Business Commons^™

It’S Who You Know That Counts: Board Connectedness And Csr Performance, Abu S. Amin, Lamia Chourou, Syed Kamal, Mahfuja Malik, Yang Zhao

WCBT Faculty Publications

Highlights:

• We examine whether and how board connections affect the firm's corporate social responsibilities (CSR).
• We find that board connectedness is positively associated with CSR performance.
• Our findings suggest firms that operate in a complex business environment or require more advising benefit more from a well-networked board.
• Firms that are poorly governed, have high stock return volatility, low market capitalization, or low institutional ownership tend to benefit more from the well-connected board when the cost of acquiring information is higher.
• In addition, we show that independent directors’ abilities to gather information and resources from their networks can facilitate the transmission …

Senior Executives’ Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction And Psychological Well-Being: Is It Different At The Top?, Marcus B. Mueller, Geoff P. Lovell

WCBT Faculty Publications

Senior executives’ decisions can have a substantial impact on their own lives, their families, their organizations’ workers and employees, and society. This quantitative study (1) investigated the relationship between basic psychological need satisfaction (BPNS) at work and psychological well-being (PWB) in 142 senior executives as antecedent of their decision making and (2) compared the results to two other managerial level samples of 260 managers and 445 employees. The results have implications for theory and practice. Our findings contribute the new theoretical perspectives of differences in the relationship between BPNS at work and PWB by managerial level and senior executives’ gender …

National Culture And Leadership Style In A Multicultural Environment: The Luxembourg Case, Petra Garnjost, Stephen M. Brown, Jeanine K. Andreassi

WCBT Faculty Publications

Hofstede’s research on cultural differences and its implication for management style has been reviewed and acknowledged for decades. His findings suggest cultural dimensions have strong impact on expected behavior of supervisors and subordinates. The GLOBE survey identified leadership styles that work in any cultural environment. There is a strong indicator that in addi-tion to cultural specific leadership styles there is also a universal one. The leadership categories identified by GLOBE as universally effective, were very similar to the dimensions of transforma-tional leadership. This paper analyzes nationality as a predictor of Transformational Leadership style with a sample of 250 managers from …

The Interaction Between Learning Styles, Ethics Education, And Ethical Climate, Leanna Lawter, Tuvana Rua, Chun (Grace) Guo

WCBT Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how learning styles and learning spaces interact to stimulate deep learning. Specifically the paper investigated the interaction of learning styles with ethics education and the ethical climate to influence the likelihood of engaging in ethical behavior.

Abusive Online Conduct: Discrimination And Harassment In Cyberspace, Andra Gumbus, Patricia Meglich

WCBT Faculty Publications

Discrimination and harassment that were once committed in real time have now moved to the online environment. Discrimination and harassment on the Internet take many forms and can be more damaging and insidious than the face-to-face forms of abuse. This conceptual paper looks at two types of abusive online conduct that have emerged due to the proliferation of the Internet in our lives: Weblining and cyberbullying. These topics are examined from an ethical perspective with a focus on gender and racial discrimination issues.

A Narrative Approach To Delivering Bad News In Organizations: Effective Or Not?, Michael S. Carriger

WCBT Faculty Publications

Purpose: This paper presents empirical evidence for the use of narrative to deliver bad news within an organization, specifically bad news about layoffs. The attempt is to extend previous empirical work, using narrative by senior leadership to convey corporate strategy, to a different leadership challenge and further explicate a model for understanding the effectiveness of narrative as a leadership communication tool. Design/Methodology/Approach: The paper presents further original research on the effectiveness of narrative as a leadership tool. And theoretical implications for leaders seeking effective communication tools are explored. Findings: Data presented to substantiate that narrative use, as opposed to a …

The Shape Of Marketing Research In 2021, Anca C. Micu, Kim Dedeker, Ian Lewis, Robert Moran, Oded Netzer, Joseph T. Plummer, Joel Rubinson

