Purpose is a concept often used in managerial communities to signal and define a firm’s benevolen... more Purpose is a concept often used in managerial communities to signal and define a firm’s benevolent and pluralistic approach to its stakeholders beyond its focus on shareholders. While some evidence has linked purpose to positive organizational outcomes such as growth, employee satisfaction, innovation, and superior stock market performance, the definition and application of purpose in management research has been varied and frequently ambiguous. We review literature streams that invoke purpose in the for-profit firm and propose a unifying definition. Next, we develop a framework to study purpose that decouples its framing and formalization within firms from its realization, thus helping to avoid conflation of the presence of purpose with positive organizational outcomes. The framework also highlights internal and external drivers that shape the framing of purpose as well as the influence of the institutional context on its adoption and effectiveness. Finally, we provide a rich agend...
Entrepreneurial resourcefulness is a concept that resonates with practitioners and scholars alike... more Entrepreneurial resourcefulness is a concept that resonates with practitioners and scholars alike from a diverse set of theoretical and empirical backgrounds. Despite the prevalence and promise of this concept, the literature on entrepreneurial resourcefulness is fragmented and lacks cohesion in how it is labeled, conceptualized, measured, and deployed. In many cases, it appears that raw-material-resource conversion is taken for granted, which limits theoretical development of if and how ventures emerge and grow. In this editorial, we explore the theoretical underpinnings of resourcefulness, offer a definition, and provide a roadmap for future scholarship. In addition, we introduce the six articles that comprise the special issue on entrepreneurial resourcefulness, discuss their contributions, and explore how they relate to our overall perspective on resources and resourcefulness. It is our hope that this special issue will mobilize additional scholarship to enhance our knowledge on resourcefulness, which we view as a fundamental part of entrepreneurship.
Firms consider multiple reference points simultaneously to assess performance, yet often these re... more Firms consider multiple reference points simultaneously to assess performance, yet often these referents may be inconsistent in signaling success or failure. Consequently, decision makers use two contrasting decision rules when responding to inconsistent feedback: problem-solving or self-enhancement. So far, disparate theoretical logics and mixed evidence has limited our understanding about when decision makers may shift their attention from positive to negative aspects of inconsistent feedback or vice versa, and may increase or decrease their R&D search. We examine how different types of CEO power explain why some firms may respond to inconsistent feedback, i.e. positive performance feedback and negative prospects, in distinct ways. We find that firms engaged in less R&D search as a response to inconsistent feedback when CEOs had high levels of structural, ownership or expert power. In contrast, when CEOs had high levels of prestige power, firms undertook more R&D search as a response to inconsistent feedback. Our findings provide new insights and contribute to conversations about CEO power and performance feedback within the context of the behavioral theory of the firm. Research on the role of performance feedback in understanding organizational behavior has been burgeoning (Gavetti, Greve, Levinthal, & Ocasio, 2012), and scholars have devoted substantial attention to addressing the impact of performance feedback on strategic decisions such as investment in research and development (R&D) (Cyert & March, 1963; Greve, 2003). Although earlier studies have largely focused on the effects of single performance referents, scholars have suggested that decision makers use multiple and diverse reference points simultaneously when
For nearly 30 years, ACAP has been the bedrock of theories of innovation. A meta-analysis is time... more For nearly 30 years, ACAP has been the bedrock of theories of innovation. A meta-analysis is timely to glean insights from the rich empirical evidence to date and guide future work on the topic. Our meta-analysis of 241 studies reveals that ACAP is a strong predictor of innovation and knowledge transfer, and that its effects on financial performance are fully mediated by these two outcomes. As different from most theoretical discourse, we also find that the firm size-ACAP relationship is positive for small firms but negative for larger firms and that the firm age-ACAP relationship is negative for mature firms and not significant for young firms. Our findings present a clearer picture of the performance implications of ACAP and also suggest the need to revisit traditional theoretical arguments on innovation, especially regarding the causal arguments underlying age and size. These results provoke scholars to revisit traditional assumptions of organizations and their patterns of innovation. Finally, we also take this opportunity to investigate factors that have been commonly considered to be relevant for the ACAP-innovation relationship, as we detail in our additional analysis.
