Showing papers in "Administrative Science Quarterly in 2011"
TL;DR: Using a multiple-case, inductive study of eight technology collaborations between ten organizations in the global computing and communications industries between 2001 and 2006, the authors examined the relationships between these organizations.
Abstract: Using a multiple-case, inductive study of eight technology collaborations between ten organizations in the global computing and communications industries between 2001 and 2006 this paper examines w...
415 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors adopt an interactionist logic to study the determinants of risk taking by chief executive officers and introduce the concept of capability cues, contextual signals that decision makers m...
Abstract: We adopt an interactionist logic to study the determinants of risk taking by chief executive officers (CEOs). We introduce the concept of “capability cues”—contextual signals that decision makers m...
386 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined how the differences between these routes affect subsequent outcomes in those jobs and found that individuals often enter similar jobs via two different routes: internal mobility and external hiring, and they found that the difference in these routes affected subsequent outcomes.
Abstract: Individuals often enter similar jobs via two different routes: internal mobility and external hiring. I examine how the differences between these routes affect subsequent outcomes in those jobs. Dr...
275 citations
TL;DR: Although past research has noted the importance of both power and gender for understanding volubility, to date, identifying the unique contri... as mentioned in this paper has not yet been explored in the literature.
Abstract: Although past research has noted the importance of both power and gender for understanding volubility—the total amount of time spent talking—in organizations, to date, identifying the unique contri...
237 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a nine-year ethnography is used to show how two investment banks' controls, including socialization, targeted bankers' bodies, how the bankers' relations to their bodies evolved, and what the organ...
Abstract: A nine-year ethnography is used to show how two investment banks’ controls, including socialization, targeted bankers’ bodies, how the bankers’ relations to their bodies evolved, and what the organ...
202 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a review of recent developments in ethical decision making that are heavily influenced by normative decision theories that view intelligent choices as involving conscious deliberation and analysis.
Abstract: Research on ethical decision making has been heavily influenced by normative decision theories that view intelligent choices as involving conscious deliberation and analysis. Recent developments in...
197 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors draw on work in behavioral learning theory and risk taking to examine whether firms desperate for growth overpay for acquisitions, and develop a theory of desperation in the context of growth.
Abstract: In this paper we draw on work in behavioral learning theory and risk taking to examine whether firms desperate for growth overpay for acquisitions, and we develop a theory of desperation in the context of growth. We suggest two key drivers of such desperation: (1) when a firm's organic growth is low, paying handsomely for acquisitions may be one of the few options for growth, and (2) when a firm becomes dependent on acquisitions for continuing growth, it is vulnerable to overpaying for acquisitions. Although pressures to grow via acquisition can be intense, we also test whether the benefits of acquisition experience—from both acquirers and their advisors—help to prevent overpayment caused by desperation. We test these ideas in a sample of firms in the banking industry between 1994 and 2005. Consistent with this theory of desperation, our results showed that firms desperate for growth are more likely to pay high acquisition premiums. Our findings on the moderating role of acquisition experience showed that...
167 citations
TL;DR: This article explored how power and stability within a social hierarchy interact to affect risk taking and found that the unstable powerful and the stable powerless preferred probabilistic over certain outcomes and engaged in more risky behaviors in an organizational decision-making scenario, a blackjack game, and a balloon-pumping task.
Abstract: The current investigation explores how power and stability within a social hierarchy interact to affect risk taking. Building on a diverse, interdisciplinary body of research, including work on non-human primates, intergroup status, and childhood social hierarchies, we predicted that the unstable powerful and the stable powerless will be more risk taking than the stable powerful and unstable powerless. Across four studies, the unstable powerful and the stable powerless preferred probabilistic over certain outcomes and engaged in more risky behaviors in an organizational decision-making scenario, a blackjack game, and a balloon-pumping task than did the the stable powerful and the unstable powerless. These effects appeared to be the result of the increased stress that accompanied states of unstable power and stable powerlessness: these states produced more physiological arousal, a direct manipulation of stress led to greater risk taking, and stress tolerance moderated the interaction between power and stab...
