Towards a dialectic perspective on formalization in interorganizational relationships: How alliance managers capitalize on the duality inherent in contracts, rules and procedures

Organization Studies

Volumn 28, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 437-466

  Vlaar, Paul W L ^a   Van Den Bosch, Frans A J ^b   Volberda, Henk W ^b  

^a VU UNIVERSITY AMSTERDAM   (Netherlands)

^b ERASMUS UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

Dialectics; Formalization; Interorganizational cooperation; Trade offs

Indexed keywords

EID: 34247247721     PISSN: 01708406     EISSN: 17413044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0170840607078003     Document Type: Article

References (113)

1. Adler, Paul 1993 ' The learning Bureaucracy: New united motor manufacturing' in Research in organizational behavior. B. M. Staw and L. L. Cummings (eds), 15: 111 194. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
2. Anderson, Shannon, and Henri Dekker 2000 ' Management control for market transactions: The relation between transaction characteristics, incomplete contract design and subsequent performance'. Management Science 51: 1734 1752.
3. Avadikyan, Arman, Patrick Llerena, Mireille Matt, Anne Rozan, and Sandrine Wolff 2001 ' Organizational rules, codification and knowledge creation in inter-organisation cooperative agreements'. Research Policy 30: 1443 1458.
4. Balogun, Julia, and Gerry Johnso 2004 ' Organizational restructuring and middle manager sensemaking'. Academy of Management Journal 47 / 4: 523 549 549.
5. Baum, Joel, and Tim Rowley 2002 ' Companion to organizations: An introduction' in The Blackwell companion to organizations. J. A. C. Baum (ed.), 1 34. Oxford: Blackwell.
6. Bazeley, Patricia, and Lyn Richards 2000 The NVivo 1977 'Organisations; A dialectical view'. Administrative Science Quarterly 22: 1 21.
7. Blau, Peter 1955 The dynamics of bureaucracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
8. Boisot, Max 1998 Knowledge assets. New York: Oxford University Press.
9. Brown, Shola, and Kathleen Eisenhardt 1997 ' The art of continuous change: Linking complexity theory and time-based evolution in relentlessly shifting organizations '. Administrative Science Quarterly 42 / 1: 1 34.
10. Cardinal, Laura, Sim Sitkin, and Chris Long 2004 ' Balancing and rebalancing in the creation and evolution of organizational control '. Organization Science 15 / 4: 411 431.
11. Carson, Stephen, Anoop Madhok, and Tao Wu 2006 ' Uncertainty, opportunism and governance: The effects of volatility and ambiguity on formal and relational contracting'. Academy of Management Journal 49 / 5: 1058 1077.
12. Child, John 1997 ' Strategic choice in the analysis of action, structure, organizations, and environments: Retrospect and prospect '. Organization Studies 18 / 1: 43 476.
13. Clegg, Stewart, Tyrone Pitsis, Thekla Rura-Polley, and Marton Marosszeky 2002 a ' Governmentality matters: Designing an alliance culture of interorganizational collaboration for managing projects'. Organization Studies 23 / 3: 317 337.
14. Clegg, Stewart, Joo Vieira da Cunha, and Miguel Pina e Cunha 2002 b ' Management paradoxes: A relational view. Human Relations 55 / 5: 483 503.
15. Cooray, Janek, and Shiran Ratnatunga 2001 ' Buyersupplier relationships: A case study of a Japanese and western alliance '. Long Range Planning 34: 727 740.
16. Das, T.K. and Bing-Sheng Teng 2000 ' Instabilities of strategic alliances: An internal tensions perspective. Organization Science 11 / 1: 77 101.
17. De Boer, Michiel, Frans Van den Bosch, and Henk Volberda 1999 ' Managing organizational knowledge integration in the emerging multimedia complex'. Journal of Management Studies 36 / 3: 379 398.
18. Delmar, Frdric, and Scott Shane 2003 ' Does business planning facilitate the development of new ventures? ' Strategic Management Journal 24: 1165 1185.
19. De Rond, Mark 2003 Strategic alliances as social facts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
20. De Rond, Mark, and Hamid Bouchiki 2004 ' On the dialectics of strategic alliances'. Organization Science 15 / 1: 56 69.
21. Dougherty, Deborah, and Helen Takacs 2004 ' Team play: Heedful interrelating as the boundary for innovation '. Long Range Planning 37: 569 590.
22. Eisenhardt, Kathleen 1989 a ' Agency theory: An assessment and review '. Academy of Management Review 14 / 1: 57 74.
23. Eisenhardt, Kathleen 1989 b ' Building theories from case study research '. Academy of Management Review 14 / 4: 532 550.
24. Eisenhardt, Kathleen 2000 ' Paradox, spirals, ambivalence: Language of change and pluralism '. Academy of Management Review 25 / 4: 703 705.
