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Tres ensayos sobre líderes estratégicos y sostenibilidad corporativa
Full text linkEsta tesis consta de tres ensayos empíricos sobre líderes estratégicos y sostenibilidad corporativa. A través de tres estudios acumulativos, la tesis explora las siguientes preguntas: (1) ¿Cómo influyen las presiones institucionales en las directoras ejecutivas (CEO) para promover políticas de diversidad controvertidas? (2) ¿Cómo influye la herencia cultural de una CEO, y en qué circunstancias, en el rendimiento de la sostenibilidad corporativa? (3) ¿Cómo afecta la presencia de un director de sostenibilidad (CSO) a la asignación de recursos de las empresas hacia inversiones competitivas?
En el primer ensayo, basándome en la teoría de los escalones superiores, las perspectivas de estatus sobre el liderazgo de las minorías y la teoría institucional, planteo la hipótesis de que las empresas dirigidas por directoras generales o por directores generales pertenecientes a minorías raciales son más propensas que las dirigidas por homólogos blancos a sobrecumplir las presiones institucionales en relación con la promoción de prestaciones sanitarias integrales que incluyan a las personas transgénero. Mis resultados indican que las directoras ejecutivas tienden a sobrecumplir las presiones institucionales, alineando sus acciones más estrechamente con estas expectativas que sus homólogos masculinos. Sin embargo, no se observan patrones similares en el caso de los directores ejecutivos de minorías raciales.
En el segundo ensayo, basándome en la teoría de las altas esferas y el argumento de la transmisión cultural, sostengo que los valores culturales heredados de los directores ejecutivos, reflejados en su evitación de la incertidumbre, configuran las preferencias de sostenibilidad e influyen en el desempeño social y medioambiental de las empresas. Además, planteo dos condiciones límite: en primer lugar, que las bonificaciones de los directores ejecutivos refuerzan la relación entre la evitación de la incertidumbre de los directores ejecutivos y el rendimiento de la sostenibilidad corporativa, y en segundo lugar, que los directores ejecutivos recién nombrados debilitan esta relación. Mis resultados revelan que los directores ejecutivos de entornos culturales caracterizados por una alta evitación de la incertidumbre están asociados negativamente con el rendimiento de la sostenibilidad corporativa. Además, las pruebas sugieren que la asociación negativa entre el índice de evitación de la incertidumbre de los directores ejecutivos y el rendimiento de la sostenibilidad corporativa es más fuerte cuando los directores ejecutivos reciben una ratio de bonificación más alta y más débil cuando son recién nombrados.
En el tercer ensayo, basándonos en la teoría de los escalones superiores y en la literatura sobre ejecutivos funcionales dentro de los equipos de alta dirección, argumentamos que los CSO sirven como integradores clave, transformando las interdependencias entre los objetivos sociales y económicos en sinergias. En concreto, examinamos la relación entre las donaciones filantrópicas, los gastos en I+D y los gastos en publicidad en empresas con y sin CSO, en particular aquellas con experiencia gubernamental. Los resultados indican que, en promedio, la presencia de un CSO está asociada con una relación negativa entre las donaciones filantrópicas y las inversiones estratégicas, y que las empresas reducen los gastos en I+D y publicidad cuando hay donaciones filantrópicas. Este efecto es significativamente más fuerte cuando el CSO tiene experiencia en el gobierno.
Para poner a prueba nuestras hipótesis, empleamos principalmente métodos cuantitativos, aprovechando conjuntos de datos longitudinales ricos en información sobre los rasgos de los altos ejecutivos, los orígenes culturales, las trayectorias profesionales, las donaciones filantrópicas corporativas, las calificaciones ESG y las políticas favorables a la comunidad LGBTQ en las empresas estadounidenses.This dissertation consists of three empirical essays on strategic leaders and corporate sustainability. Through three cumulative studies, the dissertation explores the following questions: (1) How are female and racial minority Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) influenced by institutional pressures to advance contested diversity policies? (2) How does a CEO’s cultural heritage, and under which circumstances, influence corporate sustainability performance? (3) How does the presence of a Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) affect firms’ resource allocation toward competitive investments?
