Business Commons^™

The Formal Institutional Context Of Informal Entrepreneurship: A Cross-National, Configurational-Based Perspective, Joshua K. Ault, Andrew Spicer

Faculty Publications

While previous comparative research has identified the formal institutional conditions that differentiate countries on their degree of informal entrepreneurship, this paper examines the characteristics that shape cross-national diversity in its type. Based on a series of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analyses (fs/QCA) of 138 country cases, we find evidence of causal heterogeneity in the configuration of institutional conditions associated with entrepreneurial outcomes that are informal and growth-oriented and those that are informal and subsistence-oriented. Given our results, we propose that the formal institutional-based conditions that differentiate between types of informal sectors are best identified by the conjoint mixture of strength and …

Revisiting Institutional Voids: Advancing The International Business Literature By Leveraging Social Sciences, Marleen Dieleman, Stanislav Markus, Tazeeb Rajwani, George O. White Iii

Faculty Publications

Institutions are vital for solving collective action problems and enabling functioning markets. Based on this notion, the institutional voids literature has offered a dynamic research agenda for international business scholarship. In this perspective article, we leverage work from political science, development economics, legal studies, and anthropology to: (a) expose hidden assumptions about institutional voids in the management literature; (b) propose new directions for research based on our revised assumptions; and (c) provide direction-specific theoretical constructs from other social sciences to stimulate theory-building and empirical inquiry into institutional voids. We develop a framework that identifies four revised assumptions about institutional voids …

Populist Syndrome And Nonmarket Strategy, Daniel J. Blake, Stanislav Markus, Julio Martinez-Suarez

Faculty Publications

Although recognized as a defining feature of the current political era, populism and its implications for non-market strategy remain undertheorized. We offer a framework that (a) conceptualizes populism and its progression over time; (b) outlines the risks populism generates for firms; and (c) theorizes effective nonmarket strategies under populism. Our framework anchors the political risk profile of populism in three interdependent elements: anti-establishment ideology, de-institutionalization, and short-term policy bias. These elements jointly shape the policymaking dy-namics and institutional risks for firms under populism. Our analysis shows how firms can calibrate two nonmarket strategies – political ties and corporate social responsibility …

Unrestricted Factor Analysis: A Powerful Alternative To Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Jan-Benedict E.M. Steenkamp, Alberto Maydeu-Olivares

Faculty Publications

The gold standard for modeling multiple indicator measurement data is confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which has many statistical advantages over traditional exploratory factor analysis (EFA). In most CFA applications, items are assumed to be pure indicators of the construct they intend to measure. However, despite our best efforts, this is often not the case. Cross-loadings incorrectly set to zero can only be expressed through the correlations between the factors, leading to biased factor correlations and to biased structural (regression) parameter estimates. This article introduces a third approach, which has emerged in the psychometric literature, viz., unrestricted factor analysis (UFA). UFA …

Long-Term Business Implications Of Russia’S War In Ukraine, Stanislav Markus

Faculty Publications

Following its invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s macroeconomic stability will worsen; foreign trade and Russia-bound investment will dry up; and human capital will become scarce. Russia will not fully compensate these losses with increased economic engagement with China, with particular deficiencies likely in high-tech areas for Russia. Import substitution is also unlikely to allow Russia to innovate its way out of economic isolation or escape the resource curse. As Kremlin-connected elites further dominate the impoverished economy, crony state capitalism and kleptocracy will rise. The global repercussions of Russia’s war will include commodity shocks and the attendant supply chain disruptions and inflationary …

Leading Through Paradox In A Covid-19 World: Human Resources Comes Of Age, David G. Collings, Anthony J. Nyberg, Patrick M. Wright, John Mcmackin

Faculty Publications

The impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is unprecedented. At an organisational level, the crisis has been hugely disruptive, complex and fraught with ambiguity for leaders. The crisis is fundamentally a human one, making human resource (HR) leaders central in enabling organisations to manage through and ultimately exit the crisis successfully. We apply a paradox lens to understand the HR leadership challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis. We argue that how the HR function responds to the challenges of the crisis and its role in mapping the exit route from the crisis are likely to shape the trajectory of …

Strategic Human Resource Management And Covid-19: Emerging Challenges And Research Opportunities, David G. Collings, John Mcmackin, Anthony Nyberg, Patrick M. Wright

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Investors’ Reactions To Csr News In Family Versus Nonfamily Firms: A Study On Signal (In)Credibility, Naciye Sekerci, Jamil Jaballah, Marc Van Essen, Nadine Kammerlander

