Management & Organization

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HISTORICAL EXPLANATION IN STRATEGY RESEARCH: LEARNING BY SCALING IN THE EARLY AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY
(2019) Devanatha Pillai, Sandeep; Goldfarb, Brent; Kirsch, David; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation uses the historical explanation to engage in an abductive study of the early American automobile industry (1895-1918). The dissertation suggests that historical explanation is a valuable complement to abductive research. Historical explanation increases the number of hypotheses considered through the temporal perspective it offers and through contextualization. Historical explanation also adjudicates between likely hypotheses to determine the loveliest explanation by evaluating explanatory coherence and consilience. Further, the practical use of the historical explanation is demonstrated by analyzing the challenges that firms faced while attempting to scale manufacturing during the early American automobile industry (1895-1918). The analysis identifies metalworking knowledge as a specific pre-entry capability that mattered and demonstrates that process innovation is critical from a very early industry stage. Thus, this dissertation enhances strategy literature's understanding of why and how scholars should engage with historical explanation.
VALUE IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER: THE MODERATING EFFECTS OF MANAGERS’ SOCIAL NETWORKS ON THEIR IDEA VALUATION AND IMPLEMENTATION DECISION-MAKING
(2019) Lu, Shuye; Bartol, Kathryn M; Venkataramani, Vijaya; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Many of employees’ novel ideas often cannot get appreciated or valued by their managers, thus precluding the opportunity for innovation. Drawing on the social-information-processing theory and the situated evaluation perspective, this paper investigates the moderating roles of managers’ social networks in the innovation process of idea evaluation and implementation decision-making. Through a field study with 85 managers in a ceramic company, I found that when managers evaluated product ideas proposed by employees, they manifested a disfavor to novelty. That is, idea novelty had a negative relationship with managers’ perceived value of the focal idea regarding the idea’s potential operational efficiency, likelihood of social support, and strategic fit. However, I also found that both managers’ advice network diversity and friendship network centrality mitigated the negative effect of idea novelty on their perceived value of the proposed product ideas. In addition, I found managers’ perceived value of the idea mediated the relationship between idea novelty and their decisions to implement the idea. Theoretical contributions and empirical strategies are discussed.
Employee Mobility, Employee Entrepreneurship, and Employee Value Capture: Labor Market Frictions and the Impact of Social Comparison Costs on Compensation
(2018) Olson, Daniel; Agarwal, Rajshree; Waguespack, David M.; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Strategic human capital research explores heterogeneity in firm performance based on differences in firms’ abilities to leverage human capital. Much of the discussion in this literature focuses on how firms can exploit isolating mechanisms that limit the mobility of employees. This dissertation studies two important facets of strategic human capital research related to the mobility of employees. The first essay explores how a labor market frictions lens can connect the strategic human capital literature to the employee entrepreneurship literature, two complementary but largely disparate literatures. The examination of the impact of various labor market frictions on employee mobility to competitor firms and employee transitions to entrepreneurship suggests that the outcomes of some frictions are divergent across the two literatures, the outcomes of some are aligned, and the outcomes of some are ambiguous. The complex interplay of labor market frictions provides opportunities for future research specifically exploring the intersection of the strategic human capital and employee entrepreneurship literatures. The second essay of explores how multi-location firms facilitate the spread of compensation increases across labor markets. Prior research cites the threat of employee mobility as the primary mechanism for the spread of compensation increases across locations. Multi-location firms that straddle more than one labor market, however, must manage employees across labor markets. I propose that internal firm processes, including social comparison between employees of the firm in different locations, may lead firms to raise compensation for employees in other locations when addressing competitive pressure in a given location. In doing so, these multi-location firms put pressure on local labor market competitors to also raise compensation, leading to compensation increases across distinct labor markets without reference to mobility constraints that dominate the strategic human capital literature.