25. Fehr, Ernst, and Armin Falk 2002 ' Psychological foundations of incentives '. European Economic Review 46: 687 724.
26. Foss, Kirsten, and Nicolai Foss 2005 ' Resources and transaction costs: How property rights economics furthers the resource-based view '. Strategic Management Journal 26: 541 553.
27. Galbraith, Jay 1977 Organizational design. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
28. Ghoshal, Sumantra, and Peter Moran 1996 ' Bad for practice: A critique of the transaction cost theory '. Academy of Management Review 21: 13 47.
29. Goold, Michael, and John Quinn 1990 ' The paradox of strategic controls '. Strategic Management Journal 11: 43 57.
30. Gouldner, Alvin 1954 Patterns of industrial bureaucracy. New York: Free Press.
31. Grandori, Anna 1997 ' An organizational assessment of interfirm coordination modes '. Organization Studies 18 / 6: 897 925.
32. Grimaldi, R., and S. Torrisi 2001 ' Codified-tacit and general-specific knowledge in the division of labour among firms: A study of the software industry'. Research Policy 30: 1425 1442.
33. Gulati, Ranjay, and Harbir Singh 1998 ' The architecture of cooperation: Managing coordination costs and appropriation concerns in strategic alliances '. Administrative Science Quarterly 43: 781 814.
34. Hage, Jerald, and Michael Aiken 1966 ' Organizational alienation: A comparative analysis'. American Sociological Review 31 / 4: 497 507.
35. Hatch, Mary Jo 1999 ' Exploring the empty spaces of organizing: How improvisational jazz helps redescribe organizational structure'. Organization Studies 20 / 1: 75 100.
36. Hendry, John 2002 ' The principal's other problems: Incompetence and the specification of objectives '. Academy of Management Review 27 / 1: 98 113.
37. Huxham, Chris, and Nikolas Beech 2003 ' Contrary prescriptions: Recognizing good practice tensions in management '. Organization Studies 24 / 1: 69 93.
38. Ireland, Duane, Michael Hitt, and Deepa Vaidyanath 2002 ' Alliance management as a source of competitive advantage'. Journal of Management 28 / 3: 413 446.
39. Jap, Sandy, and Shankar Ganesan 2000 ' Control mechanisms and the relationship life cycle: Implications for safeguarding specific investments and developing commitment '. Journal of Marketing Research 37: 227 245.
40. Kale, Prashant, Jeff Dyer, and Harbir Singh 2001 ' Value creation and success in strategic alliances: Alliancing skills and the role of alliance structure and systems '. European Management Journal 19 / 5: 463 471.
41. Katz, Daniel, and Robert Kahn 1966 The social psychology of organizations. New York: John Wiley.
42. Kelley, H.H., and J.L. Michaela 1980 ' Attribution theory and research'. Annual Review of Psychology 31: 457 501.
43. Ketokivi, Mikko, and Xavier Cataer 2004 ' Strategic planning as an integrative device '. Administrative Science Quarterly 49: 337 365.
44. Klein, Benjamin, Robert Crawford, and Armen Alchian 1978 ' Vertical integration appropriable rents, and the competitive contracting process '. Journal of Law and Economics 21 / 2: 297 326.
45. Klein Woolthuis, Rosalinde, Bas Hillebrand, and Bart Nooteboom 2005 ' Trust, contract and relationship development '. Organization Studies 26 / 6: 813 840.
46. Kotabe, Masaaki, Xavier Martin, and Hiroshi Domoto 2003 ' Gaining from vertical partnerships: Knowledge transfer, relationship duration, and supplier performance improvement in the US and Japanese automotive industries '. Strategic Management Journal 24 / 4: 293 316.
47. Koza, Mitchell, and Arie Lewin 1998 ' The co-evolution of strategic alliances '. Organization Science 9 / 3: 255 264.
48. Kreps, David 1997 ' The interaction between norms and economic incentives: Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives '. American Economic Review 87 / 2: 359 364.
49. Lane, Peter, and Michael Lubatkin 1998 ' Relative absorptive capacity and interorganizationallearning ' Strategic Management Journal 19: 461 477.
50. Langley, Ann 1988 ' The roles of formal strategic planning '. Long Range Planning 21 / 3: 40 50.
51. Lewin, Arie, and Henk Volberda 1999 ' Prolegomena on coevolution: A framework for research on strategy and new organizational forms '. Organization Science 10 / 5: 519 534.
52. Lewis, Marianne 2000 ' Exploring paradox: Toward a more comprehensive guide '. Academy of Management Review 25 / 4: 760 776.
53. Lui, Steven, and Hang-Yue Ngo 2004 ' The role of trust and contractual safeguards on cooperation in non-equity alliances'. Journal of Management 30 / 4: 471 485.
