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"Formalization"
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Shaping and Being Shaped
As new roles emerge in organizations, it becomes critical to understand how organizational structure can impede or enable the managerial discretion available to role incumbents. We leverage the rich context provided by the emergent role of sustainability managers to examine the interplay between the topdown forces of structure and the bottom-up influences of managerial discretion in shaping new organizational roles over time. We analyzed qualitative data collected from in-depth interviews with sustainability managers in 21 case study organizations in India and Australia, supplemented with archival and observational data. We identified three organizational configurations, with varying levels of top-down structural and bottom-up managerial discretion dynamics at play. Each configuration had different implications for the manager’s role. Our analysis suggests that the third configuration—with semi-structured formalization and a decentralized sustainability program—provided the most conducive conditions for managers to use their discretion to champion innovative sustainability initiatives. New managerial roles in the other configurations, however, do not have to be static. With the maturation of organizational programs and active championing by managers, the structuring of organizational functions and managerial roles can co-evolve. Our findings describe a process of \"shaping and being shaped,\" as structure and managerial discretion co-evolve over time.
Journal Article
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TAX REGIMES TO STIMULATE MICRO-ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN LATIN AMERICA: THE EXPERIENCE OF ARGENTINA AND BRAZIL
This study compares the evolution and fiscal relevance of simplified tax regimes for microentrepreneurs in Brazil (MEI) and Argentina (Monotributo) from 2018 to 2024, excluding 2020 due to data unavailability. Using official administrative data, it constructs a dual framework based on population-adjusted coverage and estimated tax revenue as a share of national GDP. This combined approach provides a consistent basis for cross-country analysis and enhances the understanding of policy outcomes in emerging economies. Brazil’s MEI expanded rapidly, from 3.88% to 7.41% of the population between 2018 and 2023, before declining to 5.41% in 2024, while Argentina’s Monotributo showed slower but steadier growth, rising from 4.25% to 5.73% over the full period. Despite these enrollment trends, both regimes remain fiscally marginal compared to current GDP, as in 2023, MEI revenue, collected at the municipal and state level, equaled 0.0064% of Brazil's GDP, and Monotributo revenue represented 0.034% of Argentina’s GDP, excluding provincial taxes. The scientific contribution of this paper lies in its integration of demographic and fiscal dimensions into a single evaluative framework. Most prior studies address simplified tax regimes from institutional or behavioral perspectives, often limited to a single country. By contrast, this research offers a comparative and data-driven assessment that can inform broader policy debates in Latin America. Based on the findings, Brazil should revise income thresholds and employment restrictions to facilitate business growth and reduce informal substitution, while Argentina would benefit from automating inflation adjustments and coordinating national and provincial tax burdens to enhance predictability and compliance. These results reinforce the view that simplification must be accompanied by adaptive policy design and sustained administrative support to achieve lasting formalization.
Journal Article
Going Underground: Bootlegging and Individual Innovative Performance
To develop innovations in large, mature organizations, individuals often have to resort to underground, “bootleg” research and development (R&D) activities that have no formal organizational support. In doing so, these individuals attempt to achieve greater autonomy over the direction of their R&D efforts and to escape the constraints of organizational accountability. Drawing on theories of proactive creativity and innovation, we argue that these underground R&D efforts help individuals to develop innovations based on the exploration of uncharted territory and delayed assessment of embryonic ideas. After carefully assessing the direction of causality, we find that individuals’ bootleg efforts are associated with achievement of high levels of innovative performance. Furthermore, we show that the costs and benefits of bootlegging for innovation are contingent on the emphasis on the enforcement of organizational norms in the individual’s work environment; we argue and demonstrate empirically that the benefits of an individual’s bootlegging efforts are enhanced in work units with high levels of innovative performance and which include members who are also engaged in bootlegging. However, during periods of organizational change involving formalization of the R&D process, individuals who increase their bootlegging activities are less likely to innovate. We explore the implications of these findings for our understanding of proactive and deviant creativity.
