Journal of Management RSS feed -- OnlineFirst Articles

CEO Commitment to the Status Quo: Replication and Extension Using Content Analysis

MacClelland, P., Liang, X., Barker, V. L. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:20:38 PDT

A limited number of studies have identified multilevel determinants of chief executive officer (CEO) commitment to the status quo (CSQ). Using an unintrusive measure of CEO CSQ developed through computer-aided content analyses of CEO letters to shareholders, this study confirmed that determinants of CEO CSQ are multilevel, including factors at the individual (CEO age and tenure), organizational (size and financial slack), and industry (extent of industry discretion) levels of analysis. In addition, as an important extension to prior research, the authors find that CEO CSQ is associated with future performance changes depending on a firm’s industry environment. They find that in high-discretion industries, firms whose CEOs are committed to the status quo suffer future financial and market performance declines as compared with their competitors, whereas such performance deterioration does not occur in low-discretion environments. Indeed, when future performance is market based and measured as Tobin’s Q, the authors find that compared with competitors, a firm’s performance actually improves in low-discretion industries if its CEO is committed to the status quo.

Expertise-Based Intuition and Decision Making in Organizations

Salas, E., Rosen, M. A., DiazGranados, D. — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:51:58 PDT

There has been a growing popular fascination with how experts make rapid and effective decisions. This interest has been paralleled in various scientific research communities. Across these disciplinary boundaries, researchers have found that intuition plays a critical role in expert decision making. Therefore, an understanding of how experts develop and use intuition effectively within organizations has the potential to greatly influence organizational practices and effectiveness. The purpose of this review is to integrate the extant literature related to expertise-based intuition—intuition rooted in extensive experience within a specific domain—in decision making. To that end, this review addresses four specific goals. First, the authors review the scientific literature on expertise and intuition to define expertise-based intuition, the type of intuition of most value to organizations. Second, the authors propose a set of descriptive developmental and performance mechanisms of expertise-based intuition in decision making. Third, the authors discuss the multilevel nature of expertise-based intuition. Fourth, the authors propose future directions for research and application.

Family Involvement and Helping Behavior in Teams

ten Brummelhuis, L. L., Lippe, T. v. d., Kluwer, E. S. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:00:47 PDT

Helping behavior at work has become increasingly important, with organizations making more and more use of cooperative work practices. The difficulty is that employees are facing growing demands beyond the workplace. This study investigates the mechanisms by which family involvement (family structure, family tasks, family support) affects helping behavior in teams. Based on a sample of 495 team members, the results show that having a supportive partner and performing care tasks increase helping behavior via enhanced fulfillment and skills. Having young children is directly and negatively related to helping behavior. The authors also conducted separate analyses for men and women.

Optimism and the Nonlinear Citizenship Behavior-Job Satisfaction Relationship in Three Studies

Munyon, T. P., Hochwarter, W. A., Perrewe, P. L., Ferris, G. R. — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:00:48 PDT

Despite a voluminous body of work demonstrating the positive benefits of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB), recent theory has highlighted the potential trade-offs individuals face when performing such activities. This evidence calls into consideration the "more is always better" philosophy, suggesting the existence of potentially more complex OCB–work outcome relationships. The present research investigates the interactive relationship between optimism and OCB on job satisfaction in a series of three independent samples, examining moderated polynomial relationships. Based on self-regulation and self-perception theories, the authors hypothesized that optimism would moderate the relationship between OCB and job satisfaction, demonstrating a linear relationship for those high in optimism and a nonlinear relationship (i.e., assuming an inverted U-shaped form) for those low in optimism. Consistent results were found across all three studies, providing support for the hypothesized moderated polynomial OCB-optimism relationship. Contributions of the research are discussed, as are strengths and limitations, directions for future research, and practical implications.

