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Full-Text Articles in Business Administration, Management, and Operations

Making Markowitz Proud: How High-Performing University Endowments Achieve Portfolio Diversification, Mimi Lord Dec 2010

Making Markowitz Proud: How High-Performing University Endowments Achieve Portfolio Diversification, Mimi Lord

Student Scholarship

University endowments with broad portfolio diversification have been correlated with performance, but antecedents to investment committees' diversification decisions have not been tested previously. Investment committee characteristics including diverse investment expertise, a learning commitment and open-mindedness are postulated to affect portfolio diversification via the mediating effect of Portfolio Theory. The use of Portfolio Theory framework leads to greater portfolio diversification among top-performing endowments than among bottom-performing endowments


Boardroom Climate: Understanding How It Impacts Board Level Strategic Decision Making, Bernard C. Bailey Dec 2010

Boardroom Climate: Understanding How It Impacts Board Level Strategic Decision Making, Bernard C. Bailey

Student Scholarship

This study seeks to better understand board effectiveness by opening the "black box" associated with board dynamics and behaviors. Drawing on the process oriented perspective of board level strategic decision making from Forbes and Milliken (1999) as well as the group engagement model by Tyler and Blader (2000; 2003), we analyzed surveys from 151 board directors representing 119 U. S. publicly traded companies. Our findings show that the creation of a climate of respect within the boardroom, as well as board member and top management team (TMT) collaboration are positively related to "effort norms" and "cognitive conflict" processes. TMT and …


Boardroom Climate: Understanding How It Impacts Board Level Strategic Decision Making, Bernard C. Bailey Dec 2010

Boardroom Climate: Understanding How It Impacts Board Level Strategic Decision Making, Bernard C. Bailey

Student Scholarship

This study seeks to better understand board effectiveness by opening the "black box" associated with board dynamics and behaviors. Drawing on the process oriented perspective of board level strategic decision making from Forbes and Milliken (1999) as well as the group engagement model by Tyler and Blader (2000; 2003), we analyzed surveys from 151 board directors representing 119 U. S. publicly traded companies. Our findings show that the creation of a climate of respect within the boardroom, as well as board member and top management team (TMT) collaboration are positively related to "effort norms" and "cognitive conflict" processes. TMT and …


Roadmap For The Survival Of Nascent Social Entrepreneurial Ventures, Aparna Katre Dec 2010

Roadmap For The Survival Of Nascent Social Entrepreneurial Ventures, Aparna Katre

Student Scholarship

Facing issues of survivability, social-purpose entrepreneurs are reinventing to better balance market and mission goals. Addressing the deficit of empirical data about how they do it and, in particular, a gap in knowledge about the crucial start up phase of the social entrepreneurial process we conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 31 North American founder/CEO's at various points in early stage social venture creation. The data revealed a four-stage early venture developmental continuum featuring progressive critical success factors on which we mapped successful, struggling and failed ventures in our sample. While effective execution of each factor helps secure incremental legitimacy with …


Stretching Role Breadth: The Affect Of Overachieving It Managers In Underperforming It Organizations, Linda M. Pittenger Dec 2010

Stretching Role Breadth: The Affect Of Overachieving It Managers In Underperforming It Organizations, Linda M. Pittenger

Student Scholarship

We addressed both the well documented perception that corporate information technology organizations fail to maximize returns on the significant investments firms make in them and the paucity of empirical evidence about how IT professionals contribute to the problem . Although there may be many explanations for IT performance shortcomings, we focused on people, seeking to shed light on the competencies of professionals overseeing or executing IT projects in three multinational firms operating in North America in distinctly different industries. Our findings revealed differences between two tiers of IT professionals individual contributors and managers appraised by their organizations as achieving two …


The Co-Production Of Social Contagion: A Comparative Analysis Of Two Social Networking Sites, Michael Fisher Dec 2010

The Co-Production Of Social Contagion: A Comparative Analysis Of Two Social Networking Sites, Michael Fisher

