Management & Organization
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Item PROFESSIONAL REFERRALS: KEEPING-WHILE-GIVING, RECIPROCATION, AND THE TRANSFER OF OPPORTUNITIES AMONG ENTREPRENEURIAL PROFESSIONALS(2013) Searcy, Deborah Woods; Stevens, Cynthia K; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Through inductive research, I explored the dynamic process between entrepreneurial professionals in sending and receiving professional referrals. I define a professional referral as an entrepreneurial professional advising a client to instead do business with a specific other professional within the same industry. While considering the needs of the client, these entrepreneurs involved in the professions must transfer a valuable opportunity to a competitor. Prior research indicates that entrepreneurial professionals should refer opportunities based on skill and specialty, should receive fees for referrals, and should select referral recipients based on tie formation mechanisms, trust, and reputation protection. Yet professional referrals involve unique complexities, as they occupy a vague conceptual space between economic and social exchange. This paper addresses the interplay of these obligations. By using a grounded theory methodology, I was able to generate an emergent model and mid-level theory. I interviewed 42 lawyers, using semi-structured interviews. The model is arranged into three transitional decisions: refer the opportunity, select a referral recipient, and establish (or terminate) a referral routine. For the first decision, in addition to referrals based on objective skill and specialty, I found that entrepreneurial professionals will refer business on subjective costs, including emotional toll and being morally compromised; I term this new dimension social referrals. Next, the entrepreneurial professional must decide to whom the referral will be sent. I found that entrepreneurial professionals are possessive of their clients, as each client represents a long-term revenue stream. Possessiveness results in reciprocity expectations, the most important of which is keeping-while-giving, or the expectation of the return of the same client relationship. Entrepreneurial professionals also set dependability expectations. Expectations directly impact selection, and these relationships are amplified by the presence of tie formation mechanisms. Finally, entrepreneurial professionals establish referral routines; they repeatedly send their referral business to no more than three individuals within a given dimension for exchange. Breaching reciprocity and dependability expectations can cause routines to be terminated, but overall, this final transitional decision occurs by default and can continue indefinitely. These interconnected steps combine to form a middle-range theory of professional referral dynamics.Item EMPLOYEE VOICE BEHAVIOR DURING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE(2013) Shin, Jiseon; Taylor, M. Susan; Seo, Myeong-Su; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)I seek to understand the dynamic organizational change process by focusing on employees' change-related voice as the mechanism through which their dissatisfaction with change implementation processes relates to their positive behavioral outcomes during organizational change. I propose that employees who are dissatisfied with their organization's change implementation processes are more likely to engage in change-related voice behavior - defined as behavior that expresses constructive suggestions (promotive voice) and challenges (prohibitive voice) to improve change processes - and that their affective commitment to change, change efficacy, and work-unit leader's empowering leader behavior will positively moderate the relationship between dissatisfaction and change-related voice behavior. Through a survey with a sample of 192 employees and 27 work-unit leaders working for an organization undergoing a large-scale organizational change, I found that the patterns of how the hypothesized antecedents relate to change-related voice behavior vary depending on the type of voice behavior. Specifically, employees are more likely to make constructive suggestions (promotive voice) when their work-unit leader shows empowering behaviors and when they are high in change efficacy. Employees who are dissatisfied with the change implementation processes engage in promotive voice behavior only when they are strongly committed to change (affective commitment to change) and believe they are not capable of handling change demands (change efficacy). Furthermore, employees tend to point out problems in current change implementation processes (prohibitive voice) when the levels of their work-unit leader's empowering leader behavior and dissatisfaction with the current change processes are high; and the relationship between dissatisfaction and prohibitive voice was stronger when the level of their change efficacy is low rather than high. Lastly, increased levels of employee change-related voice behavior in both types are positively related with their individual performance of change tasks.Item Reconfiguration Strategies, Entrepreneurial Entry and Incubation of Nascent Industries: Three Essays(2013) Moeen, Mahka; Agarwal, Rajshree; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The first essay of my dissertation focuses on the incubation stage -- the period between introduction of a technological change and its first commercialization -- of an industry, which is an understudied phenomenon. It examines firms' technological investments in a nascent industry in anticipation of commercialization, and contributes novel insights to the classic industry evolution literature that conceptualizes industry formation from the first instance of product. Using the agricultural biotechnology industry as the empirical context, this essay documents not only the extent to which firms undertake technological investments in anticipation of entry, but also the heterogeneity in types of entrants and their modes of value capture. I thus shed light on the intertwined processes of economic value capture at the firm-level and ecosystem development at the industry-level that underpin incubation of nascent industries. The second essay examines the capability antecedents of a firm market entry