Management & Organization
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Item THE DEI SIGNALING THRESHOLD: WHEN AND WHY MORE MESSAGING IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER(2024) Holmes, Tara; Derfler-Rozin, Rellie; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)When it comes to messaging diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts to employees, organizations take great care in considering the content of the signals they create. However, despite carefully designed communications, they continue to struggle to garner employee support and participation for these initiatives. Counter to the prevailing assumption that more DEI signaling is better (Roberson, 2006; Plaut et al., 2011; Nishii, 2013; Richard et al., 2013; Leslie, 2019; Hunt et al., 2020; Shuman et al., 2023), I argue that positive effects of organizational DEI signaling do not persist with increased exposure to DEI-related stimuli. Leveraging exposure effect research, I instead propose that employee attitudes shift from positive to negative as exposure to signaling increases, thereby decreasing their desire to engage with DEI at work. Specifically, I hypothesize that low and moderate levels of signaling are associated with employees feeling more engagement towards DEI, but at higher DEI fatigue and cynicism are more likely to develop, negatively impacting employees’ DEI effort. I further posit that because managers play a central role in shaping employee attitudes and behaviors, a manager’s consistency with organizational DEI signaling is the key to minimizing negative employee attitudes that emerge because of overexposure. I test these hypotheses in an experiment and a field study with implications for the literatures on DEI in organizations, issue fatigue, and behavioral integrity.Item Creative Star or Territorial Jerk? The Interpersonal Consequences of Claiming Ownership over Creative Ideas at Work(2024) Hong, Rebekah SungEun; Venkataramani, Vijaya; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Employee creativity—the generation of novel and useful ideas—is vital for organizational growth and survival. To encourage creativity, organizations often reward employees who develop successful ideas, motivating them to claim ownership over their specific creative ideas. However, this dissertation argues that such idea ownership-claiming behaviors are a double-edged sword. Drawing from the Dual Perspective Model of social evaluation, this study proposes that claiming ownership of creative ideas leads to positive evaluations by coworkers of the focal employee’s creative potential but can also result in coworkers perceiving such individuals as territorial, influencing their willingness to collaborate on subsequent creative work. The study further proposes that the idea claiming employee’s granting of idea ownership to other coworkers’ ideas serves as a moderating factor, amplifying the positive effect of perceived creative potential and mitigating the negative effect of perceived territoriality on coworkers’ willingness to collaborate creatively with them. Finding support from a field study and three pre-registered lab experiments, the current research sheds light on the importance of balancing idea ownership claims with acknowledging others’ contributions to navigate the collaboration dynamics in organizations.Item THE ROLE OF SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS IN INVENTIONS AND THEIR ALLOCATION: EVIDENCE FROM JAPAN’S INDUSTRIALIZATION(2024) Yamaguchi, Shotaro; Braguinsky, Serguey; Agarwal, Rajshree; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)My dissertation seeks to address the role of university-educated scientists and engineers (S&Es) during industrialization, with a particular focus on the sorting of S&Es into invention activities and their allocation process both within and across firms. To achieve this, I delve deeply into the historical context of Japan's industrialization from the late 19th to the early 20th century, a period marked by the simultaneous emergence of multiple heavy manufacturing industries, a higher education system in science and engineering, and the rise of extensively diversified conglomerates known as zaibatsu. Using a manually constructed individual career database encompassing nearly all Japanese university graduates in science and engineering from the cohorts of 1877 to 1920 as an empirical basis, I conduct three independent yet interconnected studies in this dissertation. In Chapter 1, I investigate the factors influencing the sorting of university-educated scientists and engineers (S&Es) into inventors by matching them with archival patent records. I find a strong positive correlation between academic excellence and the likelihood of becoming an inventor as well as invention productivity. These highly skilled individuals significantly contributed to inventions in fields associated with emerging heavy manufacturing industries. I also underscore a strong complementarity between their academic skills and post-graduation job experience, which synergistically facilitated the generation of inventions. In Chapter 2, I delve deeply into the (re-)allocation process of educated plant managers and engineers across establishments within a leading cotton-spinning firm, in conjunction with investment in physical capital. Through detailed analysis of plant-level data on human capital appointments, transfers, and capital investments, I illuminate the endogenous process of internal human capital (re-)allocations in alignment with evolving strategic priorities. Notably, the shift from cost leadership to product differentiation, driven by high-end spinning machines, engendered a three-way complementarity between managerial human capital, engineering human capital, and advanced technologies. In Chapter 3, I examine how S&E university graduates are allocated both externally (moves across different