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.

Examining the Antecedents and Consequences of CIO Strategic Decision‐Making Authority: An Empirical Study*

Abstract: Despite the strategic importance of information technology (IT) to contemporary firms, chief information officers (CIO) often still have varying degrees of strategic decision-making authority. In this study, we apply the theory of managerial discretion to define CIO strategic decision-making authority and argue that the CIO's level of strategic decision-making authority directly influences IT's contribution to organization performance. We also draw on the power and politics perspective in the strategic decision-making literature to identify the direct antecedents to the CIO's strategic decision-making authority. A theoretical model is presented and empirically tested using survey data collected from a cross-industry sample of 174 matched pairs of CIOs and top business executives through structural equation modeling. The results suggest that organizational climate, organizational support for IT, the CIO's structural power, the CIO's level of strategic effectiveness, and a strong partnership between the CIO and top management team directly influence the CIO's level of strategic decision-making authority within the organization. The results also suggest that the CIO's strategic decision-making authority in the organization directly influences the contribution of IT to firm performance and that effective CIOs have a greater influence on IT's contribution when provided with strategic decision-making authority.

The Influence of Formal and Informal Institutional Voids on Entrepreneurship

Abstract: Building new space for institutional theory, we propose how the severity of formal and informal institutional voids shapes the productivity of entrepreneurial activities within society. Our theory ...

An Adaptive Process Model to Support Product Development Project Management

Abstract: Projects are temporary allocations of resources commissioned to achieve a desired result. Since each project is unique, the landscape between the current state (the start of the project) and the desired state (the successful end of the project) is often dynamic, uncertain, and ambiguous. Conventional project plans define a set of related activities (a work breakdown structure and activity network) with the assumptions that this set is necessary and sufficient to reach the project's desired result. Popular models for project planning (scheduling, budgeting, etc.) and control are also based on a set of project activities that are specified and scheduled a priori. However, these assumptions often do not hold, because, as an attempt to do something novel, the actual path to a project's desired result is often revealed only by the additional light provided once the work is underway. In this paper, we model a product development process as a complex adaptive system. Rather than prespecifying which activities will be done and when, we set up: 1) a superset of general classes of activities, each with modes that vary in terms of inputs, duration, cost, and expected benefits; and 2) simple rules for activity mode combination. Thus, instead of rigidly dictating a specific project schedule a priori, we provide a ldquoprimordial souprdquo of activities and simple rules through which the activities can self-organize. Instead of attempting to prescribe an optimal process, we simulate thousands of adaptive cases and let the highest-value process emerge. Analyzing these cases leads to insights regarding the most likely paths (processes) across the project landscape, the patterns of iteration along the paths, and the paths' costs, durations, risks, and values. The model also provides a decision support capability for managers. For researchers, this way of viewing projects and the modeling framework provide a new basis for future studies of agile and adaptive processes.

Paleoproterozoic intraplate magmatism and basin development on the Kaapvaal Craton: Age, paleomagnetism and geochemistry of ~1.93 to ~1.87 Ga post-Waterberg dolerites

Abstract: We report U–Pb baddeleyite crystallization ages of ~1927 and ~1879 to ~1872 Ma for dolerite sills intruding the Waterberg Group in Botswana and South Africa. These data increase the known extent of ~1.9 Ga intraplate magmatism in southern Africa and place tighter age constraints on the Waterberg Group than previously available. In South Africa, ~1.88 Ga dolerite intrudes upper Waterberg strata, constraining most, if not all, of the succession to have accumulated between ~2.06 Ga (age of the underlying Bushveld Complex) and ~1.88 Ga. This is consistent with derivation of much of the group from uplifted sources in reactivated segments of the Limpopo Belt. The dolerites are typical continental tholeiites, but their trace-element contents discriminate them from dolerite sills of the 1.1 Ga Umkondo Igneous Province, which occur in the same region. Paleomagnetic samples from dolerite intrusions in the Waterberg Group in South Africa (including one sill with a U–Pb baddeleyite age of ~1872 Ma), and from dolerite sills and basalt flows in the Soutpansberg Group to the east-northeast, yield antipodal directions with a site mean pole at 15.6°north, 17.1°east, A95 = 8.9°. These data are interpreted to indicate that the ~1879 to ~1872 Ma dolerites were intruded into the Waterberg Group during voluminous magmatism associated with development of the Soutpansberg rift basin. Older, ~1927 Ma dolerite in Botswana is similar in age and geochemistry to basalts in the craton-margin Olifantshoek Supergroup, suggesting that the mafic magmatism in those two regions is genetically related.