Texas Christian University

About: Texas Christian University is a education organization based out in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 3245 authors who have published 8258 publications receiving 282216 citations. The organization is also known as: TCU & Texas Christian University, TCU.

Understanding Business Group Performance in an Emerging Economy: Acquiring Resources and Capabilities in Order to Prosper*

Abstract: The prevalent organizational form in most emerging markets is business groups. These groups have typically been viewed through a transaction cost economics perspective where they are perceived as responses to inefficiencies in the market. However, the evidence to date on what generates a positive business group-performance relationship in such environments is not well understood. This study expands the understanding of business groups by employing the resource-based and institutional theoretical perspectives to examine how groups acquire resources and capabilities to prosper. The empirical evidence is based on over 224 business groups in the emerging economy context of China and shows that most of the endowed government resources do not help business groups to create a competitive edge. Instead, those business groups with strategic actions to develop a unique portfolio of market-oriented resources and capabilities are most likely to prosper. The results provide critical insights on the relationship between the initiation of institutional transformation and the desired outcome to be realized by organizational transformation, thus enriching our understanding of institutions and strategic choices facilitated or constrained by organizational resources in emerging economies.

An investigation of visibility and flexibility as complements to supply chain analytics: An organizational information processing theory perspective

Abstract: Many businesses are seeking to develop and exploit analytics capabilities today. Using organizational information processing theory (OIPT), we study demand visibility and supply visibility as foundational resources for analytics capability, and organizational flexibility as a complementary capability. We further examine relationships among these factors under varying conditions of market volatility, a type of environmental uncertainty. The results from our analysis of data from 191 global firms indicate that both demand and supply visibility are associated with the development of analytics capability. In turn, analytics capability is shown to be more strongly associated with operational performance when supply chain organizations also possess organizational flexibility needed to act upon analytics-generated insights quickly and efficiently. Furthermore, the empirical results indicate that analytics capability and organizational flexibility are more valuable as complementary capabilities for firms who operate in volatile markets, rather than in stable ones. These findings extend OIPT to create a better understanding of contemporary applications of information processing technologies, while also providing theoretically grounded guidance to managers in the development of analytics capabilities within their firms. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Antecedents of IS Strategic Alignment: A Nomological Network

Abstract: Alignment of information systems (IS) strategy with business strategy is a top concern of both the chief information officer (CIO) and the top management team (TMT) of organizations. Even though researchers and key decision makers in organizations recognize the importance of IS strategic alignment, they often struggle to understand how this alignment is created. In this paper, we develop a nomological network in which shared understanding between the CIO and TMT about the role of IS in the organization (which represents the social dimension of IS strategic alignment) is posited to be a proximal antecedent of the intellectual dimension of IS strategic alignment. We further posit that shared language, shared domain knowledge manifest in the CIO's business knowledge and the TMT's strategic IS knowledge, systems of knowing (structural and social), and CIO-TMT experiential similarity are important determinants of this shared understanding. Data were collected from 243 matched CIO-TMT pairs. Results largely support the proposed nomological network. Specifically, shared understanding between the CIO and TMT is a significant antecedent of IS strategic alignment. Furthermore, shared language, shared domain knowledge, and structural systems of knowing influence the development of shared understanding between the CIO and the TMT. Contrary to expectations and to findings of prior research, social systems of knowing, representing informal social interactions between the CIO and TMT, and experiential similarity did not have a significant effect on shared understanding.