Anger in Organizations: Review and Integration

Gibson, D. E., Callister, R. R. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:54:17 PDT

Organizations are rife with situations likely to cause employee anger, including complex relationships, chronic pressure, high stakes, and factors beyond individual control. The importance of this discrete emotion has led to a range of studies exploring the implications of anger for critical organizational phenomena, including emotion norms, leadership, gender issues, status and power, and cross-cultural differences. Despite the dramatic increase in scholarly attention over the past decade to understanding anger experience and expression in organizations, there exist few current reviews and little integration of this diverse literature. By combining a psychological perspective of anger as an episodic process with an organizational perspective emphasizing contextual effects and norms, this review will summarize current research in this vital area, provide a model for understanding and integrating this work, and propose themes for future research.

Legitimacy, Visibility, and the Antecedents of Corporate Social Performance: An Investigation of the Instrumental Perspective

Chiu, S.-c., Sharfman, M. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:54:18 PDT

Using institutional theory as the foundation, this study examines the role of organizational visibility from a variety of sources (i.e., slack visibility, industry visibility, and visibility to multiple stakeholders) in influencing corporate social performance (CSP). The conceptual framework offers important insights regarding the instrumental motives of managers in performing CSP initiatives. Based on a sample of 124 S&P 500 firms, the authors found that it is a firm’s visibility to stakeholders, rather than its economic performance, that has the larger impact on managers’ decisions regarding how much CSP their firms exhibit. The results show that more profitable firms may not be motivated to engage actively in CSP unless they are under greater scrutiny by various firm stakeholders. The authors also found that organizational slack (estimated as cost of capital) is positively associated with a Social CSP dimension but negatively associated with a Strategic CSP dimension. This research contributes to the current CSP literature by demonstrating that motivations in addition to normative or ethical ones may be at play in the decisions firms make regarding their CSP.

IPO Research in Management and Entrepreneurship: Moving the Agenda Forward

Certo, S. T., Holcomb, T. R., Holmes, R. M. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:54:16 PDT

Building on research from multiple fields, management and entrepreneurship scholars have shown increasing interest in the causes and consequences of initial public offerings (IPOs). The authors summarize this emerging literature and categorize research on IPOs into four broad themes: corporate governance, upper echelons, social influence, and innovation. They also review the various measures used by scholars to assess IPO performance. Based on this review, the authors develop an agenda for future research. This agenda provides both topics and research questions for future research and recommendations regarding IPO performance measurement.

Immigrant Entrepreneurs, the Ethnic Enclave Strategy, and Venture Performance

Ndofor, H. A., Priem, R. L. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:54:18 PDT

This study argues that first- and second-generation immigrant entrepreneurs’ endowments of economic, human, and social capital, together with their degrees of social identification with their ethnic community, affect their elemental strategic choice to pursue a venture strategy focused either on their ethnic enclave or the dominant market. The authors then propose that this choice affects venture performance indirectly, depending on how well the entrepreneur’s capital endowment allows the chosen strategy to be executed. The authors test these ideas via a field study of 103 first- and second-generation immigrant-owned ventures in a U.S. Midwest state. The findings indicate that immigrant entrepreneurs’ capital endowments and social identities influence their choice of an enclave versus dominant market venture strategy. Moreover, it is the particular alignment of entrepreneurial capital and strategy that ultimately shapes venture performance.

Relationships at Work: Toward a Multidimensional Conceptualization of Dyadic Work Relationships

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:54:18 PDT

Work relationships have come to form the very foundation of organizations and the contemporary embodiment of how most work gets accomplished, and there has been increased scholarly interest in this area. Although research has investigated the nature of highquality and lowquality work relationships, few attempts have taken that next important step in more precisely articulating the actual dimensions that underlie work relationships, how they relate to one another, and how, as contextual background, they frame and influence organizational phenomena. In an effort to help address this gap in our understanding of relationships at work, this study briefly reviews the relevant literature on work relationships, extracting what is currently known about the specific aspects or underlying dimensions of such relationships. Then, the authors introduce an integrative multidimensional conceptualization of dyadic work relationships, which specifies the critical foundational dimensions and processes, and discusses the implications for future theory and research.

