A Socio‐Psychological Perspective on Team Ambidexterity: The Contingency Role of Supportive Leadership Behaviours

In addressing the notion of team ambidexterity, we propose that socio‐psychological factors (i.e., team cohesion and team efficacy) may help team members to resolve paradoxical challenges and to combine exploratory and exploitative learning efforts. In addition, we theorize that senior executives may play an important role in facilitating the emergence of ambidexterity at lower hierarchical levels. In doing so, we develop a multilevel contingency framework and propose that the effectiveness of teams to achieve ambidexterity is contingent upon supportive leadership behaviours at the organizational‐level. Using multilevel, multisource, and temporally separated data on 87 teams within 37 high‐tech and pharmaceutical firms, we not only reveal how team cohesion and efficacy may matter for the emergence of team ambidexterity but also show that the effectiveness of supportive leadership behaviours from senior executives varies across cohesive and efficacious teams.     

Load Profiling: A California Application

In numerous places, events are rapidly leading to the development of regional power exchanges with visible hourly prices, which are open to purchases by "direct access" customers. Currently, the vast majority of smaller customers have meters that are not capable of recording hourly usage, so that these customers are effectively precluded from power exchange purchases. Load profiling is frequently suggested as an alternative to installation of hourly usage meters, which will allow smaller customers to participate in direct access. This article describes how direct access load profiling can be implemented, discusses the technical challenges, and reports the results of a simulation study.     

Absorptive capacity, innovation, and financial performance

This study here examines the role of absorptive capacity as both a mechanism to identify and translate external knowledge inflows into tangible benefits, as well as a means of achieving superior innovation and time-lagged financial performance. Using path analysis in a sample of 461 Greek enterprises participating in the third Community Innovation Survey, this study demonstrates that external knowledge inflows are directly related to absorptive capacity and indirectly related to innovation. Absorptive capacity contributes, directly and indirectly, to innovation and financial performance but in different time spans. This study, therefore, contributes to the understanding of absorptive capacity's antecedents and outcomes by providing empirical evidence of longitudinal form that offers important research and practical implications.     

International graduate students' perceptions and interest in international careers

This research developed and tested a comprehensive model of the antecedents of international graduate students' interest in an international career. Based largely on Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), the model included elements that pertain to perceptions of external constraints (perceptions of the labor market, family pressure to return), international student experience (adjustment in the foreign country during graduate studies, exposure and immersion to the international context) and individual factors (self-efficacy with respect to working abroad and outcome expectancy). Participants were 139 international graduate students in the UK. Individual factors and perceived constraints were directly related to interest in an international career. The factors that comprised current international student experience were indirectly related to interest via their relationship with self-efficacy, while adjustment moderated the relationship between self-efficacy and interest. Although the hypothesized moderating role of family pressure to return did not materialize, the findings suggest that perceptions of constraints play a more substantial role in the formation of interest than has been assumed by SCCT theory thus far. The findings are discussed with respect to their implications for the literature and for the policies of host country stakeholders.     

Dynamics of communication protocol diffusion: the case of multipath TCP

During the last decade the Internet has faced an architectural stagnation due to lack of wide scale adoption of new communication protocols. A significant reason for non-adoption is that the conflicting interests of networked stakeholders involved in the diffusion process are not understood or taken into account during the protocol development. This paper increases understanding of the dynamics of communication protocol diffusion and provides feedback to protocol development by studying the case of Multipath TCP (MPTCP). Firstly, we introduce a protocol development process which builds on the existing diffusion of innovation theories. Secondly, a quantitative analysis using system dynamics is provided to evaluate the criticality of the factors affecting the MPTCP diffusion. The diffusion of communication protocols is found to follow three adoption models differentiated by the basis of adoption decision. The key finding is that unintentional adoption, alongside device acquisitions or operating system updates, adds a new dimension to the diffusion of innovations theory and may have a significant impact on protocol diffusion. The cross-side network effects between different adopter groups play also an important role and may lead to either market pull or technology push type of diffusion depending on which stakeholder starts to adopt first. Although MPTCP is used as an example protocol, the findings can be also applied to the diffusion studies of other communication protocols.     

Mentoring receipt and personality: Evidence for non-linear relationships

The research investigates the relationship of the Big-Five of personality with mentoring receipt with the use of two independent studies. The findings of the studies show substantial consistency. Equations of quadratic form describe half of the tested relationships better than linear equations. The association of openness to experience and agreeableness with mentoring receipt is of inverted U-shape. The benefits of being open and agreeable for mentoring receipt cease to exist at high values of these traits. On the other hand, emotional stability and conscientiousness demonstrate exclusively positive linear relationships with mentoring receipt. The form of the relationship of extraversion differs between the two studies, but the overall trend is positive. The substantial quadratic component in the association of personality with receipt of mentoring means that research hitherto may be grossly underestimating the effects of personality on developmental relationships because earlier studies assume strictly linear associations. Parts of the results also imply that the associations of certain personality traits with mentoring receipt may depend upon the occupational context.     

Regional economic development and environmental repercussions: An environmental input-output approach

This study attempts to examine issues related to the existing adverse relationship between regional economic development and natural environment protection. For doing so, a regional environmental input-output model for the region of central Macedonia in northern Greece is constructed in order to quantify the direct and indirect undesirable negative effects of the production process in the natural environment. The results suggest that there is a considerable trade-off between economic development and environmental deterioration which should be taken into account when policy decisions are made. This paper benefitted from comments by the participants of the Forty-Seventh International Atlantic Economic Conference, Vienna, Austria, March 16–23, 1999.