Dissertations

Payments research is essential in supporting the move towards a cashless society. This dissertation uses mixed methods, a field experiment and comparative analysis to propose a payments framework, assess incentive effectiveness, and investigate the role of habits and challenges related to adoption.

Essay 1 examines whether customers carry one payment instrument over their lifetime. By analysing payments through a customer relationship management and life cycle lens, the research brings a fresh perspective on how payment providers may need to offer different payment options across the customer life cycle if they wish to maximise customer lifetime value through a lifecycle framework of electronic payments choice. The essay also finds that payment choice is affected by regulations, parental choices, and the financial, social and psychological needs of consumers, which can be used as a basis for creating new products that are relevant for each life stage.

Essay 2 assesses the effectiveness of incentives and the role of habits on cashless payment adoption at the point-of-sale. Using a field experiment, preliminary results obtained seem to confirm the effectiveness of financial incentives on electronic payment adoption. However, behaviour change falls below control levels after the incentive is stopped. Furthermore, habits seem to hinder cashless payment adoption when cash has been the predominant method of payment. Five key takeaways are provided for greater adoption success.

Essay 3 studies the challenges of introducing high-technology payment applications into low-technology adoption settings which is common when countries embark on a cashless payment journey. The study uses a comparative analysis approach to analyse the success of the Singapore Smart Nation E-Payment Initiative by comparing its success thus far with M-Pesa, a successful retail cashless payment project in Kenya. The comparative analysis approach allows for a deeper analysis of government policy, banking infrastructure and the socio-economic development on the ground. The adoption of innovation and ground-level consumer behaviour factors are also taken into consideration. Barriers to cashless adoption are discussed and solutions offered for a smoother transition to a cashless society.

The findings from Essay 1 will provide practitioners a deeper understanding of what affects payment choice at different stages of a customer’s life cycle. It also highlights the critical role of regulations in determining the potential market, which also highlights the need for practitioners to engage the regulator continuously so that regulations are updated and appropriate. New perspectives on managing business portfolios arising from the need to maximise customer lifetime value are also offered. Essay 2 findings can provide clear guidance on how incentives can be better used to speed up cashless payment adoption. It also highlights that habits may need to be better understood and managed to reduce their negative impact on cashless payment adoption both from a research and also a practitioner point-of-view. Essay 3 provides guidance from a macro-perspective on the critical factors required for cashless payment adoption success. Contrary to conventional wisdom, developed countries may encounter unique challenges to cashless payment adoption as it relates to high-technology payment application to low-technology payment deployment settings. The essay highlights previously unresearched areas on unique barriers that developed countries may face. Together, these essays provide insights to academics to further their study into payments research from a multi-disciplinary perspective. For policy makers and practitioners, these essays will help guide decision making on what works in the field towards cashless payment adoption.

This dissertation studies the effectiveness of a training programme to improve decision making in insurance risk underwriting. A key component of insurance risk underwriting decisions is qualitative judgement, in addition to quantitative analytical modelling. In the training of insurance underwriters, great strides have been made on the analytical side. However, the training of judgement, both intuitive and deliberate, has largely been ignored. The aim of this research proposal is to design and test a training programme to improve judgement in insurance underwriting.

Our research extends the script training concept, used extensively in medical training, to the domain of insurance underwriting for the first time. As part of the research, we interviewed underwriters of varying levels of experience. We looked to capture the scripts of experienced underwriters; contrast this with novices and then use these as a training tool for underwriters. We then also looked to extract the simple rules that underlie the intuitive judgements in insurance underwriting and use these to formally train more deliberate judgements.

The training intervention was administered to groups of professional underwriters and also groups of students. The impact of the training was measured for both accuracy and consistency improvements in underwriting decisions. Control groups were also established. We also examined the moderating impacts of experience and some components of mindfulness on the training impact. The results suggest that the combined scripts and simple rules training improves both quality and consistency of underwriting decisions (when compared to the control group). The training design contains the key components needed to develop expertise – the scripts technique gives exposure to many cases; the simple rules then provides systematised knowledge and the underwriting process ensures objective feedback.

This study has the impact of accelerating the development of underwriting expertise and could potentially save companies billions of dollars in poor underwriting decisions. The proposed training design could potentially fundamentally change the training of underwriters to include formal training on the important aspects of intuitive and deliberate judgement. This will then also help prepare underwriters for managing risks in an increasing innovative and riskier world.

Despite the large number of research publications on innovation management matters, there is still a gap in the understanding of effective innovation governance at corporate levels. The mechanisms that drive effective governance at firm level to ensure the “alignment of goals, allocation of resources and assignment of decision-making authority for innovation across the company, and with external parties” (Deschamps, 2013) remain unclear. Given the importance of family firms in Asia (and beyond), there is an urgent need to examine those family factors that influence the effectiveness of corporate governance of innovation in Asian enterprise. Against this background, this study attempts to contribute to the innovation literature by (i) developing a new model of corporate innovation governance for Singapore Chinese family firms; (ii) defining the roles and responsibilities of the board of directors in these family-based firms with regard to governing innovation; and (iii) creating a checklist to support both board members and CEOs of local family firms to better govern and manage organisational innovation efforts at corporate levels.

A qualitative research approach was used to provide rich insights into the “why” and “how” of the corporate governance of innovation in an Asian business context, which is still poorly understood. During phase 1, we interviewed ten experts in areas related to innovation, governance and Chinese family firms. Using the insights generated, we created semi-structured interview questions for the subsequent phase 2 case study research. For each of the four case studies, interviews were conducted with two to three key executives of the firms to gather deeper insights into the research topic and to ensure a high level of data validity.

Using a grounded theory approach, we formulated an actionable, corporate innovation governance model that points the way ahead for the leaders of Singapore Chinese family firms towards continued value creation. Our research suggests that there is a clear gap between the expert views concerning the desired roles and responsibilities of the board of directors with regard to innovation governance and the actual practices observed in Singapore Chinese family firms. One of the key issues is the lack of domain expertise and experience in innovation management at the board level. Based on the qualitative research, we developed propositions on the antecedents to board’s pro-activeness (e.g. shareholders’ expectations), and family influence factors (e.g. cohesiveness among family members involved in business operation), that affect the governance of innovation. Besides discussing the theoretical implications of the research findings such as the impact of innovation leadership on the corporate governance of innovation in Singapore Chinese family firms, the dissertation concludes with a novel checklist to inform top business leaders about key variables and aspects that affect the effectiveness of making corporate innovation governance work such as innovation leadership, innovation capabilities and clarity of innovation strategy.

The benefits of family-supportive supervisor behavior (FSSB) for subordinates’ work and family outcomes have been the focus of previous studies, but little research has examined the positive impact of FSSB on supervisors’ family outcomes. To address this research gap and contribute to the leader and family literature, the negative relationship between FSSB and work-to-family conflict (WFC) is examined in this study, focusing on the mediating role of personal skill development. In addition, I propose that emotional exhaustion moderates the main effect of FSSB on personal skill development and the indirect effect of FSSB on WFC via personal skill development. A three-wave field study was conducted at a bank in China to obtain dyadic data on supervisors and subordinates. Regression and bootstrapping analyses were conducted to test the proposed model and hypotheses. Most of the hypotheses were supported by the data. Personal skill development was found to mediate the relationship between FSSB and WFC, and emotional exhaustion alleviated the main effect of FSSB on personal skill development but not its indirect effect on WFC via personal skill development. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) is a type of trust fund or corporation that pools the funds of a large number of investors by issuing a certificate of income and invest the raised funds in real estate projects that are managed by a specialized investment institution. The real estate investment risk is moderate, and the rent is stable, but the capital threshold is high, and it is difficult for small and medium investors to enter the market. The invention of REITs aims to solve this problem, through the collection of funds, so that small and medium investors can enter the field of real estate investment. Specialized managers use the raised funds to build up real estate investment portfolios to diversify investment risks. The shares or units of REITs held by investors can be transferred in the open market with good liquidity.

As of 2018, there are about 39 countries around the world that have established REITs market. The total market value of global REITs is around $2 trillion. Most of these countries choose to launch REITs when their economic growth slows down, and the real estate market is sluggish. From a macro perspective, China's economy is facing downward pressure, and domestic housing prices are also strictly regulated by the government, showing a slowdown in growth. In general, the domestic macroeconomic conditions and the real estate industry environment provide favorable conditions for the launch of REITs in China.

In recent years, Chinese investors have become increasingly demanding for investment and wealth management services. Based on the total size of investable assets, China has now become the world's second-largest investment market after the United States. However, domestic investors lack medium-risk, medium-income investment options, and there is an urgent need to fill this gap. The primary real estate holders in the country are also looking forward to the launch of REITs. Through launching REITs, developers expect to revitalize their real estate assets and accelerate their business transformation. The Chinese government hopes to dispose of some infrastructure assets by launching REITs, recover funds and reduce debt level of itself. From the perspective of supply and demand, the market conditions for the launch of REITs have gradually matured.

Although there are many favorable conditions, China has not launched public REITs yet. But, why? What obstacles does China face on the road to launching REITs? To launch REITs, what strategy should China adopt? How can the REITs market in China take off? To find the answers to these significant questions, I conduct a comparative study on the significant international REITs markets. Considering the current domestic policies and economic environment, I attempt to propose a practical and feasible strategy for China to launch and develop the REITs market.

