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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the first-mover decision as one decision of a set of strategic decisions that ultimately determine performance.

The author used survey data collected from foreign-invested firms in Sichuan, China, to test for evidence that first-movers perform better than late-movers.

The results reveal that there is a first-mover advantage when the other strategic variables are not included in the model. When the entire set of strategic variables is included, however, the first mover variable loses its significance and the willingness of the foreign partner to commit additional resources becomes the best predictor of performance. Consequently, it was argued that foreign investment strategies should be analyzed as a set of strategic decisions managers make to formulate the best mix.

The empirical evidence for the first-mover advantage may not be as well grounded as many have thought. When the first-mover strategic decision is analyzed in isolation from other strategic variables, which is commonly done in many empirical studies, it indicates that firms that enter China before their competitors perform better. Unfortunately, it is more logical to assume that managers dynamically develop a set of strategic decisions that ultimately determine the firm’s performance. To extrapolate one static decision from the strategic decision set and make broad assertions about its effect of performance is an over-simplification of the strategic decision process.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship among joint venture survival in Sichuan and two types of trust: intangible trust and tangible trust. Intangible trust encapsulates the internal affective aspects of trust, whereas tangible trust captures the external and more easily visible willingness to commit resources to the partnership.

The primary data used in this research are based on surveys conducted in 2002-2003 of 274 foreign invested firms in Sichuan province and are from a follow-up investigation of firm survival in 2009.

The results show that both intangible trust and tangible trust are significant in predicting survival in joint ventures seven years into the future. In addition, the authors explore determinates of intangible and tangible trust. Management control had no impact on intangible trust, but it had a significant positive impact on tangible trust via the presence of a foreign general manager. Cultural distance had the expected negative effect on intangible trust, but an unanticipated positive influence on tangible trust.

The main contribution of this research is establishing a link between measures of trust taken in 2002 with a performance measure from 2009. Trust today, whether it is tangible or intangible, predicts performance in the future. The majority of prior research linked a current measure of trust with a current measure of performance, which blurs the trust and performance relationship, as it is likely that the relationship is reciprocal and higher levels of trust may be the result of good performance just as much as good performance is a result of higher levels of trust.

The personalities of leaders have been shown to impact the culture of their organizations and are also expected to have a more distal impact on the firm’s financial performance. However, the authors also expect that leader gender is an important intervening variable such that exhibiting various personality dimensions may result in unique cultural and performance-based outcomes for women and men leaders. Thus, the authors seek to examine first the impact of leader personality on organizational performance, as driven through organizational culture as a mediating mechanism. In doing so, the authors propose the expected impact of specific personality dimensions on certain types of organizational cultures, and those cultures’ subsequent impact on the organization’s performance. The authors then extend to consider the moderating effects of leader gender on the relationship between leader personality and organization. To support their propositions, the authors draw from upper echelons and implicit leadership theories. The authors encourage researchers to consider the proposition within a sample of the largest publicly traded US companies (i.e., Fortune 500) at an important era in history such that for the first time, 10% of these companies are led by women. In doing so, the authors hope to understand the leadership dynamics at the highest echelons of corporate governance and provide actionable insights for companies aiming to optimize their leadership composition and drive sustainable performance.

Stress and the military go hand-in-hand, particularly in combat environments. While some personality traits or types weaken relationships between stress and performance, others, such as psychopathy, may strengthen them. In the present chapter, we consider the ramifications of individuals with high levels of psychopathy or psychopathic tendencies in the military with regard to both their own stress and performance and that of those around them. We discuss different reactions to psychological and physical stress, as well as the implications of psychopathic tendencies as they relate to current military issues, including gender, leadership, teamwork, turnover, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide. By juxtaposing relevant research findings on stress and psychopathy, we conclude that psychopathic tendencies should have neither uniformly negative nor positive effects on stress and performance in the military. Rather, effects on such individuals and the peripheral others with whom they interact will likely vary greatly depending on numerous factors.

The chapter explores if and how online and face-to-face organizational environments can interact, and if and how this interaction could foster managerial practices to sustain personal growth, organizational development, and employee–organization relationships.

Research project is based on an emblematic case study: Fubles.com is a social sport sharing platform with one of the most active sport communities in Europe. This case is representative of a novel initiative, useful in understanding how social media drive organizational results.

Social media activities do not always substitute face-to-face relationships; online connections can enhance relationships, in terms of quantity, quality, and fairness, generating comprehensive reconfiguration of people practices, before and after the game. Thanks to social networks, organizations can support interpersonal contacts, enabling people to organize collective activities both virtually and physically.

The case advocates three levels of possible organizational reconfigurations through social media (individual, collective, and organizational) that can foster the quality of the employee–organization relationship.

Results suggest that social media are sources of new and innovative ways to interact within and across organizations, reinforcing not only the online interactions, but especially traditional face-to-face connections through a process of reconfiguration of people practices.

Using corporate value statements of the top Fortune 300 firms for the year 2012, we examine relationships among the stated values of these companies, their industries, and their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performance measures. We classify stated values into 21 broad categories. We find that corporate values exhibit strong industry affiliations. Correspondence analysis and regression models indicate that 19 out of 21 values are related to at least one performance measure and while some values are associated with improved performance (e.g., ethics), others (e.g., safety) have a negative impact. Further, while some values have the anticipated impact on performance (e.g., the shareholder value is positively associated with financial performance), some show no relationship (e.g., the environment value is not associated with environmental performance). Finally, our findings also suggest possible CSR washing in some cases. Overall, the study finds corporate values do affect their performance.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) consultants have the expertise required to understand the specific contextual needs of an ERP client, implement tailored business processes that meet those needs, and ensure that no potential benefit offered by the ERP remains unexplored by the client. However, conflicts between ERP clients and consultants are a significant source of non-benefit realisation, making managing client–consultant agency crucial to ERP post-implementation benefits realisation. This paper aims to elucidate how managing client–consultant agency affects the benefits derived from ERP systems.

This paper uses microfinance institutions in 15 sub-Saharan African countries to explore different paths through which managing client–consultant agency leads to benefit realisation in ERP projects. It uses partial least squares structural equation modelling to analyse data from 127 managers and explains the results using insights from agency theory and the information system (IS) success model.

This paper reveals three routes through which contractual agreements and conflict resolution strategies lead to benefits realisation in ERP projects.

This is the first study that attempts to provide quantitative evidence of how managing the complex relationship between ERP project stakeholders affects ERP project success. It also contributes a novel theoretical model for ERP benefits realisation to complement existing research on ERP agency issues, critical success factors, and benefits realisation.