Business Commons^™

Identifying Social Influence In Networks Using Randomized Experiments, Sinan Aral, Dylan Walker

Business Faculty Articles and Research

The recent availability of massive amounts of networked data generated by email, instant messaging, mobile phone communications, micro blogs, and online social networks is enabling studies of population-level human interaction on scales orders of magnitude greater than what was previously possible.1'2 One important goal of applying statistical inference techniques to large networked datasets is to understand how behavioral contagions spread in human social networks. More precisely, understanding how people influence or are influenced by their peers can help us understand the ebb and flow of market trends, product adoption and diffusion, the spread of health behaviors such as smoking and …

Testing The Waters: Using Collective Real Options To Manage The Social Dilemma Of Strategic Alliances, Matthew Mccarter, Joseph T. Mahoney, Gregory B. Northcraft

Business Faculty Articles and Research

We extend real options research by introducing the concept of collective real options and model how collective real options provide strategic alliances a mechanism to manage social uncertainty. Collective real options manage social uncertainty by producing relational small wins that develop trust. The amount of trust developed by acquiring a collective real option depends on the exposure of alliance partners. Alliance partner reputation also plays an important role in the impact of collective real options.

An Improved Test For Statistical Arbitrage, Robert Jarrow, Melvyn Teo, Yiu Kuen Tse, Mitch Warachka

Business Faculty Articles and Research

We improve upon the power of the statistical arbitrage test in Hogan, Jarrow, Teo, and Warachka (2004). Our methodology also allows for the evaluation of return anomalies under weaker assumptions. We then compare strategies based on their convergence rates to arbitrage and identify strategies whose probability of a loss declines to zero most rapidly. These strategies are preferred by investors with finite horizons or limited capital. After controlling for market frictions and examining convergence rates to arbitrage, we find that momentum and value strategies offer the most desirable trading opportunities.

Creating Social Contagion Through Viral Product Design: A Randomized Trial Of Peer Influence In Networks, Sinan Aral, Dylan Walker

Business Faculty Articles and Research

We examine how firms can create word-of-mouth peer influence and social contagion by designing viral features into their products and marketing campaigns. To econometrically identify the effectiveness of different viral features in creating social contagion, we designed and conducted a randomized field experiment involving the 1.4 million friends of 9,687 experimental users on Facebook.com. We find that viral features generate econometrically identifiable peer influence and social contagion effects. More surprisingly, we find that passive-broadcast viral features generate a 246% increase in peer influence and social contagion, whereas adding active-personalized viral features generate only an additional 98% increase. Although active-personalized viral …

Do Marketing Media Have Life Cycles? The Case Of Product Placement In Movies, Ekaterina Karniouchina, Can Uslay, Grigori Erenburg

Business Faculty Articles and Research

This article examines the economic worth of product placement in movies over a time span of 40 years (1968-2007). The authors find an inverted U-shaped relationship between the year of the movie release and the returns associated with product placements. In addition, a similar inverted U-shaped relationship characterizes the economic worth of tie-in campaigns associated with product placements. These findings are consistent with the habituation tedium theory used to explain the inverted U-shaped pattern in response to novel advertisements and suggest that the same mechanism could be influencing the response to an entire marketing medium. Overall, the results reinforce the …

Sectoral Changes And The Increase In Women's Labor Force Participation, Rahşan Akbulut

Business Faculty Articles and Research

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, women in the United States decided to move increasingly into the labor market. This paper investigates the growth of the service sector as an explanation for the increase in women's employment. It develops an economic model that can account for the increase in women's employment and the growth of the service sector at the same time. A growth model with two sectors and a home production technology is constructed in order to quantitatively assess the contribution of sectoral productivity differences to the change in women's employment decision. The sectoral productivities are taken …

Creating Trust In Piranha-Infested Waters: The Confluence Of Buyer, Supplier And Host Country Contexts, Akbar Zaheer, Darcy Fudge Kamal

Business Faculty Articles and Research

Research by Dyer and Chu (2000) suggests that trust in exchange varies significantly across borders and influences the level of trust in cross-border exchange dyads. However, while a good start, research has yet to develop the concept that not only can the countries of origin of the partners to the exchange influence the nature and outcomes of dyadic trust, but also the country where the exchange dyad is located. Furthermore, such home and host country differences may interact with dyad-level differences in trust creation capabilities and influence trust violation and repair. We develop a framework and propositions along these lines.

