Importance of Contextual Factors in Organizational Decision-Making: An Annotated Bibliography

This annotated bibliography sheds light on the importance of contextual factors for organizational decision-making. The contextual factors include organizational structure or governance, environmental forces, risks, business practices and functions of diverse firms. The bibliography includes five journal articles that provide deeper insight into the topic.

Running head: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Introduction
Numerous factors influence decision-making in different organizations either business or
other types of organizations like past experiences, cognitive biases, and individual differences
and so on. The following annotated bibliography attempts to provide explanation regarding the
importance and need for the chosen contextual factors for organizational decision-making. The
contextual factors include organizational structure or governance, environmental forces, risks,
business practices and functions of diverse firms. While discussing the importance of contextual
factors, the essay will shed light on five journal articles that provide deeper insight into the topic.
Decision-making is the most important process for any organization and the factors mentioned
above greatly influence the process. The given list of bibliography will be used to explain the
factors in different dimensions. The five journals used for the purpose have been taken from the
Australian Journal of Management, the Journal of Management, Journal of International
Business Studies, Management International Review, and British Journal of Management.
Lin, L. H. (2014). Organizational structure and acculturation in acquisitions: Perspectives
of congruence theory and task interdependence. Journal of Management, 40(7),
1831-1856. DOI: 10.1177/0149206312442385
The article has organizational structure as the main contextual factor. The article states
that organizational structure, strategy and culture play an important role in enhancing
organizational performance. The author focuses on the contingencies that facilitate superior
performance post acquisition. In doing so, the author attempts to understand the effectiveness of
both strategy structure and strategy culture possibilities. The author uses input output analysis to
increase theoretical procedures to test the arguments for the different acquisition strategies. The

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arguments state that unrelated, related, vertical and such other acquisition strategies need various
levels of center of operations centralization and interdivisional incorporation in the
organizational structure. The tests that were undertaken in 154 Taiwanese electronic and
information sector, affirm the author’s argument regarding organizational design and the
importance of organizational structure.
The repercussions of the tests undertaken by the author is that firms must carefully
consider their organizational structure as it is vital in producing effective organizational design.
As the study reveals, consistency in organizational structure influences organizational
performance. Other elements like culture and strategy also play their part but organizational
structure has to be strong. Managers across organizations must take a cue from these findings
and start developing a new correspondence model of organizational design. Further, the study
also offers a better insight into acquisition strategies that are significant in improving
organizational structure. It is therefore important that firms consider all the strategies of
acquisition carefully and then apply those successfully to the organizational structure.
Georgalis, J., Samaratunge, R., Kimberley, N., & Lu, Y. (2015). Change process
characteristics and resistance to organisational change: The role of employee
perceptions of justice. Australian Journal of Management, 40(1), 89-113. DOI:
10.1177/0312896214526212
The main contextual factor discussed in this article is organizational change, which is
affected by environmental factors. In particular, the article talks about the probable reasons of
failed change and finds that resistance to change is the most visible cause. The authors undertake
the research with the change process features of Leader-Member-Exchange (LMX) to evaluate

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the impact of perceptions of justice to the employees regarding the resistance to change. They
opine that majority of previous researches have paid attention on the context-specific
backgrounds. These backgrounds could be categorized into those linking to change results and
those that center on change implementation. They made use of the Justice research to understand
employees’ perception about change management that could help encourage them to have a
positive attitude towards change.
The significance of the research lies in the fact that it highlighted a crucial environmental
force that drives change, which is the workforce. The article provides a clearer view of the role
of employees in organizational change and the ways the ‘resistance to change’ could be avoided
if employees’ perception of justice is understood and valued. The research was done on a small
sample of 100 employees in Australia and hence, it could be helpful in understanding the
Australian context of change management and the environmental factors that influence them as
well. The findings of the research show that an increased LMX resulted in decreased resistance
to change. Therefore, it is imperative to state that environmental forces that influence change
could be controlled if organizations consider their employees’ perceptions.
Cavusgil, S. T., & Knight, G. (2015). The born global firm: An entrepreneurial and
capabilities perspective on early and rapid internationalization. Journal of
International Business Studies, 46(1), 3-16.DOI: 10.1057/jibs.2014.62
Risk factors that confront the firms include global competition as well and the given
article focuses on that risk factor. According to the authors, the internalization of firms, that was
an innovative step some decades ago is now a common phenomenon and does not provide any
impetus to firms. The abundance of global firms in the contemporary world makes it difficult for

