Purpose This study aims to provide a viable explanation to the mixed entrepreneurial orientation (EO)–performance findings. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 13,796 small, medium and large US public firms. Findings When firm size is treated as an exogenous variable, the shape of the EO–performance relationships is a U-shaped curve for small firms, an upward-sloping straight line for medium-sized firms, and an inverted U-shaped curve for large firms. Originality/value Treating firm size as an exogenous variable to split the sample into big, medium and small panels.

PurposeHoping to increase the productivity of their employees, firms provide and expect their employees to use approved mobile apps. However, despite an intuitive appeal, the relationship between information technology usage and productivity is still seen as paradoxical. This study examines the relationship between employees' experience and engagement with business mobile apps provided by employers and its effects on employee work productivity.Design/methodology/approachData from respondents who use employer-provided business apps were used to test the hypotheses. Measurement-corrected latent scores extracted from the PLS measurement evaluation were used in regression-centric assessment using PROCESS.FindingsResults indicate that employee-users' experience-based attributions of the business app, i.e. customization, performance quality and compatibility, have positive effects on productivity mediated by participation intensity. Further, work type (retail vs non-retail) and the depth of the employee user's experience moderate experience-based attributions' indirect effects on productivity.Originality/valueUnlike previous studies delving into this topic, this study focuses solely on the mediation and moderation effects for hypothesis testing. Specifically, this study investigates effects conditional on work type (retail vs non-retail), which the authors believe has significant implications for retailing. These findings have interesting implications for both future research and managers.

Purpose- Taking an organizational perspective, this paper aims to understand how organizations respond to such strong and concurrent societal effects, and to answer the question, "How should researchers conceptualize the symbiotic relationship between society and business during a catastrophic societal event?"Design/methodology/approach -The authors highlight through numerous examples, the impact of COVID-19 on society is well-evidenced in the research. They also draw on such evidence of the effects of catastrophic societal events like COVID-19 to support the appropriateness of this conceptualization.Findings- The authors found that organizations that use both short- and long-term activities concurrently are better able to tackle the concurrent short- and long-term effects of catastrophic events like COVID-19.Originality/value -The authors use ambidexterity theory, supported by evidence derived from organizational responses to COVID-19, to offer a new and more comprehensive conceptualization that frames the concurrent and interrelated short-term and long-term organizational response to a catastrophic societal event. Further, they highlight the importance of studying such organizational responses in the context of the organization's referent groups.

There have been mixed scholarly findings on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and organizational performance, and a framework that adequately explains the mixed results has not emerged. We address this gap and contribute to the literature in two ways. First, we develop a capability-anchored articulation of the EO-organizational performance relationship. Second, we use this articulation to explain mixed findings on the relationship between EO and organizational performance. Our development indicates a negative and curvilinear relationship between EO and organizational performance for emergent organizations. and a positive and curvilinear relationship for post-emergent organizations. Further, our development indicates an inverted U-shaped relationship for a mixed sample of emergent and post-emergent organizations. Contributions to future research include exploring theoretical extensions of the EO-organizational performance relationship and an opportunity to reconceptualize the EO construct by leveraging the capability-based view of the organization.

Practitioner surveys suggest that despite well-intentioned efforts, undergraduate business programs could better equip students with "soft skills." This research study focuses on the soft skills associated with cross-functional integration (CFI), where skill gaps are believed to exist but have not been confirmed. As the first study to specifically characterize and measure CFI skills, we argue that even in the best-case scenario, a small CFI-skills gap could persist, and that the primary goal of business programs is to minimize, not eliminate, the gap. We assert that an instrument that measures CFI skills on three dimensions (cross-functional collaboration, cross-functional coordination, and cross-functional communication) provides a critical starting point in the identification and management of the CFI skills gap. We adapt and validate such an instrument, test it with a sample of 160 business students and 160 hiring managers, and find statistically significant gaps at the construct and dimensional level. However, the magnitude of the gaps is not large, suggesting that business schools may be doing a good job of managing the CFI skills gap. Our assessment instrument is a valuable tool for companies that wish to diagnose and address CFI skills challenges.

