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Many contingency researchers have argued that organizations must tailor their structures and decision making processes to fit the demands of their external environments–the exigencies of their markets. They claim, for example, that uncertain environments–those with high degrees of change and unpredictability in technology and in customer and competitor behavior–require more delegation of authority to highly trained specialists and quicker, more responsive decision making. However, such experts usually favor a slower, more analytical approach. Here, internal and external requirements appear to be inconsistent. These and similar inconsistencies indicate that the alignment among structural and process variables needed for good environmental fit seems sometimes to violate the dictates of internal consistency. It is reasonable, therefore, to expect that where such inconsistencies occur, organizations will choose between achieving internal match and external match: firms that closely match the demands of their environment will lack internal complementarity, and vice versa. The empirical research reported here demonstrates exactly this: organizations that achieve the best fit with environmental uncertainty have the weakest linkages among structural and process variables. An exploratory taxonomy supports these results. However, internal and external fit are not always incompatible. We found, for example, that fit with environmental diversity did not have any implications for internal fit. One of the implications of this research is that managers may have to perform their adaptive tasks sequentially striving for a harmonious alignment among their internal variables in order to achieve smooth functioning, but periodically disrupting this harmony to adjust to a changing environment.

Recent studies have argued that the variety of organizational forms is limited and that certain common organizational configurations-alignments among strategy, structure and environment-occur with remarkable frequency and account-for a very significant fraction of organizations. This has been demonstrated empirically. The purpose of this paper is to probe into the cohesion, dynamics, and predictive implications of configurations. Ten propositions are derived by analyzing some representative configurations. It is proposed that the constrained variety and cohesion of configurations are caused by the interdependent, robust, cyclical, and reciprocal relationships among their parts. It is also argued that configurations vary in their first-order changes, but that all resist second-order changes, that is, changes in the direction of evolution. This makes them prone to long periods of momentum punctuated by brief periods of revolution. Finally, configurations are shown to vary in their internal relationships so that classification must precede prediction in organizational analysis. This suggests a middle range approach to paradigm development.

The relationships between Porter's (1980) business strategies and the process of strategy making are investigated. The complexity of a strategy is shown to be associated with the intensity of information processing and managerial interaction used in its development and implementation. Porter's strategy of innovative differentiation related significantly to information processing, interaction, and assertiveness in strategy making, especially among the most profitable firms, cost leadership had very few notable associations with decision making, and focus strategies related inversely to information processing.

We adapt Erving Goffman's (1974) frame analysis to discover how frames shape individuals' decisions in a poker-based experiment. The frames that surfaced in our subjects' verbalizations suggest the ways in which they form very different impressions of "what is going on" in an identical situation. Our findings revealed that people's frames drive the information they attend to in a situation, the interpretation they put on that information, and the way they synthesize the information to make a decision. The thematic frames that emerged differed dramatically across groups of individuals; they also were cohesive, multifaceted, and relatively few in number. As a result they were predictive: one could foretell a person's behavior across multiple situations given the consistency in the frame adopted. In most cases, frames also revealed a significant mismatch with the requirements of the situation. Management scholars and practitioners would be wise to be more alert to frames which can do as much to derail effective decision-making as to facilitate it.

This paper examines the range of application of strategic contingency theory. Its thesis is that as technologies and economies become more open to market forces, the tenets of contingency theory become increasingly relevant. The Korean economy seemed an ideal venue for testing this notion as it is very heterogeneous in the effectiveness of its technological regulation. Many Korean companies employing traditional technologies are able to benefit from government intervention, whereas most of those using emergent technolo gies — even in the same industry — are forced to compete internationally and are very much more subject to competitive market forces. We found that Korean companies using emergent technologies were more likely to do well if they heeded contingency prescriptions in making strategy: specifically, if they employed innovative and marketing differentiation strategies in uncertain environments and cost leadership strategies in stable contexts. On the other hand, companies that used traditional technologies were less apt to benefit from matching strategy to environment. In short, strategic contingency literature was found to apply more to businesses employing emergent technologies than to those using traditional technologies. Notions from institutional and contin gency theory and from the literature on cross-cultural management are used to interpret these findings.

This article attempts to expand and clarify the discussions in the literature on complexity theory applied to accounting via two central assertions:(a) affecting the cognitive conceptual level of an individual through the financial reporting system can be accomplished not only by varying the immediate information load, but also, in the long run, by modifying the types of information and the mode of user‐system interface. In other words, a properly designed accounting information system can have developmental cognitive effects in both the short and long run.(b) attempting to maximize the conceptual level of the decision maker is not always desirable. In certain types of environments, a high conceptual level actually impedes appropriate decision making. Therefore, the appropriate conceptual level must be related to the type of decision being made as well as to the type of decision maker.