Time Orientation in Languages and Tax Avoidance

Journal of Business Ethics - Studies suggest that when a language requires grammatical marking of future events, speakers prefer immediate payoffs and engage in less future-oriented behavior. If...     

Network Updating and Exploratory Learning Environment*

abstract This paper examines how the current relevance of social capital derived from a task‐advice network affects an actor's exploratory learning environment. Building on Burt's (1992 ) structural holes hypothesis that a large, sparse task advice network enhances an actor's exploratory learning environment, I propose that such effects hold only when the direct and indirect network ties are composed of current network contacts (ones that have been updated since the last change in positions of an actor). Analyses of data from a sample of 230 salaried employees of a high‐technology manufacturing corporation support my arguments. In addition to the focus of social capital research on network structure, therefore, this study emphasizes the time‐contingent value of social capital.     

The contradictory roles of ambiguity for innovation in an industry: how beneficial are standardisation and classification?

Studies on the influence of ambiguity on innovation show inconsistent understandings: it could be beneficial owing to flexibility, while it might be detrimental owing to distraction of information. Faced with the contradictory understandings, this study examines whether technological standardisation and industry classification could increase innovations of an industry. Using ISO9001 and the SIC codes in Korea from 1998 to 2010, the empirical tests illustrate inverted U-shaped relationships between industry-level innovation and standardisation/classification. Therefore, it is suggested that a moderate degree of standardisation and classification provides a positive infrastructure for innovation by providing the necessary guidelines for a firm's behaviour as well as maintaining its flexibility.     

Does Reputation Contribute to Reducing Organizational Errors? A Learning Approach

In this study I examine the effect of a firm's reputation for product quality on its effort in learning to reduce its product defect rate. Theoretical ideas on the motivation of learning associated with social aspiration levels and the self-serving bias combined with social categorization suggest that poor quality reputation firms are more likely than their counterparts with a good reputation to attend to potential product defects and consequently reduce their defect rate. However, a stream of research on the motivation of learning stemming from historical aspiration levels and slack search leads to a different argument: a reputation for good quality is more likely to provide firms with a motivation to avoid product defects. I build upon these two competing arguments and hypothesize that stronger motives for learning exist in situations where firms have either a weak or strong reputation for product quality. My study of product recalls in the US automotive industry highlights an inverted U-shaped relationship, indicating the liability of an intermediate reputation in reducing product defects.