Specific Organizational Practices Research Articles

Towards greener hospitals: The effect of green organisational practices on climate change mitigation performance

Healthcare organisations have a significant carbon footprint due to their substantial energy consumption and waste generation. The existing literature has mostly focused on examining the isolated impact of specific green organisational practices on individual dimensions of environmental performance. Hence, policy makers and practitioners still lack a holistic view of how combinations of green organisational practices can mitigate the impact on climate change of healthcare organisations. Drawing on the practice-based view (PBV) of strategy, the study first examines the extent to which the adoption of imitable, individual green organisational practices impacts on the whole climate change mitigation performance of publicly owned hospitals. Second, it explores possible combinations of green organisational practices that can lead to high levels of climate change mitigation performance. Focusing on the illustrative case of publicly owned acute care hospitals in the English National Health Service and employing a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis and a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), the analysis shows that the adoption of the practice of green energy procurement can, in isolation, positively lead to high climate change mitigation outcomes. Moreover, high performance levels can be achieved through multiple configurations of green organisational practices. Therefore, the findings suggest that the effectiveness of green organisational practices on climate change mitigation performance of hospitals depends on how practices are combined, rather than on their single effects, and indicate the presence of a complementary as well as a substitution effect between practices.

Organizational Practices’ Role in Managing Open Innovation and Business Performance

Given the ever-changing world of technological advances, and due to the fact that business entities strive for efficiency and cost reduction, open innovation (OI) has become the focus of academic and scholarly discussions. Furthermore, to increase their competitiveness, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have started implementing OI practices. This study aims to investigate the impact of SMEs’ internal organizational practices on OI and the impact of the latter on SMEs’ business performance. This quantitative study, which was based on gathering insights from SMEs, sought to answer two research questions related to the effects of organizational practices on the adoption and management of OI processes in SMEs and the role of OI in accelerating the business performance of SMEs. The findings revealed that not all SMEs’ internal organizational practices have a positive impact on both OI and SMEs’ business performance. This study is among the earliest studies in the UAE and GCC region to explore the impact of specific internal organizational practices on SME OI adoption and its business performance. The present study contributes theoretically and practically to OI literature and assists SME managers in evaluating their internal organizational practices’ suitability for OI adoption.

Practices Supporting Electronic Health Record Transitions: Lessons from Four US Healthcare Systems

BackgroundElectronic health record (EHR) transitions are common and complex organizational changes, yet limited published literature is available to guide health systems that are changing from one EHR to another. Clinicians and staff end users at sites that have undergone EHR transitions may have critical insights that could inform future transitions.ObjectiveTo assess end user perspectives on organizational practices that support successful EHR transitions.DesignMulti-site qualitative study of end users at healthcare systems that transitioned to a new EHR (either Epic or Cerner) within the prior 3 years.ParticipantsForty-two participants, including providers, clinical leaders, and informaticists at four geographically and organizationally diverse US healthcare systems.ApproachWe conducted semi-structured telephone interviews, which were audio-recorded and transcribed. We used content analysis to identify key practices that influenced EHR transition success.Key ResultsParticipants described specific organizational practices that they found most helpful in supporting EHR transitions, and these practices transcended individual sites and EHR systems. We categorized practices based on how they were described relative to the stage of implementation. During pre-go-live, recommended practices included communicate rationale and anticipated outcomes of the EHR change; understand baseline workflows; and plan for appropriate customization. During go-live, recommended practices included personalize training and support; invest in robust internal support; reduce workload expectations; and proactively address challenges. The recommended post-go-live practice was to continue to invest in the change.ConclusionsOur findings may act as a roadmap for future EHR transitions by identifying specific and actionable organizational practices across stages of implementation. These recommendations highlight the role of health system leaders in preparing for the organizational change, working with and supporting end users, and addressing challenges that arise.

From Home to Heaven: The Spatial Imaginaries of Nonprofit Organizations

We investigate how nonprofit organizations (NPOs) construct imaginaries of their premises, their local environment, and beyond. Based on a qualitative analysis of the websites of 209 randomly sampled NPOs in a metropolitan region in Central Europe, we find four distinct spatial imaginaries: (1) The world polity imaginary constructs NPOs as a part of a spatial environment that is neatly divided into nation states, supranational structures, and subnational units. (2) In the world society imaginary, NPOs are active in blurred, fluid, and overlapping spaces such as networks, commercialized spaces, or natural habitats. (3) In a religious imaginary, the material world is complemented by a transcendental realm and categorized into spaces of the sacred and the evil. (4) Finally, in a lococentric imaginary, NPOs construct a dichotomy between "home" and the alien rest of the world. Each of these spatial imaginaries conveys distinctive ways of situating the organization in their spatial environment and implies specific organizational practices and emotional enchantments of space.