In the first essay, drawing upon upper echelons theory, status perspectives on minority leadership, and institutional theory, I hypothesize that firms led by female CEOs or racial minority CEOs are more likely than those led by white male counterparts to overconform to institutional pressures regarding the promotion of comprehensive transgender-inclusive healthcare benefits. My results indicate that female CEOs tend to overconform to institutional pressures, aligning their actions more closely with these expectations than their male counterparts. However, similar patterns are not observed for racial minority CEOs.
In the second essay, drawing upon upper echelons theory and the cultural transmission argument, I argue that CEOs’ inherited cultural values—reflected in their uncertainty avoidance—shape sustainability preferences and influence corporate social and environmental performance. Furthermore, I posit two boundary conditions: first, that CEO bonuses strengthen the relationship between CEO uncertainty avoidance and corporate sustainability performance, and second, that newly appointed CEOs weaken this relationship. My results reveal that CEOs from cultural backgrounds characterized by high uncertainty avoidance are negatively associated with corporate sustainability performance. Additionally, evidence suggests that the negative association between CEOs' uncertainty avoidance index and corporate sustainability performance is stronger when CEOs receive a higher bonus ratio and weaker when they are newly appointed.
In the third essay, building on upper echelons theory and the literature on functional executives within top management teams, we argue that CSOs serve as key integrators,
transforming interdependencies between social and economic objectives into synergies. Specifically, we examine the relationship between philanthropic donations, R&D expenditures, and advertising expenses in firms with and without a CSO, particularly those with government experience. Results indicate that, on average, the presence of a CSO is associated with a negative relationship between philanthropic donations and strategic investments, with firms reducing expenditures on R&D and advertising when philanthropic donations are present. This effect is significantly stronger when the CSO has a government background.
To test our hypotheses, we primarily employed quantitative methods, leveraging longitudinal datasets rich in information on top executives’ traits, cultural origins, career trajectories, corporate philanthropic donations, ESG ratings, and LGBTQ-friendly policies in Corporate America
Conditional Populist Party Support The Role of Dissatisfaction and Incumbency
Full text linkPopulists emerge when distrust of state institutions or dissatisfaction with democracy convince voters that claims about conspiring elites blocking the general will are valid. We propose that these dynamics change when populists are incumbents; once they command institutions, their sustained support becomes contingent upon trust in the new institutional order, and they are held accountable for making people think democracy is working well. Newly collected data on party populism and survey data from Latin America show that support for populist parties in the region is conditioned by satisfaction with democracy as well as the incumbency status of populists. Dissatisfied voters support populist opposition parties, but support for populist incumbents is higher among those satisfied with democracy and its institutions. While democratic deficits and poor governance provide openings for populists, populists are held accountable for institutional outcomes.yesPublishe
Cheating from dominating: An investigation of how leaders’ dominant behavior elicits employee cheating
No full textWhile prior research suggests that leaders’ dominant behavior effectively enhances organizational effectiveness and is necessary for navigating today’s uncertain and competitive business environments, its hidden costs—rooted in control, intimidation, and coercion—have received limited attention. In this study, we argue that leaders’ dominant behavior can serve as a workplace stressor that leads to employees’ defensive yet covert responses. Drawing on the transactional model of stress, we develop a serial mediation model in which leaders’ dominant behavior undermines employees’ psychological well-being (i.e., psychological empowerment), subsequently heightens negative emotions (i.e., workplace anxiety), and ultimately provokes employees’ cheating as a discreet coping strategy for releasing workplace anxiety. Furthermore, we predict that when coworker support is available, employees are less likely to adopt cheating as a defensive coping strategy. Results from three field survey studies—including two three-wave studies and one two-source, four-wave study—provide consistent support for our model. The conclusions drawn from this study provide valuable insights for both organizational leaders and HR professionals seeking to recognize and manage the hidden costs associated with leaders’ dominant behavior.The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/ or publication of this article: This study was fully supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 71972155; 72472146) and the Social Science Foundation Project of Shaanxi Province (grant number 2024R058), and was partially supported by PID2023-148726OB-I00 granted by MCIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, UE.YesPublishe
