Business Commons^™

Environmental Demands And The Emergence Of Social Structure: Technological Dynamism And Interorganizational Network Forms, Adam Tatarynowicz, Maxim Sytch, Ranjay Gulati

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study investigates the origins of variation in the structures of interorganizational networks across industries. We combine empirical analyses of existing interorganizational networks in six industries with an agent-based simulation model of network emergence. Using data on technology partnerships from 1983 to 1999 between firms in the automotive, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, chemicals, microelectronics, new materials, and telecommunications industries, we find that differences in technological dynamism across industries and the concomitant demands for value creation engender variations in firms’ collaborative behaviors. On average, firms in technologically dynamic industries pursue more-open ego networks, which fosters access to new and diverse resources that …

Slack Resources And The Rent-Generating Potential Of Firm-Specific Knowledge, Heli Wang, Jaepil Choi, Guoguang Wan, John Qi Dong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine how two types of slack resources relevant to knowledge employees—human resource slack and financial slack at the R&D functional level—influence the rent-generating potential of firm-specific knowledge resources. According to the resource- and knowledge-based views of the firm, firm-specific knowledge resources are critical for generating economic rents for a firm. However, without motivated knowledge employees investing in the corresponding specialized human capital in the process of absorbing and deploying firm-specific knowledge resources, the resource potential for rent generation would be greatly discounted. We argue that human resource slack among knowledge employees and financial slack available for R&D activities affect …

Reputation And Status: Expanding The Role Of Social Evaluations In Management Research: From The Editors, Gerard George, Linus Dahlander, Scott D. Graffin, Samantha Sim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Organizations, whether private or public, are subject to evaluations by their stakeholder community and society. These social evaluations form the basis of perceptions targeted at the organization, and influence the organization’s interactions with its stakeholders. “Reputation,” defined as beliefs or perceptions held about the quality of a focal actor, and “status,” defined as relative professional position or social standing, are both forms of social evaluation. Following works by Fombrun and Shanley (1990) and Merton (1968), reputation and status as theoretical constructs have become popularized in the literature, and management scholars have provided empirical evidence to provide a more complete view …

Board Diversity, Firm Risk, And Corporate Policies, Gennaro Bernile, Vineet Bhagwat, Scott Yonker

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine the effects of diversity in the board of directors on corporate policies and risk. Using a multi-dimensional measure, we find that greater board diversity leads to lower volatility and better performance. The lower risk levels are largely due to diverse boards adopting more persistent and less risky financial policies. However, consistent with diversity fostering more efficient (real) risk-taking, firms with greater board diversity also invest persistently more in R&D and have more efficient innovation processes. Instrumental variable tests that exploit exogenous variation in firm access to the supply of diverse nonlocal directors indicate that these relations are causal.

The Art Of Representation: How Reputation Affects Success With Different Audiences In The Contemporary Art Field, Gokhan Ertug, Tamar Yogev, Yonghoon Lee, Peter Hedstrom

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study the effects of actors' audience-specific reputations on their levels of success with different audiences in the same field. Extending recent work that has emphasized the presence of multiple audiences with different concerns, we demonstrate that considering audience specificity leads to an improved understanding of reputation effects. Using data on emerging artists in the field of contemporary art from 2001 to 2010, we investigate the manner in which artists' audience-specific reputations affect their subsequent success with two distinct audiences: museums and galleries. Our findings suggest that audience-specific reputations have systematically different effects with respect to success with museums and …

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 …

The Future Of Human Capital: An Employment Relations Perspective, Thomas Kochan, Adam Seth Litwin

Adam Seth Litwin

[Excerpt] It is not surprising that most theories of human capital treat the firm as the key unit of analysis, given the deep imprint that Becker (1964 [1993]) left with his early efforts to distinguish between general and specific human capital. It is especially understandable for research that focuses on American institutions and practices. Ever since the passage of the New Deal employment policies of the 1930s, firms have been assigned central roles in the delivery and financing of a variety of labor-market services, including the provision of workforce training and development (Osterman et al, 2001). Most of the chapters …

