Theses and Dissertations - Department of Management

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Adherence to organizational routines: a micro-foundations lens
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2014) Maalouf, Jamal Tanios; Combs, James G.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Organizational routines are viewed as a source of strategic competitive advantage that enhances firm performance. How do organizations continue to adhere to organizational routines after the routines are integrated in the work flow? I introduce and define a new construct, adherence to routines, which captures the theoretical phenomenon of maintaining the repeatability of organizational routines. I apply trait activation theory to explain why employees adhere to routines. I theorize that three individual traits: (1) conscientiousness, (2) openness to experience, and (3) individual entrepreneurial orientation impact adherence to routines. Moreover, I theorize that employees' perception of their supervisors' initiating structure leadership moderates the relationships between the three individual traits and adherence to routines. In this study, I developed a scale for the newly introduced construct adherence to routines. Using a sample of 543 employees surveyed in the U.S., I validated the new scale. The findings also support my arguments that conscientiousness is positively related to adherence to routines, and that openness to experience and individual entrepreneurial orientation are negatively related to adherence to routines. I also found support for employees' perception of their supervisors' initiating structure leadership as a moderator to the relationship between conscientiousness and adherence to routines. These results suggest that initiating structure leadership may have triggered the expression of conscientiousness, resulting in higher levels of adherence to routines.
Risk perceptions and venture creation decisions: establishing the boundary conditions of overconfidence and perceived environmental munificence
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2010) Robinson, Anthony; Marino, Louis D.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
This dissertation leverages cognition theory to examine the relationship between risk perceptions and venture creation decisions and seeks to establish overconfidence and perceived environmental munificence as boundary conditions for that relationship. Risk perceptions of the new venture are negatively associated with venture creation decisions. As the threat of possible loss and uncertainty associated with the new venture increase, the likelihood for gains associated with deciding to create the new venture decrease. Overconfidence and perceived environmental munificence are expected to moderate the relationship between risk perceptions of the new venture and venture creation decisions. Overconfidence is a cognitive bias that mitigates the relationship between risk perceptions of the new venture and venture creation decisions because the overconfident, while aware of risks, tend to be less sensitive to the possibilities of loss affecting their new ventures based upon skewed perceptions. Additionally, greater amounts of perceived environmental munificence are expected to weaken the negative relationship between risk perceptions of the new venture and venture creation decisions. The effects of risks on the new venture decision are perceived as less likely in resource-rich environments. The relationship between perceived risks and venture creation decisions is, thus, likely to be influenced by the boundary conditions of overconfidence and perceived environmental munificence. The results provide support for the hypothesized relationship between risk perceptions and venture creation decisions. It also provides evidence that perceived environmental munificence moderates the relationship between risk perceptions and venture creation decisions. However, it does not provide support for the hypothesized boundary condition of overconfidence.
Sins of the parents: how parenting style affects successors and key family firm outcomes after succession
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2015) Shanine, Kristen; Combs, James G.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
The intent to transfer control to the next generation is a defining characteristic of family firms. Yet, most family-controlled firms fail to transfer control and, when they do, the next generation’s leadership often fails to meet expectations. The succession literature describes characteristics of key actors and relationships that shape effective successions, but it does not leverage sociology research and theory on the key aspect that makes family firms different – i.e., families. Consequently, current theory does not explain how parenting influences successors’ personality, emotional well-being, or behavior, nor does it explain how these factors affect employees and the firm’s future prospects. I, therefore, develop new theory and extend parental control theory from sociology to help explain how parents in family firms influence successors and the family firm. In particular, I predict that predecessor parenting styles, described by Baumrind (1971) and later modified by Maccoby and Martin (1983) (i.e., Authoritative, Authoritarian, Indulgent Permissive, and Negligent Permissive), affect successor’s psychological profile (i.e., well-being, impostor phenomenon, and entitlement), which then has consequences for the leadership style the successor adopts, employee behavioral responses to the successor, and the firm’s strategy. My theory helps explain why some family successors are more successful than others. In order to test my theory, I developed a parenting style scale using student responses (N=233) and working adult responses (N=260). I also conducted a series of mediation regression analyses using a sample of matched employee and successor survey responses (N=52 firms). Results suggest that Authoritative predecessor parenting leads to successor psychological well-being, and Indulgent Permissive predecessor parenting leads to successor entitlement. Additionally, I found that successor psychological well-being mediates the relationships between Authoritative predecessor parenting and successor transformational leadership, and employee affective commitment. Overall, I found that the best kind of parenting style (i.e., Authoritative) in family science literature has the most positive impact in family firms. Broadly speaking, my theory and findings have implications for future research in that they point to the importance of family dynamics in family firms. Research in family science shows that parenting affects the behavior of family members, and my study is among the first to show how this research might be leveraged to better explain key attributes and outcomes of family firms.
Tales from the dark side of entrepreneurship
(University of Alabama Libraries, 2016) Tucker, Reginald Lewis; Jackson, William E.; Marino, Louis D.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
This dissertation proposes that personality is a missing link in the intention-behavior relationship that can help explain why some individuals who have entrepreneurial intentions take entrepreneurial action, but others do not. My theory is grounded in Markman and Baron’s (2003) person-entrepreneurship framework that posits individuals who have a personality that fits with the demands and tasks of entrepreneurship, and are guided by entrepreneurial intentions, are likely to enter into entrepreneurship and find success. Presumably, individuals who have entrepreneurial intentions are more likely to engage in entrepreneurial behaviors than individuals who do not have entrepreneurial intentions. To evaluate my argument, I analyze data collected from MBA alumni of a university in the Southeastern region of the United States. I collected data over two time periods with a series of hierarchal linear regressions to test the intention-behavior relationship with narcissism, psychopathy, and ADHD as the moderating personality variables. Overall, results suggest that dark personalities do influence the intention-behavior relationship. The interaction of entrepreneurial intentions and psychopathy had a positive and significant relationship with both discovery behaviors and exploitation behaviors. The interaction of entrepreneurial intentions and ADHD was also positive and significant for discovery behaviors, but not for exploitation behaviors. Narcissism did not have a significant relationship as a main effect with either entrepreneurial behavior.
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.

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Browsing Theses and Dissertations - Department of Management by Subject "Entrepreneurship"

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