The evolutionary and ecological perspectives on organizational form, strategy and performance: evidence from privatized firms in China

Purpose This study aims to examine how evolutionary and ecological forces shape the market strategy and performance of firms after their organizational form was changed by exogenous shock. Design/methodology/approach Hypotheses are developed based on both evolutionary and ecological perspectives and tested using fixed effect logistics models and a sample of 3,110 firms that were privatized during 1998–2007. Findings I find that once the organizational form of firms is changed, the market strategy of organizations is shaped by the population density of their old and new organizational forms in their existing market. Moreover, such a market strategy enhances the survival chance of firms. Originality/value This study contributes to organizational evolution literature by unpacking the evolution process when exogeneous shock to organizational form takes place. It advances both evolutionary economics and organization ecology theory through integrating them to understand the evolution process of organizations. This study also contributes to the privatization literature through examining the ecological forces that shape the restructuring strategy of firms after privatization and the performance implications of such restructuring.

Comprehensive Clinical and Social Research at the Moscow Research Institute of Psychiatry: Translation into Clinical Practice

The article is devoted to the work of the Moscow Research Institute of Psychiatry to improve psychiatric care for patients with psychotic disorders. An important feature of this work was an integrated approach, in which the clinical picture of the disease was assessed in close connection with the patient's personal and psychological characteristics, social conditions of his life, therapeutic opportunities, rehabilitation potential and organizational structure of care. The article reflects the results of many years of work of the department of outpatient psychiatry and the organization of psychiatric care under the guidance of Professor I.Ya. Gurovich. The results of scientific research carried out by the staff of the institute in a traditional humanistic manner are presented. The translational nature of the research is emphasized by its inextricable link with clinical and social approaches. As a result of many years of work, a concept was developed to provide assistance to various groups of patients, starting with the first manifestations of the disease and ending with cases of long-term chronic disorders with a pronounced level of social maladaptation. As a result, a whole spectrum of new organizational forms of psychiatric care was proposed, such as departments (clinics) of the first psychotic episode, medical rehabilitation departments, assertive community treatment departments, designed for the most difficult patients. These organizational forms were fixed in the regulatory documents of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation. To date, the above departments have been established in psychiatric institutions in many regions of the Russian Federation. Further development of this area is associated with neurobiological research to identify complex biomarkers of psychotic spectrum disorders. Thus, the research carried out at the present time preserves the tradition of an integrated clinical and social approach to the study of mental disorders. It is shown that an important advantage of this approach is their translational nature.

Digital Discipline: Theorizing Concertive Control in Online Communities

Concertive control (CC) theory has primarily been applied to traditional offline, work-based, closed membership teams. New organizational forms such as online communities have opened up additional sites in which CC processes may operate. This article makes several contributions to CC theory and research. First, it increases the applicability of CC theory by extending it from offline to online, work to non-work, and closed to open membership contexts. Second, it increases our understanding of CC processes by elaborating on three mechanisms of CC (group autonomy, group identification, and generative discipline) and how they operate differently in online work/non-work and closed/open contexts. Third, it develops propositions about how these mechanisms interact with three prominent media affordances (visibility, persistence and editability) within those contexts. Extending CC theory to online communities helps to explain individuals’ responses to normative group pressures online, which is highly relevant in our increasingly culturally and politically polarized society.

Toward a strategic approach to studying COVID-19 pandemic

PurposeThe purpose of this introduction is fourfold: (1) to articulate the reasons for the special issue; (2) to highlight some of the fundamental issues related to the management research on COVID-19; (3) to introduce the authors and to summarize their contributions to this special issue; and (4) to provide some suggestions for future research pertaining to global challenges and business in general.Design/methodology/approachThis article introduces the special issue by addressing the following four points related to the COVID-19 pandemic: (1) conceptualization of the crisis, (2) the role of organizations, (3) challenges of the global pandemic and (4) business–society relationships. We briefly relate the papers in this special issue to these four points and we conclude with some thoughts on how to move forward on research in this domain.FindingsThe COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be one of the most important challenges to mankind and to organizations in recent years, and many organizations have proven to be very resilient in the face of this. Effective leadership, communication with stakeholders, global organizations and new organizational forms such as cross-sectoral collaborations have all proven important in dealing with this crisis. They will also likely be important for dealing with even more serious crises in the future such as climate change and other challenges referred to in the papers in this issue.Originality/valueThis paper provides an overview and summary of the implications of the papers in this special issue. As such, its originality derives mostly from the originality of the papers contained in this special issue.

