This paper exploits a quasi-experimental setting to estimate the impact that a multi-dimensional group incentive scheme had on branch performance in a large distribution firm. The scheme, which is based on the Balanced Scorecard, was implemented in all branches in one division, but not in another...

This chapter advocates the good scientific practice of systematic research syntheses in Management and Organizational Science (MOS). A research synthesis is the systematic accumulation, analysis and reflective interpretation of the full body of relevant empirical evidence related to a question....

This paper discusses the theory and evidence behind the logic of business process outsourcing, with a specific focus on human resource outsourcing (HRO). Market analysts project rapid growth in the global market for HRO, from around $30 billion in 2005 to just over $40 billion in 2008. The paper...

The concept of “vertical architecture” defines the scope of a firm and the extent to which it is open to final and intermediate markets. A firm can make or buy inputs, and transfer outputs downstream or sell them. Permeable vertical architectures are partly integrated and partly open to the...

The article argues that management fashions can be interpreted as processes of emerging professionalisation around particular bodies of management expertise. By integrating insights from research on professions and professionalisation, management fashions are analysed as attempts by specific...

The practice of inviting managers and leaders to make formal presentations telling the story of their experience to others is widespread. In this paper we explore these as one manifestation of the transfer of management practices. We include among those considered, a range of speakers from high...

This essay provides some reflections about the idea and ideal of scholarship in Management and Organization Studies and celebrates the life and works of Chris Argyris as a scholar. Unlike most of the accounts and tributes to his work, this essay seeks to draw attention not only to the practice...

If learning is an integral part of living; if working life demands learning as a condition of survival; if learning is an essential human condition, why is it that we have such difficulty engaging with the phenomenon? This paper engages with this question and explores the complex...

Strategy workshops – typically 2-3 day events involving senior managers – represent a common and frequent, yet under-researched, organisational practice relating to strategy development and therefore provide a natural extension of mainstream strategy process research. In this paper we seek...

Many papers have documented wide variations in productivity even in narrowly defined industries. Some have argued that this primarily reflects measurement problems due to, for example, comparing across different products. Others argue this reflects persistent differences in performance due, for...