Management & Organization

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How does creativity occur in teams? An empirical test
(2010) Jin, Sirkwoo; Shapiro, Debra L; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Organizations benefit when workteams produce more rather than less creativity. What actions in organizations help this to occur - on the part of team leaders and team members? This is the primary question that my dissertation aims to answer. More specifically, I hypothesize that team leaders' behaviors (e.g., transformational, empowering, and boundary-working behaviors) lead to team members' affective and cognitive experiences (e.g., positive group affective tone, team empowerment) that in turn lead to teamwork processes (e.g., information sharing and boundary-spanning among team members) that ultimately lead to team creativity. Thus, my dissertation attempts to explain how and why team creativity occurs. Results from 52 organizational R&D teams suggest support for these hypothesized relationships and for the theoretical model overall. I conclude by discussing my findings' implications for managers and management scholars interested in enhancing team creativity.
INDIVIDUAL LEVEL PREDICTORS OF EMOTIONAL LABOR STRATEGIES AND THEIR DIFFERENTIAL OUTCOMES OVER TIME: ROLE OF LEADER BEHAVIOR.
(2010) Singh, Sheetal; Tesluk, Paul; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In this longitudinal study, I evaluate the role of individual level cultural values of power distance, collectivism, and femininity in predicting individuals' emotional labor strategies. Additionally, I identify the differential effects of deep acting and surface acting on outcomes. I also test for the moderating role of leader behaviors on the relationship between emotional labor and job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion. I begin with a qualitative research phase to identify the leader behaviors that influence the relationship between emotional labor strategies and outcomes. Then I use a survey-based field study to test my model where I collected data from 198 individuals at time 1 and one month later at time 2. I also collected matching data on performance from their supervisors at both time 1 and time 2. Results demonstrate that individuals who are high on collectivism tend to engage in emotional labor and surface acting more than individuals who are low on collectivism. I did not find support for the hypotheses relating power distance and femininity with emotional labor strategies. Surface acting had a positive impact on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization at time 1 and time 2. Deep acting had a positive impact on job satisfaction at time 1 and time 2. However, deep acting had a negative impact on job performance at time 2. Several leader behaviors such as leader inclusiveness, empowering leadership, and leader positive emotional expression interacted with surface acting and deep acting to predict emotional exhaustion and satisfaction at time 1 and time 2.Psychological safety interacted with surface and deep acting to predict emotional exhaustion at time 1 and time 2. I discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the findings.
ENTREPRENEURIAL SELF-EFFICACY AND THE SUCCESS OF SUBSEQUENT VENTURE STARTUP AFTER FAILURE
(2010) Boss, Alan Dennis; Baum, J. Robert; Sims, Henry P; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Everyone experiences failure at some point in their lifetime. Entrepreneurs, especially, have a high incidence of failure, with estimates that over sixty percent fail within six years. Yet, a high percentage of failed entrepreneurs recover and persevere to start another business. Sometimes, they even become "serial entrepreneurs" who start many businesses. How do entrepreneurs recover from failure and have success? This research focuses on the failed entrepreneur, and I investigate aspects of how and why some failed entrepreneurs recover and start a new business. My research focuses on characteristics of the failed entrepreneurs themselves, and how certain attributes might differentiate between failed entrepreneurs who recover successfully versus those who do not. Based upon fundamental theories of human behavior and recent inquiries that have influenced the entrepreneurship literature, I draw upon research about entrepreneurs' personal competencies that stand out as predictors of venture persistence and success, specifically, (1) domain-specific self-efficacy (2) emotion regulation, (3) practical intelligence, and (4) self-leadership, to propose a path to recovery when failure occurs. I suggest that these areas of research may enhance our knowledge of how and why failed entrepreneurs recover from failure. In addition, I investigate how characteristics of the immediate context or environment support or discourage subsequent startup. I interview and survey failed entrepreneurs, beginning with a list of firms from a Bay Area business consulting firm that helps failed companies "work out" of their business. Other contact sources include small business development centers, personal contacts, university entrepreneurship centers, and two populations of healthcare workers in the southern United States. Results of this study include entrepreneurial self-efficacy fully mediating the effects of both practical intelligence and emotion regulation on subsequent venture success, as well as partial mediation of support from social contacts on success. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Although research has been conducted on future success of successful entrepreneurs, as far as I can determine, no other academic researcher has attempted to understand and empirically demonstrate the future success of failed entrepreneurs.
