Problem‐formulation and problem‐solving in self‐organized communities: How modes of communication shape project behaviors in the free open‐source software community

Research summary: Building on the problem‐solving perspective, we study behaviors related to projects and the communication‐based antecedents of such behaviors in the free open‐source software (FOSS) community. We examine two kinds of problem/project‐behaviors: Individuals can set up projects around the formulation of new problems or join existing projects and define and/or work on subproblems within an existing problem. The choice between these two behaviors is influenced by the mode of communication. A communication mode with little a priori structure is the best mode for communicating about new problems (i.e., formulating a problem); empirically, it is associated with project launching behaviors. In contrast, more structured communication fits subproblems better and is related to project joining behaviors. Our hypotheses derive support from data from the FOSS community. Managerial summary: We study how the way in which individuals communicate influence the project‐behaviors they engage in. We find that relatively unstructured communication is associated with the setting up new projects, while communication that is structured around an artifact is associated with joining projects. Our findings hold implications for understanding how management may influence project behaviors and problem‐solving: Firms that need to concentrate on more incremental problem‐solving efforts (e.g., because a sufficient number of attractive problems have already been defined) should create environments in which interaction is undertaken mainly via artifacts. On the other hand, if firms seek to generate new problems (e.g., new strategic opportunities), they should create environments in which open‐ended, verbal conversation is relatively more important than artifact‐based communication. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Competitive drivers and international plant configuration strategies: a product‐level test

We analyze the determinants of the decision to invest abroad and the choice of spatial configurations of overseas plants for 120 Japanese firms active in 36 well‐defined electronic product markets. We find that key competitive drivers at the firm and industry levels have a critical impact on the choice between alternative international plant configurations. Regional configurations focused on Asia are chosen by firms with weaker competitiveness for products with established manufacturing technologies. Plant configurations focused on the United States and the European Union are chosen by technology‐intensive firms facing competitive threats in foreign markets. Global configurations are chosen by firms with a strong competitive position in the Japanese and world market for their core product businesses and are more common in the case of strong oligopolistic rivalry between Japanese firms. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A rational‐expectations revision of Makadok's resource/capability synthesis

Makadok has recently developed a mathematical model aimed at synthesizing the resource‐based and dynamic‐capabilities views of the rent creation process. One unstated implicit assumption in that model is that each bidding firm in the resource market is ignorant not only of the content of rival firms' private information, but also of the quality (i.e., the noisiness or reliability) of that information. Consequently, that model does not qualify as a rational‐expectations Bayesian Nash equilibrium—a fact that both generates questionable results (e.g., the possibility of negative expected profits) and impedes any effort to extend the model. The rational‐expectations critique in economics points out that this sort of nonrational assumption becomes increasingly implausible as economic actors learn more about each other's patterns over time through repeated interactions (in this case, as bidders repeatedly compete against each other to buy different resources over time). So, over the long run, the only truly stable, viable, and robust assumption would be rational‐expectations behavior. The primary purpose of this paper is to put Makadok's model on the firmer methodological footing of rational‐expectations Bayesian Nash equilibrium, so that it will no longer generate questionable results, and so that future researchers can more easily extend it. The secondary purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that this shift to rational‐expectations assumptions has little substantive impact on the testable hypotheses generated by Makadok's original model. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

University‐industry collaboration and front‐end success: the moderating effects of innovativeness and parallel cross‐firm collaboration

Collaboration with science‐based and/or market‐based partners is a promising means for firms’ R&D groups to leverage complementary expertise and resources to generate innovative results. However, R&D managers face the dilemma which partner type to choose in different innovative contexts and whether to focus on one partner type or to integrate both types in early stage R&D. Using survey data from 166 heads of R&D groups, this study investigates university–industry collaboration’s impact on front‐end success depending on the degree of innovativeness and the interaction with other industry partners. The results confirm an overall positive relationship between university–industry collaboration and front‐end success. However, innovativeness increases complexity in this relationship. Parallel collaboration with firms and universities can have a mixed impact on front‐end success depending on the degree of innovativeness. This simultaneous collaboration with firms and universities strengthens front‐end success for more radical innovations, while parallel collaboration activities for more incremental innovations do not necessarily strengthen front‐end success. These findings imply that both collaboration types should be used simultaneously in the front end of radical innovation and that firms could reduce complexity by focusing on either firms or universities as partners for incremental innovations.     

