Business Commons^™

Lost (But Not Missing) At Work: Organizational Lostness As An Employee Response To Change, Lisa Jones Christensen, Scott C. Hammond

Faculty Publications

This article draws from the psychology of lost person behavior, established from wilderness search and rescue missions, to suggest that employees experience the condition of being lost within organizations. Data from wilderness searches, survivors, and organizational actors suggests that lessons from lost person behaviors apply in organizations. Reactions to being lost in an organization follow predictable patterns and include five specific stages: separation, isolation, deviation, deprivation, and realization. In defining the construct of organizational lostness and differentiating it from stress, coping, and resistance, we suggest an organizing framework to understand employee behaviors that would previously seem idiosyncratic. This article offers …

Faster-Better-Cheaper Projects: Too Much Risk Or Overreaction To Perceived Failure?, Robert L. Dillon, Peter M. Madsen

Faculty Publications

From1992 until 1999,NASA adopted a Faster-Better- Cheaper (FBC) paradigm—i.e., smaller low-cost spacecraft—for its unmanned missions. When many early missions met their objectives at much lower cost than traditional flagship missions, the FBC approach seemed successful. However, after the failures of two Mars spacecraft in 1999, the FBC paradigm was viewed as a failed experiment. We reflect on the legacy of FBC. In particular, we focus on the organizational learning literature to explore whether FBC, a stretch goal, was a good step for NASA. Previous examinations of FBC have focused on failure rates rather than on cost effectiveness. We revisit the …

Who Gets Credit For Input? Demographic And Structural Status Cues In Voice Recognition, Taeya M. Howell, David A. Harrison, Ethan R. Burris, James R. Detert

Faculty Publications

The authors investigate the employee features that, alongside overall voice expression, affect supervisors’ voice recognition. Drawing primarily from status characteristics and network position theories, the authors propose and find in a study of 693 employees from 89 different credit union units that supervisors are more likely to credit those reporting the same amount of voice if the employees have higher ascribed or assigned (by the organization) status— cued by demographic variables such as majority ethnicity and full-time work hours. Further, supervisors are more likely to recognize voice from employees who have higher achieved status— cued by their centrality in informal …

Authenticity Matters More Than Intelligence And Personality In Predicting Metacognition, Dan S. Chiaburu, Inchul Cho, Richard G. Gardner

Faculty Publications

Purpose – Metacognition – or learning how to learn – is an important competence in business and academic settings. The purpose of this paper is to examine individual difference predictors of metacognition, including two traditional (general mental ability (GMA), five-factor model (FFM) personality traits) ones, and a novel one, individual authenticity.

Design/methodology/approach – Volunteers (n¼243) were asked to rate the extent to which they agreed with the respective statements on a seven-point Likert-type scale for GMA, FFM personality traits, and authenticity measures. Data were collected at different points in time to introduce psychological separation among the study measures.

Findings – …

Using Trust And Anonymity To Expand The Use Of Anonymizing Systems That Improve Security Across Organizations, Anthony Vance, Paul Benjamin Lowry, David W. Wilson

Faculty Publications

To mitigate risks inherent in sharing sensitive cyber-security information, recent research has examined anonymizing systems (ANS) that hide the identities of participants and decouple data from their originators. ANS are particularly compelling as a potential support to cyber-security information sharing because the cost of implementation is relatively low, and the more organizations and nations that participate, the more everyone benefits. Although such systems are promising to both developing and mature cyber-infrastructures, they still have not been widely adopted for use in sharing cyber-security information. Relatively little prior research has investigated the perception and adoption of these systems, despite their potential …

Identity Communication In Virtual Teams: Insights From Interviews With Working Professionals, David W. Wilson, Susan A. Brown, Sherry M. B. Thatcher, Sarah D. Harris

Faculty Publications

Organizations are increasingly using virtual teams to gain competitive advantages in the marketplace, but managers face a tradeoff between the benefits that such virtual teams provide and their inherent weaknesses. This paper examines identity communication in virtual environments, arguing that identity communication can counteract some of the negative aspects of virtual teamwork. Using coded transcriptions from 35 semi-structured interviews with working professionals who participate in virtual teams, we explore the process of identity communication in virtual teams and the role of technology in influencing and enabling these processes. Using established identity and media theories as a guide, we formulate, and …

