82 research outputs found
Voice Flows To And Around Leaders: Understanding When Units Are Helped Or Hurt By Employee Voice
In two studies, we develop and test theory about the relationship between speaking up, one type of organizational citizenship behavior, and unit performance by accounting for where employee voice is flowing. Results from a qualitative study of managers and professionals across a variety of industries suggest that voice to targets at different formal power levels (peers or superiors) and locations in the organization (inside or outside a focal unit) differs systematically in terms of its usefulness in generating actions to a unit's benefit on the issues raised and in the likely information value of the ideas expressed. We then theorize how distinct voice flows should be differentially related to unit performance based on these core characteristics and test our hypotheses using time-lagged field data from 801 employees and their managers in 93 units across nine North American credit unions. Results demonstrate that voice flows are positively related to a unit's effectiveness when they are targeted at the focal leader of that unitwho should be able to take actionwhether from that leader's own subordinates or those in other units, and negatively related to a unit's effectiveness when they are targeted at coworkers who have little power to effect change. Together, these studies provide a structural framework for studying the nature and impact of multiple voice flows, some along formal reporting lines and others that reflect the informal communication structure within organizations. This research demonstrates that understanding the potential performance benefits and costs of voice for leaders and their units requires attention to the structure and complexity of multiple voice flows rather than to an undifferentiated amount of voice.Business Administratio
Anisotropic vortex pinning in superconductors with a square array of rectangular submicron holes
We investigate vortex pinning in thin superconducting films with a square
array of rectangular submicron holes ("antidots"). Two types of antidots are
considered: antidots fully perforating the superconducting film, and "blind
antidots", holes that perforate the film only up to a certain depth. In both
systems, we observe a distinct anisotropy in the pinning properties, reflected
in the critical current Ic, depending on the direction of the applied
electrical current: parallel to the long side of the antidots or perpendicular
to it. Although the mechanism responsible for the effect is very different in
the two systems, they both show a higher critical current and a sharper
IV-transition when the current is applied along the long side of the
rectangular antidots
The Social Climbing Game
The structure of a society depends, to some extent, on the incentives of the
individuals they are composed of. We study a stylized model of this interplay,
that suggests that the more individuals aim at climbing the social hierarchy,
the more society's hierarchy gets strong. Such a dependence is sharp, in the
sense that a persistent hierarchical order emerges abruptly when the preference
for social status gets larger than a threshold. This phase transition has its
origin in the fact that the presence of a well defined hierarchy allows agents
to climb it, thus reinforcing it, whereas in a "disordered" society it is
harder for agents to find out whom they should connect to in order to become
more central. Interestingly, a social order emerges when agents strive harder
to climb society and it results in a state of reduced social mobility, as a
consequence of ergodicity breaking, where climbing is more difficult.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure
Social Cohesion, Structural Holes, and a Tale of Two Measures
EMBARGOED - author can archive pre-print or post-print on any open access repository after 12 months from publication. Publication date is May 2013 so embargoed until May 2014.This is an author’s accepted manuscript (deposited at arXiv arXiv:1211.0719v2 [physics.soc-ph] ), which was subsequently published in Journal of Statistical Physics May 2013, Volume 151, Issue 3-4, pp 745-764. The final publication is available at link.springer.com http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10955-013-0722-
Commensurate and Incommensurate Vortex Lattice Melting in Periodic Pinning Arrays
We examine the melting of commensurate and incommensurate vortex lattices
interacting with square pinning arrays through the use of numerical
simulations. For weak pinning strength in the commensurate case we observe an
order-order transition from a commensurate square vortex lattice to a
triangular floating solid phase as a function of temperature. This floating
solid phase melts into a liquid at still higher temperature. For strong pinning
there is only a single transition from the square pinned lattice to the liquid
state. For strong pinning in the incommensurate case, we observe a multi-stage
melting in which the interstitial vortices become mobile first, followed by the
melting of the entire lattice, consistent with recent imaging experiments. The
initial motion of vortices in the incommensurate phase occurs by an exchange
process of interstitial vortices with vortices located at the pinning sites. We
have also examined the vortex melting behavior for higher matching fields and
find that a coexistence of a commensurate pinned vortex lattice with an
interstitial vortex liquid occurs while at higher temperatures the entire
vortex lattice melts. For triangular arrays at incommensurate fields higher
than the first matching field we observe that the initial vortex motion can
occur through a novel correlated ring excitation where a number of vortices can
rotate around a pinned vortex. We also discuss the relevance of our results to
recent experiments of colloidal particles interacting with periodic trap
arrays.Comment: 8 figure
Unique resources of corporate venture capitalists as a key to entry into rigid venture capital syndication networks
We investigate how corporate venture capitalists (CVCs) can rapidly attain central positions in venture capital syndication networks. Using data of CVC investments by U.S. corporations between 1996 and 2005, we complement prior research, which suggests that centrally positioned VCs predominantly invest together with other centrally positioned VCs. While we find clear support for the social network theory arguments that prior central positions in syndication networks significantly explain future network positions of CVCs, we also find a negative interaction effect between past centrality and corporate resources. This finding implies that resources of CVCs can substitute for their lack of prior centrality and allow them to gain rapidly central positions in rigid VC syndication networks
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