Christopher R. Penney, James G. Combs, Nolan Gaffney and Jennifer C. Sexton
Theory predicts that balancing exploratory and exploitative learning (i.e., ambidexterity) across alliance portfolio domains (e.g. value chain function, governance modes…
Abstract
Purpose
Theory predicts that balancing exploratory and exploitative learning (i.e., ambidexterity) across alliance portfolio domains (e.g. value chain function, governance modes) increases firm performance, whereas balance within domains decreases performance. Prior empirical work, however, only assessed balance/imbalance within and across two domains. The purpose of this study is to determine if theory generalizes beyond specific domain combinations. The authors investigated across multiple domains to determine whether alliance portfolios should be imbalanced toward exploration or exploitation within domains or balanced across domains. The authors also extended prior research by exploring whether the direction of imbalance matters. Current theory only advises managers to accept imbalance without helping with the choice between exploration and exploitation.
Design/methodology/approach
Hypotheses are tested using fixed-effects generalized least squares (GLS) regression analysis of a large 13-year panel sample of Fortune 500 firms from 1996 to 2008.
Findings
With respect to the balance between exploration and exploitation within each of the five domains investigated, imbalanced alliance portfolios had higher firm performance. No evidence was found that balance across domains relates to performance. Instead, for four of the five domains, imbalance toward exploration related positively to firm performance.
Originality/value
An alliance portfolio that allows for exploration in some domains and exploitation in other domains appears more difficult to implement than prior theory suggests. Firms benefit mostly from using the alliance portfolio for exploratory learning.
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Michele N. Medina-Craven, Danielle Cooper, Christopher Penney and Miguel P. Caldas
This paper aims to understand the factors that influence employee organizational identification in family firms, and through identification, the willingness to engage in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to understand the factors that influence employee organizational identification in family firms, and through identification, the willingness to engage in citizenship behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing from the stewardship theory, the authors develop a model to test the relationships between family relatedness and relational identification to the family firm owner, employee-focused stewardship practices, organizational identification and organizational citizenship behaviors. The authors test the hypotheses using regression and the Preacher and Hayes PROCESS macro on a sample of 292 family firm employees.
Findings
The findings suggest that both relational identification with the family firm owner and employee-focused stewardship practices positively influence organizational identification, and that familial ties to the family firm owner can influence relationships with citizenship behaviors for non-family employees.
Originality/value
The authors build on existing literature to investigate how employees identify themselves within a family firm and how stewardship practices from the employee's perspective (rather than managers' or founders' perspectives) can influence organizational identification and citizenship behaviors.
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Christopher Penney, James Vardaman, Laura Marler and Victoria Antin-Yates
Research suggests family businesses often pursue risky or aggressive strategies despite the desire to preserve socioemotional wealth (SEW), which is thought to lead to…
Abstract
Purpose
Research suggests family businesses often pursue risky or aggressive strategies despite the desire to preserve socioemotional wealth (SEW), which is thought to lead to conservativism in family firm strategic decision making. The purpose of this paper is to resolve this apparent contradiction by presenting a model that describes the screening criteria used by family business decision-makers when evaluating strategic opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach
The conceptual model relies on insights derived from image theory to resolve apparent contradictions inherent in the SEW perspective’s implications for family firms’ risky strategic decisions.
Findings
The proposed model suggests new strategic opportunities in family firms are evaluated through an unconscious, schema-driven decision process and that the preservation of SEW does not preclude risky strategic directions, but instead serves as an unconscious screening criteria for strategic opportunities.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature by expanding the understanding of family-firm strategic decision-making to include considerations of the decision’s fit with the family’s principles, goals and strategic plan rather than solely to overall risk to SEW. Thus, the paper presents a detailed model of family-firm strategic decision-making that relies on insights from image theory.
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Chin How (Norman) Goh, Michael D. Short, Nanthi S. Bolan and Christopher P. Saint
Biosolids, the residual solids from wastewater treatment operations and once considered a waste product by the industry, are now becoming increasingly recognised as a…
Abstract
Biosolids, the residual solids from wastewater treatment operations and once considered a waste product by the industry, are now becoming increasingly recognised as a multifunctional resource with growing opportunities for marketable use. This shift in attitude towards biosolids management is spurred on by increasing volatility in energy, fertilizer and commodity markets as well as moves by the global community towards mitigating global warming and the effects of climate change. This chapter will provide an overview of current global biosolids practices (paired with a number of Australian examples) as well as discuss potential future uses of biosolids. Additionally, present and future risks and opportunities of biosolids use are highlighted, including potential policy implications.
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Kristen Gillespie-Lynch, Patrick Dwyer, Christopher Constantino, Steven K. Kapp, Emily Hotez, Ariana Riccio, Danielle DeNigris, Bella Kofner and Eric Endlich
Purpose: We critically examine the idea of neurodiversity, or the uniqueness of all brains, as the foundation for the neurodiversity movement, which began as an autism rights…
Abstract
Purpose: We critically examine the idea of neurodiversity, or the uniqueness of all brains, as the foundation for the neurodiversity movement, which began as an autism rights movement. We explore the neurodiversity movement's potential to support cross-disability alliances that can transform cultures.