The Power of Calling: How Founder CEOs Drive Ambidexterity and Innovation in Firms
Full text linkThis study investigates the phenomenon of founder CEOs playing an inordinately crucial role in achieving firm innovation performance. While existing research compares the effectiveness of founder and non-founder CEOs, the reasons behind founder CEOs’ advantage in achieving high innovation performance remain unclear. Building on upper echelons theory, this study explores micro-foundations underlying this phenomenon. We propose that CEO founder status positively influences innovation performance through the application of ambidextrous firm strategy, with such effects being moderated by the extent to which CEOs experience a sense of calling for their work. Based on data from 200 small- and medium-sized high-tech enterprises in China, we find that founder, as compared to non-founder, CEOs have a more positive relationship with innovation performance, mediated by ambidextrous firm strategy, and this effect is strengthened by calling for their work. These findings provide new insights regarding how and when a ‘founder advantage’ is most likely to be achieved regarding innovation performance. Moreover, by focusing on Chinese firms, this study responds to calls for expanding management research beyond Western contexts, enriching our understanding of founder CEOs and innovation in diverse cultural settings.yesPublishe
Integrating and Characterizing HPC Task Runtime Systems for hybrid AI-HPC workloads
Full text linkScientific workflows increasingly involve both HPC and machine-learning tasks, combining MPI-based simulations, training, and inference in a single execution. Launchers such as Slurm’s srun constrain concurrency and throughput, making them unsuitable for dynamic and heterogeneous workloads. We present a performance study of RADICAL-Pilot (RP) integrated with Flux and Dragon, two complementary runtime systems that enable hierarchical resource management and high-throughput function execution. Using synthetic and production-scale workloads on Frontier, we characterize the task execution properties of RP across runtime configurations. RP+Flux sustains up to 930 tasks/s, and RP+Flux+Dragon exceeds 1,500 tasks/s with over 99.6% utilization. In contrast, srun peaks at 152 tasks/s and degrades with scale, with utilization below 50%. For IMPECCABLE.v2 drug discovery campaign, RP+Flux reduces makespan by 30–60% relative to srun/Slurm and increases throughput more than four times on up to 1,024. These results demonstrate hybrid runtime integration in RP as a scalable approach for hybrid AI-HPC workloads.A. Merzky, M. Titov and M. Turilli equally contributed to this paper.This work is supported in part by the following grants: NSF-2103986and 1931512, and US DOE DE-AC02-06CH11357 (LUCID). We thank Agastya Bhati and Peter Coveney for insights and discussions onIMPECCABLE workloads.YesPublishe
HADAD: Hexagonal A-Star with Differential Algorithm Designed for weather routing
Full text linkWe present HADAD (Hexagonal A-Star with Differential Algorithm Designed for weather routing), a novel optimization algorithm for weather routing. HADAD conducts a global exploration using an A
search on a hexagonal grid with higher-order neighbors, enhancing directional flexibility and overcoming limitations of traditional graph searches that constrain vessel movements. It then refines the solution using a discrete Newton–Jacobi variational method, ensuring convergence to a locally optimal, smooth route in continuous space. To evaluate the effectiveness of HADAD, we developed a benchmark comprising 1,560 instances over a full year, varying in origin–destination pairs, vessel speeds and oceanographic conditions. Our results show that HADAD outperforms pure A graph search methods by an extra 4% savings with respect to the shortest-distance route, thanks to more flexible smoother trajectories obtained by gradient descent. In our seasonal study we observe that the savings distribution shows large seasonal variations (double savings on average in winter with respect to summer) and contains a significant number of outliers. Savings reach 27% in these cases of extreme weather events. Validation of the algorithm performed with synthetic vector fields has been conducted. In this setting, the algorithm has been adapted to handle fuel consumption optimization for Just-in-Time arrival. By integrating global search and local optimization, HADAD effectively balances computational efficiency with route optimality, offering a practical and adaptable solution for real-world weather routing applications.This publication is part of the project ‘‘Optimization of maritime routes for a more efficient, safer and decarbonized maritime transport’’, which is funded by the BBVA Foundation and Grant TED2021-129455BI00 from MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and the European Union ‘‘NextGenerationEU/PRTR’’. We also acknowledge support from the project PID2021-122154NBI00, funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and ‘‘ERDF A Way of making Europe’’. The authors would like to thank the MITACS International Accelerate program that enabled the visit of LB to Madrid in the summer of 2024, where the work was completed.YesPublishe