54. Luo, Yadong 2002 ' Contract, cooperation and performance in international joint ventures '. Strategic Management Journal 23: 903 919.
55. Lusch, Robert, and James Brown 1996 ' Interdependency, contracting, and relational behavior in marketing channels'. Journal of Marketing 60: 19 38.
56. McCracken, Grant 1988 The long interview. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
57. Macneil, Ian 1980 The new social contract: An inquiry into modern contractual relations. London: Yale University Press.
58. Madhok, Anoop 2002 ' Reassessing the fundamentals and beyond: Ronald Coase, the transaction cost and resource-based theories of the firm and the institutional structure of production '. Strategic Management Journal 23: 535 550.
59. Madhok, Anoop, and Stephan Tallman 1998 ' Resources, transactions, and rents: Managing value through interfirm collaborative relationships '. Organization Science 9 / 3: 326 339.
60. March, James, and Herbert Simon 1958 Organizations. New York: John Wiley.
61. Marginson, David, and Stuart Ogden 2005 ' Coping with ambiguity through the budget: The positive effects of budgetary targets on managers' budgeting behaviors'. Accounting, Organizations and Society 30: 435 456.
62. Masten, Scott 1996 ' Empirical research in transaction cost economics: Challenges, progress, and directions' in Transaction cost economics. J. Groenewegen (ed.), 43 64. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
63. Mayer, Kyle, and Nicholas Argyres 2004 ' Learning to contract: Evidence from the personal computer industry '. Organization Science 15 / 4: 394 410.
64. Merton, Robert 1957 Social theory and social structure. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
65. Meyer, John, and Brian Rowan 1977 ' Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony'. American journal of Sociology 83: 340 366.
66. Milewicz, John, and Paul Herbig 1996 ' Differences in market signaling behavior between manufacturers and service firms '. Journal of Professional Services Marketing 14 / 2: 3 23.
67. Mintzberg, Arthur 1994 The rise and fall of strategic planning. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.
68. Nooteboom, Bart 1999 Inter-firm alliances: Analysis and design. London: Routledge.
69. Nygaard, Arne, and Robert Dahlstrom 2002 ' Role stress and effectiveness in horizontal alliances '. Journal of Marketing 66: 61 82.
70. Ouchi, William 1979 ' A conceptual framework for the design of organizational control mechanisms '. Management Science 25: 833 848.
71. Oxley, Joanne 1997 ' Appropriability hazards and governance in strategic alliances: A transaction cost approach'. Journal of Law Economics and Organization 13: 387 409.
72. Peng, Kaipeng, and Richard Nisbett 1999 ' Culture, dialecticism, and reasoning about contradiction '. American Psychologist 54: 741 754.
73. Poppo, Laura, and Todd Zenger 2002 ' Do formal contracts and relational governance function as substitutes or complements? ' Strategic Management Journal 23: 707 725.
74. Quinn, Robert 1988 Beyond rational management: Mastering the paradoxes and competing demands of high performance. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass.
75. Ring, Peter, and Andrew Van de Ven 1989 ' Formal and informal dimensions of transactions' in Research on management of innovation: The Minnesota studies. A. H. Van de Ven, H. L. Angle, and M. S. Poole (eds), 171 192. New York: Ballinger.
76. Ring, Peter, and Andrew Van de Ven 1994 ' Structuring cooperative relationships between organizations'. Strategic Management Journal 13 / 7: 483 499.
77. Ring, Peter, Yves Doz, and Paul Olk 2005 ' Managing formation processes in RD consortia '. California Management Review 47: 137 156.
78. Rose, Nikolas, and Peter Miller 1992 ' Political power beyond the state: The problematics of government '. British Journal of Sociology 43 / 2: 173 207.
79. Sampson, Rachelle 2003 ' The role of lawyers in strategic alliances '. Case Western Law Review 53 / 4: 909 927.
80. Sampson, Rachelle 2004 ' The cost of misaligned governance in RD alliances '. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 20 / 2: 484 526.
81. Schwartz, Alan, and Robert Scott 2003 ' Contract theory and the limits of contract law '. Yale Law Journal 113 / 3: 541 619.
82. Schweitzer, Maurice, Lisa Ordez, and Bambi Douma 2004 ' Goal setting as a motivator of unethical behavior '. Academy of Management Journal 47 / 3: 422 432.
83. Scott, Richard 2003 Organizations: rational, natural and open systems. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
84. Shaw, John, Eric Wild, and Jason Colquitt 2003 ' To justify or excuse? A meta-analytical review of the effects of explanations'. Journal of Applied Psychology 88 / 3: 444 458.