Methods/Approach: A neurodiverse team reviewed literature about the history of the neurodiversity movement and associated participatory research methodologies and drew from our experiences guiding programs led, to varying degrees, by neurodivergent people. We highlight two programs for autistic university students, one started by and for autistics and one developed in collaboration with autistic and nonautistic students. These programs are contrasted with a national self-help group started by and for stutterers that is inclusive of “neurotypicals.”
Findings: Neurodiversity-aligned practices have emerged in diverse communities. Similar benefits and challenges of alliance building within versus across neurotypes were apparent in communities that had not been in close contact. Neurodiversity provides a framework that people with diverse conditions can use to identify and work together to challenge shared forms of oppression. However, people interpret the neurodiversity movement in diverse ways. By honing in on core aspects of the neurodiversity paradigm, we can foster alliances across diverse perspectives.
Implications/ Values: Becoming aware of power imbalances and working to rectify them is essential for building effective alliances across neurotypes. Sufficient space and time are needed to create healthy alliances. Participatory approaches, and approaches solely led by neurodivergent people, can begin to address concerns about power and representation within the neurodiversity movement while shifting public understanding.
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Christopher C. Rosen, Chu-Hsiang Chang, Emilija Djurdjevic and Erin Eatough
This chapter provides an updated review of research examining the relationship between occupational stressors and job performance. We begin by presenting an eight-category…
Abstract
This chapter provides an updated review of research examining the relationship between occupational stressors and job performance. We begin by presenting an eight-category taxonomy of workplace stressors and we then review theories that explain the relationships between workplace stressors and job performance. The subsequent literature review is divided into two sections. In the first section, we present a summary of Jex's (1998) review of research on the job stress–job performance relationship. In the second section, we provide an updated review of the literature, which includes studies that have been published since 1998. In this review, we evaluate how well the contemporary research has dealt with weaknesses and limitations previously identified in the literature, we identify and evaluate current trends, and we offer recommendations and directions for future research.
Mindy K. Shoss and Tahira M. Probst
Employees today face a number of threats to their work and financial well-being (i.e., economic stress). In an aim to provide an agenda and theoretical framework for research on…
Abstract
Employees today face a number of threats to their work and financial well-being (i.e., economic stress). In an aim to provide an agenda and theoretical framework for research on multilevel outcomes of economic stress, the current chapter considers how employees’ economic stress gives rise to emergent outcomes and how these emergent outcomes feed back to influence well-being. Specifically, we draw from Conservation of Resources theory to integrate competing theoretical perspectives with regard to employees’ behavioral responses to economic stress. As employees’ behaviors influence those with whom they interact, we propose that behavioral responses to economic stress have implications for group-level well-being (e.g., interpersonal climate, cohesion) and group-level economic stress. In turn, group-level and individual-level behavioral outcomes influence well-being and economic stress in a multilevel resource loss cycle. We discuss potential opportunities and challenges associated with testing this model as well as how it could be used to examine higher-level emergent effects (e.g., at the organizational level).
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Eugenie A. Samier and Terryl Atkins
The paper seeks to examine the problem of destructive narcissism as an aspect of the emotional dimension of educational administration. Positions of power and influence provide…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to examine the problem of destructive narcissism as an aspect of the emotional dimension of educational administration. Positions of power and influence provide motive and opportunity for the damaging character of this personality disorder to negatively affect the work life of colleagues and sabotage organizational effectiveness, ranging in degree from mild annoyance to extreme disabling.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a model of narcissism composed of the typical profile and organisational expression in educational settings, drawing on narcissism theory. This includes the narcissist's illegitimate sense of entitlement, inappropriate need for admiration and attention, lack of empathy, and projection of negative traits onto others that affect the politics and culture of schools and universities, including social interaction and work styles, that produces an objectified use of people.
Findings
Four aspects of graduate professional programs are examined for the effects of destructive narcissistic pattern – student recruitment, curriculum, narcissistic professors, and research activities – and strategies recommended for dealing with this problem.
Originality/value
The problem of narcissism in educational administration and leadership professional programmes is not addressed in the field.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the egocentric network-based strategies used by upstream firms to ensure their own resilience when the disruptions originate with…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the egocentric network-based strategies used by upstream firms to ensure their own resilience when the disruptions originate with downstream partners.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a case study approach as this is well-suited to the investigation of a complex phenomenon from multiple perspectives.
Findings
The study finds that the egocentric networks of upstream firms participating in the supply network of a retailer could ensure their own resilience even after the sudden demise of the downstream entity.
Originality/value
The study addresses the lack of adequate empirical research examining resilience from the perspectives of multiple entities in a supply network. It is also one of the few papers to address resilience from the perspective of upstream players in the context of a disruption originating with downstream partners. The findings suggest that the lack of visibility in relation to the financial health of more powerful downstream partners could be problematic from a supplier’s perspective. It identifies well-developed egocentric networks as being essential for minimizing consequences of limited downstream visibility and the impact on social capital.