Faculty Publications

We study family firm status as an important condition in signaling theory; specifically, we propose that the market reacts more positively to positive, and more negatively to negative, CSR news (i.e., signals) from family firms than to similar news from nonfamily firms. Moreover, we propose that during recessions, the direction of these relationships reverses. Based on an event study of 1247 positive and negative changes in the CSR ratings for all firms listed on the French SFB120 stock market index (2003-2013), we find support for our hypotheses. Moreover, a post hoc analysis reveals that the relationships are contingent on whether …

Beverage Bottle Capacity, Packaging Efficiency, And The Potential For Plastic Waste Reduction, Rafael Becerril Arreola, R. E. Bucklin

Faculty Publications

Plastic pollution is a pressing issue because authorities struggle to contain and process the enormous amount of waste produced. We study the potential for reducing plastic waste by examining the efficiency with which different polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles deliver beverages. We find that 80% of the variation in bottle weight is explained by bottle capacity, 16% by product category, and 1% by brand. Bottle weight is quadratic and convex function of capacity, which implies that medium capacity bottles are most efficient at delivering consumable product. Local data on PET bottle sales and municipal waste recovery validate the findings. A 20% …

Combat And Trajectories Of Physical Health Functioning In Us Service Members, Ben Porter, George A. Bonanno, Paul D. Bliese, Christopher J. Philips, Susan P. Proctor

Faculty Publications

Introduction

Previous research has demonstrated that different forms of mental health trajectories can be observed in service members, and that these trajectories are related to combat. However, limited research has examined this phenomenon in relation to physical health. This study aims to determine how combat exposure relates to trajectories of physical health functioning in U.S. service members.

Methods

This study included 11,950 Millennium Cohort Study participants who had an index deployment between 2001 and 2005. Self-reported physical health functioning was obtained 5 times between 2001 and 2016 (analyzed in 2017), and latent growth mixture modeling was used to identify longitudinal …

Toward A Temporal Theory Of Faultlines And Subgroup Entrenchment, Alyson Meister, Sherry Thatcher, Jieun Park, Mark Maltarich

Faculty Publications

A wealth of scholarship shows that faultlines drive important outcomes for groups. However, despite mounting calls for incorporating time in the group literature, our understanding of faultlines is bound by assumptions that constrain our ability to incorporate the crucial role of time as it relates to faultlines and their effects. Drawing together guidance for exploring temporal phenomena, with the faultline and group literatures, we embark on an understanding of the temporal nature of faultlines. We distinguish faultlines from specific subgroup configurations by introducing the concept of subgroup entrenchment – the agreement among group members about the existence and composition of …

Developing A Risk Model To Target High-Risk Preventive Interventions For Sexual Assault Victimization Among Female U.S. Army Soldiers, Amy E. Street, Anthony J. Rosellini, Robert J. Ursano, Steven G. Heeringa, Eric D. Hill, John Monahan, James A. Naifeh, Maria V. Petukhova, Ben Y. Reis, Nancy A. Sampson, Paul D. Biese, Murray B. Stein, Alan M. Zaslavsky, Ronald C. Kessler

Faculty Publications

Sexual violence victimization is a significant problem among female U.S. military personnel. Preventive interventions for high-risk individuals might reduce prevalence but would require accurate targeting. We attempted to develop a targeting model for female Regular U.S. Army soldiers based on theoretically guided predictors abstracted from administrative data records. As administrative reports of sexual assault victimization are known to be incomplete, parallel machine learning models were developed to predict administratively recorded (in the population) and self-reported (in a representative survey) victimization. Capture–recapture methods were used to combine predictions across models. Key predictors included low status, crime involvement, and treated mental disorders. …

Assessing The Importance Of Brand Equity In Health Services Marketing Through The Impact Of Acquired Goodwill On Stockholder Returns, Richard A. Heiens, Robert T. Leach, Leanne C. Mcgrath

Faculty Publications

The growing importance of brand equity is widely recognized by researchers and business strategists alike. As such, creative new ways to capture the value of this intangible asset must be devised and tested. The current study uses acquired goodwill as a surrogate indicator of brand equity and looks at the importance of brand equity for firms in the health services industry by measuring the impact of acquired goodwill on stockholder returns. The findings indicate that acquired goodwill and stockholder returns appear to be significantly and positively related to each other. In addition, firms that have higher than average amounts of …

The Market Share Impact Of The Fit Between Market Leadership Efforts And Overall Strategic Aggressiveness, Larry P. Pleshko, Richard A. Heiens

