We investigate the relative attention between forward-looking factors and backward-looking factors in organizational aspiration formulation. Our arguments are based on the three principles of the attention-based view (ABV) and the idea that organizational attention is shaped by decision-maker concerns about sustaining legitimacy vis-& agrave;-vis stakeholders. By analyzing data from a multicountry, multi-industry survey of 541 firms, we find that forward-looking factors generally garner more attention than backward-looking factors in formulating aspirations. We also find that competitive turbulence is negatively associated and strategic aggressiveness positively associated with relative attention to forward-looking over backward-looking factors. Overall, we contribute novel theory to the emerging ABV of aspiration formulation by developing a theory of relative attention-explaining why and when decision-makers allocate more attention to forward-looking over backward-looking factors, and how this balance shifts across contextual contingencies.JEL Classification: L21

Contemporary research has focused on antecedents, incidences, and consequences of workplace violence in the healthcare sector. However, little is known about the role of HRM in supporting healthcare workers to cope with negative emotions arising from workplace violence. Grounded in the conservation of resources theory, this study examines the moderating effects of wellbeing HRM practices (WBHRM) on the relationship between workplace violence and job stress. We also examine the mediation effects of job stress on the relationship between workplace violence and quality of care. Data were gathered from 254 and 225 (Study 1) aged care workers (nurses and personal care assistants) in Australia and 136 healthcare workers (doctors and nurses) in China (Study 2) across multiple waves. We use a new measure of WBHRM in this paper to test our hypotheses. Results show that the presence of WBHRM practices moderated the relationship between workplace violence and job stress. We also found that job stress mediates the relationship between workplace violence and quality of care. The findings contribute to the HRM literature by providing an innovative WBHRM approach to support health care workers to cope with job stress after they experience workplace violence.

Escalation of commitment occurs when managers continue to devote efforts to underperforming new product development (NPD) projects, even though doing so carries a high risk of failure. This study investigates the role of open innovation as a de-escalation strategy to reduce managers' commitment to underperforming NPD projects. Two studies involving both qualitative and quantitative approaches were conducted. We began our investigation by interviewing 13 senior managers to provide an initial understanding of open innovation vis-à-vis the escalation of commitment phenomenon. A scenario-based experiment with a sample of 97 senior NPD managers from multiple international companies was further conducted to test the relationship between open innovation and NPD managers' escalation of commitment, as well as the mediation effect of managerial efficacy. We contribute to the field by proposing open innovation as a new de-escalation strategy, and by revealing the affect-based mechanism of open innovation that operates through managerial efficacy.

This chapter presents the statistical analysis and reviews the results of the analysis for Model 1—the antecedents of goal polychronicity. We begin with data assessment, including descriptive statistics and correlations. This is followed by the hypothesis tests of Model 1. We utilize multiple regression techniques with SAS version 9.4. A series of sensitivity checks are performed to evaluate the robustness of the analysis.

We investigate the impact of entrepreneurs' cross-cultural experience on new venture performance. Drawing on social cognitive theory, we examine how two socio-cognitive traits, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and alertness to opportunities moderate the relationship between cross-cultural experience and new venture performance. Weadopt a multi-method approach. In Study 1, we implement an experiment on a sampleof 177 participants enrolled in an innovation and entrepreneurship program. In Study 2, we conduct a field survey of 65 entrepreneurs with varying cross-cultural experience. Our findings suggest that cross-cultural experience has a positive effect on new venture performance, and that entrepreneurial self-efficacy and alertness to opportunities bolster this relationship. Our research contributes to entrepreneurship research in a cross-cultural context and to the growing literature regarding individual cognitions in entrepreneurship.

With the ubiquity of information technologies (IT) such as phones, emails, and instant communication media, employees frequently receive work-related interruptions during non-work time. Sometimes, the interruptions can be excessive for individuals to handle, which impose significant consequences on their personal life. Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, we examine IT-mediated work-related after-hours interruption overload on work-life conflict. We predict that after-hours interruption overload causes work-life conflict through the mechanism of psychological transition. Further, preemptive processing method will positively moderate the mediation relationship while sequential method will negatively moderate it. Empirical evidence is based on two time-lagged surveys from a final sample of 336 full-time employees. Our study extends the research focus to work-related interruptions during non-work time and add knowledge to the mechanism and boundary conditions of after-hours interruption overload.

