How HRM control affects boundary-spanning employees’ behavioural strategies and satisfaction : The moderating impact of cultural performance orientation

This study examines how cultural performance orientation moderates the influence of human resource management (HRM) controls on boundary-spanning employees’ behavioural strategies and satisfaction.HRM control; national culture; performance orientation; boundary-spanning employees; salespeople

Technological Innovation Performance Analysis Using Multilayer Networks: Evidence from the Printer Industry

Department of Management EngineeringThe importance of collaboration and technology boundary spanning has been emphasized in other inquiries into technological innovation. Therefore, this research project first tried to investigate the effect of collaboration on technology boundary spanning. Then, we investigated the effect of collaboration and technology boundary spanning on technological innovation within a firm by using a multilayer network to analyze patent data. The aim of this paper is to provide new insight into the process of analyzing patent data using multilayer networks. This empirical study is based on a sample of 408 firms within the printer industry from 1996 to 2005. Starting with a theoretical discussion of R&D collaboration, technology boundary spanning and innovation performance, the importance of a firm???s collaboration and technology boundary spanning in its technology innovation performance was empirically analyzed using patent data. We followed changes in collaboration networks, technology class networks and the connection between them and tried to find the meaning of those changes in firms??? technology innovation performances. We used degree centrality within the collaboration network and the ratio of collaborated patents to the total number of patents in order to measure a firm???s collaboration and formulated technology boundary spanning represented by exploitation and exploration by using edges of the multilayer network. As dependent variables, we used the number of patents and the average number of citations received over three, five, and 10 years to measure the firm???s quantitative and qualitative innovation performance respectively. The results of the analysis can be summarized as follows: a firm???s collaboration has positive effects on both exploitation and exploration. Firms with more collaborations show higher quantitative innovation performances while firms with more collaborations exhibit lower qualitative innovation performance. Exploitation has a positive impact on a firm???s quantitative innovation performance while exploration has negative effects on a firm???s quantitative innovation performance. The relationship between a firm???s exploration activities and a firm???s qualitative innovation performance manifests as an inverted U-shape. On the other hand, a firm???s exploitation activities have a U-shape relationship with the firm???s qualitative innovation performance. The implication of this study is that multilayer networks can be used to analyze patent data. This study used multilayer networks to formulate the exploitation and exploration only. However, in further research it can be utilized to find the hub firms that fuse technologies.clos

Effects of boundary conditions on the critical spanning probability

The fractions of samples spanning a lattice at its percolation threshold are found by computer simulation of random site-percolation in two- and three-dimensional hypercubic lattices using different boundary conditions. As a byproduct we find $p_c = 0.311605(5)$ in the cubic lattice.Comment: 8 pages Latex, To appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys.

The interplay between boundary spanning activities and social cohesion in new product development teams

Team boundary spanning represents a team’s actions to establish links and manage interactions with individuals and groups external to the team with the purpose of coordinating activities and accessing information, resources and political support. Research in NPD has shown that team boundary spanning activity positively influences new product performance. Thus, reaching outside the team and interacting with others can provide teams with valuable resources for NPD projects. However, access to external resources cannot guarantee new product performance if these resources are not considered by the NPD team. In this respect, recent work suggests that team-level psychological characteristics such as social cohesion could undermine team members’ motivation to use resources obtained via boundary spanning efforts. In light of the previous discussion, two important research questions arise: 1) Does social cohesion hinder the impact of team boundary spanning on new product performance? Is the relationship between team boundary spanning and social cohesion contingent on the type of task given to the team? The current study examines these two research questions using data from 140 NPD teams.Consideramos como actividades de expansión de fronteras de un equipo las acciones encaminadas a establecer vínculos y dirigir las interacciones con individuos y grupos externos al mismo realizadas con el propósito de coordinar tareas y acceder a información, recursos y apoyo político. La literatura sobre desarrollo de nuevos productos ha mostrado que ir más allá de los límites del propio equipo e interactuar con otros puede proveer al equipo con recursos valiosos para sus proyectos de innovación. Sin embargo, el merco acceso a recursos externos no garantiza el éxito del nuevo producto; los recursos han de ser utilizados. A este respecto, trabajos recientes sugieran que las características psicológicas a nivel equipo, por ejemplo, la cohesión social, pueden minar la motivación de los miembros del equipo para usar los recursos obtenidos a través de la realización de esfuerzos de expansión de fronteras. A la luz de esta consideración, en esta investigación nos planteamos dos cuestiones: ¿puede la cohesión social ocultar el impacto positivo de las actividades de expansión de fronteras en el resultado del nuevo producto? ¿Es la relación entre las actividades de expansión de fronteras y la cohesión social contingente con el tipo de tarea que realiza el equipo? El presente trabajo en curso examina estas dos cuestiones utilizando datos de 140 proyectos de desarrollo de nuevos productos