Risk-taking is a necessary part of business, yet little is known about how leaders might impact follower risk-taking. A theoretical model is developed in which transformational leaders are hypothesized to indirectly affect follower risk-taking through follower psychological safety. Additionally, this partially mediated effect is theorised to be moderated by follower power distance orientation. Data were collected over two time periods from followers (N = 331) to test the hypothesized model. Results provided limited support for the hypothesized model. Specifically, results indicated that transformational leadership positively affected psychological safety, but psychological safety did not predict follower risk-taking. Power distance orientation did not moderate either stage of the hypothesized partially mediated model although power distance orientation did directly and negatively predict follower risk-taking. Contrary to expectations, transformational leadership was negatively related to follower risk-taking.

Incubator models have evolved since the first known US incubator in 1959. From the first generation of a facilities-focused incubator model in the 1960s to the fourth generation of emerging models, commonly referred to as, the “Accelerator” model and the “Venture Builder” model.
Since 2006, there has been a significant increase in the number of venture builders and accelerators. Yet very little is known about a) their performance and the antecedents; b) the key differences between venture builders and accelerators; c) the factors and practices that characterise highly successful venture builders and d) their (venture builders)comparative advantages or disadvantages compared to the large number of accelerators.
This study examined and analysed the venture building phenomenon where there has been a paucity of rigorous published scientific research. Meanwhile, practice-oriented publications have proliferated.
The empirical research adopted both face-to-face interviews and online semi-structured surveys that comprised three separate studies. Study 1 saw the participation of eight overseas and local incubation practitioners in separate face to face hour-long interviews (four accelerators and four venture builders). The literature review and the findings in Study 1, which detailed the actual practices of these two incubation models, yielded ten key important practices that these incubators represented as their modus operandi. These ten practices became the independent predictors which were used in Study 1a and Study 2. Study1a was an extension of Study 1 in that twenty-nine highly experienced incubation practitioners (from
diverse location such as Hungary, US, Canada, Portugal, France, Mexico and Turkey) participated in answering an online semi-structured survey to ascertain their agreement or disagreement about these ten practices as characteristics of venture building practices. Finally, Study 2, an online semi-structured survey, was launched. Study 2 yielded responses from forty-four start-ups from wide-ranging diverse countries including Singapore, Canada, US, Thailand, Turkey, India and Japan. This was the focal study that provided the data for testing eleven pairs of hypotheses.
Success, being the predicted outcome of the start-ups was assessed from two angles - financial success and psychological satisfaction. The study identified the key incubation practices that were associated with successful start-ups and produced a binomial logistic regression generated prediction model for each of the two success outcomes. Together the findings of the three studies were triangulated and yielded eight key insights on the predictors that contributed to successful start-ups.
To develop financially successful start-ups, incubators should focus on the five key practices of marketing performance, demand orientation, market scope, internationalisation and long-term engagement; whereas in developing psychologically satisfied start-ups, the four key focal practices are marketing performance, demand orientation, market scope and internationalisation (high commonality with practices identified for financially successful start-ups). This exploratory research contributed to our innovation knowledge by exploring the known gaps and provided key insights that are useful for start-up investors, government innovation policy-makers and entrepreneurs of start-ups looking to maximise success. The study concluded by suggesting some areas for future research. The key takeaway of this research is this: “Given the often-confusing labelling of incubators as accelerators or venture builders, it is not what they call themselves that is critical to the success of start-ups - but what they actually practice that matters !”.

This dissertation research investigated the potential predictors of returning Filipino expatriates’ and their sustainable job success. This research investigates the extent of firm level differences such as a companies’ global engagement, repatriate support programs and individual differences such as the repatriates’ compensation, alignment of their personal goals with organizational values, and the level of patriotism to predict their job success upon return to the Philippines. The research employed a grounded theory approach to develop the hypotheses and was executed using a survey methodology. The results were analyzed using a variety of quantitative and statistical techniques. A total of 141 respondents from two different groups were in the final sample. The first group was made up of Senior Management respondents (n=80) and the remaining 43% (n=61) belonged to a group composed of repatriates that were Philippine nationals residing in the Philippines. The results demonstrate significant support for the hypotheses that a repatriates’ job success, is based on a) compensation, b) sense of patriotism, and c) values alignment with the sponsoring firm. However, the hypotheses that the global, local or regional nature of the company employing the repatriate, and the company repatriate support programs on job success were not supported.

In new business ventures, growth in itself is often not the main intention in the beginning, but rather a mean to ensure survivability first, follow by sustainability and secure profitability. Not all small businesses survived over time and are always confronted with the liability of newness and contending externalities such as fierce competition and internal limitations like resources to survive. Only about half of newly founded start-ups survived after 5 years.

The presence or absence of resources and the critical role it plays on the effect of venture’s survival, provides substantive advancement in understanding of organisational theory and management practice specifically on privately held small business. In this study, I will explore three types of resources: (i) financial capital, (ii) human capital, and (iii) social capital, and how they influence the survivability of start-ups.

Longitudinal data on 36,969 privately held new ventures confirmed the differing influences of resources on survival. Using Cox proportional hazards model with time-dependent covariates, results show that both financial capital and human capital factors positively enhances survivability, and social capital factors having mixed direction of the relationship. While results show that social resources factor like board size and ethnic diversity alone indicate a negative relationship with survivability, further study suggest that if the board size increases to sufficiently large, ethnic diversity can positively moderate the relationship to enhance survivability, i.e. reversing the direction of the relationship.

In this study, I further examine the moderating effect of financial capital on the human and social capital relationships with venture’s survival, results suggest that with the availability of slack resources, entrepreneurs are not effectively leveraging the strength of their founder’s human capital and social capital when deploying or utilising the resources, potentially undertaking more risky projects or sub-optimal decisions resulting in negative impact to performance.

The number of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in China has increased dramatically in recent years. Under China’s “go global” strategy, Chinese firms are devoting more capital and time to developing their overseas business. Cross-border M&As make up a large proportion of these activities. Therefore, it is crucial to determine what factors affect the performance of cross-border acquisitions.

Previous studies show that the acquirers’ post-merger performance is affected by various factors. Those papers mainly focus on domestic M&As. However, cross-border M&As also have unique features. In this study, I focus on Chinese cross-border acquisitions and the factors that affect the acquirers’ post-merger performance. I start my research with a few case studies. I analyze Chinese cross-border acquisition deals and compare them with U.S. deals. In addition, I examine one domestic acquisition of a Chinese corporation and compare it with cross-border acquisitions conducted by Chinese acquirers. I find that post-merger integration for cross-border acquisitions faces more issues than that for domestic acquisitions. Through the case analysis, I identify two factors that are crucial to the post-merger performance of the acquirer. These two factors are due diligence and cultural conflicts. In the second part of my study, I conduct a series of empirical analyses. I use two proxies that are highly correlated with the due diligence process and culture conflicts to examine their impact on post-merger performance. I manually match data on Chinese cross-border deals from the Securities Data Company database to data from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research database. The empirical results show that acquirers’ overseas experience is associated with better post-merger performance and market reactions. Moreover, the deal characteristics differ between targets incorporated in developed and developing countries. However, long-term post-merger performance does not vary with the target incorporated nation. To conclude, my study shows that firms undertaking cross-border acquisitions need to conduct thorough due diligence and pay more attention to post-merger integration. Although the market might have different reactions to the acquisitions of firms incorporated in different countries, long-term performance is not affected by the target’s nationality.

In recent years, the Chinese government has proposed a national development strategy for the construction of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which has been beefing up the trend of integrated development of Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou, frontiers of the reform and opening up. Among many other topics, the evolution of the real estate prices in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou has become a front-burner topic.

In this dissertation focusing on the real estate price in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou, we have conducted in-depth analysis of the interplay between the real estate price in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou from such perspectives as empirical relationship, causes and strategy suggestion. The research mainly consists of the following content:

The first is background analysis and literature review, with the purpose of exploring the real estate price in urban agglomerations along the urbanization process, specifically the overall background of the interplay between real estate prices in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou, and probing into the role of real estate prices as signals in market economy conditions.

The second is an in-depth analysis of the interplay between real estate prices in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou based on statistical data, and build a Granger causality test and a VAR model, leading to the analysis of and discussion on the empirical relationship of the interplay.

The third is an analysis of the reasons for the interplay between real estate prices in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou, including the economic, psychosocial and political reasons, and an exploration and explanation of the mechanism of the interplay between real estate prices in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou.

The fourth is proposal of countermeasures and suggestions specifically for industry, government and resident sectors based on the interplay between real estate prices in Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou, so as to enhance the availability of this research as theoretical reference and practical guidance.

Through analysis of empirical relationship and causes, we have drawn several conclusions that, for example, the real estate price in Shenzhen Granger-causes those in Dongguan and Huizhou, and the real estate prices in Dongguan and Huizhou Granger-cause each other, which provide theoretical and practical references for industry development, government intervention and residents’ property investment and buying.

The cross-domain and cross-border aspects of the Business Accelerator sector has resulted in an ecosystem that has seen actors in the space jostle for clear and competitive positioning. The evolution of Business Accelerators as a business entity, seeking to supply positive interventions to the journey of start-ups, is common to all growth and innovation orientated ecosystems. The ability for Business Accelerator managers to demonstrably impact their subject acceleratees positively has been an under-researched area. Against this background is the rising volume of capital being channeled into funding startups due to the widespread drive for innovation led growth which is increasingly the cornerstone of industry policy. Gaining a better understanding of the role of what interventions support the success of new ventures is the focus of this research work.