ESSAYS ON AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENT
(2018) Frake, Justin; Agarwal, Rajshree; Beckman, Christine; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation comprises three essays on the intended and unintended consequences of achievement. The introductory essay discusses the growing literature on awards in organizational contexts. I summarize the theoretical and empirical work on awards and integrate across these literatures to identify unanswered questions. The next essay explores an unintended organizational consequence of patenting. Building on theories of appropriability and firm-specificity, prior studies support the notion that patents constrain inventors from leaving their employer. I argue, however, that by patenting an inventor's idea, firms unintentionally send signals about the employee inventor's quality to their labor-market competitors, thereby increasing the probability of inventor mobility and entrepreneurship. I match US patent data to linked employee-employer Census microdata at the individual level. This novel dataset allows me to observe the near-complete patent, wage, and employer history of most US inventors between 1995 and 2008. To causally identify the effect of patenting, I use the historical leniency of quasi-randomly assigned patent examiners to instrument for whether a patent is granted. I challenge prior work by finding support for the signaling, rather than constraining, effects of patents. To test whether signaling is the operant mechanism, I show that patenting also increases the inventor's wages and future productivity. My findings reveal an interesting paradox for innovative firms: by patenting an inventor's idea, firms send signals to their labor market competitors and dramatically increase the probability that the inventor will leave to join or start another firm. My final essay explores the effect of prestigious awards on artist's subsequent productivity and performance. There is a large body of literature that finds award-winners have higher status, greater access to resources, and enhanced self-confidence; all of which may lead to increased performance and productivity. However, in this essay, I argue that prestigious awards may decrease ex post productivity for three reasons: (1) winners may become complacent after winning a prestigious award, and (2) winners may be freed to explore alternative career paths, and (3) winners may be more selective in choosing new projects. I investigate these conjectures in the US film industry from 2002-2018. I use prediction market odds to estimate the probability of winning an Academy or Golden Globe Award. I then condition on the probability of winning an award using a propensity score design to estimate the causal effect winning an award on subsequent productivity and performance. My results suggest that winning does lead to a decrease in the actor's future productivity. Further analysis suggests that winning an award also leads the winner to explore other careers (e.g., actors become directors) and to take less important roles. Award winners subsequently join movies that receive higher artistic ratings, but less commercial success. I find no effect on the number of screens the movie is released on or the movie's budget size. The results suggest that the productivity-enhancing effects in the pre-award period may be reversed after an award is granted.
Essays on macro-level structures and dynamics of inter-organizational networks
(2018) Geng, Ying; Ding, Waverly; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In the strategic management literature, researchers have demonstrated that inter-organizational networks can significantly influence firm-level outcomes. However, an understanding of network outcomes is incomplete without an understanding of the underlying network structures. Firstly, the benefits provided by networks to their constituents and their role as sources of value, including competitive advantages of firms, might be dependent on macro-level network structure and its changes over time. Secondly, understanding how macro-level network structure will evolve can help us predict and understand the changes in the distribution of benefits and constraints afforded by egocentric network properties. Nevertheless, very few studies have attempted to establish a link between macro- and micro-level network effects. In two essays, I seek to further our understanding of inter-organizational network macro-structures. In essay one, I re-evaluate the classical centrality-performance relationship in an emerging market context, China, and find a differential in centrality-based benefits for foreign and domestic VC firms. Further exploration of the macro-structure of the underlying syndication networks leads to the discovery of a correlation between network changes and the changes in the centrality effect differential. These findings have the potential to inform further theorizing and testing on the interaction between macro- and micro-level network effects on firm outcomes. In essay two, I compare large-scale topological properties of the Chinese VC syndication network and the American VC syndication network to seek the differences and commonalities in their macro-structures. More importantly, I compare these results with previous studies in the strategic management field that have explicitly examined large-scale topologies of inter-organizational networks. Aggregating evidence from disparate studies could reveal emergent properties of networks and might have the potential to lead in new directions of micro-level inquires that we may previously have not considered.
ESSAYS ON A DEMAND-SIDE DRIVER OF MARKET ENTRY
(2018) Byun, Heejung; Agarwal, Rajshree; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In this three-essay dissertation, I explore the role of demand-pull in new market entry given repeated transactions with embedded prior transaction partners. I investigate a demand-side driver of entrepreneurial spin-outs and diversifying entrants into a new market through recurring transactions between buyers (clients) and suppliers (firms). In the first chapter, I examine the performance of diversification driven by embedded client ties, "client-led diversifiers." I focus on diversifications intended to cater to an existing client's needs and its adverse effect on firm performance. In doing so, I explore the potential tension embedded client ties create vis-à-vis firm capabilities. I find support for the negative impact of client-led diversifications on firm performance. In the second chapter, I further explore the new market performance of client-led entrants. I focus on the role of clients’ selection in entering a new market and argue that such selection predicts firm and individual performance variations in the new market. The third essay explores how individuals become entrepreneurial entrepreneurs when they experience an increase in the value of relational capital. I examine how a discontinuous increase in the value of an employee’s relational capital influences her mobility and entrepreneurship decisions. Empirically, I exploit the reporting requirements mandated by the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 to construct a unique transaction-level database between lobbyists and clients for lobbying service on lobbying issues in the United States federal lobbying industry between 1999 and 2008. In the first two chapters, I exploit the exogenous creation of the "Homeland Security" issue market after the 9/11 terrorist attack to identify the effect of client-led diversification on firm performance. In chapter three, I use a sample of revolving door lobbyists who are lobbyists-turned-ex-staffers of a politician in the U.S. federal lobbying industry between 1999 and 2008. I leverage plausibly exogenous and large shocks to the value of an employee’s relational capital in testing the hypotheses.
