Chain Affiliation and Human Resource Investments: Evidence from the Restaurant Industry

Drawing on organizational theory, agency theory, and research in strategic human resource management, this study explores how chain affiliation influences human resource (HR) investments using data from a nationally random survey of restaurant establishments. We propose that chain-affiliated units will make different investments in those areas of the HR system where chains establish superior organizational routines compared with nonaffiliated units. By contrast, we argue that in the absence of chain routines, ownership incentives will drive differences in human resource investments. Specifically, we find that franchisee-owned units focus more on cost reduction by underinvesting in human resource practices compared with company-owned units and independently owned units when organizational routines are not provided by the chain. We provide further support for our theoretical arguments using additional data on multiunit ownership and franchisor influence. Finally, we conduct supplemental analyses to explore the relationship between different human resource investments and two important organizational outcomes: employee turnover and customer satisfaction ratings from Yelp. Our results highlight the types of human resource practices that are important for service work and suggest that the provision of organizational routines can have important implications for the long-run success of chains and their units.

Merging existing practices with new ones: the adjustment of organizational routines to using cancer patient pathways in primary healthcare

Background The introduction of new tools can bring unintended consequences for organizational routines. Cancer Patient Pathways (CPP) were introduced into the Swedish healthcare system in 2015 to shorten time to diagnosis and treatment. Primary healthcare (PHC) plays a central role since cancer diagnosis often begins in PHC units. Our study aimed to understand how PHC units adjusted organizational routines to utilizing CPPs. Method Six PHC units of varied size from both urban and rural areas in northern Sweden were included. Grounded theory method was used to collect and analyse group interviews at each unit. Nine group interviews with nurses and physicians, for a total of 41 participants, were performed between March and November 2019. The interviews focused on CPPs as tools, the PHC units’ routines and providers’ experiences with using CPPs in their daily work. Results Our analysis captured how PHC units adjusted organizational routines to utilizing CPPs by fusing existing practices with new practices to offer better quality of care. Specifically, three overarching organizational routines within the PHC units were identified. First, Manoeuvring diverse patient needs with easier patient flow, the PHC units handled the diverse needs of the population while simultaneously drawing upon CPPs to ease the patient flow within the healthcare system. Second, (Dis) integrating internal know-how, the PHC units drew upon internal competence even when PHC know-how was not taken into account by those driving the CPP initiative. Third, Coping with unequal relationships toward secondary care, the PHC units dealt with being in an unequal position while adopting CPPs instead further decreased possibilities to influence decision-making between care-levels. Conclusion Adopting CPPs as a tool within PHC units brought various unintended consequences in organizational routines. Our study from northern Sweden illustrates that the PHC know-how needs to be integrated into the healthcare system to improve the use of new tools as CPP. Further, the relationships between different levels of care should be taken in account when introducing new tools for healthcare. Also, when adopting innovations, unintended consequences need to be further explored empirically in diverse healthcare contexts internationally in order to generate deeper knowledge in the research area.

Strategic Behavior in Family Firms

Previous research emphasizes that the participation of the family in business operations is the source of resources and capabilities that conditions the strategic behavior of the family firm. This influence has been recognized as “familiness.” However, this definition is contextualized from static reasoning that ignores the effect of family dynamics on the behavior and value generation of the family-owned business. Prior literature has recognized that the family influence has a dynamic character based on the idiosyncratic process of knowledge management that manifests itself in the company, dynamic familiness. This family capability is shaped by family organizational routines through the family influence and aims to increase its knowledge portfolios for the strategic use of its resources. This chapter addresses the relationship between family influence and the process of learning and knowledge management. The analysis of this relationship allows assessing how family influence can promote the generation of family organizational routines based on knowledge management processes.

“Making Out” While Driving: Relational and Efficiency Games in the Gig Economy

On-demand or “gig” workers show up to a workplace without walls, organizational routines, managers, or even coworkers. Without traditional organizational scaffolds, how do individuals make meaning of their work in a way that fosters engagement? Prior literature suggests that organizational practices, such as recruitment and socialization, foster group belonging and meaningfulness, which subsequently leads to engagement, and that without these practices alienation and attrition ensue. My four-year qualitative study of workers in the largest sector in the on-demand economy (ridehailing) suggests an alternative and more readily available mechanism of engagement—workplace games. Through interactions with touchpoints—in this context, the customer and the app—individuals turn their work into games they find meaningful, can control, and “win.” In the relational game, workers craft positive customer service encounters, offering gifts and extra services, in the pursuit of high customer ratings, which they track through the app’s rating system. In the efficiency game, workers set boundaries with customers, minimizing any “extra” behavior, in the pursuit of maximizing money per time spent driving and they create their own tracking tools outside the app. Whereas each game resulted in engagement—as workers were trying to “win”—games were associated with two divergent stances or relationships toward the work, with contrasting implications for retention. My findings embed meaning-making in what is fast-becoming the normal workplace, largely solitary and structured by emerging technologies, and holds insights for explaining why people remain engaged in a line of work typically deemed exploitative.

The Concept of Organizational Routines and Its Potential for Investigating Educational Initiatives in Practice: A Systematic Review of the Literature

This review examines the concept of organizational routines and its potential for investigating educational initiatives in practice. The studies in our review revealed three different approaches to routines: (1) examining organizational routines as entities, (2) (also) examining conversational routines, and (3) examining the internal structure of organizational routines. Current definitions, operationalizations, and examinations can lack clarity and validity. At present, the concept of organizational routines not only holds potential but is also ambiguous. To bolster the potential of the concept, two working definitions of organizational routines are formalized that best allow researchers to investigate initiatives in practice. These working definitions are needed to create clarity regarding the concept and for it to be able to deliver on its promise for providing meaningful and relevant information on how new initiatives actually work and unfold in practice.

Routines: towards the Complexity of Organizational Intentionality

The paper explores the topic of organizational routines from a philosophical vantage point to see how the philosophy of action may help improve its understanding in organizational research. The main goal is to show the distinctive complexity of the intentional picture of routines. In this respect, the paper clarifies the interrelations between psychological habits and routines and describes similarities and differences between them. It also highlights the special place of mindfulness as a psycho-cognitive mechanism of action meta-control in intentional explanations of routine complexity.

Organizational Routines And Organizational Change

Current theory in routine dynamics focuses on patterning (Feldman 2016) as a mechanism for stability and change in routines. We define patterning as the process of adding, removing, or reinforcing paths in the narrative network that describes an organizational routine. Patterning is a hybrid mechanism that can be driven by any of the four change motors (teleology, dialectic, lifecycle, or evolution). Through patterning, routines change and adapt over time. In this chapter, the idea of organizational routines is illustrated with examples from videogame development. The authors suggest that narrative networks provide a way to see routine dynamics as network dynamics and to analyze routines and organizational change from a fresh point of view.

Knowledge as a Source of Innovation for Entrepreneurial Firms

Knowledge is perceived as critical sources to non-technological and technological entrepreneurial firms in commercializing products and services. Knowledge-based view highlights that the diverse knowledge bases within firms reflect the firms’ performance. Gradually, the access to external and internal sources of knowledge can be transformed into stocks of knowledge thus, is embedded in such as organizational routines. Albeit the fact that entrepreneurial firms may have lack of financial capital, the exploration and exploitation of new and existing knowledge will enable firms to create value, and subsequently obtain competitive advantage as they grow. This paper will review how entrepreneurial firms can utilize knowledge for innovation.