Article Abstracts

Articles

Competing for Attention in Knowledge Markets: Electronic Document Dissemination in a Management Consulting Company
Morten T. Hansen - Harvard University
Martine R. Haas - Harvard University

The relatively recent explosion of information available in electronic forms makes attention, rather than information, the scarce resource in organizations. In this paper, we theorize about how suppliers of electronic information compete for this resource and use data on document database use in a management consulting company to show that document suppliers that occupied a crowded segment of the firm's internal knowledge market gained less attention from employees (measured as monthly use of their database) but were able to combat this negative competitive effect by being selective and concentrated in their document supply. This result reveals a paradox of information supply in competitive information markets: the less information a supplier offered, the more it was used, because the supplier developed a reputation for quality and focus. We suggest that this view of competition for attention can also be applied to the competition among Web sites in external information markets.

Institutional Sources of Practice Variation: Staffing College and University Recycling Programs
Michael Lounsbury - Cornell University

In this paper, I examine how variation arises in the staffing of recycling programs at colleges and universities. Through initial fieldwork, I identified two basic recycling program forms. Some schools adopted recycling programs that entailed the creation of new, full-time recycling manager positions that were filled by ecological activists. Other schools adopted more minimalist programs that were staffed by current employees who were more ecologically ambivalent and assumed recycling management responsibilities as a part-time, additional duty. Results of a subsequent survey of a population of colleges and universities show that this variation in staffing was importantly shaped by the Student Environmental Action Coalition, a national social movement organization that provided resources and support to student environmental groups at particular schools. Implications for the study of how field-level organizations shape the content of organizational practices are discussed.

Institutions, Exchange Relations, and the Emergence of New Fields: Regulatory Policies and Independent Power Production in America, 1978-1992
Michael V. Russo - University of Oregon

This paper analyzes how a new field, independent (or non-utility) power production, was created by a federal mandate that electric utilities purchase power from private generating sources and how the field was populated. Results show that key rules that state regulatory bodies adopted or rejected regulating exchange between independent power producers and utilities were influential predictors of organizational foundings. Results also show that collective action by independent power producers boosted foundings. Finally, if the preexisting relationship between utilities and regulators was one of accommodation, foundings were suppressed. The paper examines these results in view of economic and sociological perspectives on public policies, spotlighting the vital role of institutions in early population dynamics.

Challengers, Elites, and Owning Families: A Social Class Theory of Corporate Acquisitions in the 1960s
Donald Palmer - University of California, Davis
Brad N. Barber - University of California, Davis

This paper analyzes data on 461 large U.S. industrial corporations to determine the factors that led large firms to participate in the wave of diversifying acquisitions that peaked in the late 1960s. We elaborate and test a class theory of corporate acquisitions, maintaining that firms pursued acquisitions in this period when they were commanded by well-networked challengers who were central in elite social networks but relatively marginal with respect to social status, isolated from the resistance of established elites, and free from control of owning families. We also consider a wide range of factors highlighted by alternative accounts of acquisition likelihood; including resource dependence, institutional pressures, and principal-agent conflicts. The results provide support for our main theoretical arguments, even when controls related to alternative explanations are taken into account.

The Social Networks of High and Low Self-Monitors: Implications for Workplace Performance
Ajay Mehra - University of Cincinnati
Martin Kilduff - Pennsylvania State University
Daniel J. Brass - University of Kentucky

This article examines how different personality types create and benefit from social networks in organizations. Using data from a 116-member high-technology firm, we tested how self-monitoring orientation and network position related to work performance. First, chameleon-like high self-monitors were more likely than true-to-themselves low self-monitors to occupy central positions in social networks. Second, for high (but not for low) self-monitors, longer service in the organization related to the occupancy of strategically advantageous network positions. Third, self-monitoring and centrality in social networks independently predicted individuals' workplace performance. The results paint a picture of people shaping the networks that constrain and enable performance.