We examine the impact of rural electrification on individuals and businesses within a community i... more We examine the impact of rural electrification on individuals and businesses within a community in order to test a resource-based theory of entrepreneurship. We show that access to electricity increases average households' income and entrepreneurial activities. The impact of electricity on entrepreneurial activity has wide-ranging implications for development policy in countries where access to electricity is sparse. Results show a significant difference in entrepreneurial opportunities with respect to firm formation, with the electrified site reporting more new micro-enterprises (33) than the control site (20) after implementation. Electrification affects both households' income, individuals' perceptions of their social position, and opportunities for business development. Individuals' future expectations and entrepreneurial activities are enhanced in the community that receives electricity. We also find evidence that women-led households benefit from electrification more than menled ones, but this benefit does not eliminate the difference in income between women and men-led household. We discuss implications of the study for entrepreneurship and community social development interventions.
Conceptual arguments for the association between cultural characteristics and entrepreneurship ha... more Conceptual arguments for the association between cultural characteristics and entrepreneurship have existed for decades but only in the last 10 years has this relationship been the focus of empirical scrutiny. In this article, we review and synthesize the findings of 21 empirical studies that examine the association between national cultural characteristics and aggregate measures of entrepreneurship, individual characteristics of entrepreneurs, and aspects of corporate entrepreneurship. The study concedes that a predominant number of empirical studies have used Hofstede's conceptualization of national culture and that other domains have been underdeveloped. A preliminary model that integrates past findings is extended. The review highlights fruitful avenues for future research.
This editorial is part of a series written by editors and co-authored with a senior executive, th... more This editorial is part of a series written by editors and co-authored with a senior executive, thought leader, or scholar from a different field, to explore new content areas and grand challenges with the goal of expanding the scope, interestingness, and relevance of the work presented in the Academy of Management Journal. The principle is to use the editorial notes as "stage setters" to open up fresh, new areas of inquiry for management research. GG
Fifteen years into the twenty-first century, gender equality appears to be at the forefront of th... more Fifteen years into the twenty-first century, gender equality appears to be at the forefront of the global humanitarian agenda. As a co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, Malala Yousafzai became a symbol for the rights of women and girls to obtain an education. The United Nations launched the 'HeForShe' campaign that views men and boys as advocates and stakeholders in the campaign for gender equality around the world. Globally, equitable access to education and employment has been recognized as not only a "women's issue" but as a human rights issue (UN Women Annual Report, 2014). There has been progress. In many developing countries such as India, Indonesia, Philippines, Liberia, Argentina, and Sri Lanka, women have long held key political offices, but in the past three years a record number of women have also stood for and voted in elections even at the grassroots level (UN Women Annual Report, 2014). Within the United States, as well,
The articles in this thematic issue were accepted into the journal under normal review processes ... more The articles in this thematic issue were accepted into the journal under normal review processes and were not part of any Special Research Forum call. The articles were curated to bring out a theme and highlight phenomena and theories of interest across scholars who use micro and macro approaches to address important management and organizational problems.
Grand challenges" are formulations of global problems that can be plausibly addressed through coo... more Grand challenges" are formulations of global problems that can be plausibly addressed through coordinated and collaborative effort. In this Special Research Forum, we showcase management research that examines societal problems that individuals, organizations, communities, and nations face around the world. We develop a framework to guide future research to provide systematic empirical evidence on the formulation, articulation, and implementation of grand challenges. We highlight several factors that likely enhance or suppress the attainment of collective goals, and identify representative research questions for future empirical work. In so doing, we aspire to encourage management scholars to engage in tackling broader societal challenges through their collaborative research and collective insight.
Public-private collaborations, or hybrid organizational forms, are often difficult to organize be... more Public-private collaborations, or hybrid organizational forms, are often difficult to organize because of disparate goals, incentives, and management practices. Some of this misalignment is addressed structurally or contractually, but not the management processes and practices. In this study, we examine how the coordination of these social and work relationships, or relational coordination, affects task performance and the creation of social value. We employ a dyadic perspective on two long-term relationships that are part of a wider ecosystem. We illustrate the social value creation process, identifying mutual knowledge and goal alignment, as necessary to create relational coordination. We find that the degree of professional embeddedness moderates the link between coordination and task performance, and explore the role that organizational and ecosystem experiences play. We develop a model of how relational coordination influences social value creation in hybrids. The findings have implications for social value creation, hybrid collaborations, and organizational design.
