Management and Strategy - HKU Business School

31 March

The Organizational Structure of Development and Firm Innovation

SPEAKER

Prof. Paola Criscuolo
Professor of Innovation Management
Business School
Imperial College London

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of centralization or decentralization of development activities on a firm’s development and commercialization outcomes. We hypothesize that although the centralization/decentralization of development and of research are afflicted by the same underlying trade-offs, these trade-offs are manifested in qualitatively distinct ways in development vs. research. Specifically, whereas centralization of research offers a primary benefit of enhancing the breadth of knowledge recombination (with a concomitant reduction in BU-specific knowledge creation), centralization of development offers a primary benefit of reducing duplication of development effort. The concomitant cost is that this satisficing version will not be ideal for any given business unit; on the margin, this leads to lower rates of commercialization of development’s outputs. To test these hypotheses, we exploit a unique dataset that is composed of all invention disclosures, including those for which it chose not to seek patent protection, submitted by R&D personnel at a global ICT company where the organization structure governing development activities shifted from a decentralized structure to a centralized one. Exploiting this shift in the organization of development activities, we examine subsequent changes in development outcomes. We find support for our hypotheses: The shift from decentralized to centralized development is associated with 1) reduced duplication across inventions by development personnel, and 2) reduced likelihood that an invention is commercialized.

09 March

Climbing the ranks: Knowledge diversification, promotions and managerial skills

SPEAKER

Dr. Shinjae Won
Assistant Professor
School of Labor and Employment Relations
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the invention histories and careers of 1319 inventors from the twenty most inventive firms in the pharmaceutical industry in the United States to study which scientists firms promote through the ranks. We propose that the association of diversification in past knowledge with promotions varies non-uniformly with rank. Scientists acquire managerial skills in the process of acquiring diversified knowledge through building superior coordination skills, having better ability to leverage relational capital, and an ability to relate to a wider scope of projects. Diversification is positively associated with promotion to the first managerial position, and thereafter with promotions within subsequent managerial roles. We further show that the association of diversification with promotions is positively moderated by rank, and that business education substitutes for diversified knowledge.

01 March

Quality Uncertainty and the Performance Benefits of Social Ties in Financial Markets

SPEAKER

Dr. Pavel I. Zhelyazkov
Assistant Professor of Management
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

ABSTRACT

Extensive research has demonstrated that organizational actors draw on their social ties in identifying future investment opportunities but has paid less attention to when and how such ties enable superior investment selection. Proceeding from the assumption that any such selection benefits derive from privileged access to private information, we hypothesize that interorganizational ties have their greater effects when the investor faces the highest level of quality uncertainty vis-à-vis the prospective target. We propose three sources of such quality uncertainty: i) lack of investment experience of the evaluator required to accurately assess targets; ii) geographic distance to prospective opportunities, which hinders due diligence processes; and iii) limited activity of the target, which makes it harder to evaluate its track record. We find support for our predictions in a longitudinal study of institutional investors (limited partners) investing in private equity funds. Our study demonstrates the presence of selection benefits of interorganizational ties in a novel empirical context, as well as previously unexplored boundary conditions to their effectiveness.

16 February

Singing Your Own Praises: Digital Cultural Production and Gender Inequality

SPEAKER

Dr. Abhishek Nagaraj
Assistant Professor in the Management and Organizations
Haas School of Business
University of California Berkeley

ABSTRACT

New technologies are constantly transforming how culture is produced. Production-of-culture scholars have long posited that technological change influences the diversity of content in cultural fields. But how does such change affect demographic diversity among producers of culture? We study the advent of digital recording technologies in the production of music, and ask whether their adoption has shifted the allocation of artistic gigs between male and female artists. If so, how? Specifically, we argue that digital cultural production has the potential to increase gender inequality. Digitization reduces barriers to entry, but also necessitates greater self-promotion on the part of artists to stand out in a crowded labor market. Insofar as male artists can promote themselves more readily than can female artists, digital cultural production inadvertently increases the allocation of artistic gigs to male artists, though this self-promotion deficit can be mitigated when women benefit from audience endorsements. We develop and test this theory using in-depth interviews and a novel quantitative dataset relating to the labor market for studio singers in the Indian Hindi film industry (“Bollywood”). This paper contributes to the study of culture, technology, labor markets and gender, and explores the implications of technological change for women in the arts.

