b Taking Off The Blinders: A Comparative Study of University Students' Changing Perceptions of Gender Discrimination in the Workplace from 2006 to 2013 By amle.aom.org Published On :: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 18:36:12 +0000 As evidenced by recent legislation and media attention, eradicating gender inequity in the workforce is of significant importance today. However, this interest in justice stands in bold contrast to the continued wage gap, the steady number of gender discrimination suits filed, and the plethora of cases exposed in the media. Previous data collected in 2006 suggests that university students do not perceive gender discrimination as a threat of major significance to themselves or others. University students tend to minimize or even disregard the likelihood that they will witness or experience gender bias or discrimination in their career. The current study serves as a continuation of and a comparison to the 2006 study, with the goal of determining whether the perspective of university students has shifted, or whether they continue to consider themselves to be immune to the injustice of gender discrimination at work. Our findings suggest that students in this cohort are not only more acutely aware of these issues, but that this awareness has expanded to include increased concern over gender discrimination against men as well. The reluctance of students to believe that they personally will be unaffected by gender discrimination has been and continues to be surprisingly high. Full Article
b Can business schools humanize leadership? By amle.aom.org Published On :: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 17:12:12 +0000 This article examines how and why business schools might be complicit in a growing disconnect between leaders, people supposed to follow them, and the institutions they are meant to serve. We contend that business schools sustain this disconnect through a dehumanization of leadership that is manifested in the reduction of leadership to a set of skills and its elevation to a personal virtue. The dehumanization of leadership, we suggest, serves as a valuable defense against, but as poor preparation for, the ambiguity and precariousness of leadership in contemporary workplaces. This article proposes ways to humanize leadership by putting questions about the meaning of leadership—about its nature, function, and development—at the center of scholarly and pedagogical efforts. Reflecting on our attempts to do so, we argue that it involves revisiting not just theories and teaching methods but also our identities as scholars and instructors. Full Article
b When Experts Become Liabilities: Domain Experts on Boards and Organizational Failure By amj.aom.org Published On :: Wed, 01 Jul 2015 17:12:16 +0000 How does the presence of domain experts on a corporate board—directors whose primary professional experience is within the focal firm's industry—affect organizational outcomes? We argue that under conditions of significant decision uncertainty, a higher proportion of domain experts on a board may detract from effective decision making and thus increase the probability of organizational failure. Building on exploratory interviews with board members and CEOs, we derive hypotheses from this argument in the context of local banks in the United States. We predict that the greater the level of decision uncertainty—due to rapid asset growth or operation in less predictable markets—the stronger the relationship between the proportion of banking expert directors and the probability of bank failure. Longitudinal analyses of 1,307 banks between 1996 and 2012 support this prediction, even after accounting for both the overall level of professional diversity among directors and banks' different propensities to have an expert-heavy board. We discuss implications for the key dimensions of board composition, the conditions under which the professional background of directors is more or less consequential, and the mechanisms whereby board composition affects organizational outcomes. Full Article
b Stakeholder Agency and Social Welfare: Pluralism and Decision Making in the Multi-Objective Corporation By amr.aom.org Published On :: Mon, 06 Jul 2015 14:51:22 +0000 Social welfare, or the good society, is of central concern to the Academy of Management. In this paper, we review the concept of social welfare, suggesting that regardless of discipline, social welfare is defined as a multi-dimensional phenomenon. We then review the literature on the corporate objective within a market economy, where the dominant view is that of a single-objective function. Analyzing this view, we argue for a multi-dimensional objective for organizations in order to meet social welfare objectives: where decision making within a market economy better utilizes the benefits of markets. We suggest that improvements in social welfare are possible where markets are better-enabled to operate among stakeholders unconstrained by some single-valued objective. In doing so, we respond to the critics of stakeholder theory who argue that it is an untenable theory due to its inability to specify how stakeholder objectives are to be prioritized. Full Article
b WHEN IN ROME, LOOK LIKE CAESAR? INVESTIGATING THE LINK BETWEEN DEMAND-SIDE CULTURAL POWER DISTANCE AND CEO POWER By amj.aom.org Published On :: Mon, 06 Jul 2015 19:21:20 +0000 Agency theory-grounded research on boards of directors and firm legitimacy has historically viewed CEO power as de-legitimating, often taking this fact for granted in theorizing about external assessors' evaluations of a firm. With few exceptions, this literature has focused exclusively on capital market participants (e.g., investors, securities analysts) as the arbiters of a firm's legitimacy and has accordingly assumed that legitimate governance arrangements are those derived from the shareholder-oriented prescriptions of agency theory. We extend this line of research in new ways by arguing that customers also externally assess firm legitimacy, and that firms potentially adjust their governance characteristics to meet customers' norms and expectations. We argue that the cultural-cognitive institutions prevalent in customers' home countries influence their judgments regarding a firm's legitimacy, such that firms competing heavily in high-power distance cultures are more likely to have powerful CEOs, with CEO power a source of legitimacy—rather than illegitimacy—among customers. We also argue that the more dependent a firm is on its customers and the more salient cultural power distance is as a demand-side institutional norm, the greater this relationship will be. Data from 151 U.S. semiconductor and pharmaceutical firms over a 10-year period generally support our predictions. Full Article
