These papers are working drafts of research which often appear in final form in academic journals. The published versions may differ from the working versions provided here.
SSRN Research Paper Series
The Social Science Research Network’s Research Paper Series includes working papers produced by Stanford GSB the Rock Center.
You may search for authors and topics and download copies of the work there.
Nuclear Weapons, Peace and the Security Dilemma: The Role of Cognitive Processes in Deterrence
For the past forty years, deterrence theory has played a central role in the evolution of U.S. nuclear strategy and national security policy. Proponents of deterrence point to the historical record to argue the theory “works”. Recent critiques of…
An Evolutionary Perspective on Strategy-Making in Organizations: Theory, Comparative Analysis, Research Directions
This paper proposes that the strategic process in large, diversified organizations constitutes an internalized and contrived evolutionary mechanism nested in the external environmental context. The paper elaborates this argument and shows how it…
Organizational Ecology and Strategic Management: An Evolutionary Process Perspective
Organizations can be viewed as opportunity structures motivating strategic behavior on the part of their participants and the strategic process in organizations constitutes an internalized and contrived evolutonary mechanism nested in the…
Questioning the Assumptions of Value Engineering: Alternative Views of the Cultural Change Process
Advocates of “value engineering” typically share assumptions about what culture is an how it changes. We delineate these assumptions and argue that they are misleadingly limited. Perceiving and enacting culture change. We present two alternative…
Astronauts, Robots, and Organizational Design: Contributions of Organization Theory to Research on the Space Station
This paper offers a research agenda for analyzing organizational problems in permanent organizations in outer space. Substantial opportunities for organizational research exist in the environment of space, where one faces questions about how to…
Bringing the Environment Back In: The Social Context of Business Strategy
Abstract not available.
Deterrence and Security in a Dangerous World: How Much is Enough?
Ever since the appearance of Bernard Brodie‘s (1959) Strategy in the Missile Age, the fundamental conceptions which have dominated and shaped U.S. theory and policy regarding the utility of strategic weapons have been derived from the theory…
Modeling Organizational Slack: An Empirical Investigation
Organizational slack is a variable frequently used in organization studies to predict such organizational processes as search behavior, innovation, goal conflict, political behavior, and risk taking. However, it has remained a fairly ambiguous…
Predictors of Business Success Over Two Decades: An MBA Longitudinal Study
Measurements collected on Stanford MBA students while they were working on their MBAs are used to predict management success through 20 years of their careers. Management success was operationalized as compensation which was measured at the…
The Present-Minded Professor: Controlling One's Career
Abstract not available.
Riding the Wave: The Culture Creation Process
Previous research portrays founders as culture creators, generating the visions and values that employees come to share. These studies seldom examine the diversity of employees reactions to founders, in part because data have been collected so…
Breaking Up the Mono-Method Monopolies in Organizational Research
Recent discussions of methodology have been dominated by two arguments: that one methodology is generally better than another or that one methodology is better than another for the purpose of addressing a particular theoretical issue. Qualitative…
Corporate Acquisitions: A Process Perspective
Historically, acquisition scholars and practitioners have adopted a choice perspective which portrays the corporate executive analyzing acquisition opportunites as a rational decision-maker. This paper suggests that the choice perspective be…
Strategy-Making and Evolutionary Theory: Toward a Capabilities-Based Perspective
The strategic process in large, diversified firms is shown to be isomorphous to the enactment—selection—retention model of evolutionary theory. Such strategic processes are internalized selection mechanisms, nested within external environmental…
The Learning Curve and Competitive Strategy
The learning curve has become a central concept for corporate strategic planning. However, strategies based on the learning curve often fail to achieve their intended results. This paper explores the implications of the learning curve for…
The Paradox of "Corporate Culture" : Reconciling Ourselves to Socialization
Abstract not available.
When Injustice Is Irrelevant: Relative Deprivation and Collective Action
The determinants of collective behavior were studied in a laboratory setting. Subjects were members of a disadvantaged group. In a 3 x 2 factorial design two independent variables were manipulated. The magnitude of pay inequality…
Psychological and Sociological Barriers to Collective Action in Organizations
There are striking gaps in what is known about discontent in the workplace. Job and pay satisfaction are among the most frequently studied topics in organizational behavior, yet we know little about when discontent will be translated into…
Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Change in Modeling-Based Organization Development
Abstract not available.