This research follows a mixed-methods research approach to gain insights into the impact of Business Accelerators on startups. A survey of a sample of accelerated and non-accelerated companies was conducted to explore their impact on performance outcomes. The study further explored six dimensions of managerial activities and capabilities to understand if these dimensions could explain observed differences in performance. The analysis concluded no significant differences existed in the performance outcomes of accelerated versus non-accelerated startups.

A further phase of research built upon these findings by selecting two companies that had been through an acceleration program, one being classed as successful and one unsuccessful. Case studies involving interviews of the founders and members of the accelerator program management were then conducted. In addition, a review of other materials including program materials to distill key factors that contrasted the companies and their experiences with acceleration programs was conducted.

The key findings of these case studies suggest that Business Accelerators can have a positive impact on companies by focusing founders on prioritizing a detailed execution-orientation, including regular communication with all stakeholders in the program. Experienced key program resources such as the Entrepreneur-in-Residence and Program Managers, suitable mentors and open relationships with fellow cohort startups were noted as sources of intervention which could impact success.

This paper examined whether positive and negative emotional displays influenced negotiation outcomes (value creation and claiming) differentially for female and male negotiators. Also considered was how negotiation dyad gender composition might affect value creation and claiming. I examined recordings from a negotiation exercise (N = 194). Results revealed that when females expressed negative emotions significantly reduced value claiming on the part of those female negotiators. However, the effects of expressing positive emotions on negotiation outcomes did not vary by negotiator gender. The findings suggest that female negotiators do not need to be positive but only need not be negative to avoid backlash in negotiations. Results also indicated that MM (male-male) dyads created more value than FM (female-male) dyads and that both created more value than FF (female-female) dyads.

It is often said that a happy worker is a good worker, but do happy workers in the service industry result in happy or satisfied customers or guests? This research aimed to seek out answers to this anecdotal question by surveying both frontline, customer-facing employees and visitors or guests in several visitor attractions in Singapore and the Philippines. The research found significant correlation between job satisfaction, psychological empowerment and guest satisfaction, particularly in zone-managed visitor attractions. Zone-managed attractions did not deploy the conventional and traditional functional operating structure; employees’ job functions were clustered by customer touchpoints associated with how the customers would be most likely to experience the visitor attraction. Functions in these clusters or zones were based on anticipating customer or guest needs and requirements, and employees in these zones were multiskilled to meet these needs and employees performed a range of functions and duties within the same zone. This research found employees in zone-managed attractions to be more likely to be satisfied, more psychologically empowered and more likely to have longer lengths of service; while guests visiting zone-managed attractions to be more likely to be satisfied with their visits.

Achieving start-up success is a multi-dimensional challenge. Against this background, this research centres around the experiences gained at an Asian University with a postgraduate Master of Science in Innovation program (MI) aimed at creating novel and viable business ventures as part of so-called Capstone Projects. Given concerns about the - at times - somewhat mediocre nature of ideation and business model creation outcomes of some of the students‚Äô capstone projects in contrast to a couple of very successful, award-winning innovation projects, emphasis was put on identifying and understanding the type of leadership that drives high-quality new ventures, namely entrepreneurial leadership. Other critical factors for start-up success were identified and analysed through mixed method research: entrepreneurial self-efficacy, team climate and the appreciation of age diversity. Based on semi-structured interviews with MI graduates, a conceptual model was developed to examine the interrelatedness of entrepreneurial leadership impact and the critical factors mentioned above. This was followed by a survey questionnaire to gather data on MI graduates aimed at empirically testing the conceptual model and its hypotheses.

In the empirical test, entrepreneurial leadership was significantly associated with team climate. The study results suggest that team climate mediates the effect of entrepreneurial leadership impact on innovation work behaviour. This finding helps to understand how effective leaders operate and succeed in a start-up environment. Start-up innovation teams are small and constrained by limited resources. The team climate plays an important role in these innovation teams. In a diverse innovation team, team members often get into heated arguments during business discussions resulting in negative team climate. Strong entrepreneurial leaders are able to foster a positive team climate that promotes innovation.

This research also revealed that age diversity can have a negative impact on team climate, e.g. when members do not appreciate other members who are younger or older. In the context of the surveyed innovation teams, appreciation of age diversity among members was positively associated with a positive team climate. However, the study results also suggest that appreciation of age diversity alone is insufficient to foster innovation work behaviour in a team. Team members require a strong entrepreneurial leader to lead them to innovate, e.g. by transforming innovative ideas into useful applications. Such leaders often have strong entrepreneurial self-efficacy and can empower team members to make innovation work, i.e. entrepreneurial leaders of innovation teams succeed in encouraging team members to seek entrepreneurial goals, stimulating an innovation orientation amongst them, identifying innovation opportunities and so forth. To sum up, this study offers new insights into the type of entrepreneurial leadership required to successfully lead innovation teams in a start-up context in order to exploit related business opportunities.

While e-learning has taken a stronghold as the de-facto training medium in knowledge intensive technology sector organizations, several factors have been hypothesized to influence the efficacy of training efforts, such as educator presence, interaction levels and individual motivation for development. This dissertation looks at one blended learning intervention that organizations can make use of to significantly improve the learning outcomes. The paper introduces micro-coaching, a new construct referring to brief coaching and mentoring interventions, that in conjunction with the e-learning sessions can improve cognitive as well as behavioral changes in individuals, which are key to improving learning and the resultant business performance.

Initial insights for this dissertation were developed through a grounded theory research approach looking into the barriers to workplace blended learning adoption, inefficacies therein and how coaching interaction as a blend can help improve both the cognitive and behavioral aspects of such training. The importance and substantive validity of this issue was first explored and confirmed through a series of semi-structured interviews with six practitioners in the field that have responsibility for and experience with traditional face-to-face, on-line and blended delivery models in large international organizations.

A field experiment was then conducted to test e-learning outcomes controlled for coaching and mentoring interventions. The results demonstrate support for the hypothesis that even minimalist coaching and mentoring interventions will not only improve cognition but also enhance retention and the participant’s motivation to learn further. The results are linked to on the job performance behavior.

This dissertation contributes to the growing practice of workplace e-learning, blended learning and coaching by drawing attention to benefits of integration of training methods across the organization and suggests directions for further research. The practical results of the dissertation contribute to management theory by providing an effective option for organizations to convert line managers and internal subject matter experts into micro-coaches and improve e-learning effectiveness.

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of alcohol and tobacco control policies on sales performance when two central elements of marketing, communication and promotion programs, are significantly restricted. The study took place in Thailand, which has some of the strongest tobacco control regulations in the world, along with moderately strong alcohol control regulations. Under these regulations, tobacco firms operate in a dark market, with near-total regulatory prohibition on advertising, promotion, and even the display of their products. Alcohol firms operate in a less restrictive or “grey” market, as they face restrictions on advertising and promotion content, as well as restrictions on the sale of their products.

This research used a stakeholder perspective that addressed alcohol and tobacco distributors and on-premise customers, which were selected because most past research had surveyed only consumer or regulatory perspectives, leading to a lack of knowledge about the actual marketing practices undertaken in dark markets. The study employed a theoretical base including social learning theory, the brand resonance network, and brand value chains, which were used to establish a working model of marketing in the target markets. These theories proposed that in the absence of pull strategies (advertising and promotion), firms would turn to push strategies (trade marketing, relationship marketing, events and digital marketing).

The study was designed as an exploratory qualitative study, conducting interviews with international and domestic alcohol and tobacco distributors (n = 18) and on-premises retailers in five segments (n = 18) providing data. The evidence showed that increased emphasis on trade marketing and innovative use of trade marketing was the most important substitution strategy for the blocked advertising and promotion strategies. Although events and digital marketing were used by alcohol distributors and retailers, tobacco firms, which operated in a much stricter environment, could not use them. The implication of this study was that creation of a dark market through regulation can completely change the marketing environment and strategies in use.

Business risk has been a critical area of managerial attention and the topic of extensive academic research. Despite the intense focus, there is little convergence around its understanding and limited insights on how managers deal with it. Extant literature provides an ex post model of business risk, focusing on the behavioural context of risk-taking driving a linear expression of risk action.

We conducted in-depth interviews of 16 C-suite executives to find that managers (1) view business risk as a multi-dimensional construct involving different facets of risk, (2) emphasize the importance of people across these facets, (3) differ in their prioritization and interpretations of particular risk facets which together form their risk perceptions and (4) their perceptions influence their risk management action.

Integrating findings from fieldwork with extant theory, we propose a conceptual model towards an ex ante understanding of business risk. Our model links individual, firm and industry-level variables to managerial prioritization and interpretation of business risk, and we use it to develop distinct research hypotheses.

We carried out a second-stage quantitative survey of 182 managers from manufacturing, services and technology businesses. The results demonstrate (1) significant correlation between firm & industry-level variables and managerial perceptions of market-facing risks, (2) contradictions between managerial perceptions of different risk facets, particularly people risk, (3) paradoxical relationship between managerial experience and risk perceptions and (4) possible blind-spots in managerial perceptions of risk.