85. Shenkar, Oded, and Yoram Zeira 1992 ' Role conflict and role ambiguity of chief executive officers in international joint ventures '. Journal of International Business Studies 23 / 1: 55 75.
86. Simon, H.A. 1997 Administrative behavior. New York: The Free Press.
87. Simonin, Bernard 1999 ' Ambiguity and the process of knowledge transfer in strategic alliances '. Strategic Management Journal 20: 595 623.
88. Simons, Robert 1995 Levers of control: How managers use innovative control systems to drive strategic renewal. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
89. Singh, Kulwant 1997 ' The impact of technological complexity and interfirm cooperation on business survival '. Academy of Management Journal 40 / 2: 339 367.
90. Sitkin, Sim, and Robert Bies 1993 ' The legalistic organization: Definitions, dimensions, and dilemmas '. Organization Science 4: 345 351.
91. Sobrero, Maurizio, and Stephan Schrader 1998 ' Structuring inter-firm relationships: A meta-analytic approach '. Organization Studies 19 / 4: 595 615.
92. Steensma, Herman, and Femke van Milligen 2003 ' Bases of power, procedural justice and outcomes of mergers: The push and pull factors of influence tactics'. Journal of Collective Negotiations in the Public Sector 30 / 2: 113 134.
93. Stinchcombe, Arthur 2001 When formality works: Authority and abstraction in law and organization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
94. Strauss, Anselm, and Juliet Corbin 1998 Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. London: Sage Publications.
95. Van de Ven, Andrew 1992 ' Suggestions for studying strategy process: A research note'. Strategic Management Journal 13: 169 188.
96. Van de Ven, Andrew, and Marshall Poole 1995 ' Explaining development and change in organizations'. Academy of Management Review 20: 510 540.
97. Vermeulen, Patrick 2001 ' Organizing product innovation in financial services'. Doctoral dissertation.
98. Vieira da Cunha, Joo, Stewart Clegg, and Miguel Pina e Cunha 2002 ' Management, paradox, and permanent dialectics' in Management and organization paradoxes. S. R. Clegg (ed.), 11 40. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
99. Vlaar, Paul W. L., Frans A. J. Van Den Bosch, and Henk W. Volberda 2006 ' Coping with problems of understanding in interorganizational relationships: Using formalization as a means to make sense'. Organization Studies 27 / 11: 1617 1638.
100. Vlaar, P.W.L., Frans A.J. Van Den Bosch, and Henk W. Volberda forthcoming ' On the evolution of trust, distrust, and formal coordination and control in interorganizational relationships: towards an integrative framework '. Group and Organization Management.
101. Volberda, Henk 1998 Building the flexible firm. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
102. Volberda, Henk, and Arie Lewin 2003 ' Co-evolutionary dynamics within and between firms: From evolution to co-evolution '. Journal of Management Studies 40 / 8: 2111 2136.
103. Walgenbach, Peter 2001 ' The production of distrust by means of producing trust '. Organization Studies 22 / 4: 693 714.
104. Walsh, James, and Robert Dewar 1987 ' Formalization and the organizational life cycle '. Journal of Management Studies 24 / 3: 215 231.
105. Weick, Karl 1995 Sensemaking in organizations. London: Sage.
106. Weick, Karl 2001 Making sense of the organization. Oxford: Blackwell.
107. Weick, Karl, and Karlene Roberts 1993 ' Collective mind and organizational reliability: The case of flight carrier operations on an aircraft carrier deck '. Administrative Science Quarterly 38: 357 381.
108. Williamson, Oliver 1985 The economic institutions of capitalism. New York: Free Press.
109. Wright, Mike, and Andy Lockett 2003 ' The structure and management of alliances: Syndication in the venture capital industry '. Journal of Management Studies 40 / 8: 2073 2102.
110. Yin, Robert 1994 Case study research: Design and methods, 2 nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
111. Yu, Jisun, Rhonda Engelman, and Andrew Van de Ven 2005 ' The integration journey: An attention-based view of the merger and acquisition integration process'. Organization Studies 26 / 10: 1501 1528.
112. Zeffane, Rachid 1989 ' Centralization or formalization? Indifferences curves for strategies of control '. Organization Studies 10 / 3: 327 352.
113. Zollo, Maurizio, and Harbir Singh 2004 ' Deliberate learning in corporate acquisitions: Post-acquisition strategies and integration capability in US bank mergers '. Strategic Management Journal 25 / 13: 1233 1256.