IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eurman/v38y2020i1p54-61.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Harnessing big data for a multifunctional theory of the firm

Author

Listed:
  • Roth, Steffen
  • Schwede, Peter
  • Valentinov, Vladislav
  • Pérez-Valls, Miguel
  • Kaivo-oja, Jari

Abstract

This paper explores the potential of big data, such as those compiled by the Google Books project, to inform the dominant theories of the firm that tend to be grounded on strong assumptions about the capitalist nature of the modern society. Combining the novel methodologies of the digital age with Niklas Luhmann's theory of functional differentiation, we draw on big data-driven abductive reasoning to redirect the attention of management scholars away from the dominant contract-based and competence theories of capitalist firms toward organizations navigating the regime of functional differentiation, which is marked by contingent and historically evolving prominence of individual function systems. We conclude that this navigation requires appropriate strategic management tools which are no longer primarily geared to the economic function system but rather entail a radical reconfiguration of the firm as a multifunctional organization.

Suggested Citation

  • Roth, Steffen & Schwede, Peter & Valentinov, Vladislav & Pérez-Valls, Miguel & Kaivo-oja, Jari, 2020. "Harnessing big data for a multifunctional theory of the firm," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 54-61.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:eurman:v:38:y:2020:i:1:p:54-61
    DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.2019.07.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237319300945
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.emj.2019.07.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Etzkowitz, Henry & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2000. "The dynamics of innovation: from National Systems and "Mode 2" to a Triple Helix of university-industry-government relations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 109-123, February.
    2. Hodgson, Geoffrey M., 2012. "From Pleasure Machines to Moral Communities," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226922713, December.
    3. Hodgson, Geoffrey M., 1998. "Competence and contract in the theory of the firm," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 179-201, April.
    4. Nicholas S. Argyres & Teppo Felin & Nicolai Foss & Todd Zenger, 2012. "Organizational Economics of Capability and Heterogeneity," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(5), pages 1213-1226, October.
    5. Kroszner,Randall S. & Putterman,Louis (ed.), 2009. "The Economic Nature of the Firm," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521193948, September.
    6. Anselm Schneider & Christopher Wickert & Emilio Marti, 2017. "Reducing Complexity by Creating Complexity: A Systems Theory Perspective on How Organizations Respond to Their Environments," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 182-208, March.
    7. Foss, Nicolai Juul, 1993. "Theories of the Firm: Contractual and Competence Perspectives," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 127-144, May.
    8. Jonathan Schad & Pratima Bansal, 2018. "Seeing the Forest and the Trees: How a Systems Perspective Informs Paradox Research," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(8), pages 1490-1506, December.
    9. Apelt, Maja & Besio, Cristina & Corsi, Giancarlo & von Groddeck, Victoria & Grothe-Hammer, Michael & Tacke, Veronika, 2017. "Resurrecting organization without renouncing society: A response to Ahrne, Brunsson and Seidl," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 8-14.
    10. Alfred Kieser & Lars Leiner, 2009. "Why the Rigour–Relevance Gap in Management Research Is Unbridgeable," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 516-533, May.
    11. Patrick M. Wright, 2017. "Making Great Theories," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(3), pages 384-390, May.
    12. Kroszner,Randall S. & Putterman,Louis (ed.), 2009. "The Economic Nature of the Firm," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521141772, September.
    13. Maria Jose Murcia & Hector O. Rocha & Julian Birkinshaw, 2018. "Business Schools at the Crossroads? A Trip Back from Sparta to Athens," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 150(2), pages 579-591, June.
    14. Andreas Georg Scherer & Andreas Rasche & Guido Palazzo & André Spicer, 2016. "Managing for Political Corporate Social Responsibility: New Challenges and Directions for PCSR 2.0," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 273-298, May.
    15. Heylighen, Francis & Lenartowicz, Marta, 2017. "The Global Brain as a model of the future information society: An introduction to the special issue," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-6.
    16. Last, Cadell, 2017. "Global Commons in the Global Brain," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 48-64.
    17. Mihaela Kelemen & Nick Rumens & Linh Chi Vo, 2018. "Questioning and Organization Studies," Post-Print hal-02065930, HAL.
    18. Ahrne, Göran & Brunsson, Nils & Seidl, David, 2016. "Resurrecting organization by going beyond organizations," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 93-101.
    19. Sebastian Raisch & Julian Birkinshaw & Gilbert Probst & Michael L. Tushman, 2009. "Organizational Ambidexterity: Balancing Exploitation and Exploration for Sustained Performance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(4), pages 685-695, August.
    20. Roth, Steffen & Clark, Carlton & Trofimov, Nikolay & Mkrtichyan, Artur & Heidingsfelder, Markus & Appignanesi, Laura & Pérez-Valls, Miguel & Berkel, Jan & Kaivo-oja, Jari, 2017. "Futures of a distributed memory. A global brain wave measurement (1800–2000)," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 307-323.
