Knowledge sharing, organizational commitment and turnover intention among knowledge workers: a knowledge-based perspective

Purpose This study aims to theorize a knowledge-based perspective on organizational commitment and turnover intentions among knowledge workers. The authors contribute by examining the impact of knowledge sharing, and managerial human capital respectively, on commitment and turnover in a sample of 274 knowledge workers (engineers) from India. Additionally, the authors examine the crucial moderating role of intra-firm causal ambiguity on these relationships. Design/methodology/approach Using structural equation modeling and analysis of survey responses, the authors test a moderated mediation model to provide evidence of the positive impact of knowledge sharing and human capital, respectively, on turnover intention, mediated by organizational commitment. More importantly, the authors theorize and present evidence on the moderating role of intra-firm causal ambiguity, on these relationships. Findings The authors find that knowledge sharing behaviors are both intrinsically and extrinsically motivating for knowledge workers, which results in their emotional attachments and higher levels of identification and commitment, which subsequently results in lower turnover intention. Our findings also highlight the role of intra-firm causal ambiguity in making things difficult for organizations to retain talented employees in tough environments. Originality/value The authors provide a knowledge-based perspective of commitment and turnover in knowledge-intensive work contexts. The authors also contribute by provide an interesting account of the role of intra-firm causal ambiguity in knowledge processes leading to commitment.

New product creativity and alliance ambidexterity: the moderating effect of causal ambiguity

Purpose There has been little research discussing the role that new product creativity plays in achieving alliance ambidexterity and how causal ambiguity may be a potential moderator in the association between new product creativity and alliance ambidexterity. The purpose of this study is to identify the contingent role of causal ambiguity and examine the relationships between new product creativity, causal ambiguity and alliance ambidexterity. Design/methodology/approach In this empirical study, a questionnaire approach is used to collect data, and moderated structural equation modeling is used to test the hypotheses. Findings The findings indicate that new product creativity has a positive influence on alliance ambidexterity, whereas causal ambiguity moderates these associations. When causal ambiguity increases, the positive impact of new product creativity on alliance ambidexterity is attenuated. Research limitations/implications This study integrates the ambidexterity literature and the alliance literature by applying the concept of ambidexterity to a strategic alliance context. The moderating role of causal ambiguity echoes previous research postulating causal ambiguity as a barrier to knowledge transfer in alliances. Given a higher level of causal ambiguity, firms face more difficulty when they attempt to develop new product creativity to achieve the desired level of alliance ambidexterity. Practical implications Managers could initiate incentive programs and build supportive environments that facilitate new product creativity. Firms will be capable of elaborating the potential of new product creativity to further facilitate alliance ambidexterity. Managers need to pay attention to causal ambiguity that may have a moderating influence on the relationship between new product creativity and alliance ambidexterity. Originality/value This study contributes to the synthesis of new product creativity and alliance ambidexterity and helps scholars and managers to better understand the moderating effect of causal ambiguity in the context of the innovation and ambidexterity literature.

March and the pursuit of organizational intelligence: the interplay between procedural rationality and sensible foolishness

March’s long and varied career in organization theory encompasses a number of seemingly disparate themes from rationality, to ambiguity and the garbage can model, to exploration and exploitation in organizations. We examine March’s diverse research trajectory and conclude that his different insights can be brought together under one common theme for his career: that both procedural rationality and sensible foolishness are necessary for the pursuit of organizational intelligence. Traditional models of rationality, even bounded rationality, are insufficient because goals are unstable and inconsistent, and causal ambiguity leads to myopic learning or worse. To explain the interplay between procedural rationality and sensible foolishness in organizations, we explore their role in the inter-related processes of programing, monitoring, sensemaking, search, and decision making.

Issues and Trends in Causal Ambiguity Research: A Review and Assessment

Causal ambiguity relates to ambiguity as to how organizational actions and results, inputs and outcomes, or competencies and advantage are linked. Causal ambiguity is important because of its organizational performance implications. Over the last 25 years, research has analyzed the concept from various theoretical angles. As a result, the literature is fragmented and presents different, and sometimes contradictory, views on the concept. In this article, we systematically review the literature on causal ambiguity and develop a framework incorporating the types, antecedents, and consequences of causal ambiguity for both organizational performance and organizational learning. We disentangle the arrays of conceptualizations and operationalizations present in the literature, and we isolate distinct streams in causal ambiguity research. One stream of research concentrates on causal ambiguity as an interfirm barrier to imitation, a second relates to causal ambiguity as an intrafirm barrier to factor mobility, and a third focuses on causal ambiguity as a potential trigger for intrafirm learning. Our review also helps to consolidate research on the substitution dilemma, the causal ambiguity paradox, and the challenge of learning under causal ambiguity. Finally, we develop a coherent set of implications for management practice, and we provide an agenda for further research.

