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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Amine Abi Aad and James G. Combs
We raise and address an unexamined research question: Why do managers place some business activities in the formal economy and others in the informal? This firm-level managerial…
Abstract
Purpose
We raise and address an unexamined research question: Why do managers place some business activities in the formal economy and others in the informal? This firm-level managerial choice is most visible in emerging economies and is important due to its performance implications.
Design/methodology/approach
We theorize that managers use social ties with formal institutions (e.g. parliament, central bank) to protect against (1) being singled out for enforcement and (2) opportunistic business partners, and that these protections allow managers to conduct more activities in the informal economy. Based on regulatory focus theory, we also submit that managers with a promotion (prevention) focus mindset are more (less) prone to use their social ties with formal institutions to emphasize the informal economy. Hypotheses are tested using survey data from 362 Lebanese top managers.
Findings
Managers' social ties with formal institutions relate positively to their propensity to use the informal economy, and managers with a promotion mindset are more willing and those with a prevention mindset are less willing to leverage their social ties with formal institutions to conduct activities in the informal economy.
Originality/value
Our study raises an important new research question at the intersection of strategic and international management and offers an initial answer. Working within the informal economy requires informal social ties among informal actors, but for formally registered firms, entry into the informal economy requires informal ties with formal actors.
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James G. Combs, T. Russell Crook and Christopher L. Shook
Organizational performance is widely recognized as an important – if not the most important – construct in strategic management research. Researchers also agree that…
Abstract
Organizational performance is widely recognized as an important – if not the most important – construct in strategic management research. Researchers also agree that organizational performance is a multidimensional construct. However, the research implications of the construct's multidimensionality are less understood. In this chapter, we use a synthesis of previous attempts to describe the dimensions of performance and our own analysis of performance measurement in the Strategic Management Journal to build a conceptual model of organizational performance and its dimensions. Our model suggests that operational performance and organizational performance are distinct, and that organizational performance can be further dimensionalized into accounting returns, stock market, and growth measures. The model has implications for how future research might advance understanding about performance and how empirical studies should conceptualize and measure performance.
Loay Ibrahim, Sabika Allehdan, Abeer Alassaf and Reema Tayyem
The purpose of this review was to highlight the association between ID and obesity in toddlers and preschool children.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this review was to highlight the association between ID and obesity in toddlers and preschool children.
Design/methodology/approach
This review aimed to review and evaluate literature of the published research discussing the relationship between ID and overweight and obesity in children under the age of 5 years. Conflicting results of iron status in overweight and obese children under the age of 5 years had been found. However, most articles concluded that ID is associated significantly with overweight and obesity in children because of the systemic inflammatory reaction which is considered the major cause of ID; hepcidin with its resultant effect in decreasing duodenal absorption of iron; in addition to other causes including dietary and genetic factors.
Findings
Conflicting results of iron status in overweight and obese children under the age of 5 years had been found, but most articles concluded that ID is associated significantly with overweight and obesity in children, with systemic inflammatory reaction being the major cause through hepcidin with its resultant effect in decreased duodenal absorption of iron, in addition to other causes including dietary and genetic factors.
Originality/value
Many nutrients have been associated with weight gain and ID development. Unbalanced diet either in excess or shortage may affect weight status and serum iron profile. Future research is needed to study more in depth the association between ID and obesity in toddlers and preschool children and to further explore the various factors involved in pathogenesis of ID.
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Jamal T. Maalouf, James Combs, William E. Gillis and Alexa Perryman
The purpose of this paper is to introduce strategy as a factor that explains when franchisors – through the franchisees they select – seek to replicate routines exactly versus…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce strategy as a factor that explains when franchisors – through the franchisees they select – seek to replicate routines exactly versus allow local adaptation of routines.
Design/methodology/approach
Combined archival and survey data from 248 US and Canadian franchisors actively seeking franchisees were used to test hypotheses via structural equation modeling. The robustness of results was comprehensively explored.
Findings
As hypothesized, results suggest that franchisors pursuing plural form strategies select franchisees with traits that foster replication, such as prior managerial experience and the desire to become multi-outlet franchisees. Those franchisors pursuing turnkey strategies seek franchisees who exhibit a willingness to experiment and adapt. In contrast to expectations, plural form franchisors were more likely to seek franchisees with local market knowledge.