WCBT Faculty Publications

From an organizational strategy perspective, attributing changes to sweeping environmental triggers or long-term strategic planning means taking either an ecological or strategic viewpoint. The ecological-versus-strategic debate centers on the issue of environmental determinism versus strategic choice. Marketing research, as an industry, is faced with having to adapt to environmental changes (mostly technology-driven) with autonomous processes that vary from one company to another. Marketing research paves the way to customer relationship building, through which the marketing function introduces the customer to the firm. There is an increasing body of both academic and trade literature that addresses the strategic role of marketing …

The Function Of Narrative In Leadership: Theoretical Foundations And Empirical Evidence, Michael S. Carriger

WCBT Faculty Publications

This research is focused on the differential impacts of narrative and facts and figures on the understanding of corporate strategy or competitive advantage. In this way a theoretical (philosophical) foundation can be laid for narrative and the understanding of corporate strategy. Additionally, much needed theoretically sound, empirical validation can be offered for the use of narrative and storytelling by leaders within organizations as a means of creating, disseminating,and executing strategy. Employing a model derived from the tension between modern and post-modern thinking about the nature of ideas and concepts a conceptual framework is offered to try to explain the possible …

Organizational Justice And Fairness In China: An Inductive Analysis Of The Meaning And Dimensions, Chun (Grace) Guo, Jane K. Giacobbe-Miller

WCBT Faculty Publications

Taking an inductive approach, we examined the meaning and dimensionality of the organizational justice construct in the People's Republic of China. By triangulating qualitative data from in-depth interviews and structured open-ended surveys, we found that organizational justice and organizational fairness were perceived as distinct constructs in a Chinese context.

Can Business Leaders Learn From Leaders Of Today's Megachurches?, Peter A. Maresco

WCBT Faculty Publications

The author reflects on the similarities and differences of religious leaders and founders of megachurches or big churches and the business leaders. He differentiates these types of leaders according to their leadership tenancy. He emphasizes the three component of leadership: having a vision, communicating that vision to individuals inside and outside of the organization and making everyone a stakeholder in seeing the vision by its conclusion.

Essays On Risk And Incentives, Russell Engel

WCBT Faculty Publications

I use economic experiments to investigate individual behavior under uncertainty. The first essay examines the consistency of risk preferences over two institutions. The two institutions I use are the first price sealed bid auction and a Holt-Laury lottery. There is some controversy as to whether or not observed overbidding in first price auction is actually caused by risk aversion or simply consistent with it. Behavior in the Holt-Laury lottery being caused by risk aversion is not in dispute. By having the same subjects participate in both institutions, I show that subjects.risk preferences in the lottery are consistent with subjects' risk …

How Can Anyone Lead Others Until They Are Ready To Lead Themselves?, Peter A. Maresco

WCBT Faculty Publications

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience on the quality of personal leadership.

Is Support For Strategic Flexibility, Environmental Dynamism, And Firm Performance, Michael J. Zhang

WCBT Faculty Publications

Increasingly, strategic flexibility has been viewed as a critical organizational competency that enables firms to achieve and maintain competitive advantage and superior performance. In this study, the relationship between IS support for strategic flexibility and the bottom-line performance of firms is investigated, as well as the moderating effects of environmental dynamism on that relationship. Using both survey and archival data, IS support for strategic flexibility was positively associated with profitability and labor productivity only when there was a high degree of environmental changes and uncertainty.

Irony And Organizations: Epistemological Claims And Supporting Field Stories, Ulla Johansson, Ed., Jill Woodilla, Ed.

WCBT Faculty Publications

"Irony, in the writings of these scholars from different parts of the world, demonstrates once again that ""what"" we know is tenuous and at the same time closely intertwined with ""how"" we know and represent that knowledge. And while each chapter approaches irony from a slightly different angle, they share a common assumption - that irony can be used to enhance practice."

