Marketing

The negative effects of expecting to evaluate: Reexamination and extension in the context of service failure

Lane, Vicki R. and Keaveney, Susan M.
Psychology & Marketing Vol. 22 Issue 11, pp. 857-885

Service managers implement customer satisfaction evaluation cards (CSECs) to help them better understand and serve their customers. Yet a robust finding from recent research is that consumers who expect to evaluate provide lower satisfaction ratings than customers who are asked to evaluate without prior notice. This article reports results of two experiments that examine the effects of expecting to evaluate (here, the CSEC effect) in the negative context of service failure. The experiments utilize thought-listing protocols to differentiate between vigilant processing (VPT) and negativity bias (NBT) theories and reinforce the internal validity of the CSEC effect. The studies also extend prior research by separating CSEC effects on evaluations of the service employee from CSEC effects on the service firm overall. Study 2 examines consequences of the CSEC effect not previously studied (switching, complaining, and negative word-of-mouth intentions) and extends external validity through an international replication.

Management

Accounting for subordinate perceptions of supervisor power: An identity-dependence model

Farmer, S., & Aguinis, H.
Journal of Applied Psychology Vol. 90 Issue 6, pp. 1069-1083.

We present a model that explains how subordinates perceive the power of their supervisors and the causal mechanisms by which these perceptions translate into subordinate outcomes. Drawing on
identity and resource dependence theories, we propose that supervisors have power over their subordinates when they control resources needed for the subordinates’ enactment and maintenance of current and desired identities. The joint effect of perceptions of supervisor power and supervisor intentions to provide such resources leads to four conditions ranging from highly functional to highly dysfunctional: confirmation, hope, apathy, and progressive withdrawal. Each of these conditions is associated with specific outcomes such as the quality of the supervisor-subordinate relationship, turnover, and changes in the type and centrality of various subordinate identities.

Business Analytics

An Unconstrained Quadratic Binary Programming Approach to the Vertex Coloring Problem

Kochenberger, Gary A., Glover, Fred, Alidaee, Bahram and Rego, Cesar
Annals of Operations Research Vol. 139, Issue 1, pp. 229 – 241.

The vertex coloring problem has been the subject of extensive research for many years. Driven by application potential as well as computational challenge, a variety of methods have been proposed for this difficult class of problems. Recent successes in the use of the unconstrained quadratic programming (UQP) model as a unified framework for modeling and solving combinatorial optimization problems have motivated a new approach to the vertex coloring problem. In this paper we present a UQP approach to this problem and illustrate its attractiveness with preliminary computational experience.

Health Management, Management

Moving Into and Through Transitions

O’Connor, Edward J. and Fiol, C. Marlena
Physician Executive Vol. 31 Issue 5, pp. 64-65

Describes how to move into and through transitions between two buildings in case of emergency like fire. Discussion on the three things get people to move into and through transitions; Pain or anticipated pain in the present that demands doing something different; Reduction of the perceived risk during the transition; Object to move forward; Factors that tend to encourage people to move into and through transitions; Rewards for success; Minimization the perceived risk of trying to change through training.

Business Analytics, Information Systems, Marketing

Perceived Risk and the Consumer Buying Process: Internet Airline Reservations

Cunningham, Lawrence F., James H. Gerlach, Michael D. Harper, and Clifford E. Young
International Journal of Service Industry Management Vol. 16 Issue 4, pp. 357-372.

Purpose: This research investigates the premise that the use of Internet airline reservation systems is perceived to be riskier than traditional airline reservation shopping.

Methodology: A survey or 263 respondents investigated perceived risk at various stages of the consumer buying process.

Findings: The results reveal that perceived risk for airline reservation services follows a pattern throughout the consumer buying process. When viewed as a dynamic process, perceived risk for Internet airline services shows more radical changes in risk levels than the traditional service. The analyses indicate that performance, physical, social, and financial risk are related to perceived risk at certain stages of the consumer buying process.

Practical Implications: A major finding of this study is that there is a risk premium for Internet airline reservation services and the risk premium permeates all stages of the consumer buying process. It is further demonstrated that the Internet risk premium does affect usage levels; implying that the Internet risk premium is consequential and warrants the implementation of risk mitigation strategies.

Originality: Unlike previous studies on perceived risk that typically focused on the relationship of perceived risk and information search, this study examines the dynamics of perceived risk throughout the various stages of the consumer buying process.

Management

Institutional governance systems and variations in national competitive advantage: An integrative framework

Griffiths, A. & Zammuto, R.F.

Academy of Management Review Vol. 30 Issue 4, p823-842.

Creating competitive industries has become one of the key tasks of governments. Explaining different adaptation outcomes in industries across nations cannot be fully accounted for simply by an emphasis on firm-level capabilities, market-driven policies, or by state-level policies. This paper proposes an integrative framework that draws on the strategic management and political economy literatures to explain variations in national industrial competitiveness. Differences with respect to institutional characteristics and capabilities, competitive outcomes, conditions of best fit and who bears the cost of industry adaptation are discussed.

