Business Analytics, Management

In the Aftermath of an Acquisition: Triggers and Effects on Perceived Organizational Identity

Sarah Kovoor-Misra and Marlene A. Smith
The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science Vol. 44, Issue 4, p. 422-444

This study examines how the POIs of members of an online retail organization were affected after an acquisition. The authors find that (a) POI is more complex than previously understood, and continuity, change and confusion in POI can coexist. (b) The organizational change reactivated previously unresolved POI issues. (c) The structure of POI includes cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions, and changes occurred in these dimensions. (d) Top managers and employees who have more interactions with outsiders in their jobs tend to be more confused and make less POI change than employees who primarily deal with internal operations. Finally, (e) the image of the acquired organization and the change strategies used are triggers of POI confusion and/or change in the acquiring organization. This article highlights the experience of individuals in the acquiring organization and suggests that POI is an important lens for understanding and managing organizational changes.

Entrepreneurship, Management

Do You Have a Strategy for Success in the Music Business?

Ira Selkowitz and Jeff Nystrom
Colorado Lawyers for the Arts http://www.lawyersforthearts.org/

Although some don’t think the worlds of arts and business mix, successful musical artists know that having a sound business strategy can result in wider recognition of their talents, not to mention fewer legal entanglements. A seminal paper in the field of strategic management is “Are You Sure You Have a Strategy?” written by Donald C. Hambrick and James W. Fredrickson. The advice articulated in this paper is as timely now as it was when it first appeared in the Academy of Management Executive nearly a decade ago and our article applies the principles from this classic paper in the field of strategic management to the music business.

Health Management

Toward a Theory of Local Legitimacy by MNEs in Developing Nations: Newmont Mining and Health Sustainable Development in Peru

Blair Gifford and Andrew Kestler
Journal of International Management Vol. 14, Issue 4, p. 340-352

This paper describes a current initiative by Newmont Mining Corporation (Newmont) to develop sustainable community benefit in communities around its mining operations in Peru in response to heightened criticism of Newmont by non-government organizations and the media. Using anthropologically oriented methods, a community health assessment project in an area of projected mining is described in detail in this paper. This case adds to London and Hart’s social embeddedness strategy for multi-national enterprises (MNEs) working in developing nations by introducing a locally-based community interaction model, which we describe as a local legitimacy strategy, in an effort to bring about sustainable development in the communities that surround a MNE’s production activities. The components of our local legitimacy strategy include co-analysis of community needs by MNEs and community partners, and planning and investment in developments to enhance the social fabric and the physical infrastructure needs of communities. The developing world is getting better at publicizing and monitoring the work of MNEs. We argue that it will be increasingly necessary for MNEs, like Newmont, to add local sustainable benefit into their strategic mix to gain the social license and legitimacy that is needed to operate in poorer communities.

Business Analytics

Simple and fast Surrogate Constraint Heuristics for the Maximum Independent Set Problem

Bahram Alidaee, Gary Kochenberger and Haibo Wang
Journal of Heuristics Vol. 14, Issue 6, p. 571-585

In a recent paper Glover (J. Heuristics 9:175–227, 2003) discussed a variety of surrogate constraint-based heuristics for solving optimization problems in graphs. The key ideas put forth in the paper were illustrated by giving specializations designed for certain covering and coloring problems. In particular, a family of methods designed for the maximum cardinality independent set problem was presented. In this paper we report on the efficiency and effectiveness of these methods based on considerable computational testing carried out on test problems from the literature as well as some new test problems.

Information Systems

Knowledge management and organizational learning: An international research perspective

Steven Walczak
The Learning Organization Vol. 15, Issue 6, p. 486 – 494

Purpose – This article aims to examine international studies of knowledge management (KM) and organizational learning (OL).
Design/methodology/approach – The approach takes the form of a literature review of KM and OL research that focuses on a business or businesses located outside traditional Western economies.
Findings – There is a need to increase research that examines KM and OL existing in different and multiple countries. Additionally, cultural factors should be included in KM and OL research analysis.
Research limitations/implications – The limitation is that the only practical empirical evidence is supplied through the highlighted articles in the literature review.
Originality/value – The article shows that, in order to increase the application of KM and OL research world-wide, national culture and other geopolitical influences need to be represented in KM and OL models and measurement instruments.

Accounting

Assessing The Appearance Of Auditor Independence Using Behavioral Research Methodology

Colbert, Gary, Murray, Dennis, and Nieschwietz, Robert
Journal of Applied Business Research Vol. 24, Issue 4, p. 113-124

Recent archival studies have examined the association between auditor independence and non-audit services. The results of these studies suggest that fees for non-audit services are not associated with indicators of auditor independence in fact whereas these fees are associated with financial statement users’ perceptions of auditor independence (i.e., independence in appearance). The present study attempts to reconcile these conflicting findings by using a behavioral research methodology that provides greater control over the independent variables and measures more directly financial statement users’ perceptions. Our results indicate that fees for financial information systems development services do not affect perceptions of auditor independence, whereas, fees for tax services adversely affect perceptions of independence. Overall, the results provide mixed support for the recent Securities and Exchange Commission policy changes on auditor independence.

