Inter-organizational Level Research Articles

Why Do Strategic Alliances Persist? A Behavioral Decision Model

Strategic alliances are considered a flexible form of organizing, yet they are often long‐lived. Even when systematic benefit–cost analysis suggests that their organizational form should be changed or terminated, some alliances still persist. Drawing on behavioral decision theory, we propose a theoretical model that explains this phenomenon. Decision makers are subject to a variety of biases that can lead to the overvaluation of the net benefits of an alliance and, hence, inhibit the change or discontinuation of underperforming alliances. Our model illustrates how decision‐making biases at the individual, interpersonal, organizational, and interorganizational levels are moderated by the design of an alliance and the tools employed in the decision‐making process. This behavioral decision perspective advances our theoretical understanding of the longevity of strategic alliances and their embeddedness in complex decision‐making contexts. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Middle Managers’ Upward Roles in the Public Sector

Whereas previous public administration studies have focused on middle managers’ roles in implementation, this study contributes to the literature by emphasizing middle managers’ other roles, specifically, upward roles that concern (a) championing alternatives and (b) synthesizing information. We examine whether middle managers are more involved in synthesizing information than championing alternatives and test multiple levers that increase these roles at the individual, organization, and interorganizational levels. This study finds that job security, connections with stakeholders, and autonomous motivation are among the most important predictors. This study calls for taking a broader perspective on middle managers’ contributions to public organizations.

What are the antecedents of coopetition?

Purpose– Who is able to cooperate with his or her competitors? The coopetition is a relatively recent concept that is almost always studied at the inter-organizational level. To study coopetition at the individual and inter-individual levels, the authors will analyze the disposition of managers to compete and to cooperate as a function of their centrality to their network and also their personality traits. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach– Using a sample of 110 trainee future managers (quantitative method), the paper shows that the network position and personality traits have different effects on propensity to compete and propensity to cooperate.Findings– The paper concludes that the network position has a strong effect on the propensity to compete and also on the propensity to cooperate, in contrast with that, personality traits are more relevant in the explanation of the propensity to cooperate.Originality/value– It seems there are individual and inter-individual causes which might explain the propensity of actors to coopetite. This body of research suggests that it is important to study the characteristics of managers who are able to create cooperation between competitors.

Exploring Collaboration, Its Antecedents, and Perceived Outcomes in Service Partnerships of Community-Based Organizations in South Florida

This article examines the temporal sequence of inter-organizational collaboration by investigating what factors contribute to collaboration and which collaboration practices influence collaborative outcomes in service partnerships formed by community-based organizations (CBOs) in South Florida. The article uses structural equation modeling to test the service partnership model. Findings indicate that development of service partnerships are mostly affected by environmental factors related to solving social problems (p < 0.001) which accounts for 37% of variance in inter-organizational collaboration. In addition, cognitive and resource reciprocity, indicators used to measure inter-organizational collaboration, had statistically significant influence (p < 0.001) on perceived collaboration outcomes. These findings shed light on how CBOs transfer theirs social mission in collaborative actions to alleviate social problems. Implications of this study can help service partnerships in identifying best practices and areas for improvement which are needed to build capacity at the inter-organizational level.

Middle Managers: Upward Strategic Roles in the Public Sector (WITHDRAWN)

While previous public administration studies often focus on middle managers' roles in implementation and collaboration, this study contributes to the literature by emphasizing middle managers other roles, specifically, upward strategic roles that concern (i) championing alternatives and (ii) synthesizing information (as relating to championing alternatives). This study finds substantial engagement of middle managers upward strategic activity among those in Taiwan's central government. We also examine whether middle managers are more involved in synthesizing information than championing alternatives, and test multiple levers that increase these two roles at the individual level, organization level, inter-organizational level, and cultural level. This study finds that job security, connections with stakeholders and autonomous motivation are among the most important predictors. This study calls for taking a broader perspective on middle managers' contributions to public organizations.

Multicultural large construction projects: the key role of trust

This paper aims to explain why trust is regarded as the cornerstone for successfully leading a large multicultural construction project, and to understand the interdependency of developing trust on different levels, interpersonal, intergroup and inter-organisational level. Issues like increasing employees self esteem, publicly acknowledge partners’ contribution, professional skills, caring attitudes and emotional intelligence helps in developing interpersonal and institutional trust during the construction project execution. The methodology applies a qualitative research. It is based on an Austrian case study which objective was to build an electricity storage power plant over five years. The research technique uses in-depth interviews with engineers who have been working in different fields of the project and participant observation. The research provides recommendations that can be taken by companies to prepare their employees in advance before the actual work begins helping them to save project costs, time, facilitate knowledge transfer and the overall project quality.

