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When Holding in Prevents From Reaching Out: Emotion Suppression and Social Support-Seeking in Multicultural Groups
Get PDFMembers of multicultural groups benefit from developing diverse social support networks. Engaging openly with people who have a different worldview (i.e., given by a different cultural background) broadens one's cognitive horizons, facilitates one's adaptation to new contexts, decreases stereotyping and discrimination and generally improves individual and group performance. However, if this social connection is hindered (either by limiting the number of people one reaches out to or in terms of preferring to connect to similar others), then the diversity advantage is lost - both for the individuals and for the groups. Through two case studies of professional groups with varying cultural diversity (moderate and superdiverse), we investigate the evolution of their members' social support networks (i.e., to what extent and to whom they reach out for support) depending on (1) individuals' habitual emotion suppression and (2) cultural orientation on the individualism-collectivism dimension. Results show that individualistic cultures suffer a double-whammy: when suppressing, their members seek less support (i.e., don't reach out so much to ask for support) and tend to seek culturally similar others for it when they do. Suppressing collectivists are less affected in absolute levels of connectedness, but still prefer culturally similar others as sources of support. Our study offers an emotion-based view of why people stick together with similar others in diverse groups and how learning to better cope with emotions can make us more open-minded toward diversity in professional settings
Are you part of the crowd? The role of socio-demographic and contextual characteristics for crowdfunding awareness
No full textCrowdfunding has become an alternative source of financing for entrepreneurial new ventures and social projects. While several studies have analysed the success factors of crowdfunding campaigns, and identifying and “tapping the right crowd” has been shown crucial in this respect, we still lack a basic understanding of the individuals who are in the crowd. This study aims to increase our understanding of the supply side of crowdfunding by focussing on individuals’ crowdfunding awareness. Integrating information processing theory with insights from financial literacy and institutional theory, and using a sample of 1,042 individuals in Flanders (Belgium), we find that individuals’ awareness of specific crowdfunding initiatives is very low. A favourable normative environment and a conducive environment increases an individual’s awareness of crowdfunding in general, and women tend to derive their crowdfunding awareness to a larger extent from these environmental characteristics than men
CEO succession and the CEO’s commitment to the status quo
No full textChief executive officer (CEO) commitment to the status quo (CSQ) is expected to play an important role in any firm’s strategic adaptation. CSQ is used often as an explanation for strategic change occurring after CEO succession: new CEOs are expected to reveal a lower CSQ than established CEOs. Although widely accepted in the literature, this relationship remains imputed but unobserved. We address this research gap and analyze whether new CEOs reveal lower CSQ than established CEOs. By analyzing the letters to the shareholders of German HDAX firms, we find empirical support for our hypothesis of a lower CSQ of newly appointed CEOs compared to established CEOs. However, our detailed analyses provide a differentiated picture. We find support for a lower CSQ of successors after a forced CEO turnover compared to successors after a voluntary turnover, which indicates an influence of the mandate for change on the CEO’s CSQ. However, against the widespread assumption, we do not find support for a lower CSQ of outside successors compared to inside successors, which calls for deeper analyses of the insiderness of new CEOs. Further, our supplementary analyses propose a revised tenure effect: the widely assumed relationship of an increase in CSQ when CEO tenure increases might be driven mainly by the event of CEO succession and may not universally and continuously increase over time, pointing to a “window of opportunity” to initiate strategic change shortly after the succession event. By analyzing the relationship between CEO succession and CEO CSQ, our results contribute to the CSQ literature and provide fruitful impulses for the CEO succession literature
A heuristic procedure to solve the project staffing problem with discrete time/resource trade-offs and personnel scheduling constraints
No full textWhen scheduling projects under resource constraints, assumptions are typically made with respect to the resource availability and activities are planned each with its own duration and resource requirements. In resource scheduling, important assumptions are made with respect to the staffing requirements. Both problems are typically solved in a sequential manner leading to a suboptimal outcome. We integrate these two interrelated scheduling problems to determine the optimal personnel budget that minimises the overall cost. Integrating these problems increases the scheduling flexibility, which improves the overall performance. In addition, we consider some resource demand flexibility in this research as an activity can be performed in multiple modes. In this paper, we present an iterated local search procedure for the integrated multi-mode project scheduling and personnel staffing problem. Detailed computational experiments are presented to evaluate different decomposition heuristics and comparison is made with alternative optimisation techniques
Quantile-Based Inference for Tempered Stable Distributions
No full textWe introduce a simple, fast, and accurate way for the estimation of numerous distributions that belong to the class of tempered stable probability distributions. Estimation is based on the method of simulated quantiles (Dominicy and Veredas in J Econom 172:235–247, 2013). MSQ consists of matching empirical and theoretical functions of quantiles that are informative about the parameters of interest. In the Monte Carlo study we show that MSQ is significantly faster than maximum likelihood and the MSQ estimators can be nearly as precise as MLE’s. A Value at Risk study using 13 years of daily returns from 21 world-wide market indexes shows that the risk assessments of MSQ estimates are as good as MLE’s
Forecasting spare part demand using service maintenance information
Get PDFWe focus on the inventory management of critical spare parts that are used for service maintenance. These parts are commonly characterised by a large variety, an intermittent demand pattern and oftentimes a high shortage cost. Specialized service parts models focus on improving the availability of parts whilst limiting the investment in inventories. We develop a method to forecast the demand of these spare parts by linking it to the service maintenance policy. The demand of these parts originates from the maintenance activities that require their use, and is thus related to the number of machines in the field that make use of this part (known as the active installed base), in combination with the part's failure behaviour and the maintenance plan. We use this information to predict future demand. By tracking the active installed base and estimating the part failure behaviour, we provide a forecast of the distribution of the future spare parts demand during the upcoming lead time. This forecast is in turn used to manage inventories using a base-stock policy. Through a simulation experiment, we show that our method has the potential to improve the inventory-service trade-off, i.e., it can achieve a certain cycle service level with lower inventory levels compared to the traditional forecasting techniques for intermittent spare part demand. The magnitude of the improvement increases for spare parts that have a large installed base and for parts with longer replenishment lead times
Digital strategy, the next level
No full textDigital Transformation is hot. In what way will digital developments contribute to the strategy and growth of your organisation? How do you develop digital challenges into digital success? In this white paper you will learn all about the core principles of a strong digital strategy. Are you ready to compete in a rapidly changing world? Read this white paper and tackle your organisational’s growth in a smart way
Book highlight—Setting a clear strategic direction
No full textIt is important to have an inspiring change vision, an ambition to create a future that is better than what exists now. It is equally important to translate that aspiration into a well-defined direction and strategy. An aspiration without a strategy is little more than a dream. In too many organizations, the“how”of change is often as unclear as the“why”of change
Ovinto: Preparing for a series a venture capital investment round
No full textLate 2018, Frederick Ronse, founder and CEO of Ovinto, was going over the options to finance the next development stage of his scale-up. Ovinto is active in big data analytics and IoT in the rail freight industry. It had now gained traction and had lined up some highly visible customers. Its recent partnership with SAP, the global software solutions company, was also a major step forward. Now was the time to push the company on a high growth trajectory, but some EUR5 million to EUR10 million was needed to achieve this. Important questions crossed his mind. How much should Ovinto try to raise? What would a reasonable valuation be, that would be agreeable to his current investors - and himself - but that would not scare off potential investors? And who might be interested investors, that could add value to his scale-up? Frederick understood that raising professional venture capital was not only a financial decision, but a highly strategic decision as well. This case won the Entrepreneurship category at The Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2023