Our research emphasizes the need to deal with business risk in a structured manner and to broaden organizational cognition whilst planning risk management efforts. Our study has implications for both managers and academics.

We develop the risk management landscape as a systematic approach for dealing with risk and leveraging it for business advantage. Finally, we discuss limitations of our study, and consequent directions for future research.

Many Asian enterprises are family businesses. In recent years, there has been a growing body of research on creativity in Asian firms, but few studies on the creativity of the professionals working in Asian family businesses. Given the importance of creativity in family businesses for their continued success, I examined how a professional‚Äôs ties to family members in a family business influenced their creativity. I proposed that the number of family members in a professional‚Äôs network would positively predict the professional‚Äôs creativity, and that this effect would be mediated by the family members‚Äô affective and cognitive trust in the professional. I further proposed that because of trust transference among family members, the source of trust came not only from family members directly connected to the professional but also from family members outside of the professional‚Äôs immediate network. I name this phenomenon the Family Member Hive Effect. I tested my hypotheses through (i) a network survey at a family business operating in the construction industry in Myanmar and (ii) semi-structured interviews with selected family members and professionals within the family business. Results from both the network survey and the interviews supported the hypotheses. Implications of the existence of the Hive Effect are discussed.

Large-scale organizational change is a necessary undertaking critical to the ongoing success of most firms. Despite the necessity of such change, it is also an undertaking that fails at approximately twice the rate that it succeeds. Prior work on change leadership primarily looks at characteristics of the individual leader and does not differentiate on areas of the organization where change will be occurring. The work conducted in this research compares categories of change leaders and looks at change within a specific area of a firm, its non-core business area.

This exploratory research compared core-area technical experts to generalists as change leaders in non-core areas of their firm. It sought to identify if differences existed between these two groups in leading non-core-area change in these four areas: 1) recognition of need for change, 2) motivation to lead change 3) perception of skills to lead change and 4) perception of empowerment to lead change. A multi-step grounded theory approach was used to develop the research questions, propositions and hypotheses. This was followed by a two-stage survey of expert and generalist leaders in higher education institutions.

The results showed that while experts were perceived to be empowered and to possess some of the necessary skills, they demonstrated little intrinsic motivation to contribute in non-core-area change leadership. Instead, they preferred to contribute in their expert technical area. Generalists also were perceived to possess some of the necessary skills to lead change, and they demonstrated a higher level of recognition of the need for change and a significant preference to contribute in the area of non-core-area change leadership. However, they were perceived as not possessing sufficient empowerment to be a non-core-area change leader.

This foundational exploratory work is presented to both provide practice-based guidance for firms, as well as establish a base for future work to further the field of study. Looking at categories of change leaders (experts and generalists in this work) in specific areas of an organization (non-core in this work) appears to be a lightly researched area. However, with the consequences of not changing or of suffering failed changes being potentially fatal to an organization, guidance that can come from further research in the area is a topic of great importance and worthy of continued research.

Inadequate representation of women in the upper corporate echelons remains a worldwide problem, in spite of seemingly concerted efforts by organizations to counter it. While progress has been made in terms of entry level percentages of women, the numbers continue to fall with growth up the corporate ladder. Asia is no exception to this phenomenon. Analysis of literature and secondary data reveals that academic writing on the subject is generally declining but practitioner literature abounds with reports on the still low number of women in leadership positions.

This research study uses a discovery-oriented grounded theory approach based on qualitative analysis to explore the enablers that can positively impact the motivation of Asian women managers to stay in the leadership pipeline and actively pursue opportunities for career success. Detailed literature review of academic and practitioner focused literature is first conducted. This is followed by forty-two qualitative interviews with four categories of responders: female corporate leaders, women currently on the corporate leadership track, male leaders and men currently on the corporate leadership track. The interviews demonstrate common supervisorial and organizational enablers for continuing motivation for career progress into leadership roles, as self-identified by the interviewees. The interviews are analysed to understand the regulatory focus of the responders at the pre-leadership career stage and the influence of said triggers. Supportive behaviour by male leaders is revealed as a potentially significant and underutilized factor for improving women’s leadership development through its moderating effect on female regulatory focus whereby it situationally primes the salience of promotion focus.

In this dissertation, the author goes inside some of China's most remote and poorest villages and tries to reveal the determinants, correlates and strategies to address the gap of existing poverty governance system and the complexity and diversity of poor population. He offers in-depth insights into what the poor people think about poverty with two major indicators, identifies evidence on the feasibility of duel-network embedding strategy to reduce poverty, and explains how diverse groups hit by extreme poverty could develop entrepreneurship relationship with diversified market and available social economic resources. Drawing on examples that take place in Xide County, a remote and poor village in Sichuan Province, Wenyong offers specific strategies that trigger trust, spark value, restore right, and drive positive change.

The rigorous analysis and consultation used in developing this dissertation found that commercial mechanism in combination with social assistance framework enable those deprived of rights for basic living and development to build up entrepreneurship by inviting and inspiring them to get involved in diversified market with promised investment through elements of cooperation among resources, assets and capital.

The author unearths the intertwined interdependent relationship between social and industry networks, which play a key role to mitigate extreme poverty so that the poor people could obtain knowledge, capability and resources through social assistance framework while practice industry operation and management in a diversified market. He identifies three key measurement deliverables as component of a three-dimensional model to evaluate to what extent this dual-network embedding strategy has reshaped the expectation and practice of poor villagers in the field of trust, value and right. Same model can also be adopted to analyze the ongoing situation and barricades that need to be addressed when coping with poverty reduction.

The problem of counterfeit and shoddy goods in China has been rampant and persistent one. The complexity of the Chinese market makes solving this problem extremely difficult. Three government agencies have tried to combat this problem extensively, from market entrance permission for prior-processing, sampling and inspection for in-processing, and punishment for post-processing. The responsibility division among agencies, however, created the cracks and holes in dealing with the problem. The existing government solution is too slow in response and too sparse in coverage to be effective and efficient. Anti-counterfeit labels and their derivatives are employed for counterfeit identification and prevention. Their effectiveness and coverage, however, are also limited, and the cost and resources required for these techniques have prevented a majority of industries to adopt them.

To address this counterfeit problem, an ID-tag based product tracking solution have been proposed and developed. A unique ID is assigned to each product, a unique and authentic-able ID is assigned to each market participants, and a repository server is used to track all the status changes of the instances. Whenever a market participant processes a product, the market participant is required to report the changes in product status to the repository. Based on the status data of each product, the repository can create an event chain or the life cycle for the product. Using the event chain data, our solution creates a seamless monitoring and controlling system for each product over its entire life cycle in the market. Accountability can be traced to serve as a deterrence mechanism to fight against counterfeits. Our solution is called the Electronic Product Monitoring and Controlling System (EPMCS). For the last 15 years, EPMCS has saw great success in the drug industry. EPMCS has proven itself to be effectively in handling the problematic drugs and efficiently in resolving public crises. The EPMCS success in drug industries inspired many to build and deploy EPMCS like systems in different industries across China and other countries. While applying the EPMCS design to their systems, there are four questions that should be answered: (1) What are the essential elements and rules of the EPMCS design that other EPMCS like systems must follow? (2) Is the EPMCS complete and effective in solving the counterfeit and shoddy product problem? (3) What parameters of EPMCS can be chosen and what are their boundaries while EPMCS like systems are implemented? And (4) What are the worthwhile practices and experience we have gained in our promotion for the EPMCS adoption in drug industry that might shed light on the future EPMCS like system adoptions in other industries?

In this research, the above questions are answered. It has shown that (1) any EPMCS system must have six core elements and eight essential rules; (2) EPMCS is a both complete and effective solution to the counterfeit and shoddy product problem; (3) There are four parameters that can be chosen and adjusted in an EPMCS implementation; (4) The elements of a successful EPMCS adoption include the prototype, effective communication, and accommodation for key stakeholders.

In this thesis, I argue that higher education institutes generate significant positive externalities and other virtual benefits to the society they embedded in, which often dwarf the direct economic returns created. It would be an unfortunate oversimplification to throw economic theories developed from the private sector directly to higher education institutes without acknowledging their unique social values. Following a long tradition of integrating social and economic perspectives, I proposed a conceptual paradigm for higher education system to cover its social as well as economic role. An institute sets strategic intents to live up to stakeholders’ expectations and then develops an organizational structure to fulfill such intents. Unlike other organizations, a college/university has quite a diverse base of stakeholders and therefore multiple strategic intents. Those intents may conflict with one another from time to time. Evaluating a higher education institute therefore should count in all these social-economic intents. A holistic method of merit-evaluation will then be derived from this conceptual paradigm.

I applied the proposed paradigm under a China context and found that the distribution of government’s supports is uneven with a consistent favor towards large comprehensive research universities. University ranking influenced how the public fund was allocated, and social impact measured by two sets of mobile internet-based data moderated such an influence. I concluded that although research universities are the shining stars in the higher education system, they are not the whole picture of the advanced and sophisticated examples such as American’s enviable university networks. Rather, the strength of such a system resides in both the celebrated faculties and high-quality graduates, and the diversity and inclusiveness of all kinds of schools and students. The support of star research universities should not be at the expenses of sagging small specialized teaching schools. Hopefully, by applying a new and more balanced evaluation method, these small specialized institutes would shine as did their large comprehensive peers.

