Business Commons^™

Perspectives On Firm Strategies In The Non-Market Environment, Vittal Kartik Rao

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The non-market environment, which includes “the rules of the game” that govern economic interactions in the market, plays a central role in the ability of firms to create economic value and to sustain competitive advantage. This dissertation focuses on firms’ interactions with different elements of the non-market environment and is comprised of three essays.

Essay 1 examines the conditions under which firms reach agreements with environmental activists in regulatory agency proceedings to mutually settle disputes. The chapter argues that actions of firms will be dictated by the features of the regulatory decision-making process and the heterogeneity in the attributes of …

Refining Adaptation And Its Onset: Signals Of Financial Innovation That Trigger Strategic Attention In Financial Services, Andrew Sarta

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Organizational adaptation is one of the most important concepts in strategic management. Historical conceptions suggest that without it, organizations are likely to succumb to inertia in dynamic environments and with it, organizations are likely to thrive. Despite its rich scholarly history, organizational adaptation continues to lack clarity and is often conflated with market entry, performance, or survival. More importantly, managers do not have a meaningful way to determine whether their organization is well-adapted or maladapted. Knowing when organizations begin to adapt to their changing environments subsequently becomes a difficult question to answer. In this thesis, I develop much-needed clarity to …

Organizing For- And In- The Digital Age: A Case Of The Indian Banking Industry, Mayur Prataprai Joshi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

For striving and thriving in the digital age, while firms are rushing to digitally transform their organizing practices as well as offerings, scholars are tasked with revisiting the assumptions of extant theories to unpack the phenomenon of organizing for- and in- the digital age. This thesis focuses on distinct facets of this phenomenon. In particular, I examine the firm strategies and work practices of practitioners in Indian banking and financial organizations (Essays 1, 2), as well as the work practices of academic researchers (Essay 3), as they engage with digital technologies.

The first essay elaborates on and tests the theory …

Academic Center Tiered Operating Room Strategy (Action): Comparing A High Efficiency Or To The Conventional Or, Moaz Bin Yunus Chohan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Canadian healthcare system is under immense economic pressure. In an attempt to resolve the problem, outpatient surgical services were offered to patients presenting with orthopaedic surgical complaints. An observational cohort study was carried out, comparing the conventional surgical setup to the newly designed high-efficiency setup that provided similar care, with a significantly lower operating cost. A total of 200 patients were enrolled in the study. Standardized and unstandardized questionnaires were used to evaluate pre-operative and post-operative patient data that reflected quality of life outcomes. Data was collected at enrolment and during post-operative follow-ups of up to 6 months. Results indicate …

Antecedents And Consequences Of Share Distribution In Equity Joint Ventures: A Pricing-Error Approach And Empirical Evidence, Liang Liang Wang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Equity joint ventures (EJVs) have been a widely used and extensively studied governance structure for inter-firm cooperation. To date, the literature has largely overlooked share distribution between EJV partners although it is critical to the organization and operation of EJVs. Only recently has a pricing-error rule of share distribution been proposed; it argues that partners should align the equity split with the relative size of the error committed in pricing assets into the EJV. As the first conceptual guideline on share distribution in EJVs, this rule has yet to be empirically verified. Furthermore, no study has sought to identify and …

Contemporary Perspectives On The Internationalization Of Firms, Maximilian Stallkamp

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation contributes new insights to research on the internationalization of firms. Whereas prior research has focused mostly on the country as the main locational unit of analysis, I examine internationalization from both subnational and (supranational) regional perspectives. Moreover, I investigate the impact of digitalization on internationalization, by studying how ‘digital’ firms expand internationally.

Essay 1 examines how the initial subnational location choices of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in a host country (China) affect their subsequent investments in the same country. I argue that subnational locations with dense agglomerations of MNEs from the same home country can provide firms with co-ethnic …

Institutional Voids, Investment Purposes, And Foreign Subsidiaries Of Multinational Enterprises, Yamlaksira S. Getachew

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation is motivated by two sets of research questions: (a) Whether, how, and when host-country market and institutional conditions have implications for the performance of foreign subsidiaries? And (b) Whether, how, and when investment purposes/motives for which foreign subsidiaries are established relate to the extent to which the subsidiaries/their parents overcome the hazards of or capitalize on the opportunities from operating in locations of high institutional voids?

