Business Systems and Organizational Capabilities: The Institutional Structuring of Competitive CompetencesTwenty-first century capitalism has been marked by an increasing international economic independence, and considerable differences between dominant economic systems of coordination and control. In this context, national competition and coordination within industries has increased, but the governance of leading firms, and the kinds of competences they develop, remain quite diverse. This book shows how different kinds of firms become established and develop different capabilities indifferent societies, and as a result are effective in particular kinds of industries and markets.By integrating institutionalist approaches to organizations with the capabilities theory of the firm, Richard Whitley suggests how we can understand this combination of diversity and integration by developing the comparative business systems framework in three major ways. First, by identifying the particular circumstances in which distinctive business systems and innovation systems become nationally established and reproduced, as well as how changing endogenous and exogenous pressures haveaffected the major kinds of business systems that developed in many OECD states during the postwar period. Second, by showing how variations in authority sharing with employees and business partners and in the provision of organizational careers lead institutional regimes to affect the nature oforganizational capabilities that dominant firms develop and enable them to deal with different kinds of risks and opportunities in particular technologies and markets. Third, by identifying the circumstances in which multinational firms are likely to develop distinctive transnational organizational capabilities through such authority sharing and careers, and so become different kinds of companies from their more domestically focused competitors. In many, if not most, cases of cross nationalmanagerial coordination, these conditions rarely exist, and so the extent to which multinational firms do indeed constitute distinct organizational forms and strategic actors is much less than is sometimes claimed. |
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Business Systems and Organizational Capabilities: The Institutional ... Richard Whitley Limited preview - 2007 |
Business Systems and Organizational Capabilities: The Institutional ... Richard Whitley No preview available - 2007 |
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Additionally alliances arm’s length authority sharing banks become behaviour biotechnology business environments business partners business systems capital markets cohesion collaborative collective competition commitments companies considerable contrast cooperative hierarchies cross-national develop distinctive different kinds domestic economic activities effective elites employees encourage enterprise software especially established European expatriate expertise extent firm-specific foreign subsidiaries Germany highly host economies ideal types industries innovation systems innovative competences institutional frameworks institutional regimes institutions governing integration inter-firm internationalization investment investors involvement Japan Japanese kinds of firms knowledge and skills labour markets labour unions large firms learning limited long-term major managers market economies middleware MNCs networks nomic organizational capabilities organizational careers organizational learning particular patterns PBFs policies postwar problem solving production projects public science system radically relatively risks role sectors Silicon Valley specific standardized strategic managers strong subsectors teams technical tional transnational transnational institutions vary