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- Strategic agility through improvisational capabilities: implications for a paradox-sensitive HRMPublication . Cunha, Miguel Pina e; Gomes, Emanuel; Mellahi, Kamel; Miner, Anne S.; Rego, ArménioOrganizations, especially, multinationals, inevitably confront contradictory challenges. One crucial challenge is the value of strategic consistency versus the value of rapid change related to unexpected problems, opportunities and fast moving trends. Accentuating the previously planned strategy can reduce temporal responsiveness; accentuating the immediate problems/opportunities can harm overall consistency. Strategic agility offers a potential path to resolve this paradoxical situation. In this article we advance a vision in which firms nourish improvisational capabilities in order to enhance strategic agility. We develop six HRM domains of action that can enhance effective improvisation and can inform the practice of a paradox-informed HRM. We discuss their implications for HRM-based strategic agility, paradoxical HR, and improvisation.
- Attitudes and HRM decisions toward older workers in Africa: exploring contradictions through an empirical studyPublication . Rego, Arménio; Vitória, Andreia; Ribeiro, Tânia; Ribeiro, Leonor; Lourenço-Gil, Rui; Leal, Susana; Cunha, Miguel Pina eWe explored the attitudes toward older workers of African versus Portuguese managers, and how these managers make HRM decisions in scenarios involving younger versus older workers. To make cultural, social, and institutional explanations more robust, we also included two samples of students attending Portuguese universities: one sample comprising African students, the other comprising Portuguese ones. The main findings were: (a) a three-factor model (conscientiousness and performance; social capital and generosity; adaptability) of attitudes toward older workers emerged as satisfactory across the four samples; (b) in comparison with the Portuguese participants, African individuals expressed more positive attitudes toward older workers while, at the same time, discriminated against older workers more; (c) the findings were almost identical for both managers and students. Although African individuals showed more positive attitudes toward older workers than did the Portuguese, they made more discriminatory decisions in the HRM scenarios. We suggest that this contradiction may emerge from dualities characterizing Africa.
- Paradoxes of organizational change in a merger contextPublication . Cunha, Miguel Pina e; Neves, Pedro; Clegg, Stewart; Costa, Sandra; Rego, ArménioPurpose – The reorganization of the Portuguese national healthcare system around networks of hospital centers was advanced for reasons promoted as those of effectiveness and efficiency and initially presented as an opportunity for organizational transcendence through synergy. The purpose of this paper is to study transcendence as felt by the authors’ participants to create knowledge about the process. Design/methodology/approach – The paper consists of an inductive approach aimed at exploring the lived experience of transcendence. The authors collected data via interviews, observations, informal conversations and archival data, in order and followed the logic of grounded theory to build theory on transcendence as process. Findings – Transcendence, however, failed to deliver its promise; consequently, the positive vision inscribed in it was subsequently re-inscribed in the system as another lost opportunity, contributing to an already unfolding vicious circle of mistrust and cynicism. The study contributes to the literature on organizational paradoxes and its effects on the reproduction of vicious circles. Practical implications – The search for efficiency and effectiveness through strategies of transcendence often entails managing paradoxical tensions. Social implications – The case was researched during the global financial crisis, which as austerity gripped the southern Eurozone gave rise to governmental decisions aimed at improving the efficiency of organizational healthcare resources. There was a sequence of advances and retreats in decision making at the governmental level that gave rise to mistrust and cynicism at operational levels (organizations, teams and individuals). One consequence of increasing cynicism at lower levels was that as further direction for change came from higher levels it became interpreted in practice as just another turn in a vicious circle of failed reform. Originality/value – The authors contribute to the organizational literature on paradoxes by empirically researching a themes that has been well theorized (Smith and Lewis, 2011) but less researched empirically. The authors followed the process in vivo, as it unfolded in the context of complex strategic change at multiple centers.