It’s a Matter of Trust: How Thirty Years of History Prepared a Community-Based Organization to Respond to the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic drew public attention to the essential work and vulnerability of low-income Latina immigrants. Less recognized were the ways immigrant community organizations mobilized under exceptional conditions to provide immediate support to their communities while continuing to work toward durable systematic change. This paper analyzes the approach of Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA) in the San Francisco Bay Area. Over three decades, MUA developed an organizing model that builds transformative relationships among peers and provides direct services and leadership development for civic engagement. MUA has a long history of research collaborations and self-study aligned with critical community-engaged research methods and values. In 2019, MUA formed a research team of its leaders and academics to analyze the impact of their model. Since data collection occurred between March 2020 and December 2022, the research also documented the organization’s response to COVID-19. This paper argues that specific organizational values and practices of liderazgo, apoyo, and confianza (leadership, support, and trust) proved to be particularly powerful resources for sustaining individuals and community work through the pandemic, enabling women who have experienced multiple forms of structural violence to perceive themselves as capable of healing themselves and their communities while working to address root causes of trauma and inequity.

External information seeking and organizational ambidexterity in SMEs: Does empowerment climate matter?

AbstractAccess to external information is considered crucial to achieving organizational ambidexterity (OA) while presenting specific challenges for SMEs due to their limited resources. However, little is known about how SMEs can best benefit from their external information‐seeking activities for OA purposes, given specific organizational practices. Our paper addresses this research gap by analyzing the effects of external information seeking (i.e., environmental scanning and external managerial networking) on OA while considering the moderating role of empowerment climate in SMEs. Based on a survey administered to CEOs of 1439 French manufacturing SMEs, our main results indicate that empowerment climate positively moderates the effect of scanning breadth on OA but negatively moderates the effect of networking depth. This suggests that SMEs should emphasize external information‐seeking activities that are appropriate to their level of empowerment climate so that the positive effects on OA can be fully realized.

Patriotism as a conduit to employee environmental engagement in a post‐Soviet economy in transition

AbstractThis paper investigates the way in which first‐line managers in Belarusian chemical companies used environmental framings of the notion of homeland and linked these to Soviet‐legacy organisational practices in order to encourage members of staff to engage in proenvironmental behaviour at work. Participants presented three different framings of homeland: Rodina (the motherland), small Rodina (one's more immediate surroundings), and Katorga (“a country with forced labour”) to show how a sense of environmental responsibility could (or could not) be linked to them. Different Soviet‐legacy motivational and mobilisation techniques could be used by front‐line managers to encourage and reward proenvironmental engagement in employees who were amenable to different framings of homeland. The paper contributes to the limited literature on patriotism as a conduit to environmental virtue and engagement, and to the equally scarce literature on proenvironmental attitudes and behaviours in post‐Soviet economies in transition. Through rich, qualitative descriptions of emotionally coloured framings of homeland as constitutive of environmental responsibility, we show how notions of patriotism linked to specific organisational practices provide front‐line managers with a language and motivational techniques to address employees' environmental engagement—or lack thereof.

How to not have to know: Legal technicalities and flagrant criminal offenses in Santiago, Chile

AbstractDrawing on ethnographic data gathered in lower criminal courts and in one unit of the Public Prosecutor's Office in Santiago, Chile, I explore the way in which criminal offenses considered flagrant are treated by the Chilean criminal justice system. Citing the literature on legal technicalities, I describe how flagrant criminal offenses are constructed through practices that make it possible for the actors involved to avoid directly referring to the alleged facts. From their identification on the streets by police officers to their reassignment to a different unit of the Public Prosecutor's Office or their adjudication at a criminal court, flagrant criminal offenses are defined by a specific way of approaching the alleged facts, which is translated into specific organizational and documentary practices. The role of these practices contrasts with the apparently marginal role that the detention in flagrante delicto plays in the mechanics of criminal law. As a technicality, the flagrant character of a criminal offense conveys certain epistemological assumptions about how to determine what happened and what exactly constitutes the criminal offense. More specifically, it conveys assumptions about what cannot, for the moment, be known and that can, therefore, be ignored throughout the bureaucratic and judicial process.