The effects of leadership and leader reputation on team performance
(2010) Lorinkova, Natalia; Sims, Henry P; Pearsall, Matthew J; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The effects of two distinct types of leadership - empowering and directive - have remained under-explored, with research providing inconclusive results about their effectiveness in teams. The purpose of the current study was to shed some light on this ambiguity by exploring whether directive or empowering leadership is superior in predicting team performance for new teams, faced with a learning task. Additionally, this study attempted to explain the mediating mechanisms that might translate the effect of leadership on team performance, and to explore how leader reputation may act as an additional influence mechanism in teams. Results from 60 five-person teams, engaged in a team-based, decision making simulation, provided support for the positive effect of empowering leadership on team performance and some evidence for the unique role of leader reputation in teams led by a directive leader. Theoretical and practical implications conclude this study.
Can You Hear Me Now? Examining Market Discourse as a Sensemaking Mechanism of Entrepreneurial Actions in the U.S. Wireless Telephone Industry, 1998-2007
(2010) Livengood, R. Scott; Smith, Ken G; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Entrepreneurial actions, such as new product introductions, infuse new information and drive the market process by moving the market either toward or away from existing market conditions. These products cause uncertainty for market participants, who engage in discourse as a sensemaking mechanism to reduce this uncertainty and eventually either accept or reject the new product, which is essentially the market process. Central to this process, however, is the oft-overlooked phenomenon of market discourse, or the objective and subjective information exchanged in the marketplace, that can be a key sensemaking mechanism when confronted by uncertainty surrounding new products by firms. However, little is known regarding the impact of entrepreneurial actions and the process of how market discourse moves the market. Using a unique dataset created from the United States wireless telephone industry from 1998-2007, I explore how novelty impacts various aspects of market discourse among market participants and how this discourse impacts subsequent sales of individual cell phones. Results suggest that discourse can act as a sensemaking mechanism when new products are relatively more novel than prior phones, but that reputation and competitive intensity can act as a substitute for discourse as a sensemaking mechanism to reduce uncertainty experienced by the market. In addition, discourse was found to positively influence sales but that this effect diminishes over time. Finally, findings indicate discourse acts to fully mediate the relationship between phone novelty and sales, which highlights the importance of studying discourse when examining firm actions.
How Firm Resources and Behavior Impact Firm Performance: An examination of firm resources, competitive actions, and performance
(2009) Major, David Lanier; Smith, Kenneth G; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
In this dissertation, I considered how firm resources, actions and performance may be interrelated. I tested the notion that resources both enable and interact with firm actions to impact performance. Drawing from resource-based and actions-based theory and empirical research, testable hypotheses were developed suggesting that a firm's resources may impact performance potentially in three ways - directly, mediated by actions, and in combination with actions. I examined 1) the extent to which firm resources and actions each directly predict variation in firm performance; 2) the extent to which firm resources predict variation in intervening actions and thereby predict variation in performance; and 3) the extent to which the product of resources and actions in combination predict variation in performance. With a combined dataset of 4,337 actions, gathered through the structured-content analysis of over 16,000 published news articles, and 980 model-years of resources and performance data collected from industry and government sources, 44 foreign and domestic automakers were analyzed over a study period from 1993 to 2000. I find empirical support for key components of their relationships. The analysis shows evidence that firm resources impact performance, both through and with firm actions.