Originality/value
Strategy influences whether franchisors select franchisees who will replicate versus adapt organizational routines. The authors introduce strategy as a factor affecting the extent to which routines are replicated exactly versus adapted locally. For franchising research, they challenge prior theory by explaining why franchisors invest in franchisee selection rather than waiting for the best franchisees to self-select into franchising.
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Joel Bolton, Frank C. Butler and John Martin
Firm performance remains at the heart of strategic management. In the quest to refine the field’s contribution, Venkatraman and Ramanujam (1986) argued that reliance upon single…
Abstract
Purpose
Firm performance remains at the heart of strategic management. In the quest to refine the field’s contribution, Venkatraman and Ramanujam (1986) argued that reliance upon single measures of firm performance is risky and firm performance should be treated as a multidimensional construct. Subsequently, researchers have examined trends in firm performance measurement ever since. Over a decade since the last examination of this issue, this study aims to add to the ongoing conversation.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors investigated 1,972 research papers published in five premier management journals for the years 2015–2019 to determine if multidimensional measurement of firm performance has improved.
Findings
The findings suggest that approximately two-thirds of papers that measure firm performance are published using only a single measure of firm performance, and approximately three-fourths do not measure firm performance across multiple dimensions.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by emphasizing the necessity to consider the dimensionality of firm performance, use multiple measures and consistently ground firm performance variables with theory – especially control variables – to keep firm performance as the focus of the strategy field. Evidence and implications are discussed and recommendations for researchers and reviewers are provided.
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Family business brand communication depends on the effect of the family on stakeholders' perception, and the family influences stakeholders differently, raising the question of…
Abstract
Purpose
Family business brand communication depends on the effect of the family on stakeholders' perception, and the family influences stakeholders differently, raising the question of whether family business branding varies across stakeholders. Drawing on social identity theory, this research classifies a family firm's stakeholders into family (in-group) and non-family (out-group) stakeholders and explores the communication of family business brands to these two groups of stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach
Data for this research were gathered from a questionnaire survey of 327 Chinese family firms.
Findings
The results show that family business brand communication differs between family and non-family stakeholders. Additionally, family harmony has a positive relationship with family business branding to family stakeholders and an inverse U-shaped relationship with family business branding to non-family stakeholders.
Originality/value
This research is the first to demonstrate that family business brand communication varies across stakeholders and that the effect of family characteristics (family harmony in this research) on family business branding differs between stakeholders. In addition, it expands the scope of the out-group in family firms to embrace all non-family stakeholders and suggests an intergroup opposition between family and non-family stakeholders, which is important for advancing family firm theory.
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Xiangting Chu, Jian Gao, Hongdou Zhang, Huiwen Lu, Xinjin Liu and Xuzhong Su
Through the tracer fiber method, we strive to more accurately obtain the hook degree, straightening degree, percentage and other characteristic indexes. In order to intuitively…
Abstract
Purpose
Through the tracer fiber method, we strive to more accurately obtain the hook degree, straightening degree, percentage and other characteristic indexes. In order to intuitively represent the hook state from sliver to yarn, and feed back production information in combination with quality test.
Design/methodology/approach
Taking the cotton fiber as an example, the hooked fibers were studied by using the tracer fiber method. Tracer fibers were made from cotton-type viscose fibers. Tracer fibers and combed cotton fibers were uniformly mixed for many times and used to produce the card sliver, semi-drawn sliver, drawn sliver, roving and yarn. With the help of ZF-20D ultraviolet analyzer, geometric parameters of hooked fibers were measured, and characterization indexes were calculated. And hook indexes and quality indexes were compared.
Findings
By redefining and reclassifying hooked fibers, the change of hooked fibers in the process was tracked and characterized carefully. Some hooks in card sliver are straightened but not eliminated, and will form longer zero-angled hooks in the subsequent process. The straightening degree and number of zero-angled hooks affect the evenness CV mainly.
Originality/value
The characterization of hooked fibers is important for reducing hooked fibers and spinning high quality yarns. There is no uniform standard for the characterization of hooked fibers at present. Most studies are about relationship between process and hook in carding and drawing. There is no research on hooked fibers in the whole spinning process. In the paper, hooked fibers were redefined and reclassified, the change of hooked fibers in the process was tracked and characterized carefully.