b FLOURISHING VIA WORKPLACE RELATIONSHIPS: MOVING BEYOND INSTRUMENTAL SUPPORT By amj.aom.org Published On :: Mon, 13 Jul 2015 21:15:23 +0000 In a series of qualitative and quantitative studies, we developed a model of the functions of positive work relationships, with an explicit focus on the role that these relationships play in employee flourishing. Stories that employees told about positive relationships at work revealed that relationships serve a broad range of functions, including the traditionally-studied functions of task assistance, career advancement, and emotional support, as well as less studied functions of personal growth, friendship, and the opportunity to give to others. Building on this taxonomy, we validated a scale - the Relationship Functions Inventory - and developed theory suggesting differential linkages between the relationship functions and outcomes indicative of employee flourishing. Results revealed unique associations between functions and outcomes, such that task assistance was most strongly associated with job satisfaction, giving to others was most strongly associated with meaningful work, friendship was most strongly associated with positive emotions at work, and personal growth was most strongly associated with life satisfaction. Our results suggest that work relationships play a key role in promoting employee flourishing, and that examining the differential effects of a taxonomy of relationship functions brings precision to our understand of how relationships impact individual flourishing. Full Article
b Third Party Employment Branding: Human Capital Inflows and Outflows Following 'Best Places to Work' Certifications By amj.aom.org Published On :: Tue, 14 Jul 2015 14:57:15 +0000 "Best Places to Work" (BPTW) and similar competitions are a proliferating form of third party employment branding. Little is known, however, about how single or repeated third party employment branding occurrences relate to key human capital outcomes. Extending signaling theory by considering signal credibility and comparability, we use archival and survey data from 624 BPTW participants in sixteen competitions across a three-year period to develop and test hypotheses linking BPTW certifications to collective turnover rates and key informant perceptions of applicant pool quality. We find that certifications are associated with lower turnover rates, and in addition, propose competing crystallization and celebrity hypotheses that model turnover trajectories with repeated certifications, finding diminishing marginal turnover reductions across multiple certifications. We also examine company size and industry job opening moderators, finding that as certifications increase, applicant pool quality is (1) higher in smaller companies and (2) higher when job openings are scarcer. Finally, beyond being certified or not, we find supplemental evidence for effects of the specific certification level achieved (e.g., 2nd versus 15th). This investigation advances theory related to collective turnover, applicant pool quality, and employment branding, and is relevant to company decisions about seeking or re-seeking third party certifications. Full Article
b Perceptions of employee volunteering: Is it "credited" or "stigmatized" by colleagues? By amj.aom.org Published On :: Fri, 17 Jul 2015 15:09:21 +0000 As research begins to accumulate on employee volunteering, it appears that this behavior is largely beneficial to employee performance and commitment. It is less clear, however, how employee volunteering is perceived by others in the workplace. Do colleagues award volunteering "credit"- for example, associating it with being concerned about others - or do they "stigmatize" it - for example, associating it with being distracted from work? Moreover, do those evaluations go on to predict how colleagues actually treat employees who volunteer more often? Adopting a reputation perspective, we draw from theories of person perception and attribution to explore these research questions. The results of a field study revealed that colleagues gave credit to employee volunteering when they attributed it to intrinsic reasons and stigmatized employee volunteering when they attributed it to impression management reasons. Ultimately, through the awarded credits, volunteering was rewarded by supervisors (with the allocation of more resources) and coworkers (with the provision of more helping behavior) when it was attributed to intrinsic motives - a relationship that was amplified when stigmas were low and mitigated when stigmas were high. The results of a laboratory experiment further confirmed that volunteering was both credited and stigmatized, distinguishing it from citizenship behavior, which was credited but not stigmatized. Full Article
b Misfit and Milestones: Structural Elaboration and Capability Reinforcement in the Evolution of Entrepreneurial Top Management Teams By amj.aom.org Published On :: Mon, 20 Jul 2015 15:21:30 +0000 We examine how top management team (TMT) misfit, defined as discrepancies between the TMT's functional roles and the qualifications of the managers who fill those roles, affects the evolution of TMT composition and structure in a longitudinal study of entrepreneurial ventures. We distinguish two types of misfit - overqualification and underqualification - and study how each is associated with TMT changes. We further consider the moderating effect of firm development. Results reveal that underqualified TMTs hire new managers to reinforce existing capabilities whereas overqualified TMTs elaborate their role structures. However, achieving developmental milestones (i.e., obtaining venture capital funding and staging an initial public offering) is a critical contingency to TMT change: absent these milestones, firms neither hire new managers nor add roles, even when they seemingly need to do so. These findings contribute to knowledge of how TMTs and new ventures evolve by underscoring the importance of simultaneously attending to TMT composition and structure. Full Article
b THE ONLINE SHADOW OF OFFLINE SIGNALS: WHICH SELLERS GET CONTACTED IN ONLINE B2B MARKETPLACES? By amj.aom.org Published On :: Wed, 22 Jul 2015 14:48:34 +0000 This article extends the understanding of what impels buyers to contact particular sellers in online business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces, which are typically characterized by sparse social structures and concomitant limitations in observing social cues. Integrating an institutional perspective with signaling theory, our core argument is that offline seller characteristics that are visible online—in particular, geographic location and legal status—convey credible signals of seller behavior because they provide buyers with information on sellers' local institutional quality and the institutionally-induced obligations and controls acting on sellers. Using unique data from a large Italian online B2B marketplace between the fourth quarter of 1999 and July 2001, we find that both sellers' local institutional quality and their legal statuses affect a buyer's likelihood of contacting a seller. Moreover, consistent with the idea that a buyer's own local institutional quality generates a relevant reference point against which sellers are evaluated, we find that a buyer is progressively more likely to contact sellers the higher their local institutional quality relative to the buyer. Jointly, our findings imply that in online B2B marketplaces, signals conveyed by sellers' geographic locations and legal statuses may be substantive sources of competitive heterogeneity and market segmentation. Full Article