Not Featherbedding, But Feathering The Nest: Human Resource Management And Investments In Information Technology, Adam Seth Litwin

Adam Seth Litwin

This study draws on employment relations and management theory, claiming that certain innovative employment practices and work structures pave the way for organizational innovation, namely investments in information technology (IT). It then finds support for the theory in a cross-section of UK workplaces. The findings suggest that firms slow to adopt IT realize that their conventional employment model hinders their ability to make optimal use of new technologies. Therefore, the paper advances the literature beyond studies of unionization’s impact on business investment to a broader set of issues on the employment relations features that make organizations ripe for innovation.

Organizational Strategy And Staffing, John Hausknecht, Patrick Wright

John Hausknecht

In this chapter, we draw linkages between theory and research from strategic human resource management (and its focus on predicting unit/firm performance) with the key issues and empirical findings from the staffing and selection literature (and its focus on predicting individual performance). We organize the chapter around the fit and flexibility framework (Wright & Snell, 1998) to discuss the dual concerns of fitting staffing and selection systems to strategic needs while simultaneously enabling flexibility to respond to future demands. Implications for research and practice explain how such an approach may alter and enhance conventional views regarding staffing system characteristics such …

A Bayesian Network Estimation Of The Service-Profit Chain For Transport Service Satisfaction, Ronald Anderson, Robert Mackoy

Robert Mackoy

Bayesian network methodology is used to model key linkages of the service-profit chain within the context of transportation service satisfaction. Bayesian networks offer some advantages for implementing managerially focused models over other statistical techniques designed primarily for evaluating theoretical models. These advantages are (1) providing a causal explanation using observable variables within a single multivariate model, (2) analysis of nonlinear relationships contained in ordinal measurements, (3) accommodation of branching patterns that occur in data collection, and (4) the ability to conduct probabilistic inference for prediction and diagnostics with an output metric that can be understood by managers and academics. Sample …

The Angel-Halo Effect: How Increases In Corporate Social Responsibility And Irresponsibility Relate To Firm Performance, Kent Walker Dr., Zhou Zhang, Bing Yu

Odette School of Business Publications

Purpose – To examine how increases in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR) relate to firm performance. Further, we investigate how increases in CSR (CSiR) while CSiR (CSR) is present relate to three measures of firm performance: profitability, management efficiency, and market valuation.

Design/methodology/approach - Using over 10,000 observations from 2009-2013 and combined data from Sustainalytics and Compustat we examine how increases in either CSR or CSiR relate to firm performance.

Findings - We find that increased CSR significantly relates to increased firm performance in all three measures, and that increased CSiR significantly relates to decreased …

Eight Techniques For Favorable Negotiation Outcomes, Richard B. Uhing

White Papers

Before entering into negotiation, planning is essential. The person with the right mindset is more in control and will achieve the better outcome. These techniques will help you and your business negotiate successfully.

Examining The Factors To Knowledge Sharing Within An Organisational Context, Paul Mc Manus

Conference papers

Abstract

In a global economy, knowledge may be a company’s greatest competitive advantage (Davenport & Prusak 2000). As such, competition for this resource has driven an increased demand for “a conscious strategy [by organisations] of getting the right knowledge to the right people at the right time and helping people share and put information into action in ways that strive to improve organisational performance” (O’Dell et al. 1998). Thus, it is the aim of this paper to provide an investigative look at the factors influencing the willingness of employees to knowledge share (KS) within an organisational context. Separated into two …

The Lego System Makes Co-Creation Painless For The Lego Group, Seth A. Peacock

Undergraduate Research Posters

Co-creation is using consumers to help innovate with a product. While the methodology of co-creation has been extensively researched, different products’ relative suitability to co-creation is rarely examined. This research examines the LEGO Group’s co-creation efforts including LEGO Ideas, LEGO Factory, LEGO Mindstorms NXT, and LEGO Architecture. These programs’ reliance on LEGO’s versatility, modularity, adult fan community, and fan LEGO building expertise are evaluated and compared to other firm’s co-creation efforts. The adult LEGO community’s custom LEGO creations, including fan-designed and fan-sold sets, commissioned sculptures, and LEGO robotics development all constitute consumer innovation independent of the firm; the LEGO Group …

