Human Behaviour in Organizations

It is crucial to grasp individual behaviour in organizations. This can shed light on evaluation of organizational outcomes. The evaluation can assist in deciding changes required. This chapter investigates organizational behaviour models. The investigation aims to develop a better comprehension of human behaviour. The chapter examines the most reviewed organizational behaviour models. These models are the human relation, the system perspective, productivity perspective, the human resource approach, the contingency approach, and finally, the situation approach. These models are argued to be elementalistic. The elementalism leads to perceive humans and their behaviour in a partial manner. The Aristotelian structure of language underpinning Indo-European languages upholds such elementalism. The structure is built on three laws. These are “is” of identity, two value orientation, and excluding middle stance. The chapter presents some principles of Islam to transform organizational behaviour models. The model enriched by Islam is argued to be in flux.

An empirical assessment of the relationship between Information Intensity and IT Leaders’ Role and Structural Power

Using the theoretical lens of the contingency approach to leadership, this study explores the relationship between the information intensity of the organization’s value chains and IT leaders’ role and structural power. Based on data obtained from a sample of 174 Australian IT senior executives, a multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) is used to empirically test for differences between the IT leader’s role and structural power in high and low information intensive organizations. Findings suggest that value chain information intensity significantly influences the importance of individual CIO roles as well as the combined operational (supply) and strategic (demand) groups of roles. However, the IT leaders’ structural power was found to be unrelated to the level of information intensity of the organization. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

First-mover advantages and innovation success: a contingency approach

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose an overarching unifying theory where first-mover advantages are a conditional effect, not a main effect. By offering a closer look at how the firm, market and product characteristics influence the supply and demand of innovations, this research furthers our understanding of the advantages and disadvantages for first movers. Design/methodology/approach This paper explores first-mover advantages as a conditional effect. Adopting a contingency perspective, the authors review the literature in marketing, strategic management, innovation and entrepreneurship to offer a conceptual framework putting innovation success at the core of first-mover advantages. The authors develop an inventory of propositions specifying how first-mover advantages depend on various firm features, market characteristics and product properties through their effects on the success of innovations. Findings A conceptual framework centered around innovation success yields testable hypotheses that are coherent with extant research on first-mover advantages and reconcile the seemingly contradictory evidence in that body of work. Practical implications This research provides managers with the opportunity to think about one of the most important decisions, i.e. time of entry, not as a linear finite decision, but instead as a flow with the innovations and potential for their success in mind. Originality/value This paper distinguishes itself from the existing literature with its focus on innovation within a contingency perspective for first-mover advantages.

The Effect of Misalignment of CEO Personality and Corporate Governance Structures on Firm Performance

We utilize the IBM Watson Personality Insights service to analyze CEOs’ verbal communication during conference calls to infer CEOs’ Big Five personality traits, which we employ to estimate their risk tolerance levels. We then explore whether the misalignment of CEO risk tolerance and governance structures is associated with company performance. Using a two-stage contingency approach, we test two hypotheses: (1) CEO risk tolerance and corporate governance structures are associated; and (2) misalignment of these structures with risk tolerance is negatively associated with financial performance. Based on a sample of 8208 firm-year observations during 2002–2013, we find support for both predictions. Our results support upper echelons theory and suggest that knowledge about CEOs’ inherent personality traits is important and relevant for governance mechanisms to work effectively.