Benevolence and authority as WEIRDly unfamiliar: A multi-language meta-analysis of paternalistic leadership behaviors from 152 studies

Based on a multi-language search, we qualitatively describe and meta-analytically summarize the growing but often ignored research literature on behaviors associated with paternalistic leadership (PL), a form of leadership that is considered to be acceptable and prevalent in many Non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) cultures. PL is conceptualized as the simultaneous enactment of two seemingly paradoxical leadership behaviors: 1) benevolence – the holistic and genuine care for followers' well-being even outside the workplace, and 2) authority – non-exploitative use of behaviors that emphasize power and control based on status and hierarchy. Results from 165 independent samples from 152 studies (total N?=?68,395) in fourteen countries demonstrate a consistently divergent pattern across the dimensions. Even in societies where PL is presumed to be more prevalent and acceptable, the strong control (authoritarianism) dimension is consistently negatively related to task performance, citizenship behaviors, creativity, attitudes towards the leader, and job attitudes. Conversely, the benevolence dimension demonstrates consistently positive relationships with leader effectiveness and follower performance, attitudes, and behaviors. The most commonly used measure of PL includes a morality dimension, which produces positive effects similar to the benevolence dimension. Collectively, PL dimensions (as well as a separate unitary measure of PL emphasizing benevolence) predict incremental variance beyond transformational leadership and beyond LMX. Based on conceptual and empirical grounds, it appears that PL (especially benevolence) is not fully captured in mainstream approaches to leadership and may add value to our understanding of the universe of ways leadership can be enacted. Several directions for future research are discussed, including the need to study the rarely-examined interactions between benevolence and authority, in line with the core of PL theory.     

The Role of Internal and External Complexity in Global Factory Performance: An NKC Application

The global factory literature suggests that MNCs can take advantage of global operations by extensively offshoring and outsourcing activities. However, the added difficulty for the lead firm to coordinate the resulting complex structure is often underestimated. Evidence could be found in Boeing's 787 Dreamliner project, in which the external complexity disrupted MNC performance. Motivated by the gap between theory and practice, this study focuses on systems of MNCs connected with each other with supplier-client relationships and/or outsourcing. In particular it investigates the interplay of the internal and external complexity in such systems and how their balance affects the system performance. The study models the internal and external complexity by using the NKC-simulation methodology and adjusting it to the specific MNC context. The NKC methodology is widely used in organization theory to study complex systems. Simulations comparing the performance of MNCs that use outsourcing to different degrees indicate that a balanced level of internal and external complexity is beneficial in the context of global factory.     

Searching for innovation: Product,process, and business model innovations and search behavior in established firms

Prior research indicates that search practices are an important part of the innovation process. But where established firms search for different innovation types is not clear. Drawing on knowledge-based theory of innovation and using state-of-the-art statistical techniques (copula with Bayesian inference), we find that established firms predominantly rely on several external sources (broad external search) when introducing new business models, on internal and external sources with high intensity (deep search) when innovating processes, and on broad and deep external search when innovating products. We explain that broad external search is important for business model innovation (BMI) because increased exploration is needed when introducing new business models that rely on general rather than specialized technical or tacit business knowledge. We contribute to the innovation and business model literatures by nuancing the differences between innovation types (BMI, product, and process innovation) and the associated search behavior. It is important to consider these differences because they give us clues to understand how established firms can explore unfamiliar territories through BMI.     

The nature of followership: Evolutionary analysis and review

From an evolutionary perspective, followership is puzzling because it is not clear why individuals would relinquish their autonomy and set aside their personal goals to follow those of another individual, the leader. This paper analyzes followership from an evolutionary perspective and advances three main conclusions that are not yet part of the leadership literature. First, followership evolved as a strategy to solve a range of cooperation and coordination problems in groups (e.g., collective movement, peacekeeping). Second, individuals who lack the physical, psychological, or social capital to be leaders themselves are more likely to emerge as followers. Third, followership styles, behaviors, and engagement result from (a) variations in the relative pay-offs that accrue to followers vis-à-vis their leader, (b) the adaptive goals pursued by followers, (c) the adaptive challenges that select for different followership styles, and (d) the prevailing leadership style. Together, these conclusions have several implications for followership theory, research, and practice.     

Business models and business model innovation: Between wicked and paradigmatic problems

While research on business models and business model innovation continue to exhibit growth, the field is still, even after more than two decades of research, characterized by a striking lack of cumulative theorizing and an opportunistic borrowing of more or less related ideas from neighbouring fields in the place of cumulative theory. We argue that the lack of cumulativeness stems from lack of construct clarity (i.e., BM and BMI are seldom defined with much precision) and lack of agreement on definitions, which in turn imply that the core constructs are not dimensionalized in a way that eases theory-building and empirical testing. Lack of progress on these matters partly reflect that the BM and BMI constructs are used in multiple explanatory contexts, so that it is not entirely clear what are the problems that BM and BMI research seek to solve. We argue, with Teece (2010), that the BM and BMI constructs are fundamentally about the architecture of the firm's value creation, delivery and capture mechanisms; theoretically the key aspect of BMs is complementarity between activities underlying these mechanisms; BMI means novel changes of such complementary relations; and this understanding not only unifies diverse contributions to the literature but is also productive of new insight.     

