Production Competence and Business Strategy: Do They Affect Business Performance?

The purpose of this article is threefold. First, a comprehensive measure of production competence that assesses the level of support that manufacturing provides for the strategic objectives of a firm is developed. Second, hypotheses relating production competence to several financial measures of business performance are tested using data from a large sample of firms (n=65) in the furniture industry. Third, the impact of business strategy both directly on performance and as a moderating variable in relation to production competence is analyzed. The results of the study suggest that production competence may have more of an effect on business performance for certain strategies than for others.     

Transformational Leadership Education and Agency Perspectives in Business School Pedagogy: A Marriage of Inconvenience?

We critique transformational leadership education in university business schools based on a literature review, a study of the websites of 21 leading business schools, and an analysis of two presentations to business school students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University by the former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch. Our critique draws attention to the unresolved tension between two motivating ideas that underpin much teaching in business schools: collective interest ideas that permeate transformational leadership education; and self-interest ideas derived from agency theory. Transformational leadership tends to be depicted as a process by which leaders exert a 'top-down' influence over the activities of others, while simultaneously asserting that their organizations have a common purpose and pursue a collective interest. We highlight the risk that business schools are producing graduates who will attempt to appeal to common needs (guided by precepts of transformational leadership) but who will simultaneously enact contradictory performance management systems (guided by agency theory). We encourage business school educators in leadership to adopt approaches which are more critical, relational and reflexive. We suggest some general directions for an alternative leadership prospectus, based on followership, the promotion of critical upward communication within organizations, and the recognition of leadership as a contested, discursive and co-constructed phenomenon.     

Elusive Critical Elements of Transformative Risk Assessment Practice and Interpretation: Is Alternatives Analysis the Next Step?

This article argues that “game‐changing” approaches to risk analysis must focus on “democratizing” risk analysis in the same way that information technologies have democratized access to, and production of, knowledge. This argument is motivated by the author's reading of Goble and Bier's analysis, “Risk Assessment Can Be a Game‐Changing Information Technology—But Too Often It Isn't” (Risk Analysis, 2013; 33: 1942–1951), in which living risk assessments are shown to be “game changing” in probabilistic risk analysis. In this author's opinion, Goble and Bier's article focuses on living risk assessment's potential for transforming risk analysis from the perspective of risk professionals—yet, the game‐changing nature of information technologies has typically achieved a much broader reach. Specifically, information technologies change who has access to, and who can produce, information. From this perspective, the author argues that risk assessment is not a game‐changing technology in the same way as the printing press or the Internet because transformative information technologies reduce the cost of production of, and access to, privileged knowledge bases. The author argues that risk analysis does not reduce these costs. The author applies Goble and Bier's metaphor to the chemical risk analysis context, and in doing so proposes key features that transformative risk analysis technology should possess. The author also discusses the challenges and opportunities facing risk analysis in this context. These key features include: clarity in information structure and problem representation, economical information dissemination, increased transparency to nonspecialists, democratized manufacture and transmission of knowledge, and democratic ownership, control, and interpretation of knowledge. The chemical safety decision‐making context illustrates the impact of changing the way information is produced and accessed in the risk context. Ultimately, the author concludes that although new chemical safety regulations do transform access to risk information, they do not transform the costs of producing this information—rather, they change the bearer of these costs. The need for further risk assessment transformation continues to motivate new practical and theoretical developments in risk analysis and management.     

Is there such a thing as leadership skill? – A replication and extension of the relationship between high school leadership positions and later-life earnings

This paper replicates and extends Kuhn and Weinberger's (2005) “Leadership Skills and Wages”. The original article found that those white males who were club presidents and team captains in high school earned significantly more eleven years later. As the empirical relationship between leadership positions and subsequent earnings includes those characteristics that predate high school and those that are developed because of leadership activity participation in high school, the original study cannot differentiate between leadership skills developed earlier and those developed in high school. We employ propensity score matching on leadership exposure in high school to control for potential endogenous observable selection and provide estimates from instrumental variable regressions to assess the robustness of the original effects to other omitted causes. To investigate the generalizability of the original findings, we also extend the sample by including females and non-white males. Lastly, we investigate how an extension of the initial (11-year) time horizon to almost 50 years affects the coefficient estimates. We can corroborate the original effect that those who occupied leadership positions as captains and presidents earn more 11 years after high school and report higher income some 50 years after high school. We fail, however, to find effects for those who occupied only a role as captain or president solely. Moreover, the findings do not generalize to the samples of females and non-white males. Our findings provide important insights into later-life benefits of early leadership exposure and have implications for those designing leadership training programs and those taking on (or refraining from) leadership positions in early life.     