b REPUTATION AS A BENEFIT AND A BURDEN? HOW STAKEHOLDERS' ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTIFICATION AFFECTS THE ROLE OF REPUTATION FOLLOWING A NEGATIVE EVENT By amj.aom.org Published On :: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 15:30:26 +0000 Research about the effects of an organization's general reputation following a negative event remains equivocal: Some studies have found that a high reputation is a benefit because of the stock of social capital and goodwill it generates; others have found it to be a burden because of the greater stakeholder attention and violation of expectations associated with a negative event. We theorize that stakeholders' level of organizational identification helps explain which mechanisms are more dominant. We test our hypotheses on a sample of legislative references associated with NCAA major infractions from 1999-2009. Our results indicate that a high reputation is a burden for an organization when considering low-identification stakeholder support: As the number of legislative references increases, a high-reputation university will receive fewer donations from non-alumni donors than universities without this asset. In contrast, a high reputation is a benefit when considering high-identification stakeholder support: As the number of legislative references increases, a high-reputation university will receive more donations from alumni donors than universities without this asset. However, an exploratory investigation reveals that alumni donations to high-reputation universities decline as the number of legislative references increases, suggesting that the benefit of a high reputation has a limit. Full Article
b MANAGEMENT EDUCATION BY THE FRENCH GRANDES ECOLES DE COMMERCE - PAST, PRESENT AND AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE By amle.aom.org Published On :: Mon, 27 Jul 2015 18:37:55 +0000 This essay presents a comprehensive briefing on the past and present of a business educational culture that is significantly different in ethos and structure to the widely known systems in the US and UK. That is the history and culture of the French Grandes Ecoles de Commerce. A brief reminder of extant literature on the utility of business education and its seeming misalignment with the competencies and skills as specified by practitioners is then given. Key pressures and trends on and within this system - such as internationalisation, accreditation and a greater emphasis on publications are identified and discussed. These threads are then combined in a partial replication of the work of Dierdorff and Rubin (2006; 2009). Specifically, information on 1582 classes from 542 programmes at the top Grandes Ecoles de Commerce is presented alongside further secondary data and then analysed in respect of alignment with Rubin and Dierdorff's identified behavioural competencies. We argue that whilst well intentioned, the outcome of these pressures may well be that inherent and historical strengths of great value are being discarded, and that the degree of irrelevance and misalignment between educational provision and required managerial competence will stay the same or even get worse. Full Article
b PROBLEMATIZING FIT AND SURVIVAL: TRANSFORMING THE LAW OF REQUISITE VARIETY THROUGH COMPLEXITY MISALIGNMENT By amr.aom.org Published On :: Mon, 27 Jul 2015 20:57:55 +0000 The law of requisite variety is widely employed in management theorizing, and is linked with core strategy themes such as contingency and fit. We reflect upon requisite variety as an archetypal borrowed concept. We contrast its premises with insights from institutional and commitment literatures, draw propositions that set boundaries to its applicability, and review the ramifications of what we term "complexity misalignment." In this way, we contradict foundational assumptions of the law, problematize adaptation- and survival-centric views of strategizing, and theorize the role of human agency in variously complex regimes. Full Article
b AGAINST EVIDENCE-BASED MANAGEMENT, FOR MANAGEMENT LEARNING By amle.aom.org Published On :: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 18:36:27 +0000 Evidence-based management has been widely advocated in management studies. It has great ambition: all manner of organizational problems are held to be amenable to an evidence-based approach. With such ambition, however, has come a certain narrowness which risks restricting our ability to understand the diversity of problems in management studies. Indeed, in the longer term, such narrowness may limit our capacity to engage with many real-life issues in organizations. Having repeatedly heard the case for evidence-based management, we invite readers to weigh up the case against. We also set out an alternative direction - one that promotes intellectual pluralism and flexibility, the value of multiple perspectives, openness, dialogue, and the questioning of basic assumptions. These considerations are the antithesis of an evidence-based approach, but central to a fully rounded management education. Full Article
b STATUS MATTERS: THE ASYMMETRIC EFFECTS OF SUPERVISOR-SUBORDINATE DISABILITY INCONGRUENCE AND CLIMATE FOR INCLUSION By amj.aom.org Published On :: Mon, 03 Aug 2015 20:37:14 +0000 Growing workforce diversity increases the likelihood that supervisors and subordinates will differ along demographic lines, a situation that has important implications for their relationship quality and individual outcomes. In a sample of 1,253 employees from 54 work-units, we investigate the effects of differences in disability status between supervisors and subordinates on leader-member-exchange (LMX) quality and subsequent performance ratings, and find that incongruence in general is related to lower LMX quality and lower performance. In addition, we propose and find an asymmetrical effect of disability incongruence, such that LMX quality is worse in dyads in which the supervisor has a disability than in dyads in which the subordinate has a disability. Furthermore, we investigate the moderating role of unit-level climate for inclusion on this relationship and find support for a buffering effect of inclusive climates on the negative incongruence-LMX relationship for scenarios in which the supervisor, but not the subordinate, has a disability. We build relevant theory for the relational demography, disability, LMX, and organizational climate literatures by predicting these effects on the basis of status mechanisms. These findings have important practical implications, as they provide companies with a feasible way to manage their diverse workforce. Full Article
