Business Commons^™

Employees’ Job Positions, Psychological Ownership, And Commitment To Change, Bo Zhang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Organisational change is crucial to the development of enterprises. However, when enterprises are implementing major changes, there are great differences in the attitudes and behaviours of employees in different job positions toward changes. Research in this area is insufficient. Therefore, this dissertation investigates the problem of employee commitment amid enterprises’ organisational changes. This dissertation is committed to determining why employees at different levels and with different roles have different degrees of commitment to change and confirming the role of job positions in affecting employees’ psychological ownership of the change process. According to the findings, the impact of employees’ job rank …

Revisiting Meta-Analytic Estimates Of Validity In Personnel Selection: Addressing Systematic Overcorrection For Restriction Of Range, Paul R. Sackett, Charlene Zhang, Christopher M. Berry, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper systematically revisits prior meta-analytic conclusions about the criterion-related validity of personnel selection procedures, and particularly the effect of range restriction corrections on those validity estimates. Corrections for range restriction in meta-analyses of predictor–criterion relationships in personnel selection contexts typically involve the use of an artifact distribution. After outlining and critiquing five approaches that have commonly been used to create and apply range restriction artifact distributions, we conclude that each has significant issues that often result in substantial overcorrection and that therefore the validity of many selection procedures for predicting job performance has been substantially overestimated. Revisiting prior meta-analytic …

Social Performance Feedback And Firm Communication Strategy, Heli Wang, Ming Jia, Yi Xiang, Yang Lan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although corporate social performance has become an important measure of firm performance, there is little understanding about how firms respond to social performance feedback and how impression management may function as an important firm response to the feedback. Building upon and extending the literature on the behavioral theory of the firm and the strategic use of language, we examine how discrepancies between firms’ social performance and their aspiration levels affect how firms use visual expressions in their CSR reports. In addition, we argue that the relationship between social performance discrepancies and the use of visual expressions in CSR reports is …

Is There A Strategic Organization In The Behavioral Theory Of The Firm? Looking Back And Looking Forward, Henrich R. Greve, Cyndi Man Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In the 20 years of Strategic Organization, how well has knowledge drawn from the behavioral theory of the firm contributed to the field of strategy? We see progress both in the pages of SO! and elsewhere in the field of strategy, but this progress has been held back by divisions between strategy and organization theory in what theories should predict, what mechanisms are preferable predictors, and what outcomes are of interest. Despite these divisions, the last few years have seen particularly rapid progress, turning the behavioral theory of the firm into one of multiple organization theory sources of strategy knowledge. …

Avoiding Bias In The Search For Implicit Bias, Wilson Cyrus-Lai, Warren Tierney, Christilene Du Plessis, My Nguyen, Michael Schaerer, Elena Giulia Clemente, Eric Luis Uhlmann

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

To revitalize the study of unconscious bias, Gawronski, Ledgerwood, and Eastwick (this issue) propose a paradigm shift away from implicit measures of intergroup attitudes and beliefs. Specifically, researchers should capture discriminatory biases and demonstrate that participants are unaware of the influence of social category cues on their judgments and actions. Individual differences in scores on implicit measures will be useful to predict and better understand implicitly prejudiced behaviors, but the latter should be the collective focus of researchers interested in unconscious biases against social groups.

Cfo Gaps: Determinants And Impact On The Corporate Information Environment, Xia Chen, Na Li, An-Ping Lin

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

A CFO gap arises when the CFO position is left vacant for a period between the departure of the old CFO and the appointment of a new CFO. We find that CFO gaps are fairly common; over the sample period 2004–2016, approximately one-third of CFO turnovers are associated with a CFO gap, lasting on average two quarters and two months. CFO gaps are more likely for firms that face more labor market search frictions and with financial reporting and performance issues, and are less likely for firms with succession plans and with greater growth opportunities. While CFO gaps are not …

Building Up A Culture Of Respect, Siow-Heng Ong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Recently, we have become more acutely aware of a variety of undesirable workplace circumstances and practices in Singapore. personal time; discriminatory workplace practices against members of various categories of minority groups; and bias against women staff.

Local, Yet Global: Implications Of Caste For Mnes And International Business, Hari Bapuji, Snehanjali Chrispal, Balagopal Vissa, Gokhan Ertug

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Caste is an informal institution that influences socioeconomic action in many contexts. It is becoming increasingly evident that international business research, practice, and policy need to programmatically address caste. To facilitate this endeavour, we review the limited research in IB that has addressed caste, and theorize caste as a distinct informal institution by distinguishing it from systems of stratification like race, class, and gender. In addition, we propose a parsimonious framework to highlight the implications of caste for Indian and non-Indian MNEsin their Indian and global operations. In doing this, we focus on implications with respect to the internal organization …

Section 377a Repeal: How To Handle Disagreements, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In a commentary, Professor David Chan (SMU Behavioural Sciences Initiative Director and Lee Kong Chian Professor of Psychology) discussed the repeal of Section 377A of the Penal Code and proposed adopting five practical approaches for a more constructive discussion on the emotive issue.