Organisational perspectives on boring prison work: Between emancipation and paranoia

Boredom may take different forms depending on the setting. However, most existing literature portrays it as a negative phenomenon for both individuals and organisations. While boredom is studied primarily via controlled laboratory experiments and questionnaire-based studies, past research has been criticised for neglecting to understand workers’ experiences of boredom in real-world work settings. Drawing on a qualitative case study comprising of interviews with prison officers and ethnographic fieldwork in two Danish prisons, this article explores workers’ experience of boredom embedded in specific organisational work practices of repetitive routines, waiting and meaningless tasks. It shows that workers may take an organisational perspective on their experience of boredom, rather than a personal one, acknowledging the tedious features of work but nevertheless emphasising their organisational value. I use a phenomenological approach to sensemaking to deepen the understanding of how workers’ protests against boredom may not be only destructive but may sometimes take creative forms, leading to positive organising. Drawing on these findings, I extend our understanding of boredom at work.

Whose experience is it anyway? Toward a constructive engagement of tensions in patient-centered health care

PurposeHealthcare delivery faces increasing pressure to move from a provider-centered approach to become more consumer-driven and patient-centered. However, many of the actions taken by clinicians, patients and organizations fail to achieve that aim. This paper aims to take a paradox-based perspective to explore five specific tensions that emerge from this shift and provides implications for patient experience research and practice.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a conceptual approach that synthesizes literature in health services and administration, organizational behavior, services marketing and management and service operations to illuminate five patient experience tensions and explore mitigation strategies.FindingsThe paper makes three key contributions. First, it identifies five tensions that result from the shift to more patient-centered care: patient focus vs employee focus, provider incentives vs provider motivations, care customization vs standardization, patient workload vs organizational workload and service recovery vs organizational risk. Second, it highlights multiple theories that provide insight into the existence of the tensions and how they may be navigated. Third, specific organizational practices that engage the tensions and associated examples of leading organizations are identified. Relevant measures for research and practice are also suggested.Originality/valueThe authors develop a novel analysis of five persistent tensions facing healthcare organizations as a result of a shift to a more consumer-driven, patient-centered approach to care. The authors detail each tension, discuss an existing theory from organizational behavior or services marketing that helps make sense of the tension, suggest potential solutions for managing or resolving the tension and provide representative case illustrations and useful measures.

The Strengths of Minority Status: Advantages Drawn from Marginalized and Stigmatized Identities

Marginalized and stigmatized identities frequently invoke unchallenged assumptions of negative outcomes for individuals. This symposium illustrates the AOM 2020 theme of Broadening our Sight by showcasing research-driven perspectives that embrace increasingly holistic and nuanced theoretical conceptualizations of these identities and novel methodological approaches to studying them. Bridging diverse scholarly foci, session panelists will draw primarily from their research to present key insights on how individuals are influenced by and respond to identity-based adversity (e.g., cognitive reframing, entrepreneurial ventures), including the specific roles of organizations in shaping these processes. Panelists and attendees will critically examine varying mechanisms in which individuals leverage strengths associated with their marginalized and stigmatized identit(ies) to prosper in organizational contexts. We will address specific organizational practices for reducing biases that stifle these strengths and reflect on how we as scholars can reduce similar biases in our research.

Why Some Practices are Harder to Change than Others?

We address a persistent question in organizational change research that has proven practically and theoretically generative: Why is it often so difficult to bring about planned organizational change? We argue that even ostensibly minor change initiatives typically involve the need to transform a bundle of different organizational practices at the same time. These practices are reproduced in different ways and for different reasons, making some more amenable to particular change strategies than others. To be effective, change interventions therefore need to take into account the varied process histories of the specific organizational practices involved. We introduce a theoretical framework for systematically analysing this practice specificity of organizational change. Through an illustrative application of this framework to the Cambridge University Boat Club (CUBC) we show how it can enable a substantively contingent understanding of organizational change to complement existing approaches.

Indymedia legacies in Brazil and Spain: the integration of technopolitical and intersectional media practices

The Indymedia network is recognized for its open-editorial platform, as well as its prefigurative combination of technological tactics and organizational strategies. In this article, we discuss the legacy of Indymedia in countries not often focalized in the network or in the scholarly literature, namely Brazil and Spain. These countries were chosen to address gaps in the literature regarding Indymedia-influenced adaptations of horizontal media practices established in peripheral spaces such as Latin America and the so-called ‘Global South of Europe’. This research is based on data sets from two empirical research projects comprised of 37 semi-structured interviews in Spain and Brazil. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and comparatively analyzed using NVivo. Media activist practices challenge the reductionist binary that situates information and communication technologies (ICTs) as either deterministically revolutionary or intrinsically complicit with capitalism. In this context, using Midia Ninja in Brazil and XNet in Spain as case studies, we argue that Indymedia has had an impact on technological innovations adopted by contemporary intersectional social movement media projects in the global south, critically analyzing ways in which media activist projects have resisted exogenous and endogenous intersectional inequalities through developing specific organizational structures and practices. We find that intersectional practices related to the anti-capitalist technopolitics of Indymedia have both shaped and been shaped by specific dimensions of digital technologies. We argue that in alternative media practices, intersectionality and anti-capitalist technopolitics have emerged together as intertwined legacies of Indymedia.