b Taking historical embeddedness seriously: Three historical approaches to advance strategy process and practice research By amr.aom.org Published On :: Tue, 04 Aug 2015 12:03:27 +0000 Despite the proliferation of strategy process and practice research, we lack understanding of the historical embeddedness of strategic processes and practices. In this paper, we present three historical approaches with the potential to remedy this deficiency. First, realist history can contribute to a better understanding of the historical embeddedness of strategic processes; in particular, comparative historical analysis can explicate the historical conditions, mechanisms, and causality in strategic processes. Second, interpretative history can add to our knowledge of the historical embeddedness of strategic practices, and microhistory can specifically help to understand the construction and enactment of these practices in historical contexts. Third, poststructuralist history can elucidate the historical embeddedness of strategic discourses, and genealogy can in particular increase our understanding of the evolution and transformation of strategic discourses and their power effects. Thus, this paper demonstrates how in their specific ways historical approaches and methods can add to our understanding of different forms and variations of strategic processes and practices, the historical construction of organizational strategies, and historically constituted strategic agency. Full Article
b MY FAMILY MADE ME DO IT: A CROSS-DOMAIN, SELF-REGULATORY PERSPECTIVE ON ANTECEDENTS TO ABUSIVE SUPERVISION By amj.aom.org Published On :: Fri, 07 Aug 2015 06:22:05 +0000 Drawing on resource drain theory, we introduce self-regulatory resource (ego) depletion stemming from family-to-work conflict (FWC) as an alternative theoretical perspective on why supervisors behave abusively toward subordinates. Our two-study examination of a cross-domain antecedent of abusive supervision stands in contrast to prior research, which has focused primarily on work-related factors that influence abusive supervision. Further, our investigation shows how ego depletion is proximally related to abusive supervision. In the first study, conducted at a Fortune 500 company and designed as a lagged survey study, we found that after controlling for alternative theoretical mechanisms, supervisors who experience FWC display more abusive behaviors toward subordinates, and that this relationship was stronger for female supervisors and for supervisors who operate in environments with greater situation-control. These results were then replicated and expanded in an experience sampling study using a multi-organization sample of supervisors. This allowed us to study the FWC-abusive supervision relationship as it emerges on a day-to-day basis and to examine ego depletion as an explanatory mechanism. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found that FWC is associated with abusive supervision, ego depletion acts as a mediator of the FWC-abusive supervision relationship, and that gender and situation-control serve as moderators. Full Article
b DELAYS ON THE ROAD TO PROSPERITY: HOW FIRMS REALIGN THROUGH STRUCTURAL RECOMBINATION WHEN FACED WITH TURBULENCE By amj.aom.org Published On :: Tue, 18 Aug 2015 20:18:19 +0000 This paper examines when firms pursue structural realignment through the recombination of business units. Our results refine and extend contingency theory and studies of organization design by drawing on theories of decision avoidance and delay to describe conditions when firms pursue or postpone structural realignment. Our empirical analysis of 46 firms from 1978 to 1997 operating within the U.S. medical device and pharmaceutical sectors demonstrates that while decision makers initiate structural recombination during periods of industry growth (i.e., munificence), they reduce their recombination efforts during periods of industry turbulence (i.e., dynamism) and managerial turbulence (i.e., growth in top management team size). We also find evidence that firms delay realignment and bide their time for better environmental conditions of declining turbulence and industry growth before pursuing more structural realignment. Together, these findings suggest that decision makers often delay initiating structural recombination until they can effectively process information and assess how structural changes will help them realign the organization to the environment. Full Article
b Beginning's end: How founders psychologically disengage from their organizations By amj.aom.org Published On :: Tue, 18 Aug 2015 20:27:16 +0000 Exit is a critical part of the entrepreneurial process. At the same time, research indicates that founders are likely to form strong identity connections to the organizations they start. In turn, when founders exit their organizations, the process of psychological disengagement might destabilize their identities. Yet, limited research addresses how founders experience exit or how they manage their identities during this process. Through a qualitative, inductive study of founders of technology-based companies, I developed a theoretical model of founder psychological disengagement that delineates how founder work orientations relate to the disengagement paths that founders follow when leaving one organization and starting another. In elaborating theory on psychological disengagement, this study has implications for understanding the psychology of founders, how founders exit and begin again, and psychological disengagement, more broadly. Full Article
b Engaged and productive misfits: How job crafting and leisure activity mitigate the negative effects of value incongruence By amj.aom.org Published On :: Thu, 20 Aug 2015 18:21:38 +0000 The work life of misfits - employees whose important values are incongruent with the values of their organization - represents an under-researched area of the person-environment fit literature. The unfortunate reality is that these individuals are likely to be disengaged and unproductive at work. In this manuscript, we entertain the possibility that employees can protect themselves from this situation if they engage in alternative actions that supplement the fundamental needs that go unmet from value incongruence. We integrate theorizing about the motivational role of need fulfillment and work/non-work behaviors in order to examine whether two actions in particular - job crafting and leisure activity - can potentially mitigate the negative effects of value incongruence on employee performance. In a field study of employees from diverse organizations and industries, the results suggest that both job crafting and leisure activity indeed act as a buffer, mitigating the otherwise negative effects of value incongruence on employee engagement and job performance (both task performance and citizenship behavior). Full Article