Despite the importance of team innovation for organizations, the conditions that foster team innovation are still not well understood. In this dissertation, I propose a theoretical model in which the impact of shared leadership on team innovation is mediated by information sharing and team potency. I utilize a two-wave longitudinal, multi-method and multi-source research design to examine the research hypotheses. I argue that shared leadership not only improves a team’s information sharing and team potency, but also generates cognitive and motivational advantages that are conducive to innovation. In addition, I show that the relationship between shared leadership and team innovation is moderated by leader-member exchange (LMX) differentiation, and the innovation stage moderates the relationship between shared leadership and team potency. LMX differentiation restrains the positive effect of shared leadership on information sharing and team potency because high LMX differentiation increases perceived injustice in teams. The results show that team potency mediates the impact of shared leadership on team innovation. The positive impact of information sharing and team potency on team innovation is stronger in the idea implementation stage than in the idea generation stage. My research contributes to the shared leadership literature by identifying how and when shared leadership influences team innovation.

This dissertation examines digital banking from the perspective of two types of industry participants; non-bank FinTech alternative [substitute] financial service providers whom are intent on disrupting the market, and [incumbent] traditional banks whom are urgently pursing digital strategies in order to counteract the FinTech threat. This study is motivated by five main research questions: (1) Are FinTech firms disrupting traditional banks, and if so, what are the modes of disruption? (2) Do tradition banks view FinTech firms as a threat, and if so, what are they doing about it? (3) What are the various digital banking strategies, and how are tradition banks implementing those strategies? (4) What are the inhibitors (barriers to entry) for digital banking, and what are the challenges that traditional banks are facing to overcome these barriers to entry? (5) How can traditional banks accelerate their digital banking capability?

Analysis of financial data collected on FinTech firms and banks provides supporting evidence that the FinTech threat is indeed real, that multisided platforms have the most disruptive impact, and that FinTech lending firms pose the greatest disruptive threat to traditional banks in terms of interest income. Multiple-case study analysis of eight banks reveals that legacy systems are the greatest inhibitor of digital banking capability, however banks with a high degree of service-oriented architecture (SOA) maturity can overcome this barrier. To a lesser extent, complex IT governance processes and lack of technology skills are barriers. SOA maturity is key to overcoming these barriers to entry.

The contribution to practice presented in this dissertation is a proposed Digital Banking Accelerator, to help banks overcome their barriers to entry. SOA is a key enabler for digital banking. Banks with no prior SOA experience have a steep learning curve, and can take several years to fully implement an effective SOA. There are technical challenges in understanding technologies, and organisational challenges in governing decisions. The proposed Digital Banking Accelerator will essentially de-risk banks’ adoption of SOA and accelerate traditional banks’ entry into the digital banking market. The Digital Banking Accelerator is expected to reduce the implementation cycle time by at least one calendar year. The benefit of the innovation as a digital banking accelerator has already been demonstrated in the first commercial implementation.

Despite its popularity and a wide range of applications, social capital is a contested concept. There is also no agreement on whether social capital responds well to external interventions. Many scholars found no or, at most, mixed impacts that social capital can be purposefully developed. However, Burt and Ranchi (2007) and Janicik and Larrick (2005) provided compelling evidence that simple network training can significantly improve participants’ ability to see gaps in their network and develop social capital.

The manifestations of social capital are context-dependent and complex, and rarely map into a single discipline or methodology (Jones and Woolcock, 2007). Hence, an exploratory sequential mixed-method study was adopted (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2011). Six remote communities (barangays) from three municipalities in Northern Samar in the Philippines were selected as case-study sites for this research. My journey to Northern Samar, one of the most impoverished regions in the Philippines, started from my firm belief that developing the social networks and capital of the community leaders of these impoverished communities can be a viable intervention to improve their livelihoods.

The research builds on two theoretical foundations. First, findings in cognitive social networks that individuals’ perception of their network can improve their ‘ability to harness the social capital embedded in the network’ and influence their ‘decisions and behaviour’ (Janicik and Larrick, 2005; Brands, 2013). Second, Burt’s (1992) ‘structure holes’ theory or missing connections between people inhibit information flow, and the advantage of being network brokers to exploit opportunities from separate and non-redundant information in their networks (Burt 2000, 2005, 2009).

The goals of my research are, first, to demonstrate that community leaders, regardless of their socio-economic background, respond well to simple intervention to purposefully develop their social networks and capital within a short period of three to six months. Second, the purposefully developed social capital will lead to impactful actions that can help them gain better access to productivity-enhancing resources to improve yields and incomes. Third, an alternative policy recommendation on how farmers and fishermen can gain better access to affordable financial resources is recommended. Finally, to develop a practical and holistic approach to assess and implement future social impact initiatives in impoverished communities.

This dissertation is about the organisational considerations in setting up a successful business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) function. It addresses a gap in academic literature by presenting a theoretical framework on organisational attributes that impacts the BI&A function’s ability to improve the completeness and relevance of their data-driven solutions.

BI&A is a subset of information processing, and as such, subject to the phenomenon of uncertainty and equivocality. Most BI&A functions do not explicitly address this phenomenon in their organisation design, leading to suboptimal BI&A outcomes as widely publicised in both academic and practice literature.

This dissertation contributes to theory by identifying the organisation design variables that moderate the effects of a BI&A function’s ability to deal with uncertainty and equivocality in problem-solving. The research led to a proposed ‘transmutation’ framework where BI&A practitioners translate a business problem into a business solution that is key to understanding the role these moderating variables play.

This proposed transmutation framework has practical implications to the emerging discipline of BI&A. It provides insights into the interface model between the BI&A function and its business stakeholders, the specialisation of roles and responsibilities within the BI&A function, and the benefits and dis-benefits of pursuing a distributed organisational model such as offshoring.

Insights for this dissertation were drawn from 25 in-depth interviews with BI&A leaders and practitioners, and their senior business stakeholders.

Multinational firms play a significant role in the world economy, accounting for over 30% of the world stock market value. In the past decade or two, these firms have demonstrated a renewed wave of interest in the Emerging Asian markets. This is not surprising, given the attractive demographics, growing middle class and leapfrogging technology of these markets. But the optimism of these western firms heading eastward often gets quickly subdued by the realisation that these emerging Asian markets are far more complex—or at the very least, different—than western ones. They are more volatile, there is frequently a lack of institutional frameworks, market awareness is low, customer preferences are not well-defined, and distribution channels are not well established. And today, with the world becoming flatter, increasing protectionist policies and business models facing huge digital disruption, established multinationals across many industries are facing significant competition from their domestic counterparts.

Despite considerable research on internationalisation strategies, there are only a small number of studies that are focused on developing strategic direction in an emerging market context. Additionally, there is minimal in-depth research to examine the causes of under-performance of the global firm from the developed world in an emerging market as compared to its domestic counterparts, particularly when the industry it operates in is undergoing severe disruption. And yet, this trend of locals outperforming their multinational competitors has been observed to be particularly true in emerging markets. This research study aims to look deeper into this phenomenon, and understand the competitive advantages and disadvantages that foreign and domestic players experience. It focuses on the Banking Industry in India as a test case, where the new private domestic banks that started operations in the mid-90s have today captured over 20 percent of the country’s banking market share; while that of foreign banks has stagnated at around 5 percent. It delves into the activities and strategies undertaken by both sets of firms, and provides insights into the research question: “Why are the western multinational banks operating in India struggling to reach the growth performance of their domestic private counterparts?”

The study used a discovery-oriented grounded theory approach that first identifies the key variables that contribute to the success of a banking institution. Thereafter it contextualises these variables specifically to the Indian market, and then delves deeper into understanding where the most significant gaps exist between the competitive advantages of foreign and domestic bank. On the basis of the overall empirical findings obtained, it develops a comprehensive conceptual framework for the firm-specific disadvantages that a foreign bank deals with in an emerging market such as India, and provides recommendations to enable successful growth performance. The research process followed comprises qualitative and quantitative methodology that includes in-depth interviews from the C-suite of foreign and domestic banks in India, along with a survey that was conducted across senior management in these banks.

I believe this research would be of great managerial and academic significance as it takes place at a time when the winds of change are running countercyclical to the globalisation trend that had become the buzzword over the past two decades. It also sheds light on the inherent advantages that local businesses bring to the table, which should be useful in developing public policy papers that advocate protectionism.

There are very few empirical studies on this subject, and to my knowledge, there has not been any research similar to this one. By developing a conceptual model that is based on an entire range of factors that are at interplay in the Indian banking industry, the findings from this research should add significantly to the literature on the theories of internationalisation and disruption. It would also enable practitioners across the globe to develop suitable go-to-market approaches that have a strong strategic fit with the ground realities in the emerging markets, thereby enabling the successful growth of multinationals in these markets.

This study seeks to gain insights into the impact of team diversity on building ambidextrous teams, i.e., managing trade-offs of “exploiting the present” and “exploring the future.” Given the inconsistent findings of the effects of diversity on team outcomes to date, the effect (if any) will likely be mediated and/or moderated by contextual factors. Hence, in this study, I have examined team social capital to understand better its role in fostering the relationship between team diversity and team ambidexterity.

