Business

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 75
  • (2015) Windsor, G. Sampath Sanjeewa
    Thesis
    This research examined the drivers of Human Capital (HC), Social Responsibility (SR) synergies and their perceived impact on the Sustainability of grassroots level organisations. This was done in the form of a case study of Sri Lankan Nenasala telecentres. The e-Sri Lanka program, funded by the World Bank as a South Asian first, has established a network of 1000 Nenasala telecentres (Knowledge Centres) over 10 years. However, Nenasala telecentre models point to dissimilar sustainability records. Royal and O'Donnell (2008) models were used to investigate these dissimilarities. Royal and O'Donnell (2008) models identified some key indicators and drivers of performance, which were represented as ‘Human capital drivers of the value of the firm' model. Prior research investigated how these drivers act on individual segments of human capital systems with Royal and O'Donnell’s (2008) ‘human capital wheel’. However, these models have not been empirically investigated in developing countries, in an area such as telecentres in ICT4D, which are grassroots level small-scale organisations. Likewise, it has also not been examined how the drivers of human capital systems and social responsibility collaboratively affect sustainability of organisations. This theoretical gap will be bridged through this research. The research undertook a comprehensive archival material analysis, focus group discussions with Nenasala stakeholders and interviews with Sri Lankan Information and Communication Technology Agency officials, to uncover how different operationalization of the human capital drivers within different Nenasala models may lead to more or less sustainability outcomes. The findings showed leadership, which research termed Socio-Cultural Leadership, intertwined with SR synergies was a key to success, although it was controlled by numerous other variables such as funding and parent organisations’ influence. Microfinance and crowdfunding were specially found to be potential tools that could aid SCL. This research succeeded in modifying Royal and O’Donnell’s (2008) model and identifying how drivers of human capital systems affect the sustainability of grassroots enterprises. The model developed through a unique South Asian experience of a developing country, could be applied to other countries in the region that have similar social, cultural and religious boundaries as the underlying unifiers for overall grassroots programs.

  • (2012) Mukherjee, Partha
    Thesis
    This study examines how emerging market firms (EMFs) develop capabilities to leapfrog in the knowledge intensive global information technology (IT) industry. Academic literatures have thus far focused on globalization of large multinational companies (MNCs) from developed countries, mainly from the OECD. While firms from the OECD are well endowed in resources, firms from developing countries are generally resource poor and their establishment, development and international expansion have taken place within an institutional environment that is different from those found in western economies. Hence how resource poor EMFs learn to transform comparative advantages into dynamic firm-specific capabilities deserves attention. The study explores how Indian IT firms “moved up the value ladder,” moving out of the “low road” where the barriers to entry are low and competition is based mainly on price and squeezing wages, to the “high road” where competition is based on differentiation. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology is used. The qualitative part focused on inductive case study research, moving along observation, categorization and association, finally giving rise to constructs and models. The quantitative part entailed deductive econometric studies on 703 companies using panel data method, testing hypothesis to identify which factors contribute to globalization of EMFs. The findings reveal that globalization of EMFs is an evolutionary process and in each phase of evolution, the EMFs progressively learn from their linkages with MNCs and leverage them to globalise rapidly. Through linkages with MNCs, EMFs gained access to markets, technology, and reputation. The research identified the distinctive capabilities acquired by the EMFs in each phase of their capability lifecycle. Linkages with and learning from international and domestic innovation networks transformed EMFs’ business model and upgraded their capabilities. The study shows that dynamic capability in the form of powerful intellectual property enabled EMFs to evolve from service provider to a partner status. Findings of this study present a novel and contemporary insight on how EMFs evolve to develop dynamic capability, which enables them to leapfrog in a fast changing technology space. The results challenge the view that the Indian software industry presents the classic problem of locking-in a low road of the innovation trajectory.