How effective are multiple organizational goals and how do firm adaptive capabilities influence their effectiveness? We suggest that a firm’s set (repertoire) of multiple goals can vary in intensity and focus, culminating in a different pattern. Building on the organizational goal-setting and strategy literatures, we hypothesize that goal repertoire intensity and focus have important performance consequences and that firm’s adaptive capabilities moderate these relationships in different ways. Hypotheses are tested via multi-country survey data from top executives from 203 firms operating in different industries. Findings show that performance benefits from goal repertoire intensity but diminishes with goal repertoire focus. Increasing levels of adaptive capability enhance the performance benefits of repertoire intensity but degrade performance when repertoire focus is high. This research contributes to the goal-setting literature by providing insight into performance effects of patterns of multiple goals when firms vary in adaptive capability.

Crowdfunding becomes an increasingly popular online platform for entrepreneurs to request fund from a relatively large number of individuals for their innovative projects. Research on crowdfunding has long examined the factors that contribute to funding success. However, the role of funding goals in crowdfunding is still largely understudied. Drawing from signaling theory, our paper hypothesizes that funding goal, serves as a signal, has a U-shaped relationship with funding success, such that small goals signal low risk and high probability of goal attainment, thus have a high success chance; large goals signal star projects with high potential, thus also have a high success chance. We further hypothesize that such a U-shaped relationship is amplified by project popularity (backer comments and the number of comments) and campaign structure regarding updates but weakened by entrepreneurs’ human capital (education level and crowdfunding experience) and campaign structure regarding funding period and patent. Based on a dataset of 15,326 projects listed on Indiegogo from December 2015 to May 2018, our theorized relationships are supported. Our paper contributes to entrepreneurship scholarship toward a more complete understanding of factors contributing/impeding funding success in crowdfunding platforms and provides important practical implications to entrepreneurs and platform designers.

We investigate the role of problem solving approaches in innovation decision-making processes and performance. Draw on construal level theory from the experimental psychology literature, our research examines how the problem solving approaches (abstract vs. concrete) affect resource allocation process and the consequent performance in an innovation decision-making context. We run a behavioral experiment to test our hypotheses. Our findings show that decision makers who take an abstract problem solving approach invest less in old business opportunities, and more on long-term perspective R&D projects; while decision makers with concrete problem solving approach invest more in old business opportunities, and short-term perspective R&D projects. Additionally, we find that decision makers with concrete problem solving approach achieve higher performance compared with those with abstract problem solving approach.

We investigate the antecedents of organizational aspirations (goals, targets). Specifically, we seek to enhance understanding of forward-looking and backward-looking antecedents, as well as situational context factors in aspiration determination (goal setting) through the undertaking of a mixed-method investigation. Study 1 reports findings of interviews of 21 top executives in 17 organizations. We identify future performance expectations as the most prevalent antecedent. Further, we observe that antecedents are more or less used depending on situational context factors. Using the lens of the Attention-Based View, we establish hypotheses by combining our inductive findings with logics from the broader goal-setting literature. In study 2, we test our hypotheses for forward-looking, backward-looking, and situational context factors based on a multi-country survey of 524 top executives. We find a high prevalence of forward-looking antecedents of aspirations and identify the salient roles of competitive turbulence, strategic aggressiveness, and performance relative to aspiration. Our results suggest updates to the behavioral theory of aspirations by demonstrating the prevalent use of forward-looking antecedents in aspiration determination. Overall, our work begins to lay a foundation for an attention-based theory of aspiration antecedents.

We investigate the efficacy of formal controls in the context of uncertain external environments. Specifically, we investigate the relationships among behavior control, outcome control, and environmental uncertainty, and their interactive effects on organizational performance. We anchor our theoretical arguments in control theory. We argue that in an uncertain environment where it is difficult to clearly specify and measure the process or the outcome, the combined use of behavior and outcome control at a high degree decreases performance. Empirical evidence is based on insights from 506 organizations across Australia, US, and China. We find that behavior control and outcome control exhibit complementary effect only when the level of environmental uncertainty is low. In so doing, our results enlighten the emerging complementary perspective of organizational control by adding environmental uncertainty as an important contingent variable in the efficacy of formal controls. However, by examining the level of these controls, and not just their existence, we show novel insights in uncertain environments. Our findings indicate that in highly uncertain environments, higher performance results from a high level of one formal control type (behavior or outcome) and a low level of the other - supporting the arguments for a proper balance of control types.

We investigate the effects of operational governance formalization and flexibility on organizational performance. We draw from the organizational learning perspective to hypothesize a positive-increasing U-shaped learning curve effect regarding governance formalization and a positive effect regarding governance flexibility. Most importantly, we hypothesize that governance formalization and flexibility exhibit joint effects. Empirical evidence is based on 434 observations from project managers in a large multi-department government organization. We find that higher governance flexibility increases performance when formalization is low and decreases performance when formalization is high. Our finding that flexibility can be counter-productive to performance in highly formalized governance processes is theoretically novel. Overall, this paper contributes to the operational governance literature by clarifying how learning mechanisms explain the joint effects of governance formalization and flexibility.