10 February

The Value of Information in Competitive Markets: The Impact of Big Data on Small and Medium Enterprises

SPEAKER

Dr. Ricard Gil
Associate Professor
The Stephen J.R. Smith School of Business
Queen’s University

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we empirically investigate how the performance and decision-making of small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) change when gaining access to strategically valuable market information. To do so, we evaluate the impact of an unprecedented Big Data information-sharing service diffused at zero cost by a large European bank among its SMEs customers. Adopting firms had monthly access to reports elaborated by the bank with rich information about each firm’s clientele portfolio and that of its competitors. Using first-differences, we find adoption is associated with a 4.5% increase in establishment revenue, whereas IV estimation results show that adoption causally increases revenue by 9% for those establishments whose adoption decision is most strongly affected by the instrument. The main mechanism driving our result is that the new information prompted adopting establishments to target existing, yet unexploited, business opportunities. More specifically, we find adopting establishments increase their sales to underrepresented gender-age customer groups in their customer portfolio prior to adoption. Our evidence also suggests that adopting establishments shift sales between weekly peak and off-peak times. Because SMEs obtain substantial returns from information access, our findings suggest managerial inattention and high adoption costs are key factors deterring small firms from investing in resources to acquire and analyze market information.

26 January

Does Emotion Expression Variability Help or Hinder Leaders? Effects of Variability in Leaders’ Emotion Displays on Followers’ Perceptions of Leader Dysregulation, Authenticity, and Effectiveness

SPEAKER

Ms. Zaijia Liu
PhD Candidate in the Management Department (Organizational Behavior)
Columbia Business School

ABSTRACT

Does variability in leaders’ displays of emotion benefit or harm employees’ perceptions of their leaders? Prior research has provided mixed answers. Variability in leaders’ emotion expressions might undermine perceived leadership effectiveness because it makes leaders appear dysregulated. Yet, leaders’ emotion expression variability might also increase perceived leadership effectiveness because leaders who display more variability in their emotion expressions are perceived as more authentic. Six studies found support for the benefits of emotion expression variability in leadership judgments, including surveys with MBA students rating their most recent manager (Study 1a), full-time employees rating their long-term managers (Studies 1b and 5), a lab experiment involving a carefully controlled manipulation of emotion expression variability (Study 2), ratings of video-recorded professionals giving leadership speeches (Study 3), and ratings of leaders in real team competitions (Study 4). In each study, we found that variability in leaders’ emotion expression was associated with greater judgments of authenticity and consequently perceptions of greater leadership effectiveness. Theoretical and practical implications for emotion expression, impression management, and leader effectiveness are discussed.

21 January

Lifted Up or Feet on the Ground? Leader Emotional Balancing, Developmental Feedback, and Employee Learning

SPEAKER

Ms. Siyan Guo
PhD Candidate in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
Robert H. Smith School of Business
University of Maryland

ABSTRACT

In this dissertation, the concept of developmental feedback (DFB) is extended to include two dimensions, gap identification and gap elimination. I focus on the affective mechanisms underlying the DFB – learning relationship and identify trade-offs in each of the DFB dimensions. I argue that while gap elimination elicits employee positive affect (PA) that facilitates learning via increased learning self-efficacy, it undermines learning via PA and decreased learning need recognition. In addition, gap identification induces employee negative affect (NA) that works in the opposite way. Emotional balancing, or leaders’ dynamic engagement in both affect improving and affect worsening behaviors, is proposed to attenuate the negative mechanisms. I conducted a three-wave, multisource field study to test my theoretical model. The findings largely support my proposed model. The results indicate that gap identification induces employee NA, while gap elimination induces PA. Gap identification has a positive effect on learning via employee learning need recognition, but a negative effect on learning via employee NA and learning self-efficacy. I also find that gap elimination positively affects learning through PA and improved self-efficacy in learning. Importantly, the results demonstrate the beneficial effects of emotional balancing, which significantly moderates the outcomes of PA and NA. Taken together, these findings indicate that receiving DFB is a highly emotional experience that creates a tension between being lifted up and keeping feet on the ground, leaders can use emotional balancing to manage employee affect in order to facilitate learning.