Faculty Publications

The current study takes a contingency theory approach to the relationship between market leadership and a variety of marketing strategy concepts making up a firm’s strategic profile, including a firm’s Miles and Snow strategy type, market growth, service growth, service focus, market coverage, the Porter strategy group, and market orientation. The results of the study support this approach, showing that at least six of the seven strategic contingency combinations exhibit a significant relationship to market share. Utilizing a sample drawn from the financial services industry, it is found that firms possessing a recommended “fit”, as when market leader firms exhibit …

A Contingency Theory Approach To Market Orientation And Related Marketing Strategy Concepts: Does Fit Relate To Profit Performance?, Richard A. Heiens, Larry P. Pleshko

Faculty Publications

With a focus on the financial services industry, the current study takes a contingency theory approach to the relationships between market orientation and a variety of marketing strategy concepts, including profitability, a firm’s Miles and Snow strategy type, market growth, service growth, service focus, market coverage, the Porter strategy group, and strategic marketing initiative. Data for the study were gathered from a survey of chief executives from credit unions in the U.S. The results of the study are mixed. In particular, the findings suggest that despite the perceptions of management, it is the less aggressive and less costly approaches to …

The Relationship Between Strategic Orientation, Growth Strategies, And Market Share Performance, Richard A. Heiens, Larry P. Pleshko

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Transnational Integration Regimes As Development Programs, Laszlo Bruszt, Gerald A. Mcdermott

Faculty Publications

In drawing on recent advances in international and comparative political economy, this paper argues that diverging paths of institutional development among emerging market democracies are driven by the Transnational Integration Regimes (TIRs), in which a country is embedded.

As development programs, TIRs differ in their effectiveness not simply in terms of their incentives and largess and more in terms of their emphasis on building institutional capacities, empowering a variety of domestic state and non-state actors via multiplex methods of assistance and monitoring, and their ability to merge monitoring and learning at both the national and supra-national levels. We develop a …

Clusters And Upgrading: A Purposeful Approach, Gerald A. Mcdermott, Héctor O. Rocha

Faculty Publications

We develop a theoretical model to investigate how backward societies can improve their upgrading capabilities by transforming existing industrial agglomerations into dynamic clusters. Our main assumptions are two: first, emerging market economies are not uniform but characterized by variety of subnational regional and sectoral organizational and institutional configurations; second, the basic building block and unit of explanation in social sciences is personal action guided by some intention, which is heterogeneous across different actors. Based on these assumptions and the literature on human motives and social networks, we develop a purposeful approach to clusters and upgrading. We argue that governments can …

The Macroeconomic News Cycle And Uncertainty Resolution, Arjun Chatrath, Rohan Christie-David, William T. Moore

Faculty Publications

We examine the behavior of return volatility and trading at 5-minute intervals in the treasury bond futures market in the context of the monthly macroeconomic news cycle. We advance and confirm the hypothesis that volatility and trading activity are higher in the first half of the month. The data indicate that these patterns arise from at least two sources: (1) a higher level of uncertainty regarding the value of news in announcements in the first half of the month, and (2) improvement in efficiency of macroeconomic forecasts from the first to the second half of the month.

Paradox And The Consumption Of Authenticity Through Reality Television, Randall L. Rose, Stacy L. Wood

Faculty Publications

We position reality television within the broader category of consumer practices of authenticity seeking in a postmodern cultural context. The study draws on relevant perspectives from consumer research, literary criticism, sociology, and anthropology to argue that viewers of reality television encounter three elements of paradox in the process of constructing authenticity. The negotiation of each paradox exceeds the process of coping with or resolving their inherent contradictions to encompass the creation of new values. We argue that consumers blend fantastic elements of programming with indexical elements connected to their lived experiences to create a form of self-referential hyperauthenticity.

Credit Cards As Lifestyle Facilitators, Matthew J. Bernthal, David Crockett, Randall L. Rose

Faculty Publications

Credit cards are an increasingly essential technology, but they carry with them the paradoxical capacity to propel consumers along lifestyle trajectories of marketplace freedom or constraint. We analyze accounts provided by consumers, credit counselors, and participants in a credit counseling seminar in order to develop a differentiated theory of lifestyle facilitation through credit card practice. The skills and tastes expressed by credit card practice help distinguish between the lifestyles of those with higher cultural capital relative to those with lower cultural capital. Differences in lifestyle regulation practice are posited to originate in cultural discourses related to entitlement and frugality.