Who Trusts Who?

Previous research on the nature of trust in an organizational context provided somewhat controversial and ambiguous results. There are both conceptual and operational difficulties in exploring this intuitively individual-level phenomenon at organizational and inter-organizational levels. The fundamental question of where trust resides in inter-organizational relationships remains unresolved. This qualitative study focuses on inter-organizational trust in dyadic business relationships. The phenomenon is approached both from the concept of the trustor and the trustee. The results suggest that the trusting party is not the organization itself, but the individuals who constitute it. Instead, the ultimate object of trust in inter-organizational settings is both individual boundary-spanners, and the organization.

Product innovation in SMEs: Formal and informal knowledge integration mechanisms

Past research has revealed that knowledge integration is an important prerequisite for the success of new product development. For this reason, companies deploy a number of formal mechanisms to foster integration across multiple functions and hierarchical levels. In many SMEs, however, such formal mechanisms are complemented or even replaced by informal social networks among managers and employees. Despite the relevance of intraorganizational networks, past research on SMEs, however, was focused mainly on the interorganizational level of analysis. To cover this gap, we map ego networks of senior managers in SMEs and explore their knowledge exchange relationships both inside and across functional and hierarchical boundaries. Our study shows that these social networks are an essential driver of knowledge integration and innovation.

The coopetition paradox and tension in coopetition at multiple levels

This article explores the nature of the paradox inherent in coopetition; that is, the simultaneous pursuit of cooperation and competition between firms, and emanating tensions that develop at individual, organizational, and inter-organizational levels. We dissect the anatomy of the coopetition paradox to discover how it materializes by creating an external boundary (i.e., via unifying forces) and internal boundaries (i.e., via divergent forces). After explaining the coopetition paradox, we distinguish tension from paradox and submit that tension comprises both positive and negative emotions simultaneously, also known as emotional ambivalence. Finally, we recognize that emotional ambivalence in coopetition prevails at different levels, and vary in its level of intensity and persistency in relation to different contexts. We employ illustrative cases to ground our propositions empirically. This article provides understanding on concepts, expects to incite fruitful dialogue, and fuels further studies on inter-firm paradoxes.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SMALL BUSINESS OWNER-MANAGERS' IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN B2B RELATIONSHIP MARKETING AND BUSINESS NETWORKING DISCOURSE IN THE UK AND CHINA

In a small business context, the importance of relationship marketing has not attracted much academic attention. This study explores the discursive resources on which small business owner-managers draw, when making sense of business to business (B2B) relationships and networks and constructing identities in various socio-cultural contexts. Through unstructured interviews with 21 British and 22 Chinese owner-managers, we find that both British and Chinese respondents show a noticeable preference for long-term interactive relationships and portray themselves as being interpersonal skillful. Yet British owner-managers describe themselves as being relational, trustworthy, and committed mostly at interorganizational level. According to them, interpersonal relationships are merely employed as a marketing technique supporting organizational goals. In contrast, Chinese owner-managers make sense of their identity merely at interpersonal level. They shape their self-images as trustworthy "friends" on both cognitive and affective dimensions. Chinese owner-managers present themselves as being personally committed to their relationship partners and highlight the importance of being reciprocal, cooperative, flexible, empathetic, respectful of "face", and willing to compromise. Chinese owner-managers verbally attach interorganizational relationship to interpersonal relationship and thus present a more complicated image of self. Some discourses of Chinese owner-managers show similar pattern of sensemaking with British owner-managers. This echoes structural changes of economic ideology as well as legal and contractual infrastructure. The concrete findings support the utility of sensemaking and identity construction as a framework for studying relationship marketing and business networking.

Operationalizing Trust, Reliance, and Dependence in Business Relationships: Responding to the Ongoing Naming and Cross-Level Problems