109 citations
TL;DR: This paper showed that economic actors who fail to conform to certain identity-based logics, such as the categorical structure of markets, tend to perform worse than those who do conform to them.
Abstract: This study calls into question the completeness of the argument that economic actors who fail to conform to certain identity-based logics—such as the categorical structure of markets—garner less at...
107 citations
TL;DR: This article found that high levels of flattery and opinion conformity can increase CEOs' overconfidence in their strategic judgment and leadership capability, which results in biased strategic decision making, which can result in the persistence of low firm performance and may ultimately increase the likelihood of the CEO's dismissal.
Abstract: This study considers the potentially negative consequences for corporate lead- ers of being subjected to high levels of ingratiation in the form of flattery and opinion conformity from other managers and board members. Chief executive officers (CEOs) who have acquired positions of relatively high social status in the corporate elite tend to be attractive targets of flattery and opinion confor- mity from colleagues, which can have potentially negative consequences for CEOs and their firms. Our theory suggests how high levels of flattery and opin- ion conformity can increase CEOs' overconfidence in their strategic judgment and leadership capability, which results in biased strategic decision making. Specifically, we contend that heightened overconfidence from receiving high levels of such ingratiatory behavior reduces the likelihood that CEOs will initiate needed strategic change in response to poor firm performance. We tested and confirmed our hypotheses with a dataset that includes original survey data from a large sample of U.S. CEOs, other top managers, and board members in the period 2001-2007. Further analyses suggest that strategic persistence that results from high levels of flattery and opinion conformity directed at the CEO can result in the persistence of low firm performance and may ultimately increase the likelihood of the CEO's dismissal. Implications for theory and research on social influence, sources of overconfidence in decision making, and the dynamics of executive careers are discussed.
102 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigated the evolution of power with a formal theory that focuses on the influence network through which control of a group's outcomes emerges via direct and indirect interpersonal influences on group members' positions on a series of issues over time.
Abstract: This article investigates the evolution of power with a formal theory that focuses on the influence network through which control of a group’s outcomes emerges via direct and indirect interpersonal influences on group members’ positions on a series of issues over time. Power evolves when individuals’ openness or closure to interpersonal influences correspond with their prior relative control over the group’s issue outcomes. In groups with members who are appraising the relative power of their members over the outcomes of prior issues, a mechanism of ‘‘reflected appraisals’’ will elevate and dampen members’ self-appraisals of their relative power and the amount of influence they accord to others. Across a series of issues over time, this mechanism suffices to generate state transitions of a group’s influence network. The result is an evolution of the group’s influence network such that, with rare exceptions, power becomes concentrated and the preferences of a single leader control the group’s outcomes via intermediaries. A laboratory experiment and a simulation provide support for the theory. The analysis suggests that the evolution of the influence network toward concentrated forms of power and control is generated by fundamental social psychological responses to power and may occur in all enduring social groups whose members are dealing with a lengthy sequence of issues, independent of the conditions of bureaucratic organizations.
TL;DR: In this paper, a simple model of organizational evolution is proposed to explain the main patterns of lifespan dependence and reconcile the apparently conflicting theoretical explanations about the relation between organizational lifespan and failure.
Abstract: Empirical evidence about the relation between organizational
age and failure is mixed, and theoretical explanations
are conflicting. We show that a simple model of
organizational evolution can explain the main patterns of
age dependence and reconcile the apparently conflicting
theoretical predictions. In our framework, the predicted
pattern of age dependence depends crucially on the
quality of organizational performance immediately after
founding and its subsequent evolution, which in turn
depends on the intensity of competition. In developing
our theory, we clarify issues of levels of analysis as well
as the relations between organizational fitness, endowment,
organizational capital, and the hazard of failure. We
show that once organizational learning is considered,
founding conditions affect the fate of organizations in
ways more complex than previously acknowledged. We
illustrate how the predictions of our theory can be tested
empirically and evaluate the effect of aging on the mortality
hazards of American microbreweries and brewpubs by
estimating the parameters of a random walk with timevarying
drift. We also make some conjectures about
expected patterns in other empirical settings.
TL;DR: The authors show that the extent to which individuals have invested in creating outside options increases the likelihood that they will exploit their current exchange partners, even after controlling for the leverage provided by the outside options.
