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When others control your reputation: outsourcing organizational impression management
Get PDFtextThis study examined the relationship between the outsourcing of
organizational impression management activities and the effectiveness of this
work. Organizational impression management work, as defined in this study, was
work that sought to improve the reputation of the organization. The study
examined several possible indicators of the effectiveness of organizational
impression management work: changes in reputation, the flow of key
organizational resources, and the client’s (outsourcer’s) perceptions of
outsourcing effectiveness. Data were collected on private colleges using several
archival sources and a survey of chief public relations officers.
This research focused on two factors that are likely to influence
outsourcing effectiveness: the nature of the task that is being outsourced and the
nature of the relationship between the client and the agency (provider of
outsourced services). The study hypothesized that when the task was strategic in
nature, outsourcing would be less effective than completing the task internally.
This hypothesis was partially supported. The study hypothesized that when the
task was tactical in nature, outsourcing would be more effective than internal
completion; this hypothesis was also partially supported. The study also
hypothesized that outsourcing would be more effective when there were long
relationships between clients and agencies, clients used limited number of
agencies simultaneously, and outsourcing intensity was low. The hypothesis for
the duration of relationships between clients and agencies was supported.
However, the hypotheses for the number of agency partnerships and the
outsourcing intensity were generally not supported.Business Administratio
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The Rolodex paradox : the effects of ties to venture capitalists on internet startup survival
No full texttextResearch on interorganizational relationships has established that
organizations gain essential information and resources via their network ties.
Less studied, however, are the costs and benefits of different types of network
ties. This dissertation explores the effects of direct and indirect network ties on
the survival of startups. Drawing on research on interorganizational relationships
and organizational learning, I argue that direct and indirect ties have different
effects on survival. Specifically, while network ties create access to resources,
information, legitimacy, and reputation, they also come with maintenance and
information processing costs. As the number of direct ties increases they become
redundant and contribute diminishing benefits at the margin. At the same time,
direct ties involve substantial costs, which will overwhelm the marginal benefits
of additional direct ties eventually, leading to unfavorable outcomes. Therefore,
the number of direct ties follows a U-shaped relationship with startup failure
likelihood. Similarly, as the number of indirect ties increases, redundancy leads
to diminishing marginal benefits. In this case, however, the costs of maintaining
extra ties are negligible. As a result, having more indirect ties is expected to be
associated with lower failure likelihood. Furthermore, agglomeration provides
alternative sources of resources and information, and may dampen network
effects. I focused on direct ties among U.S.-based business-to-business Internet
startups and their venture capitalists (VCs) and two-step indirect ties between
Internet startups from 1988 to 2001. I found that direct ties reduced the likelihood
of startup failure, as did indirect ties. However, when indirect ties are accounted
for, the effects of direct ties disappear, suggesting the mediating role of indirect
ties. Having more direct ties benefited startups because they provided
connections to more indirect ties. Ultimately, it was the number of indirect ties,
and not the number of direct ties, that mattered. In addition, agglomeration
introduced intense competition that led to higher startup failure likelihood but did
not moderate network effects. These findings confirm that both network ties and
agglomeration affect startup failure. More importantly, the results reveal a
rolodex paradox – startups that are tied to well-connected others, regardless of the
size of their own rolodexes, enjoy lower failure likelihood.Business Administratio
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The Diversity Advantage - How American Business Can Out-Perform Japanese And European Companies In The Global Marketplace - Fernandes,Jp, Barr,M
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Stories Employers Tell: Race, Skill, And Hiring In America
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Determinants Of Employment Externalization - A Study Of Temporary Workers And Independent Contractors
Get PDFThis paper examines what determines the use of temporary workers and independent contractors in a variety of organizations. We hypothesize that four factors affect the use of externalized workers: employment costs, the external environment, organizational size and bureaucratization, and skill requirements. Data from a large sample of employers surveyed by the U.S. Department of Labor were used to test the hypotheses. Analyses showed that each factor affected the use of both temporary workers and independent contractors; however, the effects differed across the two types of workers. Firm-specific training, government oversight, bureaucratized employment practices, establishment size, and requirements for high levels of informational or technical skill had negative effects on organizations' use of temporary workers; variation in employment needs positively affected the use of temporary workers. Variation in employment needs, bureaucratized employment practices, establishment size, and being part of a multiple-site firm had positive effects on the use of independent contractors. We discuss the implications of these findings for the study of the employment relationship.Managemen