17 January

Governing Social Issues on Platforms: Evidence from a Field Experiment

SPEAKER

Dr. Wesley W. Koo
Assistant Professor of Strategy
INSEAD

ABSTRACT

How to understand and address social issues is a topic of growing interest in the field of management and organizations. An important organizational form in the modern era is that of multi-sided platforms, which provide the interface for interactions among different types of participants. In this study, we investigate the ability of platforms to address social issues through private governance. We conducted a field experiment in collaboration with a Singapore-based online platform that connects domestic helpers with employers/families. This setting is characterized by various forms of socially harmful behavior from employers (e.g., not giving helper enough food, yelling at helpers). In the treatment conditions, we communicated to helpers and employers that the platform plans to implement a new rating system that allows helpers to rate employers. There are two sets of findings. First, employers did not react positively to the rating system, and employers’ dislike of the rating system is especially pronounced among high-income employers. Second, surprisingly, helpers did not like the rating system either, even though it was designed to help and empower them. In particular, the most vulnerable helpers (those who likely had experienced socially harmful behavior in the past) were especially likely to disapprove of the rating system. This study shows that significant frictions exist to impede a platform’s governance of social issues. Whereas the theory of indirect network effects predicts that governance that benefits one side of the platform would make the platform more attractive for both sides, this study shows that either side has their idiosyncratic reasons to reject platform governance.

14 January

To engage or not to engage with AI for critical judgments: How professionals deal with opacity when using AI for medical diagnosis

SPEAKER

Dr. Hila Lifshitz-Assaf
Associate Professor of Information, Operations and Management Sciences
Stern School of Business
New York University

ABSTRACT

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies promise to transform how professionals conduct knowledge work by augmenting their capabilities for making professional judgments. We know little, however, about how human-AI augmentation takes place in practice. Yet gaining this understanding is particularly important when professionals use AI tools to form judgments on critical decisions. We conducted an in-depth field study in a major US hospital where AI tools were used in three departments by diagnostic radiologists making breast cancer, lung cancer, and bone age determinations. The study illustrates the hindering effects of opacity that professionals experienced when using AI tools and explores how these professionals grappled with it in practice. In all three departments, this opacity resulted in professionals experiencing increased uncertainty because AI tool results often diverged from their initial judgment without providing underlying reasoning. Only in one department (of the three), did professionals consistently incorporate AI results into their final judgments, achieving what we call engaged augmentation. These professionals invested in AI interrogation practices – practices enacted by human experts to relate their own knowledge claims to AI knowledge claims. Professionals in the other two departments did not enact such practices and did not incorporate AI inputs into their final decisions, which we call un-engaged “augmentation.” Our study unpacks the challenges involved in augmenting professional judgment with powerful, yet opaque, technologies and contributes to literature on AI adoption in knowledge work.

13 January

Horizontal Salary Comparison, Distributive Justice and Employee Withdrawal

SPEAKER

Dr. Xiaomin Xu
Lecturer in Work, Organisation, and Management
University of Liverpool Management School

ABSTRACT

Relative salary compared with referent others has well-established implications for employee attitudes and behaviors at work. Yet, how employees process information on comparisons, particularly when internal and external comparison information is incongruent, remains controversial. In this paper we integrate the model of dispositional attribution and equity theory to predict how the incongruence of internal and external salary comparisons affects perceptions of distributive justice and subsequent employee withdrawal behavior. We hypothesized that the effect of salary comparisons on perceived distributive justice follows a hierarchically restrictive schema in which a lower salary in comparison to a referent has a greater effect than a higher salary. This further affects employee withdrawal such as psychological withdrawal, turnover intention and actual turnover. Two studies were conducted to test our hypotheses: a quasi-experimental study (N = 130) and a time-lagged survey (N = 307). Consistent with our framework, we observed that when comparison information was incongruent, information indicating disadvantage more strongly affected perceived distributive justice than did information indicating advantage. Moreover, the impact on perceived distributive justice was negatively related to employee withdrawal. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.