A core idea in competitive strategy is that a firm’s ability to capture value depends on the creation of value: maximizing the gap between willingness to pay and cost. This value can depend on or be enhanced through complementarity, where the willingness to pay for an offering is increased in the presence of another offering. Substitutability is assumed to have the opposite effect.
Employee cynicism is on the rise, and thus is increasingly part of the social fabric in modern workplaces. In this paper, we investigate whether interactions with cynical others may produce undesirable effects on employee energy.
Google Scholar tells us that, over a quarter of a million studies examine the relationship between CEO compensation and firm performance. Aguinis et al. (2018) take much of that work to task. Observing that the distribution of CEO compensation is skewed, they question any work that assumes a normal distribution. Correcting the flaw, Aguinis et al. (2018) conduct their own investigation of this important relationship. Contrary to previous work, they find no consistent empirical relationship between pay and performance. The authors review and discuss their work with a clear eye on its implications for improving our understanding of these relationships.
Despite recognizing the importance of events, researchers have rarely explored the influence of broader societal events on employee experiences and behaviors at work. We integrate perspectives on events and social identities to develop a cross-level theoretical model of the spillover effects of mega-threats, which we define as negative, large-scale, diversity-related episodes that receive significant media attention.
Scholars continue to debate whether voice and silence are opposites or distinct constructs. This ambiguity has prevented meaningful theoretical advancements about employees’ voice and silence at work. We draw on the behavioral activation and behavioral inhibition systems perspective to provide a conceptual framework for the independence of voice and silence and explicate how two key antecedents—perceived impact and psychological safety—more strongly relate to voice and silence, respectively. We further differentiate voice and silence by identifying their unique effects on employee burnout.
Heuristics play an important role in organizational decision-making. Although management and organizational scholars have contributed significantly to our understanding of heuristics in organizations over the past seven decades, the literature has become fragmented over time. Three parallel streams of research—(1) heuristics and biases, (2) fast-and-frugal heuristics, and (3) simple rule heuristics—have emerged with somewhat conflicting views on the origins, use, and implications of heuristics.
Abstract Accelerators are an increasingly prevalent and important part of the entrepreneurial landscape. They provide intensive mentoring and education over a short, fixed-length period with the goal of aiding early...
After being generated, a new idea is rarely perfect but must be clarified, improved, and developed in more detail. Unfortunately, idea elaboration and creativity do not always come together: many new ideas become less creative when elaborated. This research examines who elaborates new ideas more creatively.
Management scholars are often interested in congruence effects, which they analyze using polynomial regressions and response surface analyses. They also more and more frequently conduct moderation analyses of these polynomial regressions to understand how response surfaces change as a function of a third variable. Our review of the literature in management and applied psychology that tested moderation of response surface models reveals three shortcomings of the current practices.
Prior research on organizational responses to normative pressures has cataloged a spectrum of strategies, ranging from accommodation to resistance, but more assertive responses have largely been overlooked. We expand the existing repertoire to include the more aggressive, targeted, and intertemporal response of organizational repression.
Prior literature suggests many benefits stemming from founders’ strong identification with their firms. We suggest, however, that there is also a potential dark side. We argue that founders can become overidentified with their organizations, making them more likely to engage in irresponsible behavior that protects the firm but harms others, as moral and societal norms are viewed as obstacles to fulfilling an organization’s goals.
Scholars have traditionally treated motivation as a value-neutral state divorced from normative considerations. Yet, research across the social sciences suggests a growing moral imperative to love work, which carries with it the social expectation of intrinsic motivation.
A country’s national income broadly depends on the quantity and quality of workers and capital. But how well these factors are managed within and between firms may be a key determinant of a country’s productivity and its GDP.
Strategy formation is central to why some firms succeed in entrepreneurial settings while others do not. Prior research suggests that executives effectively form strategies through actions to learn about novel opportunities, and thinking to develop a holistic understanding of the complex set of activities that must fit together.
For hospitals, a corollary to the popular adage “what gets measured gets managed” could be “measure more accurately to manage costs better.” That seems to be true even in industries like healthcare, where corporations and the government have been struggling for years to control hydra-like costs. UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School accounting professor Eva Labro and Lorien Stice-Lawrence (PhD ’17) found one way to significantly cut hospital costs is to upgrade accounting systems in their forthcoming paper in Management Science.
More than ever, businesses are tasked with pleasing both shareholders and stakeholders, including employees, customers and even communities. But can it be done? In this week's Kenan Insight, our experts explore the most successful strategies employed by a class of businesses that have been navigating this debate for generations: family firms.