Resource Dependence Theory: A Review

Hillman, A. J., Withers, M. C., Collins, B. J. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:54:19 PDT

Thirty years have passed since Pfeffer and Salancik’s seminal work on resource dependence theory (RDT). During this time RDT has been applied broadly across the research domain to explain how organizations reduce environmental interdependence and uncertainty. In this review, the authors assess the conceptual development, empirical research, and application of RDT.They structure their review around the five options that Pfeffer and Salancik propose firms can enact to minimize environmental dependences: (a) mergers/vertical integration, (b) joint ventures and other interorganizational relationships, (c) boards of directors, (d) political action, and (e) executive succession. The authors summarize past work, synthesize contemporary thought, and propose future research directions.

Team Empowerment and the Organizational Context: Decentralization and the Contrasting Effects of Formalization

Hempel, P. S., Zhang, Z.-X., Han, Y. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:54:17 PDT

A great deal is known about how managers influence team empowerment, but very little is known about what organizations do to influence empowerment. Using teams drawn from 94 Chinese high-technology companies, the authors show that organizational decentralization enhances empowerment when decision making is delegated downward even when not directly delegated to teams. Prior research has presented both a positive and negative view of formalization, and this study found that the organizational level to which formalization is applied makes a difference. Formalization of organizational processes enhances team empowerment by reducing uncertainty within the firm, whereas formalization of jobs and roles moderates the effect of decentralization and reduces team empowerment by reducing teams’ flexibility in taking advantage of decentralization.These results show the importance of organization structure as an antecedent of empowerment and highlight the contrasting effects of different types of formalization.

The Concept of "Opportunity" in Entrepreneurship Research: Past Accomplishments and Future Challenges

Short, J. C., Ketchen, D. J., Shook, C. L., Ireland, R. D. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:54:18 PDT

Opportunity is a central concept within the entrepreneurship field, and there is now a critical mass of literature centered on the concept.The authors seek to make two main contributions to this literature. First, we provide a detailed review of research on the opportunity concept and the processes surrounding it, highlighting extant insights and future needs. Second, we describe ways that the entrepreneurship literature’s insights about the opportunity concept could be enhanced by research in other fields,both inside and outside business-related domains.

Exploring the Origins of Organizational Paths: Empirical Evidence From Newly Founded Firms

Gruber, M. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:54:17 PDT

The notion of path dependence in organizational processes has intrigued scholars for several decades. Yet, while extant studies provide rich insights on the factors that cause persistence in organizational paths, research that explores the origins of organizational paths remains scant. Analyzing data collected from 446 firm founders, the author investigates the creation of product–market paths in new firms. The analysis reveals systematic relationships between key pre-entry human capital endowments of founders and the consideration of alternative solutions in path creation, thereby helping us to better explain, and predict, organizational path creation. Implications for the organizational and entrepreneurship literatures are discussed.

Understanding Tokenism: Antecedents and Consequences of a Psychological Climate of Gender Inequity

King, E. B., Hebl, M. R., George, J. M., Matusik, S. F. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:54:19 PDT

Extending tokenism theory, the authors investigate psychological climate of gender inequity as a way to understand how token women experience their work environments. In the first study, responses from a sample of 155 women across varied occupations confirm the expectation that token women tend to perceive their organizational climates to be inequitable for women. The results of a second survey of 196 female managers suggest that the subjective processes of tokenism give rise to inequitable climate perceptions. Finally, the responses of 312 women in the construction industry indicate that the climate of gender inequity is related to job attitudes and behaviors.

Employee Retirement: A Review and Recommendations for Future Investigation

Wang, M., Shultz, K. — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:55:13 PDT

Despite the obvious importance of retirement to employees, their employing organizations, and the larger society, the last comprehensive review of employee retirement in the field of organizational science was published more than 20 years ago. As such, the first purpose of this review is to provide a summary of key theoretical and empirical developments in employee retirement research since Beehr in 1986. A second purpose of this review is to highlight inconsistent findings revealed by studies that were designed to answer the same research questions. By identifying and scrutinizing those inconsistent findings, this study expects to provide suggestions and recommendations to further the theoretical development in the field of retirement research to address these research gaps. As a result, this proposed review would be of interest to scholars in a wide variety of areas within the organizational sciences, including human resource management, organizational behavior, organizational theory, and research methods.