Research has explored how embeddedness in small-world networks influences individual and firm out... more Research has explored how embeddedness in small-world networks influences individual and firm outcomes. We show that there remains significant heterogeneity among networks classified as small-world networks. We develop measures of the efficiency of a network, which allow us to refine predictions associated with small-world networks. A network is classified as a small-world network if it exhibits a distance between nodes that is comparable to the distance found in random networks of similar sizes—with ties randomly allocated among nodes—in addition to containing dense clusters. To assess how efficient a network is, there are two questions worth asking: (a) What is a compelling random network for baseline levels of distance and clustering? and (b) How proximal should an observed value be to the baseline to be deemed comparable? Our framework tests properties of networks, using simulation, to further classify small-world networks according to their efficiency. Our results suggest that ...
With the advent of big data, organizations are integrating powerful computing tools in their orga... more With the advent of big data, organizations are integrating powerful computing tools in their organizational processes to drive efficiencies and improve service delivery. Yet, at the heart of this conversation lies the role of analytics and big data in innovation within and across organizations. In this article, we provide a stylistic model of the role of analytics in innovation and call for further research on the underlying processes, contingencies, and outcomes.
We investigate how established professionals manage their identities in the face of identity thre... more We investigate how established professionals manage their identities in the face of identity threats from a contested shift in the professional logic that characterizes their field. To do so, we draw on interviews with 113 physicians from five European transition countries who faced pressure for change in their professional identities due to a shift in the logic of healthcare from a logic of "narrow specialism" in primary care that characterized the Soviet health system to a new logic of "generalism" that characterizes primary care in the West. We found three important forms of professional identity threats experienced by physicians during this periodprofessional values conflict, status loss, and social identity conflict. In addition, we identified three forms of identity workauthenticating, reframing, and cultural repositioningthat the professionals who successfully transitioned to the new identity performed in order to reconstruct their professional identities so that they were aligned with the new logic. Based on these findings, we present a model of how established professionals change their professional identities as a result of a contested shift in the professional logic of their field and discuss the underlying mechanisms through which this occurs.
Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing... more Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.
We investigate the relative effects of contractual safeguards (calculative approach) and organiza... more We investigate the relative effects of contractual safeguards (calculative approach) and organizational culture (relational approach) on the perceived trustworthiness of alliance partners and examine the moderating roles of familiarity and reputation.
Purpose is a concept often used in managerial communities to signal and define a firm’s benevolen... more Purpose is a concept often used in managerial communities to signal and define a firm’s benevolent and pluralistic approach to its stakeholders beyond its focus on shareholders. While some evidence has linked purpose to positive organizational outcomes such as growth, employee satisfaction, innovation, and superior stock market performance, the definition and application of purpose in management research has been varied and frequently ambiguous. We review literature streams that invoke purpose in the for-profit firm and propose a unifying definition. Next, we develop a framework to study purpose that decouples its framing and formalization within firms from its realization, thus helping to avoid conflation of the presence of purpose with positive organizational outcomes. The framework also highlights internal and external drivers that shape the framing of purpose as well as the influence of the institutional context on its adoption and effectiveness. Finally, we provide a rich agend...
Entrepreneurial resourcefulness is a concept that resonates with practitioners and scholars alike... more Entrepreneurial resourcefulness is a concept that resonates with practitioners and scholars alike from a diverse set of theoretical and empirical backgrounds. Despite the prevalence and promise of this concept, the literature on entrepreneurial resourcefulness is fragmented and lacks cohesion in how it is labeled, conceptualized, measured, and deployed. In many cases, it appears that raw-material-resource conversion is taken for granted, which limits theoretical development of if and how ventures emerge and grow. In this editorial, we explore the theoretical underpinnings of resourcefulness, offer a definition, and provide a roadmap for future scholarship. In addition, we introduce the six articles that comprise the special issue on entrepreneurial resourcefulness, discuss their contributions, and explore how they relate to our overall perspective on resources and resourcefulness. It is our hope that this special issue will mobilize additional scholarship to enhance our knowledge on resourcefulness, which we view as a fundamental part of entrepreneurship.
