This chapter explores a key argument of structural contingency theory in the context of whole networks of organizations. Specifically, we examine the relationship between the task such networks perform and their design, which we operationalize as one of three forms of governance. Based on an extensive review of the literature on whole networks, we conclude that there is no clear relationship be...

This paper provides multi-disciplinary theoretical underpinning for the conceptual development of evidence-based public procurement decisions, based on established theory, solid evidence and proof of effectiveness. It provides an initial conceptual framework for evidence-based public procurement, based on contingency theory that evidence required will vary according to key drivers of difference...

The search for contingency approaches to information systems design (ISD) began in the early 1980s when it was recognised that there is no single best methodology for all ISD projects and when there existed heterogeneous methodologies to select from. Twenty years later, there is now in the IS field not one, but three contingency approaches: ‘contingency at the outset’, ‘contingency with a fixed...

Contingency is a ubiquitous component of project cost estimating. This paper provides a review of the literature pertaining to the estimating of project cost contingency. It describes the flaws of the tradition percentage method for estimating project cost contingency and sets out more robust estimation methods regression analysis, Monte Carlo simulation and artificial neutral networks. In part...

The present study captures the dynamics of neural processing across positively contingent, negatively contingent, and noncontingent relations. In the setting of a hypothetical chat room conversation, participants rated the contingency of emotional response between two individuals. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were time-locked to the onset of each emotional event. Although each event alone wa...

The issue of information security management (ISM) had been widely studied with different approaches and from different perspectives. To have the right security objectives is the primary step to achieving an effective security program. Based on the contingency theory, a conceptual model of factors that determine ISM objectives was proposed. To validate this model, a webbased survey with open-en...

In my reply to critics I address a raft of issues raised by the commentators to Fault Lines of Globalization. These issues include: the radicalization of the Husserlian concept of intentionality as differance; the irreducibility of a-legality to (il)legality; the relation between legal orders and society; legal pluralism; the relation between power and place; contingency and modernity; fear and...

In Optimality Theory a grammar consists of a ranking of constraints which are (i) universal and (ii) violable. Languages diier systematically only in their rankings of these constraints (Prince and Smolensky 1993). The latter is a powerful theoretical principle which plays a central role in the explanatory scope of OT (Smolensky 1996a,b), its learnability (Tesar and Smolensky 1996) and its cons...

Does childhood depression involve a perceived lack of control? The answer may depend on which dimension of control one examines. Here, building on recent theory, we distinguished between two dimensions: beliefs about the contingency of outcomes and beliefs about one's own competence to perform outcome-relevant behavior. Three separate groups of clinic-referred children (aged 8-17} were sampled,...

Drawing both from the IS literature on software project risk management and the contingency research in Organization Theory literature, the present study develops an integrative contingency model of software project risk management. Adopting a profile deviation perspective of fit, the outcome of a software development project (Performance) is hypothesized to be influenced by the fit between the...