Do Investor Capabilities Influence the Interpretation of Entrepreneur Signals? Theory and Testing in the Private Equity Setting
(2009) Gera, Azi; Kirsch, David A; Goldfarb, Brent; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Informing outsiders of the potential and quality of the organization in a way that will benefit the organization and avoid putting it at risk is a challenging task in competitive settings. Under conditions of uncertainty, in which external entities are imperfectly informed about the organization, outsiders will seek for alternative signals of quality. Current research of interfirm signaling has focused on the sender's ability to generate signals. In this dissertation, I propose that receivers of signals are heterogeneous in their ability to interpret signals and that this heterogeneity significantly influences the outcome of the interaction between signaler and interpreter. I apply this insight in an entrepreneurial setting to explain differences in signaling to venture capitalist and informal private equity investors (business angels) over the early stages of a firm's lifecycle. The findings have strong implications for entrepreneurial firms' strategy and, generally, to signaling theory. I argue that signals are multifaceted. Outsiders may base their decisions on two aspects of signal: the informative aspect, which relays direct information on the capabilities of the organization; and, the legitimizing aspect, which conveys legitimacy through actions of third-party entities. The use of each aspect is determined by the abilities of the sender to generate the signal and the receiver to interpret it. I posit that the informative aspect of the signal will be prominent when both the sender's and the receiver's abilities are high. When either the sender's ability to generate a signal, or the receiver's ability to interpret it, is limited, the legitimizing aspect of the signal will be prominent. When both the sender and the receiver possess low signaling abilities, the interpretation will be based on idiosyncratic data. This dissertation explores the differences between these two facets of signals, the relationships between the signal aspects at different stages of the organizational life cycle, and the usefulness of each signal aspect when considering the organization's target audience. The first essay explains the purpose of the two signal aspects for stakeholders and the interactive nature of the signals' facets. The two following essays test the theory by utilizing two large datasets of private equity investment solicitations. The second essay evaluates the effectiveness of the legitimizing aspect of the signal as a mechanism for screening startups' funding solicitations. The third essay compares the informative and legitimizing aspects of signals as decision making mechanisms for both angel and venture capital investors.
Employee Health: A Value Creating Organizational Resource
(2009) Kiyatkin, Lori; Baum, J. Robert; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
U.S. businesses have overwhelmingly approached employee health from a cost management, rather than investment, perspective. This singular focus on costs is likely due to lack of clarity regarding the potential of employee health to be a value creating organizational resource and the underlying mechanisms by which health may be subject to organizational influence. In this dissertation, I outline the `resource potential' of employee health from an organizational perspective. First, I draw upon the resource-based view and past research on health promotion and health care cost management to outline the significant organizational performance implications of employee health as a source of value generation in organizations. In so doing, I propose a model that explains the process by which employees' health risks, health motivations, and healthy behaviors impact organizational outcomes. Next, I develop a model that explains how two distinct categories of healthy behaviors - `healthy consumption' and `physical/mental fitness' uniquely impact medical costs and organizational productivity. To test these models, I employ structural equation modeling to examine a dataset of 152 and 149 organizational level outcomes regarding models 1 and 2, respectively. I find support for my assertions that employee health is a value creating organizational resource and that health motivations are an important means by which this resource may be built. I also find that healthy consumption behaviors have a stronger relative impact on costs whereas physical/mental fitness behaviors strongly promote productivity. Based on these findings, I argue that minimalistic cost management approaches to employee health are unwise from both organizational social and financial performance perspectives. In particular, this research demonstrates the crucial importance, and potential, of employee health and its components as value creating resources from a strategic organizational management perspective. Further, this research suggests that employee healthcare may be `strategic' social performance as organizational health promotion can simultaneously address both financial and social performance interests. Implications and areas for future research are discussed.
