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Abstract:
We examined how a blended workforce (one with "standard" and "nonstandard" workers in the same jobs) affected exit, "voice," and loyalty among standard employees. We found that workforce blending worsened relations between managers and employees, decreased standard employees' loyalty, and increased their interest hoth in leaving their organizations and in exercising voice through unionization. However, these effects were contingent on whether the nonstandard workers were temporary or contract and on the salary and responsibilities of the standard employees.

Abstract:
The relocation of knowledge work to emerging countries is leading to an increasing use of Globally Distributed Teams (GDT) engaged in complex tasks. In the present study, we investigate a particular type of GDT working ‘around the clock’: the 24 hours knowledge factory (Gupta, 2008). Adopting the productivity perspective on knowledge sharing (Haas and Hansen, 2005, 2007), we develop 11 hypotheses to compare technology use, knowledge sharing processes, and performance of a 24 hours knowledge factory with a co-located team. We conducted a quasi-experiment in IBM and collected both quantitative and qualitative data, over a period of 12 months, on a GDT and a co-located team. Both teams were composed of the same number of professionals, provided with the same technologies, engaged in similar tasks, and given similar deadlines. We found that they differed in their use of technologies and in knowledge sharing processes, but not in efficiency and quality of outcomes. We show how the co-located team and the GDT enacted a knowledge codification strategy and a personalization strategy respectively; in each case, they grafted elements of the other strategy in order to attain both knowledge re-use and creativity. We conclude by discussing theoretical contributions to knowledge sharing and GDT literatures, and by highlighting managerial implications to those organizations interested in developing a fully functional 24 hour knowledge factory.

Globally Distributed Teams, 24 hours knowledge factory, knowledge sharing

Abstract:
Over the past twenty years, research on social embeddedness and socially embedded exchange has grown to occupy a prominent place in organizational theory research. But while a large volume of research makes reference to the construct of social embeddedness, few papers have attempted to assess the state of our knowledge about the construct. In this paper, we take stock of our field's understanding of the construct of social embeddedness. We systemically review and analyze 346 articles in seven prominent journals to examine how researchers' use of the construct of social embeddedness has developed and changed over the twenty years since original Granovetter's (1985) article on socially-embedded exchange. We identify trends and themes in social embeddedness research and in other research that, in various ways, invokes the social embeddedness argument. Our results show that the majority of studies invoking social embeddedness use the argument for peripheral purposes. Moreover the studies using social embeddedness as their core argument concentrate on a specific element of social embeddedness, not the whole argument. We conclude our paper by outlining further steps in progress of an increased understanding of social embeddedness.

Social embeddedness, Economic sociology, Social relations, Granovetter