As organizations strive to integrate processes to streamline operations and enhance performance, the demand has grown for employees, including new hires, that espouse cross-functional integration skills. However, evidence from the popular press indicates that organizations struggle to hire capable new business graduates. This suggests that despite well-intended efforts, undergraduate business programs may not be providing their students with adequate levels of these skills. We posit that the lack of research related to understanding and addressing cross-functional integration skills have contributed to this gap. To help address this disparity, we adapt and validate an instrument to measure the cross-functional integration skills of undergraduate business majors. The instrument is the first to offer business school administrators the opportunity to map the deliverables of their undergraduate business programs on three CFI skill dimensions: cross-functional collaboration, cross-functional coordination, and cross-functional communication, and to use the information to enhance their programs.

Over the past four decades, two conceptualizations of the entrepreneurial orientations (EO) construct have been advanced - trait-based, and behavior-based. Scholars in each camp have developed independent scales to measure EO and have established complementary links between the EO construct, its antecedents, and organizational performance. This has resulted in varied and mixed results on the relationships between these phenomena of interest and it has stymied progress in the field. Recently, Wales, Covin, & Monsen (2020) attempted to untangle this debate by reconceptualizing EO as a construct that has unique manifestations at three organizational levels (management team, internal/organizational, and market). Our review paper is the first attempt to identify the antecedents based on Wales, et al., (2020) latest EO conceptualization. In addition to successfully identifying antecedents of EO at each of the three organizational levels, we also found antecedents that influenced EO at all three levels. We called them ‘cross-level’ antecedents. We discuss potential theoretical and practitioner implications of our findings and offer future research directions in areas such as data collection methods, context-specific studies, configuration approaches, and new antecedents garnered from complementary business disciplines.

Cross-functional integration (CFI) capabilities of veteran managers have always been viewed as important, but organizations now expect new undergraduate business hires to demonstrate these skill se...

PurposeRecently, researchers have highlighted the limited attention that has been devoted to managerial capabilities as micro-foundational elements of absorptive capacity. Strategic thinking is one such managerial capability that guides managers during the development of organizational capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the influence of managerial strategic thinking on the development of absorptive capacity.Design/methodology/approachData were collected using a sample of 324 senior-level and mid-level managers from the software industry. PLS-SEM was used to test the hypothesized relationships.FindingsStudy results indicate that managerial strategic thinking is positively related to absorptive capacity, as well as to each of its four components – acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation.Originality/valueThe current study adopts a micro-foundations perspective and delves into the development and orchestration of organizational capabilities. This study is the first to empirically investigate the relationship between managerial strategic thinking and absorptive capacity. Prior literature on absorptive capacity has focused on its influence on phenomena that are downstream to absorptive capacity, e.g. innovation, new product development and firm performance. The research offers new insights into the relationship between absorptive capacity and managerial strategic thinking, a hitherto unexplored upstream phenomenon. Scholars have theorized that managerial strategic thinking plays a pivotal role in managerial decisions, making it a critical factor in developing the absorptive capacity of an organization. The authors believe that the empirical evidence of the theorized relationship offers valuable insights that will aid scholarly research on organizational capabilities.

Purpose The purpose of the study is to investigate whether the alignment between organizational capabilities is idiosyncratic to an organization or a predictable pattern of alignments can be identified across organizations. Design/methodology/approach Survey design is used to collect data from upper- and mid-level managers of organizations operating in the software industry. A total of 219 responses are used to test the study hypotheses. Partial least squares structural equation modeling and regression analysis are used for data analysis and hypotheses testing. Findings Results suggest that the alignment between strategic thinking and absorptive capacity is different for organizations with a prospector-type strategic orientation compared to organizations with other types (defenders and analyzers) of strategic orientations. The study also finds that the pattern of alignment holds for each dimension of absorptive capacity. Originality/value There is limited research on the alignment between the three types of organizational capabilities (metaphysical, dynamic and ordinary). This may have transcended from arguments that if organizational capabilities are truly idiosyncratic, they should not be expected to follow a predictable pattern of alignments across organizations. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to empirically investigate and provide evidence that the alignment between organizational capabilities is contingent on the strategic orientation of the organizations. The findings offer hope for the development of a generalizable theory of organizational capability alignment in organizations.