Virtual Team Member Performance and Viability: The Influence of Individual Characteristics
(2008-04-23) Hill, Nora Sharon; Bartol, Kathryn M; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The use of virtual teams is increasing in organizations. Virtual teamwork occurs when team members collaborate using technology-mediated communication rather than face-to-face. Research has shown that virtual teamwork can be challenging. However, currently there is little research to help organizations identify team members who are most likely to be effective in a virtual teamwork environment. Given this, the purpose of my dissertation research was to identify individual characteristics that influence a virtual team member's contribution to team performance and team membership viability. This dissertation developed and tested a theoretical model that integrates literature identifying individual team member characteristics that are directly germane to effective functioning in a team operating virtually. These characteristics include virtual teamwork knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs); self-regulatory team orientation; and preference for face-to-face communication with team members. These individual characteristics were hypothesized to influence team member contribution to team performance and membership viability through the intervening variables of virtual teamwork behaviors and attitude toward virtual teamwork with the team. In addition, team technology support and empowering team leadership were two contextual factors predicted to moderate the hypothesized relationships between team member characteristics and virtual teamwork behaviors. The hypotheses were tested using data from 193 team members in 29 virtual teams in the procurement department of one large multinational company. The data were collected from team members and team leaders using online surveys, and hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze the data. Results showed that both virtual teamwork KSAs and self-regulatory team orientation, although not directly associated with virtual teamwork behaviors, interacted with empowering team leadership to influence virtual teamwork behaviors. Self-regulatory team orientation and preference for face-to-face communication were both found to be positively associated with attitude toward virtual teamwork. Results further showed that virtual teamwork behaviors and attitude toward virtual teamwork were both positively associated with contribution to team performance and membership viability. Finally, no support was found for the hypothesized moderating influence of team technology support on the relationship between team member characteristics and virtual teamwork behaviors.
Locked Up: Exploring the Complex Nature of Conflicting Values Systems and Their Effects on Work Attitudes
(2007-08-06) DeCelles, Katherine A.; Tesluk, Paul; Business and Management: Management & Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Values are individuals' enduring perspectives on what is fundamentally right or wrong (Rokeach, 1973). These perspectives affect how people interpret their surroundings and interactions with others; individuals act in accordance with, and judge others' behavior by, what they believe is right (Bandura, 1991). Values have been studied extensively in the organizational literature, focusing on how individuals' values (such as honesty or achievement) affect their job attitudes (such as organizational commitment and job satisfaction; Ravlin & Meglino, 1987). While values and their effects on employees have been widely studied (Braithwaite, 1994; Cable & Edwards, 2004; Judge & Bretz, 1992; Rokeach, 1973; Ravlin & Meglino, 1987; Schwartz, 1992, 1994; Tsui & O'Reilly, 1989), they are often categorized into competing or conflicting frameworks (e.g., Cameron & Quinn, 1999; Schwartz, 1994). However, emerging evidence suggests that some competing values might actually be held simultaneously by individuals (Braithwaite, 1994; El-Sawad, Arnold, & Cohen, 2004; Kerlinger, 1983; Tetlock, 1986). If this paradoxical scenario is true, these values may actually interact, rather than displace one another. While cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957) and balance theory (Heider, 1946) --- central in psychology and organizational literature --- predict that individuals cannot hold conflicting values simultaneously without suffering from negative consequences like stress, I argue otherwise. This dissertation examines the extent to which individuals can hold conflicting values simultaneously rather than dichotomously, explores the mechanisms through which they do so, and also examines the effects of such value composition on employee attitudes. This is accomplished through two studies: first, a survey-based examination, and second, an in-depth inductive study. Both of these studies investigate these questions about conflicting values in a sample of correctional officers, and their values towards crime (punitive and rehabilitative ideals). Results indicate support that conflicting values can be simultaneously held by individuals, and that they interact to produce positive, rather than negative, job attitudes. More specifically, I find that correctional officers who hold both of these values have higher levels of perceived fit with their organization, higher levels of organizational commitment, and lower levels of burnout than officers of other value combinations. Inductive results of the qualitative portion also add explanatory value to the question of why and how this can happen; qualitative results show that correctional officers often draw from both value-perspectives in order to complete their difficult job duties in effective and balanced ways.

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