Playing To Win: The Surprising Power Of Play In Innovation, Suzanne M. Piotrowski, Kalle Lyytinen, Richard Boland, James Gaskin

Faculty Publications

Organizational teams are the primary mechanism by which ideas are birthed and recombined into innovations for maintaining or achieving competitive advantage. We know that resources of people, time and funding impact team effectiveness in innovating. We also know that factors such as individual traits of talent, expertise, and collaboration skills also matter greatly. What is less known, and less studied, is the role of team characteristics, in particular, team play and team playfulness on innovation results. Our two-part study examined 145 teams and discovered that team playfulness is present on all successful innovation teams and emerges as divergence and deep …

The Role Of Stress And Motivation In Problematic Smartphone Use Among College Students, Jin-Liang Wang, Hai-Zhen Wang, James Gaskin, Li-Hui Wang

Faculty Publications

Although numerous studies have examined factors that influence problematic smartphone use, few have investigated the interactions between different types of motivation and psychosocial well-being factors in facilitating problematic smartphone use. Thus, this study analyzed the moderating role of perceived stress on the relationship between entertainment or escapism motivation and problematic smartphone use. Using a sample of 600 typical smartphone users (Chinese college students) we found: (1) Perceived stress moderates the relationship between entertainment motivation and problematic smartphone use, and between escapism motivation and problematic smartphone use among users scoring high on problematic use; (2) perceived stress moderated the relationship between …

Toward A Synthesis Of Hr Competency Models: The Common Hr "Food Groups", Dave Ulrich, Wayne Brockbank, Mike Ulrich, David Kryscynski

Faculty Publications

As businesses face unprecedented rates of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), business leaders increasingly recognize the importance of talent (workforce, competencies, skills, abilities), leadership (senior leader and leadership team), and organization (workplace, capability, culture, processes, systems) as sources of competitiveness. Competitors can readily copy access to capital, strategic intent, and operational efficiency but they have a more difficult time copying talent, leadership, and organizational practices. As a result of this increased visibility, HR issues have received increased attention in the C-suite.

March Market Madness: The Impact Of Value-Irrelevant Events On The Market Pricing Of Earnings News*, Michael S. Drake, Kurt H. Gee, Jacob Thornock

Faculty Publications

Each year, the NCAA basketball tournament (March Madness) is a daytime distraction for millions of people, providing a largely exogenous shock to investor attention. We investigate whether March Madness influences the market response to earnings by diverting investor attention away from earnings news. We find that the price reaction to earnings news released during March Madness is muted. This result generally holds across several samples and additional analyses. We also find that the result is more muted for low institutional ownership firms, consistent with the effect being driven by less-sophisticated investors. Furthermore, we find that it takes the market 30 …

When Does Pre-Ipo Financial Reporting Trigger Post-Ipo Legal Consequences?, Mary Brooke Billings, Melissa F. Lewis-Western

Faculty Publications

Prior research suggests that the fear of litigation precludes most managers from manipulating earnings in the initial public offering (“IPO”) setting. Yet, managers’ restraint is perhaps unwarranted: research has not yet linked instances of aggressive pre-IPO reporting to increased litigation risk. This paper investigates when aggressive IPO reporting triggers legal consequences. Examining 2,037 IPOs, we find that even when ex post evidence indicates the presence of earnings inflation, litigation is more likely to occur when investors have relied on the suspect earnings during the pricing process. Why might investors rely on some firms’ abnormal accruals when valuing the IPO and …

Historical Cost Measurement And The Use Of Dupont Analysis By Market Participants, Asher Curtis, Melissa F. Lewis-Western, Sara Toynbee