What You See Is What You Get? Measuring Companies' Projected Employer Image Attributes Via Companies' Employment Webpages, Christian P. Theurer, Philipp Schapers, Andranik Tumasjan, Isabell M. Welpe, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Information on a company's employment webpage sends signals about the employer image the company intends to project to applicants. Nonetheless, we know little about the content of recruitment signals sent via company employment webpages. This study develops a method to measure companies' projected employer image attributes based on their employment webpages. Specifically, we analyze companies' projected employer image attributes by applying computer-aided text analysis (CATA) to the employment webpages of 461 Fortune 500 companies (i.e., more than 11,100 individual pages). Our results show that projected employer image attributes remain relatively stable over time. Moreover, we find relatively low levels of …

Distinctive Features Of Nonverbal Behavior And Mimicry In Application Interviews Through Data Analysis And Machine Learning, Sanne Rogiers, Elias Corneillie, Filip Lievens, Frederik Anseel, Peter Veelaert, Wilfried Philips

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper reveals the characteristics and effects of nonverbal behavior and human mimicry in the context of application interviews. It discloses a novel analyzation method for psychological research by utilizing machine learning. In comparison to traditional manual data analysis, machine learning proves to be able to analyze the data more deeply and to discover connections in the data invisible to the human eye. The paper describes an experiment to measure and analyze the reactions of evaluators to job applicants who adopt specific behaviors: mimicry, suppress, immediacy and natural behavior. First, evaluation of the applicant qualifications by the interviewer reveals …

The Breadth Of Normative Standards: Antecedents And Consequences For Individuals And Organizations, Shilpa Madan, Shankha Basu, Sharon Ng, Krishna Savani

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Normative standards refer to ideals to which people, products, and organizations are held. The present research (N = 2,224) investigates a novel construct—the breadth of normative standards, or the number of criteria that normative standards need to meet. Using archival and primary data in both organizational and consumer contexts, Studies 1–2 found that Indians’ and Singaporeans’ normative standards in several domains (e.g., a good job, a good body wash) needed to satisfy more criteria than those of Americans and the British. Using incentive-compatible designs, Studies 3–5 identified two downstream consequences of broader normative standards; decision-makers with broader standards pay greater …

Employer Image Within And Across Industries: Moving Beyond Assessing Points-Of-Relevance To Identifying Points-Of-Difference, Greet Van Hoye, Filip Lievens, Bert Weijters, Saartje Cromheecke

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study draws from brand positioning research to introduce the notions of points-of-relevance and points-of-difference to employer image research. Similar to prior research, this means that we start by investigating the relevant image attributes (points-of-relevance) that potential applicants use for judging organizations' attractiveness as an employer. However, we go beyond past research by examining whether the same points-of-relevance are used within and across industries. Next, we further extend current research by identifying which of the relevant image attributes also serve as points-of-difference for distinguishing between organizations and industries. The sample consisted of 24 organizations from 6 industries (total N = …

Contextualizing The Organizational Mindset, Joseph A. Carpini, Burak Oc

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although Schneider and Pulakos (2022, p. 2) call for scholars to adopt an “organizational mindset,” which includes “an increased organizational frame of reference on variables of interest,” the authors have overlooked the importance of contextualizing such a mindset. Contextualizing “entails linking observations to a set of relevant facts, events, or points of view that make possible research and theory that form part of a larger whole” (Rousseau & Fried, 2001, p. 1). Contextualizing is essential because it provides a common vernacular that facilitates the valid and reliable extension of the industrial-organizational (I-O) mindset to the study of organizational differences and …

Innovation Culture Assessment: An Exploratory Diagnosis Of A Taiwanese Manufacturing Company, Yong Keong Tay

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The purpose of this research study is to better understand how manufacturing firms in Asia are trying to make innovation work and the challenges they are facing in creating and capturing new value. Based on a real-life case study of a medium-sized OEM lock manufacturer in Taiwan (“3ST”), the study sheds light on key building blocks of a robust corporate innovation culture with focus on ‘Values’, ‘Behaviours’, ‘Climate’, ‘Resources’, ‘Processes’, and ‘Success’, using a valid and reliable diagnostic innovation culture framework developed by Rao & Weintraub (2013).