The Role Of Normative Political Ideology In Consumer Behavior, David Crockett, Melanie Wallendorf

Faculty Publications

This study of African-American consumers living in a large racially segregated midwestern city adds to extant theory on ideology in consumer behavior by considering the role of normative political ideology in provisioning. The specific roles of traditional black liberal and black nationalist political ideologies are discussed. We conclude that normative political ideology is central to understanding shopping as an expression of social and political relations between households confronting attenuated access to goods and services, ranging from housing to food, in a setting stratified by gender, race, and class. Beyond the specifics of this demographic group and setting, we suggest contemporary …

The Dynamics Of Market Entry: The Effects Of Mergers And Acquisitions On Entry In The Banking Industry, Allen N. Berger, Seth D. Bonime, Lawrence G. Goldberg, Lawrence J. White

Faculty Publications

We study the dynamics of market entry following mergers and acquisitions (M&As) using banking industry data. The findings suggest that M&As are associated with statistically and economically significant increases in the probability of entry. The data suggest that M&As affect the proportion of the markets with entry by about 10-20%. These findings also suggest that entry may be part of an "external" effect of M&As that helps supply credit to some relationship-dependent small business borrowers. Our results are robust to the use of alternative econometric methods, changes in specifications of the exogenous variables, and alteration of the data samples.

When Do Fair Beliefs Infiuence Bargaining Behavior? Experimental Bargaining In Japan And The United States, Nancy R. Buchan, Rachel T.A. Croson, Eric J. Johnson

Faculty Publications

In this research, we examine the influence of beliefs about fairness on bargaining behavior. Using a repeated ultimatum game, we examine bargaining contexts in Japan and the United States in which buyers' or sellers' fair beliefs are either in alignment with or in conflict with their own self-interest. We suggest that understanding the relationship between fair beliefs and self-interest is central to understanding when fair beliefs will influence bargaining behavior. Our results demonstrate that fair beliefs predict bargaining behavior when they are aligned with one's own self-interest.

Examining The Effects Of Strategic Marketing Initiative And First-Mover Efforts On Market Share Performance, Richard A. Heiens, Larry P. Pleshko, Robert T. Leach

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Strategic Considerations In The Financial Services Industry: Does Strategic Consistency Influence Performance?, Larry P. Pleshko, Richard A. Heiens

Faculty Publications

This paper suggests that the consistency of strategic leadership decisions is relevant to the performance of a firm. An organization with consistency in decision making across six relevant marketing strategy variables (promotion, price, channels, products, markets, and technology) is described as exhibiting "purity-of-form". An empirical examination is performed in the financial services industry investigating the relationship of strategic consistency to both profitability and market share while controlling for the firm's environment, structure, and size.

The findings indicate that a consistent strategy may have a positive effect on share performance, with high-levels of strategic leadership observed in the better-performing group. The …

Experimental Economic Approaches To International Marketing Research, Nancy R. Buchan

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Swift Neighbors And Persistent Strangers: A Cross-Cultural Investigation Of Trust And Reciprocity In Social Exchange, Nancy R. Buchan, Rachel T.A. Croson, Robin M. Dawes

Faculty Publications

In four countries, levels of trust and reciprocity in direct-reciprocal exchange are compared with those in network-generalized exchanges among experimentally manipulated groups’ members (neighbors) or random experimental participants (strangers). Results show that cooperation decreases as social distance increases; and, that identical network-generalized exchanges generate different amounts of trusting behavior due solely to manipulated social identity between the actors.

This study demonstrates the interaction of culture and social identity on the propensity to trust and reciprocate and also reveals differing relationships between trust and reciprocation in each of the four countries, bringing into question the theoretical relationship between these cooperative behaviors.

A Methodology Towards Measuring The Strategic Profile Of First-Mover Firms In Industrial Markets, Larry P. Pleshko, Richard A. Heiens, Leanne C. Mcgrath

Faculty Publications

This study goes beyond most previous research on first-mover advantages by examining the broader concept of strategic marketing initiative. Specifically, a measurement scale was developed to assess the full extent of a firm's first-mover efforts. A total of 1200 firms were surveyed, with a response rate of 12.2%. The Strategic Marketing Initiative Scale developed exhibited high reliability, and has application in assisting management in recognizing marketing areas for first mover advantages. This can result in better timing of decisions about the strategy of when to act, contributing to the ability to create a competitive advantage around marketing initiatives.

The Flexible Firm: Capability Management In Network Organizations, C. Annique Un

Faculty Publications

The article reviews the book "The Flexible Firm: Capability Management in Network Organizations," edited by Julian Birkinshaw and Peter Hagström.