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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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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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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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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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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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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Michael Dotson and W.E. Patton
Reports on the difficulties currently faced by department stores.Argues that a return to a true service orientation is needed. Discussesconsumer attitudes towards the service…
Abstract
Reports on the difficulties currently faced by department stores. Argues that a return to a true service orientation is needed. Discusses consumer attitudes towards the service offered in such stores via the results of a focus group interview, ranking and perceptual mapping of store services. Offers managerial guidelines for implementing a successful service strategy.
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Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way…
Abstract
Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.
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Jules Carrière and Christopher Bourque
The purpose of this paper is to provide further insight into the relationship between internal communication practices, communication satisfaction, job satisfaction, and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide further insight into the relationship between internal communication practices, communication satisfaction, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. It is centered in the emergency services sector in general, and on land ambulance services in particular. The focus organization is a large urban land ambulance service with an operating budget of approximately $50 million and 468 employees.
Design/methodology/approach
Only paramedics were eligible to participate in the study. In total, 91 (32.5 per cent) of the organization's 280 paramedics participated. Data were collected using a questionnaire comprising pre‐existing work‐related psychometric measures. The measures included the Communication Audit Survey, the Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire, the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire and the Affective Organizational Commitment Scale. Only quantitative data were collected.
Findings
The data showed that internal communication practices explained 49.8 per cent of the variation in communication satisfaction, 23.4 per cent of the variation in job satisfaction, and 17.5 per cent of the variation in affective organizational commitment. However, these effects were fully mediated by communication satisfaction when job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment were regressed against both internal communication practices and communication satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
These findings have important practical and theoretical implications. Managers will not be able to foster job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment through internal communication practices unless they recognize and appreciate what information is valued by employees. Second, managers must have a clear understanding of both the quantity and quality of information desired by employees if they are to design internal communication systems that meet the information needs of employees. Finally, one must consider the possibility that, for employees, communication satisfaction represents a fundamental yardstick against which all of the organization's activities and change initiatives are measured. This possibility is supported by research from the domain of change management.
Originality/value
Given the present shortage of skilled and able emergency personnel, it is in the best interest of organizations to enhance job satisfaction and commitment of such critical employees.