Strategy/Enterprise Discourse Bounds In Business Talk., Brendan O'Rourke

Articles

Corporate strategy emerged as large non-owner managed firms became economically important (Knights and Morgan, 1991). Strategy became the substitute for the earlier enterprise discourse, which depended on the dominance, in entrepreneurial capitalism, of owner-managed firms. The discourses of strategy and enterprise developed as separate academic areas and as logics of two very different economic domains. From the late 1970s however, large organizations (Kanter, 1983:27) and governments have been urged to be more entrepreneurial (Klein et al., 2010; Osborne and Gaebler, 1993). Meanwhile, small firms were encouraged to be more strategic (Carr, 2000). This article looks at evidence from small …

Sincerity In Corporate Philanthropy, Stakeholder Perceptions And Firm Value, Ilya R. P. Cuypers, Ping-Sheng Koh, Heli Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study extends the literature on symbolic management by incorporating the role of stakeholder perceptions into the context of corporate philanthropy. In particular, we differentiate between the quantitative (generous giving) and qualitative (innovative giving) aspects of giving. We argue that although stakeholders may perceive both types of giving as being substantive rather than symbolic, innovative giving is likely to be perceived as more substantive than generous giving is and, thus, has a greater impact on firm value. Furthermore, stakeholder perceptions of corporate philanthropy as being more symbolic or substantive are influenced by firm characteristics—the type of products or services that …

Positive Psychology In Sales: Integrating Psychological Capital, Scott B. Friend, Jeff S. Johnson, Fred Luthans, Ravipreet Sohi

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

As positive psychology moves into the workplace, researchers have been able to demonstrate the desirable impact of positive organizational behavior. Specifically, psychological capital (PsyCap) improves employee attitudes, behaviors, and performance. Advancing PsyCap in sales research is important given the need for a comprehensive positive approach to drive sales performance, offset the high cost of salesperson turnover, improve cross-functional sales interfaces, and enrich customer relationships. The authors provide an integrative review of PsyCap, discuss its application in sales, and advance an agenda for future research. Research prescriptions are organized according to individual-level, intra-organizational, and extra-organizational outcomes pertinent to the sales field.

Women's Professional Sports: A Case Study On Practices That Could Increase Their Profitability, Danielle H. Mcardle

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Women’s professional sports leagues have often been considered a risky business endeavor. Critics cite low attendance, lack of sponsorships, lack of media rights deals, and numerous other reasons for why women’s professional sports leagues are not profitable. In analyzing the current landscape of women’s professional sport leagues, this paper uses a case study approach to develop a strategy that will highlight lessons learned from past women’s professional sports leagues, current professional sports leagues, sponsorship agreements, fans, social, digital, and mobile marketing strategies, and management practices to show how the business of women’s sports could be made into a more profitable …

My Family Made Me Do It: A Cross-Domain, Self-Regulatory Perspective On Antecedents To Abusive Supervision, Stephen H. Courtright, Richard G. Gardner, Troy A. Smith, Brian W. Mccormick, Amy E. Colbert

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Drawing on resource drain theory, we introduce self-regulatory resource (ego) depletion stemming from family–work conflict (FWC) as an alternative theoretical perspective on why supervisors behave abusively toward subordinates. Our two-study examination of a cross-domain antecedent of abusive supervision stands in contrast to prior research, which has focused primarily on work-related factors that influence abusive supervision. Further, our investigation shows how ego depletion is proximally related to abusive supervision. In the first study, conducted at a Fortune 500 company and designed as a lagged survey study, we found that, after controlling for alternative theoretical mechanisms, supervisors who experienced FWC displayed more …

Pay-For-Performance’S Effect On Future Employee Performance: Integrating Psychological And Economic Principles Toward A Contingency Perspective, Anthony J. Nyberg, Jenna R. Pieper, Charlie O. Trevor