b STORIES ABOUT VALUES AND VALUABLE STORIES: A FIELD EXPERIMENT OF THE POWER OF NARRATIVES TO SHAPE NEWCOMERS' ACTIONS By amj.aom.org Published On :: Thu, 20 Aug 2015 22:00:16 +0000 This study draws on social identity theories of behavioral contagion and research concerning narratives in organizations to present and test a framework for understanding how narratives embed values in organizational newcomers' actions. Employing a field experiment using 632 newly-hired employees in a large IT firm that prioritizes self-transcendent values, this study explores how narratives varying in terms of the organizational level of main characters and the values-upholding or values-violating behaviors of those characters influence newcomers' tendencies to engage in behaviors that uphold or deviate from the values. Results indicate that stories about low-level organizational characters engaging in values-upholding behaviors are more positively associated with self-transcendent, helping behaviors and negatively associated with deviant behaviors, than are similar stories about high-level members of the organization. Stories in which high-level members of the organization violate values are negatively related to newcomers' engagement in both helping and deviance more strongly than are values-violating stories about lower-level members. Content analyses of the stories suggest that they convey values in different and potentially important ways. Implications, future directions, and limitations are discussed. Full Article
b Moving Opportunism to the Back Seat: Bounded Rationality, Costly Conflict, and Hierarchical Forms By amr.aom.org Published On :: Fri, 21 Aug 2015 13:51:14 +0000 We augment transaction cost economics' (TCE) bounded rationality assumption with heuristics (framing) and cognitive biases to expand the understanding of hierarchical governance in the theory. TCE traditionally puts opportunism in the frontseat, while primarily relegating bounded rationality to the support role of invoking incomplete contracts. The theory also suggests that hierarchical governance effectively mitigates opportunism-based transaction costs, making it difficult to explain why hierarchies are not always used. However, when an augmented bounded rationality assumption is incorporated into TCE, we argue, first, that bounded rationality is a separate source of transaction costs, and, second, that these costs are not equally mitigated by all forms of hierarchy. Instead, different hierarchical forms are associated with particular frames and social referents that naturally enhance specific bounded rationality-based conflicts, allowing certain hierarchical forms to mitigate bounded rationality-based transaction costs better than others. As a result, bounded rationality takes a frontseat in the theory, addressing prior critiques of TCE, expanding the governance questions addressed by the theory and creating a new moderating role for asset specificity in internal exchanges. Full Article
b THE OPERATIONAL AND SIGNALING BENEFITS OF VOLUNTARY LABOR CODE ADOPTION: RECONCEPTUALIZING THE SCOPE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN EMERGING ECONOMIES By amj.aom.org Published On :: Mon, 24 Aug 2015 20:57:37 +0000 Labor codes have been voluntarily adopted and used by manufacturers in emerging economies for the past two decades, as a means of ensuring minimally acceptable or core labor standards for workers. However, far too little is known of the potential benefits from the voluntary adoption of labor codes to the manufacturer, and prior human resource management research has been virtually silent on the business implications of their use for emerging economy manufacturers participating in global supply chains. Drawing on previous work across multiple disciplines and proposing a framework that extends human resource management theory more explicitly and rigorously to the context of emerging economy manufacturing, I theorize and demonstrate that the voluntary adoption of a labor code may constitute an effective human resource investment in emerging economies in improving establishment-level employee outcomes and operational and financial performance. The hypotheses are tested using longitudinal data on a sample of apparel manufacturing plants in Sri Lanka. Implications of this study include providing insight into how to expand the scope and relevance of human resource management theory to better understand research and practice in emerging economies. Full Article
b Review: Global Leadership Practices: A Cross-Cultural Management Perspective By amle.aom.org Published On :: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 13:39:32 +0000 Do you teach anyone whom you would consider a member of the next generation of global leaders? If you answered "yes" to this question, you likely teach an audience within which many of its members already possess intercultural experience, have traveled widely, and perhaps speak several languages. These globally minded students demand in-depth learning approaches which help them prepare for complex global leadership settings. Global Leadership Practices is an excellent source of teaching materials and tools targeted to these learners. Full Article
b Review: Trouble in the Middle: American-Chinese Business Relations, Culture, Conflict and Ethics By amle.aom.org Published On :: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 13:51:19 +0000 This book centers on the author's discovery, and moral disapproval, of expedient arrangements adopted by American firms in China, through which 'middlemen', operating as independent agents, pay bribes as part and parcel of the troublesome process of negotiating and clinching business deals there. Full Article
b Review: Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders, Globalization, and Sustainable Value Creation By amle.aom.org Published On :: Thu, 27 Aug 2015 20:36:16 +0000 In Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility (3rd edition) (SCSR), David Chandler and William B. Werther Jr. advance the view that the ability of firms to create value for a range of stakeholders over the medium- and long-term requires that they embed CSR into their strategies and operations. Its focus on the integration of CSR into strategic planning and implementation distinguishes SCSR from competing business and society textbooks, which tend to survey the field or focus on the management of the firm's relationships with stakeholders and society. Full Article