  • (2018) Vu, Minh
    Thesis
    This thesis contributes to our understanding of the role of employees' intra-organizational social relationships (ISRs) during a major organizational change process such as a post-merger integration (PMI). I focus on two central questions: (1) which ISRs would benefit or detriment employees’ perception of PMI process? and (2) how these effects would be influenced by conflicts employees or their connections face during organizational change? Combining existing research on post-merger integration, organizational change, social networks, leader-member exchange, newcomer socialization, and organizational identification, I develop hypotheses and test how employees' relationship with their supervisors and peers affect their perception of the PMI process and how their relationship with the overall organization during PMI affects perceived association between them and the organization. Central to these investigations are ISRs of employees, i.e. advice-seeking and giving connections, and the conflicts employees face in their work processes due to the PMI process. Specifically, through these three studies I find that those employees who are socially connected with their supervisors in the advice-seeking and giving network perceive the PMI process more positively due to supervisors’ central or brokerage position in this network, or supervisors’ ability to communicate with or energize their connections (Chapter 3); those employees who newly join the merged firm after the merger benefit professionally but perceive PMI adversely due to their ties with incumbent employees (Chapter 4); and those employees who suffer conflicts during PMI end up disassociating from the organization (Chapter 5). I draw on a unique dataset from an international professional services firm in Vietnam, which merged with another domestic professional services firm in 2014. Between 2014 and 2017, I used online surveys, qualitative interviews, and HR archives of the firm to collect empirical evidence for the three studies. Because PMI process in particular and organizational change in general creates uncertainty and ambiguity, looking at the effects of employees' ISRs, and various types of support such relationships generate, within this specific context, would contribute significantly to our understanding of employee perception of the PMI process, their socialization and identification with the firm during this process, and their turnover.

  • (2019) Luo, Lingli
    Thesis
    This dissertation extends knowledge on the behavioral view of organizational aspiration determination following the seminal work of Cyert and March (1963), which suggests that organizations determine aspiration levels based on three reference points: historical aspiration, past performance, and social reference group performance. Addressing gaps in this literature, my investigation is grounded in three specific research questions regarding the role of environmental context. I develop the arguments drawing on logics from the research on the behavioral view of organizational aspirations, the attention-based view, environmental context, environmental jolts, and strategic issue interpretation. The first research question addresses the contingent role of three environmental dimensions in aspiration determination. The second research question investigates how an environmental jolt leads to aspiration level changes and attention shifts among the three reference points. The third research question addresses the role of opportunity and threat orientations in aspiration determination during environmental jolts. I collected data from multiple sources and used a panel sample of U.S. publicly traded firms (1998-2016) to test my hypothesized relationships. I find that, (1) organizations shift their attention among the three reference points under varying environmental conditions regarding munificence, dynamism, and complexity; (2) organizational aspiration level and attention allocation among the three reference points are different during an environmental jolt versus a non-jolt period; (3) organizations’ opportunity and threat orientations during environmental jolts play an important role in regulating attention allocation among the three reference points. This research mainly contributes to the behavioral aspiration literature. First, my investigation explicitly theorizes and tests the contingent role of three environmental dimensions, thereby advancing the explanatory power of aspiration determination models by accounting for attention shifts under different environmental conditions. Second, my research investigates organizational aspiration determination in a sudden and discontinuous environmental jolt; thus, it complements previous aspiration theory that focused on relatively stable environments. Third, my work enhances behavioral aspiration models by incorporating decision maker cognition as a salient contingency. Overall, my research adds to knowledge on environment-inclusive, ABV-based, and cognition-oriented aspiration determination models with increased explanatory power.

  • (2017) Zhu, Zhijing
    Thesis
    This dissertation investigates under what circumstances Chinese sectors and firms are able to break their imitative modes and create new-to-the-world innovations. Using mixed methods and comparing Chinese sectors and firms with their worldwide counterparts, this dissertation reveals the sector-level antecedents and micro-organizational processes of Chinese new-to-the-world innovations. It complements the national innovation system framework and its derivatives with the special features of Chinese innovations which were previously underappreciated. It also extends evolutionary theory, the organizational capabilities perspective and the coopetition literature by building an integrative framework explicating and foreseeing Chinese innovations. Chapter 1 reviews the large literature on the build-up of China’s innovative capacity since 1978 and then introduces three additional lenses—varieties of capitalism, evolutionary theory and coevolutionary theory—that are insightful but not used in a significant way to analyse Chinese innovations. Chapter 2 examines which Chinese sectors are more likely to produce new-to-the-world innovations and why by creating a new measure of new-to-the-world innovations based on China’s patents granted by the European Patent Office from 1986 to 2015. Undertaking wide-ranging econometric analyses on 24 Chinese sectors between 2005 and 2007, I find that Chinese sectors’ divergent innovativeness is associated with five factors, namely domestic patent stock intensity, R&D personnel intensity, government S&T funding intensity, business S&T self-funding intensity, and technology renovation intensity. Chapter 3 presents a comparative case study on a truly innovative Chinese firm and its global competitors to unveil how Chinese new-to-the-world innovations came about. It conveys that the firm’s new-to-the-world product innovation arose from three interacting variation-selection-retention processes underpinned by the firm and its sub-unit’s organizational capabilities of managing internal coopetition and stimulating innovations. I thus establish a capabilities-based multilevel evolutionary framework on this observation and predict for the first time that Chinese new-to-the-world innovations are likely to take place in the sectors emerging after 1978 and in firms with the following organizational features: (1) an internal variation-selection-retention process for product development; (2) a technologically capable and determined leadership at the firm or sub-unit level; (3) a routinized extreme emphasis on good user experiences of products; and (4) a set of routines fostering innovation.

