Business Commons^™

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 …

International Clustering And Foreign Subsidiary Performance, Jing'an Tang

WCBT Faculty Publications

The article discusses the development and testing of a network-based model of international clustering and foreign subsidiary performance in an attempt to determine how multinational companies (MNC) enter a foreign country to build their own foreign cluster. It focuses on the foreign peer network (FPN) to incorporate both the social and economic interactions within a cluster. An FPN is described as a set of social and economic relations among a group of foreign subsidiaries that are from the same home country and run same or similar businesses within a common geographic area in the host country. The initial condition of …

Assessing The Performance Impacts Of Information Systems From The Resource-Based Perspective: An Empirical Test Of The Indirect Effect Of The Is, Michael J. Zhang

WCBT Faculty Publications

Research into the strategic impacts of information systems (IS) from the resource-based view of competitive advantage has increasingly embraced the indirect effect of IS on firm performance; that is, IS interact with other complementary organizational resources in influencing firm performance. Using both survey and archival data, this study set out to test the indirect effect of IS and determine the complementary organizational resources contributing to IS impacts on firm performance. The results provide additional evidence in support of the indirect performance effect of IS. Specifically, the study found that the performance impacts of IS arose from their interactions with firm-specific …

Which Ties Matter When? The Strategic Impact Of Network Linkages On Foreign Subsidiary Survival, Jing'an Tang, Paul W. Beamish

WCBT Faculty Publications

In addition to enriching the network theory by specifying the conditions under which business networks affect firm performance, our study contributes to the international strategic alliances literature in answering the questions of when to ally and with whom to ally for managers dealing with international expansions.

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.

How Unilever Hpc-Na Sold Its Employees On The Balanced Scorecard, Bridget Lyons, Andra Gumbus

WCBT Faculty Publications

Unilever Home & Personal Care-North America (HPC-NA) not only takes marketing its products very seriously, but it heavily promotes its balanced scorecard to employees as well. No wonder Unilever HPC-NA successfully designed a unique strategy to communicate awareness of the BSC while encouraging its participation and use. Their experiences should prove valuable to other organizations implementing a balanced scorecard and to those just beginning to formulate a communications approach to internal stakeholders about its role, significance, and use. The Unilever HPC-NA marketing campaign provides an effective strategy that other firms may consider when marketing a balanced scorecard internally. The HPC-NA …

Julia's Dilemma, Andra Gumbus, Jill Woodilla

WCBT Faculty Publications

Julia, a professional woman in her mid-thirties, has had relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis as a part of her life for the last five years. Now she must decide whether to disclose her hidden illness at work. Julia disclosed her illness to her manager in a prior employment, when her MS was first diagnosed, and experienced a supportive response. But she was always mindful that her performance would likely be carefully scrutinized since she was in a job that required strict deadlines. Julia made a career change about a year ago, and did not tell anyone in her new organization that she …

Multinationality-Performance Relationship: A Review And Reconceptualization, Madan Annavarjula, Sam Beldona

WCBT Faculty Publications

Numerous empirical investigations have attempted to study the relationship between multinationality and firm performance. Results from these studies have produced conflicting findings about this relationship. It is argued that one of the causes of the conflicting findings may be an imprecise conceptualization of multinationality. A multidimensional conceptualization is proposed based on a methodological review of previous research.

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