Leadership in Teams: A Functional Approach to Understanding Leadership Structures and Processes

Morgeson, F. P., DeRue, D. S., Karam, E. P. — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:03:37 PDT

As the use of teams has increased in organizations, research has begun to focus on the role of leadership in fostering team success. This review sought to summarize this literature and advance research and theory by focusing on leadership processes within a team and describing how team leadership can arise from four distinct sources inside and outside a team. Then, drawing from this inclusive, team-centric view of leadership, the authors describe 15 team leadership functions that help teams satisfy their critical needs and regulate their behavior in the service of goal accomplishment. This integrative view of team leadership enables the summarization of past research and identification of promising areas of future research.

The Role of Middle Management in the Strategy Process: Group Affiliation, Structural Holes, and Tertius Iungens

Shi, W., Markoczy, L., Dess, G. G. — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:03:37 PDT

This study explores the relationship between eight distinct brokerage roles of middle managers and their involvement in achieving different strategic goals.The authors argue that each role contributes to different aspects of middle managers’ strategic goals and that some roles are more likely to realize brokerage advantages than others. They further suggest that bridging structural holes may not be an optimal strategy in all situations. Important implications of their model are discussed and several future research directions are proposed.

Performance Appraisal Procedural Justice: The Role of a Manager's Implicit Person Theory

Heslin, P. A., VandeWalle, D. — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:03:38 PDT

Although there is a vast literature on employee reactions to procedural injustice,little is known about the important issue of why some managers are less procedurally just than others. In this field study we found that a manager’s implicit person theory (IPT; i.e., extent of assumption that people can change) predicted employees’ perceptions of the procedural justice with which their last performance appraisal was conducted.These procedural justice perceptions in turn predicted employees’ organizational citizenship behavior, as partially mediated by their organizational commitment.This research provides an initial empirical basis for a new line of inquiry that extends existing IPT theory intothe realm of perceptual,attitudinal,and behavioral responses to people as a function of their IPT. Other contributions to the IPT, performance appraisal, and procedural justice literatures are discussed.

An Affective Events Model of Charismatic Leadership Behavior: A Review, Theoretical Integration, and Research Agenda

Walter, F., Bruch, H. — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:03:38 PDT

Although research has long focused on the consequences of leaders’ charismatic behavior, the antecedents of such leadership are increasingly gaining scholarly attention. Nevertheless, the antecedent-oriented literature on charismatic leadership has been fragmented to date and lacks theoretical integration. Also, important gaps remain within this developing line of inquiry.Therefore,this article systematically reviews extant research on charismatic leadership behavior emergence and advances a more comprehensive perspective by integrating previous work into an overall conceptual framework. Building on these considerations, the authors outline potentially fruitful directions for future research.

Strategy in Network Industries: A Review and Research Agenda

McIntyre, D. P., Subramaniam, M. — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:38:13 PDT

This article reviews extant theoretical perspectives and empirical literature at the nexus of network effects and strategy. Building on these insights, it offers a research framework that focuses on three primary avenues: the strategic drivers of network intensity, approaches to assess variations in network intensity, and effective strategies for leveraging network intensity. In doing so, the study widens the perspective of the role of strategy in network industries and offers directions for future research.

The Illusion of Will in Organizational Behavior Research: Nonconscious Processes and Job Design

George, J. M. — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:38:13 PDT

Theorizing and research in organizational behavior implicitly or explicitly assumes that behavior is the product of conscious will. However, an extensive body of literature suggests that much of human behavior is automatic and that nonconscious thoughts and feelings are primary drivers of reactions and behavior. Relying on propositions in use in job design theory and research as a critical case in point, the author reviews the literatures on automatic thought and nonconscious emotions and their implications. Based on these literatures, the author develops alternative propositions for job design theory and research that are based on more realistic assumptions about the mind and human functioning. In addition to discussing implications of nonconscious processes for job design, the author draws broader implications for the field of organizational behavior.