Effectuation or causation as the key to corporate venture success? Investigating effects of entrepreneurial behaviors on business model innovation and venture performance

Corporate Venturing sets the stage for entrepreneurial behavior in order to create business model innovation (BMI). Moreover, prior literature indicates the importance of BMI as a source of performance advantage, especially in growing industries. However, an empirical examination of the effectiveness of entrepreneurial behaviors for achieving BMI is still lacking. Hence, this study investigates the effectiveness of effectuation and causation as primary entrepreneurial logics to create BMI. Analyzing data obtained from 128 corporate ventures with partial least squares structural equation modeling, the effectiveness of both entrepreneurial logics for BMI with respect to different industry growth levels is clarified: The results point out that both behaviors lead to BMI in situations of moderate industry growth while effectuation (causation) is more effective in high (low) industry growth settings. Furthermore, the results point out that BMI in turn enhances corporate venture performance. Thus, corporate entrepreneurs should carefully align their entrepreneurial approach with industry growth projections to effectively develop BMI and achieve high venture performance.     

The effect of objective job demands on registered sickness absence spells; do personal,social and job-related resources act as moderators?

Abstract

This study applied Karaseks demand-control model, using sense of coherence (SOC), social support and job control as moderators of effects of job demands on ensuing sickness absence spells in a 3-year follow-up of 856 municipal employees. Among men the results supported the active learning hypothesis. Passive jobs predicted a high number of sickness absence spells and active jobs predicted a low number of spells. for short spells (1-3 days), the demand-control interaction, however, depended on SOC. In active jobs SOC was negatively associated with sickness absence spells; in passive jobs no such association was found. For long spells (3 days), the demand-control interaction depended on occupational level; active jobs were predictive of low absence spells among blue collar men. Among women, the results supported the strain hypothesis. The demand-control interaction, however, depended on household size. In small households, high-strain jobs predicted a high number of spells, while no increase in spells was found in active versus low-strain jobs. In larger households, the number of spells correlated positively with increasing demands even when control was good. The demand-control interaction, however, depended on SOC and spouse support. With strong SOC or spouse support, absence spells in active jobs remained on a relatively low level, otherwise active jobs led to a high number of spells. This suggests that SOC and spouse support may act as protective factors against female role conflicts associated with active jobs     

Twice as Smart? The Importance of Managers’ Formative‐Years’ International Experience for their International Orientation and Foreign Acquisition Decisions

This study examined how top management team's (TMT) international orientation influences perceptions of environmental uncertainty and how these perceptions impact international strategic decisions, in particular regarding ownership stakes taken in foreign acquisitions. We highlighted the need for the concept of TMT international orientation to encompass executives’ formative‐years’ international experiences along with their international career experiences and nationalities. Empirical tests based on a sample of 2122 international acquisitions completed by 561 UK firms over the period 1999–2008 showed that TMT international orientation positively moderated the negative impact of cultural differences and host country risk on acquisition ownership stakes. The results underscored the importance of considering decision‐makers’ attributes due to their experiences at a young age, beyond their demographic characteristics or professional experience, in the context of international strategic choices. We also discussed some implications of one of the possible consequences of executives’ formative international experience, namely biculturalism, for international business.     

Beyond the Balm of Communicative Planning: Can Actor -Network Theory Insights and a More Agonistic Practice Help Unlock Creative ‘Post-Conflict’ Potential?: Towards a Renewed Research Horizon in Northern Ireland

In a situation, where tribal tram lines seem stuck in place this commentary suggests that an imaginative jolt taking into account recent thinking in planning theory may be warranted and go some small way to subvert the current state of stasis on the still contested terrain of Northern Ireland/North of Ireland. The alliance of procedural agonism and analytical actor network theory (ANT) offers, it is suggested, the augmented potential of a more conceptually diverse approach to planning in terms of conjuring with spatial imaginaries and airing latent outcomes, where communicative planning on its own has exhibited imaginative limitations.     

The vertical network organization as a specific governance structure: what are the challenges for incomplete contracts theories and what are the theoretical implications for the boundaries of the (hub-) firm?

Departing from the seminal question that Coase raised in his 1937 work, this article discusses and assesses incomplete contracts theories’ analyses of the firm’s boundaries—notably transaction cost theory and the modern theory of property rights—by investigating the case of the vertical network organization (VNO). We perform a theoretical characterization and analysis of the functioning rules of the VNO to shed light on intra-network incentive provisions and coordination mechanisms. Our findings cast doubt on the role that hold-up considerations on the firm’s boundaries play and allow us to question forms of power within the VNO. Finally, we focus on the theoretical implications of the emergence of the VNO. The legal nature of the firm does not match the economic definition of the VNO, which tends to treat the firm as a specific governance structure.