Firms consider multiple reference points simultaneously to assess performance, yet often these re... more Firms consider multiple reference points simultaneously to assess performance, yet often these referents may be inconsistent in signaling success or failure. Consequently, decision makers use two contrasting decision rules when responding to inconsistent feedback: problem-solving or self-enhancement. So far, disparate theoretical logics and mixed evidence has limited our understanding about when decision makers may shift their attention from positive to negative aspects of inconsistent feedback or vice versa, and may increase or decrease their R&D search. We examine how different types of CEO power explain why some firms may respond to inconsistent feedback, i.e. positive performance feedback and negative prospects, in distinct ways. We find that firms engaged in less R&D search as a response to inconsistent feedback when CEOs had high levels of structural, ownership or expert power. In contrast, when CEOs had high levels of prestige power, firms undertook more R&D search as a response to inconsistent feedback. Our findings provide new insights and contribute to conversations about CEO power and performance feedback within the context of the behavioral theory of the firm. Research on the role of performance feedback in understanding organizational behavior has been burgeoning (Gavetti, Greve, Levinthal, & Ocasio, 2012), and scholars have devoted substantial attention to addressing the impact of performance feedback on strategic decisions such as investment in research and development (R&D) (Cyert & March, 1963; Greve, 2003). Although earlier studies have largely focused on the effects of single performance referents, scholars have suggested that decision makers use multiple and diverse reference points simultaneously when
For nearly 30 years, ACAP has been the bedrock of theories of innovation. A meta-analysis is time... more For nearly 30 years, ACAP has been the bedrock of theories of innovation. A meta-analysis is timely to glean insights from the rich empirical evidence to date and guide future work on the topic. Our meta-analysis of 241 studies reveals that ACAP is a strong predictor of innovation and knowledge transfer, and that its effects on financial performance are fully mediated by these two outcomes. As different from most theoretical discourse, we also find that the firm size-ACAP relationship is positive for small firms but negative for larger firms and that the firm age-ACAP relationship is negative for mature firms and not significant for young firms. Our findings present a clearer picture of the performance implications of ACAP and also suggest the need to revisit traditional theoretical arguments on innovation, especially regarding the causal arguments underlying age and size. These results provoke scholars to revisit traditional assumptions of organizations and their patterns of innovation. Finally, we also take this opportunity to investigate factors that have been commonly considered to be relevant for the ACAP-innovation relationship, as we detail in our additional analysis.
We examine the impact of rural electrification on individuals and businesses within a community i... more We examine the impact of rural electrification on individuals and businesses within a community in order to test a resource-based theory of entrepreneurship. We show that access to electricity increases average households' income and entrepreneurial activities. The impact of electricity on entrepreneurial activity has wide-ranging implications for development policy in countries where access to electricity is sparse. Results show a significant difference in entrepreneurial opportunities with respect to firm formation, with the electrified site reporting more new micro-enterprises (33) than the control site (20) after implementation. Electrification affects both households' income, individuals' perceptions of their social position, and opportunities for business development. Individuals' future expectations and entrepreneurial activities are enhanced in the community that receives electricity. We also find evidence that women-led households benefit from electrification more than menled ones, but this benefit does not eliminate the difference in income between women and men-led household. We discuss implications of the study for entrepreneurship and community social development interventions.
Conceptual arguments for the association between cultural characteristics and entrepreneurship ha... more Conceptual arguments for the association between cultural characteristics and entrepreneurship have existed for decades but only in the last 10 years has this relationship been the focus of empirical scrutiny. In this article, we review and synthesize the findings of 21 empirical studies that examine the association between national cultural characteristics and aggregate measures of entrepreneurship, individual characteristics of entrepreneurs, and aspects of corporate entrepreneurship. The study concedes that a predominant number of empirical studies have used Hofstede's conceptualization of national culture and that other domains have been underdeveloped. A preliminary model that integrates past findings is extended. The review highlights fruitful avenues for future research.
This editorial is part of a series written by editors and co-authored with a senior executive, th... more This editorial is part of a series written by editors and co-authored with a senior executive, thought leader, or scholar from a different field, to explore new content areas and grand challenges with the goal of expanding the scope, interestingness, and relevance of the work presented in the Academy of Management Journal. The principle is to use the editorial notes as "stage setters" to open up fresh, new areas of inquiry for management research. GG
Fifteen years into the twenty-first century, gender equality appears to be at the forefront of th... more Fifteen years into the twenty-first century, gender equality appears to be at the forefront of the global humanitarian agenda. As a co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, Malala Yousafzai became a symbol for the rights of women and girls to obtain an education. The United Nations launched the 'HeForShe' campaign that views men and boys as advocates and stakeholders in the campaign for gender equality around the world. Globally, equitable access to education and employment has been recognized as not only a "women's issue" but as a human rights issue (UN Women Annual Report, 2014). There has been progress. In many developing countries such as India, Indonesia, Philippines, Liberia, Argentina, and Sri Lanka, women have long held key political offices, but in the past three years a record number of women have also stood for and voted in elections even at the grassroots level (UN Women Annual Report, 2014). Within the United States, as well,
The articles in this thematic issue were accepted into the journal under normal review processes ... more The articles in this thematic issue were accepted into the journal under normal review processes and were not part of any Special Research Forum call. The articles were curated to bring out a theme and highlight phenomena and theories of interest across scholars who use micro and macro approaches to address important management and organizational problems.