Why Turnover Matters in Self-Managing Work Teams: Learning, Social Integration, and Task Flexibility

van der Vegt, G. S., Bunderson, S., Kuipers, B. — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:38:12 PDT

This study considers how turnover in self-managing work teams influences the team interaction processes that promote effective task accomplishment. Drawing from research on self-managing work teams and group process, the authors propose that team turnover affects performance in self-managing teams by affecting social integration, team learning behavior, and task flexibility. Hypotheses were tested in a sample of 47 self-managing work teams using longitudinal panel data and an objective measure of team performance. Results suggest that team turnover indeed decreases social integration, team learning behavior, and task flexibility in self-managing teams but that only task flexibility and team learning behavior mediate the negative relationship between team turnover and team effectiveness.

The Impact of Change Process and Context on Change Reactions and Turnover During a Merger

Rafferty, A. E., Restubog, S. L. D. — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:17:35 PDT

The authors examined relationships among two measures of the change process adopted by a firm and a measure of the change context and employees’ reactions to a merger. A longitudinal study was conducted. An employee’s perception that he or she had a poor change history was negatively associated with affective commitment to change. As the number of formal change information sessions attended increased, anxiety decreased. High quality change information was negatively associated with anxiety and positively related to affective commitment to change. Affective commitment was positively associated with job satisfaction and negatively associated with turnover intentions, which were positively associated with voluntary turnover.

When is Foreignness an Asset or a Liability? Explaining the Performance Differential Between Foreign and Local Firms

Nachum, L. — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:12:43 PDT

I seek to make sense of the variety of performance differentials between foreign and local firms observed in international competition and to examine the circumstances that explain these varying outcomes. Toward this end, I develop a theoretical framework that allows for situations in which the costs and advantages that foreign firms have relative to local firms are stronger, weaker, or nonexisting. In this framework, the costs and advantages are measured relative to local firms, and the balance between them determines performance. Tests of the hypotheses on samples of local and foreign financial services firms in London show that affiliates experience the costs and advantages differentially in relation to local firms with varying characteristics. Affiliates enjoy superior advantages when compared with purely domestic local firms, but these differences disappear when affiliates are compared with local multinational enterprises (MNEs). Ownership levels significantly influence the strength of the costs and advantages, but different entry modes undertaken by MNEs have no discernible effect. These findings contribute to the understanding of the implications of foreignness in international competition and the reasons for it being an asset under certain circumstances and a liability under others. They illustrate the merits for practice of understanding the grounds for performance differentials between foreign and local firms, in that different reasons for this outcome require different strategic responses.

Does the Market Respond to Endorsement of Social Responsibility? The Role of Institutions, Information, and Legitimacy

Doh, J. P., Howton, S. D., Howton, S. W., Siegel, D. S. — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:52:54 PDT

A consensus has emerged in the burgeoning literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) that "virtuous" firms are often rewarded by the marketplace. Unfortunately, the mechanisms through which those rewards materialize are not well understood. Furthermore, it is difficult for managers and investors to know whether a company is actually engaged in responsible behavior. Thus, many stakeholders rely on institutional assessments of a firm’s social practices to inform their own judgments about that company’s CSR reputation. In this article, we draw on institutional theory and research on reputation and legitimacy to investigate the relationship between institutional endorsements (and repudiation) of CSR and firm financial performance. Our empirical results indicate that institutional intermediaries influence market assessments of a firm’s social responsibility and highlight the importance of the legitimacy-conferring function of expert bodies in understanding the relationship between social and financial performance. Our findings also illustrate the delicate interplay among different social performance assessments, reputation, and measures of financial and operating performance such that operating performance may serve as an advanced indicator of social performance and one type of social performance assessment may temper market reactions to another.