Status Motivations: Consumer and Seeker Perspectives
(2017) Vesco, Robert; Waguespack, David; Agarwal, Rajshree; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
My dissertation includes two essays which examine status motivations from different perspectives. In the first essay, I explore the motivations of actors who are seeking to increase their status. In particular, when the competitive signals become opaque, how do their behaviors change? In the second essay I look at status motivations from the perspective of the consumers. In other words, what motivates actors and audiences to reward status? Ultimately, my aim with this dissertation is to extend our understanding of status beyond whether it has an effect and into understanding what is driving those effects. I also seek to highlight the importance of heterogeneity in status motivations since populations of people are unlikely to have homogeneous reasons for pursuing status. The first essay examines how making the competitive environment opaque changes status-seekers productivity and prosocial behavior. While status competition is generally considered a positive force for increasing productivity, a growing body of research suggests it can have unintended consequences. However, the literature on status is largely divided on the motivations behind it. Management scholars tend to see status as an asset to be pursued as a means to an end while economists and psychologists focus on the ego needs associated with it. If these two groups of status-seekers react differently to changing incentives, and ex ante, we cannot identify these groups, then how can we interpret empirical results? To deal with this complexity I leverage an agent-based simulation that explores motive heterogeneity. I then exploit a natural experiment in an online community for technologists where status competition is decreased and then examine how low- versus high-status actors change their helpful behaviors and productivity. I find that productivity decreases with the less competitive (opaque) environment, but that only high-status actors decrease their helpful comments. I argue that the agent-based simulation suggests that this pattern of outcomes is likely due to the community having a heterogenous mixture of status-seekers since a homogenous community of either type of status-seeker would yield different results. The second essay turns around the motivation lens to the status-consumers rather than to the status-seekers. Why do they value status? This study examines taste-based status motives. That is, motives which are independent of quality considerations. Among this class of status audience, theory suggests that they may either be interested in status intrinsically or that they value status as a form of conspicuous consumption, but few large-scale empirical studies have addressed these different motivations. To address this challenge, I use a setting where audiences can reward high-status actors either anonymously or publicly. I find high-status actors receive a 60\% increase in deference versus their low-status counterparts. However, I find no difference between anonymous or public deference. Thus, while my findings replicate prior work on quality-based status motives, I find no evidence of taste-based status motives. One possibility for this could be that my setting does not contain sizable cohorts of people who have a taste for status. Another possibility could be that a different empirical approach is needed to tease these differing motivations apart from one another.