Student Scholarship

Theories of technology product adoption and diffusion fail to adequately explain social contagion or viral growth. Additionally\, the role of product design in users propensity to use and recommend products is both understudied and poorly understood. To address a vexing gap in knowledge about what explains viral growth\, we conducted ethnographic interviews with technology executives and users of two social networking sites that have experienced dramatically different growth patterns. Our findings reveal that product co-production and user self identity- not product attributes fuel viral growth. Social networking products co-produced by users and providers\, with meaning socially constructed by customers\, permit …


Temporal Tribes: The Origin And Resolution Of Tenure Based Affective Conflict In Venture Backed Top Management Teams, Mary Abbott Dec 2010

Temporal Tribes: The Origin And Resolution Of Tenure Based Affective Conflict In Venture Backed Top Management Teams, Mary Abbott

Student Scholarship

Venture backed firms with both exceptionally high and relatively low growth experience a comparatively fast turnover of executives, often resulting in multiple cohorts within the top management team (TMT). These tenure cohorts often act like warring tribes, generating value destroying affective conflict. While several studies have validated the relationship between tenure diversity and affective conflict, none explain its source. To address this gap in knowledge, we conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews with 34 executives from six U.S. venture backed private companies. Our results move beyond those of previous studies on tenure based affective team conflict by revealing its source to be …


The Socio-Cognitive Dynamics Of Entrepreneurial Ideation, Robert M. Gemmell Dec 2010

The Socio-Cognitive Dynamics Of Entrepreneurial Ideation, Robert M. Gemmell

Student Scholarship

Entrepreneurs need creative ideas to develop innovative new products. We interviewed 32 technology entrepreneurs to generate a grounded theory about how technology entrepreneurs use social behaviors, techniques and cognitive processes to attain, develop, refine, validate and filter (for usefulness) creative ideas for successful new products, processes or services. The results reveal a complex, cyclical and recursive multi-level social process with emphasis on active and social experimentation. Greatest ideational productivity occurs when strong social ties interactively solve problems in an environment of trust -- in particular, when 'Trusted Partners' exchange and refine ideas through a form of shared cognition. Findings will …


Pricing Orientation In Industrial Markets: The Organizational Transformation To Value-Based Pricing, Stephan M. Liozu Dec 2010

Pricing Orientation In Industrial Markets: The Organizational Transformation To Value-Based Pricing, Stephan M. Liozu

Student Scholarship

Of three main orientations to pricing in industrial markets cost-based, competition-based and customer value-based most marketing and pricing scholars consider the latter superior but few firms use it. The literature is silent about how organizational and behavioral characteristics of industrial firms may affect pricing orientation and, more specifically, value-based pricing. Semi-structured interviews with 44 managers of small to medium size U.S. industrial firms yielded insights into firm pricing orientations, processes and decision making patterns. We identified five organizational characteristics common to firms implementing value-based pricing: ability to effect deep transformational change, presence of a champion, skill in diffusing organizational capabilities, …


Toward An Understanding Of Entrepreneurship Environment: The Case Of Puerto Rico, Moraima De Hoyos-Ruperto Dec 2010

Toward An Understanding Of Entrepreneurship Environment: The Case Of Puerto Rico, Moraima De Hoyos-Ruperto

Student Scholarship

This study aims to address the unexplained stagnant entrepreneurial environment in Puerto Rico despite average or above average entrepreneurial potential, capabilities, and intentions compared to other high-income countries. Analysis of interviews with public, private and civic sector leaders and both successful and less successful entrepreneurs suggest a pervasive lack of support for entrepreneurs from formal organizations charged with entrepreneurship development and a failure of entrepreneurs themselves to develop networks to support venture startup and sustainment.