A tale of two effects: Using longitudinal data to compare within‐ and between‐firm effects

Research summary : We investigate the theoretical and empirical implications of longitudinal data in strategy research. Theoretically, longitudinal data allow strategy researchers to distinguish between relationships among constructs within versus between firms. Empirically, longitudinal data contain information about two types of relationships: within‐ and between‐firm. We describe how the hybrid approach, a technique used in other disciplines, disentangles within‐ and between‐firm relationships. We reexamine a study of research and development expenditures to illustrate the advantages of the hybrid approach. Based on our theory and reexamination, we offer a series of recommendations for researchers using longitudinal data to test theoretical perspectives . Managerial summary: Strategy research examines two sources of variation over time: what is occurring within the firm (e.g., Do firms perform better over time when investing more in R&D?) and what is occurring between firms (e.g., Do firms investing more in R&D outperform firms investing less in R&D?). These two sources may be similar or different in both direction and magnitude, and when significant differences exist in either direction or magnitude, researchers must carefully consider the implication of these differences to their theoretical rationale and statistical testing. Our article highlights the benefits of theorizing and testing these two sources of variance, providing scholars the ability to broaden both the theoretical and empirical contribution of their research. This distinction is important to how research informs managerial decision making . Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluating Product‐Centric Continuous Improvements: Impact on Competitive Capabilities and Business Performance

Product‐centric continuous improvements (CIs) are actions via which firms modify the design of a product after the start of its production and release into the market. Product‐centric CIs are initiated to help build competitive capabilities and sustain competitive advantage throughout the product life cycle. This study complements the perspective pervasive in the extant literature that actions related to product‐centric CIs can be disruptive to firms and be associated with negative performance consequences. It investigates a topic that is relatively much less researched, namely the upside potential of product‐centric CIs. The empirical analysis is based on data collected from 144 plants in the United States representing process and discrete part manufacturing industries. Specifically, the study analyzes the impact of product‐centric CIs on competitive capabilities and business performance. The results of the empirical analysis indicate the following: First, there exist two categories of product‐centric CIs: (1) actions for quality improvement and (2) actions for cost reduction. Second, while there is a positive association between each type of CI and the intended competitive capability, there also is a trade‐off—i.e., actions for quality improvement increase quality capability but reduce cost capability, and vice versa. Third, there is a strong linkage between business performance and quality capability, but not cost capability. All in all, the study presents empirical evidence that product‐centric CIs have a significant impact on competitive capabilities related to quality and cost, and, in turn, have an impact on business performance. From the standpoint of practice, the study suggests that product‐centric CIs should be managed to develop competitive capabilities and improve business performance.     

Telecom reforms in the EU: Prices and consumers' satisfaction

The paper shows the impact of privatization and liberalization on consumers in the telecommunication sector for 15 EU countries. Policy reforms are summarized by the OECD regulatory indicators (REGREF) that consider the extent of privatization, vertical disintegration, and market entry. After controlling for other country variables, first, a test of the impact of ownership and regulatory changes on consumer prices is given. In the second step, the Eurobarometer data on consumers' satisfaction about quality and prices of the telecommunication service are considered. The analysis confirms the importance of market regulation in reducing prices but minimizes the role played by privatization per se. Overall, the findings offer only mixed evidence, and somehow contradict, the hypothesis that all the reforms work in a similar way across the EU countries.     

She'‐e‐os: gender effects and investor reactions to the announcements of top executive appointments

This study uses Kanter's token status theory to link announcements of top executives to shareholder reactions, highlighting possible gender effects. Using a sample of top executive announcements from 1990 to 2000, our results show that investor reactions to the announcements of female CEOs are significantly more negative than those of their male counterparts. Furthermore, women who have been promoted from within a firm are viewed more positively than women who come from outside. To supplement our analysis of investor reactions, we also analyze the text of popular press articles surrounding the announcements of male and female CEOs. These results show that articles about the appointment of a female CEO tend to emphasize gender, gender‐related and other job or organizational considerations. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Performance consequences of new CEO ‘Outsiderness’: Moderating effects of pre‐ and post‐succession contexts