The results of this empirical study using 211 work teams (include 1,342 managers and employees) from two multi-national companies spanning fourteen countries showed that both team diversity and team social capital are reliable predictors of team ambidexterity. While the business case for diversity appears to be a “no-brainer” for most researchers and managers alike, but the formation of diverse teams will not automatically lead to team ambidexterity. Unlike many other forms of capital, social capital increases rather than decreases with use. So, it is important for organizations to pay equal, if not more, attention on building and nurturing team social capital.

This dissertation proposal studies the determinants of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in a frontier economy from the behavioral perspective of a manager. There are many determinants used in determining a Foreign Direct Investment. These determinants range from economic, social, institutional, technology, organization, and commercial down to cultural distance. The objective of this research is not to duplicate the methodologies of many quantitative research studies that have been conducted, in which many economists use quantitative analysis of several years of data to determine the many factors that correlate with levels of FDI. The behavioral aspect of a manager’s decision is noticeably absent in most economic models. This research study surveyed and interviewed managers to understand their mental calculus in making Foreign Direct Investment decisions. During our research, we conducted a preliminary exploratory survey of the various ways managers tend to make important decisions regarding Foreign Direct Investment. A semi-structured questionnaire and interviews were carried out with managers. This was done after the initial literature review, to understand the location, certainty and investment types of determinants they would consider when investing in Singapore, Vietnam, and Myanmar. The data obtained were analyzed, and with further literature review, we proposed several hypotheses. These hypotheses were to test the effect of the moderating determinants such as the culture, language, ethnic similarity, physical distance, economic policies, market opportunity and the legal system relationship between investors willingness to invest in two emerging economies; Vietnam and Myanmar. The legal system characteristics considered are legal clarity, legal transparency, legal corruption and legal enforcement. The results obtained will be useful to develop prescriptive advice to official and administrators in crafting Foreign Direct Investment policies in frontier economies.

Although crowdsourcing, an innovative online call to help solve problems or generate new ideas, has gained much traction in the business word, not much research has been done on the commenting and voting mechanisms. Most of the research has focussed on the why and how businesses crowdsource. To fill the gap, this research focuses on the commenting and voting mechanisms and aims to analyse the effectiveness of the commenting and voting mechanism in an ongoing crowdsourcing platform, Lego Idea. Using Python software, 8663 comments were extracted from the Lego Ideas platform. These comments were then manually categorised into 10 variables based on a taxonomy of categories built from a combination of another scholars’ work and this researcher’s effort.

The approved and rejected projects set of data resemble each other to a great extent. Hence, the results of both the data sets show very little or no difference in the responses. This further signifies that the chosen variables for the research analysis only play a partial role in determining the success or failure of the submitted projects of Lego. When the contributors share more of their personal stories and experiences, the number of comments on the submitted idea also increases. Sharing personal stories or experiences of the submitters as well as the commenters, in relation to the project designed, motivated the contributors to make a point about the content or design of the project.

This dissertation puts forward a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to study the effects of low control determinants and peer-to-peer interactions on customer experience. Peer-to-peer (P2P) is the exchange between participants of equal power and authority to perform common tasks in a service context. It was made popular by file sharing system like Napster. Some firms have successfully harnessed P2P interactions to advance their competitive position. As an example, online communities for open source software provide collaborative platforms for users to share information, as well as exchange and look for social support. These platforms are often sponsored and hosted by firms who in turn benefit from the insights generated that can be used for product and service development (Libai et al. 2010). The structure of consumption comprises consumer actions that directly engage objects and often involve interactions with other people including P2P interactions. Holt (1995) refers to the latter as consuming as play and consuming as integration. Despite these developments, there are limited examples of firms using P2P interactions as a lever to improve customer experience, drive satisfaction and loyalty (Zomerdijk & Voss 2010). The literature is filled with strategies to manage customer experience (Bitner 1992; Berry & Carbone 2002; Rust & Chung 2006; Bitner, Ostrom & Morgan 2008; Schmitt 2010; Rosenbaum & Massiah 2011; Achrol & Kotler 2012; Pine & Gilmore 1998, 2014) using firm controllable factors. However, there is a dearth of research on how firms can exert influence over firm uncontrollable factors or low control determinant. Consequently, this dissertation proposes the concept of low control determinants to bridge the vital research gap. The author defines low control determinants as factors that affect customer experience, but firms have little influence over. With archival data of an island resort, the quantitative analysis proposed a proof-ofconcept for low control determinants as a situation moderator in customer experience (Verhoef et al. 2009) based on extant literature on customer experience management. Specifically, the climate factor was hypothesized as the situation moderator between functional, mechanic and humanic clues respectively, on customer experience. From the findings of the quantitative study, the moderating effects of climate factors were inconclusive, although the direct effect of climate factors on customer experience was significant. The findings might be due to a selection bias and perhaps a coarse measurement of the independent variable – the daily average temperature was used to represent climate data instead of, say, the hourly breakdown. Nonetheless, the significant direct effects of a low control determinant suggested that firms need to identify low control determinants in addition to high control determinants and have strategies to exert influence over them. A second study used a qualitative case study method to investigate how firms could exert their influence over low control determinants. The second study used ethnographic research techniques and interviews to gather insights into how a local healthcare organization exerted influence over P2P interactions. Empirical research in brand experience, customer decision journey, sense of community and normative community pressure for firms, formed the basis for developing the conceptual model for the qualitative research framework. In-depth interviews with 39 administrators and customers or patients uncovered experiential dimensions of respondents and allowed respondents who were regular members of the wellness centers managed by the focal healthcare organization, to describe their feelings and experiences in their languages. The wellness centers were extensions of the healthcare organization into the residential estate; they were assimilated into the residential community without the infrastructure complexities of a hospital. The healthcare organization conceived of the wellness centers as a first step to promoting supported self-management of community-dwelling seniors. Besides explicating the governing mechanism of P2P interactions in building a sense of community, the qualitative study assessed the resulting outcomes on customer experience and effects on customer well-being. The study found a role transformation in the firm as it expanded its reach from that of a provider in institutional settings to that of a facilitator or catalyst in the community that was closer to community-dwelling seniors or patient. As a catalyst, the firm evolved its operating framework, and the researcher distilled the findings into a managerial implementation framework for firms interested to harness P2P interactions to improve customer experience. Customers in P2P interactions are not mere recipients, but active contributors or co-producers to the community. Instead of firm-sponsored support functions, firms could harness P2P interactions as a cost-efficient strategy that could deliver transformative customer experience. Firms could harness P2P interactions by facilitating customer helping behaviors which could be more effective than firm sponsored resources in achieving desired outcomes. P2P interactions offer a promising strategy for firms interested to deliver superior outcomes at lower or not impact on their cost structure. This research offered prescriptive value for managers to expand firm capabilities and capacities without the corresponding increase in costs. The insights that were generated informed and provided managers with an implementation framework to exert control over P2P interactions. In conclusion, the findings contributed to the literature in customer experience management and transformative service research through an advanced understanding of how a firm can deliver a transformative experience of lasting customer benefits.

Financial inclusion, or providing access to and active use of affordable financial products to the 2 billion unbanked adults globally, can facilitate individual prosperity, reduce poverty and increase economic development. Digital technologies such as mobile phones, cloud computing, data analytics and blockchain are one of the biggest enablers of financial inclusion by making it economically possible to serve these individuals. This dissertation examined the role of digital technologies in financial inclusion from the perspective of new financial technology (Fintech) ventures serving the unbanked and underbanked. Supported by strategy management theories, I identified key factors that impact the success of these Fintech startups, as measured by financial performance and financial inclusion. I collected primary data on 63 Fintech startups from Southeast Asia, India and Africa and ran multi-variate regression and binomial logit models to quantify the main effects of these factors. The results showed that founders with prior financial services experience, the degree of customer centricity in the company’s business model, and strategic partnerships with financial institutions and e-commerce firms, had a significant and positive correlation with financial inclusion (as measured by Active Customers) and financial performance (as measured by Annual Revenue). A qualitative analysis of 4 Fintech startups from the data sample demonstrated that other factors such as scalability, prior startup experience, and type of product sold (pull vs. push) are also critical to the startups’ success, and provide insights for further empirical research. This study has immediate practical applications for VC firms and investors that evaluate new technology ventures in financial inclusion by providing a quantitative, data-driven methodology. Finally, the results highlight that a mix of quantitative and qualitative insights is important to move research forward on the vital role that Fintech startups play in driving financial inclusion in emerging markets.

This research examined the influence of a Mindfulness-based Leadership Training and Coaching Program (MBP), in garnering three aspects of leadership effectiveness; extra employee effort, productive performance and followers’ satisfaction with leadership.

We hypothesized that mindfulness-based leadership training and coaching program can influence leaders’ frequency in adopting authentic, transformational and transactional leadership behaviors to enhance leadership effectiveness.

We tested these predictions separately on two control and intervention groups. Results suggested that the combined training and coaching mindfulness-based intervention program had predictive effects between the practice of mindful attunement of leaders’ behaviors and enhancement in leadership effectiveness, even in a short span of time. This research study uncovered empirical evidence with practical implications for researchers and practitioners in the realm of leadership. Findings supported the notion that MBP training and coaching intervention could potentially lead to return on investment in leadership development initiatives.