into a nascent industry. A firm's technical capabilities and complementary assets, at time of entry, have been consistently noted as key determinants of the likelihood of entry. Drawing on the premise that firms make deliberate decisions regarding technological investments well before they enter nascent markets, I make a distinction between a firm's pre-entry and pre-investment capabilities and study the type of pre-investment capabilities that are related to the likelihood of firm entry. I suggest that a firm's pre-investment reconfiguration experiences are the critical capability: these experiences shape the firm's development of pre-entry technical capabilities and complementary assets, which in turn affect the likelihood of entry. I find empirical support for the mediating role of pre-entry capabilities to the relationship between pre-investment experiences and the likelihood of entry in the context of the population of firms that conducted R&D investments in agricultural biotechnology between 1980 and 2010. The third essay studies the reconfiguration strategies pursued by firms in anticipation of entry into a nascent industry. Whether entry to a nascent industry is undertaken by de novo startups, diversifying firms from related industries or industry incumbents from the obsolescing industry, a critical strategic action for firms is to achieve the required configuration of capabilities for operations in the new industry. The choice, timing, and sequence of these capability reconfiguration mechanisms may, however, differ across different types of firms. I provide theoretical propositions that link firm types to the underlying sources of heterogeneity and suggest how this heterogeneity leads to differential paths undertaken by de novo startups, diversifying firms and industry incumbents while reconfiguring themselves in anticipation of entry into a nascent industry. Implications of the model are discussed using three firm case studies from the agricultural biotechnology industry.Item Redefining multidisciplinary teams: An institutional approach(2012) Paik, Yonjeong; Seo, Myeong-Gu; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Multidisciplinary teams, of which members are from different knowledge domains or disciplines, have been studied mostly in the context of cognitive diversity. However, diversityfocused approach may be missing some potential barriers to successful performance of individuals in multidisciplinary teams. Relying on institutional theory for a theoretical framework, I conceptualize two of such barriers: disciplinary embeddedness, or the extent to which an individual is cognitively, affectively and normatively influenced by her discipline, and disciplinary hierarchy, or the degree of perceived status differences among disciplines in the team. Further, I develop a multilevel model of their effects on team member performance in multidisciplinary teams. In the model, it is proposed that individual voice behavior and openness to voice may mediate the negative effects of the two barriers. In addition, I suggest that individual commitment to the team and team leader attributes such as disciplinary background breadth and transformational leadership may mitigate these negative effects. I test the proposed model using a data set from 138 team members in 23 multidisciplinary research teams at a large national research institute in South Korea. I find that disciplinary embeddedness and hierarchy indeed interrupt with team member performance. Additionally, openness to voice and voice behavior are found to be a mediator for the effect of disciplinary embeddedness and hierarchy, respectively. Leader disciplinary background breadth weakens the negative effect of disciplinary hierarchy on voice behavior.Item THE EFFECTS OF INFOMEDIARIES, NONMARKET STRATEGIES AND CORPORATE POLITICAL ACTION ON INNOVATION ADOPTION(2012) Benjamin, Scott; Reger, Rhonda K; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Strategic management research has recently become interested in the role of strategies that effect social stakeholders, such as the media, and how they affect the adoption of technological innovation. This dissertation consists of two essays that investigate how these stakeholders affect technological innovation adoption and how firms can increase the likelihood of having their products adopted by influencing these stakeholders. The first essay takes a fine-grained approach at investigating how the content of media coverage influences the adoption of wind projects in the United States wind energy industry. By focusing on certain characteristics of media coverage, I develop a theoretical framework that examines how coverage facilitates perception formation of an innovation in the market. Using content analysis, I examine certain characteristics of media coverage including media attention, positivity of tenor, issue diversity, economic & aesthetic issues and complexity of messaging, and hypothesize about the impact these characteristics have on how quickly stakeholders coalesce around a unified vision of a new technology. The second essay builds on the first essay by exploring how firms employ strategies in both social and political markets in an attempt to influence different segments of the general environment. I argue theoretically that general environmental segments, such as sociocultural and political markets, that were typically thought of as exogenous to the firm may be impacted by the firm. By introducing media specific concepts from the organizational literature and political strategies from the public policy domain to strategic management, this study investigates how firms can achieve more rapid technological innovation adoption by strategically using 1) social exchange mechanisms with the media for the facilitation of perception formation in the market and 2) corporate political activity to influence policy makers for the creation of beneficial legislation. I study both of these phenomena using a comprehensive sample of U.S. based wind projects that have either been proposed or are commercially operational between 2000 and 2009. The findings from both of these essays advance strategic management research by connecting themes from organizational research, mass communications and public policy research to help explain perception