The Mechanisms And Effects Of Boundary Spanning For Enterprise-Class System Development Project Success, Alan G.D. Fisk Apr 2010

The Mechanisms And Effects Of Boundary Spanning For Enterprise-Class System Development Project Success, Alan G.D. Fisk

Student Scholarship

Information System Development (ISD) relies on cross-functional teams with distinct cultures and non-overlapping knowledge. Developing a shared understanding of the business needs and associated IS solutions by drawing upon these disparate knowledge sets is critical for project success. We extend theorizing regarding the mechanisms and effects of boundary on ISD success by exploring the relationships between acculturation, competence, and boundary spanning roles. We utilize survey data derived from 139 ISD projects in a global US automotive OEM, completed between 2006 and 2009. We show that the presence of boundary spanning roles, acculturative processes, and cross-domain knowledge and experience acquisition are …


The Impact Of Charisma In Employee Volunteer Programs: Do Employees Motivate Their Coworkers?, Don E. Teague Mar 2010

The Impact Of Charisma In Employee Volunteer Programs: Do Employees Motivate Their Coworkers?, Don E. Teague

Student Scholarship

The influence of charismatic coworkers on employee motivation to volunteer is examined in a corporate context in which group social identity has already been established. Beyond "asking" or volunteers, inspiration and personal experience are recruiting tools whose effects on motivation we measure for 117 corporate employee volunteers. Employee group social identity is tested as an antecedent variable mediated by charismatic recruiting. The results indicate that inspiration and charisma positively influence motivation among employee volunteers and mediate the effect of group social identity. This study responds to the nonprofit sector's call for more theory-driven research on employee volunteering with practical applications …


How Many Minds Does A Team Have? Contextual Ambidexterity And Goal Harmony In Healthcare, Sridhar Belavadi Seshadri Feb 2010

How Many Minds Does A Team Have? Contextual Ambidexterity And Goal Harmony In Healthcare, Sridhar Belavadi Seshadri

Student Scholarship

"Ambidexterity: Noun: 1. ambidextrous ease, skill, or facility; 2. unusual cleverness; 3.duplicity; deceitfulness." Retrieved March 21, 2010, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ambidexterity Despite their research and educational prowess, Academic Medical Centers are in a crisis. Public reporting of quality and patient satisfaction data, increasing costs, stiffer competition, and anticipated tightening of budgets have created new levels of urgency among medical school deans and hospital CEOs to increase the effectiveness of the clinical enterprise on multiple fronts. This study models an AMC as a loosely coupled system and examines how interdisciplinary teams--comprising administrators, physicians, and nurses--work to harmonize seemingly disparate quality improvement …


When The Risk Of System Use If Life Or Death: A Study Of The Adoption Of Surgical Technology, Jonathan B. Brewster Jan 2010

When The Risk Of System Use If Life Or Death: A Study Of The Adoption Of Surgical Technology, Jonathan B. Brewster

Student Scholarship

Much of the research in IT innovation diffusion has been in the study of the diffusion of common technological innovations that intersect human activity in business processes (e.g. web-based e-commerce). There has been less research into the diffusion of specialized technologies in high risk environments where the potentially highly negative but low probability consequences of adopting the technology can affect the adoption decision. Such technologies are employed by highly trained individuals whose work is enhanced and transformed by the IT use. Computer assisted surgery (CAS) exemplifies this technology diffusion arena: surgeons must exhibit a high level of trust in such …


The Payoffs Of Championing 'Tough Issues' In The Executive Suite; Why Corporations Need To Nurture Quixotic Champions, Nancy E. Mcinerney-Lacombe Jan 2010

The Payoffs Of Championing 'Tough Issues' In The Executive Suite; Why Corporations Need To Nurture Quixotic Champions, Nancy E. Mcinerney-Lacombe

Student Scholarship

When tough issues, defined as those issues that remain uncomfortably unspoken, are “championed” in the executive suite, who does it and with what results? More than 400 senior corporate executives ─ roughly half of them women ─ were surveyed to shed light on this phenomenon – where one person in a group is prepared to break the silence on a compelling –albeit uncomfortable – issue to engage their peers who would prefer to avoid both them and the issue. Our work builds on – but is distinguished from – limited and narrowly scoped previous studies on championing. We studied the …


