-
How languages saved me: A Polish memoir of survival
Tadeusz L. Haska and Stefanie E. Naumann
"When I was arrested my whole world crumbled. I knew that leaders of political parties had been arrested, and never heard from again. My only chance at survival was to find a way to escape from the jail."
Orphaned in Poland at the age of thirteen, Tadeusz "Tad" Haska survived World War II on the run, narrowly evading the Nazis every step of the way. After the war, he daringly escaped jail by the Soviet Secret Police, fled to Sweden and launched an elaborate plan to smuggle his wife in a coffin on an all-male naval ship. Discover how Tad's knowledge of nine languages helped him survive in the face of unspeakable adversity.
-
An ethnoconsumerist approach to Hispanic small businesses' adoption of internet technology
Cecilia Ruvalcaba and Alladi Venkatesh
Small businesses need simple solutions that are timely and efficient. As new technologies come into play, small businesses find new market opportunities and challenges. Apart from cost and resource considerations involved in Information Technology (IT) related operations, small businesses lack qualified IT staff and the resources to train employees on new technologies. In this digital age, these issues become critical especially because of the resulting digital divide, the gap between those with access to information, the ‘haves’, and those without access, the ‘have-nots’, that leaves certain segments (e.g., small businesses, minorities, low-income consumers) out of current trends (Companie 2001; Peterson and Dibrell 2002; U.S. Congress 2012). Studies suggest the gap among ethnic minorities is larger than that for the dominant culture (Hoffman et al. 1997; Zickuhr and Smith 2012). Thus it is important to understand not only small business adoption of such technologies, but the adoption and use of such technologies by minorityowned small businesses. This is indeed the focus of this chapter.
-
Industry Transformation
Tammy Madsen and Dara Szyliowicz
During an industry’s evolution, events endogenous or exogenous to the industry may disrupt its development and trigger a period of transformation. A transformation period generally evolves through stages: an era of ferment followed by convergence towards a new, relatively stable structure. Industries, however, vary in the pace and severity of the transformation process. Because the way firms compete is altered after transformation begins, incumbents and entrants encounter strategic challenges that differ from those that incumbents faced pre-transformation. Thus, understanding how different sources and patterns of transformation influence competitive heterogeneity is an important line of inquiry in strategy.
-
Chapter 31: Promoting sustainability initiatives in the hospitality industry
Bidisha Burman and Pia Albinsson
This chapter provides a review of recent research into the developments in promoting sustainability initiatives in the hospitality industry. Particular focus is given to the hotel industry. Based on third-party hotel organizations and academic literature, a summary of best practices for promoting sustainability efforts is provided. The contrasting approaches of two eco-friendly hotels to promoting their eco initiatives is showcased in two case studies. A brief discussion of the way that practitioners can improve said efforts concludes the chapter.
-
A Brief History of the Idea of Opportunity
William B. Gartner, Bruce T. Teague, Ted Baker, and R. Daniel Wadhwani
-
A Revisionist Historiography of Business History: A Richer Past for a Richer Future
Matthias Kipping, Takafumi Kurosawa, and R. Daniel Wadhwani
-
Historical Change and the Competitive Advantage of Firms: Explicating the "Dynamics" in the Dynamic Capabilities Framework
R. Daniel Wadhwani and Geoffrey Jones
-
Contested Environments: Drivers and Dynamics in the US Marijuana Industry
Dara Szyliowicz and Tammy Madsen
A common view in institutional theory is that, over time, fields and industries will become more settled and stable. Yet, under certain conditions, change and contention are often more frequent and enduring. If contestation is persistent then actors must continuously contend with how to respond to shifting environmental conditions. But what conditions contribute to ongoing industry contestation? We posit that when an industry is characterized by multiple, conflicting normative, cognitive and regulatory orders as well as multiple heterogeneous actors who are endogenous and exogenous to the industry, it will be more susceptible to substantial ongoing contestation. We examine the US marijuana industry in order to understand these dynamics. Specifically, we identify and test the role of five primary drivers of contestation — heterogeneity of actors and practices, regulations, competing institutional logics, institutional voids and competing social belief systems. Our findings suggest that all five sources are crucial to understanding an industry’s development.
-
Small Scale Credit Institutions: Historical Perspectives on Diversity in Financial Intermediation
R. Daniel Wadhwani
This chapter begins by examining the reasons for the growing historiographical and theoretical interest in small-scale credit institutions, and in understanding variations in the institutional arrangements of intermediaries more broadly. It then briefly surveys the literature on a selection of these institutions—ROSCAs, savings banks, credit cooperatives, and building associations—to identify patterns of organization and development over time and place. Finally, it examines a number of theoretical perspectives that have been used to account for variation in in the organizational size, form, and practices that such small credit institutions embody. Specifically it considers transaction cost theories, location-based theories, socio-political theories, and cultural/narrative theories, and assesses their contributions and limitations in understanding the sources of variation and change in institutional arrangements.
-
Organizations in Time: History, Theory, Methods
Marcelo Bucheli and R. Daniel Wadhwani
Why does history matter to our understanding of management, organizations, and markets? What theoretical insights can it offer into organizational processes? How can scholars use historical sources and methods to address research questions in management and organization studies?
