http://ejbrm.com EJBRM News en © 2012, EJBRM Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:57:35 +0000 Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:57:35 +0000 EJBRM EJBRM EJBRM RSS generator http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss This paper considers the use of narrative exchanges in the form of letters and conversations as a legitimate research method when collecting “secret data” within organisational settings. It refers to narrative exchanges the authors’ undertook over a three-month period, regarding their different perspectives on their University Staff Appraisal System. It explores personal tensions and anxieties that reside within the “secret data” of organisational life. It also reveals a concern regarding “professional commitments” with colleagues and the “managerial” edicts that dominate their work environment. From a “critical management” perspective, the paper initially provides an overview of the postmodern position and its impact upon organisational power relationships and knowledge, as individuals strive to attain and gain their authentic, personal voice within the domination of modernistic organisations. It then explains the methodological approach used for the narrative exchanges and describes the context and relationship of the two colleagues. Commencing from a discussion of organisational policy and postmodernist critiques the conversations increasingly developed into a dialogical meditation on the relationship between “self” and “other”. These narratives revealed, through their autographical, autobiographical and at times surreal discourses, messages that are often absent from conventional research data. The paper concludes with a perspective regarding critical management in which individual values, dignity, honesty and respect are upheld. Thus, narrative exchanges of this kind allow dialogical conversations in which statements are agreed, accepted, challenged or sometimes synthesised to be used as a means to explore and collect legitimate “secret data” of organisational life within an environment that respects the ethical and value systems of the participants engaged in narrative exchanges. http://www.ejbrm.com/volume10/issue1/p1 Andrew Armitage and Alan Thornton http://www.ejbrm.com/volume10/issue1/p1 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000 The article depicts a mixed methodology case which uses a qualitative-quantitative-qualitative approach. The research described used qualitative work with expert interviews for data collection, a quantitative analysis of the interviews and then a qualitative method of final scenario development for analysing and presenting the results. The case is offered to demonstrate that the introduction of the quantitative step of a cross-impact-analysis, which gives a mixed methodology, was beneficial for the overall research leading to surprising results that could not have been achieved with only a qualitative approach. Having a quantitative analysis step in-between, which demonstrated the most frequent and consistent results out of a wide range of overall possibilities, helped reduce researcher bias, thereby increasing the credibility of the findings. The paper concludes that judiciously used mixed methodology in general, and this approach in particular, will give researchers using qualitative data collection a much stronger foundation in terms of the analysis and display of data. http://www.ejbrm.com/volume10/issue1/p9 Matthias Muskat, Deborah Blackman and Birgit Muskat. http://www.ejbrm.com/volume10/issue1/p9 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000 Though business strategy has long been the subject of academic interest, neither the question of the unified philosophical paradigm that govern it, nor the scientific disciplines that guide it has not yet been resolved (Mintzberg et al.1998). We argue that by adopting the rhizome paradigm to explain business strategy we can set the ground for understanding the intellectual foundation of business strategy and resolve the diverse, inconsistent or one may say complementary, definitions of business strategy. The article starts by presenting the various concepts of business strategy. It then portrays the many scientific disciplines that impinge on strategy, showing how none of them may be considered as a base for a unified paradigm. Turning to philosophy for a solution, we try first to look into the traditional western arbores cent philosophies but find that they do not give the needed framework for business strategy. The next step is to look at the rhizome philosophy as a possible paradigm. We follow with a brief description of the six principals of the rhizome, demonstrating how it does offer the necessary way to blend the influences of the various scientific disciplines on business strategy. We then explain how the rhizome paradigm serves to establish an intellectual foundation for business strategy that provides us with a rationalization for the coexistence of its many definitions. We conclude by describing the contribution of this article to the emerging discipline of business strategy as well as suggest directions for further research. http://www.ejbrm.com/volume10/issue1/p22 Eli Noy and Aim Deulle Luski http://www.ejbrm.com/volume10/issue1/p22 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000 This paper highlights theoretical and mathematical differences between formative and reflective measurement models, in the context of academic SEM oriented research in Operations and Manufacturing Management, an area of significant current interest. It discusses problems associated with measurement model misspecification. It further illustrates, using survey data, the effects of possible misspecification on model fit parameters and path coefficients in a nomological model, using the Partial Least Squares (PLS) approach. It then proposes guidelines for the use of the PLS methodology for analyzing formative measurement models. http://www.ejbrm.com/volume10/issue1/p34 Subhadip Roy and Monideepa Tarafdar, T.S. Ragu-Nathan and Erica Marsillac http://www.ejbrm.com/volume10/issue1/p34 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:01:01 +0000