Reunited: Exploring the effects of tie reactivation on newcomers' performance in interdependent organizations

Thesis advisor: Candace JonesManagement scholars have rarely analyzed how prior social networks might help or hinder the job performance of new organizational members. However, internal and external job markets are increasingly characterized by high mobility of experienced professionals, who have extensive social networks rooted in their past collaborations and shared work experiences. Organizations rely more frequently on project teams and project-based organizing to perform interdependent tasks, so employees transition more often across project teams - and firms - in their boundary-less careers. These changes call for a better understanding of whether the reactivation of past social ties is likely to help or hinder the job performance of new employees, especially those engaged in highly interdependent tasks. The object of this study is to theorize and empirically test the mechanisms by which the reactivation of a particular social tie - shared work experience - may impact new members' performance. Using a social networks lens to study new members' organizational entries, this study not only contributes to the recent fast-growing literature on the reactivation of social ties, but also to studies on new members' performance, and has considerable relevance for enhancing an organization's performance through the better management of its expert workers' human and social capital.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013.Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management.Discipline: Management and Organization

On the relationship between firms and their legal environment: The role of cultural consonance

In this study we seek to reconcile diverging dominant views on the relationship between firms and their legal environment by offering a cultural contingency perspective.We begin by accepting the notion that a new law will likely exert a powerful influence on targeted firms and that firms’ strategic responses include efforts to shape the impact of the new law. However, we suggest that the success of such response will be contingent on the degree of cultural consonance of firms’ strategic responses and the dominant cultural context at that time. We elaborate this view in our detailed qualitative and quantitative analyses of the automotive Safety Act of 1966 and the response by targeted firms. We provide evidence showing that the changes in the degree of cultural consonance of firms' strategic response and the predominant cultural beliefs/values explain both the early failure of firms’ efforts to shape the impact of the law in the mid-1960s and the later success by the end of the 1970s. We highlight how firms’ cultural context provides both a constraint and an opportunity for firms seeking to shape legal environmental pressures, and we conclude by discussing the implications of our dynamic contingency perspective for research on law, culture, and strategy

Big fish, big pond? The joint effect of formal and informal core-periphery positions on the generation of incremental innovations

In this paper, we apply a core/periphery framework to an intraorganizational context to study the interplay between formal and informal core/periphery structures. Specifically, we consider how core positions occupied by inventors in the corporate research and development division of a large multinational high-tech company affect their ability to generate incremental innovations. We theorize and empirically observe that formal and informal core positions have positive and independent effects on the generation of incremental innovations. These effects have a multiplicative impact on innovative productivity when inventors who are core in the informal knowledge-sharing network are also affiliated with a core organizational unit. We also observe, however, that the positive effect of being located at the core of both the informal and formal structures is negatively moderated by individuals’ distribution of knowledge ties when these reach outside the core of their informal knowledge-sharing network

On the relationship between firms and their legal environment: The role of cultural consonance

In this study we seek to reconcile diverging dominant views on the relationship between firms and their legal environment by offering a cultural contingency perspective.We begin by accepting the notion that a new law will likely exert a powerful influence on targeted firms and that firms’ strategic responses include efforts to shape the impact of the new law. However, we suggest that the success of such response will be contingent on the degree of cultural consonance of firms’ strategic responses and the dominant cultural context at that time. We elaborate this view in our detailed qualitative and quantitative analyses of the automotive Safety Act of 1966 and the response by targeted firms. We provide evidence showing that the changes in the degree of cultural consonance of firms' strategic response and the predominant cultural beliefs/values explain both the early failure of firms’ efforts to shape the impact of the law in the mid-1960s and the later success by the end of the 1970s. We highlight how firms’ cultural context provides both a constraint and an opportunity for firms seeking to shape legal environmental pressures, and we conclude by discussing the implications of our dynamic contingency perspective for research on law, culture, and strategy

Free-riding in multi-party alliances: The role of perceived alliance effectiveness and peers' collaboration in a research consortium

International audienceMulti-party alliances rely on partners' willingness to commit and pool their efforts in joint endeavors. However, partners face the dilemma of how much to commit to the alliance. We shed light on this issue by analyzing the relationship between partners' free-riding-defined as their effort-withholding-and their perceptions of alliance effectiveness and peers' collaboration. Specifically, we posit a U-shaped relationship between partners' subjective evaluations of alliance effectiveness and their free-riding. We also hypothesize a negative relation between partners' perceptions of the collaboration of peer organizations and their free-riding. Results from a mixed-method study-combining regression analysis of primary data on a major inter-organizational research consortium and evidence from two experimental designs-support our hypotheses, bearing implications for the multi-party alliances literature. Managerial summary: Free-riding is a major concern in multi-party alliances such as large research consortia, since the performance of these governance forms hinges on the joint contribution of multiple partners that often operate according to different logics (e.g., universities, firms, and government agencies). We show that, in such alliances, partners' perceptions have relevant implications for their willingness to contribute to the consortium's shared goals. Specifically, we find that partners free-ride more-that is, contribute less-when they perceive the effectiveness of the overall alliance to be either very low or very high. Partners also gauge their commitment to the alliance on the perception of the effort of their peers-that is, other organizations similar to them. These findings provide managers of multi-party alliances with additional levers to motivate partners to contribute fairly to such joint endeavor