The Relationship of Personality to Entrepreneurial Intentions and Performance: A Meta-Analytic Review

Zhao, H., Seibert, S. E., Lumpkin, G. T. — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:33:50 PDT

A set of meta-analyses were conducted to examine the relationship of personality to outcomes associated with two different stages of the entrepreneurial process: entrepreneurial intentions and entrepreneurial performance. A broad range of personality scales were categorized into a parsimonious set of constructs using the Five Factor model of personality. The results show that four of the Big Five personality dimensions were associated with both dependent variables, with agreeableness failing to be associated with either. Multivariate effect sizes were moderate for the full set of Big Five personality variables on entrepreneurial intentions (multiple R = .36) and entrepreneurial performance (multiple R = .31). Risk propensity, included as a separate dimension of personality, was positively associated with entrepreneurial intentions but was not related to entrepreneurial performance. These effects suggest that personality plays a role in the emergence and success of entrepreneurs.

The Challenge of Measuring Financial Impacts From Investments in Corporate Social Performance

Peloza, J. — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:19:13 PDT

There is a small, but positive, relationship between corporate social performance and company financial performance. However, research in this area has provided little guidance to managers on how they should measure the financial impacts of their CSP strategies. Commonly used market measures, such as share price, or accounting measures, such as return on equity, are impacted by a host of other variables. These metrics do not provide the necessary level of detail for managers who want to establish an optimal level of CSP investment for their company. Further, academic research has tended to overlook the mediation process between CSP and financial performance. This gap limits the practical application of research and leaves the question of causality unaddressed. The author reviews the research examining the business case for CSP from both the academic and practitioner literatures, and provide recommendations for managers interested in measuring the impacts of CSP investment on financial performance.

Agglomeration Economies and Firm Performance: The Case of Industry Clusters

Kukalis, S. — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:30:03 PDT

Do firms located within an industry cluster outperform those that are not? Scholars of agglomeration economies have suggested that clustered firms stand to benefit from the positive externalities that stem from geographic proximity of industry. In this article, the relationship between agglomeration economies and financial performance is investigated. Thirty-one years of performance data for 194 firms from the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries revealed no significant differences between clustered and nonclustered firms in the early stages of the industry life cycle. However, isolated (nonclustered) laggards outperformed clustered laggards in the late stages of the industry life cycle. Similarly, no significant differences in financial performance were found between the groups during periods of economic contraction at an early stage of the industry life cycle, but isolated firms outperformed clustered firms in the late stages of the industry life cycle. The reported results of this study, in combination with concerns raised by a few agglomeration scholars, suggest that the enthusiasm for cluster theory shown by scholars, practitioners, and policy makers may need to be tempered.

Entrepreneurial Resource Acquisition through Indirect Ties: Compensatory Effects of Prior Knowledge

Zhang, J., Soh, P.-h., Wong, P.-k. — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:18:06 PDT

This study investigates when indirect ties, in which a referrer appears between an entrepreneur and a resource owner, can enhance the likelihood of resource acquisitions for starting a new venture. The authors argue that when either resource owners or referrers possess a greater level of prior knowledge about a venture’s technology or product, information asymmetry problems arising from weak component ties decline, enabling resource owners to evaluate the venture better. On the basis of survey data from 378 high-tech entrepreneurs, the analysis shows that resource owners’ prior knowledge, but not referrers’, compensates for limited information in weak component ties better than in strong component ties.

The Additive Value of Positive Psychological Capital in Predicting Work Attitudes and Behaviors

Avey, J. B., Luthans, F., Youssef, C. M. — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:18:05 PDT

Conventional wisdom and recent research have supported the importance of employee positivity. However, empirical analysis has not yet demonstrated potential added value of recently recognized psychological capital over the more established positive traits in predicting work attitudes and behaviors. This study found that psychological capital was positively related to extrarole organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and negatively to organizational cynicism, intentions to quit, and counterproductive workplace behaviors. With one exception, psychological capital also predicted unique variance in these outcomes beyond demographics, self-evaluation, personality, and person–organization and person–job fit. The article concludes with implications for future research and practical application.

