Scholars of the theory of the firm have begun to emphasize the sources and conditions of what has been described as “the organizational advantage,” rather than focus on the causes and consequences of market failure. Typically, researchers see such organizational advantage as accruing from the particular capabilities organizations have for creating and sharing knowledge. In this article we seek to contribute to this body of work by developing the following arguments: (1) social capital facilitates the creation of new intellectual capital; (2) organizations, as institutional settings, are conducive to the development of high levels of social capital; and (3) it is because of their more dense social capital that firms, within certain limits, have an advantage over markets in creating and sharing intellectual capital. We present a model that incorporates this overall argument in the form of a series of hypothesized relationships between different dimensions of social capital and the main mechanisms and proces...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/259373.pdf

Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage

How to Do Things With Words

This paper extends the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to study acceptance and use of technology in a consumer context. Our proposed UTAUT2 incorporates three constructs into UTAUT: hedonic motivation, price value, and habit. Individual differences--namely, age, gender, and experience--are hypothesized to moderate the effects of these constructs on behavioral intention and technology use. Results from a two-stage online survey, with technology use data collected four months after the first survey, of 1,512 mobile Internet consumers supported our model. Compared to UTAUT, the extensions proposed in UTAUT2 produced a substantial improvement in the variance explained in behavioral intention (56 percent to 74 percent) and technology use (40 percent to 52 percent). The theoretical and managerial implications of these results are discussed.

/pdf/consumer-acceptance-and-use-of-information-technology-4i09z552kr.pdf

Consumer acceptance and use of information technology: extending the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology

For all its richness and potential for discovery, qualitative research has been critiqued as too often lacking in scholarly rigor. The authors summarize a systematic approach to new concept development and grounded theory articulation that is designed to bring “qualitative rigor” to the conduct and presentation of inductive research.

Seeking Qualitative Rigor in Inductive Research: Notes on the Gioia Methodology

This article discusses the conduct and evaluatoin of interpretive research in information systems. While the conventions for evaluating information systems case studies conducted according to the natural science model of social science are now widely accepted, this is not the case for interpretive field studies. A set of principles for the conduct and evaluation of interpretive field research in information systems is proposed, along with their philosophical rationale. The usefulness of the principles is illustrated by evaluating three published interpretive field studies drawn from the IS research literature. The intention of the paper is to further reflect and debate on the important subject of grounding interpretive research methodology.

A set of principles for conducting and evaluating interpretive field studies in information systems

Introduction The Intellectualization of Method Data-Oriented Methods Empiricist Techniques and Procedures Hermeneutics Interpretation and Insight Critical Theory The Political and Ideological Dimension Postmodernism and Postructuralism Destabilizing Subject and Text Language/Gender/Power Discourse Analysis, Feminism and Genealogy On Reflexive Interpretation The Play of Interpretive Levels

Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research

This paper takes the regulation of identity as a focus for examining organizational control. It considers how employees are enjoined to develop self-images and work orientations that are deemed congruent with managerially defined objectives. This focus on identity extends and deepens themes developed within other analyses of normative control. Empirical materials are deployed to illustrate how managerial intervention operates, more or less intentionally and in/effectively, to influence employees' self-constructions in terms of coherence, distinctiveness and commitment. The processual nature of such control is emphasized, arguing that it exists in tension with other intra. and extra-organizational claims upon employees' sense of identity in a way that can open a space for forms of micro-emancipation. (Less)

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-6486.00305

Identity regulation as organizational control: Producing the appropriate individual

Discourse is a popular term used in a variety of ways, easily leading to confusion. This article attempts to clarify the various meanings of discourse in social studies, the term's relevance for organizational analysis and some key theoretical positions in discourse analysis. It also focuses on the methodological problem of the relationship between: a) the level of discourse produced in interviews and in everyday life observed as `social texts' (in particular talk); b) other kinds of phenomena, such as meanings, experiences, orientations, events, material objects and social practices; and, c) discourses in the sense of a large-scale, ordered, integrated way of reasoning/ constituting the social world. In particular, the relationship between `micro and meso-level' discourse analysis (i.e. specific social texts being the primary empirical material) and `grand and mega-level' discourse (i.e. large-scale orders) is investigated.

Varieties of Discourse: On the Study of Organizations through Discourse Analysis

The Concept of Organizational Culture Organizational Culture as Metaphor and Metaphors for Culture Organizational Culture and Identity Organizational Culture and Performance Organizational Culture, Strategy and Marketing Organizational Culture and Leadership Work and Multiple Levels of Culture Ambiguity of Culture Culture as Constraint: An Emancipatory Approach Cultural Change Conclusions

Understanding organizational culture

This is a case study of managerial identity work, based on an in-depth case of a senior manager and the organizational context in which she works. The article addresses the interplay between organizational discourses, role expectations, narrative self-identity and identity work. Identity is conceptualized in processual terms as identity work and struggle. The article illuminates fragmentation as well as integration in the interplay between organizational discourses and identity. It aims to contribute to a processual oriented identity theory and to the methodology of identity studies through showing the advantage of a multi-level intensive study.

Mats Alvesson

Papers

Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research

Identity regulation as organizational control: Producing the appropriate individual

Varieties of Discourse: On the Study of Organizations through Discourse Analysis

Understanding organizational culture

Managing managerial identities: Organizational fragmentation, discourse and identity struggle