Schmoozers,not snoozers: Busting the Kevin and Angela stereotypes in public accounting

In contrast to the well-known stereotype of the boring, unsociable accountant, today’s public accounting professionals argue that they are boundary spanners. Working at the intersection of the firm/client interface, these professionals contend that sociability is a requisite skill for routinely navigating the many interactions they have with multiple personnel at client organizations. This research aims to address this disconnect and to confront whether the public perception is warranted. Using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue), we assess the sociability of 176 public accounting professionals and discover that, contrary to the stereotype, male public accountants are more sociable than males in the general population. Our analysis also demonstrates that female public accountants are no more or less sociable than females in the general population. Additional analysis shows that while male public accountants are more sociable than female public accountants, this effect is attributable to differences at lower levels of the profession and that male-female differences disappear when comparing male managers and partners to female managers and partners. Given the importance of sociability in public accounting, this research offers recruiting strategies that will help to dispel the myth of the unsociable accountant and provides training tips for enhancing sociability within the ranks.     

Supply chain integration and operational performance: The contingency effects of production systems

The boundary conditions of supply chain integration (SCI) have been widely studied in order to find out when SCI is applicable and effective. However, prior studies have mainly focused on external contextual factors, such as supply complexity, environmental uncertainty and country-level infrastructure. This study contributes to the SCI literature by examining the contingency effects of internal production systems on the relationship between supplier integration, customer integration and operational performance. Based on organizational information processing theory, we provide evidence to show that the impact of supplier and customer integration on operational performance varies across production systems, such as one-of-a-kind production, batch production and mass production systems. The empirical results also reveal how supplier and customer integration can be matched with different configurations of production systems in order to achieve the desired quality, flexibility, delivery or cost performance.     

Globally networked: Intraorganizational boundary spanning in the global organization

Multinational corporations (MNCs) need to sense, source, and mobilize knowledge when and where it arises, whether at home, or elsewhere in the world. For this reason, MNCs benefit from employee networks of relationships that span across intraorganizational barriers, allowing for the efficient mobilization of knowledge across boundaries. Yet, which organizational members are more likely to be able to develop these boundary spanning networks? We leverage a unique data set from a large multinational corporation to empirically test a comprehensive model that captures the effect of an employee’s mandate, expertise, and behavioral orientations on her likelihood to span intraorganizational boundaries that manifest themselves in the form of hierarchies, intra-functional domains, and geographic territories. We find that the employees that are more likely to be boundary spanners are those having mandates with a global impact, high levels of expertise, and a collaborative orientation in their networking behaviors. In addition, we find that these effects are stronger for those employees that have large formal workflow networks.     

战略与复杂双重维度下商业生态系统形成机理研究

基于战略和复杂双重维度，剖析阿里巴巴商业生态系统形成逻辑。结果发现：较强的战略控制力有利于强化平台商业模式，催生跨行业多样化平台，继而推进生态内信息化不断深入发展；随后，商业生态系统积蓄丰富的共享数据资源，打开资源交易和创造边界，提升生态主体能力的同时重塑生态系统属性；有着更强复杂应配力的生态主体不断探索商业模式创新，生态内外的创新扩散催化商业生态系统竞争，进一步强化复杂应配力。在核心企业战略控制力和生态主体复杂应配力的双重作用下，商业生态系统呈现前生态状态、生态内卷、生态扩散和生态共生4种不同状态。     

我国房地产业宏观调控的理论基础与边界

本文在宏观调控的制度基础与边界分析的基础上,分析了我国房地产业宏观调控的制度基础、对象以及作用机制,揭示了我国房地产市场的限制性运行机制、均衡过程和控制变量。在此基础上对我国房地产业宏观调控的目标与模式进行了系统性阐述。文章对宏观调控政策的制定和调控效果的提升具有重要意义。     

Spatial Interaction,Spatial Multipliers and Hospital Competition

The hospital competition literature shows that estimates of the effect of local market structure (concentration) on pricing (competition) are sensitive to geographic market definition. Our spatial lag model approach effects smoothing of the explanatory variables across the discrete market boundaries, resulting in robust estimates of the impact of market structure on hospital pricing, which can be used to estimate the full effect of changes in prices inclusive of spillovers that cascade through the neighboring hospital markets. The full amount, generated by the spatial multiplier effect, is a robust estimate of the impacts of market factors on hospital competition. We contrast ordinary least squares and spatial lag estimates to demonstrate the importance of robust estimation in analysis of hospital market competition. In markets where concentration is relatively high before a proposed merger, we demonstrate that Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) can lead to the wrong policy conclusion while the more conservative lag estimates do not.     

Outsourcing and role stress: An empirical study of hotel spa managers

Hotel owners and managers are increasingly outsourcing their spas to specialist firms that oversee the spa's operations and personnel. In such spas the assume the role of boundary spanners as they are responsible for overseeing the operational relationship between the hotel and spa companies. In this role, they are responsible for trying to satisfy the hotel and spa companies’ often contradictory expectations while also often adhering to two sets of operating guidelines. As a result, they may experience different levels of role conflict and role ambiguity than spa managers who oversee spas managed by the hotel. The results of a questionnaire completed by 166 hotel spa managers from spas managed by hotels and those managed by third parties found greater levels of these role stressors in managers of outsourced hotel spas. Based on these findings, research suggestions and managerial implications are discussed.     

The Genesis of Relationships

SUMMARY

Productive relationships between a company and its customers are often the result of positive relationships between the company and its boundary spanning employees. The career entry transition marks the beginning of these interpersonal relationships, which have a significant impact on marketing performance. Using a sample of newly hired boundary spanning employees, we examine the influence of individual difference factors on boundary spanners' appraisals of the career entry transition. Significant relationships are found between boundary spanners' positive and negative appraisals of the transition and personal and non-organizational factors: perceived centrality of the work role, availability of resources (finances, social support, personal hope), and sense of coherence.     

学习、环境与在孵企业创造力:网络边界视角

网络化边界为创业模式与情境要素变革背景下的组织学习效力分析提供了更具时效性的研究视角。在孵企业为上述视角的落地,进而还原复杂情境下多维组织学习方式对企业价值创造活动的协同作用过程提供了丰富的实证脚本。基于235家企业的实证结果显示：内外部学习不仅能单独提升在孵企业创造力,还具有协同促进效应,而该过程会受到内外部环境的共同调节作用。孵化网络异质性越低、环境动态性越强,在孵企业内部学习与创造力间的正向关系越强;孵化网络异质性越高、环境动态性越弱,在孵企业外部学习与创造力间的正向关系越强。进一步对内外部学习协同效应进行调节作用检验,发现只有当孵化网络异质性低或是环境动态性弱时,才有利于发挥在孵企业内部学习与外部学习对创造力的协同促进作用。研究结论为组织学习、环境要素与创业孵化理论融合提供了较为完整的研究框架,并为创业企业学习战略与孵育机制设计提供了更具靶向性的决策依据。     

Valuing the project: a knowledge-action response to network governance in collaborative research

The delegation of research to self-directed networks is a relatively new strategy to focus academic endeavour on public priorities. Networks involve policy-makers, knowledge producers and knowledge users in unfamiliar governance and management relationships. Here we reflect, as practitioners, on research networks as complex governance systems and on their projects as knowledge-action systems designed to deliver public value. Projects represent the currency in which delegated research is issued, but their conversion into monetary grants and awards diverts attention from their potential as boundary organizations or communities of practice in the production of societal knowledge and understanding. Recognizing and supporting projects as scalable components of enduring knowledge-action systems, rather than as transient instances of research funding, is key to sustaining delivery of public value under conditions of network governance.