    21. Victoria Groddeck, 2011. "Rethinking the Role of Value Communication in Business Corporations from a Sociological Perspective – Why Organisations Need Value-Based Semantics to Cope with Societal and Organisational Fuzziness," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 100(1), pages 69-84, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Showimy Aldossari & Umi Asma’ Mokhtar & Ahmad Tarmizi Abdul Ghani, 2023. "Factor Influencing the Adoption of Big Data Analytics: A Systematic Literature and Experts Review," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    2. Poulis, Konstantinos, 2021. "Complexity as an empirical tendency: Promoting non-measurement as a means to enhanced understanding," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 487-496.
    3. Vladislav Valentinov, 2022. "System or Process? A Meta-theoretical Reflection on the Nature of the Firm," Systemic Practice and Action Research, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 1-14, February.
    4. Plaček, Michal & Valentinov, Vladislav & del Campo, Cristina & Vaceková, Gabriela & Ochrana, František & Šumpíková, Markéta, 2021. "Stewardship and administrative capacity in green public procurement in the Czech Republic: Evidence from a large-N survey," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 33.
    5. Jauernig, Johanna & Uhl, Matthias & Valentinov, Vladislav, 2021. "The ethics of corporate hypocrisy: An experimental approach," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 131.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vladislav Valentinov, 2022. "System or Process? A Meta-theoretical Reflection on the Nature of the Firm," Systemic Practice and Action Research, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 1-14, February.
    2. Roth, Steffen, 2021. "The great reset of management and organization theory. A European perspective," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 538-544.
    3. Valentinov, Vladislav & Chia, Robert, 2022. "Stakeholder theory: A process‐ontological perspective," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 762-776.
    4. Wenzel, Matthias & Will, Matthias Georg, 2019. "The communicative constitution of academic fields in the digital age: The case of CSR," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 517-533.
    5. Michael Grothe‐Hammer & Anders la Cour, 2020. "Organization and membership: Introduction to the Special Issue," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 419-424, May.
    6. Al-Atwi, Amer Ali & Amankwah-Amoah, Joseph & Khan, Zaheer, 2021. "Micro-foundations of organizational design and sustainability: The mediating role of learning ambidexterity," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(1).
    7. Michael Grothe-Hammer & Héloïse Berkowitz & Olivier Berthod, 2022. "Decisional organization theory: towards an integrated framework of organization," Post-Print hal-03699112, HAL.
    8. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 2010. "Limits of Transaction Cost Analysis," Chapters, in: Peter G. Klein & Michael E. Sykuta (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Transaction Cost Economics, chapter 28, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Giuseppe Marzo, 2013. "Some Unintended Consequences of Metaphors: The Case of Capital in Intellectual Capital Research," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2013(3-4), pages 111-140.
    10. Hsu, Kuang-Chung & Wright, Michael & Zhu, Zhen, 2017. "What motivates merger and acquisition activities in the upstream oil & gas sectors in the U.S.?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 240-250.
    11. Vítor Gaspar, 2010. "Financial Stability and Policy Cooperation," Working Papers o201001, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    12. Alex Eapen & Rekha Krishnan, 2019. "Transferring Tacit Know-How: Do Opportunism Safeguards Matter for Firm Boundary Decisions?," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(4), pages 715-734, July.
    13. Maria Alessandra Antonelli, 2014. "Organizational Governance: Managerial Discretion, Automatic Rules or Ethics?," Public Finance Research Papers 5, Istituto di Economia e Finanza, DSGE, Sapienza University of Rome.
    14. Amara, Nabil & Olmos-Peñuela, Julia & Fernández-de-Lucio, Ignacio, 2019. "Overcoming the “lost before translation” problem: An exploratory study," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 22-36.
    15. Falk Bräuning & Victoria Ivashina & Ali Ozdagli, 2022. "High-Yield Debt Covenants and Their Real Effects," Working Papers 22-5, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    16. Colombo, Massimo G. & Grilli, Luca, 2010. "On growth drivers of high-tech start-ups: Exploring the role of founders' human capital and venture capital," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 610-626, November.
    17. Gagalyuk, T., 2018. "A resilience-based rationale for farm growth: the case of Ukrainian agroholdings," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277115, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    18. Wang, Yuandi & Sutherland, Dylan & Ning, Lutao & Pan, Xin, 2015. "The evolving nature of China's regional innovation systems: Insights from an exploration–exploitation approach," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 140-152.
    19. Peter G. Klein & Michael E. Sykuta (ed.), 2010. "The Elgar Companion to Transaction Cost Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 4136.
    20. Michael Dietrich & Jackie Krafft, 2011. "Firm development as an integrated process: with evidence from the General Motors–Fisher Body case," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 665-686, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eurman:v:38:y:2020:i:1:p:54-61. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/115/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.