b Come Aboard! Exploring the Effects of Directorships in the Executive Labor Market By amj.aom.org Published On :: Fri, 28 Aug 2015 19:12:40 +0000 In this study, we examine the question: What do executives gain from serving on boards? We propose that board service will benefit non-CEO level executives in the executive labor market by acting as a certification mechanism and also by providing access to unique knowledge, skills, and connections. We argue that non-CEO executives who gain directorships will be more likely to be promoted to CEO both inside and outside their home firm, will be more likely to be promoted internally, and will receive higher pay from their home firms. To test our ideas, we employ propensity score matching to construct a longitudinal sample of 2,104 top executives of large, publicly traded companies in the United States over the period 1996 to 2012. Results provide consistent support for our theory. Full Article
b On the Forgetting of Corporate Irresponsibility By amr.aom.org Published On :: Tue, 08 Sep 2015 14:33:13 +0000 Why are some serious cases of corporate irresponsibility collectively forgotten? Drawing on social memory studies, we examine how this collective forgetting process can occur. We propose that a major instance of corporate irresponsibility leads to the emergence of a stakeholder mnemonic community that shares a common recollection of the past incident. This community generates and then draws upon mnemonic traces to sustain a collective memory of the past event over time. In addition to the natural entropic tendencies toward forgetting, collective memory is also undermined by instrumental 'forgetting work', which we conceptualize in this paper. Forgetting work involves manipulating short-term conditions of the event, silencing vocal 'rememberers' and undermining collective mnemonic traces that sustain a version of the past. This process can result in a reconfigured collective memory and collective forgetting of corporate irresponsibility events. Collective forgetting can have positive and negative consequences for the firm, stakeholders and society. Full Article
b An Identity Based Approach to Social Enterprise By amr.aom.org Published On :: Tue, 08 Sep 2015 15:21:15 +0000 Social enterprise has gained widespread acclaim as a tool for addressing social and environmental problems. Yet, because these organizations integrate the social welfare and commercial logics, they face the challenge of pursuing goals that frequently conflict with each other. Studies have begun to address how established social enterprises can manage these tensions, but we know little about how, why, and with what consequences social entrepreneurs mix competing logics as they create new organizations. To address this gap, we develop a theoretical model based in identity theory that helps to explain: (1) how the commercial and social welfare logics become relevant to entrepreneurship, (2) how different types of entrepreneurs perceive the tension between these logics, and (3) the implications this has for how entrepreneurs go about recognizing and developing social enterprise opportunities. Our approach responds to calls from organizational and entrepreneurship scholars to extend existing frameworks of opportunity recognition and development to better account for social enterprise creation. Full Article
b After the Break-Up: The Relational and Reputational Consequences of Withdrawals from Venture Capital Syndicates By amj.aom.org Published On :: Thu, 10 Sep 2015 15:15:25 +0000 Organizational theorists are increasingly interested in the antecedents of terminating interorganizational relationships, but have paid little attention to the disruptive consequences of such terminations on future tie formation. To redress this imbalance, the present study focuses on how venture capital (VC) firms' withdrawals from VC syndicates are associated with their subsequent syndication over the 1985 through 2008 period. We argue that withdrawals disrupt the relationships of the withdrawing VC firms with the coinvestors and reduce the likelihood of them entering into subsequent exchange (relational consequences). Furthermore, public information on the withdrawals can undermine the withdrawing VC firm's reputation for reliability, making it a less desirable exchange partner overall (global reputational consequences). Finally, we find that abandoned coinvestors can spread negative, private information about the withdrawing firm, reducing its chances of syndication with their other network contacts (local reputational consequences). We also show that the global and local reputational consequences attenuate each other, due to redundancy in the content of information each provides. We discuss the implications of our theory for the research on network dynamics and reputation. Full Article
b Competition, regulatory policy, and firms' resource investments: The case of renewable energy technologies By amj.aom.org Published On :: Fri, 11 Sep 2015 14:42:21 +0000 We study the interplay between regulatory mandates and competition on a focal firm's new resource investments. While prior literature has separately pointed to the influence of competition and regulatory policy on a focal firm's resource decisions, less is known about how the policy effect interacts with the competitive effect. Studying how regulatory mandates moderate the effect of competition on a focal firm's new resource investments, we show that resource redeployment is not simply a function of internal firm decisions but a response to external forces. We find that regulatory mandates dampen the effect of competitors' new resource investments on a focal firm's new resource investments. Distinguishing between different clean technology types, we show that this dampening effect is the stronger, the more distant the new resource is from incumbents' old resource base, and the more established the mandate is. We test our hypotheses in the context of renewable energy investments in waste-to-energy, wind, and solar in the U.S. electricity industry. Our data comprises 1542 utilities and private energy firms and their renewable investments from 1999 to 2010. Full Article
b A Practice-Based Wisdom Perspective for Social Entrepreneurship Learning and Education By amle.aom.org Published On :: Tue, 15 Sep 2015 15:30:24 +0000 In this paper, we use a practice-based wisdom perspective to address the challenges of managing competing logics in social enterprises. From previous work it is clear that a major task for social entrepreneurs is to manage the tension between social welfare and commercial logics. Although the social welfare logic and its related values and practices form the foundations of social enterprises, social entrepreneurs have also to ensure that their businesses are commercially sustainable making it necessary to engage with the commercial logic. To this end, we develop a curriculum matrix based on social practice wisdom to assist students to learn appropriate knowledge and skills, enact social entrepreneurship goals, and integrate competing logics in innovative and sustainable ways. Full Article