This study seeks to reconcile inconsistent findings on the performance consequences of new CEO origin. Drawing on five decades of empirical research on CEO succession outcomes, I develop a more refined theoretical conceptualization and a finer‐grained measurement of the underlying construct of the insider vs. outsider CEO, and build and test a more comprehensive and nuanced framework of the succession context. A longitudinal investigation of the U.S. airline and chemical industries (1972–2002) indicates that new CEO ‘Outsiderness’, conceptualized as a continuum raging from new CEOs who have a greater combination of firm and industry tenure to those who have no experience in the firm and the industry, has no main effect on post‐succession firm performance. However, significant moderating effects are found when environmental munificence, pre‐succession firm performance, and concomitant strategic and senior executive team changes are considered. Together, these findings highlight the need to consider both pre‐ and post‐succession contextual factors for evaluating the performance effects of new CEO outsiderness. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Innovation orientations and their effects on business performance: contrasting small‐ and medium‐sized service firms

This study examines the relative performance of small‐ versus medium‐sized service firms with respect to innovation orientations and their effect on business performance. We examine the effect of innovation on business performance between the two groups of firms, exploring differences in innovation orientation on performance between the groups of small‐ and medium‐sized firms. We also examine differences within each group, exploring the extent to which innovation focus differs within each group. The empirical data were drawn from 180 managers in Australian service small and medium enterprises. The findings suggest that while there is no difference between small‐ and medium‐sized firms with respect to their innovation orientations, significant differences exist between the firm's size with respect to the effect of innovation orientations on business performance. Specifically, exploitation innovation has a stronger effect on business performance among small firms compared with medium‐sized firms, and exploration innovation shows a stronger effect on business performance among medium‐sized firms compared with small firms. Overall, the findings show important relative differences between innovation orientations and business performance across different sized firms.     

The Effect of Graduated Response Anti‐Piracy Laws on Music Sales: Evidence from an Event Study in France

Despite the problem that filesharing poses to the creative industries, there is little research on the effectiveness of governmental anti‐piracy policies. This study analyzes how the HADOPI ² graduated response law in France affected digital music sales. Using a panel of sales data from the four major labels, we applied a difference‐in‐difference approach, comparing sales trends in France to a control group of European countries. We find that increased consumer awareness of HADOPI caused French iTunes music sales to increase by 22‐25%. The observed sales increase is larger in high piracy genres than low piracy ones, strengthening the causal interpretation of our results.     

Cooperative goals and team performance: Examining the effects of advice network

Based on the theory of cooperation and competition, this study examines the relationships between cooperative goals, advice network, and team performance, and their boundary conditions. Based on multi-source data from 189 teams in a military organization, results indicate that cooperative goals positively influence team performance via advice network density. Moreover, advice network centralization moderates the relationship between advice network density and team performance. In addition, advice network centralization moderates the indirect effect of cooperative goals on team performance via advice network density.     

Rivalry within strategic groups and consequences for performance: the firm‐size effects

Our study examines how, in a given industry, rivalry functions within strategic groups defined according to the size of their member firms and how this rivalry affects performance. We hypothesize that, owing to several forms of group‐level effects including market power, efficiency, differentiation, and multimarket contact, strategic groups that comprise smaller firms will exhibit both increased rivalry and decreased performance compared with strategic groups that comprise larger firms. We test our hypotheses by estimating the effect of group‐level strategic interactions (i.e., conjectural variations) on firm performance. Ultimately, our analysis of empirical data on loans in the Spanish banking industry demonstrates that increased rivalry and decreased performance indeed characterizes firms belonging to a strategic group that comprises smaller firms. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Network effects in mobile telecommunications markets: A comparative analysis of consumers' preferences in five Latin American countries

It has been shown that the presence of demand-side externalities can induce the market to benefit the largest firms in terms of market share, usually named as network effect by the theoretical literature. On the one hand, macro-level approach in the empirical literature of network effects commonly use the assumption that a network's overall size matters more to consumers' decisions (global network effects). On the other hand, micro-level studies have suggested that social networks are more relevant to consumers' choices than the overall network size (local network effects). Based on microdata from five Latin American countries, we compare the choice of a particular operator over choosing the largest operator by individual consumers. Our research shows that country-level network size is one among a set factors that determine consumers' choices of mobile operators, once individual and operators' country presence heterogeneity are considered. We find that consumers' local network decisions are important for the choice of operator in the majority of cases considered, and that this result is conditional on the chosen operator's market share. Furthermore, network characteristics and consumer preferences, such as coverage, tariffs, and network importance also affect the choice of mobile network for the Latin American context.     