Firms invest significant resources in their ethical infrastructure to influence the ethical decision-making of employees. The advent of mobile technology has extended the frontier of interventions that may discourage unethical behaviour, through the use of ubiquitously-present mobile-based moral cues. I conducted a prospective, randomized field experiment, to study how a ubiquitous moral cue may positively enhance ethical decision-making. Sales professionals working in a pharmaceutical firm in China were assigned randomly by teams to either receive, or not, a mobile application from their firm’s compliance department. Over six months, participants completed three cross-sectional surveys, and were randomly monitored by an independent external third party for non-compliant behaviour. The interactions of the mobile application with individual, team and firm factors that influence ethical decision-making were studied using ANOVA and regression methods to identify direct and indirect effects of the intervention. The results showed that a ubiquitous moral cue strengthened the negative relationship between ethical leadership and unethical behaviours. This result was demonstrated both by team self-reported unethical behaviours as well as third-party audit findings. Also, more third-party audit findings were found among participants reporting high difficulty in achieving their goals in the control arm, but not among those receiving a ubiquitous moral cue. Supplementary analyses also suggested that the greater the perceived ubiquity of the application, the lower the team self-reported unethical behavior, an outcome that supports the need to conduct further study of this new concept. However, contrary to expectation, a ubiquitous moral cue strengthened the effect of moral disengagement on team self-reported unethical behaviour. This study answers the call for more empirical research on the effectiveness of ethical and compliance infrastructure, and has immediate implications on the use of a ubiquitous moral cue as a behavioural intervention in practice.

Word of mouth (WOM) can have significant impacts on businesses. Positive WOM can go a long way in helping to grow a brand while negative WOM may cause considerable damages. Managers have constantly attempted to actively manage WOM but often find it difficult to control. Extensive academic research has also been conducted in this field, with a significant amount of literature built up over the last few decades. The advent of the Internet, social media and consequently electronic WOM (eWOM) further intensified practice and research interest in this area.

Despite decades of research and managerial precepts about WOM, the full working dynamics may not be fully understood. One significant gap is the common but simplistic assumption that WOM comes mostly from market participants (MPs). Using eWOM in the automotive industry as our field of investigation, we found that non-market participants (NMPs) are significant contributors of eWOM as well.

We adopted the Uses and Gratifications (U & G) theory and discovered that even though these NMPs do not have obvious market relations with the brands, some of the motivations that lead them to generate eWOM include the gratification of informational and aspirational needs. Our findings of NMPs as considerable contributors of eWOM and their motivations for doing so can have important managerial implications, as well as fill a gap in current WOM / eWOM literature.

How does one successfully implement strategy? Persistent and alarmingly high failure rates of strategy implementation still prevail due to the myriad variables and complexities associated with execution, the brunt of which typically falls to middle management. Unfortunately, most organizations do not exercise sufficient rigor in the process and criteria to select the right middle managers for executing strategy, despite middle managers having a substantial impact on outcomes. Business leaders lack the necessary tools and frameworks for competency assessment to support their decision-making. This research seeks to provide evidence that selection of the right middle managers is more likely to lead to successful strategy execution outcomes and identify the competencies of middle managers that are more likely to be effective in leading strategy implementation. The research would thereby help organizations improve their success rates in implementing strategy, while building upon previous research to deepen our understanding of the role and influence of middle managers implementing strategy. The dissertation examines the hypothesis that there are five competencies of middle managers that are more likely to lead to successful strategy implementation. These competencies synthesize the complex context of strategy implementation and relate to the abilities of middle managers in the areas of: 1) strategic & systems thinking, 2) action orientation, 3) networking, 4) learning and adaptability, and 5) leading and developing subordinates. The hypotheses were tested by gathering insights from multiple sources: extant research from prior strategy implementation and middle manager studies, primary interviews with C-level senior executives with diverse and rich relevant experiences, and a comprehensive survey of local and regional middle managers. Our results suggest there is a correlation between key demographic variables and how these competencies are perceived by middle managers. Moreover, segmentation of our data provides additional insights to the results by identifying different profiles of middle managers in our sample population and illustrating how the varying personas may have contributed to the overall results. Our results suggest that the majority of middle managers may not be well-equipped for executing strategy, although they may have other qualifications, accomplishments, functional or technical abilities. Without knowing the required competencies, or those of the incumbent management pool, business leaders have a higher likelihood of ending up with mismatched middle managers for leading strategy execution. This study provides several pragmatic considerations for business leaders to mitigate the risk of misselection and improve the probability of achieving successful strategy execution outcomes.

This study investigates the effect of honesty reminders on budgetary slack. Based on the self-concept maintenance theory of Mazar, Amir, and Ariely (2008), I posit that honesty reminders can reduce budgetary slack by making people more aware of their own standards of honesty and lowering their dishonesty thresholds, resulting in more honest behavior. I find strong evidence that honesty reminders reduce budgetary slack and are marginally more effective than penalties in reducing budgetary slack. Finally, I find that honesty reminders have a stronger effect on slack reduction than penalties when the payoff for slack creation is higher.

Much has been written, for and against, about compensation as a driver of performance. Two main theoretical constructs deal with this subject: extrinsic theory, including agency theory, whereby money is a main motivator to performance, and intrinsic theory which proposes that money does not motivate, and in fact may hinder, performance. However, corporations spend considerable effort in designing compensation packages with the objective of linking remuneration to performance. Practitioners have developed a variety of mechanisms to deliver pay packages, but heretofore there has been no attempt to validate which, if any, of these various approaches is better able to drive performance. This study addresses these questions by engaging subjects in running a simulated lemonade stand for profit. Different groups of subjects were randomly assigned to one of fifteen pay conditions so that the amount of money they would receive for participating in the experiment depended on the results obtained in the simulation. These conditions were derived from standard pay practices including different Long Term Incentive (LTI) approaches, various pay mix alternatives, three different pay-for-performance delivery models and finally team vs. individual incentives. The results show that team incentives are significantly superior. However, no evidence was found for differences in results within each of the conditions; no LTI vehicle, pay mix variation or pay for performance model is better suited to drive performance. An additional finding links Prospect Theory to how incentives motivate performance. The study informs practitioners on the design of incentive compensation programs and academics of the value of pay as a motivator of business results.

A review of the existing theories on various leadership styles clearly point to the lack of two critical aspects - 'responsibility' and 'accountability' in their characterisation. It is imperative in this era to focus on those breed of leaders who can respond collectively with credible actions for their businesses while accepting the full responsibility of their actions. This has given rise to `Responsible Leadership (RL)' as a new leadership construct for leaders in the twenty first century. Still in its infant stages of discussion, literature on RL lack a clear definition and the kind of behaviours that are manifested in responsible leaders This study attempts to contribute to RL literature by (i) offering a refined definition for RL (ii) identifying the behaviours that are manifested in responsible leaders (iii) the creation and validation of a scale for responsible leader behaviours.

A multi-phase method approach was adopted for this study. Such an approach provided this study with a strong foundation, allowing for an in-depth and comprehensive review on the behavioural aspects of responsible leaders. The items for the scale was developed from the interviews conducted with CEOs holding Asia Pacific responsibilities. The interviews followed a survey that was distributed to senior executives in the corporate world in 3 phases which described behaviours demonstrated by leaders. Using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) the data from the survey was analysed to identify three factors

influencing RL thereby reducing the initial pool of 48 items to 30 items. These 30 items were relaunched in a final survey to perform the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The results from the CFA showed the emergence of a 3 factor outcome for RL. We characterised these factors under 3 categories of behaviours which were (i) including & consulting with all stakeholders for decisions that impact the business (ii) engaging with the employees at a personal level & concerned about their progress (iii) advancing the cause of business and society by integrating the two. We also conducted further tests to examine the Convergent and Discriminant Validity to the construct of RL. We found that RL was positively correlated with Transformational Leadership and Transactional Leadership. Though the correlation showed some form of convergence between RL and Transformational Leadership, they were not strong enough to establish Convergent Validity. Similarly, the values between RL and Transactional Leadership also did not establish Discriminant Validity thus bringing in `conceptual redundancy' of RL as a stand-alone construct.

After 33 years (1979-2011) of close to double digit average annual economic growth, the Chinese economy decelerated to a mid-high single digit growth of approximately 7% per year since 2012. The country is currently facing the typical economic transition challenge of moving from being a high-middle income to high income economy. In response to this economic transition, the government launched an industrial innovation program that corresponds to the 4th Industrial Revolution in 2015-Made in China 2025, hoping to stabilize and rejuvenate China’s growth momentum through innovation. This thesis examines the pre-conditions for the successful implementation of this plan using the three-levels analysis framework of neo-Schumpeterian Economics -micro, meso, and macro. The thesis examines the rationale of using neo-Schumpeterian Economics in the study, rather than the conventional Solow Model or any of its variants. It also discusses the advantages of using neo-Schumpeterian framework over the New Structural school promoted by prominent Chinese economist, Justin Lin. At the micro-level, the thesis looks at whether the country possesses the necessary human capital, entrepreneurship, innovation, and execution capabilities to implement the plan. For any new industries to succeed in a country, these factors are the necessary micro-level pre-conditions under neo-Schumpeterian Economics.

