Mitigating customers’ negative responses to physical presence reduction

Building on the social exchange theory and presumption of a firm's multi-channel strategy as a customer relationship management initiative, three experimental studies show that: (1) reducing physical presence negatively affects customers’ perceived relationship investment and trust and increases their switching intention; (2) to mitigate these negative effects, firms should engage in strategic decisions that benefit customers and are perceived as highly strategic. This research offers new insights suggesting that customers’ appraisals of firms’ strategic decisions influence their switching intention through the sequential operations of perceived relationship investment and trust. These findings are consistent for both services and retail contexts, highlighting the importance of firms engaging in strategies that are deemed to be unfavorable in the eyes of their customers to be perceived as highly committed to maintaining relationships with their customers.     

The Effect of Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility on Environmental Performance and Business Competitiveness: The Mediation of Green Information Technology Capital

With the emergence of environmental sustainability and green business management, increasing demands have been made on businesses in the areas of environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR). Furthermore, the influence of ECSR on green capital investment, environmental performance, and business competitiveness has also been the subject of attention from enterprises. However, in previous studies, the mediating role of green information technology (IT) capital in the relationship between ECSR, environmental performance, and business competitiveness, has not been investigated by researchers. In order to bridge this gap in the ECSR literature, this study aims to examine the influence of ECSR on green IT capital, and the consequent effect of green IT capital on environmental performance and business competitiveness. Data were collected from 358 companies from the top 1000 manufacturers in Taiwan. The results confirmed that ECSR has significant positive effects on green IT human capital, green IT structural capital, and green IT relational capital. Green IT structural capital and green IT relational capital have positive effects on environmental performance and business competitiveness, and environmental performance has a positive effect on business competitiveness. In addition, green IT structural capital and green IT relational capital have partial mediating effects on ECSR, environmental performance, and business competitiveness. The implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Family Ownership and Corporate Misconduct in U.S. Small Firms

This study adds to the theory of family business management by exploring the effects of family ownership on the corporate misconduct of small firms in the United States. The empirical findings indicate that small family-owned firms are less likely to commit misconduct than small non-family-owned firms. We interpret this finding as family firms aiming to achieve the trans-generational succession of moral capital. Further investigation shows a nonlinear family-ownership–misconduct relationship. A negative relationship between them only appears in mature firms. We further show that for relatively mature firms, only family firms with older owners are less likely to commit corporate misconduct.     

What if your owners also own other firms in your industry? The relationship between institutional common ownership,marketing, and firm performance

The growth in institutional holdings of public firms has led to increased interest in the concept of common ownership, in which the same investor owns stakes in multiple firms within the same industry. Economic theory suggests that common ownership could affect firm performance, but little empirical research has examined the nature of this effect or how a firm’s extant marketing potentially relates to this effect. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a relationship between common ownership and firm performance that is moderated by the firm’s extant marketing capabilities and its relative marketing strategic emphasis. Our empirical approach employs data from over 43 million institutional holdings to develop a measure of common ownership and accounts for empirical issues like endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity. The results document a positive relationship between common ownership and firm performance and provide some evidence that this effect is stronger for firms with lower marketing capabilities and a relative strategic emphasis towards R&D spending. These results suggest that public policymakers should consider the firms’ extant strategic marketing when assessing regulations on common ownership.     

出口和生产率:基于异质性企业的实证研究综述

新新贸易理论框架下异质性企业出口和生产率的关系可以用两种假说来概括——"自我选择出口"和"出口导致增长"。文章回顾了十多年来学者们用各个国家的企业数据对这两种假说的验证,对比和评析了相关的研究方法、研究结论、实证结果的原因等,对我国出口企业"生产率悖论"的原因进行总结与探讨,并提出了未来的研究思路与方向。     

From customer motivation to corporate performance. The role of strategic factors and distribution channels of financial service firms

This research analyzes the relationship between strategic factors and distribution channels and the performance of financial service firms, based on the theory of distribution channels and the resource-based view. Using structural equation modeling, the study examines a sample of 252 insurance firms operating in the Iberian Peninsula. The empirical analysis provides conclusive evidence that strategic factors have an influence on the firm’s distribution channels and performance. It also confirms that internal and external determinant factors as well as customer motivation have an influence on strategic factors.     