Journal Article
Static Analysis of Information Systems for IoT Cyber Security: A Survey of Machine Learning Approaches
Ensuring security for modern IoT systems requires the use of complex methods to analyze their software. One of the most in-demand methods that has repeatedly been proven to be effective is static analysis. However, the progressive complication of the connections in IoT systems, the increase in their scale, and the heterogeneity of elements requires the automation and intellectualization of manual experts’ work. A hypothesis to this end is posed that assumes the applicability of machine-learning solutions for IoT system static analysis. A scheme of this research, which is aimed at confirming the hypothesis and reflecting the ontology of the study, is given. The main contributions to the work are as follows: systematization of static analysis stages for IoT systems and decisions of machine-learning problems in the form of formalized models; review of the entire subject area publications with analysis of the results; confirmation of the machine-learning instrumentaries applicability for each static analysis stage; and the proposal of an intelligent framework concept for the static analysis of IoT systems. The novelty of the results obtained is a consideration of the entire process of static analysis (from the beginning of IoT system research to the final delivery of the results), consideration of each stage from the entirely given set of machine-learning solutions perspective, as well as formalization of the stages and solutions in the form of “Form and Content” data transformations.
Journal Article
Understanding Variation in Managers' Ambidexterity: Investigating Direct and Interaction Effects of Formal Structural and Personal Coordination Mechanisms
Previous research focuses on firm and business unit level ambidexterity. Therefore, conceptual and empirically validated understanding about ambidexterity at the individual level of analysis is very scarce. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by investigating managers' ambidexterity, delivering three contributions to theory and empirical research on ambidexterity: first, by proposing three related characteristics of ambidextrous managers; second, by developing a model and associated hypotheses on both the direct and interaction effects of formal structural and personal coordination mechanisms on managers' ambidexterity; and third, by testing the hypotheses based on a sample of 716 business unit level and operational level managers.
Findings regarding the formal structural mechanisms indicate that a manager's decision-making authority positively relates to this manager's ambidexterity, whereas formalization of a manager's tasks has no significant relationship with this manager's ambidexterity. Regarding the personal coordination mechanisms, findings indicate that both the participation of a manager in cross-functional interfaces and the connectedness of a manager to other organization members positively relate to this manager's ambidexterity. Furthermore, results show positive interaction effects between the formal structural and personal coordination mechanisms on managers' ambidexterity. The paper's theoretical contributions and empirical results increase our understanding about managers' ambidexterity and about how different types and combinations of coordination mechanisms relate to variation in managers' ambidexterity.
Journal Article
TacticToe: Learning to Prove with Tactics
We implement an automated tactical prover TacticToe on top of the HOL4 interactive theorem prover. TacticToe learns from human proofs which mathematical technique is suitable in each proof situation. This knowledge is then used in a Monte Carlo tree search algorithm to explore promising tactic-level proof paths. On a single CPU, with a time limit of 60 s, TacticToe proves 66.4% of the 7164 theorems in HOL4’s standard library, whereas E prover with auto-schedule solves 34.5%. The success rate rises to 69.0% by combining the results of TacticToe and E prover.
Journal Article
On the heterogeneity and equifinality of knowledge transfer in small innovative organizations
PurposeTo date, it remains unclear whether the experiences of large corporations with regard to knowledge transfer and process formalization can be successfully replicated in small companies. In this paper, the authors seek to contribute to the specialized literature on internal knowledge transfer processes and their degree of formalization in the context of small-sized innovative firms.Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopt a multiple case study approach to perform an in-depth comparative analysis of processes deployed to transfer knowledge internally and their degree of formalization, relying on rich narratives shared by informants during the data gathering stage. This sample is composed of five small innovators operating in the software industry in Quebec and Ontario.FindingsThe authors identify seven knowledge transfer processes in our sample, namely communities of practice, within project teams, across project teams, non-project related meetings, in-house exchanges with clients, technological devices, and playful activities. Uncovering a high cross-case variation in terms of process formalization, the findings imply that the degree of formalization of intra-firm knowledge transfer processes has no direct bearing on the innovative success of small software companies.Originality/valueThe study sheds new light on the topic of heterogeneity of small organizations from the perspective of knowledge transfer endeavors and provides empirical evidence in support of equifinality for a subset of small-sized innovators from the software sector.
Journal Article