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Theses and Dissertations - Department of Management

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Browsing Theses and Dissertations - Department of Management by Author "Bachrach, Daniel G."

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    An examination of the role of social networks in the commercialization of entrepreneurial innovations
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2011) Noble, David; Kacmar, K. Michele; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    Through the extension of Seibert, Kraimer, and Liden's (2001) social capital framework to the field of entrepreneurship, this paper develops and tests a theoretical model focusing on how an entrepreneur's social network structure and resources combine to impact the commercialization attempts of entrepreneurs regarding their innovative products and services. By drawing an analogy between an entrepreneur's social network and an organization's absorptive capacity, the model I propose predicts how the structure of an entrepreneur's social network and the resources embedded within that network may lead to the acquisition of essential resources and information, and ultimately, impacting the successful commercialization of their opportunity. This model bridges a gap in the entrepreneurship literature by testing long standing beliefs and assumptions regarding the role of social networks, including that a large network is always better and weak ties are necessarily more beneficial than strong ties.
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    Exchange without return: helping behaviors over time in positive and negative reciprocity relationships
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2015) Leon, Matthew R.; Halbesleben, Jonathon R. B.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    There is broad awareness that the health of coworker relationships is often built on reciprocity and assessments of member exchanges, where relationships are pursued or terminated based on benefits received. Both social exchange theory and equity theory propose that, when an exchange relationship is no longer favorable (i.e., a negative reciprocity relationship), an individual should terminate it to prevent resource losses. While this is economically rational, it often is impossible or impractical to terminate a relationship in a work context. The objective of this dissertation is to address this apparent mismatch between theories of helping behavior and typical workplace dynamics. I do so by exploring three possible explanations for this mismatch. First, I argue that the one of the key assumptions of social exchange theory, that the relationships are voluntary, may not always hold in a work setting. Second, I argue that fluctuations in investment behavior, specifically helping, changes in a non-linear fashion over time. Finally, I examine the impact of reciprocity, perceptions of team member efficacy, and third-party investment on helping behaviors in a sustained, negative reciprocity relationship. Across two experiments and one field study, I found that helping behaviors change discontinuously over time, individuals will help a partner complete an interdependent task regardless of reciprocation, and that helping is driven by a combination of factors including partner performance and general perceptions of a partner's helpfulness.
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    Risk in the eye of the beholder?: an examination of risk evaluation, role expectations and workplace risk-related behavior
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2015) Stoutner, Oliver Keith; Bachrach, Daniel G.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    This dissertation presents the results of three studies designed to enhance understanding of how individual risk evaluation pertains to role theory and how prospect theory can offer clues on the process undergirding the translation of employee role expectations into behavior in the workplace. In studies 1 and 2 I develop a novel scale for evaluating employee risk-related role expectations. Study 3 draws on a sample of 439 working adults and examines how coworker general (non-work-related) risk propensity affects employee’s role expectations regarding risk and expectations of coworker approval. Further, I explore the linkages between employee expectations and subsequent behavior and the influence of coworker indicated approval. Integrating prospect and role theories, I find support for the hypothesis that coworker risk propensity has a negative relationship with employee risk-related role expectations, and expectations of approval. I also find support for the positive relationship between employee risk-related role expectations and behaviors, and mixed support for the positively moderating role of coworker indicated approval. Implications for theory and practice are discussed along with directions for future research.
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    Who has conflicts with whom?: a social capital approach to conflict and creativity in teams
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2011) Hood, Anthony Carl; Kacmar, K. Michele; Bachrach, Daniel G.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    Extant team conflict research treats conflict as a shared perceptual team property whereby it is assumed that all of a team's members experience equivalent amounts of conflict. This traditional approach is silent concerning whether team members vary according to how much conflict each team member experiences with each of their team members. This customary treatment of team conflict as a shared perceptual property of the team has led to inconsistent findings in the empirical record concerning the predictive power of the team conflict construct for predicting a team's creativity. In an effort to provide conceptual and empirical clarity to this issue, the present dissertation utilized social capital theory and analysis to examine the relationship between team conflict and team creativity. With its explicit focus on dyadic interactions, social capital is argued to be a more appropriate lens than the conventional paradigm for understanding how and why conflicts between team members influence team members' ability to be creative. It is argued that a social capital approach provides a more rigorous and appropriate test of the theoretical and empirical justifications for the team conflict--team creativity relationship. The dissertation attempted to replicate and extend the findings of previous studies of team conflict and team creativity by utilizing measures of conflict derived using both sociometric and psychometric methods. Results from a lagged study of 132 teams engaged in a complex, 10-week business game simulation revealed that team conflict was predictive of team creativity using the traditional, yet less precise, psychometric method, but was not predictive of team creativity using the sociometric method. The study's inability to replicate previous research findings using the social capital approach calls into question the validity of traditional team conflict approaches for predicting team creativity. Further, the discrepant findings open a new line of inquiry addressing when and under what conditions the social capital approach to conflict predicts team creativity.