Grand challenges" are formulations of global problems that can be plausibly addressed through coo... more Grand challenges" are formulations of global problems that can be plausibly addressed through coordinated and collaborative effort. In this Special Research Forum, we showcase management research that examines societal problems that individuals, organizations, communities, and nations face around the world. We develop a framework to guide future research to provide systematic empirical evidence on the formulation, articulation, and implementation of grand challenges. We highlight several factors that likely enhance or suppress the attainment of collective goals, and identify representative research questions for future empirical work. In so doing, we aspire to encourage management scholars to engage in tackling broader societal challenges through their collaborative research and collective insight.
Public-private collaborations, or hybrid organizational forms, are often difficult to organize be... more Public-private collaborations, or hybrid organizational forms, are often difficult to organize because of disparate goals, incentives, and management practices. Some of this misalignment is addressed structurally or contractually, but not the management processes and practices. In this study, we examine how the coordination of these social and work relationships, or relational coordination, affects task performance and the creation of social value. We employ a dyadic perspective on two long-term relationships that are part of a wider ecosystem. We illustrate the social value creation process, identifying mutual knowledge and goal alignment, as necessary to create relational coordination. We find that the degree of professional embeddedness moderates the link between coordination and task performance, and explore the role that organizational and ecosystem experiences play. We develop a model of how relational coordination influences social value creation in hybrids. The findings have implications for social value creation, hybrid collaborations, and organizational design.
Research has explored how embeddedness in small-world networks influences individual and firm out... more Research has explored how embeddedness in small-world networks influences individual and firm outcomes. We show that there remains significant heterogeneity among networks classified as small-world networks. We develop measures of the efficiency of a network, which allow us to refine predictions associated with small-world networks. A network is classified as a small-world network if it exhibits a distance between nodes that is comparable to the distance found in random networks of similar sizes—with ties randomly allocated among nodes—in addition to containing dense clusters. To assess how efficient a network is, there are two questions worth asking: (a) What is a compelling random network for baseline levels of distance and clustering? and (b) How proximal should an observed value be to the baseline to be deemed comparable? Our framework tests properties of networks, using simulation, to further classify small-world networks according to their efficiency. Our results suggest that ...
With the advent of big data, organizations are integrating powerful computing tools in their orga... more With the advent of big data, organizations are integrating powerful computing tools in their organizational processes to drive efficiencies and improve service delivery. Yet, at the heart of this conversation lies the role of analytics and big data in innovation within and across organizations. In this article, we provide a stylistic model of the role of analytics in innovation and call for further research on the underlying processes, contingencies, and outcomes.
We investigate how established professionals manage their identities in the face of identity thre... more We investigate how established professionals manage their identities in the face of identity threats from a contested shift in the professional logic that characterizes their field. To do so, we draw on interviews with 113 physicians from five European transition countries who faced pressure for change in their professional identities due to a shift in the logic of healthcare from a logic of "narrow specialism" in primary care that characterized the Soviet health system to a new logic of "generalism" that characterizes primary care in the West. We found three important forms of professional identity threats experienced by physicians during this periodprofessional values conflict, status loss, and social identity conflict. In addition, we identified three forms of identity workauthenticating, reframing, and cultural repositioningthat the professionals who successfully transitioned to the new identity performed in order to reconstruct their professional identities so that they were aligned with the new logic. Based on these findings, we present a model of how established professionals change their professional identities as a result of a contested shift in the professional logic of their field and discuss the underlying mechanisms through which this occurs.
Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing... more Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.
We investigate the relative effects of contractual safeguards (calculative approach) and organiza... more We investigate the relative effects of contractual safeguards (calculative approach) and organizational culture (relational approach) on the perceived trustworthiness of alliance partners and examine the moderating roles of familiarity and reputation.
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