企业成长过程中的社会责任认知与行动战略

文章从利益相关者角度出发,以一个动态的视角来考察企业成长与企业社会责任之间的关系。通过对319份有效问卷的实证分析,文章基本证实了不同规模的企业、处在不同生命周期阶段的企业对社会责任的认知是存有差异的,企业在不断成长的过程中会采用不同的行动战略来承担社会责任。强求所有的企业都承担等量的社会责任,不仅不利于企业的持续成长,相反还会阻碍企业在承担社会责任方面采取实际行动。     

Strategic reference points in family firms

Family firms are classically seen as risk averse organizations, and this is evident in their generally lower R&D investments compared to non-family firms. Recent research, however, challenges this predominant view and suggests that family firms can embrace higher strategic risk when faced with threats to their family-centered goals. Still, the internal and external conditions that drive variations in the strategic risk taking behaviors of family firms are little known and understood. This article adds to this literature by developing and testing a conceptual model of strategic risk taking that incorporates behavioral theory, family business literature, and the logic of the strategic reference point theory. With recognition that the interplay between family and economic goals determines heterogeneity in strategic actions of family firms, this model suggests that family managers respond differentially to the feedback information regarding internal and external reference points, and consequently identifies key drivers of variation in the R&D investment behavior of family firms. By examining the pattern in R&D investments of 437 Spanish private manufacturing firms from 2000 to 2006, this study shows how strategic inputs, strategic outputs, and external benchmarks produce variations in strategic decisions about R&D investments in family and non-family firms. The findings offer insights into how internal and external reference points are considered in family firms’ decision making, thereby contributing a deeper understanding into the circumstances under which family goals cope or collide with the economic goals of the firm, and how this influences strategic risk decisions in family firms.     

Seizing Opportunities: The Moderating Role of Managerial Characteristics on the Relationship between Opportunity‐Seeking and Innovation Efficacy in Small Businesses

We draw from regulatory focus theory to examine the relationship between a focus on opportunities through strategic orientation and entrepreneurial culture and managerial reports of innovation efficacy in small businesses. We propose that manager goals and behaviors moderate these relationships. Hypotheses were tested on a sample of 352 small employer firms. Findings support that strategic orientation positively associates with innovation efficacy and that this relationship is stronger under low managerial direction behaviors. Entrepreneurial culture positively associates with innovation efficacy when managers focus on profit and growth goals and under high managerial direction behaviors.     

Upstream internationalization process: Roles of social capital in creating exploratory capability and market performance

This paper investigates to what extent resource governance of international ventures affects dynamic capability and market performance in the high-tech firms’ internationalization process. We examine the non-equity-based international network collaborations of high-tech firms as forms of strategic resource seeking within the internationalization process. Within the context of upstream technology collaborations by international software and hardware firms, this paper proposes and empirically examines the impact of resource governance mechanisms (i.e. trust-building and behavioral monitoring) on the exploratory capabilities of firms. The findings indicate that building trust in the internationalization process of network ventures contributes to the firm-level exploratory capabilities and, in turn, market performance. Furthermore, this paper tests the moderating effects of structural capital on the capability–performance relationship. The relationship is stronger when network relationships existed before the inception of the international technology alliance. We also find a negative moderating effect from the existence of an actual alliance and from network duration on the relationship between exploratory capability and market performance. To this end, the longevity of the alliance may not always be something firms should aim for. The paper highlights the criticality of relational and structural capital in the internationalization process and the importance of exploratory capability for creating radical innovation in high-tech industries.     

Exploring the relationship between strategic reactiveness and entrepreneurial orientation: The role of structure–style fit

Theory suggests that firms may derive the greatest benefits from an entrepreneurial orientation (EO) when they concurrently exhibit a high degree of strategic reactiveness. This paper explores the relationship between strategic reactiveness and EO as well as the moderating effect of structure–style fit on this relationship. Data collected from 110 manufacturing firms indicate that strategic reactiveness is not significantly related to EO. However, firms that exhibit theoretically-congruent alignments between their organization structures and top management decision-making styles tend to have positive strategic reactiveness–EO relationships.     

企业国际化研究新视角 ——战略控制力

本文针对现有企业国际化理论缺乏战略因素综合考虑的研究现状,从战略控制力的视角对企业国际化问题进行研究,剖析了企业国际化战略控制力的内涵与特征,并提出了国际化战略控制力五要素,指出国际化战略控制力是维持企业国际化持续发展和优胜地位的根源,同时对中国大企业国际化战略控制力的构建问题进行了有益探讨。     

Revisiting the fit–performance thesis half a century later: a historical financial analysis of Chandler's own matched and mismatched firms

This study revisits Chandler's seminal work Strategy and Structure (1962) empirically. This work helped fashion the notion of strategic fit as well as the need for new organisational forms. Chandler's fit–performance thesis proposes that firms which match structure to their strategy will become economically more efficient than mismatched firms. The very same firms Chandler studied are analysed financially as their structure evolves through successive phases of being matched to their strategy, mismatched, and then finally matched again. Over 70 longitudinal tests are performed, yielding mostly statistically significant results. These tests surprisingly suggest that mismatched firms generally outperform firms that match structure to strategy. Such results matter in light of new conceptual approaches being introduced on the subject of ‘fit’; novel plausible explanations are provided for this apparent theoretical paradox.     