Abstract: Across three laboratory studies, this paper illustrates how a common strategic decision aimed at increasing one’s own power—investing in outside options—can lead to opportunistic behavior in exchange relationships. We show that the extent to which individuals have invested in creating outside options increases the likelihood that they will exploit their current exchange partners, even after controlling for the leverage provided by the outside options. Our results demonstrate that having previously sunk investments in an outside option leads to a heightened sense of entitlement, even when the outside option has been foregone. In turn, feelings of entitlement result in higher aspirations for what is to be gained in the current relationship, and these aspirations fuel opportunism. Finally, we show that other parties may fail to anticipate these effects, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine how organizational members overcome relational inertia and contribute to integration and value creation following an acquisition, through an analysis of a large law firm's acqui-cation.
Abstract: This paper examines how organizational members overcome relational inertia and contribute to integration and value creation following an acquisition, through an analysis of a large law firm’s acqui...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored a novel reciprocity-based influence strategy to stimulate cooperation called the reciprocity by proxy strategy, which elicits in the target a sense of indebtedness to benefactors by providing benefits to a valued third party on behalf of the target.
Abstract: We explored a novel reciprocity-based influence strategy to stimulate cooperation called the reciprocity-by-proxy strategy. Unlike in traditional reciprocity, in which benefactors provide direct benefits to target individuals to elicit reciprocity, the reciprocity-by-proxy strategy elicits in the target a sense of indebtedness to benefactors by providing benefits to a valued third party on behalf of the target (e.g., first making a donation to a charity on behalf of one’s employees and then later asking employees to comply with a request). We hypothesize that this strategy should be more effective than the widely used incentive-by-proxy strategy, in which one makes a request of a target, promising to provide aid to a valued third party if the target first complies with the request (e.g., offering to make a donation to charity for every employee who complies with a request). We found that hotel guests were more likely to reuse their towels when the hotel’s environmental conservation program used a reciproc...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the psychological experience of power in the workplace and the psychological factors that influence the behavior of people who have power and the way they use it.
Abstract: Organizations are characterized by limited resources, conflicting interests, and task interdependencies, which make them rife with political activity. To understand organizational behavior, then, one must understand power, which inevitably shapes how people make decisions, allocate resources, and judge their colleagues. Power is germane to organizational behavior, in the sense that changes in power affect the functioning of any social structure, especially those marked by hierarchical differences. To be effective leaders, managers must be able to diagnose who has power, how it is obtained, and when it can be wielded effectively in order to advance their political goals and, in turn, benefit their constituents. In the past, researchers who study power in organizations have typically focused their attention on identifying important antecedents and consequences—what serves as a source of power and what happens when power is used? More recently, a firestorm of research in psychology has investigated a different question that is of great interest to micro-organizational behavior scholars: What is it like to have power? More specifically, how does power affect the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of its possessors and their peers? The psychology of power, once the subject of mere conjecture and speculation, now serves as the target of direct empirical investigation. The results of empirical research on the social psychology of power have tended to appear in the pages of disciplinary journals (e.g., sociology and psychology journals) rather than management journals. The primary goal of this special issue is to advance this research domain while connecting it to an audience of organizational scholars. This connection needs to be strengthened because the psychological experience of power is central to the study of organizations. By fostering this connection, we aim to help generate sound theory around the social psychology of power in the workplace. We further hope to inspire young scholars interested in organizational behavior to study power, using state-of-the-art methods and techniques of manipulation and measurement. In general, we need to understand the key psychological factors that
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine how the perceived market appeal of organizations can be influenced by the order in which the products or product features that determine their market identities are offered, and they find strong support for their arguments in statistical analyses of the market identities of U.S. opera companies from 1995 to 2005.
Abstract: In this study, we view market identities as interfaces between organizations and their external audiences and examine how the perceived market appeal of organizations can be influenced by the order in which the products or product features that determine their market identities are offered. We theorize that when audiences have different product preferences, organizations may increase their perceived appeal to some or all audiences by making certain features more or less salient through different orderings without making substantive changes to their products or product portfolios. We find strong support for our arguments in statistical analyses of the market identities of U.S. opera companies from 1995 to 2005. When opera companies group unconventional operas together, their market appeal decreases among season-ticket holders, an audience for whom unconventional opera is less appealing, but increases among opera critics, an audience for whom unconventional opera is more appealing.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use two experiments to investigate "illusory power transference" in which individuals minimally associated with powerful others act as if they themselves are powerful outside the boundaries of a hierarchy.
