Knowledge that Transforms

As emerging economies have improved their economic institutions, the performance of many large business groups has been reduced because such groups acted as market-substitute mechanisms. Consequently, business groups have become increasingly involved in refocusing activities. The authors develop a framework in which such refocusing is explained as an attempt to balance overall transaction costs faced by groups with organization-specific costs in order to improve group performance. They examine external and internal factors that might lead to the initiation of refocusing and also explain why different ownership structures may affect the direction of that refocusing (e.g., related vs. unrelated diversification).

Fraud by top management is a topic that has stirred public interest, concern, and controversy. In this article, the authors analyze fraud by senior executives in terms of its nature, scope, antecedents, and consequences. They draw on the fields of psychology, sociology, economics, and criminology to identify societal-, industry, and firm-level antecedents of management fraud and the individual differences that enhance or neutralize the likelihood and degree of such fraud. The authors also review the consequences of management fraud on various stakeholder groups such as shareholders, debtholders, managers, local communities, and society.

Although popular management wisdom has suggested that telecommuting enhances job satisfaction, research has found both positive and negative relationships. In this study, the authors attempt to resolve these inconsistent findings by hypothesizing a curvilinear, inverted U-shaped relationship between the extent of telecommuting and job satisfaction. Using hierarchical regression analysis on a sample of 321 professional-level employees, their findings suggest a curvilinear link between extent of telecommuting and job satisfaction, with satisfaction appearing to plateau at more extensive levels of telecommuting. In addition, task interdependence and job discretion moderated this link, suggesting that some job attributes play an important, contingent role.

Previous research has examined a variety of ways by which firms adapt to environmental change and surprise. Most recommendations emphasize ways to achieve an adaptive fit between a firm and its environment. The authors propose that an alternate response to the uncertainty caused by a dynamic environment—robust transformation —should be examined as well. Organizational routines for dealing with complexity are seen as shaping the institutional response to environmental uncertainty.Resilience capacity is introduced as an internal factor that influences the repertoire of available routines and helps a firm decide whether routines directed toward adaptive fit or robust transformation are more appropriate to implement.

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) research is extended to the customer domain by examining the role of customer behavior in Internet service deliveries. Based on the OCB framework, it was hypothesized that a conceptual distinction between in-role behaviors (i.e., task performance) and extra-role behaviors (i.e., citizenship behavior) can be extended to customers who participate in service delivery. Survey data show that customers differentiate coproduction behaviors from customer citizenship behaviors. Furthermore, these two behaviors had different sets of predictors. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed from the perspective of OCB theories.

Social exchange theory (SET) is one the most influential conceptual paradigms in organizational behavior. Despite its usefulness, theoretical ambiguities within SET remain. As a consequence, tests of the model, as well as its applications, tend to rely on an incompletely specified set of ideas. The authors address conceptual difficulties and highlight areas in need of additional research. In so doing, they pay special attention to four issues: (a) the roots of the conceptual ambiguities, (b) norms and rules of exchange, (c) nature of the resources being exchanged, and (d) social exchange relationships.

Resource dependence theory emphasizes the importance of linking firms with external contingencies that create uncertainty and interdependence. A critical source of external interdependency and uncertainty for business is government. One way to link a firm to the government is appointing ex-politicians to the board of directors. This study compares the boards of two groups of firms—those from heavily and less regulated industries—and finds the former group has more politician directors. Firms with politicians on the board are associated with better market-based performance across both groups, although the relationship is more pronounced within heavily regulated industries.

The present research was developed to examine the conceptualization and measurement of the political skill construct and to provide validation evidence for the Political Skill Inventory (PSI). The results of three investigations, involving seven samples, are reported that demonstrate consistency of the factor structure across studies, construct validity, and criterion-related validity of the PSI. As hypothesized, political skill was positively related to self-monitoring, political savvy, and emotional intelligence; negatively related to trait anxiety; and not correlated with general mental ability. Also, the PSI predicted performance ratings of managers in two samples. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are provided.

Applicant attraction is vital to the success of an organization. Despite its importance, however, research on it has tended to proceed in a relatively piecemeal way. Accordingly, the authors present a framework for attraction research through an examination of the underlying relevant theories. Specifically, they identify three overarching metatheories focusing on environment processing, interactionist processing, and self-processing that form the basis for their theoretical model. The authors conclude with an examination of future research directions.

The components of human resource (HR) flexibility and their potential relationship to firm performance have not been empirically examined. The authors hypothesize that flexibility of employee skills, employee behaviors, and HR practices represent critical subdimensions of HR flexibility and are related to superior firm performance. Results based on perceptual measures of HR flexibility and accounting measures of firm performance support this prediction. Whereas skill, behavior, and HR practice flexibility are significantly associated with an index of firm financial performance, the authors find that only skill flexibility contributes to cost-efficiency.