b Values in Business Schools:The Role of Self-selection and Socialization By amle.aom.org Published On :: Wed, 16 Sep 2015 15:03:42 +0000 Contemporary business schools are expected to educate their students to embrace ethical and pro-social values. But can business schools rise to this challenge? Comparing a business school to another professional school that encourages pro-social values, social work, we investigated value profiles as reflected in school websites and among their students. The findings show that the business school expresses self-enhancement values (power and achievement) more, and pro-social values (benevolence and universalism) less than the social work school. We further investigated self-selection and socialization as complementary organizational processes that may lead to, and sustain, the value profile of each school. Our findings show that as early as the first week of studies, freshmen's values are congruent with the value profile of their department, indicating a value-based self-selection process. To investigate socialization, we compared freshmen and seniors and conducted a yearlong study among freshmen. The findings revealed a small change in students' values throughout their training, providing only some support for value socialization. Altogether, our findings suggest that business schools that are interested in pro-social students should attract and select students that emphasize these values, rather than rely on socialization attempts. Full Article
b Questioning Neoliberal Capitalism and Economic Inequality in Business Schools By amle.aom.org Published On :: Thu, 17 Sep 2015 15:24:18 +0000 The burgeoning economic inequality between the richest and the poorest is a cause of concern for social, political, and ethical reasons. While businesses are both implicated and affected by growing inequality, business schools have largely neglected to subject the phenomenon to sufficient critique. This is, in part, because far too many management educators rely on orthodox economic perspectives—often represented by neoliberal capitalism—which have dominated the curricula and the teaching philosophy of business schools. To address this issue, this article underscores the need for business schools to critically examine the relationship between neoliberal capitalism and economic inequalities, and to overtly engage with this nexus in pedagogical practice. The article concludes by revisiting the concepts of relationality and answerability as paths by which to address the current predicament. Relationality and answerability collectively offer: i) conceptual and reflexive tools by which to re-imagine business school education, and, ii) space for business schools to debate important questions about the taken-for-granted, but problematic, assumptions underlying the ideology of neoliberal capitalism Full Article
b Beyond Nonmarket Strategy: Market Actions as Corporate Political Activity By amr.aom.org Published On :: Fri, 18 Sep 2015 19:22:57 +0000 Many firms seek to manage their legal and regulatory environments by influencing policymakers. Typically, researchers have focused on how firms use nonmarket actions, including lobbying, campaign contributions, and related activities, to gain policy influence. We argue that firms may also seek to change the effects of policies through market actions. Market actions may lead to both formal policy change (i.e., transformations of codified rules) and interpretive policy change (i.e., transformations of the effects of rules without changes in their codified form). We identify two pathways by which firms' market actions may produce interpretive policy change: implementation and innovation. Implementation-driven change occurs when firms' interpretations of incomplete laws alter and clarify the meaning of those laws. Innovation-driven change occurs when firms engage in novel activities that are difficult to interpret within existing regulatory frameworks, and thus alter the effects of those regulations. We then theorize how firms' market actions may complement traditional, nonmarket political mobilization in an analysis of sequences of formal and interpretive policy change. Full Article
b THE IMPACT OF CEO SUCCESSION WITH GENDER CHANGE ON FIRM PERFORMANCE AND SUCCESSOR EARLY DEPARTURE: EVIDENCE FROM CHINA'S PUBLICLY LISTED COMPANIES IN 1997-2010 By amj.aom.org Published On :: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 16:04:04 +0000 Female corporate leadership has drawn increasing attention from academia and practitioners. We contribute to the literature by examining the impact of CEO succession with gender change—i.e., a male CEO succeeded by a female or vice versa. We propose that due to gender differences in executive leadership positions, CEO succession with gender change may amplify the disruption of the CEO succession process and thus adversely affect post-succession firm performance and increase the likelihood of successor early departure. Using data from 3,320 CEO successions in companies listed in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 1997 to 2010, we find evidence to support this argument. We also find that the negative (positive) impact of male-to-female succession on firm performance (the likelihood of successor early departure) may be weakened by positive organizational attitudes toward female leadership as indicated by the presence of other female leaders on the firm's board of directors and/or top management team, and the successor's inside origin. Full Article
b Magnification and Correction of the Acolyte Effect: Initial Benefits and Ex Post Settling up in NFL Coaching Careers By amj.aom.org Published On :: Mon, 28 Sep 2015 14:36:41 +0000 What are the long-term consequences of initially beneficial high-reputation workplace ties? Under uncertainty, acolytes (i.e., subordinates with work connections to high-reputation industry leaders) are likely to benefit in terms of signaling fitness for promotion in the external job market. Analysis of promotion outcomes of coaches in the NFL over 31 years showed that the acolyte effect was reduced for individuals for whom uncertainty was the least (acolytes with considerable industry experience or high centrality in the co-worker industry network). There was no support for either a knowledge-transfer or an intrinsic quality explanation for why acolytes initially gained advantage. Rather, the evidence supported the idea that ties to high-reputation leaders were somewhat randomly distributed so that acolytes faced ex post settling up consequences after their promotions: fewer further promotions or lateral moves, more demotions. Thus, acolytes initially benefited from a loose-linkage between their unobservable quality and signals offered by their industry-leader ties, but they also suffered as the unreliability of social network signals became evident. The results suggest that a competitive job market may exhibit self-correction over time. We offer countervailing theory and evidence to the prevailing view that high-reputation third-party endorsements perpetuate a rich-get-richer social structure resistant to performance outcomes. Full Article