Boas Shamir: The person,his impact and legacy

This article is divided into three parts. In the first part, Galit, Boas's spouse, chronologically reviews the five periods of Boas's professional life—describing what is special to each period and what connects them—while relating to the centrality of values and the secret of charisma according to Boas Shamir. In the second part, Ronit, Boas's colleague, and his first doctoral student, relates to his role as mentor and presents the unique and novel theoretical perspectives that Boas developed concerning the identities of leaders and followers, and how they interact within the charismatic relationship. In the third part, Micha, Boas's friend and colleague, analyzes the relationship between Boas's personal history, the psycho-historical background in which he grew up, and the origins and uniqueness of his oeuvre.     

Strategies for business model innovation: How firms reel in migrating value

This paper brings together firm-level research on business models and industry-level research on value migration to examine patterns of business model innovation. We draw on qualitative data from 14 cases and 68 interviews in the computer and telecommunications industries to demonstrate how business model innovation is sensitive to industry-wide forces of value migration. Based on our analysis we conclude that when value is rapidly migrating across industries and between firms, proactively substituting key elements of the primary business model provides a better fit with the new value landscape than launching secondary business models in parallel. We suggest four underlying mechanisms that link business model innovation, value migration and subsequent outcomes. Unpacking business model innovation allows us to discuss contingencies for the main business model strategies, specifically in terms of limitations to—and opportunities of—changing the primary business model and the practice of parallel business models.     

Leader individual differences,situational parameters,and leadership outcomes: A comprehensive review and integration

In this article, we provide a wide-ranging review of recent research on leader individual differences. The review focuses specifically on the explosion of such research in the last decade. The first purpose of this review is to summarize and integrate various conceptual frameworks describing how leader attributes influence leader emergence and leader effectiveness. The second purpose is to provide a comprehensive review of empirical research on this relationship. Also, most prior reviews primarily examined leader personality traits; this review includes a broader array of leader attributes, including cognitive capacities, personality, motives and values, social skills, and knowledge and expertise. The final broad purpose of this paper is to review and integrate situational and contextual parameters into our conceptual framing of leader individual differences. Few, if any, prior reviews have systematically accounted for the critical role of such parameters in cuing, activating, or delimiting the effects of particular leader attributes. We do so in this article.     

Ex-post governance in joint ventures: Determinants of monitoring by JV boards of directors

Considerable advances have been made in corporate governance research in recent years and opportunities exist to consider these developments within alliances. We extend the “scope of operations” hypothesis to the domain of joint ventures. This proposition suggests that the monitoring carried out by boards increases when organizations become more complex. The inherent characteristics of JVs generate unique sources of complexity that are currently unexplored in the corporate governance literature. First, we seek to determine their influence on monitoring by using primary data on JV board monitoring. Second, we adopt the size of JV boards as a proxy for monitoring in order to examine whether the determinants of board size and monitoring in fact coincide and to reveal if certain effects are masked by using board size as a simple proxy for monitoring. Doing so enables us to investigate the black-box of what boards actually do as well as extend governance research to other organizational forms. Our findings confirm that the unique characteristics of JVs influence the information needs by the boards resulting in more monitoring by JV directors. Our findings show there is value in bridging alliance theory and the literature on corporate governance research. We also advance practitioner's understanding by providing suggestions on how to structure JV boards in relation to their complexity.     

Inventor knowledge recombination behaviors in a pharmaceutical merger: The role of intra-firm networks

We study firms' abilities to increase the generative appropriability of their knowledge by studying the knowledge recombination patterns of inventors in the context of a merger between two equally sized pharmaceutical firms. Specifically, we study inventors' choices to recombine knowledge originating in the firm with which they merge. We hypothesize that mergers focus inventors' attention to units of knowledge originating in the other firm and that therefore, inventors will choose to recombine more of this knowledge, which exists in their intra-firm network, following a merger. We also hypothesize that inventors vary in terms of their recombination choices following a merger. We explore these differences by linking inventors' network positions with their abilities and motivations to recombine knowledge originating in the other firm. Specifically, we hypothesize an inverted-U shaped relationship between centrality and knowledge recombination from the other firm and a linear relationship between brokerage and knowledge recombination from the other firm. We test our hypotheses using patent data from the merger between Bristol-Myers and Squibb and find support for our hypotheses. The paper contributes to knowledge recombination research by exploring changes in knowledge recombination dynamics following a merger and by understanding how mergers affect firms’ generative research trajectories. Practically, we suggest that managers should identify and nurture certain types of inventors following a merger to be able to better leverage the knowledge bases of merging firms.     