Executive Incentive Schemes in Initial Public Offerings: The Effects of Multiple-Agency Conflicts and Corporate Governance

Allcock, D., Filatotchev, I. — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:18:05 PDT

Combining a behavioral agency perspective with research on multiple-agency conflicts, this article examines factors affecting the implementation of equity-based incentive schemes in initial public offerings (IPOs). With a unique sample of U.K. IPO companies between the years 1998 and 2002, it shows that conditional (performance-related) incentive schemes are negatively associated with share ownership and board power of the IPO’s founding directors. However, the retained ownership of venture capital firms is positively associated with the probability of conditional incentive schemes. Board independence weakly effects on the toughness of executive compensation. The article’s interesting findings suggest a number of avenues for a future analysis of the governance development process in threshold firms.

Measuring State, Effect, and Response Uncertainty: Theoretical Construct Development and Empirical Validation

Ashill, N. J., Jobber, D. — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:13:46 PST

An important contribution to the literature on perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) is Milliken’s distinction between state uncertainty, effect uncertainty, and response uncertainty. However, despite its appealing logic in capturing the types of uncertainty managers may experience as they seek to understand and respond to changes in an organization’s environment, there has been no full and rigorous psychometric development and testing of scales to measure the three constructs. Using a two-phase empirical study, this research seeks to develop and test such scales in terms of dimensionality, reliability, and validity (including nomological validity). The results suggest that managers do make a meaningful distinction between different types of uncertainty, that it is worthwhile measuring all three constructs (as they have differential impacts on outcome variables), and that there are linkages between them. Managerial contributions and implications for future research are also discussed.

Explaining Change: Theorizing and Testing Dynamic Mediated Longitudinal Relationships

Pitariu, A. H., Ployhart, R. E. — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:09:33 PST

Many disciplines of scholarship have developed theories that involve dynamic mediated (and multilevel) relationships among constructs. However, most research does not hypothesize or test these dynamic relationships in a manner consistent with theory. In this article, the authors address this disconnect by first noting the theoretical and methodological limitations of ignoring dynamic mediated (and multilevel) relationships. Specifically, the authors show that theory testing suffers and statistical conclusions are often erroneous when dynamic mediation is ignored. The authors then present several ways of conceptualizing dynamic mediated relationships and then turn to summarizing two statistical models for analyzing such data. They conclude with a brief example from a team performance context.

Reconsidering the Reputation-Performance Relationship: A Resource-Based View

Boyd, B. K., Bergh, D. D., Ketchen, D. J. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:01:34 PST

Reputation is thought to differentiate organizations and help explain variability in their performance. A recent study contributed to knowledge about the reputation–performance relationship by depicting reputation as having two dimensions and linking each dimension to the prominence and performance of U.S. business schools. The authors propose an alternative approach that draws on the resource-based view (RBV) wherein reputation is an intangible asset that is composed of complementary and reinforcing relationships whose synergies create causal ambiguities that have positive performance implications. The authors also test a direct effect of faculty experience on prominence. Their results support the merit of the RBV model, indicating that it offers greater explanatory power. The findings suggest that reputation cannot be bought by additive and independent investments. Instead, enhancing a reputation requires managers to carefully nurture interdependencies and complex relationships. The findings also provide new insights about the determinants of business school reputation.

Increasing Interpersonal and Informational Justice When Communicating Negative News: The Role of the Manager's Empathic Concern and Moral Development

Patient, D. L., Skarlicki, D. P. — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:54:06 PST

The authors report two studies exploring the role of a manager’s empathy in delivering negative news more fairly. In Study 1, 132 practicing managers completed a scenario task in which a layoff was to be communicated. Trait empathic concern predicted interpersonal and informational justice of written messages. In Study 2, 81 students provided face-to-face feedback to a confederate, which was videotaped. An empathic induction resulted in higher levels of interpersonal and informational justice relative to a control group. Furthermore, the empathic induction had a greater effect on interpersonal and informational justice for communicators who were high (versus low) in moral development.

Alliance Portfolios: A Review and Research Agenda

Wassmer, U. — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:54:06 PST

The engagement of firms in multiple simultaneous strategic alliances with different partners has become a ubiquitous phenomenon in today’s business landscape. This article offers a review of the extant alliance portfolio literature and organizes it around three key research areas: (a) the emergence of alliance portfolios, (b) the configuration of alliance portfolios, and (c) the management of alliance portfolios. The article also highlights existing gaps in the present understanding of alliance portfolios and outlines a research agenda by identifying key research questions and issues in the areas where further research is needed.

