Business Commons^™

The Practice Of Scenario Planning: An Analysis Of Inter- And Intra- Organizational Strategizing, Gary Bowman, Ryan Parks

Gary Bowman

Strategic activity is often punctuated through the application of strategy tools. Despite widespread use, opacity surrounds how these tools shape the strategy process. We examine the application and effect of a scenario planning process at an inter- and intra-organizational level. We use a longitudinal case study to demonstrate the importance of sensemaking in strategizing activity at the inter-organizational level. We also demonstrate the relative weakness of the scenario narrative as a boundary object capable of transferring knowledge to the intra-organizational level. Through empirical and theoretical integration we develop a model depicting the flow of knowledge in inter- and intra-organizational strategizing.

Mindfully Eating Raisins Improves Negotiation Success: The Effect Of Mindfulness No Negotiation Performance, Jochen Matthias Reb, J. Narayanan

Jochen Reb

Anecdotal evidence suggests that mindfulness, or open, non-judgmental awareness of the present moment, is important fornegotiation performance. We find support for this prediction in four experiments using a variety of different mindfulnessmanipulations and both objective and subjective measures of negotiation performance. We also provide evidence that the effectof mindfulness on negotiation performance is partly mediated by reduced anxiety.

Global Culture Concerns, Korcel M. Price

Korcel M Price

The following proposal seeks to change hiring, promoting, and firing practices among global and trans-national companies. The changes are intended to fortify the organization through better management, a better employee contract, and by moving closer to a learning organization.

At the heart of the proposal is the desire to move hiring, promoting, and firing practices to an external or internal third party, as means of creating a global culture that consistently applies the values of supra system’s organization.

Boundaries Of Citizenship Behavior: Curvilinearity And Context In The Citizenship And Task Performance Relationship, Robert Rubin, Erich Dierdorff, Daniel Bachrach

Erich C. Dierdorff

Resource allocation, attentional capacity, and role theories all suggest that the well-documented linear relationship between citizenship behavior and task performance may be more complex than previously believed. In a study of 352 incumbents, we develop hypotheses that propose a curvilinear effect of employee citizenship on task performance. We further argue that this nonmonotonic relationship is different across the targets of citizenship performance and is moderated by several factors from the task context. Results support the curvilinear assertion, indicating that the relationship with task performance inflects when citizenship is more frequently performed. These diminishing returns are amplified when the target of …

Maybe It’S Right, Maybe It’S Wrong: Structural And Social Determinants Of Deception In Negotiation, Mara Olekalns, Chris Horan, Philip Smith

Mara Olekalns

Context shapes negotiators’ actions, including their willingness to act unethically. Focusing on negotiators use of deception, we used a simulated two-party negotiation to test how three contextual variables - regulatory focus, power, and trustworthiness - interacted to shift negotiators’ ethical thresholds. We demonstrated that these three variables interact to either inhibit or activate deception, providing support for an interactionist model of ethical decision-making. Three patterns emerged from our analyses. First, low power inhibited and high power activated deception. Second, promotion-focused negotiators favored sins of omission whereas prevention-focused negotiators favored sins of commission. Third, low cognition-based trust influenced deception when negotiators …

Building A Better Mba: From A Decade Of Critique Toward A Decennium Of Creation, Robert Rubin, Erich Dierdorff

Erich C. Dierdorff

During the past 10 years AMLE has made significant progress toward fulfilling its central mission of stimulating discourse within the field of management learning and education. Indeed, AMLE has become a reliable source of insightful scholarship regarding management education in general. The journal has also become an important platform for more specific scholarship directed toward the masters in business administration (MBA) degree and degree programs. Given the centrality of MBA programs in business schools and the substantial literature that has emerged on the topic within AMLE, we review this body of work to identify the broad topics and problems that …

Getting What The Occupation Gives: Exploring Multilevel Links Between Work Design And Occupational Values, Erich Dierdorff, Frederick Morgeson

Erich C. Dierdorff

The history of work design research is voluminous and compelling. Thousands of studies have demonstrated the wide-reaching and powerful impact the design of work can have on a host of meaningful outcomes. Yet, absent in much of this research is an explicit consideration of the context within which work is performed and how this context might impact work design. Drawing from the Theory of Work Adjustment, we describe the different ways in which occupations are linked to work design. In a sample of 805 individuals from 230 occupations, our multilevel examinations show the occupational-level values of Achievement, Independence, Altruism, Status, …

Agency Theory And Bounded Self Interest: The Moderating Role Of Fairness, Robert Phillips, Douglas Bosse

Robert Phillips

While agency theory’s contributions to our understanding of economic organization and strategic management are unparalleled, reviews of the empirical tests call for more explanatory muscle at the extremes. This paper provides arguments that answer that call. Relying on well-established findings from social psychology and other disciplines, we propose that agency theory’s assumption of pure self-interest be replaced with the more descriptively accurate assumption of self interest that is bounded by norms of fairness and reciprocity. The resulting arguments explain that perceptions of fairness/justice moderate the effectiveness of incentive alignment and monitoring mechanisms.

Maybe It’S Right, Maybe It’S Wrong: Structural And Social Determinants Of Deception In Negotiation, Mara Olekalns

Mara Olekalns

Context shapes negotiators’ actions, including their willingness to act unethically. Focusing on negotiators use of deception, we used a simulated two-party negotiation to test how three contextual variables - regulatory focus, power, and trustworthiness - interacted to shift negotiators’ ethical thresholds. We demonstrated that these three variables interact to either inhibit or activate deception, providing support for an interactionist model of ethical decision-making. Three patterns emerged from our analyses. First, low power inhibited and high power activated deception. Second, promotion-focused negotiators favored sins of omission whereas prevention-focused negotiators favored sins of commission. Third, low cognition-based trust influenced deception when negotiators …

Greed And Fear In The Spatial Dilemmas Model: Implications For Cooperation Among Organizations, James A. Kitts

James Kitts

Organizational populations engage in institutional entrepreneurship – including both public and private (e.g., ‘self-’) regulation – to facilitate inter-organizational cooperation. We investigate the consequences of this regulation, distinguishing two dimensions of social dilemmas: the gains for exploiting cooperative partners (Greed) and the cost of cooperating with exploitive partners (Fear). Specifically, we model an embedded social dilemma in which organizations exchange with partners and strategies diffuse through networks by social learning. Our analysis and computational experiment show that embedding exchange in social networks leads Greed and Fear to have divergent and highly nonlinear effects at the macro level. ‘Virtual interventions’ demonstrate …