Purpose: This article is to test the proposition that the 3 conceptually related constructs of trust, reliance, and dependence are distinct from each other and to test the proposition that the quality of business relationships can be measured with a formative index incorporating trust and reliance. Methodology/Approach: The authors' propositions are tested with a survey sample of 221 firms in the U.K. construction industry. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses are used to analyze the survey data. Findings: The independence of the 3 focal constructs of trust, reliance, and dependence is confirmed. The formative index is found suitable for evaluating the level of relationship quality in which reliance carries more significant weight than trust. Research Implications: The separation of the overall construct of “trust” into trust at interpersonal level and reliance at interorganizational level, as found in this study, overcomes the problem existing in past studies that researchers rarely specify at which level trust operates. The clear conceptual distinction between reliance and dependence as found in this study implies that although both operate at the organizational level, they do not have overlapping boundaries. The finding that reliance is a more important impact factor than trust in constructing the formative index supports the notions that reliance is a necessary and sufficient condition for developing sustainable business relationships, and trust is an insufficient condition to sustain an ongoing business relationship. Practical Implications: Reliance sets the keynote of the business relationship. In contrast, trust as the interpersonal variable only acts as the facilitator to create a favorable social environment. Nevertheless, both trust and reliance have a significant and positive weight in the relationship quality index formed. This means that a business relationship with high levels of both trust and reliance is particularly resilient and stable and is the most successful and desirable one which is frequently oriented toward the long run. Originality/Value/Contribution: The confirmation of the difference between trust and reliance makes an important contribution to the study of trust in business to business marketing by showing that what has traditionally been treated as theoverall construct of trust can and should be regarded as being made up of two separate constructs: interpersonal trust and interorganizational reliance. The difference between reliance and dependence as an additional finding makes another important contribution by providing conceptual clarity of the two constructs and confirming that there is no overlapping boundary between them. The formative index and the relative importance of its components are another important contribution of this study.

Worldwide ties: The role of family business in global trade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

This paper shows, through the example of the Swiss merchant house Volkart Bros, that many of the world's largest trading firms remained family businesses until well into the late twentieth century, thus challenging the Chandlerian dichotomy of small or medium-sized enterprises with family involvement on the one hand and large managerial firms on the other. This was a consequence of the specific features of their business: trading firms, unlike manufacturing companies, could finance their transactions with short-term credits and did not need to raise capital on the stock market. The paper will describe how far family ownership was able to reduce transaction costs at both the intra- and inter-organisational level. In addition, it will discuss what the concept of the corporate family means for the alleged distinctness of the economic and private spheres, which has been dominant in economic theory up to now.

The effects of the organizational characteristics and interorganizational network level on social welfare organizations' effectiveness -Focused on resource capability of women's welfare organization-

The effects of the organizational characteristics and interorganizational network level on social welfare organizations' effectiveness -Focused on resource capability of women's welfare organization-

Patients’ experiences of referral for colorectal cancer

BackgroundOutcomes for colorectal cancer patients vary significantly. Compared to other countries, Australia has a good record with patient outcomes, yet there is little information available on the referral pathway. This paper explores the views of Australian patients and their experiences of referral for colorectal cancer treatment following diagnosis; the aim was to improve our understanding of the referral pathway and guide the development of future interventions.MethodsA purposive sampling strategy was used, recruiting 29 patients representing urban and rural areas from 3 Australian states who participated in 4 focus groups. Seven patients provided individual interviews to supplement the data. Recordings were transcribed verbatim, data was coded with NVivo software and analysed thematically before deductive analysis.ResultsFour aspects of the referral process were identified by patients, namely detection/diagnosis, referral for initial treatment/specialist care, the roles of the GP/specialist, and the patient’s perceived involvement in the process. The referral process was characterised by a lack of patient involvement, with few examples of shared decision-making and few examples of limited choice. However, patients did not always feel they had the knowledge to make informed decisions. Information exchange was highly valued by patients when it occurred, and it increased their satisfaction with the process. Other factors mediating care included the use of the public versus private health system, the quality of information exchange (GP to specialist and GP to patient), continuity of care between GP and specialist, and the extent of information provision when patients moved between specialist and GP care.ConclusionsPatients described poor GP continuity, ad hoc organisational systems and limited information exchange, at both interpersonal and inter-organisational levels, all leading to sub-optimal care. Implementation of a system of information feedback to GPs and engagement with them might improve information exchange for patients, enabling them to be more involved in improved referral outcomes.

Making sense of institutional trust in organizations: Bridging institutional context and trust

Institutional-based approaches to trust can explain how trust logics can exist in a societal context as compared to logics of distrust. Strong institutions in the form of regulative, normative and cognitive structures can enable and inspire trust-relations among people at the interpersonal and inter-organizational level. We suggest, however, that the actor-dimension of institutional-based trust is an underexplored issue in the literature. Quoting Fligstein, institutional theory needs to explain how ‘some social actors are better at producing desired social outcomes than are others’ (Fligstein, 1997: 398). While Fligstein refers to actors who engage in ‘robust or local action’ we argue that actors who engage in (robust, local) sensemaking activities are better at (re)producing institutional-based trust. Particularly in situations when institutions are relatively unstable, unfamiliar to the actors and ambiguous, sensemaking strategies directed towards exploring the institutional foundations of trust at a local level can be an important basis of interpersonal trust-relations. First, based on a summary of studies of institutional-based trust we argue that an unresolved issue is how institutions more precisely form the basis for trust-relations. Second, we explore how sensemaking may serve as a bridge between institutional contexts and interpersonal trust processes. Based on Weber and Glynn’s (2006) model of relations between institutions and sensemaking, we argue that institutions are ‘emerging’ rather than ‘impacting’. The relevance of this view of sensemaking for bridging institutional-based and interpersonal trust processes is illustrated by reviewing a case study on how trust is created in a politically turbulent and foreign environment.

