Correlating power in organizations to organizational adaptation, the resource dependence perspective has developed an influential theoretical framework for the study of power in organizations and made a considerable contribution to advances in that field of studies. However, the resource dependence perspective has failed to explain important aspects of power phenomena surrounding organizational cognition about criticality of resources or problems. Thus, the purpose of this article is, on the basis of findings of critical studies on power in organizations, to make a critical comment on the argument of the resource dependence perspective and to elucidate its theoretical limitations, and to indicate issues for further research of power in organizations.

Only a few empirical studies have discussed transfer phenomenon of a conflict in a triangulated relationship. This study examines how transfer of intra-organizational conflict affects cross-functional communication by analyzing data obtained from Japanese salespeople. In a competitive situation among salespeople, professional information from cross-functional member can become competitive advantage. Therefore, communication with other functional member will be more important when intra-organizational conflict becomes bigger. The results indicate that conflict concerning the allocation of resources or roles is transferred to relationship between salesperson and engineer; hence, communication between salespeople and engineer is increased. It is also revealed that communication between salesperson and engineer is positively affected by innovation of the sales department and harmony of cross-functional relationship. In addition, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed in this research.

The significance of geographical consolidation of departments within a company has been studied academically as physical co-location. In this research, the dysfunctional effects of co-location were studied with the case of the integration and the separation of Nissan Motorʼs R&D centers.
We found that when there is physical proximity, both the greater the difference in power among departments and the lesser the trust among departments, the more the operation of the department with superior power is likely to be prioritized rather than cooperation among co-located departments. That is to say, we think that inter-departmental power and trust explain how dysfunction in co-location emerges.

This study focuses on reality shock, and the purpose of the study is to determine aspects of reality shock that influence young workersʼ intention to early turnover, organizational commitments, and organizational socialization. A comparative analysis was conducted between young white-collar workers and nurses. The results revealed that there was a variety of reality shock young workers encountered, and that different types of reality shock influenced early turnover intentions, organizational commitment, and organizational socializations.

This paper first theoretically defines “the role-based ranking policy” which has been recently prevailing among Japanese firms gradually. Next, the paper specifies conditions in which this policy works. The role-based policy includes both features of the skill-based policy and the job-based policy. According to a statistical analysis, a negative effect from the role-based policy on firm performance is diminished by a centralization of power to human resources (HR) department. The paper reveals that a combination of the role-based policy and the centralization of power to HR department functions in particular when a ratio of number of HR staff to number of regular employee is low. This finding might indicate that the lower the ratio is, the more rigorous firms select high-skilled HR staffs.

The paper statistically examines the influence of the Human Resource Management (HRM) systemʼs degree of consistency on organizational performance in reflecting a certain HR policy. The results of the study indicate that organizational performance tends to be maximized, when the degree of matching between “base system” and “individual function” is moderate, with a focus on the policy of equity in introducing HR practices between regular employees and non-regular employees. It is also revealed that with regards to the pursuit of consistency in the HRM system, functions and dysfunctions are simultaneously involved.

Identifying a business domain is a core component of a competitive strategy. Many scholars have analyzed the domain as the sphere of activities. This paper presents a concept of the domain as one with a hierarchy. Since a variety of hierarchies exist in the same territory of the business domain, companies with same business domain might have various recognitions on the domainʼs hierarchy. Based on this perspective, the hierarchy of domains in the business of liquid crystal display TV of Sharp and of Samsung Electronics are analyzed in this study.