Browsing by Subject "Business Administration, Management"

The value of task-related conflict to team effectiveness continues to generate controversy in organizational studies. I argue that this debate reflects as much differences in the conceptualization of conflict by scholars from separate traditions as it does variation in empirical settings and methods. The model proposed in this research is a more general framework for the study of team conflict that clarifies, accommodates, and reconciles to a large degree the divergent findings of prior research. It suggests that recent pessimism about the value of team conflict is overstated, and it offers a number of promising paths through which task-related conflict may improve team performance and satisfaction. Chapter 1 reviews the history of this debate and introduces the model of team conflict. Chapter 2 documents a test of the model's propositions in a correlational study of 223 MBA teams conducting a decision-making exercise. Chapter 3 features an experimental test of the model with a forecasting task completed by 60 3-person groups. And Chapter 4 revisits the conflict over conflict in light of the studies presented herein.

Organizational Capital Budgeting Model (OCBM) is a general theory of capital budgeting that incorporates traditional capital budgeting theories and the consideration about firm's information/ organization structure. The traditional financial capital budgeting model is a special case of OCBM. Therefore, OCBM not only broadens the traditional model, but also explains the heterogeneous behaviors of firms using quasi/non-financial version of capital budgeting. I demonstrate the validity of OCBM with multiple research methods. The field studies about Asian conglomerates are carefully constructed. The conglomerates are important dataset to study organizational decision making because of their size, scope, controversial behaviors and global presence.

Motivated by recent academic inquiry into the distinction between relational collectivism and group collectivism that characterize different cultures, I empirically investigate the differential effects of relational and group collectivism on social motivation across cultures. The present research contextualizes motivation in social interactions and illustrates the influences of different types of interaction partners on social motivation through self-construal. To unpackage the psychological process in which social motivation is elicited, I develop a two-step theoretical model: In the first step, I examine how different types of interaction partners activate the individual, relational and collective aspects of the self construal. The second step of my model investigates how the activated self-construal shapes individuals' social motivations toward their interaction partners.

Empirical studies were conducted in an individualist culture (US) and a collective culture (Singapore). Results from the studies identified both culturally specific and culturally universal patterns in self-construal activation. Interacting with a friend elicits relational self across both cultures. When interacting with a stranger, members of individualist cultures activated their collective and relational selves whereas members of collectivist cultures activated their individual self. Another interesting finding is that interacting with an ingroup member evokes the relational aspect of the self-construal in collectivist cultures, but it elicits the collective aspect of the self-construal in individualist cultures. An outgroup member evokes the collective aspect of the self-construal across both cultures. The studies also examined the link between the activated self-construal and its motivational consequence, and established the mediating effect of self-construal between interaction partner and social motivation. Applying the two-step model to both individualist and collectivist cultures, I demonstrate that individualist and collectivist cultures vary in the self-construal activation process in response to different types of interaction partners, but once certain aspect of the self is activated, it is likely to lead to the same social motivations across the two cultures.

Three distinct chapters explore the individual-level dynamics of legitimacy judgments and support for leaders and their initiatives. Chapter 1 develops a theoretical framework for understanding the content of legitimacy judgments and the process by which those judgments develop and change over time. Chapter 2 explores the role of group orientation in moderating the impact of instrumental, relational, and moral concerns in determining support for leaders. Chapter 3 explores the role of power in moderating leaders' assumptions about the types of behaviors that will elicit support for followers.

In Chapter 1, I build on institutional, social psychological, and sociological theory to develop a theoretical framework that specifies both the content underlying judgments of the legitimacy of social entities and a model of the process by which these judgments develop and change over time. With respect to the content of legitimacy judgments, I argue that individual-level judgments of the legitimacy of social entities are based on perceptions and beliefs about the entity that fall along three key dimensions: instrumental, relational, and moral. With respect to the process by which legitimacy judgments develop and change over time, I specify three modes of the legitimacy judgment process (evaluative, passive, and socialization), and I explain which of these modes is likely to predominate as individuals move through the stages of the legitimacy judgment process. The model specifies the circumstances under which the legitimacy of existing institutions is likely to be either challenged or bolstered. I conclude by discussing the implications of this framework for advancing a more detailed understanding of the micro-level dynamics of critical areas of inquiry in organizational studies.

