how that value is distributed among the members of the corporation, its stakeholders. The interrelation of value production and value distribution links the ubiquitous technological aspect (the production of value) with the moral and ethical dimension (the distribution of value). Corporate governance is concerned with this link in general, but more specifically with the moral and ethical dimensions of distributing the generated value among the stakeholders. Value in firms is created by firm-specific investments, and the motivation and coordination of value-enhancing activities and investment is protected by the power concentrated at the pyramidal top of the organization. In modern companies, it is the CEO and the top management who decide how to create value and how to distribute it among the relevant stakeholders. Due to asymmetric information and the imperfect nature of markets and contracts, adverse selection and moral hazard problems occur, where delegated (selected) managers could act in their own interest at the costs of other relevant stakeholders.\u0000 Corporate governance can be understood as a two-tailed concept. The first aspect is about identifying the (most) relevant stakeholder(s), separating theory and practice into two different and conflicting streams: the stakeholder value approach and the shareholder value approach. The second aspect of the concept is about providing and analyzing different mechanisms, reducing the costs induced by moral hazard and adverse selection effects, and balancing out the motivation and coordination problems of the relevant stakeholders. Corporate governance is an interdisciplinary concept encompassing academic fields such as finance, economics, accounting, law, taxation, and psychology, among others.\u0000 As countries differ according to their institutions (i.e., legal and political systems, norms, and rules), firms differ according to their size, age, dominant shareholders, or industries. Thus, concepts in corporate governance differ along these dimensions as well. And while the underlying characteristics vary in time, continuously or as a result of an exogenous shock, concepts in corporate governance are dynamic and static, offering a challenging field of interest for academics, policymakers, and firm managers.","PeriodicalId":294617,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122376205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Resource-Based View of the Firm","authors":"D. Miller","doi":"10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.4","url":null,"abstract":"The Resource-Based View of the firm (RBV) is a set of related theories sharing the assumptions of resource heterogeneity and resource immobility across firms. In this view, a firm is a bundle of resources, capabilities, or routines which create value and cannot be easily imitated or appropriated by competitors due to isolating mechanisms. Grounded in the economic traditions of the “Chicago School” of economic efficiency, the “Austrian School” of economics, and organizational economics, the RBV comprises theories that explain the existence of (sustained) competitive advantage and of economic rents. Empirical research from this perspective addresses both firm performance and firm behavior at the level of business strategy (e.g., within-industry competition) and corporate strategy (e.g., acquisitions). Initially developed through a series of papers by several authors in the 1980s–1990s, major extensions and refinements of the RBV include the knowledge-based view of the firm (KBV), dynamic capabilities, and the relational view, which recognizes capabilities can be developed and shared through alliances between firms.","PeriodicalId":294617,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116962427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Creative Thinking Processes: Managing Innovative Efforts","authors":"M. Mumford, Samantha Elliott, Robert Martin","doi":"10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.172","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190224851.013.172","url":null,"abstract":"Creative thinking is the basis for innovation in firms. And the need for strategy-relevant innovations has generated a new concern with how people go about solving the kinds of problems that call for creative thought. Although many variables influence people’s ability to provide creative problem solutions, it is assumed the ways in which people work with or process knowledge provides the basis for successful creative problem-solving efforts. Additionally, there has been evidence bearing on the processing activities that contribute to creative problem solving. It is noted that at least eight distinct processing activities are involved in most incidents of creative problem solving: (1) problem definition, (2) information gathering, (3) concept selection, (4) conceptual combination, (5) idea generation, (6) idea evaluation, (7) implementation planning, and (8) adaptive monitoring. There are strategies people employ in effective execution of each of these processes, along with contextual variables that contribute to, or inhibit, effective process execution. Subsequently, there are key variables that operate in the workplace that contribute to, or inhibit, effective execution of these processing operations. These observations, of course, lead to implications for management of innovative efforts in firms.","PeriodicalId":294617,"journal":{"name":"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121491842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}