Organization Studies

This article examines issues of culture and values in the context of a highly unusual situation. Alaska Natives (Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts) are attempting to mould a corporate organizational structure (established by an act of the U.S. Federal Govern ment) into development institutions that will help them keep their traditional home- land. After presenting relevant aspects of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the legislation which mandated these corporations, this article discusses fundamental differences in values, goals, and operational styles of conventional bureaucratic cor porations, and contrasts them with the shared values of Alaska Natives. An effort is made to expose the reader to the variety and complexity of institutional responses, while at the same time offering certain insights that expose critically important problems faced by Alaska Natives regarding conflicts between Native culture and the profit-making functions of their corporations. Our research suggests that there are limited prospects for achieving goals of both a social and economic nature unless major changes are made.

Recruitment and selection policies of firms is a largely neglected, though important, research area which provides insights into the functioning of labour markets and the social reproduction of organizations. This article is based upon comparative research conducted in Britain and German firms situated in different local labour markets. For each firm, data on selection criteria for different groups of workers, on recruitment channels and on recruitment procedures has been collected. A typology of recruitment strategies is developed which shows how environmental conditions and organizational structures influence the recruitment strategy of a firm. Depending on their market power, professional expertise and decision-making structure, firms implement different recruitment strategies which influence the type of worker who is recruited. 'Discrimi nation' in the labour market is seen as a rational decision-making process of organiza tions. It is the specific outcome of a recruitment strategy which the firm has implemented over the years.

In Part I of this paper, published in O.S. 7/1, we compared the strategic clusters that emerged from a taxonomy of consumer durable businesses to three strategies suggested by Porter (1980). We discovered clusters that pursued combinations of Porter's differentiation and cost leadership strategies, and also those that did not. The purpose of this paper is to compare the performance of these groups of clusters, discuss the differences in strategic behaviour among them that may explain performance, and elicit some normative implications.

The article examines the decision to vertically integrate backwards from two perspec tives : the extent to which vertical integration relieves the uncertainty of supply for a firm facing a variable demand function; and the threat that existing suppliers will retaliate if such vertical integration is attempted. Data from the PIMS data base are used to show that while the uncertainty reduction theory is strongly supported, there is value in complementing the theory by also taking potential retaliation into account: the results provide evidence that buyers will be discouraged from backward vertical integration if both the likelihood and the severity of retaliation are high.

A model dealing with the effects of the professional and organizational commitments of Certified Public Accountants, or of other work-related attitudes and intent to leave, is examined in three different employment settings in California: self-employed CPAs, CPAs employed in professional organizations and CPAs employed in non-professional organizations. These commitments and work-related attitudes were found to have different effects on intentions to leave in the different work settings. These findings suggest that the generality of prevalent withdrawal models ought to be reconsidered and that theoretical adjustments ought to be made for differences in settings.