Finance

U.S. Monetary Policy Surprises and Currency Futures Markets: A New Look

Tao Wang, Jian Yang and Simpson, Marc W.
Financial Review Vol. 43, Issue 4, p. 509-541

Intraday currency futures prices react to both surprises in the federal funds target rate (the target factor) and surprises in the anticipated future direction of Federal Reserve monetary policy (the path factor) in similar magnitude, and the reaction is short-lived. Dollar-denominated currency futures prices drop significantly in response to positive surprises (i.e., unexpected increases) in the target and path factors, but have generally little response to negative surprises. A monetary policy tightening during expansionary periods leads to an appreciation of the domestic currency, while a monetary policy loosening during recessionary periods tends to have no significant impact.

Information Systems

Technology Acceptance and ERP Documentation Usability

Scott, Judy
Communications of the ACM Vol. 51, Issue 11, p. 121-124

The article discusses enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, examining the effectiveness and usability of the system documentation used for training and to help users relearn their jobs. ERP documentation that is highly usable can result in more effective training and a quicker payback in ERP investment, the article states. Other topics include documentation that explains that rationale for the process embedded in ERP software, research streams on the technology acceptance model (TAM), and documentation support for relevant new tasks.

Finance

Fiscal policy and asset markets: A semiparametric analysis

Dennis W. Jansen, Qi Li, Zijun Wang, and Jian Yang
Journal of Econometrics Vol. 147, Issue 1, p. 141-150

This paper contributes to the literature in two important aspects. We first examine the role of fiscal policy on the U.S. stock and bond markets, and we document the conditioning information role of fiscal policy via interactions with monetary policy, a feature that has been forcefully emphasized in the recent theoretical literature but not yet thoroughly investigated empirically. The few existing empirical works only consider the role of fiscal policy as a direct information variable separate from monetary policy. Second, we employ a flexible varying coefficient specification in our econometric analysis, which has not been commonly used in this line of research. We find that a semiparametric varying coefficient model and its variants (Cai, Fan, Yao, 2000) appear to be particularly suitable for capturing the potentially complex interactions between fiscal and monetary policies.

Finance

Realized volatility and correlation in energy futures markets.

Wang, Tao, Wu, Jingtao, and Yang, Jian
Journal of Futures Markets, Vol. 28 Issue 10, p. 993-1011

Using high-frequency returns, realized volatility and correlation of the NYMEX light, sweet crude oil, and Henry-Hub natural gas futures contracts are examined. The unconditional distributions of daily returns and daily realized variances are non-Gaussian, whereas the distributions of the standardized returns (normalized by the realized standard deviation) and the (logarithms of) realized standard deviations appear approximately Gaussian. The (logarithms of) standard deviations exhibit long-memory, but the realized correlation between the two futures does not, implying rather weak inter-market linkage in the long run. There is evidence of asymmetric volatility for natural gas but not for crude oil futures. Finally, realized crude oil futures volatility responds with an increase in the weeks immediately before the OPEC events recommending price increases.

Management

Guiding organizational identity through aged adolescence

Corley, K.G., C.V. Harquail, M.G. Pratt, M.A. Glynn, C.M. Fiol & M.J. Hatch
Journal of Management Inquiry Vol. 15, Issue 2, p. 85-99.

In this article, the authors reflect on the past two decades of research on organizational identity, looking to its history and to its future. They do not provide a review of the literature, nor do they promote a particular perspective on the concept. Instead, they advocate pluralism in studying organizational identity while encouraging clarity and transparency in the articulation of definitions and core theoretical suppositions. Believing there is no one best approach to the study of organizational identity, their intent is to establish a reference point that can orient future work on organizational identity. They focus on three questions they feel are critical: What is the nomological net that embeds organizational identity? Is organizational identity “real” (or simply metaphoric)? and How do we define and conceptualize organizational identity? Last, they try to anticipate organizational identity issues on the horizon to suggest future directions for theory and research.

Entrepreneurship, Information Systems

Dressing Your Online Auction Business For Success: An Experiment Comparing Two E-Bay Businesses

Gregg, Dawn G. and Walczak, Steven
MIS Quarterly, Vol. 32, Issue 3, p. 653-670

Businesses can choose who they want to be online. Product and company attributes that are directly perceivable in the real world can be manipulated to make a favorable impression on online buyers. This study examines whether creating a more professional online e-image can signal consumers about unobservable product or company quality, and whether this signal influences their willingness to transact with the company, and ultimately the prices they are willing to pay for the company’s goods and services. An empirical study is presented that examines two new online auction businesses utilizing different company names and auction listing styles to sell items in parallel over the course of one year. The findings suggest that increasing the quality of an auction business’s e-image does increase consumers’ willingness to transact with the business, and increases prices received at auction. The study also demonstrates the ability to use eBay as an experimental laboratory for testing a variety of hypotheses about purchasing behavior online.