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A study of controversial organizational action: organizational action and audience reaction in the context of financial restatement
Get PDFtextThis dissertation investigates audience responses to organizational action that,
while violating audience expectations for consistent and reliable organizational behavior,
is ambiguous in terms of its ultimate impact on audiences. The practical situation that I
attempt to explain is the reactions to the controversial organizational action of financial
restatement by five key audiences of the restating firm (shareholders, institutional
investors, securities analysts, the SEC, and customers). A principal argument I develop
here is that it is important to consider that audiences react to the controversial action in
the context of the organization’s history of action. In this dissertation I look at prior
action that is consistent with audience interests, and posit that it is not obvious how such
prior action will affect audience interpretations of controversy. I examine two categories
of prior action that conforms to audience interests—agency-problem mitigation and
corporate social responsibility (CSR) action—and I draw on competing perspectives
explaining how such prior organizational action might affect audience responses to the
controversial action of financial restatement. On the one hand, such prior organizational
action might dampen audience negative reactions to the organization’s financial
restatement. Alternatively, such prior organizational action might aggravate audience
negative responses to the restatement. I also predict that such prior organizational action
will make it more likely that the restating firm will engage in post-restatement actions
with the potential to repair damage to positive audience perceptions, specifically CEO
change and board member turnover. And, I predict that post-restatement CEO turnover
will dampen audience negative reaction to financial restatement. I test my hypotheses
using multiple regression models, employing a two-stage process to first control for the
probability that a firm will be among those that restated finances, and then to model the
reaction of audiences to the restatement announcement. This dissertation contributes to
our understanding of: 1) how prior desirable organizational action influences audience
interpretations of controversial action; 2) how post-controversy organizational action
influences audience continuing interpretations of controversial action; and 3) the presence
of a secondary link between firm CSR action and firm outcomes.Managemen
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Structural and social integration : help or hindrance to bottom-up innovation?
Get PDFtextThis dissertation investigates factors that influence efforts by lower-level employees to initiate organizational change and innovation from the bottom up. Specifically, I attempt to reconcile competing theories regarding the effects of structural and social integration on individual innovation efforts. One theoretical view posits that integration provides information, ideas, and motivation necessary for innovation. An alternative view is that integration constrains individuals and routines, and thereby hinders innovation efforts. Drawing on both theoretical perspectives, I predict the effects of distinct types of structural integration (e.g., centralization, cross-unit integration, boundary spanning) and social integration determinants (e.g., geographic dispersion, decision process involvement, workplace network size) on the likelihood of individual innovation efforts among lower-level employees. I also consider the effects of interactions of social and structural integration with individual characteristics (i.e., personality, and experience) on innovation efforts. I test these predictions using survey data collected from interns and supervisors in the context of MBA and undergraduate internships. Analyses demonstrate that several aspects of structural integration do influence the levels of individual innovation efforts. For example, centralization and boundary spanning levels of the work unit have inverse U-shapedManagemen
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The effects of interests and institutional influences on organizational adoptions over time and across practices
Get PDFThe purpose of my dissertation is to examine the effects of interests and carriers
of institutional influences on the adoption of three organizational practices that have
become varyingly diffused and socially accepted over time. Drawing on theories of
agency, power, social networks, and institutions, I argue that the effects of actors’
interests and carriers of institutional influences on adoption will be moderated by
evolving degrees of social acceptance of a practice. This is because as social acceptance
for a practice changes over time, it will not only influence actors’ interests and their
ability to enact them but also determine the effectiveness of different carriers of social
influences, and consequently, determine how these factors will affect adoption. For
actors’ interests, I examine the effects of managerial power, managerial incentives, and
institutional shareholders’ influence on adoption over time. For carriers of institutional
influences, I examine the effects of social ties and prestigious endorsement on adoption
over time. To test my hypotheses, I examine the adoptions of tender offer takeovers,
poison pill takeover defenses, and executive stock option repricing using separate
samples of companies listed on the Fortune 500 Largest U.S. Industrials (F500) between
1980 and 2004. I collect longitudinal data and conduct event history analysis to test my
hypotheses. The results of this study offer some support for changing effects of actors’
interests and carriers of institutional influences on adoption as the degree of social
acceptance for a practice evolves. In sum, this study provides a more nuanced
understanding of the relative roles of interests and institutional influences on adoption as
the social environment changes.Managemen
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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