The first essay examines how the decision to enter African markets relates to the exit probability of MNE subsidiaries. Using a longitudinal, paired-sample design of Japanese foreign subsidiaries operating in …

An Exploration Of The Relationship Between Strategic Renewal And Occupational Identity, Krista L. Pettit

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Strategic renewal research focuses on what activities organizations need to engage in and how these activities need to be organized for successful renewal. During periods of strategic renewal the only certainty is that organizational activities will change, often substantially. Activity change is a challenge for organizations with occupations embedded within them as the activities of members are closely tied to the occupation and the identity of these occupational members (Pratt, Rockmann, & Kaufmann, 2006). In spite of the close link to activities, the current research on strategic renewal does not consider the important influence occupational identity has on this process …

Social Movement Organization And Robust Action: Creating A Pre-Movement In A Movement-Inhibiting Environment, Yanfei Hu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Social movements are extra-institutional forces that stimulate institutional and social change. Research has emphasized political opportunities, consciousness and organizational readiness as critical conditions for movements. In this thesis, I argue that such a conceptualization couches agency under structure, and does not explain how activists may create movement potentiality when none of the aforementioned conditions exist. This omission is significant because many movements can be traced to a pre-movement period when one (or a few) activist group(s) operated in movement-inhibiting environments to create conditions that enable future movements. In particular, the current literature lacks insights regarding the following question: How does …

Social Barriers To Entry: Liquefied Natural Gas Import Terminals In The Us From 2000 To 2013, Chethan D. Srikant

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Management scholars recognize the uncertainties and challenges during the market entry process that can impede operational startup. However, very little empirical research exists to fully understand these challenges and explain firm responses. Even less attention has been paid to the threats from non-market actors and the countering strategies employed by firms. Hence, this thesis explores firm reactions to community contestation, as a form of social barrier to entry that can prevent the firm from exploiting market opportunities. Specifically, I consider the strategic implications of firms’ rhetorical responses to community contestation during the market entry process.

For this thesis, U.S. liquefied …

Values Of Hospital Chief Executive Officers In Ontario, Alexander Smith

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Value-based health systems, where the fundamental goal of the system is to maximize patient value, have been suggested as a means to improve health service delivery. However, our understanding of various stakeholder values in Ontario is limited. This study collected interview responses from 26 Ontario hospital Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) in an attempt to understand their personal values, alignment with health-system values, and use of values to drive decision-making. Results suggest that Ontario hospital CEOs have two value sets; a set of core values (i.e. integrity, compassion, empathy) that are established at a young age and are largely non-negotiable, and …

Engaging With The Future: A Historical Investigation Of Greenpeace, Yves Plourde

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation concentrates on the case of organizations that engage with the future with the intent to shape it. Engaging with the future implies identifying and pursuing opportunities aligned with one’s vision for the future and that have the potential to enact the environment. My specific focus is on the properties that can make the organization more effective at pursuing its objectives, to understand why these properties are important and how they can enhance an organization’s ability to engage with the future. The study builds on the extreme case of Greenpeace International, an organization that dedicates its actions to the …

Frontstage Dramaturgy, Backstage Drama: An Ethnographic Study Of The Provision Of Hotel Accommodation, Maziar Raz

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The provision of service is a growing focus of scholars in the fields of management and organization studies. Yet research in this area continues to reflect the tenets of Weberian bureaucracy with the predominant conceptualization of the provision of service as a “production system” in which customers and the organization’s resources are inputs, and services are the outputs of the organization. Accordingly, the organizing work of managers is conceived as activities that protect the “production system” from input uncertainties and external influences. What is overlooked in this perspective, however, is the dynamic tension between the organizing work of managers and …