Why do part-time employees with reduced workload and remuneration work longer hours than contracted? Existing research attributes this phenomenon to organisational culture. design of the part-time work. relationship with others at work and one's personality traits. However, there are at least two major gaps in the existing research. Firstly. there is no integrated framework which links these factors influencing part-time employees to work longer hours. This impacts the ability for individuals and companies to systematically apply these findings to improve part-time arrangements; Secondly. most studies to date use self-report methods such:15 interviews and surveys. which limit the findings to what employees can explicitly recognise at the conscious level.

This dissertation addresses these gaps via two independent but related studies. The first study investigates the relationship between factors influencing part-time employees to work overtime. It uses the principles of grounded theory and queuing theory to analyse findings from interviews with part-time employees and to develop an integrated framework explaining the phenomenon. The framework is predicated on the analogy that work and non-work demands are in distinct "queues' served by the part-time employee who "supplies" the labour. This in turn generates insights that overtime is driven both by the demands of work and the decision to supply labour. The second study uses the experimental design method to investigate whether having more uncommitted time leads to longer working hours. It also investigates the effect of gain or loss of uncommitted time relative to an expected level and the individual's non-work orientations on overtime. Based on the responses of professionals who were either currently or previously on part-time work arrangements. The relationship between uncommitted time and overtime was found to be significant. This meant that the level of overtime increased as the level of uncommitted time increased. However. it was found that the overtime increased at a decreasing rate whereas the time allocated to family turd personal increased at an increasing rate. The effects of non-work orientation and relative gain or loss of uncommitted time were found to be non-significant. The insights generated from these studies have immediate applications for individuals and companies to systematically design and plan for sustainable work arrangements. More directly. they would apply mainly to women who wish to balance the demands of family and career through part-time work arrangements. However, the insights would also potentially be applicable to address future workforce trends where millennial: are expected to hold multiple jobs and where the ageing workforce is expected to be retained through more flexible work arrangements such as part-time work.

A review of the existing literature on M&A (mergers and acquisitions) pointed to the relevance of internal communication during the integration phase when the cultures of the acquired and acquiring companies interact, a process termed organizational acculturation. Internal corporate communication (ICC) has been conceptualized previously to be the communication between two stakeholder groups: strategic management and employees. As research on ICC in the context of acculturation is limited, this research stems from a curiosity about what the roles of ICC are after an acquisition. It seeks to understand the ways employees of acquired companies respond to ICC as they adapt to another culture, and to find out how they can be better supported during this period of change. This study contributes to the theory development of ICC by providing empirical examination of the phenomenon in real-life settings. It investigates ICC through the perspectives of multiple stakeholders who had experienced M&A by means of a qualitative inductive research. The findings confirm ICC’s cognitive role as a conveyor of information and in uncertainty reduction after an acquisition, but raise questions about its aspirational affective objective to promote a sense of belonging or commitment amongst employees. This is because the interpretation of ICC during acculturation is subjective: the meanings of the ICC co-created by the stakeholders during ICC consumption could turn out differently from, and even contrarily to, the meanings intended by managers during ICC production. In addition, it was found that informal acculturation leaders emerged as an important stakeholder group in ICC. This research offers an alternative perspective to ICC. Although the production of ICC is centrally managed, the consumption of ICC is an interpretive phenomenon that cannot be controlled by management. The results of this study underscore the point that ICC needs to be understood not only as a linear transmission of messages between two stakeholder groups, but also as a dynamic complex phenomenon where meaningmaking takes place constantly through continual formal and informal social interactions amongst multiple stakeholders. The practical implication of this point is that M&A strategic managers and internal communication professionals should not only focus on the production and delivery of ICC. They should also consider the consumption of ICC and provide a conducive participative environment for all stakeholders where the meanings of ICC can be contested, negotiated and constructed.

This paper shows that after controlling for total risks (as funds do not typically hold a completely large diversified portfolio) across different funds, female-managed funds appear to perform better in certain circumstances. For example, female-managed hedge funds perform better during post-crisis times, for investments using the Relative Value Style and also when investments are in the Asia excluding Japan region. However, there are still many conditions in which male-managed funds seem to perform better. Namely, male-managed funds performed significantly positive in the Relative Value, Security Selection, and Multiprocess Styles, notably during the pre-crisis period and also when investments are in the "America" and "Others" regions. The study also shows that females definitely do not like to take risks and female-managed funds have lesser inflows relative to male-managed funds, especially when the funds' returns are small. Moreover, fund flows into and out of female-managed funds are more sensitive to the return outcomes.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest among researchers to investigate the efficacy of mindfulness within the educational sector. However, the majority of existing studies have focused on intrapersonal effects, such as the benefits of mindfulness interventions experienced by specific student or teacher samples. Set within a tertiary institution in Singapore, the present research examines the relations of teachers' trait and state mindfulness with classroom and student outcomes as well as the potential mediating mechanisms.

Can large firms be innovative in an industry that is mature and regulated?”

Business managers in mature regulated industries, like new and unregulated industries, operate under very challenging conditions, albeit a bit different, and need to create competitive advantages. One potential route to do this is through innovations.

The strategic direction and choices which the firm takes and whether to innovate or not innovate are largely influenced by its environment. And, in mature regulated industries, large incumbents face a triple challenge. Its size, the maturity of the industry and regulations governing the industry are three conditions that are generally deemed by researchers to be unfavorable to innovation. Yet, some firms continue to innovate, while many others failed or have mixed results.

Our research addresses the question of whether large firms in mature regulated industries have a source of advantage that enables them to be innovative.

Our study indicated a positive relationship between organizational innovativeness and perception of environmental dynamism. Firms that perceived the environment as dynamic have a higher propensity to innovate than firms that do not, even though the firms were in the same industry. In other words, innovating firms have a dynamic mindset in which they perceive of their market as dynamic. This suggests that the firm’s perception of the environmental dynamism of its industry plays a critical role in their innovativeness.

This exploratory study, examines the significance of Information Technology (IT) Prioritization during the due diligence phase, in a merger integration scenario. In a world where firms are becoming increasingly dependent on information systems and technology, IT continues to play a progressively significant role within organizations. There is growing literature, on the increasing importance of IT in the business environment. However, till date, neither has there been a study regarding the role and impact of IT prioritization and IT integration schedule on the overall synergy savings, nor is there a study on the relationship between IT prioritization and the achievement of the technology priorities of the firm. This study, explores the concept of IT prioritization as an independent variable, and reviews its impact on dependent variables such as IT synergy savings, overall synergy savings, IT integration budget and the achievement of the technology priorities of the firm. The study intends to keep both academicians and practitioners informed, on the above topic. A systematic grounded theory approach is used as the method of research, as it is well-suited to the exploratory nature of this study. This approach allows the analysis, of both qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data is provided by the indepth interviews, while the online survey provides the quantitative data. This study draws on the lived experience of senior executives and seasoned practitioners, in the field of M&A integration. The said individuals, are from diverse industries and geographies. The outcome of this research indicates that IT prioritization during the due diligence phase, has a positive relationship with (1) the overall synergy savings, (2) the IT integration budget, and (3) the achievement of the technology priorities of the firm. The results also indicate a negative relationship between integration schedule delay and overall synergy savings. An interesting finding is that firms with low information intensity, deliver highly amplified overall synergy savings, as compared to high information intensity firms, under similar conditions of IT prioritization. The most compelling finding of this research is that IT prioritization matters, and it makes a significant and direct contribution, to the success of the merger integration effort.

In recent years, interest in human capital as a strategic resource of the firm has created new streams of research oriented on the value of strategic human resource management, high performance work systems, and human capital as resource of the firm for competitive advantage. The Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO) serves as the steward of human capital of the firm, yet little is known about the nature and impact of this critical role that is charged with building strategic advantage with the human capital resources of the firm. Over the past decade the CHRO has risen to take a prominent seat as a part of the Top Management Team (TMT) in firms today. This research consists of three separate studies to further our understanding of the role and impact of the CHRO.

The first study considers the potential antecedents that attribute to this rise through a review of the Standard & Poorís 500 Index companies over a 15 year period. Using a contingency analysis, this sample of 4980 firm-years shows that innovation intensity and human capital intensity of the firm are weakly linked to the rise of the CHRO. International complexity is found to have a negative relationship with global CHRO leadership suggesting that geographic complexity leads to more decentralization of human resources practices.

The second study explores the impact of the CHRO consistent with upper-echelon theory that posits firm outcomes to be a reflection of the top leaders. As the steward of human capital of the firm, the CHRO strives to create a great place to work, which is highly linked to firm performance. This study includes firms that have been ranked as a Great Place to Work (GPTW), a proven and consistent index of companies has been in place since 1998 sponsored by the Great Place to Work Initiative \342\204\242. I capture the GPTW firm rankings from 2000 to 2014 and create a matched sample for a total of 248 unique firms with a total of 3968 firm-years of analysis. The results show a clear link between the CHRO level and ranking as a Great Place to Work. This is the first such study that provides a clear link between the CHRO and a firm-level outcome.

The third portion of this thesis provides a review of the characteristics and role of the CHRO over the 15 year period. A review of the human capital of the CHROís over time highlights a dramatic shift in the gender balance to 51% female for the first time in 2014. The low tenure and frequent movement of the CHRO across the S&P500 sample raises questions concerning the careers in the profession as well as the ability for CHROís to apply firm-specific knowledge for competitive advantage.

This study is the first to uncover a variety of insights related to the CHRO as the steward of human capital of the firm. Limitations, new research questions and implications for practice, and future research streams are discussed.