Management

Test development and use: New twists on old questions

Cascio, W. F., & Aguinis, H.
Human Resource Management, Vol. 44 Issue 3, pp. 219-235

Over the past several decades there have been some significant advances in psychological science, specifically, in our knowledge about important questions to address with respect to the development and use of assessment tools. This paper focuses on developments in research and guidelines for practice in five selected areas that, if applied, will lead to more informed use of assessment tools. The five areas that we discuss are: validity generalization, statistical significance testing, criterion measures, cutoff scores, and cross-validation.

Management

Legal standards, ethical standards, and responses to social-sexual conduct at work

Pierce, C. A., & Aguinis, H.
Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 26 Issue 6, pp. 727-732

When individuals investigate a sexual harassment claim that stems from a dissolved workplace romance, their responses to the claim are likely influenced by their ethical standards and legal
standards. We propose a person-situation interactionist decision-making process through which investigators’ ethical standards may override legal standards when responding to social-sexual conduct at work.

Information Systems

Organizational knowledge management structure

Walczak, Steven
The Learning Organization Vol. 12 Issue: 4 pp. 330 – 339.

Purpose – To propose and evaluate a novel management structure that encourages knowledge sharing across an organization.

Design/methodology/approach – The extant literature on the impact of organizational culture and its link to management structure is examined and used to develop a new knowledge sharing management structure. Roadblocks to implementing a new management structure and methods for overcoming these impediments are discussed. The efficacy of the proposed management structure is evaluated empirically by examining its effect on organizations that have implemented portions of the proposed structure.

Findings – The foundational ideas behind the proposed knowledge management organizational structure and the structure itself have been implemented in parts at various organizations located both in the USA and internationally. While the full management structure model has not been evaluated, the portions implemented in various organizations have enabled these organizations to assume leading roles in their respective industries.

Research limitations/implications – The proposed knowledge sharing management structure has not been fully implemented under controlled circumstances. The empirical evaluation is performed on portions of the proposed model, thus the full impact of the proposed management structure may well exceed the described benefits and additional structural-shift roadblocks may limit the realization of the proposed benefits.

Practical implications – The proposed knowledge sharing management structure gives managers a practical way to approach cross organizational knowledge sharing, which is frequently identified as a theoretical benefit of knowledge management. Means for diminishing or circumventing recognized impediments to organizational change are described to further facilitate the implementation of the proposed cross-organizational knowledge sharing structure.

Originality/value – The proposed knowledge sharing management structure is organized around knowledge-based teams of knowledge workers, but further extends this concept to include larger knowledge groups to transform an organization into a knowledge-based organization. If an organization’s functional structure can be successfully transformed, then this enables the maximization of competitive advantage realized through knowledge management initiatives, more specifically through knowledge sharing. Upper level management, who are responsible for organizational change are the primary audience, though the principals described may be implemented through a more grass roots approach by lower level management.

Management

From business partner to driving business success: The next step in the evolution of HR management

Cascio, Wayne F.
Human Resource Management, Vol. 44 Issue 2, pp. 159-163

In the 1980s, a combination of economic and political factors led to the demand for greater accountability in all functional areas of business, including HR. The massive restructuring of organizations in the 1990s led to the outsourcing of many of HR’s basic transactional functions. In order for HR to add value to an organization, it must have several key competencies. “Influence in leadership is all about understanding the business well enough so that what you recommend adds value to the organization,” says one HR vice president. This article shows how this is done through the example of SYSCO Corporation.

International Business

Revisiting the role of cultural distance in MNC’s foreign ownership mode choice: the moderating effect of experience attributes

Cho, Kang Rae and Padmanabhan, Prasad
International Business Review, June 2005, Vol. 14 Issue 3, pp. 307-324.

This study investigates potential moderating effects of firm’s experience levels in the relationship between cultural distance and foreign ownership mode choice. Using the well established Japanese FDI data base, it is found that higher levels of experience, particularly decision-specific experience (prior experience with a particular ownership structure mode), mitigates potential impacts of uncertainty and costs caused by the high level of cultural distance, thus uncovering one possible answer to the national cultural distance paradox reported in the literature. These findings reinforce similar findings of interaction effects between key variables and cultural distance in studies involving other important strategic decisions of the MNC. The decision-specific experience-moderated cultural distance variable, and not the absolute cultural distance variable, is found to be an important determinant of a firm’s foreign ownership mode choice. Furthermore, this variable dominates the other experience-moderated cultural distance variables (international business experience and host county experience-moderated cultural distance variables) in the ability to discriminate between full ownership and shared ownership modes. Based on this moderated cultural distance measure, we find strong evidence that cultural distance is positively associated with full ownership of Japanese foreign manufacturing entities.