Intra-firm causal ambiguity on cross-functional project team’s performance

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the negative effect of intra-firm causal ambiguity on the project team’s performance—efficiency and effectiveness, and also examine the moderating role of openness and the integrative capabilities. Design/methodology/approach The population in this study is teams that come from a variety of companies which work with cross-functional teams or matrices, such as advertising agencies, recreational or amusement parks, television companies, production houses, radio stations, private education providers, manufacturing enterprises and IT companies. The sample population was chosen based on their tendency to form creative teams to respond to environmental/market dynamics by involving employees from different backgrounds and levels in the planning and implementation of projects. Findings As hypothesized, intra-firm causal ambiguity negatively influenced the project team’s efficiency and effectiveness, while openness moderated the effect of intra-firm causal ambiguity to efficiency, but not to effectiveness, and the team’s integrative capabilities did not moderate the above relationship. Research limitations/implications First, the sample in this study only focused on teams with creativity doing a project. Any future research is expected to focus more on the selection of sample types which also have a tendency to apply openness, and focus their activities on improving their integrative capabilities. Second, there are no data about the background experience of the members of the teams in working together on previous projects, so future studies need to discover whether that experience also affects the variables included in this study. Third, the category of the time horizon samples for the project’s implementation, which were between one month and two years, is still too wide. It may have contributed to the overlapping of the moderating effect, so future studies need the sample project’s categories to have a much narrower range (one to three months, four to six months, or one year). Fourth, the regression results for the moderating variables are partially not supported. This may relate to the characteristics of the respondents. To obtain the data and a more complete knowledge, further research can be done into creative on-going team types, such as an interior design team, a company’s production performance team and others. Practical implications A practical implication based on the research that has been done is that, when the condition of intra-firm causal ambiguity occurs, strategies to reduce the condition are needed. First, before a project starts, all the team members must understand the systemic process of the project’s resources related to the environment and the objectives. Systemic understanding of the resources system can help the team to effectively manage any causal ambiguity in the resources system. Second, referring that the higher the intra-firm causal ambiguity is, the efforts to codify the resources and the systemic process of the project should also be higher as well. So the second strategy is to codify/create tools that guide the project, in order to make it easily understandable, accessible and always up to date, over the lifespan of the project. Originality/value The results of research into the impacts of intra-firm causal ambiguity on the organizational performance are still inconsistent. Some researchers claim that intra-firm causal ambiguity has a negative effect on performance, but there are also studies that show the opposite result. This research accommodates these inconsistencies by examining the effects of a moderating variable on the impact of intra-firm causal ambiguity on a cross-functional team’s performance, in its contextual and internal aspects. The contextual aspect is represented by the openness of the team, while the team’s ability to integrate the diversity of knowledge, i.e. its integrative capability, is represented as the internal aspect.

Complexity and Control

Measuring and managing a firm's performance in complex settings are at the center of the debate in business management studies in recent years. The causal ambiguity condition that affects the dynamics of value creation makes it difficult to achieve a clear understanding of the mechanisms underpinning economic value. Thus, a conceptualization of the firm as a complex entity and a complexity management model are proposed, with the aim to contribute towards improving the disentanglement of the messy nature of the process of economic value creation. Finally, building on the assumption that financial and quantitative measures should always be the end goal of the process of the firm's economic value measurement, the most important models and metrics of value creation are reported.

The causal ambiguity paradox: Deliberate actions under causal ambiguity

Causal ambiguity describes a lack of understanding of cause-and-effect interactions between resources and competitive advantage. As a central construct in strategic management, causal ambiguity constrains a firm’s ability to replicate valuable capabilities internally, yet, simultaneously, offers a means of protecting those capabilities from imitation by external agents. This analysis shifts the paradigm from looking at casual ambiguity as a given characteristic within organizations and examines the causal ambiguity paradox by looking at how organizations can strategically act on causal ambiguity as a mechanism for extending advantages. Specifically, we suggest actions that deliberately manage causal ambiguity can be a strategic capability and extend competitive advantages.