Impact Of Microfinance On Socioeconomic Status Of The Poor: The Case Of Malawi, William J. Oliver Jan 2010

Impact Of Microfinance On Socioeconomic Status Of The Poor: The Case Of Malawi, William J. Oliver

Student Scholarship

Over the past 30 years, microfinance (MF) has grown to a $30 billion industry involving over 3,000 organizations. Half of these microfinance institutions, however, have nothing more than anecdotal stories about the impact of MF on poverty. The connection between MF and poverty eradication is far from resolved. This paper addresses an ongoing debate by drawing upon two bodies of literature: poverty eradication and microfinance measurement. It articulates a causal model of the effects of MF on poverty that is unique in three regards. First, it measures the effect on socioeconomic status (SES) using for the first time a reflective …


Boundary Crossings: Professional And Situational Influences On Nonprofit Leaders And Their Organizations, Antoinette E. La Belle Jan 2010

Boundary Crossings: Professional And Situational Influences On Nonprofit Leaders And Their Organizations, Antoinette E. La Belle

Student Scholarship

A leadership crisis in the nonprofit sector looms. "Crossovers" from the corporate sector present an alternative source of CEO talent but a dearth of empirical research about boundary crossing has limited our understanding about the effects of leader origin on organizational performance. We surveyed 631 leaders who had crossed one to three boundaries--sector, organization and/or position--into top U.S. nonprofit jobs. Analysis of 18 combinations of leader experience including sector path, recent origin and role shift revealed--regardless of boundary--striking similarities rather than stark differences in how nonprofit CEOs lead. The effects of leaders' sector experience and diversity of experience on behavioral …


Boundary Crossings: Professional And Situational Influences On Nonprofit Leaders And Their Organizations, Antoinette E. La Belle Jan 2010

Boundary Crossings: Professional And Situational Influences On Nonprofit Leaders And Their Organizations, Antoinette E. La Belle

Student Scholarship

A leadership crisis in the nonprofit sector looms. "Crossovers" from the corporate sector present an alternative source of CEO talent but a dearth of empirical research about boundary crossing has limited our understanding about the effects of leader origin on organizational performance. We surveyed 631 leaders who had crossed one to three boundaries--sector, organization and/or position--into top U.S. nonprofit jobs. Analysis of 18 combinations of leader experience including sector path, recent origin and role shift revealed--regardless of boundary--striking similarities rather than stark differences in how nonprofit CEOs lead. The effects of leaders' sector experience and diversity of experience on behavioral …


Causal Ambiguity And Its Impacts On Firm Performance, Richard I. Araya Jan 2010

Causal Ambiguity And Its Impacts On Firm Performance, Richard I. Araya

Student Scholarship

Dynamic capabilities and associated shifts in learning make firm's capabilities hard to imitate, and are critical in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. Consequently, strategic management literature has recognized that the presence of causal ambiguity plays a pivotal role in generating inter-firm differences in obtained rents. At the same time, causal ambiguity may hamper internal diffusion of capabilities within the firm negatively affecting its performance (Szulanki, 1996). Overall, the relationship between dynamic capabilities, causal ambiguity and firm performance has remained poorly understood. In this study, we seek to address this gap by developing a causal model that depicts how management perceptions of …


Causal Ambiguity And Its Impacts On Firm Performance, Richard I. Araya Jan 2010

Causal Ambiguity And Its Impacts On Firm Performance, Richard I. Araya

Student Scholarship

Dynamic capabilities and associated shifts in learning make firm's capabilities hard to imitate, and are critical in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. Consequently, strategic management literature has recognized that the presence of causal ambiguity plays a pivotal role in generating inter-firm differences in obtained rents. At the same time, causal ambiguity may hamper internal diffusion of capabilities within the firm negatively affecting its performance (Szulanki, 1996). Overall, the relationship between dynamic capabilities, causal ambiguity and firm performance has remained poorly understood. In this study, we seek to address this gap by developing a causal model that depicts how management perceptions of …