b The Dark Side of Board Political Capital: Enabling Blockholder Rent Appropriation By amj.aom.org Published On :: Mon, 28 Sep 2015 15:33:36 +0000 Resource dependence theorists argue that boards of directors with political capital can benefit focal firms by reducing uncertainty and providing preferential resources. Here, we develop theory regarding the downside of board political capital. As the principal-principal agency problem characterizes many parts of the world, we argue that board political capital can exacerbate this problem by enabling large blockholders to undertake more appropriation of firm wealth. Further, we explore how this enabling effect is moderated by ownership-, industry-, and environment-level contingencies. We find empirical support for our arguments using 32,174 directors in 1,046 Chinese listed firms over the period 2008 - 2011. Our study sheds light on new ways in which resource dependence and agency theories can be integrated to advance the extant research on board governance and corporate political strategy. Full Article
b How Do Leader-Departures Affect Subordinates' Organizational Attachment?: A 360-Degree Relational Perspective By amr.aom.org Published On :: Mon, 28 Sep 2015 19:30:29 +0000 Management scholars have noted that leader departures often foreshadow higher turnover intentions (or lower organizational attachment) by subordinates left behind, especially when relationships between the departing leader and the subordinates, or leader-member exchanges (LMX), had been of high quality. In this paper, we posit that the quality of subordinates' relationships with all members of their relational system, not only their leader, must be considered to better understand how leader departures affect subordinates' organizational attachment. Our proposed relationships are illustrated in a theoretical model that includes phenomena at the individual-level (i.e., a subordinate's identification with the departing leader and with his/her organization), at the group-level (i.e., turnover contagion), and at the organizational level (i.e., organization-wide developmental climate). As such, we propose that elucidating how leader-departures affect organizational attachment requires multi-level theorizing and constructs. Theoretical and practical implications of such a 360-degree relational perspective on leader-departure effects are discussed. Full Article
b Maxthon Cloud Browser 5.2.7.5000 for PC Windows By filehippo.com Published On :: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 08:57:31 GMT Maxthon Cloud Browser is a powerful web browser which has a highly customizable interface. The browser has multiple tools that make your web experience more enjoyable, such as resource sniffer, screen capture tool, night mode and cloud functionality... Full Article
b McAfee Labs Stinger 12.1.0.3218 Antivirus for PC Windows By filehippo.com Published On :: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 09:01:07 GMT Stinger is a quick and installation-free standalone tool for detecting and removing prevalent malware and threats, ideal if your PC is already infected. While not a replacement for full fledged antivirus software, Stinger is updated multiple times a ... Full Article
b Avast Secure Browser 75.0.1447.81 Privacy and Security Tool for PC Windows By filehippo.com Published On :: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 09:20:34 GMT Avast Secure Browser strives to offer a ‘private, fast and secure’ service for Windows users. Simply put, this product has been built for privacy by security experts. It boasts an array of features to make sure that all cybersecurity bases are more t... Full Article
b Potplayer 32-bit 1.7.19315.0 Beta for PC Windows By filehippo.com Published On :: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 09:34:06 GMT Potplayer is a smooth media player with a great looking, minimalist user interface. It has an extensive range of configurable options to choose from and lots of functionality. The application supports Blu-ray, DVD, Audio CD, and countless othe... Full Article
b Iperius Backup 6.2.2 Complete Backup Utility for PC Windows By filehippo.com Published On :: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 10:58:47 GMT Iperius is a complete backup utility for Windows that can be used by both home users and Company servers (without any time/license limitation). Iperius also has different paid editions available, which allow for making advanced backup types, su... Full Article
b FileZilla 3.43.0 64-bit FTP Client for PC Windows By filehippo.com Published On :: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 11:13:35 GMT FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface. Among others, the features of FileZilla include the following: Easy to use Supports FTP, FTP... Full Article
b Programming-based formal languages and automata theory: design, implement, validate, and prove By www.computingreviews.com Published On :: Thu, 24 Oct 2024 12:00:00 PST This rather difficult read introduces the programming language FSM and the programming platform DrRacket. The author asserts that it is a convenient platform to design and prove an automata-based software Full Article
b Mobile robot programming: adventures in Python and C (2nd ed.) By www.computingreviews.com Published On :: Tue, 29 Oct 2024 12:00:00 PST This book serves as a comprehensive guide for individuals interested in mobile robotics, including: (i) novices interested in programming simple simulated robots; (ii) individuals with basic knowledge of robotics, that is, intermediate learners, who seek to know Full Article
b The heart and the chip: our bright future with robots By www.computingreviews.com Published On :: Wed, 06 Nov 2024 12:00:00 PST The heart and the chip: our bright future with robots, by Daniela Rus and Gregory Mone, is an insightful exploration of the future of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), focusing on how these technologies will transform every aspect of our lives. Rus, a Full Article
b Natural language processing: a textbook with Python implementation By www.computingreviews.com Published On :: Fri, 08 Nov 2024 12:00:00 PST I had one big question after taking on this review: How relevant is this book with the advent of large language models (LLMs)? In the past two years, the launches of OpenAI’s GPT and Google’s Gemma, amongst others, have severely disrupted the study of natural language Full Article
b An analysis of the math requirements of 199 CS BS/BA degrees at 158 U.S. universities from Communications of the ACM By www.computingreviews.com Published On :: Wed, 09 Oct 2024 12:00:00 PST The mathematics requirements for computer science (CS) students have been debated for decades. I began teaching in a CS program in 1983, and I recall similar discussions at that time. The debate has continued in one form or another Full Article