Empowering Sustainability The Library’s Role at Vlerick Business School
Full text linkThis document, authored by Vlerick Business School, outlines the role of the Vlerick Business School Library in promoting sustainability. It details the library's contributions to the school's sustainability strategy through a materiality exercise, compliance with reporting requirements, and the development of a communication plan. The library supports sustainability by providing access to relevant information, reducing its carbon footprint, and fostering a culture of sustainability among students and staff. Key initiatives include transitioning from print to digital textbooks, organizing book sales for charity, and developing a sustainability collection in collaboration with the DEI team and the Center for SustainabilityyesPublishe
Nourishing Sustainability Innovation : Scientific Trajectories in Industrial Protein Research
Full text linkThis paper investigates how distinct scientific trajectories inform sustainability-oriented innovation in the protein production sector. Focusing on USPTO patents in subclass A23J (1990–2015), we apply a two-step text analysis that links topic modeling of academic publications to the classification of patent texts. This method identifies four trajectories and evaluates their influence on follow-on innovation, with particular attention to citations from sustainability-related patents. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity: some trajectories, such as those centered on cellular and bioprocessing mechanisms, consistently generate sustainability spillovers, while others, such as protein chemistry, exhibit limited diffusion. These findings contribute to a view of science as a cognitive map that structures industrial research by making more explicit the underlying causal mechanisms that govern each trajectory, thereby shaping which domains are more likely to yield impactful and sustainability-aligned innovations.yesPublishe
Reimagining the Practice and Purpose of Pay: An Introduction to CBR's Special Issue on Responsible Rewards
Full text linkCompensation systems are under increased scrutiny recently—not only for their role in motivating performance but also for their impact on organizational ethics, social equity, environmental sustainability, and stakeholder trust (c.f. Hou et al., 2025; Phung et al., 2023; & Zhu et al., 2024). In this context, the notion of responsible rewards gained traction as organizations and compensation professionals reimagine the purposes and consequences of pay. No longer confined to questions of market competitiveness or performance measurement, today’s reward systems are expected to reflect broader societal expectations, support long-term value creation, and avoid reinforcing harmful behaviors or inequities (McMullen & Dahle, 2024).
Responsible rewards may encompass, but are not limited to, the integration of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) goals into incentive plans, ethical boundaries in pay-for-performance design, inclusion and fairness in executive compensation governance, the encouragement of green and prosocial behaviors among employees, and the reduction of systemic disparities through fair pay and living wages. This Special Issue of Compensation & Benefits Review brings together new research and critical reflection on the promises, pitfalls, and practicalities of building more responsible reward systems.yesPublishe
Risk-averse algorithmic support and inventory management
No full textWe study how managers allocate resources in response to algorithmic recommendations that are programmed with specific levels of risk aversion. Using the anchoring and adjustment heuristic, we derive our predictions and test them in a series of multi-item newsvendor experiments. We find that highly risk-averse algorithmic recommendations have a strong and persistent influence on order decisions, even after the recommendations are no longer available. Furthermore, we show that these effects are similar regardless of factors such as source of advice (i.e., human vs. algorithm) and decision autonomy (i.e., whether the algorithm is externally assigned or chosen by the subjects themselves). Finally, we disentangle the effect of risk attitude from that of anchor distance and find that subjects selectively adjust their order decisions by relying more on algorithmic advice that contrasts with their inherent risk preferences. Our findings suggest that organizations can strategically utilize risk-averse algorithmic tools to improve inventory decisions while preserving managerial autonomy.yesPublishe