  • (2018) Martin, Lee
    Thesis
    With the rising proportion of multicultural employees in organisations, this thesis seeks to explore psychological variation among multicultural individuals and how it may influence the way they contribute to organisations. In this thesis, I develop a theory of why some multicultural individuals think and identify differently to others, based on early developmental processes. I suggest that a key antecedent to psychological differences among multiculturals is the experience of multiple, interacting cultures simultaneously at home while growing up. I call this phenomenon early immersive culture mixing. I introduce a distinction between two types of multicultural individuals: innate multiculturals (defined as individuals who have experienced early immersive culture mixing) and achieved multiculturals (individuals who have become multicultural in other ways). Across three studies, I investigate variation among multiculturals stemming from early immersive culture mixing. In the first study, a between-subjects quasi-experiment, I test whether innate and achieved multiculturals differ in cultural frame switching (indicative of variation in cultural schemas) and cultural identity hybridity (blendedness). In the second study, I explore how early immersive culture mixing is related to cultural (dis)identification. In addition, I attempt to provide further evidence for the results found in my first study, using a different method (within-subjects quasi-experiment). In the third study, a between-subjects quasi-experiment, I test whether early immersive culture mixing leads to differences in cultural frame switching in the work context, as well as variation in work preferences and cultural identity imbalance among multiculturals. Key findings include that early immersive culture mixing is associated with: a hybrid cultural schema; a hybrid cultural identity; certain patterns of cultural identification and disidentification; and lower cultural identity imbalance. The findings from this thesis open a new avenue in management research on multicultural employees. I discuss the implications for theory and practice in international management, organisational behaviour and human resources management.

  • (2018) Bagherzadeh, Gholamreza
    Thesis
    Researchers use open innovation to address novel outward practices and assess the sophistication of inward processes. This thesis first discusses the notion of innovation and then reviews the open innovation literature and reveals that little attention has been paid to the practical aspect of open innovation practices. The thesis examines the specific case of open innovation in a collaborative business initiative, ElNet, located within the higher education sector to illustrate the barriers and enablers to open innovation. The study’s objective is to understand open innovation practices from a relational perspective, explaining (1) why and how businesses engage in open innovation and (2) how barriers and enablers interrelate. Data were interpreted through iterative thematic and narrative analysis and theorized using sociomateriality concepts. This lens focused particularly on the material practices that are socially enacted in implementing open innovation. This analysis explores the way that the interrelations between enablers and barriers to open innovation are illuminated through sociomaterial practices. This study focuses on the dynamics of these development paths by focusing on four episodes which elaborate how the case study members engaged in an open innovation project. The application of sociomateriality to show how the material and social realms are entangled and how sociomaterial dynamics are enacted through practices is relevant to an exploration of open innovation practices. Thus, the sociomateriality focus of this analysis provides an important contribution to the literature and creates opportunities for potential improvements in practice.

