Dissertations

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.

Approximately eighty per cent of the value of most listed firms is driven by expectations of their future earning stream. Yet past and current period results are decreasingly relevant as indicators of future performance as the speed of change in business, technology, trends and markets increases. For many companies instability is the new norm, agility and preparing for future changes are essential capabilities.

This research, drawing on experiences of 30 global corporations, shows that far from being giants with slow reactions, several global corporations are able to leverage their extensive networks and their participation in a wide diversity of market contexts to increase their capacity to act dynamically. Today they are out-performing both local and global competitors; they are achieving Dynamic Advantage.

I present an integrated model that describes how a global corporation can build its capacity to compete dynamically, exploring the drivers of motivation and ability for the leadership of the firm as well as identifying key enabling mechanisms and processes that should be developed. I also discuss the key strategic choices for a firm that decides to compete dynamically and the hurdles that must be overcome to align the organization with this approach.

This dissertation comprises of two essays. The first essay seeks to examine the issue of 'slow' (i.e. gestation periods over hours, weeks and months) forms of intuition and their complex interactions with analytic thinking, especially in the context of breakthrough ideation/ complex problem solving. This exploratory study with qualitative observations with a small set of experienced practitioners supports the sparse academic literature in this area that managers do rely on long gestation forms of sub-conscious processing and that these forms of thinking manifest themselves in different forms with varying degrees of confidence and positive emotion/ affect (popularly referred to as 'hunches' and 'insights/ Flash/ Aha moment'). These slower intuition forms appear to play an important role in generating breakthrough strategic ideas/ help solve complex problems. A key observation from these exploratory inter-actions was that perhaps managers' ability to recognize and use these more complex/ slower intuition forms varies widely as do their attitudes and comfort levels with their intuition. This observation led to an interest in further testing the hypothesis that perhaps individual differences in managers thinking styles especially their comfort with their intuition may have interesting effects which come into play to help generate break-through ideas.

I tested this hypothesis further in the quantitative study described in the second essay, where I studied Strategic Option Generation, when more time and effort for deliberation and iteration as well as corresponding distractions are available. I compared the effect of some popular external stimuli Option Generation techniques and the effect of individual differences in preferences for analytic vs. intuitive thinking styles on the number of high quality options generated by a sample of experienced executives. The most interesting findings from this study are: firstly, that although the conventional view typically associates effective strategy formulation with conscious analytic thinking, however this study's findings support the view that perhaps we need to better appreciate the role of the intuition end of the cognitive continuum and participants' 'Cognitive Versatility' (i.e. their high engagement in both analytic and intuitive thinking styles) for strategic option generation. Secondly there is also some preliminary evidence of an interesting interaction effect where the external stimulus option generation technique that is opposite to the individual's preferred thinking style yields better results. Similar conclusions are also reported in selected published research regarding the above-mentioned first finding by Gilkey et al, based on very different methods using FMRI scans of participants (Gilkey, Caceda, & Kilts, 2010) and the second finding by Dane et al which used methods similar to my research (Dane E, 2011).

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

The words of John Wanamaker (1838-1922), a pioneer American marketer and advertiser, still hold true almost 100 years since they were spoken in the context of the ubiquitous banner advertising also termed as internet display advertising (IDA). Whilst IDA has become a major component of the internet advertising industry with an estimated size of US$ 56.5 billion (ZenithOptimedia, 2014) and a compounded annual growth rate of 21.5% (ZenithOptimedia, 2014), our understanding of how IDA works is fairly nascent. Despite thousands of advertisers utilising this platform to target billions of audiences worldwide, there is still a lack of clarity of how IDA really works. Specifically there is a gap in understanding the level of IDA impressions that are required to drive a specific goal. The blistering pace at which internet advertising has grown and evolved has contributed in a large part to a research gap that has stubbornly persisted. On one hand internet's constant evolution has spawned user journeys that are a complex tangle of advertising impressions, search clicks and website visits. On the other hand internet's exponential growth has led to constantly expanding data sets both in terms of volume and number of variables. This has led to an ongoing need to constantly update the findings and methods in order to understand how IDA works. Developments in clickstream technology that track complex user behaviour on the internet have provided an opportunity to further research in the area of determining optimal frequency level in IDA to drive marketing goals.

This research seeks to assist researchers and practitioners in their quest to improve their understanding of IDA and internet advertising as a whole by uncovering a deeper understanding of the impact IDA impression frequency plays in driving marketing goals, especially online purchases. Further, the study analyses the moderating influence of consumers' characteristics and spacing of IDA impressions after controlling for a comprehensive set of factors related to media and seasonality. Lastly, the study uniquely utilises an easy to use but effective method that overcomes issues that plague clickstream data characterised by very large volume and low conversion rates. The clickstream data for this study was obtained from the ad-server log files from a large advertising agency based in Singapore. The use of such a data-set for this study is a significant step towards linking the world of information systems and marketing by making effective use of big data in developing optimal IDA impression frequency guidelines that will ultimately contribute towards improving the ROI of internet display advertising (IDA).

In the hotel industry, the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty has always been ambiguous, as a satisfied hotel guest may not necessarily be loyal. Loyalty is of greater interest to the hotel industry as it translates to more business opportunities. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate how camaraderie and emotional customer satisfaction can predict potential service loyalty. Empirical tests of the relationship between camaraderie, emotional satisfaction and loyalty had never been conducted before in the hotel industry. The findings of this research suggest that camaraderie has a direct and significant relationship to the four phases of loyalty, cognitive, affective, conative and action loyalty. This research will contribute to the body of knowledge on customer satisfaction, camaraderie, and loyalty and provides theoretical and applied suggestions for the hotel industry.