The use of clickers in the classroom has been linked to student learning. However, studies that examine the effects of clickers on learning often conceptualize a clicker exercise as a single, homogeneous cognitive processing (CP) event. We offer a conceptualization of sequenced cognitive activities that unfold during a clicker exercise. An inductive approach is adopted to identify three CP events that occur during a clicker exercise: an investigation event, a confirmation event, and a ratification event. We then use data collected from a sample of 187 students in an undergraduate business capstone course to explore the relationships between the three CP events and student learning. Contrary to expectations, not all CP events contribute positively to student learning. We discuss the implications of these findings and offer directions for future research that advance the understanding of clicker-enhanced student learning. These insights afford instructors new options for optimizing the contributions of clicker exercises to student learning in their courses.

Scholars have questioned the appropriateness of using a western-centric framework to investigate corporate social responsibility (CSR) in emerging economies. This study assesses the appropriateness of using such a framework in one emerging economy-India. More specifically, the drivers of CSR and their impact on firm-level CSR activity in the Indian context are investigated and compared with those in developed economies. Content analysis of 369 CSR policy statements of publicly traded Indian firms revealed the factors that drive CSR activities of Indian firms are similar to those found in developed economies. However, the ways firms respond to the drivers of CSR are surprisingly different in the Indian context, and these differences can be traced to attributes of the Indian socio-cultural context. Implications and recommendations for future research conducted in India, and in other emerging economies, are offered.

Executives struggle to arrive at appropriate levels of ambidexterity to achieve desired performance. Scholars have proposed varied and sometimes confounding solutions to this challenge. We offer a novel approach by arguing that a firm's ambidexterity is a strategic choice that must be contextualized in the competitive dynamics of the firm's referent group. We digress from conventional organization-centric contextualizations and introduce an appropriately specified construct relative ambidexterity to address this need. We characterize the viable relative ambidexterity space (VRAS) where ambidexterity choices are made, and we offer a versatile framework to help researchers and practitioners explore organizational ambidexterity. We close by demonstrating how the framework offers opportunities for new streams of scholarly research on ambidexterity.

Ordinary capabilities contribute to firm core competencies and are prominent drivers of firm performance. However, our understanding of ordinary capabilities, and how they are leveraged to advance performance in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), remains unclear. We review prior literature and introduce the Customer-Alignment-Operational (CAO) model of ordinary capabilities, which identifies three types of ordinary capabilities: customer, alignment, and operational capabilities. Using data collected from software industry SMEs, we find that CAO capabilities are configured in previously undiscovered ways to enhance firm performance. The findings advance our understanding of ordinary capability types and offer insight into how ordinary capabilities are configured to generate firm value.

