Homophily and Individual Performance

We study the relationship between choice homophily in instrumental relationships and individual performance in knowledge-intensive organizations. Although homophily should make it easier for people to get access to some colleagues, it may also lead to neglecting relationships with other colleagues, reducing the diversity of information people access through their network. Using data on instrumental ties between bonus-eligible employees in the equity sales and trading division of a global investment bank, we show that the relationship between an employee’s choice of similar colleagues and the employee’s performance is contingent on the position this employee occupies in the formal and informal hierarchy of the bank. More specifically, homophily is negatively associated with performance for bankers in the higher levels of the formal and informal hierarchy whereas the association is either positive or nonexistent for lower hierarchical levels. </jats:p

The making of a construct: Lessons from 30 years of the Kogut and Singh cultural distance index

The 30-year anniversary of Kogut and Singh’s (1988) groundbreaking study that introduced the concept of cultural distance and its accompanying measure provides the opportunity to take stock of what makes for a good construct. We organize our discussion around the issues of concept, algorithm, and data to clarify and gauge their contribution, before highlighting the impact of their work more generally. Many of the challenges raised by critical observers focus on one of these three dimensions. As there is value in looking systematically at the construct from concept to data, we set out the argument of the index and discuss the validity of selected lines of criticism. We identify a number of emergent and future directions for the conceptualization and measurement of cultural distance, to facilitate the continuing advancement of work on international business

WHAT DOES HOMOPHILY DO? A REVIEW OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF HOMOPHILY

Lee Kong Chian Fellowship, Singapore Management Universit

Reeling in the Slack:An Integrative Review to Reinstate Slack as a Central Theoretical Construct for Management Research

Slack is a prominent construct in management research, and has been shown to be relevant for a wide range of phenomena. Yet, despite slack’s prominence and breadth of application, our review reveals a lack of clarity and consistency in the categorization, theorizing, and measurement of various types and forms of slack. This has led to differences in the characterization and treatment of seemingly identical kinds of slack, which prevents full exploitation of the conceptual depth of the slack construct and thus the creation of robust knowledge about slack resources. Based on a review of 229 studies that explicitly theorized about slack, we identify two fundamental dimensions of the slack construct—availability and fungibility—that allow us to: (a) systematize and integrate past research about slack and its implications for organizations, (b) enrich and expand theorizing on slack by advancing a novel typology for understanding slack resourcing decisions and orchestration in organizations, and (c) reinvigorate and open new directions for future research on slack

Reeling in the Slack:An Integrative Review to Reinstate Slack as a Central Theoretical Construct for Management Research

Slack is a prominent construct in management research, and has been shown to be relevant for a wide range of phenomena. Yet, despite slack’s prominence and breadth of application, our review reveals a lack of clarity and consistency in the categorization, theorizing, and measurement of various types and forms of slack. This has led to differences in the characterization and treatment of seemingly identical kinds of slack, which prevents full exploitation of the conceptual depth of the slack construct and thus the creation of robust knowledge about slack resources. Based on a review of 229 studies that explicitly theorized about slack, we identify two fundamental dimensions of the slack construct—availability and fungibility—that allow us to: (a) systematize and integrate past research about slack and its implications for organizations, (b) enrich and expand theorizing on slack by advancing a novel typology for understanding slack resourcing decisions and orchestration in organizations, and (c) reinvigorate and open new directions for future research on slack

Trust across borders: A review of the research on interorganizational trust in international business

SMU Lee Kong Chian Fellowshi