Flexible work designs and employee well‐being: examining the effects of resources and demands

Advances in communication technology continue to expand the possibilities for redesigning work environments to allow for temporal and spatial flexibility. Although flexible work designs (FWDs) are typically launched with high expectations, recent research shows that FWDs also pose challenges to employees and can even impede employee well‐being. Based on the Job Demands–Resources model, we argue that FWDs offer both advantages (FWD‐related resources) and challenges (FWD‐related demands) to employee well‐being. The results (n = 999) show that FWDs are related to employee well‐being through several positive and one negative pathways. FWDs are positively associated with employee well‐being through enhanced work/life balance, autonomy, and effective communication and negatively associated with employee well‐being through increased interruptions. Thus, we introduce a framework that reveals the underlying positive and negative mechanisms in the relationship between FWDs and employee well‐being.     

Non‐R&D innovation and firms’ new product performance: the joint moderating effect of R&D intensity and network embeddedness

Non‐R&D innovation increasingly plays a critical role in explaining firms’ new product performance. Yet, there has been little research on the consequences and contingent mechanisms of non‐R&D innovation for firms embedded in collaborative network environments. To address this research gap, we investigated a conceptual framework of non‐R&D innovation using data drawn from Chinese manufacturing firms. First, we found that non‐R&D innovation positively affects firms’ new product performance. Second, we discovered that high R&D intensity positively strengthens the impact of firms’ non‐R&D innovation on new product performance. Third, we provided critical analysis of the role of non‐R&D innovation in promoting new product performance, accomplished by enhancing R&D investment while simultaneously improving the degree of network embeddedness. Our findings extend both the non‐R&D innovation literature and open innovation literature while providing managers with several key recommendations.     

Absorptive and desorptive capacity‐related practices at the network level – the case of SEMATECH

Previous research has predominantly conceptualized absorptive capacity as an intraorganizational phenomenon, primarily by means of quantitative methods. In contrast, this research develops a practice‐based understanding of how an interorganizational network can engage in network absorptive and desorptive capacity‐related (NAC and NDC respectively) activities. SEMiconductor MAnufacturing TECHnologies(SEMATECH) is an interorganizational network to develop innovative semiconductor manufacturing solutions globally. Based upon an in‐depth case study of SEMATECH we add to the literature as follows: first, we introduce NAC and NDC, venturing beyond the organization or dyad as the unit of analysis. Second, we adopt a practice perspective in order to illustrate how SEMATECH is able to engage in NAC‐ and NDC‐related activities, primarily by means of three practices, that is, congregating, roadmapping and offering access. These practices re‐inform each other, allowing SEMATECH, in effect, to coordinate the network's knowledge‐related activities with regard to knowledge outside of the network.     

Changing the record: the inter‐professional,subjective and embodied effects of electronic patient records

Electronic patient record systems promise to optimise the delivery of health care. However, changing the record can disrupt established health‐care work and organisation, producing less than optimum outcomes. Changing the record may not only change what health‐care professionals do but may also change their understandings of work and self.     

The relationship between product and international diversification: the effects of short‐run constraints and endogeneity

We examine the relationship between growth along the product and international dimension in the short run. We argue that while the presence of fungible intangible resources and economies of scope may create opportunities for a firm to expand along both dimensions, the effect of short‐ run constraints may lead to a trade‐off and a negative association between the two dimensions. In addition, we suggest that rather than being independent, decisions concerning the extent of growth along the two dimensions are likely to be made simultaneously and endogenously by firms after taking into consideration the availability of various resources. We test these propositions by observing a sample of 1,299 firms over the period of 1993–1997. Our results show strong evidence of endogeneity and a negative association between growth along the two dimensions. These findings provide important support for theories of firm growth that have long held that firms are limited in the number of opportunities they can exploit in the short run by various constraints. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Role of network structure and network effects in diffusion of innovations

Why does diffusion of innovation sometimes propagate throughout the whole population, and why at other times does it halt in its interim process? The current paper provides a potential answer to this question by developing a simple computational model of social networks. The proposed computational approach incorporating small-world graphs enables the authors to find that diffusion of innovation is more likely to fail in a random network than in a highly clustered network of consumers. A marketing implication is that the choice of initial target groups and their network structures matter in influencing whether an innovation makes full or partial penetration, in markets where network effects plays a role.