formation and technological innovation adoption in the market.Item Timing It Right: Temporal Contingencies and Cascading Effects of Leadership in Action Teams(2012) Farh, Crystal I. C.; Chen, Gilad; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Despite widespread recognition of the influential role of time in teams, these temporal components have been insufficiently integrated in existing models of team leadership. Current approaches to team leadership emphasize the importance of using different behaviors under different circumstances (e.g., contingency theories of leadership), but assume these contingencies to be static, when in reality, they fluctuate over the course of achieving a single collective task. The purpose of this dissertation is to develop and empirically test a temporal contingency theory of leadership in action teams, in part because action teams must manage shifting task goals, task intensity, and team development needs over the course of performing a single collective task. Drawing on temporal theories relevant to action teams, such as Marks, Mathieu, and Zaccaro's (2001) transition-action phase framework, McGrath's (1991) task cycle theory, and theories of team development (e.g., Kozlowski, Gully, Nason, & Smith, 1999), I examine ways in which the internal environment of the team shifts dramatically between preparatory and executionary periods. I then compare and contrast three forms of leader behavior shown to be relevant and effective in action teams - directing, coaching, and relating - and argue that each leads to effective functioning differently in each phase. Specifically, I propose that coaching behaviors increase team functioning early on during a phase of task preparation and that this relationship is enhanced when coaching is used in combination with relating behaviors, whereas directive behaviors increase team functioning later on during a phase of task execution. I further propose that leader behaviors occurring early on initiate preparatory, teamwork processes that endure over time and exert cascading influences on subsequent executionary, teamwork processes. Using live, time-sensitive observation methodology, I test these propositions in a sample of 58 surgical team episodes. Key findings are largely consistent with the proposed relationships in my model and lend support to existing theories that integrate the role of time with team leadership theory, challenge comparatively static team leadership and contingency leadership theories to incorporate a more fine-grained approach to understanding temporal dynamics affecting teams, and yield practical implications around time-sensitive leader training.Item Institutional Logics, Collective Actions and Development of New Technologies(2011) Jin, Byungchae; Kirsch, David A; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Technology development is an outcome of collective social processes among actors in different institutional fields. In the literature on technology development, there have been long debates regarding whether technology shapes social structure and order, or whether social forces determine the developmental trajectories of technology. From a series of studies, I seek to understand the social dynamics of technology development in order to address theoretical tensions, both theoretically and empirically. Three separate yet related studies together provide a theoretical model and relevant empirical evidence for the linkages among actors, institutional logics and technologies. In Chapter 1 I first attempt to theorize about how actors, including scientists, engineers and technology users, collectively shape technological evolution in the general technology context. Combining the two perspectives--institutional logics and collective actions, I develop a theoretical model that addresses how scientists and engineers, faced with multiple institutional logics, strategically respond to the multiple institutional logics, and how the different formation of institutional logics can systematically lead to different types of technology development. In the theoretical model, I discuss four distinctive social mechanisms of framing institutional logics--replacing, patching, sequencing, and reinforcing, and the relationships between the social mechanisms and the types of technology development. In Chapter 2, building upon the theoretical model proposed in Chapter 1, I empirically investigate the emergence and decline of electric and hybrid drives in the community of electric vehicle researchers from 1969-2009. Combining the perspectives of institutional logics and social movements, I argue that an institutional logic is a product of collective social processes among actors in different institutional fields, and that established logics play an integral role in shaping the differential development of new technology. Empirical findings suggest that environmental protests and economic recessions systematically influence technologists' incorporation of two institutional logics (environmentalism vs. industrialism), and that social cohesion among actors within each institutional logic tends to shape differential developmental trajectories of electric and hybrid drives in the community of electric vehicle researchers. In Chapter 3 I further explore the process through which actors respond to multiple and conflicting institutional logics, suggesting that actors can purposefully create new concepts and meanings, modify meanings of institutional logics, or reinforce existing meanings. While existing institutional work has suggested and empirically demonstrated that institutional logics shape cognitive and behavioral patterns of actors, it still remains unanswered as to how actors can mobilize existing and new logics--differential decoupling processes. To trace the processes of constructing meanings of institutional logics, I conducted an inductive study by employing keyword-based, computer-aided text analysis of research proceedings published by the international Electric Vehicle Symposium in 1969 and in 1994. From the analysis, I identify four social mechanisms of logic construction: clarifying, patching, expanding and reinforcing. Moreover, empirical findings suggest that social mechanisms of patching, expanding and reinforcing are closely related to the emergence of hybrid drive.