The dependence upon context of project critical success factors: test of the contingency hypothesis and effects of technological uncertainty and collectivism culture

Abstract

Although the relationship between critical success factors (CSFs) and project performance is established, evidence regarding the dependence on the context of CSFs is patchy. To advance this field, we conduct two complementary studies. Study 1 examines contingency theory regarding managerial CSFs using survey responses (N?=?211) of project management professionals from the United Kingdom. Using survey data from projects (N?=?336) in the United Kingdom, Study 2 examines the contextual dependence of managerial CSFs in a moderated-moderation, theoretical framework whereby project technological uncertainty moderates the relationship between managerial CSFs and project execution and efficiency, and in-group collectivism culture of the executing organisation moderates the effect of technological uncertainty. Results confirm that external and internal contexts influence managerial CSFs. Managerial CSFs have a greater than expected influence on project execution and efficiency. The positive effect of managerial CSFs is weaker when technological uncertainty is high. When technological uncertainty is high, the effect of managerial CSFs strengthens as levels of in-group collectivism culture increase. However, when technological uncertainty is low, the effect of managerial CSFs weakens as levels of in-group collectivism culture increase. We discuss the managerial and theoretical implications.     

Human resources practices and continuous improvement and learning across cultures

We developed a conceptual model of relationships among learning-focused human resource management practices, small group problem solving, and continuous improvement and learning across national cultures. Our underlying theory draws on the insights from the social process perspective of organizational learning and the in-group collectivism dimension of national culture (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, and Gupta, 2004). We tested our model using a sample of 238 manufacturing plants operating across three industries and nine countries. Our results reveal that in low in-group collectivism cultures, learning-focused human resource management practices directly affect continuous improvement and learning and indirectly through the mediation of small group problem-solving. In contrast, in high in-group collectivist cultures, we found that the effects of these human resource management practices are entirely mediated by small group problem-solving.     

Women's political leadership participation around the world: An institutional analysis

Understanding institutional systems is critical for the advancement of women's participation in leadership in varying contexts. A unique and global analysis of the contextual factors that affect women in political leadership, this paper extends prior research in the field. This is a cross-country study where we ask, “How are societal-level institutional forces related to women's participation in political leadership?” We collected data from 8 secondary sources on 181 countries and conducted linear regression analyses with six institutional influences: the business environment, societal development, the economic environment, physical and technological infrastructure, political freedom, and culture. Results indicate that to increase the political leadership participation of women, we need to evaluate the following: customs and trade regulations, graft, the gender gap in political empowerment, public spending on education, the economic viability of the country, access to power and the internet, political freedom, and cultural variables like performance orientation, collectivism, and power distance.     

Culture's Influence on Emotional Intelligence: An Empirical Study of Nine Countries

While a large body of research has examined the outcomes of emotional intelligence, relatively little is known about the antecedents of emotional intelligence. Prior research suggests that emotional intelligence has different effects on management outcomes in different cultural contexts, but lacks a systematic analysis of the effect of cultural values in the development of emotional intelligence. Utilizing a sample of 2067 individuals in nine countries, the present study explores the influence of cultural dimensions on emotional intelligence. Our results show that especially collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation have a positive influence on the different dimensions of emotional intelligence. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed and future research directions are provided.     

The role of political ties and political uncertainty in corporate innovation

We examine the relationship between firms' political connections and corporate innovation in a European context. We also consider the moderating effect of political connections on the relationship between political uncertainty and firms' innovation. We use two different metrics of innovation: R&D (an input measure), and patent counts (an output measure). We find that firms with former politicians on their board of directors invest less in R&D than their counterpart firms. However, the presence of this type of director on the board is positively associated with the number of a firm's patent applications. It seems that, although political ties reduce the amount of resources devoted to R&D activities, they increase the effectiveness of intellectual rights protection. Results also show that political uncertainty decreases R&D investment but exacerbates the need for legal protection of innovation through patents. According to our results, political connections attenuate the effect of political uncertainty on firm innovation such that the negative (positive) effect of uncertainty on R&D intensity (patents) weakens when the firm is politically connected.     

Venture capital and risk perception

This study extends the current state of research on venture capital (VC) determinants by introducing a behavioral perspective. We focus on individuals’ risk perception and connect it to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions of individualism and uncertainty avoidance. Individualism is related to overoptimism and uncertainty avoidance is related to overcaution, and hence affect the perception of risk. In a cross-country empirical analysis with 49 countries, we find that individualism is positively associated with VC activity, whereas uncertainty avoidance is negatively associated with VC activity. Our results are robust to controlling for other determinants as well as using other proxies of VC activity, other time periods, and subsamples of countries.     