States, interstitial organizations and the prospects for liberal international order

This article proposes a complementary approach to analysing destabilization of the liberal international order (LIO) and argues that such challenges are related to endogenous institutional processes within the LIO. Faced with constraints of the core norms, rules and institutions of the LIO, states use interstitial organizations (INTOs)—new organizational forms recombining resources, rules, practices and structures from multiple institutional domains—allowing for innovative ways of delivering foreign policies. Using organization theory and new institutionalist approaches, the article outlines a three-dimensional analytical framework to the study of emergence of interstitial organizational forms and interstitial institutional change of international institutions. It applies this framework to the study of two types of INTOs—the European External Action Service (EEAS) and private military companies (PMCs)—both of which are shown to have transformational impacts on two core primary institutions of the modern state order, namely diplomacy and war. The article argues that reliance on INTOs can both enhance and constrain states' ability to promote the core principles of the LIO and concludes with a discussion of two possible paths of adaptation of this order.

From automobile capitalism to platform capitalism: Toyotism as a prehistory of digital platforms

This article explores the automotive lineage and manufacturing origins of platforms. Challenging prevailing assumptions that the platform is a digital artefact, and platform capitalism a new era, this article traces crucial elements of platform capitalism to Toyotist automobile manufacture in order to rethink the relationship between technology and organization. Arguing that the very terminology and industry applications of the ‘platform’ emerge from the automobile industry over the course of the 20th century, this article cautions against the uncritical adoption of epochal paradigms, or assumptions that new technologies require new organizational forms. By parsing the platform into two types, the stack and the intermediary, this article demonstrates how the platform concept and data-driven production practice both develop out of the Toyota Production System in particular, and American and Japanese analyses of it. Toyotism, we show, is the unseen industrial and epistemological background against which the platform economy plays out. In making this case, this article highlights the crucial continuities between the data intensive production of companies like Uber and Amazon – emblematic of digital platform capitalism – and the organizational paradigms of the automobile industry. At a moment when the automobile returns to prominence amidst platforms such as Uber, Didi Chuxing, or Waymo, and as we find tech companies turning to automobile manufacturing, this automotive lineage of the platform offers a crucial reminder of the automotive origins of what we now call platform capitalism.

Virtual organizations

Trends in the development of modern markets, such as the globalization, the growing importance of product quality, price and customer satisfaction, the increasing importance of sustainable relationships with consumers, the growing importance of the degree of application of new information and communication technologies and the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly influenced the development of new organizational forms of enterprise management. In this regard, the question of the impact of telecommuting on relationships and interpersonal networks within organizations has become relevant. The aim of the article is to analyze the factors influencing to the creation and development of virtual organizations, as well as to identify types of virtual organizations. The research also covers a review of the main foreign and domestic virtual organizations. The article considers the theoretical foundations, factors and they influencing on the formation of virtual organizations. The article analyzes the existing approaches to the definition of a virtual organization, highlights the main types of virtual structures, the main characteristics and advantages of a virtual organization, and also highlights the features characteristic of all types of virtual organizations. The features and main problems of managing virtual organizations are identified. Virtual organization is the newest and potentially promising form of network structures, appeared and became widespread in the last decade. A virtual organization can flexibly change its configuration, where the strategic advantage of such a system provides sustainability and survival in a market economy, the ability of participants to provide flexibility and integration of resources, and the ability to quickly create virtual teams and virtual environments. However, the virtual organization has the same capabilities and potential as a traditional organization, but the virtual organization has not such institutional and structural boundaries.

Evolutionary Dynamics of Organizational Populations and Communities

Evolution is conceptualized as a multi-level phenomenon (subunit–organization–organizational field–national economy) that links organizational and ecological systems. Analysis of population and community-level evolution emphasizes the roles of institutional change (e.g., industry deregulation, globalization, market reforms), technological innovation cycles (e.g., technological discontinuities, dominant designs), entrepreneurs, and social movements as triggers of organizational variation. Institutional and technological change transforms the dynamics of organizational communities by shifting the boundaries of organizational forms, destabilizing or reinforcing existing community structures, giving rise to consensus and/or conflict oriented social movements, and creating opportunities for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to shape new organizational forms.

FORMATION OF THE NATIONAL COMPETITIVE MODEL OF AGRICULTURAL ENTERPRISES DEVELOPMENT UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF GLOBALIZATION

Institutional and innovative components of competitive development of agrarian enterprises have been found to be key and directly affect one another. Instruments for stimulating the innovative development of agricultural enterprises should be applied systematically, based on state innovation programs and strategies. In this context, the priorities of territorial innovative development of agro-formations are appropriate, provided the adaptation of existing and development of new state programs aimed at the development of innovative infrastructure, the formation of its new organizational forms, the support of innovative partnerships, the protection of intellectual property, and the promotion of venture financing. Also, the expected economic effects of the implementation of the model of institutional regulation of the competitive development of enterprises in the agrarian sector include the formation of important tools for improving the investment environment to ensure innovative production, maximize the effective use of the geopolitical position benefits, increasing export potential. The adaptive model of competitive development of the agrarian enterprises, the quintessence of which is based on econometric tools and the implementation of a set of economic and organizational tools and mechanisms for increasing competitiveness for leveling industry controversies and ensuring the formation of sustainable competitive advantages by agroformations through increased multiplier effect and synergy effect is developed.