Winning Consumer Trust And Loyalty In Distrust-Dominated Environments: A Consumer Perspective, Rachel Y. Talton Jan 2010

Winning Consumer Trust And Loyalty In Distrust-Dominated Environments: A Consumer Perspective, Rachel Y. Talton

Student Scholarship

Driven in part by recent corporate failures, consumers are increasingly distrustful of motivations and behaviors of corporate leaders, firms, and entire sectors of the economy. How do firms win consumer loyalty in distrust-dominated environments? We use two competing theoretical lenses to investigate the most salient strategic path to firm loyalty in trust- and distrust-dominated environments, from the consumer perspective. We find that consumer distrust in a firm is a grave threat to loyalty across industries. Additionally, we show that distrust-dominated environments present unique opportunity for some firms with high consumer trust to gain loyalty, while trust-dominated environments present fewer opportunities.


The 'Where' And 'How' Of Exploration And Exploitation: Balancing Leadership Styles To Drive Innovation And Performance, Ann Kowal Smith Jan 2010

The 'Where' And 'How' Of Exploration And Exploitation: Balancing Leadership Styles To Drive Innovation And Performance, Ann Kowal Smith

Student Scholarship

Using a global sample of public companies, we explored the relationships among transformational and transactional leadership, exploration and exploitation and performance. First, balanced leadership styles drive more innovative learning outcomes than either single style. Second, elements of an expanded framework of innovative learning, including “where” ideas are sourced and “how” they are shared, fully mediate the relationship between leadership and performance. Specifically, “how” drives earnings growth and “where” drives revenue growth. We propose a nuanced ambidexterity, whereby leaders balance not only exploration and exploitation, but also idea sourcing and idea sharing to unleash their organization’s collective wisdom and drive performance.


Board Level Strategic Decision-Making: Process Characteristics And Context, Bernard C. Bailey Dec 2009

Board Level Strategic Decision-Making: Process Characteristics And Context, Bernard C. Bailey

Student Scholarship

How do boards make strategic decisions? Semi-structured interviews with twenty eight directors of small to medium size publicly traded U.S. companies in the high technology sector were conducted in order to gain insights into strategic decision-making at the board level. We identified six characteristics that distinguish two divergent views about strategic decision-making. These characteristics include the role of the board chair, the boardroom climate, the board's shared vision and goals, the board's agency primacy, the board's process for decision closure and the board's level of involvement in the strategic planning process.


Managing The Mission Through Times Of Adversity: What Leads To Reliable Nonprofit Performance?, Kathleen Roche Dec 2009

Managing The Mission Through Times Of Adversity: What Leads To Reliable Nonprofit Performance?, Kathleen Roche

Student Scholarship

During times of severe economic adversity, nonprofit organizations must carry out their charitable missions to ever-growing and needier constituencies despite endowment erosion, dwindling contributions, reduced staff, and severe funding cuts. The literature tells us little about what nonprofit organizations and managers actually do to survive economic crises. In depth interviews with leaders of a wide range of U.S. nonprofit organizations compared and contrasted crisis management experiences, revealing that, regardless of size and operation tenure, those best situated to emerge from severe and sudden revenue loss had energized, outwardly focused leaders and actively engaged boards, many volunteers, greatly extended hours of …


Post-Decision Surprise: How Bankers Manage The Unexpected, Ronald W. Eastburn Dec 2009

Post-Decision Surprise: How Bankers Manage The Unexpected, Ronald W. Eastburn

Student Scholarship

The literature is silent about the occurrence and impact of unexpected results of managerial decisions in the financial services industry – a sector whose executives’ decisions have nonetheless “surprised” us unrelentingly in recent years. Building on prior work on High Reliability Organizations and the collective mindfulness that guides them, we sought to generate a grounded theory about why surprise outcomes of bankers’ decisions occur and how executives make sense of them. Semi-structured interviews with 23 high ranking U.S. banking executives yielding over 50 narrative accounts of decisions gone awry revealed that bankers are not skilled in detecting and managing the …