Faculty Publications

We investigate whether historical cost measurement of assets lowers the usefulness of DuPont analysis for investors. Because firms report assets at modified historical cost under US GAAP, accounting ratios can be biased upward when assets have appreciated. Thus, variation in asset turnover, which is the DuPont ratio most affected by asset measurement, can be due to both economic forces and measurement effects. We assess the extent of measurement effects using the average age of a firm’s assets and find that asset turnover ratios are higher and more persistent for firms with older assets. Forecast errors of asset turnover are associated …

Disclosure Transparency About Activity In Valuation Allowance And Reserve Accounts And Accruals-Based Earnings Management, Cory A. Cassell, Linda A. Myers, Timothy Seidel

Faculty Publications

We examine the relation between the transparency of disclosures about activity in valuation allowance and reserve accounts and accruals-based earnings management. We classify disclosures as being transparent if they provide detailed information about activity in the allowance and reserve accounts during the fiscal period. We find strong evidence that the extent of accruals-based earnings management is lower among companies with transparent disclosures than among companies without transparent disclosures. We also investigate whether the extent of accruals-based earnings management is lower for companies that provide transparent disclosures in one comprehensive schedule (i.e., the Schedule II) relative to those that provide transparent …

Market (In)Attention And The Strategic Scheduling And Timing Of Earnings Announcements, Ed Dehaan, Terry Shevlin, Jacob Thornock

Faculty Publications

We investigate whether managers “hide” bad news by announcing earnings during periods of low attention, or by providing less forewarning of an upcoming earnings announcement. Our findings are consistent with managers reporting bad news after market hours, on busy days, and with less advance notice, and with earnings receiving less attention in these settings. Paradoxically, our findings indicate that managers also report bad news on Fridays, but we do not find lower attention on Fridays. Further, we find negative returns when the market is notified of an upcoming Friday earnings announcement, which is consistent with investors inferring forthcoming bad news.

The Effects Of Out-Of-Regime Guidance On Auditor Judgments About Appropriate Application Of Accounting Standards, H. Scott Asay, Tim Brown, Mark W. Nelson, T. Jeffrey Wilks

Faculty Publications

Accountants making judgments with respect to a particular set of standards are increasingly aware of standards from other reporting regimes that offer additional or conflicting guidance. In fact, IFRS encourages reliance on out-of-regime standards when IFRS lacks guidance. This paper reports the results of two experiments which provide evidence that auditors in such circumstances are vulnerable to contrast effects, whereby reporting judgments under IFRS are systematically influenced away from the accounting treatment supported by standards from another regime (U.S. GAAP). Contrast effects are observed (1) when out-of-regime standards are considered before making a reporting judgment under IFRS and (2) when …

Impact Of Conservation Corps Experience On Corps Members, Mat D. Duerden, Michael B. Edwards, Robin Lizzo

Faculty Publications

This study examined the impact of conservation corps experiences on participants. Based upon existing gaps in the conservation corps literature and drawing from research on other comparable programs, this study addressed the following research questions: did involvement in a conservation corps program increase participants' (a) intention to pursue natural resource management related careers or education, (b) positive attitudes towards public lands, and (c) environmental activism? A quasi-experimental design was used to answer these questions. The participant group for the study came from IO different Public Lands Service Coalition corps in the Western United States during the 2011 season. The comparison …

An Examination Of How Entry-Level Staff Auditors Respond To Tone At The Top Vis-À-Vis Tone At The Bottom, Jeffrey Pickerd, Scott L. Summers, David A. Wood

Faculty Publications

Prior academic and practitioner literature argues that the ethical tone at the top of an organization is a key factor in establishing an effective internal control environment. Drawing on self-concept maintenance theory and in-group bias theory, we predict that entry-level staff auditors will disregard a company’s ethical standards unless they observe a strong ethical tone from both their partner (tone at the top) and their supervising senior (tone at the bottom). Also, we predict that staff auditors will be more influenced by the tone of their supervising senior than the partner when these two individuals provide conflicting tones. In a …

Citation-Based Accounting Education Publication Rankings, Mark Metcalf, Kevin Stocks, Scott L. Summers, David A. Wood