Essays on Motives and Market Outcomes
(2015) Stroube, Bryan Kaiser; Waguespack, David M.; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation examines the existence of heterogeneous motives in markets, particularly how a tension between profit motives and other utility can shape outcomes for organizations and individuals. I explore this tension in the context of biases, organizational identity, and investment behavior. Each of the three empirical chapters employs decision-level data from a different online crowdfunding platform. Academic researchers and the general public are increasingly interested in the phenomenon of "crowdfunding." The term, however, encompasses an incredibly diverse set of activities---ranging from the facilitation of for-profit start-up investments to the charitable funding of medical procedures. This diversity can make it difficult to generalize research insights from studies of any particular instance of the phenomenon. In the introductory chapter I develop a general framework for understanding the source of observed behavior on crowdfunding platforms given some simple assumptions about platform policies.The goal is to provide context for the subsequent chapters of the dissertation. The first empirical chapter examines biases against demographic groups, which are typically explained by one of two mechanisms: either decision makers have a taste for one demographic group over another, or demographics are employed as informational proxies for other unobserved but economically important traits. These mechanisms are difficult to empirically untangle despite the theoretical and practical importance of separating them. I attempt to do so in a Chinese peer-to-peer lending market by leveraging a loan guarantee policy that reduces the economic rationale for lenders to discriminate on borrower demographics such as gender and geography. Comparison of pre- and post-policy periods therefore provides a fruitful tool for measuring the degree of taste versus informational bias. I find that female borrowers appear to receive a preferential informational bias but a negative taste bias, while lenders' geographic bias toward borrowers located in the same province appears to be driven predominately by informational processes and not taste. These findings have implications for multiple sets of decision makers and underscore the theoretical importance of accounting for motives. Chapter two examines the potentially conflicting investment motives found on a non-profit hybrid identity crowdfunding platform, where simultaneous market-like and charity-like motives may lead lenders to respond differently to funding requests from entrepreneurs who appear to have high economic ability and high personal need. I survey actual lenders on the platform to measure their stated preferences for borrowers who fit each of these categories. I find that 1) lenders vary in their preference for these categories and this preference is correlated with their demographics, and 2) past loans made by lenders with an above-average preference for both need and ability were funded faster than loans in other categories. These results highlight how actors' preferences are largely endogenous to the market in which they are observed. In the final chapter I present the results of a simple online experiment conducted in conjunction with a peer-to-peer lending website. Potential lenders were presented randomized versions of the platform's lender registration web page. The content of the page varied in whether it promoted the potential social benefit of lending versus only the financial benefit. No difference was found between the treatment and control groups. The experiment provides some insight into how lenders self-select into crowdfunding activity and may serve as a model for similar experiments on other platforms.
Too Busy to Be Fair? The Effect of Managers’ Perceived Workload on Their Core Technical Performance and Justice Rule Adherence
(2016) Sherf, Elad Netanel; Venkataramani, Vijaya; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Despite the organizational benefits of treating employees fairly, both anecdotal and empirical evidence suggest that managers do not behave fairly towards their employees in a consistent manner. As treating employees fairly takes up personal resources such as time, effort, and attention, I argue that when managers face high workloads (i.e., high amounts of work and time pressure), they are unable to devote such personal resources to effectively meet both core technical task requirements and treat employees fairly. I propose that in general, managers tend to view their core technical task performance as more important than being fair in their dealings with employees; as a result, when faced with high workloads, they tend to prioritize the former at the expense of the latter. I also propose that managerial fairness will suffer more as a result of heightened workloads than will core technical task performance, unless managers perceive their organization to explicitly reward fair treatment of employees. I find support for my hypotheses across three studies: two experimental studies (with online participants and students respectively) and one field study of managers from a variety of organizations. I discuss the implications of studying fairness in the wider context of managers’ complex role in organizations to the fairness and managerial work demands literatures.
CREATING ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENS: A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL AND QUALITATIVE EXAMINATION OF SUPERVSIOR- AND PEER-BASED INTERVENTIONS
(2016) Parke, Michael; Tangirala, Subra; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Research suggests that supervisors and peers can help employees make sense of what is important or expected from them at work and, thereby, shape their behaviors. In this dissertation, I examine how employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB), such as helping and voice, are differentially affected by these two sources of influence over time. In particular, I compare the relative and joint effectiveness of two field interventions to enhance OCB: (a) a role clarification intervention in which supervisors are trained to set expectations for OCB for their employees and encourage them to engage in OCB and (b) a norm establishment intervention in which peers are trained to set expectations for each other and encourage each other to perform OCB. I utilize a mixed methods approach involving a quasi-field experiment to test for changes in OCB and qualitative data to explore the theoretical mechanisms over the course of three months in a large food processing plant. I find that role clarification interventions alone have immediate positive effects on OCB, whereas norm establishment interventions alone take a longer period of time to increase OCB. In addition, in the condition where both interventions were combined, norm establishment interventions weaken the effects of role clarification earlier on; however, at later stages in time, this pattern reverses as norm establishment enhances the effects of role clarification on OCB. Through these findings, I highlight how (a) organizations seeking quick increases in citizenship might be better off focusing on supervisors as sources of influence; (b) organizations need to persist with peer-focused interventions to see positive gains; and (c) despite initial hurdles with peer-focused interventions, over time, they can lead to the highest increases in OCB when combined with supervisor-focused interventions.

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