independent firms) and internally (moves across affiliated firms within diversified firms or conglomerates) and their implication for innovation. I demonstrate that internal mobility enhances individual invention performance, whereas external mobility diminishes it. However, these performance differences are primarily attributed to the selection of different quality of human capital. Additional analysis suggests that high-quality human capital tends to enter growing industries through internal mobility and be often placed in managerial positions that grant them to access complementary resources. Overall, my dissertation studies contribute to the literature on strategic human capital, corporate strategy, and economic emergence. I assert that the insights derived from the unique historical context of Japan’s industrialization can not only be applied to current emerging economies but also to new industries in developed countries wherein the supply of specialized talent is scarce and mega firms play a pivotal role in driving innovation.Item NATURE-LED COMPLACENCY: BIOPHILIC WORK ENVIRONMENTS’ NEGATIVE IMPACT ON PROACTIVE AND PROSOCIAL WORKPLACE BEHAVIORS(2024) Kim, Hae Lyeng; Foulk, Trevor; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While existing research has suggested that being in a biophilic work environment (BWE), or environments that incorporate nature and natural elements, would generally have positive implications for employees, our understanding of the potential downside consequences of this contextual setting is underdeveloped. Leveraging insights from Attention Restoration Theory (ART; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989; Kaplan, 1995) and the biophilia hypothesis (Wilson, 1984), I hypothesize that the natural features of BWEs may draw one’s attention away from tasks at hand and trigger employee complacency, thereby decreasing beneficial workplace behaviors, including proactive behavior and prosocial behavior. Furthermore, I argue that the positive relationship between BWEs and complacency may be stronger for employees who are lower (vs. higher) in mindfulness. Results were mostly supported through three pre-registered studies: 1) an online experiment conducted with working professionals on Prolific Academic, 2) a multi-source field study involving 219 coworker dyads (438 employees) across 111 organizations in the Republic of Korea, and 3) an in-person experiment with undergraduate students at a large eastern U.S. university. Collectively, these studies aim to offer significant insights and implications regarding the consequences of various workplace environments.Item Resource allocation and growth strategies in a multi-plant firm: Kanegafuchi Spinners in the early 20th century(Wiley, 2023-11-30) Yamaguchi, Shotaro; Braguinsky, Serguey; Okazaki, Tetsuji; Yuki, TakenobuUsing detailed plant- and individual-level data from a major Japanese cotton spinning company in the early 20th century, we examine the within-firm allocation of skilled human capital in conjunction with investment in physical capital, accompanying the firm's evolving strategic priorities. We show that the firm leveraged unit-level two-way complementarity between managerial talent and strategically important plants when the task was achieving large-scale output and positioning for a competitive cost advantage. The task of conducting product differentiation, however, ushered in “three-way complementarity,” where educated engineering human capital and capable managers needed to be bundled with specialized physical capital. A deeper dive into the “nano-economics” of resource allocation reveals that educated engineers experiencing product differentiation in pioneering plants were reallocated to other plants also pursuing product differentiation.Item Are entrepreneurs penalized during job searches? It depends on who is hiring(Wiley, 2023-09-17) Ding, Waverly W.; Lee, Hyeun J.; Shapiro, Debra L.How do job-applicants with entrepreneurship experience—“post-entrepreneurs”—fare in the wage labor job market? We propose an “entrepreneurship-experience penalty” generally occurs yet varies in strength depending on the recruiters faced by post-entrepreneurs in their job application process. In an experiment utilizing the selection-decisions of 275 recruiters (experimental study participants) in reaction to objectively-identical job-applicants' resumes whose differences relate to whether their last-held job was as a Founder or as an Executive, we found that: (a) resumes of Founders (compared to Executives) are about 23%–29% less likely to be picked as top-choice for hire, (b) this entrepreneurship penalty is weaker for recruiters with (rather than without) entrepreneurial aspirations, and (c) this recruiter moderator-effect is stronger for recruiters in smaller (rather than larger) firms.Item Declining science-based startups: Strategic human capital and the value of working in startups versus established firms(Wiley, 2023-08-23) Ding, Yuheng; Astebro, Thomas; Braguinsky, SergueyWe document that since 1997, the rate of startup formation has precipitously declined for firms operated by US PhD recipients in science and engineering. We explore how increasing knowledge complexity can be associated with fewer science-based startups. The decline in startup formation is accompanied by an earnings decline, increasing work complexity in R&D, and more administrative work for science-based founders. Founding a startup appears to have become increasingly harder over the past 20 years, while established firms are becoming more attractive workplaces for PhDs.Item Fanbois and Fanbots: Tesla’s Entrepreneurial Narratives and Corporate Computational Propaganda on Social Media(MDPI, 2023-02-05) Kirsch, David A.; Chowdhury, Mohsen A.This paper reports the discovery of a series of computational social media accounts (Fanbots) on Twitter that may have played a critical role in sustaining