Stakeholder Influence Strategies: Mobilizing For Collaboration, David Graham Hyatt Dec 2009

Stakeholder Influence Strategies: Mobilizing For Collaboration, David Graham Hyatt

Student Scholarship

Environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs) increasingly use cross- sector collaborative relationships to influence the behavior of business organizations in support of their mission and interests. Whereas existing stakeholder literature tends to portray ENGO–business relationships as adversarial, with an emphasis on the extent to which an ENGO can influence a firm through power relations or behavioral characteristics, these parties actually rely on collaboration to achieve their mutual goals. From a stakeholder perspective, how do ENGOs that seek collaborative engagement achieve legitimacy with their potential firm partners? Qualitative research involving 14 ENGOs reveals at least three mechanisms: creating corporate engagement units, networks, or …


Board Level Strategic Decision-Making: Process Characteristics And Context, Bernard C. Bailey Dec 2009

Board Level Strategic Decision-Making: Process Characteristics And Context, Bernard C. Bailey

Student Scholarship

How do boards make strategic decisions? Semi-structured interviews with twenty eight directors of small to medium size publicly traded U.S. companies in the high technology sector were conducted in order to gain insights into strategic decision-making at the board level. We identified six characteristics that distinguish two divergent views about strategic decision-making. These characteristics include the role of the board chair, the boardroom climate, the board's shared vision and goals, the board's agency primacy, the board's process for decision closure and the board's level of involvement in the strategic planning process.


An Economic Development Paradox: The Impact Of Linkages And Synergies Among Local Agents In The Development Of An Emergent Bioscience Cluster And Associated Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, Francisco Montalvo Dec 2009

An Economic Development Paradox: The Impact Of Linkages And Synergies Among Local Agents In The Development Of An Emergent Bioscience Cluster And Associated Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, Francisco Montalvo

Student Scholarship

Although bioscience industrial clusters have been widely researched in the last decade, the role of knowledge creation, management, and transfer as driving forces for industrial cluster competitiveness remains unclear. A better appreciation of knowledge creation and retention as determinants of industrial cluster success, and the role of foreign direct investment may be of value to industry decision makers, policy makers, and researchers worldwide. Our research revealed a paradox regarding the intensity of foreign direct investment (FDI) by multinational companies (MNCs) and the limited development of a local entrepreneurial ecosystem in an emergent bioscience cluster. While cluster development seems a logical …


Why They Stay: The Ideal Selves Of Persistent Women Engineers, Kathleen R. Buse Dec 2009

Why They Stay: The Ideal Selves Of Persistent Women Engineers, Kathleen R. Buse

Student Scholarship

Women remain dramatically underrepresented in the engineering profession – and far fewer women than men persist in the field. In the first study of women who stay (vs. stray) from corporate engineering careers, we interviewed 21 long tenured female engineers and a control group of ten women who opted out of the profession after an average decade of employment to generate a grounded theory about their personal and professional “lived lives.” Women constitute only 11% of the U.S. corporate engineering workforce and remain as engineers for shorter periods of time than men. Several studies have described why women leave engineering …


Creating Sustained Collaborations: Do Rule-Breaking, Rule-Making, And Appreciative Behaviors Foster Member Ownership?, Nonie Brennan Dec 2009

Creating Sustained Collaborations: Do Rule-Breaking, Rule-Making, And Appreciative Behaviors Foster Member Ownership?, Nonie Brennan

Student Scholarship

Non profit collaboration has long been identified as an effective approach to meeting community needs. It is particularly recognized as a solution to the challenges encountered by non profits during periods of economic duress. This study examines the relationship between the sense of ownership felt by non profit collaborative partners and their intent to sustain collaboration. We posit that three particular behaviors: rule breaking, rule making, and appreciative behavior encourage participants to develop a sense of ownership leading to collaborative sustainability. Our findings indicate that rule breaking and rule making behavior reinforces a sense of collaboration ownership which contributes to …