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newly emerging firms to survive in the market, as the authors mention in their article. The article
further questions the outcomes of “born global” firms in the course of their process of maturity.
Apart from that, questions like the reasons behind the early internationalization of some firms
while others internationalize early have also been answered in the article. International business
scholars also try to find out the reasons behind some firms opting to remain local in the face of
globalization.
The article is essential in understanding the trends in the contemporary business
environment and the way this trend has changed over the past decades. The variations in
internationalization trend pose a risk for researchers as to which trend, internationalization or
localization is better for firms. The research findings of the article could assist managers across
firms to understand the risk factors associated with both internalization and localization. Further,
the article is also helpful in allowing managers to take steps that are appropriate for both
internalization and localization. In addition, the “born global” firm managers will be able to
understand the proper process of maturing and expanding over time.
West, B., Hillenbrand, C., Money, K., Ghobadian, A., & Ireland, R. D. (2016). Exploring
the impact of social axioms on firm reputation: A stakeholder perspective. British
Journal of Management, 27(2), 249-270. DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12153
In the article, the organization ad business practices are the chief contextual factors
discussed. The study conducted by the authors proposes a model that shows the intensity of
strongly held beliefs, ‘the social axioms’ that help in striking a balance in the communication
between reputation, its reasons and outcomes with stakeholders. The article tries to find out the
reasons for the same organizational stimuli leading to different stakeholder responses. The

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research carried out by the authors attempt to reveal the moderating influences in terms of the
social axioms that result in differing stakeholder responses. They make use of the component-
based equation modeling and the conceptual model to identify the influences. They also offer
recommendations on the ways strategic management could be advanced inside and across
stakeholder groups.
The study is helpful for managers across firms to learn the different practices within
organizations and the importance of understanding stakeholders’ perspective. Further, managers
could use the research findings of the article to analyze stakeholders’ responses associated with
reputation-related motivations. Moreover, it also provides a ground from where they could
encourage practices involving increased role of stakeholders as the reputation-related stimuli is
linked to the strongly held beliefs of the stakeholders. As the research findings suggest,
noteworthy dissimilarities are found between responses to individuals recognized as either lofty
or low on social skepticism, religion and fate control. Therefore, it would be easier for managers
to identify the ways to encourage stakeholders to remain loyal to their firms. It would also lead to
ethical organizational practices without compromising of profits.
Harzing, A. W., & Pudelko, M. (2016). Do we need to distance ourselves from the distance
concept? Why home and host country context might matter more than (cultural)
distance. Management International Review, 56(1), 1-34.. .DOI: 10.1007/s11575-015-
0265-4
The contextual factor discussed in the article is the functions of different firms. The
article examines the descriptive power of the concept of cultural distance. The article elaborates
the effect of the cultural distance on entry style preference, which is amongst the highest

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researched areas in international business strategy. The research conducted by the authors boasts
of empirical investigation done in over 800 MNC subsidiaries that encompassed fifteen home
countries and nine host countries throughout the globe. The authors have found that the diverse
firm functions are largely influenced by home and host country contexts due to the cultural
differences. The cultural distance and its power to explain the entry mode choice is limited when
the home and host country contexts are accounted for.
The article provides deep insights into the factors that cause different firms to function
differently in home and abroad. Managers across firms might be able to understand the
differences in the functions of diverse firms if they acknowledge the cultural distance. The firms
based in home countries are less likely to experience cultural distance than those operating
outside their home country. Different firms function differently based on the availability of
resources and cultural context, as understood from the article. Therefore, it is important for the
managers working in transnational or local firms to implement strategies that comply with the
different contexts. In case of expatriate managers especially, it is important to take note of the
cultural distance before implementing plans in a country that is based outside their home
country.
Conclusion
After analyzing the five different articles on the five different contextual factors that are
important to organizational decision-making, one specific factor is chosen. The environmental
forces have been chosen as the specific contextual factor that is important to CQ University’s
organizational performance. Environmental forces that cause change within organizations or
resistance to change are crucial in determining a firm’s performance. Hence, in order to

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determine CQ’s organizational performance in a proper, transparent way, analyzing the
environmental forces that cause the change is important. When the CQ conducts performance
management on its staff, the knowledge of environmental forces could help it to assess the
factors that cause increased or decreased staff performance. Apart from that, having a sound
knowledge of which environmental forces affect the university’s performance in terms of
change, could assist the management in preparing a change capable organizational culture thus
improving performance.

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References:
Cavusgil, S. T., & Knight, G. (2015). The born global firm: An entrepreneurial and capabilities
perspective on early and rapid internationalization. Journal of International Business
Studies, 46(1), 3-16.https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2014.62
Georgalis, J., Samaratunge, R., Kimberley, N., & Lu, Y. (2015). Change process characteristics
and resistance to organisational change: The role of employee perceptions of justice.
Australian Journal of Management, 40(1), 89-113. doi/abs/10.1177/0312896214526212
Harzing, A. W., & Pudelko, M. (2016). Do we need to distance ourselves from the distance
concept? Why home and host country context might matter more than (cultural) distance.
Management International Review, 56(1), 1-34.. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-015-
0265-4
Lin, L. H. (2014). Organizational structure and acculturation in acquisitions: Perspectives of
congruence theory and task interdependence. Journal of Management, 40(7), 1831-1856.
doi/abs/10.1177/0149206312442385
West, B., Hillenbrand, C., Money, K., Ghobadian, A., & Ireland, R. D. (2016). Exploring the
impact of social axioms on firm reputation: A stakeholder perspective. British Journal of
Management, 27(2), 249-270. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12153