Adoption of management innovations like the balanced scorecard is generally a complex process. Many subdecisions are involved and customization is often required before firms can enjoy the benefits of these innovations. Consequently, firms tend to experiment before finally implementing such complex innovations. We develop a framework differentiating between antecedents of experimentation with and actual implementation of the balanced scorecard, a distinction that has largely been neglected in the literature. Focusing on a small set of firms that experimented with the balanced scorecard, we provide initial empirical evidence. The results support the framework showing that top management involvement, innovation-contingent departments and organizational-context factors play a significant positive role in the experimentation stage, while interdepartmental communication and formalization are important variables with positive and negative influences in the implementation stage. We discuss the findings and their managerial implications.

The employer–employee relationship is underpinned by a psychological contract, which refers to employee beliefs about the exchange of employee contributions and employer inducements. However, there is limited understanding of how employers can shape psychological contracts to meet employees' needs and aspirations. Meeting these needs starts with an understanding of employees' preferences for psychological contract contributions and inducements. We propose that career stage models can be used to achieve that understanding. Using the career stage models of Dalton, Thompson, and Price (1977) and Super (1957), we derive insights into the preferred contributions and inducements, respectively, at various points of an employee's career lifecycle. These insights will help organizations create desirable psychological contracts and retain valued employees.

This study investigated the interactive effects of on-the-job training (OJT), co-worker support (CWS), and supervisor support (SS) with newcomer job-related education (JRE), on newcomer adjustment. Given that socialisation is a learning process, an important factor in socialisation is job-related knowledge. Although many studies on organisational socialisation drew on new graduates making the school-to-work transition, they have not considered the role of JRE and associated job-related knowledge for socialisation. It was hypothesised that JRE and newcomer information-seeking will moderate the effects of OJT, CWS, and SS on role clarity, role conflict, and role orientation. The study was conducted with a sample 244 business and engineering graduates of an Asian university. Results provide some support for the moderating effects of JRE on role clarity and conflict. It was also found that SS was positively related to newcomer innovative role orientation. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

We investigate differences between the ways novices and experienced specialists perceive their workplaces as learning environments and also examine differences between the learning processes of these two groups of employees. The study's research questions are explored by applying discriminant analysis to survey data collected from 218 employees in 31 New Zealand small manufacturing firms. We found that novices and experienced specialists do differ significantly in their perceptions of (1) work-environment conditions that either help or hinder learning, (2) supervisors' proximate support for learning, and (3) satisfaction with workplace learning. We also found that novices and experienced specialists do differ significantly in terms of the sources and methods of learning that they use. Our results identify the individual variables that contribute most to the discrimination between the two groups. Limitations of the study and the implications of our findings for researching and managing employee learning in small firms are discussed.

Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, this study proposes two levels of resource action: shedding resources and adding resources as the main two turnaround approaches. Since firms differ in the way they manage their resources over stages of organizational development, this study further analyzes the link between the RBV and organizational life-cycle model to investigate the contingency role of life stages in the turnaround context. The study sample consists of 72 Taiwan firms had ever experienced a successful turnaround. The results indicate that cost-cutting and investment in training and R&D, which represent respectively a shedding and an adding resource action, enable firms to turn around their deteriorating performance. The results also show that R&D investment is more effective for early-stage firms, while cost-cutting is more useful to firms in the late-stage.

This paper argues that change practitioners could benefit from expanding change communication strategies to allow for the emergence and use of multi-genre change stories in place of minimalist storylines. We argue that minimalist storylines do not acknowledge the polyvocal view of change that has been discussed in storytelling theory or engage with multiple modes of understanding and suggest that change agents adopt a multi-genre approach to storytelling to address this gap. Drawing from Quentin Tarantino's movies Kill Bill 1 & 2 as an example of how stories can be constructed, this paper proposes that the use of multiple story genres increases the likelihood of audiences finding a genre they can relate to, thus increasing better audience reach. Findings suggest that existing change narrative types can be viewed as genres of organizational change and added to change agents' repertoires to make change communication interventions more appropriate and appealing to employees. While our paper aims to provide a conceptual way forward for change agents, we acknowledge that change agents need to engage with living stories in the future. Living stories recognize the multiple loose ends developed from past and present change experiences that can be used to construct new stories, which are more likely to transform organizations and acknowledge the unfolding nature of change.

This paper assesses the recent contribution of Michel Foucault to the study of power and subject in organizations. First, we theoretically examine Foucault's thinking by dividing his works into archaeological, genealogical and aesthetic/ethical phases. We then conduct a review of 113 international journal articles from between the years 2000 and 2009. We do this in order to obtain an overview of the phases of Foucault's thinking that are prevalent in recent organization studies. We find that recent academic studies drawing on Foucault are increasingly leaning towards Foucault's writings on governmentality, as well as on his genealogical works, which have sustained their popularity. Reflecting the growing interest in governmentality and genealogy, we end by pointing out some avenues for future research.

Resistance to organizational change has too often been portrayed in a limited way, usually as a negative behavioural response of first-level employees. While the academic literature has identified a number of dimensions of resistance, it has not assembled them in one study. Therefore, the aims of this article are firstly to explore resistance to change as a more complex multi-dimensional concept, secondly to examine how actors at various hierarchical levels react to organizational change and thirdly how they construct the meaning of the term resistance. The findings of a qualitative study shed considerable light on the range of ways in which change participants at different levels reacted to a change and how they interpreted their own responses and those of others.

In September 2010 and again in February 2011, the city of Christchurch was rocked by earthquakes of magnitude 7.1 and 6.3 respectively. The second earthquake was shallow and caused extensive damage and loss of life, destroying most of the Central Business District. This paper focuses on recovery management at the University of Canterbury, exploring the extent to which the senior management team learned lessons from the September event which informed the way that the recovery was managed after the February earthquake. It examines the counter-intuitive possibility that successfully dealing with a prior, lesser event, may not necessarily better equip managers to deal with a subsequent, more extreme event.

This paper examines four businesses that were located in Christchurch's CBD prior to the earthquake on February 22, 2011. Immediately following the quake Christchurch's CBD was cordoned off and for many Christchurch businesses it was necessary to find new premises in an environment of extreme uncertainty and very limited information. The four businesses used in this study were all required to relocate, however the specifics of their situations differed. All four businesses examined were larger professional services firms (lawyers, accountants, architects or engineers) who had a national presence. Given the limited number of suitable and available properties speed was of the essence in relocating. Through the four cases we explore how rapidly each firm initiated and completed the relocation process and the factors influencing their speed. We examine the means by which new premises were secured and the plans in regard to immediate and longer term business location. Finally, we explore the impact of relocation and the earthquake more broadly for these firms. The results obtained highlight the differences between the firms based on both initial conditions and the way each firm managed the process.

January 2011 visited on Queensland Australia floods of proportions many thought could not have occurred again, following disaster management planning taken after the historic floods of the 1800s and 1974. This paper presents some reflections on this natural disaster, which affected many members of the ANZAM community and left a permanent mark on those directly affected and those who watched as the waters washed away lives, memories and many of the things that give people a sense of place. Amongst tragedy came stories of generosity of human spirit as well as the occasional case of greed and callousness. When all was over, however, there was no doubt about the human side of disaster management. Through two case studies of a family-owned business and a large organization impacted by the flood in Brisbane, we highlight some lessons for disaster management and propose some strategies for building social capital in times of disaster.