In Chapter 2, I present a series of three studies demonstrating that individuals' intrinsic or extrinsic orientation toward their group moderates their responsiveness to different types of behaviors and appeals, such that individuals who have an intrinsic orientation (such as high identifiers and individuals who feel a high level of group belongingness) are more responsive to moral behaviors and appeals, while individuals with an extrinsic orientation (such as low identifiers and individuals who feel a low level of group belongingness) are more responsive to instrumental behaviors and appeals.

In Chapter 3, four studies demonstrate that subjective feelings of social power impact leaders' assumptions about the bases of their legitimacy with followers, which in turn impacts leaders' decisions about what types of leadership behaviors and tactics to engage. Study 1 demonstrates that leaders who feel a high level of power within their group or organization perceive support from followers as stemming primarily from their instrumental rather than relational behaviors, while leaders who feel a low level of power perceive that the support they receive from followers stems primarily from their relational rather than instrumental behaviors. Study 2 is a vignette study in which individuals primed with high power report greater expectations of support in response to decisions made on instrumental rather than relational bases, while individuals primed with low power report greater expectations of support in response to decisions made on relational rather than on instrumental bases. Study 3 replicates this interaction and shows that the effect is mediated by leaders' assumptions about the types of behaviors that followers prefer. Study 4 demonstrates that leaders primed with power are more likely to engage in instrumental behaviors in their attempts to persuade followers, while individuals primed with low power are more likely to engage in relational behaviors in their attempts to persuade followers. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Chapter 4 describes a final study that integrates the findings from Chapters 2 and 3. Specifically, Chapter 4 demonstrates that there is a positive effect of leader power on support for the leader among low, but not high, identifying groups. The findings further indicate that this effect is mediated by followers' perceptions of the leader's instrumental behaviors. Implications, limitations, and future directions of the research are discussed.

This dissertation focuses on managerial decision making, and specifically explores conditions wherein managers may increase their propensity to escalate commitment towards a failing project. Escalation researchers (e.g. Schmidt and Calantone, 2002) have listed four classes of factors that may impact a manager's propensity to escalate commitment towards a failing project, and have called for research into how exactly these factors impact escalation. In this dissertation, we explore two such factors. The first factor relates to the characteristics of the decision process used by firms to evaluate the project. Here, for example, researchers have looked at whether the manager was also involved in making decisions about the project in a prior period, and Boulding, Morgan and Staelin (1997) have shown that such manager's positive beliefs about the project (formed in a prior period) make a manager more likely to escalate commitment. The second factor relates to project characteristics. Here, for example, researchers have looked at whether or not the project relates to a product that is perceived as new, and Schmidt and Calantone (2002) have shown that managers are more likely to escalate commitment towards a failing project relating to a new product.

The first dissertation essay uses three experiments to examine how a hitherto unexplored characteristic of the decision process might lead to increasing escalation of commitment. Specifically, building off research into the illusion of control, we examine whether the opportunity to use managerial skill during the decision process makes a manager more willing to escalate commitment towards a failing project. We find that whenever managers act on cues that cause them to think they can use their managerial skill to control some outside factor (even though in reality they cannot), managers overestimate their ability to "control the odds" related to this outside factor. Such beliefs feed forward and lead managers to make suboptimal decisions about the overall project.

The second dissertation essay looks at how project characteristics might make a manager more (or less) likely to escalate commitment towards a failing project. We explore this issue in the hitherto unexplored real options setting. Real options have emerged as an important part of marketing strategy, and have been used to structure new product alliances, value customers etc. We run a controlled experiment and we examine whether differences in option-structure (which is a project characteristic) impact the propensity to make suboptimal option-exercise decisions. We find that managers are more likely to make suboptimal option-exercise decisions in the case of put options (vis. call options), and - as predicted by the endowment effect literature - this increased propensity to make a suboptimal decision is mediated by/ explained by the psychological ownership construct.