Management

Research in industrial and organizational psychology from 1963 to 2007: Changes, choices, and trends

Cascio, W. F., & Aguinis, H.
Journal of Applied Psychology Vol. 93 Issue 5, p. 1062-1081

We conducted a content analysis of all articles published in the Journal of Applied Psychology and Personnel Psychology from January 1963 to May 2007 (N = 5,780) to identify the relative attention devoted to each of 15 broad topical areas and 50 more specific sub-areas in the field of industrial and organizational (I/O) psychology. Results revealed that some areas have become more (or less) popular over time, whereas others have not changed much, and that there are some lagged relationships between important societal issues that involve people and work settings (i.e., human-capital trends) and I/O psychology research that addresses them. Also, much I/O psychology research does not address human-capital trends. Extrapolating results from the past 45 years to the next decade suggests that the field of I/O psychology is not likely to become more visible, more relevant to society at large, or even to achieve the lofty goals it has set for itself unless researchers, practitioners, universities, and professional organizations implement several types of changes. For example, researchers can make more conscious decisions about which topics to tackle and collaborate more often with practitioners. Universities can re-think the incentive structure of academic research and consider offering sabbaticals for academics in business practice. Academics can re-think graduate training, as well as the socialization and mentoring of new faculty members. Finally, professional associations can offer joint academic practitioner sessions at conferences, in which both groups can work together on important problems; and certification bodies can incorporate more research-based content into
examinations.

Marketing

The blame game: An attribution theory approach to marketer–engineer conflict in high-technology companies

Keaveney, Susan M.
Industrial Marketing Management; Vol. 37 Issue 6, p. 653-663

Marketer–engineer conflict is a pervasive and as-yet unresolved problem of critical importance to high-technology companies. This study updates and extends marketing literature by applying qualitative research methods including the critical incident technique to examine the causes of conflict between marketers and engineers in high-technology companies. Narratives from both marketers and engineers are interpreted from an attribution theory perspective as well as in the context of recent management research on interfunctional conflict. Results draw attention to a high proportion of personal attributions, indicating high levels of relationship-conflict; these results are in contrast to the task-conflict typically addressed by the marketing literature. Discussion highlights the changes in high-technology organizational culture since first by described by Workman 15 years ago [Workman, J. (1993). Marketing’s limited role in new product development in one computer systems firm. Journal of Marketing Research, 30 (4), 405-421.], and recommendations for managers are offered.

Information Systems

Terminability and compensatibility of cycles in business processes with a process-oriented trigger

Injun Choi, Jisoo Jung, Michael Mannino, and Chulsoon Park
Data & Knowledge Engineering, Vol. 66, Issue 2, p. 243-263

BPTrigger is a process-oriented trigger model that provides economy of specification and efficient execution for complex business constraints. An essential part of trigger execution is detection and resolution of cycles. This paper presents an approach to determine the terminability of a cycle introduced by a BPTrigger in a business process and determine whether a cycle is allowable in terms of compensatibility. The foundation of the approach is a set of conditions for cycle termination derived from classifications of business processes by resource usage and activity types by compensation status. This paper formally presents cycle analysis procedures using the notion of cycle analysis graph. Further, a procedure is proposed which checks the terminability of multiple cycles using a composite cycle analysis graph constructed from the cycle analysis graphs of the associated cycles. The paper proves the correctness of the analysis and presents a validation example. The presented results extend some limitations of well-formed sphere which has addressed atomicity of workflow transactions.

Entrepreneurship, Management

Before Identity: The Emergence And Objectification Of New Organizational Forms

Romanelli, Elaine, And Fiol, C. Marlene
Academy of Management Proceedings, p, 1-6

The evolution of new organizational forms has attracted growing theoretical and empirical attention, but little research has considered the micro-social processes that promote the emergence of quasi-similar organizations that may evolve over time into organizational forms with distinctive identities that are both claimed and granted. Drawing on social psychological theories of identity formation within and among organizational groups, we develop a model of identification and identity development for organizational forms that underpins arguments from ecological and institutional theory.

Management

First Decade Of ORM: Trends In Design, Measurement, And Data-Analysis Topics

Aguinis, Herman, Pierce, Charles, Bosco, Frank, and Muslin, Ivan
Academy of Management Proceedings; 2008, p. 1-6

We conducted a content analysis of the 193 articles published in the first 10 volumes (1998-2007) of Organizational Research Methods (ORM). We identified more and less popular quantitative and qualitative topics, trends over time, and compared these topics with the methodological tools needed for theory testing in the organizational sciences.