The Role Of Corporate Controls, Size, And Corporate Headquarters In The Effect Of Corporate-Level Strategy On Business-Level Strategy And Business-Level Performance, S. A. Pouya Seifzadeh

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The aim of this thesis is to re-examine the relationship between corporate strategy and business unit strategy. Past research has often failed to deconstruct the notion of corporate effects to properly assess the role of corporate strategy in the behaviour and performance of business units. As a result, conflicting findings have led to researchers disagreeing on the significance of corporate effects and corporate strategy. Through this thesis, I have taken steps to clarify the misunderstood significance of corporate strategy to business-unit-level strategy and performance. This dissertation has drawn on the literature from agency theory, information processing theory, and upper echelons …

The Effects Of The Environment And Corporate Governance On Illegal Cartel Activity, David Kunsch

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Illegal corporate activity, including the price fixing activity of two or more firms through cartels, costs the global economy billions of dollars a year, yet its causes are neither well studied nor well understood in organizational literature. This thesis explores possible external and internal antecedents of illegal cartel activity through the management lenses of resource dependency theory and agency theory and the criminological theory of anomie in the examination of the research question “Why do corporations engage in illegal activity?” I posit that illegal international cartel activity is influenced by the environment in which the organization finds itself, moderated by …

Developing Dynamic Capabilities In Environments Of Persistent Disturbances, Brent A. Mcknight

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Dynamic capabilities explain how firms adapt to environmental dynamism by modifying their underlying resources and capabilities. However, despite a robust understanding of how dynamic capabilities are influenced by different dimensions of environmental dynamism (eg. velocity), scholars have not explained how dynamic capabilities develop in the presence of different configurations of environmental dynamism. Common configurations of environmental dynamism include environmental shifts, which pertain to discontinuous environmental change, and ongoing environmental change, which depicts hypercompetitive environments. In this thesis, I explore how dynamic capabilities develop in the context of a configuration of environmental dynamism that I call persistent disturbances, defined as repeated …

Learning From The Enemy: Identity, Conflict, And Inter-Organizational Learning, Patricia Anne Macdonald

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Conflict provides an opportunity to learn. However, conflict also activates identity and dysfunctional learning processes that protect identity. Neither the learning nor the identity literatures provide an explanation for how some organizations overcome that challenge; and relatively little research has considered the connection between identity, conflict and organizational learning.

This thesis attempts to fill this gap through a qualitative research study that examines the relationships between identity, conflict, and organizational learning, using a comprehensive practice based model of inter-organizational learning.

The specific research questions guiding this study are: What is the role of identity in organizational learning between organizations in …

Cross-Sector Models Of Collaboration For Social Innovation, Marlene J. Le Ber

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation consists of three studies that collectively examine the genesis and dynamics of collaborative cross-sector partnerships between nonprofit and for-profit organizations. The overarching question that frames the papers is how cross-sector partnerships organize across sectoral interfaces to advance social innovation. This thesis makes three contributions: 1) the standpoint of the beneficiaries needs to be explicitly discussed when exploring social innovation in cross-sector partnerships; 2) neither success nor failure are absolute but rather cross-sector partners deliberately and iteratively adjust their roles to sustain momentum towards success or rebound from temporary failure in pursuit of social innovation; and 3) despite largely …

Options Under Uncertainty: An Empirical Investigation Of Patterns Of Commitment In Display Technologies In The Flat Panel Tv Set Industry, Derek Lehmberg

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation considers fundamental questions about real options reasoning and its application in the face of uncertainty: do firms behave as real options reasoning predicts, and are there performance benefits from its application? The concept of uncertainty is further developed by considering two primary types: technological uncertainty and market needs uncertainty. A qualitative industry level historical case study is performed on the flat panel TV industry, chosen because it exhibits high technological uncertainty and low market needs uncertainty. Real options logic predicts, in such an industry, that firms will develop and maintain technology options until uncertainty is resolved. Firm level …