Frederick Winslow Taylor: Reflections On The Relevance Of The Principles Of Scientific Management 100 Years Later, Cristina M. Giannantonio, Amy E. Hurley-Hanson

Business Faculty Articles and Research

"This Special Edition of the Journal of Business and Management was organized to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of Frederick Winslow Taylor’s The Principles of Scientific Management. The large response to our call for papers is indicative of the scholarly interest in Taylor, his work, and its relevance to management practitioners. The papers we received were broad in scope. While most were supportive of scientific management, some felt that Taylor should not be honored. The merits of Taylor’s work can certainly be debated, but what cannot be argued is that Taylor changed the way people worked in the …

International Comparisons Of Bank Regulation, Liberalization, And Banking Crises, Puspa Amri, Apanard P. Angkinand, Clas Wihlborg

Business Faculty Articles and Research

Purpose: The recurrence of banking crises throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and in the more recent 2008-09 global financial crisis, has led to an expanding empirical literature on crisis explanation and prediction. This paper provides an analytical review of proxies for and important determinants of banking crises − credit growth, financial liberalization, bank regulation and supervision.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The study surveys the banking crisis literature by comparing proxies for and measures of banking crises and policy-related variables in the literature. Advantages and disadvantages of different proxies are discussed.

Findings: Disagreements about determinants of banking crises are in part …

The Effects Of The Attacks Of 9/11 On Organizational Policies, Employee Attitudes And Workers’ Psychological States, Amy E. Hurley-Hanson, Cristina M. Giannantonio, Heidi Carlos, Jessica Harnett, Melanie Jetta, Madeline Mercier

Business Faculty Articles and Research

Problem statement: The attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) on the United States have had a profound effect on organizations and their employees. These effects occurred in the days and weeks immediately following the attacks, as well as in the years since the attacks occurred. In commemoration of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, this study focuses on the impact that the attacks of September 11, 2001 have had on organizational policies, employee attitudes and workers’ psychological states. Approach: Managers were surveyed regarding the effects of 9/11 on these issues. Results: The results of the study indicate that …

Emerging Issues Of Management Education In The 21st Century, Amy E. Hurley-Hanson, Cristina M. Giannantonio, Bruce Dehning

Business Faculty Articles and Research

There is a need for the development of international course material studying corporations outside of the United States. The development of these materials is going to require new forms of cooperation between universities and corporations. Little research exists which examines whether practitioners read, understand, or use the material contained in academic journals. This paper examines the relationship between universities and corporations by reporting the results of a study which surveyed executives about their relationship with academic research. The paper then discusses methodologies for improving collaboration between the two constituencies and offers suggestions for the development of international course materials.

Fairness-Trust-Loyalty Relationship Under Varying Conditions Of Supplier-Buyer Interdependence, Thani Jambulingam, Ravi Kathuria, John R. Nevin

Business Faculty Articles and Research

Relationship marketing plays a significant role in supply chain practice and academic studies. Using the resource advantage theory within the relationship marketing framework, we studied the mediating role of trust as a governance mechanism in the fairness-loyalty relationship under different types of interdependence structure between suppliers (wholesalers) and buyers (retailers). Our findings, based on data from retail pharmacies, demonstrate that only under conditions of symmetric independence, trust, as a governance mechanism, completely mediate the relationship between fairness and loyalty. Under conditions of both perceived independence (i.e., lack of interdependence) and asymmetric buyer dependence, however, trust does not mediate but fairness …