Research related to capabilities in general, and dynamic capabilities in particular, is one of the most active areas of scholarship in management and has much promise as an area of study (Di Stefano et al, 2014; Helfat and Winter, 2011). Capabilities are developed from deeply embedded routines within the firm and have been singled out as the primary functions crucial for firm survival (Prahalad, 1993; Winter, 2000). The majority of research in this area focuses on two important classes of capabilities: dynamic capabilities and ordinary capabilities (Teece, 2014). Each type of capability is noted for its value-creating benefits; however, limited investigations examine how these classes of capabilities work together to create firm value and deliver performance returns. To understand how capabilities are configured within the firm, the relationship between one type of firm-level dynamic capability, absorptive capacity, and ordinary capabilities is examined. Absorptive capacity (ACAP) is the capability of the firm to acquire, assimilate, transform, and exploit new knowledge toward commercial ends (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Zahra and George, 2002). Firms with refined knowledge management capabilities, such as ACAP, are better equipped to obtain and extract value from external knowledge resources (Argote, 1999), adapt to change, and enhance their competitive advantage. ACAP is noted to influence firm performance (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Todorova and Durisin, 2007; Zahra and George, 2002), as well as other firm outcomes including innovation (Huang et al, 2015; Leal-Rodriguez et al, 2014), corporate entrepreneurship (Garcia-Morales et al, 2014), market responsiveness (Chang et al, 2013), new products (George et al., 2001), product development (Stock et al., 2001), and financial outcomes (George et al., 2001). The nature of these findings suggests that ACAP is essential in creating firm value and altering firm outcomes, although, the means through which this value creation occurs remains less clear. For the firm to successfully compete in a dynamic marketplace, the capability to understand the marketplace is necessary to ensure the firm remains in congruence with the environment. ACAP is a dynamic capability that enables the firm to obtain new, external knowledge, yet once the knowledge exists within the firm, internal capabilities are required to exploit the knowledge and create value. Without internal mechanisms (capabilities) to leverage new knowledge, the value of obtaining new insights is marginalized. Therefore, this study hypothesizes that knowledge entering the firm via ACAP is exploited via internal ordinary capabilities, and through ordinary capabilities, firm value is created and performance affected. After hypothesizing a broad relationship between ACAP and ordinary capabilities, a finer-grained perspective is used to more closely examine the relationship between ACAP and three types of ordinary capabilities (i.e., customer, alignment, and operational). An analysis of data from a sample of firms in the software industry suggests that ordinary capabilities serve an intermediary role in the ACAP-performance relationship, and ACAP has a positive relationship with each type of ordinary capability (i.e., customer, alignment, and operational capabilities). Thus, results suggest that firms exploit new knowledge via ordinary capabilities. The findings of this investigation offer several contributions to the existing research on firm capabilities. First, insights extend prior findings that ACAP is directly related to firm performance by demonstrating that value is created via ordinary capabilities. Second, this investigation offers new insight into the manner in which ACAP relates to ordinary capabilities by finding that ACAP has a positive relationship with each type of ordinary capability. Third, although several studies have examined various classes of capabilities, few studies simultaneously investigate how multiple classes of capabilities (i. …

Researchers have made significant strides toward understanding how absorptive capacity influences firm performance. However, most of these developments have been theoretical in nature, and have been conducted in single-firm contexts. Our study answers prior calls for more empirical and mathematical treatments in multi-firm contexts that nurture a vibrant and balanced research stream. Our study adopts a mathematical modeling approach to investigate the influence of absorptive capacity on the performance of a firm in a dynamic multi-firm context. We develop a theoretical framework that drives the modeling exercise to gain insights on two research questions: (1) Relative to the dominant player in the industry, what level of ACap should a firm be endowed with to increase its long-term value in a dynamic environment? (2) Is there a threshold value of ACap endowment that makes it more likely for a firm to challenge the dominant player in the industry? We provide an analytical result, and further, we conduct a numerical study with two firms and seven periods. Our results suggest that there are ACap hurdle rates that a firm must meet to survive and grow. In addition, our model suggests that smaller firms in an industry may do well to strive for unique combinations of ACap, prior knowledge, and initial firm value, to compete successfully against the dominant player in the industry. Our work serves to open new avenues for future research that addresses the influence of ACap endowments on firm performance in dynamic multi-firm environments.

To catalog the breadth of the strategic management (SM) discipline, scholars have attempted to map its intellectual structure (IS). Since academic disciplines are constantly changing, such mapping must be conducted regularly. The most recent mapping used data ending with the year 2000. In essence, there have not been any updates to the IS of the SM discipline for the past 14 years. This study is part of a larger ongoing research on the IS of the SM discipline. In the study we use Latent Semantic Analysis to identify 10 themes that comprise the IS of the SM discipline. We provide details on the scope and trends on each theme. We then used a sequential segmentation algorithm to identify four research regimes that have formed over the 34-year history of the Strategic Management Discipline. We believe that the findings of this study offer insights for SM researchers as they chart their own research path. We also believe that the findings provide insights for the editorial boards of journals that serve as outlets for SM manuscripts.

Despite the wide adoption of clickers in classrooms, researchers have not yet understood exactly how clicker exercises enhance critical thinking and student learning. This research takes the first step toward bridging this research gap, by uncovering the mechanism embedded in a clicker exercise. In doing so, we uncover three regimes of learning – investigation, confirmation, and ratification. We use the Community of Inquiry (COI) framework to offer propositions relating to each clicker regime. We then discuss how our framework can be used by scholars to improve the current understanding of clicker-assisted student-learning..