The Role of Multidimensional Intellectual Capital and Organizational Learning Practices in Innovation Performance

The purpose of this paper is to explore how managers transform human, renewal, and entrepreneurial capital through specific organizational learning practices into superior innovation performance. We draw implications for managing organizational learning and guiding companies on how to create innovation‐based competitive advantages grounded in the human aspects of intellectual capital. The study is based on a survey of companies located in the transitional economy of Serbia. We found that human, renewal, and entrepreneurial capital all positively affect organizational learning practices. Furthermore, organizational learning practices contribute to innovation performance on their own and in combination with the tested human‐based intellectual capital dimensions. The integration of fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) confirms a pattern of equifinality, as there are multiple combinations of static and dynamic conditions leading to superior innovation performance. This paper is among the first attempts to merge the disciplines of intellectual capital (IC) and knowledge management (KM) and combine symmetrical and asymmetrical techniques to determine which configurations may yield organizational benefits in terms of innovation performance outcomes.

Strategic change and sensemaking practice: enabling the role of the middle manager

PurposeThe critical input of middle managers as they make sense of the organisation's plans is paramount during the process of strategic change. Through the lens of middle manager sensemaking literature, this explorative research identifies key organisational practices that underpin sensemaking. An understanding of these practices will allow organisations better develop and support them, thereby enabling middle managers' contribution to strategic change.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed an innovative diary methodology. 42 middle managers, across three organisations, completed a weekly, online diary for 12 weeks. A qualitative analysis of the final 355 diaries isolated and explained the sensemaking practices in which middle managers engaged as they sought to achieve the shared understanding required to progress strategic change.FindingsThis study identifies the key practice underpinning middle manager sensemaking as formal and frequent discourse opportunities between leaders and middle managers. Through leader participation beyond the initiation stages of strategic change, and the organisation's positive positioning of time and metrics, these discourse opportunities enable a form of sensemaking associated with a number of positive organisational outcomes. These include middle manager sensegiving across the organisation, the successful enactment of strategic change, positive perceptions of change outcomes and organisational climate among middle managers and middle manager well-being.Research limitations/implicationsThis study advances our theoretical understanding of the practice of sensemaking in organisations through the isolation and identification of its key practices. However, given the difficulty in obtaining access for such a lengthy and intrusive methodology, the study is confined to three organisations. Additionally, the focus on the practice of sensemaking did not fully explore any contextual factors within these organisations. Also, middle manager perceptions of successful organisational outcomes are not very reliable performance indicators. While the self-reporting of perceptions is a worthwhile means of gathering data, a measure and comparison of actual business performance indicators would significantly strengthen the findings.Practical implicationsFrom a practitioner perspective, this study not only underlines the importance for organisations of developing critical sensemaking practices for middle managers but also provides a clear pathway to achieving this. In approaching the intangible process of sensemaking from a practice perspective, it provides key stakeholders such as leaders, change agents and the HR department with a guide as to the types and forms of discourse practices which can be enabled. Maybe more importantly, it also highlights the practices which disable middle manager sensemaking. The study also provides organisations with insights into the positive outcomes stemming from middle manager sensemaking that should strengthen their case towards the development of sensemaking practices.Originality/valueThis paper responds to the call for new approaches to the study of sensemaking as an ongoing practice within organisations. The qualitative diary analysis provides rich insights into the specific organisational practices that can enable middle manager sensemaking, while also highlighting those practices that can disable their role during strategic change. These findings provide organisations with clear approaches for developing sensemaking as a practice, thereby engaging and supporting the multiple actors and levels required to deliver successful strategic change.