Besides the identification of critical gaps in 3ST’s innovation culture based on Rao …

Social Attention In Realistic Work Environments, Theodore Charles Masters-Waage

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Social attention – the process by which individuals select which aspect of the social world to mentally process – is a key antecedent to all organisational behaviour in groups. This central role of attention has long been appreciated by organisational theorists, but our understanding of this core cognitive process has been hampered by a lack of empirical evidence. To create a method through which organisational scholars can study social attention, this dissertation combines cognitive science measures of attention with recent innovations from social and applied psychology using virtual reality to study naturalistic social behaviour (Chapter 1). This method is then …

The Impact Of Fear Of Losing Out (Folo) On College Students’ Performance Goal Orientations And Learning Strategies Insingapore, Haelim Choi, Chi-Ying Cheng, Sheila Xi Rui Wee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The current research investigated the influence of the Fear of Losing Out (FoLO) mindset on learning strategy via performance goal orientation and its interaction with social comparison amongst Singaporean college students. In Study 1, a positive relationship between FoLO and performance goal orientations (i.e., avoidance and approach) was found. Study 2 replicated this finding and further revealed a downstream effect of FoLO on surface learning via performance goal orientations. In addition, social comparison moderated the link between performance goal orientation and surface learning in the mediation model. Specifically, in downward social comparison conditions, FoLO facilitated high performance-avoidance goal orientation, which …

A Comprehensive Examination Of The Cross-Validity Of Pareto-Optimal Versus Fixed-Weight Selection Systems In The Biobjective Selection Context., Wilfried De Corte, Filip Lievens, Paul R. Sackett

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The article presents evidence for the cross-validity potential of fixed-weight (FW) versus Pareto-Optimal (PO) selection systems in biobjective selection situations where both the goals of diversity and quality are valued and the importance of the goals is undecided a priori. The article extends previous research by also studying the cross-validity potential of selection systems in the practically most important sample-to-sample cross-validity scenario. We address three research questions: (a) Do different PO systems show comparable levels of relative (i.e., proportional) achievement upon cross-validation? (b) Do PO systems achieve higher levels of relative achievement upon cross-validation than FW selection systems?, and (c) …

Where We Are From Matters: Assessing The Impact Of Immigrants On Firm Environmental Performance, Narae Lee

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examines the impact of immigrant populations on firm environmental performance. Leveraging a longitudinal dataset of more than 11,000 manufacturing facilities in the US in which I match the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) facility toxic emissions data with the location’s census immigration data, I document the negative impact of local immigrant populations on a facility’s environmental performance, which strengthens as heterogeneity among immigrant increases. I argue that this is because a more heterogeneous community is less cohesive and hence less capable of organizing effective pressures against pollution. Further, I show that because co-nationality links create unique bonds between the …

Gamifying An Assessment Method: What Signals Are Organizations Sending To Applicants?, Konstantina Georgiou, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: The paper aims to expand the authors' knowledge on gamification and the signals sent on behalf of the organization when gamified assessments are used. The authors examine the mechanisms through which the use of gamification into an assessment method may increase the attractiveness of an organization as a prospective employer. Design/methodology/approach: The first study examines, following a longitudinal design, the signals that an organization sends to applicants about the organization's symbolic traits (e.g. innovativeness), through the characteristics of a gamified assessment, in terms of enjoyment and flow and impact on organizational attractiveness. Upon clarifying this mechanism, the second study …

Values Assessment For Personnel Selection: Comparing Job Applicants To Non-Applicants, Jeromy Anglim, Karlyn Molloy, Patrick D. Dunlop, Simon L. Albrecht, Filip Lievens, Marty Andrew

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Some scholars suggest that organizations could improve their hiring decisions by measuring the personal values of job applicants, arguing that values provide insights into applicants’ cultural fit, retention prospects, and performance outcomes. However, others have expressed concerns about response distortion and faking. The current study provides the first large-scale investigation of the effect of the job applicant context on the psychometric structure and scale means of a self-reported values measure. Participants comprised 7,884 job applicants (41% male; age M = 43.32, SD = 10.76) and a country-, age-, and gender-matched comparison sample of 1,806 non-applicants (41% male; age M = …

Theorizing Gender In Social Network Research: What We Do And What We Can Do Differently, Raina Brands, Gokhan Ertug, Fabio Fonti, Stefano Tasselli

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We review the ways in which gender is theorized in social network research and propose an alternative approach for future research to consider. To assess “what we do,” we undertake an evaluative review. In that review, we first examine how gender is typically theorized in structural approaches to social network research. Then, in greater detail, we review social network research that affords more diversity into such theorizing. We organize this more detailed review around a framework that is based on the level of analysis at which the implications of gender are invoked (cognitive, behavioral) and the focus of relational mechanisms …

Entering Dystopia: Should Your Face Be The Key To Your Fate?, Shilpa Madan, Krishna Savani, Gita V. Johar

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

How would you feel if you were rejected from a job because you didn't look competent enough? Or if you were apprehended at a public place by the police because you looked like a criminal? Although these scenes sound dystopic and generate a sense of fear and anxiety, technology that claims that people's traits can be inferred from their faces already exists and is being used by businesses and governments worldwide.