Regional Cultural Differences and Ethical Perspectives within the United States: Avoiding Pseudo‐emic Ethics Research

National cultures are often described as if they were homogeneous in spite of notable regional differences. As one example, there are significant differences between two distinct regions of the United States, Hawaii and Florida. This study provides a platform to exemplify a more regionally aware position for cultural and ethics research. Using select Hofstede cultural dimensions, regional differences were found in relation to both collectivism/individualism and uncertainty avoidance. The Hawaii sample had higher levels of collectivism and uncertainty avoidance, demonstrating unique regional‐cultural patterns within the United States. Regional samples were examined for potential differences in their general perception of what constitutes ethical business practice. While honesty appeared as a key trait across samples, significant differences emerged in the magnitude of importance between samples for integrity (which was more significant for the Hawaii sample) and loyalty (which was more significant for the Florida sample).     

Does Cultural Difference Affect Investment–Cash Flow Sensitivity? Evidence from OECD Countries

We investigate the influence of national culture on corporate investment–cash flow sensitivity. We conjecture that national culture shapes managerial perceptions of information asymmetry and agency problems, thus impacting the investment–cash flow relationship. We document empirical evidence in support of our claim. By linking the investment–cash flow sensitivity to cultural differences, our findings show that, while collectivism has an attenuating influence, uncertainty avoidance, power distance and masculinity have a reinforcing effect on the relationship between cash flow and investment. Our results hold for a sample of 205,268 firm‐years across 24 OECD countries between 1990 and 2017, and are robust after accounting for alternative statistical approaches, sample compositions and measures of cultural dimensions, along with controls for institutional and governmental factors. In addition, by decomposing cash flow into uses and sources of funds in a dynamic multi‐equation model, where firms make financing and investment decisions jointly subject to the constraint that sources must equal uses of cash, we find that national culture shapes how firms react to changes in cash flow.     

It’s all about culture! Institutional context and ownership concentration across Europe

It is widely recognised that the formal institutional context affects firm ownership concentration. However, the impact of the informal institutional context has received less research attention. Drawing from institutional theory, we tested our hypothesis that both the formal and informal (cultural) institutional contexts simultaneously influence firm ownership concentration. Based on a firm-level database of the largest 600 listed companies in 19 European countries for the period 2009–2015, we found that both formal and informal institutional contexts, considered independently from each other, affect the level of firm ownership concentration. However, when these institutional contexts are considered together, the significance of the formal institutional context's effect on ownership concentration disappears while the informal (cultural) institutional context remains significant. Specifically, our findings indicate that high power distance, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, restraint, and short-term orientation favour firm ownership concentration. Overall, our findings demonstrate that the diversity in European cultures explains firms' different levels of ownership concentration across European firms, signalling that the European Union's efforts towards a common regulatory frame may not necessarily lead to a convergence of European firms' ownership structures and, consequently, of corporate governance practices.     

Decoupling management and technological innovations: Resolving the individualism–collectivism controversy

This study aims to resolve the contradictory previous research findings on the relationship between individualism–collectivism and innovation. We draw on innovation theory and relate to the difference between non-technological (management) and technological innovation types as well as to the distinction between exploration and exploitation (invention and commercialization of technological innovations). Using Community Innovation Survey (CIS) 2006 micro data for innovation at the organizational level in 13 countries – along with Hofstede, 1980, Hofstede, 2001, GLOBE (2005), and Schwartz (2006) scores for individualism–collectivism – we apply Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). The results indicate that individualism is positively related to the invention phase, whereas collectivism is beneficial for the commercialization of innovative ideas. Furthermore, in collectivistic cultures, management innovation plays a more important stimulating role in enhancing technological innovation than it does in individualistic ones. This provides the managers with an idea of when innovation processes in their companies would be more favorable versus detrimental.     

Competitive Goals and Plant Investment in Environment and Safety Practices: Moderating Effect of National Culture

Operations managers clearly play a critical role in targeting plant‐level investments toward environment and safety practices. In principle, a “rational” response would be to align this investment with senior management's competitive goals for operational performance. However, operations managers also are influenced by contingent factors, such as their national culture, thus creating potential tension that might bias investment away from a simple rational response. Using data from 1,453 plants in 24 countries, we test the moderating influence of seven of the national cultural characteristics on investment at the plant level in environment and safety practices. Four of the seven national cultural characteristics from GLOBE (i.e., uncertainty avoidance, in‐group collectivism, future orientation and performance orientation) shifted investment away from an expected “rational” response. Positive bias was evident when the national culture favored consistency and formalized procedures and rewarded performance improvement. In contrast, managers exhibited negative bias when familial groups and local coalitions were powerful, or future outcomes—rather than current actions—were more important. Overall, this study highlights the critical importance of moving beyond a naïve expectation that plant‐level investment will naturally align with corporate competitive goals for environment and safety. Instead, the national culture where the plant is located will influence these investments, and must be taken into account by senior management.     

Firm capabilities and export performance of small firms: A meta-analytical review

Despite its importance, there is no clear understanding of the impact of small firms’ capabilities (networking, innovation, and marketing) on their export performance. This article attempts to address this issue with a meta-analysis of 74 recent empirical studies comprising 76 independent samples and covering more than 30 countries. We found that innovation, marketing, and networking capabilities positively influence export performance of small firms. However, the context-dependent nature of these relationships demands a more fine-grained examination. The variations in the ES of these relationships are explained by the role of external business environmental factors prevailing in the country of origin of the firm (developing/developed country and individualism/collectivism culture). We examined the divergent results provided by empirical studies using the moderator analysis. The findings of this article shed light on the role of small firms’ capabilities in enhancing export performance in different contextual settings.     

The impact of national culture and social capital on corporate social responsibility attitude among immigrants entrepreneurs

Although significant attention has been given to the phenomenon of immigrant entrepreneurship, little is known about the adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in immigrant firms. Beyond the traditional social, cultural and regulatory challenges in the last years immigrant entrepreneurs have had to cope with the wide growing interest towards CSR, with raising expectations about firm’s environmental and social behaviors. This study provides initial insights on this topic by studying the effect of social capital and national culture on the immigrant entrepreneur’s attitude to adopt CSR in three areas: social, health and safety and environment. Sixty semi-structured interviews were conducted among immigrant entrepreneurs in the Italian Province of Milan; the first one for number of immigrant entrepreneurs. Data collected were analyzed through OLS regression. Findings shows that power distance and individualism/collectivism have a negative relation with all the three CSR areas, while uncertainty avoidance is negatively related only to environmental effort. We find out a robust relation between national culture and environmental and social practices and the health and safety area. The study concludes with practical implications and suggestions for future research. The paper is one of the first studies that address the topic of CSR among immigrant entrepreneurs. Understanding the commitment of this firms is relevant for the debate around CSR and SMEs, mainly because immigrant entrepreneurs are increasing their relevance in the developed countries.     

Participation satisfaction and organizational commitment: moderating role of employee's cultural values

This paper explores the moderating role of cultural values on relationships between participation satisfaction (PS) and employees’ organizational commitment (OC). A survey of 1390 employees of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, a Government of India Public Sector Undertaking providing telecommunication services across India, shows that PS is directly related to OC, and is moderated by employees’ cultural values at individual level. The form of moderation reveals: positive and insignificant relationship between PS and affective commitment for employees high in uncertainty avoidance; positive and significant relationship between PS and normative commitment for employees high in individualism/collectivism, low in masculinity/femininity, and low in power distance. No moderation has been found in the relationship between PS and continuance commitment.     

The configurational effects of board monitoring and the institutional environment on CEO compensation: a country-level fuzzy-set analysis

This study examines the causal complexity of how the effectiveness of board monitoring influences CEO compensation around the world. Previous research drawing from the managerial power theory and ‘increased career risks’ perspective offer alternative arguments for how low and high levels of effective monitoring by boards of directors influence CEO compensation. Adopting a configurational approach using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, we explore the idea that there are multiple causal paths leading to high levels of CEO compensation, such that theoretical logic from both theories may be relevant contingent upon the institutional environment in which the relationship is embedded. Our findings in a sample of 38 countries suggest that high CEO compensation is an outcome of both the presence and absence of effective board monitoring depending upon how it combines with minority investor protections and the cultural dimensions of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and individualism, as well as the overall stock market value. Specifically, in countries with high levels of effective board monitoring, high CEO compensation will be more likely when the country’s culture is high in uncertainty avoidance, low in power distance and when there are strong protections for minority investors. Whereas in countries with low levels of effective board monitoring, high CEO compensation will be more likely when power distance is high and uncertainty avoidance is low and when there are weak protections for minority investors. Our country-level study highlights the theoretical strengths of employing a configurational approach to explore the complex interrelationships of governance mechanisms and the contexts in which they manifest.     

Safety sans Frontières: An International Safety Culture Model

The management of safety culture in international and culturally diverse organizations is a concern for many high‐risk industries. Yet, research has primarily developed models of safety culture within Western countries, and there is a need to extend investigations of safety culture to global environments. We examined (i) whether safety culture can be reliably measured within a single industry operating across different cultural environments, and (ii) if there is an association between safety culture and national culture. The psychometric properties of a safety culture model developed for the air traffic management (ATM) industry were examined in 17 European countries from four culturally distinct regions of Europe (North, East, South, West). Participants were ATM operational staff (n = 5,176) and management staff (n = 1,230). Through employing multigroup confirmatory factor analysis, good psychometric properties of the model were established. This demonstrates, for the first time, that when safety culture models are tailored to a specific industry, they can operate consistently across national boundaries and occupational groups. Additionally, safety culture scores at both regional and national levels were associated with country‐level data on Hofstede's five national culture dimensions (collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and long‐term orientation). MANOVAs indicated safety culture to be most positive in Northern Europe, less so in Western and Eastern Europe, and least positive in Southern Europe. This indicates that national cultural traits may influence the development of organizational safety culture, with significant implications for safety culture theory and practice.     

Culture and cross-functional coopetition: The interplay of organizational and national culture

Scholars now recognize coopetition—the joint occurrence of cooperation and competition—between functional units as an important factor for a firm's learning and performance. We know little, however, about the drivers of cross-functional coopetition and in particular the roles of organizational culture and national culture. This study introduces cross-functional coopetition to the international management literature by illuminating the cultural antecedents of cross-functional coopetition. Specifically, we develop a cross-cultural model to analyze the influence of organizational and national culture on cross-functional coopetition. Drawing on a dataset of 646 companies from seven countries, we theoretically advance and empirically validate the influence of organizational culture and the moderating role of individualism and uncertainty avoidance on cross-functional coopetition. Organizational cultural dimensions directly enhance cross-functional coopetition. Furthermore, strong social values of individualism and uncertainty avoidance weaken the relationship between organizational culture and cross-functional coopetition. This study provides a novel perspective on how organizational culture can represent a strategic resource by illuminating the cultural mechanisms that influence coopetition within the firm.     

Innovation Strategy,Human Resource Policy,and Firms' Revenue Growth: The Roles of Environmental Uncertainty and Innovation Performance*

This study investigates the interactions of innovation strategy execution and innovation‐focused human resource (HR) policy adoption on innovation performance and revenue growth. In addition, we investigate the moderating role of environmental uncertainty on the effects of innovation strategy execution and innovation‐focused HR policy on innovation performance. Results show that the interaction of innovation strategy execution and innovation‐focused HR policy is positively related to innovation performance. Results also show that environmental uncertainty positively moderates the innovation strategy execution–innovation performance relationship. Finally, innovation performance mediates the interaction of innovation strategy execution and environmental uncertainty on firms’ revenue growth. Implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.     

From primacy to purpose commitment: How emerging profit-with-purpose corporations open new corporate governance avenues

This paper aims at contributing to corporate governance theory by developing a model of governance that takes into account a recent legal innovation: the introduction of purpose-driven legal business forms in the corporate law of several countries. Current debates in such theory oppose models that grant “primacy” (i.e., ultimate control rights) to different constituencies. The resulting uncertainty proves problematic in the face of new, urgent social and environmental stakes that are difficult to represent in traditional governance bodies. Newly adopted profit-with-purpose corporate forms' introduction of a “purpose” in corporate contracts renews these debates. We show that through the “purpose commitment” model it enables, the distribution of control rights in the governance system is decoupled from the objectives assigned to the corporation. This new approach renews the formal role of management, and corporations’ accountability to society. We explore the theoretical, practical, and political consequences of this new model.     

Are national levels of employee harassment cultural covariations of climato-economic conditions?

Conflict in a workgroup turns into harassment if a group member is persistently confronted with negative acts with few possibilities to retaliate. Cross-national differences in such intragroup harassment are considerable but wait to be understood. In this study, survey data from 44,836 employees in 44 countries revealed that a cultural in-group orientation was associated with lower employee harassment. In addition, and in agreement with Van de Vliert's climato-economic theory of culture, workforces reported more harassment in poorer countries with more demanding climates of colder-than-temperate winters, hotter-than-temperate summers, or both. Finally, it was found that the impact of climato-economic hardships on harassment suppressed the impact of cultural in-group orientation on harassment. Using the regression equation obtained for the sample of 44 countries, national levels of employee harassment for a broader pool of 103 countries were estimated and scrutinized for their validity for future research. Data from the World Values Surveys were used to validate the estimations. The results provide the basis for a further hypothesis, that employee harassment is more prevalent in countries with either survival or self-expression cultures than in countries with cultures that are intermediate between those two extremes. The results have implications for prevention and remedial measures.