Designing And Implementing A Balanced Scorecard: Lessons Learned In Nonprofit Implementation, Andra Gumbus, Tom Wilson

WCBT Faculty Publications

The balanced scorecard has been referred to as the management innovation of the century, and extensive articles have been written using case studies of organizations that use this performance measurement system. This article addresses the key issues of design and implementation with a step-by-step guide to how to design a balanced scorecard and lessons to avoid implementation problems in government and nonprofit settings.

The Seven-Day Weekend: Changing The Way Work Works, By Ricardo Semler (Book Review), Peter A. Maresco

WCBT Faculty Publications

According to Semler: We have to find a better way for work to work.

Designing A Strategy To Effectively Communicate The Balanced Scorecard, Andra Gumbus, Bridget Lyons, Tom Wilson

WCBT Faculty Publications

As increasing numbers of organizations adopt the balanced scorecard (BSC) to align strategy with operations and measure progress toward meeting strategic goals, the importance of successful communication of the scorecard throughout the organization has become apparent. Successful implementation and effective use of the BSC occurs when organizational stakeholders recognize its role, use, and benefits. In the March/April 2003 issue of Cost Management, we detailed how Bridgeport Hospital, a member of Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS), adopted the BSC and used the scorecard to align capital investment decisions with strategy.1 In this article, we will profile how the hospital designed …

Gender Bias In Internet Employment: A Study Of The Effects Of Career Advancement Opportunities For Women In The Field Of Itc, Andra Gumbus, Frances Grodzinsky

WCBT Faculty Publications

Women as individuals experience subtle discrimination regarding career development opportunities as evidenced by research on the Glass Ceiling. This paper looks at the ramifications of technology, specifically the Internet, and how it affects women's career opportunities.

Corporate And Individual Influences On Managers' Social Orientation, Joachim W. Marz, Thomas L. Powers, Thomas Queisser

WCBT Faculty Publications

This paper reports research on the influence of corporate and individual characteristics on managers' social orientation in Germany. The results indicate that mid-level managers expressed a significantly lower social orientation than low-level managers, and that job activity did not impact social orientation. Female respondents expressed a higher social orientation than male respondents. No impact of the political system origin (former East Germany versus former West Germany) on social orientation was shown. Overall, corporate position had a significantly higher impact on social orientation than did the characteristics of the individuals surveyed.

The Impact Of Increasing User Expectations On Machine Replacement, Robert F. Marsh, Seong-Hyun Nam

WCBT Faculty Publications

This study explores the traditional equipment maintain or replace decision under scenarios of increasing customer expectations, loss due to process deviation, and process drift. Customer expectations are operationalized by tighter product specifications. The Taguchi loss function is employed to estimate the loss due to target deviation. In this paper we characterize the machine drift, uncertainty about future technological change, and the learn-and-break-in process by a generalized Brownian-Motion-Ito-Process. The photolithography process is analyzed in numerous scenarios varying demand, rejection levels, and quality losses.

Harnessing Cultural Diversity To Stimulate Organizational Learning, Mary G. Trefry, Gildas Vaillant

WCBT Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Organizational Culture, Tqm, And Business Process Reengineering: An Empirical Comparison, Edward W. Gore Jr.

WCBT Faculty Publications

The results of this study underscore the importance of organizational culture and suggest that TQM provides a way to build a culture that supports improvement. Top managers must focus on this role for TQM. Too often the need for quick returns on the effort leads to a focus on the "tools" and specific improvements and this emphasis can work against developing a supportive culture. Reengineering is an example of this phenomenon. Frustration with the time it takes to carry through on a TQM initiative caused firms to try reengineering, which, with its emphasis on outsiders and specialized personnel, works against …

Strategic Human Resource Management (Book Review), John Chalykoff

WCBT Faculty Publications

Book review by John B. Chalykoff.

Fombrun, Charles J., Noel M. Tichy, Mary Anne Devanna. Strategic Human Resource Management. New York: Wiley, 1984.

ISBN 9780471810797