Management

Constrained Growth: How Experience, Legitimacy, and Age Influence Risk Taking in Organizations

Vinit M. Desai
ORGANIZATION SCIENCE Vol. 19: p. 594-608

Poor performance indicates that an organization’s routines are not well suited for its environment and prompts decision makers to search for solutions. However, results conflict regarding how this search process influences risk taking in organizations. Managers in some organizations facing actual or expected performance shortfalls tend to take risks, while managers in other poorly performing organizations avoid risky changes. This conflict is interesting because some level of risk taking appears necessary for organizations to remain competitive, adapt to their environment, and improve performance. This study examines several mechanisms that moderate risk taking following performance shortfalls. First, I draw from organizational learning theories to argue that organizations with limited operating experience are less buffered from failure, and hence that poor performance constrains risk taking at these organizations. Second, I argue that organizations with poor legitimacy are also less buffered, and hence that performance shortfalls also lead to risk aversion at these organizations. Third, I draw from structural inertia theory to suggest that older organizations are less able to support risk taking following performance shortfalls. A test of these hypotheses on the capacity expansion behavior of U.S. railroad companies generally supports these hypotheses, although the effect of age is weaker. The findings contribute to theories of organizational learning and to several perspectives in organization theory more broadly.

Entrepreneurship, Marketing

Managerial risk perceptions of international entry-mode strategies: The interaction effect of control and capability

David Forlani, Madhavan Parthasarathy, Susan M. Keaveney
International Marketing Review Vol. 25 Issue 3, p. 292-311

Purpose – The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate how opportunity for control and firm capability interact to moderate the amount of risk that managers associate with various international entry-mode strategies. A secondary goal is to investigate how managers perceive the need to retain control over three core functional areas (marketing, production, and R&D) when making entry-mode decisions.
Design/methodology/approach – A field experiment design was implemented in a sample of US business owner/executives. Using an online data collection method, the study asked a sample of small-business owners and managers to assess the amount of risk they associated with three modes of entering the Japanese market: non-ownership (export), equal partnership (50/50 joint-venture), and sole-ownership. They were also asked how much control they needed to retain over R&D, production, and marketing for the venture to be successful.
Findings – Ownership-provided control interacts with capability to influence managerial risk perceptions. Managers in lower-capability firms see the least risk in the non-ownership entry mode while those in higher-capability firms see the least risk in the equal-partnership entry mode. Managers believe that for a new venture in a foreign market to be successful, control should be retained over the R&D function, regardless of entry mode.
Research limitations/implications – The findings appear to reconcile some of the conflicting predictions of the transaction cost and resource-based theoretical perspectives, because it appears that international managers consider both control (internationalization theory) and capability (resource-based theory) when judging the perceived risk of an entry strategy.
Practical implications – For firms that are incapable of managing in an international context, a low-control no-ownership entry mode is perceived as the least risky approach; for firms that have some capability for international management, then a partial-ownership mode such as a 50/50 joint-venture is perceived as having lower risk than no-ownership. In non-ownership and joint-venture type entry modes, managers are more apt to outsource the marketing function to an agent/partner, but not R&D. In contrast, managers believe that marketing needs to be maintained in-house when utilizing a sole-ownership entry mode.
Originality/value – By illustrating the role of perceived risk in foreign-market entry-mode decisions and demonstrating how capabilities interact with ownership-provided control to moderate these perceptions, the paper’s findings suggest that managers’ risk perceptions may mediate the effects of firm-specific factors, and thus contributes significantly to both theory and practice.

Management

Staffing twenty-first-century organizations

Cascio, W. F, & Aguinis, H.
Academy of Management Annals, Vol. 2, p. 133-165

We highlight important differences between twenty-first-century organizations as compared with those of the previous century, and offer a critical review of the basic principles, typical applications, general effectiveness, and limitations of the current staffing model. That model focuses on identifying and measuring job-related individual characteristics to predict individual level job performance. We conclude that the current staffing model has reached a ceiling or plateau in terms of its ability to make accurate predictions about future performance. Evidence accumulated over more than 80 years of staffing research suggests that general mental abilities and other traditional staffing tools do a modest job of predicting performance across settings and
jobs considering that, even when combined and corrected for methodological and statistical artifacts, they rarely predict more than 50% of the variance in performance. Accordingly, we argue for a change in direction in staffing research and propose an expanded view of the staffing process, including the introduction of a new construct, in situperformance, and an expanded view of staffing tools to be used to predict future in situperformance that take into account time and context. Our critical review offers a novel perspective and research agenda with the goal of guiding future research that will result in more useful, applicable, relevant, and effective knowledge for practitioners to use in organizational settings.

University of Colorado Denver Business School