Faculty Publications

We extend prior accounting education research by ranking accounting education publications based on citation counts. We collect publications in two accounting education specialty journals, Issues in Accounting Education and Journal of Accounting Education, and 11 other high-quality journals included in the Summers and Wood (2015a) database. We aggregate rankings by institution and by individuals for both traditional publications (including “instructional resource” papers that are not case-based) and cased-based publications. We also provide citation-based benchmarking data for accounting education scholarship. We present our results in time windows of the most recent 6 years (i.e., 2008–2013, inclusive), 12 years (i.e., 2002–2013, inclusive), …

Them’S Fightin’ Words: The Effects Of Violent Rhetoric On Ethical Decision Making In Business, Joshua R. Gubler, Nathan P. Kalmoe, David A. Wood

Faculty Publications

Business managers regularly employ metaphorical violent rhetoric as a means of motivating their employees to action. While it might be effective to this end, research on violent media suggests that violent rhetoric might have other, less desirable consequences. This study examines how the use of metaphorical violent rhetoric by business managers impacts the ethical decision making of employees. We develop and test a model that explains how the use of violent rhetoric impacts employees’ willingness to break ethical standards, depending on the source of the rhetoric. The results of two experiments suggest that the use of violent rhetoric by a …

The Force Of Habit: Using Fmri To Explain Users’ Habituation To Security Warnings, Bonnie Anderson, Anthony Vance, Brock Kirwan

Faculty Publications

Work with industry leaders to present findings and suggest design changes.

Present ground-breaking research at international conferences and publish in top publications.

Include undergraduate and graduate students in all aspects of research

I Tie Flies In My Sleep: An Autoethnographic Examination Of Recreation And Reintegration For A Veteran With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Warren D. Price, Neil R. Lundberg, Ramon Zabriskie, Keith W. Barney

Faculty Publications

This autoethnographic account details the author's ongoing struggle with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and how leisure was integral in his journey toward recovery. By showing the mental and emotional struggles of life with the disorder, this paper offers an alternative viewpoint from the traditional scientific studies of PTSD, which bury soldiers' voices under layers of analysis. The purpose of this paper is to deepen and expand an understanding of both combat-related PTSD and the power of leisure in an individual's recovery from combat trauma.

Adaptation Of An Adolescent Coping Assessment For Therapeutic Recreation And Outdoor Adventure Settings, Melissa S. Russell, Mark A. Widmer, Neil Lundberg, Peter Ward

Faculty Publications

This study addresses the need for sound assessments to measure adolescent coping in therapeutic recreation, wilderness and adventure therapy settings. Although consideration was given to developing a new measure, a well-developed general coping measure exists, and the authors indicated a need to adapt it to specific settings. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to adapt the Response to Stress Questionnaire (RSQ) for use in adventure-based therapeutic settings. Appropriate content was identified and items were adapted to create RSQ Outdoor Adventure Version (RSQ-OAV). These items were then evaluated for representativeness and relevance to provide content validity. An expert panel conducted …

“Not Now:” Using Fmri And Eye Tracking To Improve The Timing Of Security Messages, Bonnie Brinton Anderson, Anthony Vance, C. Brock Kirwan, Jeffrey Jenkins

Faculty Publications

Users remain a weak link in computer security due, in part, to their level of security message disregard. We examine how dual-task interference (DTI) influences fine motor control in the brain in response to security messages, allowing us to develop measures of DTI using mouse-cursor tracking and mobile indicators (e.g., accelerometer and geolocation data) for desktop and mobile devices, respectively.

New Slaves: Kanye West, Brad Paisley, And Contemporary Confederate-Flag Discourse In Popular Music Iconography, Kenneth Hartvigsen

Faculty Publications

One hundred and fifty years after Appomattox, the iconographic remains of America’s Civil War are still contested symbolic artifacts. Case in point: at the writing of this paper a state bill sat on California Governor Jerry Brown’s desk which would ban the sale of the Confederate flag or any merchandise with Confederate flag imagery on state property. Thus California has become the most recent battleground of the war between the states, or to word it in more precise language, California legislators have entered the debate over who controls a flag’s meaning and memory.