Nonlinear Politics Perceptions-Work Outcomes Relationships: A Three-Study, Five-Sample Investigation

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:15:37 PDT

This research reports the findings of three studies (involving a total of five samples) developed to explore the nonlinear relationships of organizational politics perceptions with practically and theoretically relevant work outcomes. Study 1 hypothesized a nonlinear relationship between organizational politics perceptions and job satisfaction. In Sample 1 of this study, a nonlinear relationship was identified, best depicted as an inverted-U form, and Sample 2 replicated this finding. Study 2 hypothesized a U-shaped relationship between politics perceptions and job tension, which was identified in Sample 3 and corroborated in Sample 4. In a single-sample investigation (i.e., Sample 5), Study 3 extended nonlinear conceptualizations by considering moderation (i.e., in the form of perceived resources) and, thus, the possibility of restricted nonlinearity. Results indicated that politics perceptions demonstrated a nonlinear association with job tension (i.e., U-shaped form) only for those with fewer perceived resources. For those with higher levels of perceived resources, no relationship between politics perceptions and job tension existed. Implications of these findings for scholarship and practice are offered.

Augmenting Means Efficacy to Boost Performance: Two Field Experiments

Eden, D., Ganzach, Y., Flumin-Granat, R., Zigman, T. — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:17:42 PDT

Internal and external sources of efficacy beliefs are distinguished. "Means efficacy," a particular source of external efficacy, is defined as belief in the utility of the tools available for task performance. The authors tested the hypothesis that raising means efficacy boosts performance. In two field experiments, experimental participants were told they got a new computerized system proven to be the best of its kind; controls got the same system with no means-efficacy treatment. In both experiments, means efficacy among experimental participants increased, and they outperformed the controls. A broadened perspective on the efficacy–beliefs construct is elaborated, and practical applications are proposed.

Taking Stock: Integrating and Differentiating Multiple Proactive Behaviors

Parker, S. K., Collins, C. G. — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:17:42 PDT

The authors aimed to clarify the similarities, differences, and interrelationships among multiple types of proactive behavior. Factor analyses of managers’ self-ratings (N = 622) showed concepts were distinct from each other but related via a higher-order structure. Three higher-order proactive behavior categories were identified—proactive work behavior, proactive strategic behavior, and proactive person-environment fit behavior—each corresponding to behaviors aimed at bringing about change in the internal organization (e.g., voice), the fit between the organization and its environment (e.g., issue selling), and the fit between the individual and the organization (e.g., feedback seeking), respectively. Further analyses on a subsample (n = 319) showed similarities and differences in the antecedents of these behaviors.

Using Dynamic Computational Models to Reconnect Theory and Research: Socialization by the Proactive Newcomer as Example

Vancouver, J. B., Tamanini, K. B., Yoder, R. J. — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:17:41 PDT

Previous research on dynamic processes during newcomer socialization has involved longitudinal field designs and state-of-the-art analyses. However, findings from this research either contradict key conceptual issues described by prominent socialization theories or are nondiagnostic regarding these issues. In this study computational modeling was used to (1) represent the presumed underlying processes in these theories, (2) demonstrate that current research does not test these theoretical processes, and (3) suggest the designs needed to support or refute components of dynamic theories.

A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Gender Differences in Mentoring

O'Brien, K. E., Biga, A., Kessler, S. R., Allen, T. D. — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:17:18 PDT

This meta-analysis investigates gender differences in mentor- and protégé-reported experience in mentorships as well as career and psychosocial benefits. There are no gender differences in experience as a protégé or protégé receipt of career development, but male protégés report receiving less psychosocial support than female protégés. Furthermore, males are more likely to serve as mentors than females and report giving more career development than female mentors. Conversely, female mentors report providing more psychosocial support than male mentors. In most cases, effect sizes are small and heterogeneous, providing important implications for future research.