This book brings together leading organization scholars and business historians to examine the opportunities and challenges of incorporating historical research into the study of firms and markets. It examines the reasons for the growing interest in historically grounded research in management departments and business schools, and considers both the intellectual and practical questions the endeavour faces. The volume is divided into three parts. The first part, History and Organization Theory, considers the relationship between historical reasoning and key theoretical schools of organizational thought, including institutional theory, evolutionary theory, and critical theory. The second part, Actors and Markets, considers how historical perspective can provide researchers with insights into organizational change, entrepreneurial processes, industry emergence, and the co-evolution of states and markets. In the final section, Sources and Methods, the contributors explicate historical methodologies within the context of other approaches to studying organizations and provide concrete suggestions for researchers in the field. The introduction contextualizes these issues within the broader context of developments in the fields of business history and organization studies, and orients readers to the 'future of the past in management and organization studies.'
-
Analyzing and Interpreting Historical Sources
Matthias Kipping, R. Daniel Wadhwani, and Marcelo Bucheli
-
Historicism and Industry Emergence: Industry Knowledge from Pre-Emergence to Stylized Fact
David Kirsch, Mahka Moeen, and R. Daniel Wadhwani
-
Populism and Political Entrepreneurship: The Universalization of German Savings Banks and the Decline of American Savings Banks
R. Daniel Wadhwani and Jeff Fear
-
Sport labour migration: managing a twenty-first-century global workforce
Peter J. Schroeder and C. Janssen
Although the patterns of migration can be relatively easy to understand, the factors facilitating sport labour migration result from broader global processes. While the term ‘globalization’ is very much contested, there are commonalities in the way theorists characterize it (Giddens 2000; Held and McGrew 2002; Maguire 2005). First, globalization arises from political, economic, cultural and technological factors (Giddens 2000). While these factors have singular
In the autumn of 2009, Elsa, a 6’1” (1.85-metre) volleyball player from the Czech Republic, arrived at Los Angeles International Airport in preparation for her first year at Western University. Western had a top volleyball programme and had used a recruiting service operated by a former German volleyball player to recruit Elsa to the USA. Elsa had hired the recruiting service because she wanted to attend an American university, but she had never travelled outside Europe. The coaching staff at Western had never met Elsa, but had seen a video of her playing for the junior national team. They offered Elsa a full scholarship with the expectation that she would immediately become a top player.
-
Institutions and international entrepreneurship
Dara Szyliowicz and Tiffany Galvin Green
Even in the current ‘hard’ economic times, governments and individuals hold up entrepreneurship as the way in which economies can recover and grow. Global entrepreneurship, however, is a topic that is much discussed but difficult to track. Scholars estimate that more than 500 million people per year are involved in establishing new firms (Moya, 2008) and that early-stage entrepreneurial activity makes up a significant portion of GDP (GEMS, 2010). The importance of the phenomenon has been paralleled by an increased amount of research on international entrepreneurship (IE). The research in this area parallels the broad range of activity that is occurring in this arena, from rates of founding of new firms across countries to the role that traits of individual entrepreneurs play in choice to become an entrepreneur (see Acs et al., 2003; Autio, 2005; Oviatt and McDougall, 2005a, 2005b; Zahra, 2005; Dimitratos and Jones, 2005). Even though this research has produced a lot of empirical findings, there is agreement that there is an ‘absence of a strong theoretical foundation’ (Thomas and Mueller, 2000) and, as a result, there is uncertainty and debate (Oviatt and McDougall, 2005a). There is also concern that the absence of a theoretical foundation means that the creation of a field based on strong conceptual models is lacking. This is critical for the creation of a cumulative research stream (Rialp et al., 2005).
-
Predicting Organizational Reconfiguration
Tim N. Carroll and Samina Karim
This chapter addresses the issue of structural change within for-profit organizations, both as adaptation to changing markets and as purposeful experimentation to search for new opportunities, and builds upon the "reconfiguration" construct. In the areas of strategy, evolutionary economics, and organization theory, there are conflicting theories that either predict structural change or discuss obstacles to change. Our aim is to highlight relevant theoretical rationales for why and when organizations world, or would not, be expected to undertake structural reconfiguration. We conclude with remarks on how these literatures, together, inform our understanding of reconfiguration and organization design and provide insights for practitioners.
-
Entrepreneurship
R. Daniel Wadhwani and Geoffrey Jones
Since the 1980s, entrepreneurship has emerged as a topic of growing interest among management scholars and social scientists. The subject has grown in legitimacy, particularly in business schools. This scholarly interest has been spurred by a set of recent developments in the United States. This article begins by providing a brief introduction to the origins and evolution of historical research on entrepreneurship. It then turns to explore a series of different streams of business-history research that deal with issues of entrepreneurship and historical change. The article highlights the ways in which historical context shaped the structure of entrepreneurial activity, and reveals the wide variation in organizational form and entrepreneurial behavior that historians have found. It concludes by discussing the main contributions of business history to the study of entrepreneurship, and proposes a renewed research agenda.
A selection of published books and book chapters from faculty members of the Eberhardt School of Business at University of the Pacific.
Printing is not supported at the primary Gallery Thumbnail page. Please first navigate to a specific Image before printing.