Network Imitation to Deal with Sociocultural Dilemmas in Acquisitions of Young, Innovative Firms

AbstractThis article expands current acquisition literature to include sociocultural challenges on inter‐organizational levels following acquisitions of young, innovative firms. Socioculture here denotes network parties' shared values, belief systems, and practices. Three acquisitions illustrate their consequences. The young, innovative firms and their acquirers are part of different networks, have dissimilar motives for pursuing business, and work within different time frames. To potentially improve knowledge transfer and integration, the acquirer can learn from the innovative firm's network interactions; choose targets among its own network parties; organize its governance into a separate business unit; practice reverse value integration from the acquired party; and carefully promote practices that foster innovativeness. The article contributes to research on acquisitions of young, innovative firms through pointing to how values and practices are interlinked in networks, and how the imitation of the acquired party's network interaction may help to sustain its innovativeness and transfer knowledge between the acquirer and acquired party. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

East meets West: Toward a theoretical model linking guanxi and relationship marketing

This conceptual study critically examines the separate concepts of guanxi and relationship marketing, explores the differences between the two approaches, and proposes innovative linkages between them. Chinese guanxi develops relationships at the inter-personal level, whereas relationship marketing develops relationships at the inter-organizational level. Both concepts are well known, but a dearth of critical comparison remains in academic literature, even though evidence suggests that managers can use the linkages between the approaches to improve customer recruitment and retention. Through a critical review and synthesis of prior research on guanxi and relationship marketing, this study proposes a novel theoretical model that links guanxi and relationship marketing and develops theoretical and managerial implications of such linkages. As such, this study offers new and valuable insights and benefits for Asian firms, which employ only guanxi-type relationships.

Tax strategy control: The case of transfer pricing tax risk management

This paper examines how a functional tax strategy impacts the management control system (MCS) in a multinational enterprise (MNE) facing transfer pricing tax risks. Based on case study findings it is argued that the MCS in a multinational setting is contingent upon the MNE's response to its tax environment. Moreover, the paper extends existing contingency-based theory on MCS by illustrating the role of inter-organisational network collaboration across MNE transfer pricing tax experts. This collaboration, caused by a widely dispersed tax knowledge base, fuels the formal interactive control system and reduces tax uncertainty. The paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach for explaining findings, using contingency-based theory and network theory at the inter-organisational level.

The impact of salespeople's relational behaviors and organizational fairness on customer loyalty: An empirical study in B-to-B relationships

Although customer loyalty has proved to be a powerful determinant of firms' profits, the drivers of loyalty in B-to-B relationships are still unclear. Recognizing that both interpersonal and interorganizational level variables are needed to predict customer loyalty, the aim of this study is to investigate the combined effects of salespersons' relational behavior and organizational fairness in predicting customer satisfaction and loyalty. Results from a field survey in a B-to-B setting show that buyer loyalty is largely determined by the quality of the interpersonal relationship with the seller. Perceived fairness is central for building overall customer satisfaction and loyalty toward the supplier.

Trust Development in Inter-organizational Relations of Knowledge-intensive Firms

The paper reveals the factors behind the development of trust in the inter-organizational relations of knowledge intensive firms and their implications for building trust in low trust environment. The theoretical framework is based on 5 types of factors: institutional, social, personal, professional and educational. The empirical research was carried out in the Science Park ‘Technopolis’ and covered 14 technological firms. The research has shown that knowledge intensive firms possessed high levels of inter-organizational trust, while at the same time placing emphasis on personal and professional characteristics of their partners, supported by clear contract obligations. They find themselves more vulnerable in their economic transactions than in the knowledge exchange. Trust in business relations of knowledge-intensive firms are primarily based on the professional competence, personal moral qualities of partners, their mutual interest in business transaction and contract obligations. Personal friendships and social concerns play a positive, but secondary role in business transactions. Respondents regard trust primarily as a moral issue, which is based on individual moral qualities. Institutional and educational factors are regarded as key to building high trust on the society level. Empirical findings show that strategies for trust development on inter-organizational and societal levels are likely to be focused on different sets of factors. Professional and personal (some legal) factors play the key role in enabling trust between the knowledge-intensive firms, whereas institutional and educational factors appear to be the key in promoting trust on society level. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ss.78.4.3230