Normative Stakeholder Capitalism: Getting From Here To There, Marc-Charles Ingerson, Bradley R. Agle, Thomas Donalson, Paul C. Godfrey, Jared D. Harris, Jeffrey S. Harrison, Adrian Keevil, Ronald K. Mitchell, Robert A. Phillips

Faculty Publications

The capability of normative declarations to alter outcomes is well accepted. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident ... ,' 'inalienable rights, ... life, liberty, ... pursuit of happiness, .. .' and similar statements contain within them social energy that inspires the mind, justifies new modes of thought, and enables change .... Normative discourse, we therefore believe, must continue to be endemic to stakeholder theory and research if scholars want this theory to flourish and fulfill its aims as a theory of the firm-not the least of which is attending to the long-run interests of both the business corporation and …

The First 50 Years And The Next 50 Years Of A Behavioral Theory Of The Firm: An Interview With James G. March, Chengwei Liu, David Maslach, Vinit Desai, Peter Madsen

Faculty Publications

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 publication of A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTF) by Richard Cyert and James G. March, we interviewed Professor James G. March. The purpose of this article is to disseminate the full text of that interview.

The Robust Beauty Of “Little Ideas”: The Past And Future Of A Behavioral Theory Of The Firm, David Maslach, Chengwei Liu, Peter Madsen, Vinit Desai

Faculty Publications

This introductory and the following nine articles reflect comments made by panelists during a symposium honoring A Behavioral Theory of the Firm by Richard Cyert and James G. March at the 2013 Academy of Management meeting. Not surprisingly, what emerged from these comments is that the Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTF) was enormously influential to the creation of many “little ideas” that have a big impact on a number of social sciences. More surprising is the potential for many new “little ideas” that build on the BTF. The panelists detail what these new “little ideas” may be in future …

The Effect Of Information Choice On Auditors’ Judgments And Confidence, Steven D. Smith, William B. Tayler, Douglas F. Prawitt

Faculty Publications

Previous research finds that individuals place more weight on information when they choose to obtain it than when they acquire it without explicit choice. We examine whether litigation risk and auditor experience influence auditors’ susceptibility to this information choice effect. In our experiment, auditor participants evaluate the likelihood of an inventory obsolescence issue for a hypothetical client subsidiary. We find that in a high litigation risk setting, less-experienced auditors weight information they choose to acquire more heavily than do less-experienced auditors who acquire the same information without choice. Further, we predict and find that auditors choosing to acquire information are …

The Usefulness Of Historical Accounting Reports, Michael S. Drake, Darren T. Roulstone, Jacob Thornock

Faculty Publications

In this study we investigate the usefulness of historical accounting reports(10-Ks and 10- Qs) by examining four settings where we expect investors to acquire historical reports in order to obtain qualitative and quantitative information that contextualizes and conditions information released in the current period. Using a novel dataset that tracks user requests for accounting reports stored in the SEC EDGAR database, we find that requests for historic reports during the fiscal year are positively associated with financial reporting complexity and that requests around earnings announcements are positively associated with accounting discretion and negative earnings shocks (particularly for conservative firms). Finally, …

Predicting Social Networking Site (Sns) Use: Personality, Attitudes, Motivation And Internet Self-Efficacy, Jin-Liang Wang, Linda A. Jackson, Hai-Zhen Wang, James Gaskin

Faculty Publications

Few studies have considered the personal characteristics that may predict the use of Social Networking Sites (SNSs). We examined the prediction of SNS use from distinct personality traits (i.e., sociability and shyness), attitudes toward SNS use, motivations for SNS use and Internet self-efficacy. Participants were 352 Chinese college students who used the QQ zone. Results indicated that sociability, shyness, attitudes, motivations and self-efficacy predicted SNS use, prediction depending on the function of SNS use. Specifically, sociability, attitudes, social interaction motivation, entertainment motivation and self-efficacy were significant predictors of SNS’s social function. In contrast, shyness, attitudes, relaxing entertainment motivation and self-efficacy …