On guilt and the depoliticization of downsizing practices

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical conceptualisation of guilt and the depoliticization of downsizing practices. The authors begin with a critical review of the relevant management literature aiming to establish the discursive normalization and individualization of (un)employment. The authors then use secondary sources to reflect on the downsizing process. A process that, as the authors argue, is distinguished into three separate but interconnected phases: corporate memos (phase 1), termination scripts (phase 2) and the role of outplacement services (phase 3). By examining this process, the aim is to point to the mechanisms through which downsizing practices are neutralized and depoliticized.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual work that provides a systematic overview of the existing management literature on downsizing and guilt. Use of other secondary sources (corporate memos and termination scripts) is also employed to draw links between the discursive normalization of downsizing as identified in the relevant literature and the specific organizational processes and practices implemented by corporations during downsizing. The authors identify common ideas and themes that cut across the relevant literature and the secondary sources and aim to offer a theoretical conceptualisation of guilt and the depoliticization of downsizing practices.FindingsThis paper argues that downsizing discourses and practices contribute to the feelings of personal responsibility and self-blame, reinforcing an individualistic understanding of work and unemployment that excludes more structural ones, and that it helps in reproducing the existing structures of power.Research limitations/implicationsThe study recognizes that employees’ reactions are not only unpredictable but also constantly evolving, depending on personal and social circumstances. The authors also recognize that the work is based on secondary sources much of which talk about practices in US companies, and thus the authors are and should be cautious of generalizations. The authors hope, however, that the authors will encourage further empirical research, particularly among organization studies and critical management scholars, on downsizing practices and guilt. For the authors’ part, the authors have tried to offer a critical reflection on how guilt is produced through corporate discourses and practices, and the authors believe that further empirical investigation on the three phases of the downsizing process (as identified in our work) and the lived experience of (un)employment is needed. As corporate downsizing discourses and practices frame (un)employment in strictly individualist and behavioral terms, the authors wish to emphasize the need for further theoretical investigation and political contestation. The authors, therefore, hope that the work will contribute to the relevant literature on downsizing practices and open up the discussions around layoff policies and the structural conditions of (un)employment.Originality/valueThe paper shows that downsizing practices and feelings of guilt are strongly linked to and exemplify the “individualization” of social and political issues such as work and unemployment. The authors suggest that individualization signifies, in some sense, a retreat from organized collective resistance and mobilization based upon class and that the prevalence of the ideology of individualism (and its correlative, meritocracy), over alternative explanations and solutions to such public issues, helps in reproducing existing structures of power and inequity.

Bridging the academic and practice/policy gap in public health: perspectives from Scotland and Canada.

This article presents a critical commentary of specific organizational models and practices for bridging ‘the gap’ between public health research and policy and practice. The authors draw on personal experiences of such models in addition to the wider knowledge translation and exchange literature to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses as implemented in Scotland and Canada since the early 1990s.

Knowledge centricity and organizational performance: an empirical study of the performing arts

PurposeThis paper explores the concepts of knowledge-centric organizations in the performing arts sector to understand how specific organizational practices relate to measures of financial and operational performance.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative analysis of 368 small and mid-sized nonprofit performing arts organizations in the USA was undertaken via primary data on organizational practices and secondary data on performance metrics. Structural equation modeling was used to validate the latent construct of knowledge centricity and to test hypotheses on how knowledge centricity impacts financial and operational performance, and is influenced by firm-level demographic variables.FindingsResults show several distinct performance metrics that are statistically associated with knowledge-centric practices of the organizations analyzed.Research limitations/implicationsThis article investigates the knowledge centricity of organizations, a relatively nascent theoretical concept, which is of significant relevance in today’s knowledge-driven economy. The findings can serve as a basis to further investigate strategic approaches that arts organizations can undertake to remain sustainable and operate effectively in a knowledge-driven society.Practical/implicationsIt provides critical insights into management practices and approaches that can be instituted to drive improved organizational performance.Originality/valueBuilding on the extant literature, this article develops a conceptual framework of knowledge centricity and defines a knowledge-centric organization. It thoroughly investigates the latent construct of knowledge centricity, identifies how knowledge centricity impacts financial and operational performance of nonprofit performing arts organizations, and provides grounding for future studies.

Entrepreneurship at Community Colleges: Linking Orientation to Practice

The current study uses a sample of community colleges to explore the specific organizational practices that mediate the link between entrepreneurial orientation and performance. The study focuses on a set of practices known as strategic enrollment management and finds that a college's entrepreneurial orientation predicts its enrollment management orientation and the effectiveness of specific enrollment management practices for recruitment and retention. However, none of the constructs were associated with higher admission, graduation, or retention rates. The implications of these findings for theory, practice, and future research are then discussed.

Workforce agility: Examining the role of organizational practices and psychological empowerment

Despite broad recognition of the importance of agility in the workforce, little research has been conducted on the organizational characteristics and initiatives that engender it. Rooted in organizational and cognitive theory, a study of 524 employees in India's manufacturing and service sectors proposes that workforce agility is the result of specific organizational practices and psychological empowerment. Contributing to both management theory and practice, the findings show that an environment that encourages teamwork has the most influence in promoting agility, followed by programs that address reward systems, employee involvement, organizational learning and training, and information systems. In addition, the study found that agility is fostered by the psychological empowerment variable of impact, followed by self‐determination, meaning, and competence.