Cristina B. Gibson and Mary E. Zellmer-Bruhn state that managers who struggle with implementing teams across cultures can use metaphor as a tool to unlock teaming expectations and guide teaming practice.
Research and Insights Archive
Research and Insights from the Center for Effective Organizations
Available Content
Work/Life Balance: Wisdom or Whining
Edy Greenblatt shares how President George W. Bush, a home-based pharmaceutical sales representative, and a Club Med flying trapeze instructor have at least one thing in common. For each, the ability to manage the work/life balance demands on themselves and their key employees’ is a strategic imperative.
Designing the Knowledge Enterprise: Beyond Programs and Tools
S. Mohrman, D. Finegold, and J. Klein find that how effectively firms generate, leverage, and apply knowledge is a function of four work behaviors: focusing on system performance rather than on narrow technical outcomes; following systematic processes; sharing knowledge, and trying new approaches.
Complex Collaborations in the New Global Economy
Susan G. Cohen and Don Mankin state that traditional forms of collaboration — between individuals and within teams — are not sufficient for competing effectively in the new, demanding global business environment.
Leveraging Adversity for Strategic Advantage
A. Levenson shares how in 2000-01 companies were hit hard by a number of economic shocks, including industry-specific cycles, the stock market collapse, and national recession.
Harvesting What They Grow: Can Firms Get a Return on Investments in General Skills?
D. Finegold, G. Benson, and S. Mohrman explain that economic theory predicts that firms will not invest in developing employees’ general skills because unlike investments in physical capital, this human capital can walk out the door at any time. Companies, however, are spending billions of dollars each year on general education and training programs.
Meeting the Performance Challenge: Calculating ROI for Virtual Teams
A. Levenson and S. Cohen explain that virtual teams are all the rage these days. The reasons for their prevalence are well known. But when does it make sense to operate virtually versus face-to-face (FTF)?
A Temporary Route to Advancement? The Career Opportunities for Low-Skilled Workers in Temporary Employment
D. Finegold, A. Levenson, and M. Van Buren explain that the rapid growth of the temporary staffing industry in the 1990s poses a paradox to researchers interested in the labor market for low-skilled workers.
Designing Work for Knowledge-Based Competition
Susan Mohrman proposes a framework for the design of work in the knowledge enterprise-firms that compete based on their knowledge leadership and knowledge management capabilities.
When Two (or More) Heads are Better than One: The Promise and Pitfalls of Shared Leadership
Shared leadership is a topic that is largely ignored in the research literature. Despite this, J. O’Toole, J. Galbraith, and E. Lawler believe the topic warrants additional theoretical and empirical attention.
Contextual Determinants of Organizational Ambidexterity
Cristina B. Gibson and Julian Birkinshaw empirically investigate predictors and consequences of organisational ambidexterity, defined as the capacity to simultaneously achieve alignment and adaptability.
Seven Challenges to Virtual Team Performance: Lessons from Sabre, Inc.
Bradley L. Kirkman, Benson Rosen, Cristina B. Gibson, Paul E. Tesluk, and Simon O. McPherson share that advances in communications and information technology create new opportunities for organizations to build and manage virtual teams.