The forms and use of intuition in top management teams

Nascent research suggests that benefits of intuition use accrue not only to individuals but also to teams. These benefits may be especially important for top management teams (TMTs), who formulate strategic decisions for their firms. However, work on intuition use in strategic decision making (SDM) remains focused on the intuitions of chief executive officers (CEOs). Furthermore, the emerging literature on team intuition is very fragmented, leaving an unclear picture of how teams may develop and use intuition in their decision-making activities. To address these problems, we integrate team intuition and TMT research to propose four forms of TMT intuition, which differ based on the locus and integration of intuition. We describe the forms of TMT intuition, clarify the mechanisms that shape them, and discuss their relevance for TMTs' decision-making activities. Overall, we advocate for strategy research that focuses on the notion of “team” in team intuition.     

CEO burnout,managerial discretion,and firm performance: The role of CEO locus of control,structural power,and organizational factors

Despite the possibility of burnout resulting from dynamics in firms' upper echelons, little if any work has focused on chief executive officer's (CEO's) burnout and firm performance. Drawing on managerial discretion theory, this article analyzes the influence of CEO burnout on firm performance and the moderating roles of the individual (CEO locus of control), structural power (CEO duality and CEO tenure), and organizational characteristics (size, age, and resource availability) related to managerial discretion. Using a sample of 156 CEOs in Swedish firms, we find a negative association between CEOs who report higher burnout and firm performance. Our results confirm that CEO duality and resource availability ameliorate and firm size exacerbates the negative association between CEO burnout and firm performance. Contrary to our expectations, CEO locus of control, CEO tenure, and firm age do not influence this relationship. We discuss the implications of our research for upper echelons theory and strategic leadership theory.     

Organizational persistence in the use of war gaming and scenario planning

Even though war gaming and scenario planning are widely used in business contexts, there is little evidence that either practice is associated with superior performance. Why, then, spend the costs? In this paper we address this puzzle and suggest why the extant empirical findings have so far proven limited. We consider the development of these practices and find that they have a substantially entangled and overlapping history, particularly at the RAND Corporation in the 1950s. Despite shared historical roots, the treatment of war gaming and scenario planning in the scholarly literature branched out into different streams. This separation is unfortunate because it obscures a better understanding of the premises under which these practices are effective. We propose an analysis of the overlaps and contrasts of war gaming and scenario planning that sets out clear boundary conditions for their use and efficacy. We find that each practice is tailored to provide strategic guidance in a context where the organization is facing different forms of uncertainty. This suggests they may be effective, and thus improve organizational performance, where the relevant uncertainties are operative. Such benefits would be apparent over longer time scales, and only if the relevant boundary conditions are met. However, to the best of our knowledge, no longitudinal empirical test of either war gaming or scenario planning is available. We therefore conclude that more research is needed to ascertain the true relationship between these popular practices and their performance outcomes.     

Cognitive antecedents of business models: Exploring the link between attention and business model design over time

A firm's ability to conceive performance-enhancing business models (BMs) has become a cornerstone of competitive advantage. There is consensus that external triggers spur such BM change, but the literature has remained silent on the role of internal and cognitive antecedents such as managerial attention. In our inductive case study of four corporate spin-offs, we find that top management teams (TMTs) with a specific set of attention patterns are more likely to develop performance-enhancing BM designs. However, our findings provide evidence that specific attention foci are not sufficient to enhance particular BM designs, as it is also a matter of the intensity of attention. We further find that, over time, TMTs attention patterns shift and cause changes in BM designs. The emergent theoretical framework highlights that attention is an antecedent in explaining BM designs.     

CEO human capital,top management teams,and the acquisition of venture capital in new technology ventures: An empirical analysis

We combine signalling and human capital theory to analyze how competencies of new venture CEOs impact the amount of money technology ventures acquire in venture capital (VC) financing rounds. Using data on 117 financing events in the biotechnology industry, we show that education in management, founder-based firm-specific experience, international experience, and industry-specific experience of the CEO impact the VCs’ financial commitments. Moreover, we find that the effects of management education and industry experience are moderated by the size of the venture's top management team. We discuss the implications of these findings for the research literature on technology ventures and venture capital.     

Intergenerational succession and internationalisation strategy of family SMEs: Evidence from China

Internationalisation is a key dimension of a firm's strategy process. Yet, research on why and how family firms internationalise is underdeveloped. As one of the most critical issues family firms face, how intergenerational succession can influence their internationalisation remains an important question. Given the extraordinary succession and internationalisation circumstances pertaining to China, we conducted a qualitative case study analysis of eleven newly internationalised Chinese small- and medium-sized family firms that had recently undergone a succession from the first to the second generation. Three distinct intergenerational succession patterns among our case firms were identified, revealing three underlying types of incumbent-successor relationships. Based on our findings, we put forth propositions on how these patterns influence the next-generation's level of attitudinal commitment toward and resources available for internationalisation, and link these to the firm's overall internationalisation capabilities and international involvement. Our findings suggest that the connection between intergenerational succession and internationalisation strategy of family firms is significantly influenced by the nature of the underlying incumbent-successor relationship and therefore much more complex than previously considered.