Managing Corporate Sustainability with a Paradoxical Lens: Lessons from Strategic Agility

Corporate sustainability introduces multiple tensions or paradoxes into organisations which defy traditional approaches such as trading-off contrasting options. We examine an alternative approach: to manage corporate sustainability with a paradoxical lens where contradictory elements are managed concurrently. Drawing on paradox theory, we focus on two specific pathways: to the organisation-wide acceptance of paradox and to paradoxical resolution. Introducing the concept of strategic agility, we argue that strategically agile organisations are better placed to navigate these paradox pathways. Strategic agility comprises three organisational meta-capabilities: strategic sensitivity, collective commitment, and resource fluidity. We propose that strategically agile organisations draw on strategic sensitivity and collective commitment to achieve organisation-wide acceptance of paradox, and collective commitment and resource fluidity to achieve paradoxical resolution. For each of these meta-capabilities, we identify three organisational practices and processes specifically related to corporate sustainability that organisations can leverage in pursuit of strategic agility. We offer a conceptual framework depicting the strategic agility meta-capabilities, and associated practices and processes, which organisations draw on to successfully manage corporate sustainability with a paradoxical lens.     

The development of new products: The role of firm context and managerial cognition

We explore the effect of organizational factors and managerial cognition on firms' entrepreneurial actions and investigate the relationship between these antecedents by drawing from prior work on corporate entrepreneurship, managerial cognition, and the attention-based view of the firm. The analysis of data from 84 firms shows that firm strategy and resources influence the degree of negativity with which managers interpret events that lead to the development of new products. Our results also suggest that more negative evaluations of the triggering event lead to less innovative new products. While the strategy and the resources of a firm also have an effect on a new product's degree of innovativeness, at least part of this effect is mediated by executives' evaluation of the triggering event. The theoretical elaboration and our results contribute to a better understanding of the drivers of corporate entrepreneurial activities and point to the importance of considering both managerial and organizational factors for advancing our knowledge on firms' entrepreneurial actions.     

Micro-foundations of organizational design and sustainability: The mediating role of learning ambidexterity

This paper builds on prior scholarly works by examining the relationship between organizing paradox (formalization and decentralization), and organizational levels of learning paradoxes, i.e. exploration and exploitation, and firms’ outcomes (organizational creativity, organizational resilience and organizational energy). Using data from 98 executives and 325 senior employees working across a diverse range of firms operating in the Middle East, the findings suggest that organizing paradox (formalization and decentralization) has a positive impact on learning ambidexterity. In addition, we also found that learning ambidexterity has a positive impact on both organizational resilience and organizational energy. Furthermore, the results indicate that learning ambidexterity mediates the relationship between organizing paradox and organizational creativity. These findings provide important insights into the micro-foundation aspects of organizational ambidexterity.     

信任与战略决策绩效:对中国家族企业高层管理团队的一个实证研究

大量文献讨论了我国私营企业中的“信任”问题;许多轶闻式的证据也表明,私营企业高层管理团队成员的彼此信任程度极大地影响了其绩效和成长。本文试图从高层管理团队的角度,探讨信任与企业战略决策绩效的关系,并揭示高层管理团队内信任的影响因素。通过实证研究发现,我国私营企业高层管理团队内的信任度与团队成员间的社会交往程度有非常密切的联系,同时,信任度直接影响了高管层的战略决策绩效。     

Why Do Managers Leave Their Organization? Investigating the Role of Ethical Organizational Culture in Managerial Turnover

This study contributes to the corporate social responsibility, stakeholder theory, and executive succession literature by examining the effect of corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR) on strategic leadership turnover. We theorize that firms’ CSiR increases the likelihood of executive turnover. We also investigate the nature of succession (non-voluntary or voluntary succession) and successor origin (internal candidate or external candidate) following CSiR. We further examine how the CSiR–CEO succession relationship is moderated by firm visibility to stakeholders and industry dynamism. Our results, based on a dataset of 248 U.S. public firms between 2001 and 2008, provide evidence that firms’ CSiR affects what is conventionally seen as primarily a market-driven decision on executive turnover, especially when firms operate in a more dynamic industry. Research contributions and implications are discussed.     

Performance feedback and export intensity of Chinese private firms: Moderating roles of institution-related factors

Building on the behavioral theory of the firm and institutional view, we examine how performance feedback (i.e., a focal firm’s performance relative to its industry peers) affects export intensity and how institution-related factors moderate this relationship. Using a sample of Chinese private manufacturing firms, we find that positive performance feedback lowers export intensity while the relationship between negative performance feedback and export intensity is insignificant. Moreover, outperforming firms are likely to decrease their export intensity even more when they are located in regions of better institutional development or have political connections. Underperforming firms with political connections tend to increase their export intensity. These findings enrich our understanding of the export behavior of emerging market firms.