Management

Demand for certified human resources professionals in Internet-based job announcements

Aguinis, H., Michaelis, S. E., & Jones, N. M.
International Journal of Selection and Assessment, Vol 13, Issue 2,  Pages 160-171

We tested empirically whether potential employers require and/or prefer human resources (HR)professionals who hold an HR certification. We analyzed each of 1,873 HR job announcements
available over a one-week period on monster.com, hotjobs.yahoo.com, careerbuilder.com, and shrm.org. Results showed that only 9 (i.e., .48%) job announcements stated that there was a requirement and only 70 (i.e., 3.73%) job announcements stated that there was a preference for job applicants with any type of HR certification. In spite of the low overall demand for certified HR professionals, results indicated that the demand is slightly higher for jobs posted on shrm.org, certain job titles (e.g., HR Director, HR Generalist), HR specialty areas (e.g., employee relations, general HR), industries (e.g., manufacturing), and for jobs requiring more
years of HR job experience. Overall, results suggest that the field of HR needs to do a better job of gathering evidence about validity, utility, and lack of adverse impact regarding the use of
certification in selection and assessment decision making. Once this evidence is collected, employers may perceive HR certification as a more critical signal of a job applicant’s future contributions.

Management

Display rules and emotional labor: The moderating role of commitment.

Gosserand, Robin H., & Diefendorff, James M.
Journal of Applied Psychology 90(6), 1256-1264.

The present study examined whether commitment to emotional display rules is a necessary condition for emotional display rules to impact behavior at work. Results using structural equation modeling revealed that display rule commitment moderated the relationships of emotional display rule perceptions with surface acting, deep acting, and positive affective delivery at work, such that the relationships were strong and positive when commitment to display rules was high, and weak when commitment to display rules was low. These findings suggest that motivation plays a role in the emotional labor process in that individuals must be committed to display rules for display rules to impact behavior.

Health Management, Management

Following a Proven Path to Success

O’Connor, Edward J. and Fiol, C. Marlena
Physician Executive Vol. 31, Issue 3, p. 77–78

This article highlights methods to tackle changes encountered by people in their life. While there is no single right approach to tackling change, following a systematic, sequential process developed by others who have effectively traveled through similar territory increases one’s likelihood of success. People develop a sense of increased urgency, a change team starts to effectively work together, a vision is clarified and communicated and people begin to demonstrate behaviors that show buy-in. Under pressure for rapid results, however, leaders often focus on barriers and action steps before energizers are effectively addressed, leading to little progress, many meetings and fruitless, repetitive discussions of the same topics.

Accounting, Finance

Convertible Bonds: How Much Equity, How Much Debt?

Arak, Marcelle, and Martin, L. Ann
Financial Analysts Journal Vol. 61, Issue 2, p. 44-50

Financial analysts need accurate estimates of debt, equity, leverage, and EPS. The method proposed here, based on the probability of conversion, yields new estimates of the debt and equity in a convertible bond issue. When this method is used, the value of the equity component in a hypothetical issue is found to be substantial–larger than the value of the options and clearly larger than zero, which is assigned under current accounting rules. The estimate of the debt component is smaller than recorded under current accounting rules. Thus, the leverage of convertible bond issuers is substantially lower when this method is used.

Management

Getting a Grip on Governance

Tyler, J. Larry and Biggs, Errol L.
Frontiers of Health Services Management Vol. 21, Issue 3, p. 37-42

Presents a commentary regarding the need for hospitals’ chief executive officer to be concern about governance. Failure of the community-based model of governance; Thoughts on the recommendations as to what a CEO should do to help the board govern successfully; Difficulty of the role of board member in the context of today’s healthcare and business environment

Management

How is drug testing implemented in this company?" The answer is in the eye of the beholder

Aguinis, H., & Henle, C.A.
Revue Sciences de Gestion (2005)

We collected surveys from employees in a large petroleum company in the United States. Results indicated that employees with (a) lower scores on belief in chance (a dimension of locus of control), (b) lower scores on authoritarianism, (c) more positive attitudes toward drug testing in general, and (d) knowledge of fewer individuals known fairly well who have failed a drug test
were more likely to report that their organization’s drug testing program includes positive characteristics. We discuss implications of these findings for theory and practice regarding the implementation of drug testing in organizations.

Information Systems

Post-implementation usability of ERP training manuals: The user’s perspective

Scott, Judy E.
Information Systems Management Vol. 22, Issue 2, p. 67-77

Training users is critical to the success of ERP implementations. An important aspect of training is documentation in the form of training manuals. However, the effectiveness of the training manuals will depend on their perceived usability. In this study, data on users’ perceptions of ERP training manuals, more than two years post-implementation, are analyzed for usability dimensions of task support, learnability, navigation, and presentation.

University of Colorado Denver Business School