  • (2018) Farzadnia, Sepideh
    Thesis
    This dissertation explores important individual level drivers of research performance (i.e. gender, family factors, and individual capability factors). It includes three meta-analytic studies statistically exploring the relationship between the above-mentioned factors and research performance. The data for conducting the meta-analyses is based on over 450,000 scholars in around 350 independent samples. The main findings of this dissertation are that gender, marital status, and Big Five personality traits are significantly associated with research performance. In particular, women appear to have slightly lower research performance than their male counterparts, being married is positively related to research performance, and research performance is higher among scholars who are open to experience, conscientious, extraverted, agreeable, and neurotic. Somewhat surprisingly, intelligence is not associated with higher research performance and there is no evidence of differential performance effects of having children on male versus female academics. The results of moderator analysis show that gender gap is larger in contexts that can be considered more female-friendly. Specifically, I found a larger gender gap in research performance in fields with a higher proportion of women, in the soft sciences, in studies conducted more recently, in Europe, and where women have more mandated parental leave than men. Furthermore, the effect of having children on research performance is more negative for junior academics. This dissertation makes several major contributions to the literature. First, to date, there has been no meta-analytic review of these studies. This dissertation is the first to conduct meta-analytic investigation of gender, family factors, and individual differences as drivers of research performance. Second, I contribute to identifying and understanding the contextual moderators of the relationship between research performance and the above-mentioned variables. Third and finally, having a better understanding of this relationship may shed light on why such differences exist in contexts beyond academe. As such, the findings of this dissertation have implications for practice. It can guide individual scholars, universities, and higher education policy makers and may be generalizable to other knowledge intensive professions.

  • (2018) Klarin, Anton
    Thesis
    Emerging economies often experience rapid and discontinuous shifts in their institutional environments. Amongst the BRIC economies, Russia in particular underwent the most radical and unprecedented institutional changes. In the academic realm, there has been much interest about how organisations adapt to institutional changes when a command and control economy is suddenly replaced by a liberalised laissez-faire market system, and again to state-guided market system. Despite recent contributions in the literature that aim to uncover this phenomenon, the need for a better understanding on how institutional changes affect strategic choices and innovativeness of firms in a co-evolutionary context has become increasingly apparent. Through the lens of institutional political economy, this thesis contributes to the broader literature on this topic. It provides a detailed three part account of the Russian transition and a taxonomy of strategic choices by Russian firms in a co-evolutionary backdrop. It uncovers the impact of serial institutional change on strategic choices of Russian entrepreneurial enterprises insofar as how they make decisions to innovate and upgrade during low versus higher levels of institutionalisation. It depicts three major sense-making strategies used by selected Russian firms during the shock therapy years and later during the two phases of transition in the state-led industrialization era. Whereas political connections bestow legitimacy on entrepreneurs operations during low levels of institutionalisation, higher levels of institutionalisation lead to attenuation of political connections between business and policymakers. With further institutional strengthening, political connections are eventually replaced by more formalised interactions between strategic firms and the state often managed by industry associations. Finally, the study proposes and tests hypotheses that predict how a shift from a weak to a strong institutional context is likely to affect innovation strategies of emerging economy firms. It generalizes the findings from case studies using multi-level econometric analysis of 282 Russian listed firms. Strategic choices of Russian firms towards investing in human capital, intangible assets and vertical integration during the two dichotomous transition periods are identified. The findings support and extend the previous case study results that Russian firms significantly raise their innovation-related investments during institutional strengthening.

  • (2018) Walker, Benjamin
    Thesis
    Work occupies a significant part of many people’s lives, and as such, it has long been recognised as a source of identity. Professional, organisational, and team identities all develop in relation to what people do at work, the organisations they work for, and the people they work with. In this thesis, I propose that people's performance at work also constitutes a legitimate and indeed likely source of identity, particularly in a contemporary social climate that emphasises individual excellence as meaningful and desirable, and where other identities (e.g., those derived from occupations, organisations, and cultures) have been destabilised by shifting work and social structures. I explore this proposition empirically via two qualitative, interview-based studies - one in the context of professional rugby, and the other in the context of academia. The findings show that many participants across both contexts had developed a performance-based identity, and that this form of identity had both positive and negative work-relevant consequences. The findings also provide insights into how individuals develop such performance-based identities and maintain them in the face of experiences that have the potential to challenge these identities. Overall, this thesis contributes to our understanding of work-related identities and organisational behaviour more broadly by providing a conceptual framework for understanding the phenomenon of performance-based identity, its dynamics, and its implications for individuals, teams, and organisations.