the entrepreneurial narratives of Tesla, the electric-vehicle maker. From 2010 to 2020—a period of trial, error, and eventual success for Tesla—these computational agents generated pro-firm tweets (Corporate Computational Propaganda, CCP), accounting for more than 10% of the total Twitter activity that included the cashtag, $TSLA, and 23% of activity that included the hashtag, #TSLA. Though similar to programmed social media content in the political sphere, the activities of these accounts predate the existence of political computational propaganda associated with foreign support for, for instance, Brexit in the United Kingdom (2016) and Donald Trump in the United States (2016). The paper (a) characterizes the extent of Fanbot content in two large Tesla tweet corpora, (b) identifies possible motivations for the creation of these accounts in relation to the firm’s entrepreneurial narratives, and (c) explores possible mechanisms by which the Fanbots might have acted. Although we are unable to directly observe the source or stated purpose of these accounts, based upon the timing of Fanbot creation and other indirect indicators, we infer that these accounts and the social media activity they generated were intended to influence social perception of Tesla. The conclusion assesses the generalizability of a Fanbot-based strategy, highlighting contextual limitations, while also pointing to ways that firms may already be using CCP to manage social approval in emerging-industry contexts.Item A Prosocial Contributor or Status Grabber? How and Why Newcomer Proactive Knowledge Sharing with Coworkers Impacts Inclusion Perceptions via Ambivalent Coworker Attributions(2023) Guan, Zhishuang; Liao, Hui HL; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Newcomers are often referred to as the “new blood” because they represent a source of fresh, unique, task-relevant knowledge that potentially adds value to organizations. In this research, I focus on newcomer proactive knowledge sharing with coworkers and investigate how it impacts the transition of newcomers from outsiders to insiders. Integrating attribution theory and the status characteristics theory, I propose that newcomer proactive knowledge sharing with coworkers triggers coworkers’ ambivalent attributions (i.e., perceiving it to be driven simultaneously by newcomers’ prosocial and status-striving motives). Furthermore, the ambivalent attributions affect the extent to which coworkers provide socialization support and utilize the newcomer’s knowledge, eventually exerting different influences on the newcomer’s inclusion perceptions. The results of a multi-wave (i.e., four waves) and multi-source (i.e., survey data from newcomers and coworkers) longitudinal study based on 336 newcomers in a large technology company support the proposed serial mediating relationships between newcomer proactive knowledge sharing with coworkers and their inclusion perceptions via coworkers’ ambivalent attributions and behavioral reactions. The data also demonstrates that leader encouragement of learning is a viable leader strategy that makes coworkers more likely to interpret newcomer proactive knowledge sharing is driven by prosocial motives. This research has significant implications both theoretically and practically. From a theoretical perspective, it advances our understanding of newcomer socialization, knowledge sharing, and workplace inclusion. From a practical perspective, it helps newcomers better navigate the process of knowledge sharing by illuminating potential social consequences. Practitioners can leverage these insights to create more inclusive onboarding experiences for new employees.Item Fulfillment scheduling for buy-online-pickup-in-store orders(Wiley, 2022-04-09) Wu, Xueqi; Chen, Zhi-LongOne of the most popular ways of shopping in an omnichannel retailing environment is buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPS). Retailers often promise BOPS shoppers short in-store pickup ready times. We study fulfillment scheduling decisions of BOPS orders destined for a single store of a retailer. There are two fulfillment options for BOPS orders: they can be either processed at a fulfillment center (FC) and delivered to the store or processed at the store without needing delivery. There are two types of trucks available to deliver the BOPS orders fulfilled at the FC: prescheduled trucks that are already committed to replenishing store inventory and have some spare capacity that can be utilized, and additional trucks that can be hired from third-party logistics providers. There is a fixed cost for using each truck; the cost for using a prescheduled truck is lower than that for using an additional truck. If an order is fulfilled at the store, it incurs a processing cost and a processing time, whereas the processing cost and time are negligible if an order is fulfilled at the FC. The problem is to determine where to fulfill each order (FC vs. the store), how to assign the orders fulfilled at the FC to trucks for delivery, and how to schedule the orders fulfilled at the store for store processing, so as to minimize the total fulfillment cost, including the delivery cost from the FC to the store incurred by the orders processed at the FC, and the processing cost for fulfilling the rest of the orders at the store, subject to the constraint that each order is ready for pickup at the store by its promised pickup ready time. We consider various cases of the problem by clarifying their computational complexity, developing optimal algorithms and heuristics, and analyzing theoretical performance of the heuristics. We also conduct computational experiments to validate the effectiveness of the proposed heuristics in both static and dynamic settings and derive important insights about how the presence of prescheduled trucks and the presence of store fulfillment option impact the fulfillment cost and decisions.