This year’s Academy of Management Annual Meeting took place from August 1-5 in Philadelphia, PA. Under the conference theme “The Power of Words,” my colleagues and I presented our paper (which was also included in the BPS Best Paper Proceedings):

• “Formal and informal controls as complements or substitutes? The role of the task environment,” with Markus Kreutzer (University of St. Gallen) & Laura Cardinal (University of Houston).

Moreover, I received the Outstanding Reviewer Award for the Business Policy and Strategy Division of the Academy of Management.

For more information, check the AOM Website.

New Article Forthcoming in the Strategic Management Journal:

Organizational control as antidote to politics in the pursuit of strategic initiatives

Markus Kreutzer*, Jorge Walter**, & Laura B. Cardinal***

* University of St. Gallen, ** The George Washington University, *** University of Houston

In contrast to the contingency approach advanced by most prior work, we suggest a complementary perspective on organizational control and its relationship with performance. We argue that the simultaneous use of behavior and outcome control capitalizes on their respective advantages, and is therefore more effective than a sole reliance on either control. Moreover, with organizational control seeking alignment between individual and organizational goals, the benefits of such a complementary approach may be more pronounced in a context characterized by high levels of organizational politics, or the pursuit of individual at the expense of organizational goals. Our analysis of strategic initiatives pursued by 184 European corporations provides support for both a complementary approach to organizational control and a contingency effect of organizational politics.

Keywords: Control theory, organizational control, organizational politics, strategic initiatives, strategy process

For a copy of this article, please see here.

New Article Forthcoming in Personnel Psychology:

Deeds that help and words that hurt: Helping and gossip as moderators of the relationship between leader-member exchange and advice network centrality

Berrin Erdogan*, Talya Bauer*, & Jorge Walter**

* Portland State University, ** The George Washington University

We examine the relationship between leader-member exchange (LMX) quality and advice network centrality using multi-source data from a sample of 250 retail employees and their respective managers in Turkey to test our hypothesized model of value and costs of being sought out for advice. Drawing upon the tenets of Network Generation Theory (Nebus, 2006), we predict that the tendency of focal actors to help others and their own tendency to gossip would be behavioral moderators of the relationship between LMX quality and their advice network centrality. Consistent with Network Generation Theory, our results reveal that LMX quality is positively related to centrality only for those actors with a high tendency to help coworkers and a low tendency to gossip about coworkers, suggesting that behaviors indicating helpfulness and discretion are necessary for high LMX members to maintain a central position in their work group’s advice network. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Keywords: Leader-member exchange (LMX), advice network centrality, helping behaviors, gossip

For a copy of this article, see here.

I thankfully accepted the invitation by Prof. Mike Wright to join the new editorial board of the Journal of Management (JOM).

Judging from my experience on the previous JOM board, I look forward to working with the new editorial team.

This year’s Strategic Management Society’s Annual International Conference took place in Atlanta, GA, and my colleagues and I presented our paper

• “Experience, negotiation leverage, and their effects on exclusivity in technology licensing agreements” with Ted Khoury (Portland State University) & Erin Pleggenkuhle-Miles (University of Nebraska at Omaha),

which was also nominated for the Strategic Management Society Best Conference Paper Price. For more information, check the SMS Website.

New Article Forthcoming in the Journal of Management:

Learning activities, exploration, and the performance of strategic initiatives

Jorge Walter*, Christoph Lechner**, Franz W. Kellermanns***

* The George Washington University, ** University of St. Gallen, *** University of North Carolina at Charlotte

This study examines the contingent effect of the degree of exploration characterizing strategic initiatives on the relationship between group-level organizational learning activities (i.e., searching, processing, codifying, and practicing) and the performance of strategic initiatives. Results from a sample of 96 strategic initiatives conducted by three large European insurance corporations provide broad, albeit not unanimous, support for our prediction that the four learning activities are more beneficial when the degree of exploration is high. Moreover, for initiatives with lower degrees of exploration, we found no significant association of searching, processing, codifying, or practicing with initiative performance. These findings suggest that effective organizational learning depends not only on investments in learning activities, but also on the alignment between these investments and the degree of exploration inherent in the learning task.

Keywords: Strategic initiatives; group-level organizational learning; degree of exploration

For a copy of this article, please see here.

This year’s Academy of Management Annual Meeting took place from August 8-13 in Lake Buena Vista, FL. Under the conference theme
“Capitalism in Question,” my colleagues and I presented in the following sessions:

• “Organizational control as an antidote to politics in the pursuit of strategic initiative performance?” with Markus Kreutzer (University of St. Gallen) & Laura Cardinal (University of Houston) and
• “Entrepreneurship Division Early Career Development Consortium.” Professional Development Workshop organized by Donna DeCarolis (Rutgers University) & Kim Eddleston (Northeastern University).

For more information, check the AOM Website.

Happy to see that our research on Dormant Ties (see posts from March 29, 2011, and August 4, 2010, for details) keeps getting attention from some of the most innovative thinkers in business…

See a recent interview of Adam Grant (Wharton) in Daniel Pink’s blog for details.

Today, I had the opportunity to serve as a subject matter expert on the topic "Weak ties and innovation" at the Industrial Research Institute’s Diamond Jubilee Meeting here in Washington, DC. It was a great experience interacting with this audience of high-caliber R&D managers from a wide variety of industry and government, and I hope to continue this dialogue, perhaps in the form of a joint research project, in the future.

Thanks to Natalie Schoch (Kellogg Company), Leonard Huskey (US Army Research Laboratory), and Robert McNamee (Temple University) for their generous invitation!

For more information, check the IRI Website.

Just received notice that one of our submissions to this year’s SMS Conference has received a nomination for the SMS Best Conference Paper Award:

Experience, negotiation leverage, and their effects on exclusivity in technology licensing agreements

Theodore A. Khoury*, Jorge Walter**, & Erin G. Pleggenkuhle-Miles***

* Portland State University, ** The George Washington University, *** University of Nebraska at Omaha

Technology licensing represents a complex area of interfirm contracting due to the highly idiosyncratic nature of these transactions. Focusing on the most valuable, yet often contentious, contractual feature in technology licensing transactions—exclusivity—we examine the differential influence of licensors’ prior experience with out-licensing versus in-licensing technologies. Our study builds on foundational transaction-cost research and develops a theoretical framework explaining whether or not licensors are likely to realize non-exclusive deal outcomes as a function of accumulated licensing experience, and when partner- or market-specific conditions dampen or accentuate the effects of such experience. Leveraging a 26-year sample of 2,664 bioscience-licensing transactions and a novel theoretical framework that accounts for the conditions of negotiation leverage within these unique transactions, we examine how exclusivity provisions vary across technology licenses.

Keywords: Technology licensing; licensing experience; exclusivity; transaction costs; partner prominence; strategic alliances; bioscience industry

For a copy of this article, please contact me directly.