Socially Oriented Shareholder Activism Targets: Explaining Activists’ Corporate Target Selection Using Corporate Opportunity Structures, Abhijith G. Acharya, David Gras, Ryan Krause

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine whether and when socially oriented shareholder activists use firms’ corporate social performance (CSP) to identify them as attractive targets for their activism. We build on the research in social movements theory and stakeholder theory to theorize how firms’ engagement with primary and secondary stakeholders reflected in their technical and institutional CSP respectively allows socially oriented shareholder activists to identify targets. We develop a theoretical model by identifying corporate targets’ degree of (1) receptivity to and (2) need to comply with activist demands as two key dimensions of their corporate opportunity structure that explains the variance in firms’ attractiveness …

The Effect Of Formal Time Allocations On Learning Trajectories And Performance, Kenneth T. Goh, Colin M. Fisher, S. Amy Sommer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

How do formal time allocations in teams affect team learning trajectories and performance? We argue that allocating more time for transition phases induces steeper learning trajectories that engender a positive group atmosphere, which in turn improves team performance by improving coordination quality. We tested our hypotheses in a laboratory experiment in which teams worked on a creative design task over multiple iterations. Using a latent growth modeling approach, we found that teams with shorter action and longer transition phases during prototyping had lower initial performance but steeper learning trajectories, which indirectly led to better final team performance.

Employer And Internal Branding Research: A Bibliometric Analysis Of 25 Years, Gordhan K. Saini, Filip Lievens, Mukta Srivastava

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: In the past 25 years, employer and internal branding have grown significantly. Prior reviews tended to focus on either one of these domains. This study aims to map the intellectual structure of research on both employer branding and internal branding, thereby identifying impactful authors and journals, current and evolving themes and avenues for future research. Design/methodology/approach: Using VOSviewer and Biblioshiny software packages, a bibliometric analysis of 739 articles was conducted using various methods such as citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, cluster analysis, keyword analysis and three-field plot. The Scopus results were further validated using 297 articles produced by the Web …

Designing Persuasive Crowdfunding Videos, Hannah H. Chang, Anirban Mukherjee, Amitava Chattopadhyay

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Voiceover narration is a production technique commonly used in reward-based crowdfunding videos. We posit that in these videos, hearing more narrator voices describing the crowdfunding product can systematically influence consumers’ attention and processing of the message, thereby facilitating persuasion. We employed a multi-method approach, including experimentation, natural language processing, text mining, and machine learning. Results across four studies—including real-world datasets and controlled experiments—show that the effect (1) has consequential, economic implications in a real-world marketplace, (2) is more pronounced when the message is easier to comprehend, and (3) is more pronounced when consumers have the capacity to process the narrated …

I'M Special But A.I. Doesn't Get It, Huei Huei Laurel Teo

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

A growing body of management research on artificial intelligence (AI) has consistently shown that people innately distrust decisions made by AI and find such decision processes simply less fair compared to decisions made by humans. My dissertation adopts a different perspective to propose that aside from fairness concerns, AI decision methods trigger perceptions in people that their individual uniqueness has not be adequately considered and this has negative consequences for their psychological or subjective well-being.

By combining theories of uniqueness, individuality, power, and well-being, I develop five studies to provide empirical evidence that aversion to AI-mediated decisions also operates through …

The Vigilante Identity And Organizations, Fan Xuan Chen, Maja Graso, Karl Aquino, Lily Lin, Joey T. Cheng, Katherine Decelles, Abhijeet K. Vadera

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We test the theoretical and practical utility of the vigilante identity, a self-perception of being the kind of person who monitors their environment for signs of norm violations, and who punishes the perceived norm violator, without formal authority. We develop and validate a measure of the vigilante identity scale (VIS) and demonstrate the scale’s incremental predictive validity above and beyond seemingly related constructs (Studies 1 – 2e). We show that the VIS predicts hypervigilance towards organizational wrongdoing (Studies 2 and 4), punishment intentions and behavior in and of organizations (Studies 3 and 4) as well as in the wider community …

Gender, Bottom-Line Mentality, And Workplace Mistreatment: The Roles Of Gender Norm Violation And Team Gender Composition, Kenneth Tai, Kiyoung Lee, Eugene Kim, Tiffany D. Johnson, Wei Wang, Michelle K. Duffy, Seongsu Kim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although gender has been identified as an important antecedent in workplace mistreatment research, empirical research has shown mixed results. Drawing on role congruity theory, we propose an interactive effect of gender and bottom-line mentality on being the target of mistreatment. Across two field studies, our results showed that whereas women experienced more mistreatment when they had higher levels of bottom-line mentality, men experienced more mistreatment when they had lower levels of bottom-line mentality. In another field study, using round-robin survey data, we found that team gender composition influenced the degree to which the adoption of a bottom-line mentality by female …