Abstract: We use two experiments to investigate “illusory power transference,” in which individuals minimally associated with powerful others act as if they themselves are powerful outside the boundaries of ...
TL;DR: Boyle as mentioned in this paper argues that the public domain is a temporary state-created monopoly given to encourage further innovation, not a natural right based on expended labor, but rather a utility.
Abstract: As the owner of a Kindle, I decided to review a book in that format and purchased The Public Domain via amazon.com’s 3G Whispernet. I soon discovered that the author and publisher make the entire book available for download, at no charge, as a pdf file at www.thepublicdomain.org under a Creative Commons License. The same Web site contains a link to the Yale University Press which offers an html version that one can read online, again for no charge. So this review is not just of the content of the book but also of the several formats in which it may be accessed. The author, the William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law and cofounder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School, is widely published; his many works include a novel. His previous book on intellectual property, Shamans, Software and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society (1997) may be familiar to readers. This new book takes a somewhat different tack; the author sets three goals: (1) to introduce the reader to intellectual property and to explain why it is the legal form of the information age; (2) to persuade the reader that our intellectual property policy is going in the wrong direction; and (3) to explain the complex reality of ‘‘property’’ and show that the ‘‘public domain’’ is also property—and that, as owners, we all have a stake in retaining the public’s property rights in its domain. In other words, the book is a carefully constructed argument for a new direction in public policy with respect to intellectual property. The nature of Boyle’s argument is introduced in Chapter 2 through a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to Isaac McPherson in 1813 in response to McPherson’s written inquiry about a certain patent that had been issued. Mr. Jefferson took the occasion to respond with a discourse on the nature of patent law and, by extension, to intellectual property law in general. Boyle summarizes Jefferson’s essentially utilitarian argument: ‘‘Jefferson . . . does not see intellectual property as a claim of natural right based on expended labor. Instead it is a temporary state-created monopoly given to encourage further innovation’’ (p. 22, emphasis added). Like Jefferson (and as the author notes, like James Madison, Adam Smith, and Thomas Macauly), Boyle rejects the ‘‘natural rights’’ (droits d’auteur) argument, which can be crudely summarized as: ‘‘I thought this up, so it is mine.’’ In its place he favors the utilitarian principle enshrined in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution and upheld by the courts: ‘‘To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.’’ Boyle shows that, over the past decades, almost all of the ‘‘adjustments’’ made to patent and copyright law by both the Congress and the courts have implicitly bought into the natural rights position, many of them done in the name of preventing piracy. The middle chapters of the book discuss the gradual erosion of ‘‘fair use’’ and the negative consequences, the lack of positive consequences for creativity, and the failure to make any noticeable dent in piracy. In the last few chapters, Boyle turns to his main argument, which involves helping the reader to understand the nature of property. To do this he turns to the history of the enclosure of the common space in England, which took place ‘‘in fits and starts, from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries’’ (p. 43). Boyle shows that the common land was not unowned (if there is such a word) but was, in fact, owned by everyone. Enclosure did not take something that belonged to no one and convert it to private ownership; it took that which belonged to everyone and gave it to a few. And the results were a mixed blessing. This, he argues, is exactly what all the extensions of intellectual property ownership rights are doing today. Boyle’s argument is based on the presumption that all ‘‘original’’ ideas derive from an existing body of knowledge—the commons or public domain. This public domain is not just some place where old patents and copyrights go to die; it is our common storehouse of knowledge. By ignoring this fact we can only watch as the intellectual property owner ‘‘withdraws what already is known into the field of its monopoly and diminish the resources available to skillful men’’ (to use the stirring words of Justice Jackson in the majority opinion of A&P Tea Co. v. Supermarket Corp. 340 U. S. 147 (1950)). Early on Boyle concludes: