On the consequences of scarcity mindset: How ‘having too little’ means so much for ethnic venture failure

Drawing on the psychological concept of scarcity mindset as a lens, we explore UK-based ethnic entrepreneurs' accounts of their behaviors and choices to theorize ethnic business venture failure. Our findings suggest the constraints of ‘having too little’ entrepreneurial resources can induce three organizing tensions in organizing, community embeddedness, spatial and segment spawning, and dispositional optimism––which may operate in combination or serially to precipitate ethnic venture failure. Our findings contribute to research on conflicting demands in entrepreneurship by showing how resource constraints, sometimes played out in the form of enduring inequalities within markets and society-at-large stymies the conversion of contradictory yet mutually constituting demands in organizing into potentially productive outcomes.     

A Resource‐Based View of Strategic IT Alignment: How Knowledge Sharing Creates Competitive Advantage

A critical decision problem for top management, and the focus of this study, is whether the CEO (chief executive officer) and CIO (chief information officer) should commit their time to formal planning with the expectation of producing an information technology (IT)‐based competitive advantage. Using the perspective of the resource‐based view, a model is presented that examines how strategic IT alignment can produce enhanced organizational strategies that yield competitive advantage. One hundred sixty‐one CIOs provided data using a postal survey. Results supported seven of the eight hypotheses. They showed that information intensity is an important antecedent to strategic IT alignment, that strategic IT alignment is best explained by multiple constructs which operationalize both process and content measures, and that alignment between the IT plan and the business plan is significantly related to the use of IT for competitive advantage. Study results raise questions about the effect of CEO participation, which appears to be the weak link in the process, and also about the perception of the CIO on the importance of CEO involvement. The paper contributes to our understanding of how knowledge sharing in the alignment process contributes to the creation of superior organizational strategies, provides a framework of the alignment‐performance relationship, and furnishes several new constructs.     

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Competence Constructs: Two‐Stage Multi‐Item Scale Development and Validation*

This paper defines and operationalizes eight ERP competence constructs. We define ERP competence as a portfolio of managerial, technical and organizational skills and expertise posited as antecedents to improved business performance occurring after an ERP system is operational and functionally stable. To improve responses to changes in markets and products, manufacturers are increasingly adopting ERP systems. However, anecdotal accounts indicate that the realization of ERP's potential benefits is rare. Because of its pervasive influence on manufacturing and business performance, the need for scientifically developed and tested multi‐item scales pertaining to ERP competence is highly relevant to manufacturing strategy research. We follow a two‐stage normative process of scale development. First, we identify a portfolio of eight generic constructs that are hypothesized to be associated with successful ERP adoption. Each construct is then operationalized as a multi‐item measurement scale by applying a manual item sorting technique iteratively to independent panels of expert judges until tentative reliability and validity is established. Second, we further refine and validate the multi‐item scales using survey data from 79 North American manufacturing users of ERP systems.     

MANAGEMENT OF COLLEGE STUDENT RECRUITING ACTIVITIES USING GOAL PROGRAMMING*

A shrinking pool of potential students, due to a declining birthrate as well as uncertain economic times, is creating the need for more effective recruiting of college students. One approach using a goal programming model has been developed and is currently being used to manage recruitment activities in a small four-year college in Nebraska. The model identifies both the type and number of activities that must be completed each quarter in order to reach an enrollment goal for a given year. Factors such as budget, time, manpower, and marketing strategies are highlighted in the model. The results of the goal programming model encouraged more field activities in the first two quarters with emphasis on new-candidate identification. The third-quarter recruiting strategy is more balanced while the fourth-quarter emphasis is placed on follow-up activities that occur chiefly in the office. Use of this model will enable recruiters to meet enrollments while managing recruiting resources and activities in order to remain within the recruiting budget.     

ONE APPROACH TO REALLOCATING INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES: THE HOUSTON MODEL

In this paper a model for deciding which instructional departments should receive and surrender new or reallocatable resources is developed. It combines a two-dimensional assessment of resource needs based on instructional characteristics and the academic priority of the department to arrive at resource allocation priorities. Unusual features of the model are its reliance on judgments of departmental centrality to institutional mission as the discriminating variable in ascribing academic priorities and the careful avoidance of “halo effects” through independent assessment of resource needs and academic priorities. The model is sensitive enough to discriminate between competing claims for scarce resources while retaining a simplicity of logic that makes its mechanics understandable to those with little grounding in the decision sciences.     

Examining Pathways from Innovation Orientation to Patient Satisfaction: A Relational View of Healthcare Delivery*

The federal government and industry leaders view innovation as a potentially fruitful way to improve hospital performance, specifically patient satisfaction. However, translating a hospital's innovation orientation into improved performance is challenging given that important network participants—namely physicians—may possess different aims. Grounded in Relational RBV, this study tests a model linking innovation orientation to patient satisfaction through a pathway of knowledge‐sharing routines (physician partnering and customer relationship management) and complementary capabilities (hospital responsiveness). Further, this study investigates the moderating role of physician employment (a form of governance) by examining hospitals with high and low levels of employed physicians. Structural Equation Modeling results from a paired sample of primary survey and secondary data from 173 acute care hospitals in the USA reveal the following. Hospitals with high levels of employed physicians translate innovation orientation into patient satisfaction by using customer relationship management (CRM) programs to influence hospital responsiveness directly, ultimately leading to patient satisfaction. Hospitals with low levels of physician employment use CRM programs in a fully mediated fashion to inform physician partnering activities, which influence hospital responsiveness, driving patient satisfaction.     

MODELING LEARNING CURVE AND LEARNING COMPLEMENTARITY FOR RESOURCE ALLOCATION AND PRODUCTION SCHEDULING*

Research on learning effects in mathematical programming models for optimum resource allocation has called attention to the difficulty in solving such models in their original nonlinear form. In this paper, systematically varying sizes of linear segments are designed to approximate productivity changes along the learning curve, and a single separable linear programming model is developed. With production complementarity and learning transmission between products, a more realistic resource allocation and production scheduling problem emerges. Two cases of learning transmissions are considered, and the model design process, which defines a decision problem that can be solved by a simplex algorithm, is demonstrated.