JOURNAL OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Online ISSN : 2424-2055
Print ISSN : 1882-0271
ISSN-L : 1882-0271
Volume 42
Displaying 1-11 of 11 articles from this issue
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT No.42
  • Tetsu Hirasawa
    2019 Volume 42 Pages 3-14
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: March 26, 2020
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     This paper provides some reflections on the transformation of Argyris's research and the reasons for this transformation. Unlike most of the existing accounts of Argyris's works, this study seeks to capture the long-term evolution of his theory and method and explores how and why they transformed around the beginning of the 1970s. Reflecting on his works and essays between the 1950s and the 2000s, this study not only articulates the conceptual difference between his earlier and latter research approach, but also explores the background for the change: the limitations of his former research approach in practical usage and his self-reflection on such limitations, his development of a new approach relying on different schools of thought, and the core values underlying his research. In its conclusion, the paper presents the implications for contemporary studies of organizations in terms of theory and method useful for practice.

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  • Asami Oue, Yasuhiko Haraguchi
    2019 Volume 42 Pages 15-26
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: March 26, 2020
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     The present study aims to test the effect of politics on individual innovation. It is known that individual innovation consists of several phases. Scholars have regarded organizational culture as a factor that connects the phases in individual innovation. Although organizational culture has been identified as an organization-level factor, politics as an individual-level factor has not been tested in previous studies. The present study regards politics as an individual-level factor. This research makes progress toward addressing the lack of previous analyses of the impact of politics on individual innovation. Few studies have addressed the possibility that politics with other-oriented motivation may moderate the relationship between idea generation and idea implementation.

     Drawing on social-political perspectives and altruism theory, the present study proposes that the relationship between idea generation and idea implementation is enhanced by politics and other-oriented motivation. Politics enables ideas to gain resources and power for implementation. Other-oriented motivation encourages employees to engage in risky political behavior by promoting a preference for making social contributions.

     Data was collected from a sample of 225 R&D workers employed by a large manufacturing company in western Japan. These workers are constantly required to generate and implement new ideas, products, processes, and services. The data set is used to test a three-way interaction model between idea generation, political behavior, and prosocial motivation toward idea implementation.

     It was found that political behavior and other-oriented motivation moderate the relationship between idea generation and idea implementation. Furthermore, it was found that political behavior and other-oriented motivation are not the sole moderators of the relationship between idea generation and idea implementation. Given these findings, it is suggested that R&D workers display higher levels of idea implementation when they engage in political behavior and experience other-oriented motivation simultaneously.

     Modified resources from others were not assessed in the present model. The effect of modified resources from others should be investigated in future research.

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  • Shin Ohmori
    2019 Volume 42 Pages 27-39
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: March 26, 2020
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     This paper attempts to historically reveal why Japanese companies have long emphasized cleaning, sorting, and organizing activities. Simultaneously, we explained theoretical significances in Japanese companies' valuing these activities from a management perspective. We have studied the relevance of cleaning, sorting, and organizing in Japanese companies by retrospect, through older documents, articles, or companies' in-house publications. We have also described how Japanese companies have historically solved their problems through cleaning, sorting, and organizing in their growth processes or continuing their business when facing various business issues, as they rename such activities as either 3S or 5S. Specifically, we studied the history of Japanese companies as private companies were initiated, and had to compel large numbers of employees who lacked discipline to work diligently. These companies had to decrease expenses after a major economic depression, improve worksite safety after work accidents and deaths often occurred, and improve productivity under harsh international competition with European and American companies. This paper has demonstrated that Japanese companies' managerial perspectives have incorporated a means-based management, which values cleaning, sorting, and organizing as a social practice. This management perspective has focused on specific measures toward cleaning, sorting, and organizing; for example, companies may discover new goals to foster the means, or solve their problems by utilizing such means according to their economic situation or current trends. We illustrated a meansbased management perspective contrary to the dominant perspective, which involves deciding the goal first and subsequently choosing from various means to achieve it. These two concepts contrast one another, yet are neither mutually exclusive nor opposing; rather, we would point out they are mutually complementary. Under stable circumstances, in which purposes can be easily decided in advance, purpose-based management ―which is dominant today― would be more effective and efficient. However, means-based management, based on social practice beyond time or location, would be highly effective in critical situations, or under highly uncertain circumstances. We would like to highlight, in other words, the danger of over-emphasizing either purpose-based or meansbased management.

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  • Keisho Komoto
    2019 Volume 42 Pages 40-51
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: March 26, 2020
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     Entrepreneurship scholars have studied start-ups for decades, and have identified various factors that affect their performance. However, previous studies have the following two drawbacks. First, most of them have not examined the configurational effects of certain factors on business performance. That is, they estimate only independent and symmetric effects using regression analysis. Second, most studies have analyzed start-ups only with business histories of more than 10 years.

     In this study, I analyze the antecedents of the performance of start-ups within 28 months of their establishment. I consider six features of an entrepreneur: (1) age, (2) growth orientation, (3) funds at the start of their business (4) business experience, (5) the form of the firm, and (6) risk-taking behavior. To analyze the complex interactions among these features, I explore configurations leading to high or low business performance using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. The results indicate three configurations for high performance and three other configurations for low performance. The high performance configurations show that growth orientation, as well as funds and business experience, are required for business success. However, the configurations also indicate that young entrepreneurs exhibiting both growth orientation and risk-averse behavior can succeed, even if funds and business experience are low. The low performance configurations indicate that unsuccessful entrepreneurs tend to start their business without establishing companies. In addition, these configurations show that when entrepreneurs are not young and growth orientation and funds are lacking, these factors, coupled with other conditions, cause low business performance. These results indicate that some of the six features have asymmetric and complex effects on business performance of start-ups, leading to high or low performance.

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  • Shohei Hayashi, Yuta Morinaga, Yuki Sato, Tomoyuki Shimanuki
    2019 Volume 42 Pages 52-62
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: March 26, 2020
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     Diversity is a common factor in many organizations. Diversity is categorized into two levels, surface and deep; while the former impedes the performance of individuals and groups, the latter improves it. Although existing research discuss each of these aspects, the effects of their interaction have not been sufficiently explored. In addition, management of the relationship between diversity and performance has not been discussed in-depth. Recent studies have shed light on the concept of “inclusion” in the area of diversity management. The purpose of this study is to examine empirically how inclusion enhances an employee's work motivation.

     How workplace diversity influences an employee's behavior and how inclusion works in an organization are explained through the social categorical theory, and we have derived hypotheses based on this theory. Data to test the theoretical model were collected through panel survey to avoid common method bias. The findings are as follows: (1) inclusion behavior from organizational management enhanced the degree of an employee's identification with his/her organization; (2) when organizational identification was high, both surface-level and deep-level workplace diversity positively influenced cooperation-oriented motivation. Additionally, surface-level diversity increased deep-level diversity. However, when organizational identification was low, surface-level diversity decreased cooperation-oriented motivation. Inclusion behavior enhances organizational identification, and thus indirectly manages employees' cooperation-oriented motivation.

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