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Although pay-for-performance’s potential effect on employee performance is a compelling issue, understanding this dynamic has been constrained by narrow approaches to pay-for-performance conceptualization, measurement, and surrounding conditions. In response, we take a more nuanced perspective by integrating fundamental principles of economics and psychology to identify and incorporate employee characteristics, job characteristics, pay system characteristics, and pay system experience into a contingency model of the pay-for-performance–future performance relationship. We test the role that these four key contextual factors play in pay-for-performance effectiveness using 11,939 employees over a 5-year period. We find that merit and bonus pay, as well as their multiyear …

Supply Chain Organizational Infrastructure For Promoting Entrepreneurial Emphasis And Innovativeness: The Role Of Trust And Learning., Divesh Ojha, Jeff Shockley, Chandan Acharya

Publications and Research

Research has argued that inter-organizational trust and learning are critical factors associated with successful supply chain innovation and long-term competitiveness. In this paper, we develop and test a proposed model of supply chain organizational design using survey data collected from 128 decision-makers across diverse sample of supply chain decision-makers across many industries. Our analysis provides evidence that both trust and supply chain learning play important, but distinctive roles in developing an entrepreneurial and innovative supply chains. Moreover, our research findings add critical insight into existing resource-based perspectives of supply chain innovation by illuminating the roles and progression of the different …

How Corporate Governance Is Made: The Case Of The Golden Leash, Matthew D. Cain, Jill E. Fisch, Sean J. Griffith, Steven Davidoff Solomon

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article presents a case study of a corporate governance innovation—the incentive compensation arrangement for activist-nominated director candidates colloquially known as the “golden leash.” Golden leash compensation arrangements are a potentially valuable tool for activist shareholders in election contests. In response to their use, several issuers adopted bylaw provisions banning incentive compensation arrangements. Investors, in turn, viewed director adoption of golden leash bylaws as problematic and successfully pressured issuers to repeal them.

The study demonstrates how corporate governance provisions are developed and deployed, the sequential response of issuers and investors, and the central role played by governance intermediaries—activist investors, institutional …

Macroconstants Of Development: A New Benchmark For The Strategic Development Of Advanced Countries And Firms, Andrey V. Bystrov, Vyacheslav N. Yusim, Tamilla Curtis

Publications

This research proposed a new indicator of countries’ development called “macroconstants of development”. The literature review indicates that the concept of "macroconstants of development" is not used at the moment in neither the theory nor the practice of industrial policy. Research of longitudinal data of total GDP, GDP per capita and their derivatives for most countries of the world was conducted. An analysis of statistical information has been done by employing econometric analyses.

Based on the analysis of the statistical data, which characterizes the development of large, technologically advanced countries in ordinary conditions, it was identified that the average acceleration …

A Dynamic Perspective On Diverse Teams: Moving From The Dual-Process Model To A Dynamic Coordination-Based Model Of Diverse Team Performance, Kannan Srikanth, Sarah Harvey, Randall Peterson

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The existing literature on diverse teams suggests that diversity is both helpful to teams in making more information available and encouraging creativity and damaging to teams in reducing cohesion and information sharing. Thus the extant literature suggests that diversity within teams is a double-edged sword that leads to both positive and negative effects simultaneously. This literature has not, however, fully embraced the increasing calls in the broader groups literature to take account of time in understanding how groups function [e.g. Cronin, M. A., Weingart, L. R., & Todorova, G. (2011). Dynamics in groups: Are we there yet? The Academy of …

Legitimacy Of Local Food In The U.S. Market: Comparative Consumer Perspectives, Ali Asgari

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

Measures of legitimacy have been described in terms of four legitimacy types, regulatory, normative, cognitive, and industry. This study provides one of the first and only empirical examinations of legitimacy, particularly with an application to local foods and sheds light on how consumers view various types of legitimacy related to local food. To apply the concept of legitimacy to local foods marketing, we take an empirical survey asking about consumer perspectives of local food, along with different shopping behavior questions.

Using cumulative logit models, results of the legitimacy models suggest that core consumers are more likely to place a high …