Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERPs) are commercial software packages that enable integration of information and business processes throughout the organization. Realizing the business value of information technology (IT) requires its successful assimilation by the firm. ERP assimilation refers to the effective application of this type of IT in supporting a firms business strategies and value-chain activities. To succeed at this, the IS function must continuously manage the adaptation between the organization and the ERP system, even after initial deployment. For this purpose, the IS function must continuously scan both the firms internal and external environment to identify new ERP adaptation opportunities that will allow the effective application of new ERP technologies to support the firms objectives. Also, it is important for the IS function to engage in evaluation activities to analyze and select those ERP adaptation opportunities with the greatest potential for impact on ERP assimilation. It is posited here that ERP scanning will have a direct positive effect on the firms level of ERP assimilation, and that this effect will be moderated by the extent of ERP evaluation activities. IS mindfulness, the degree of collective mindfulness present in the IS function, is also posited to moderate the relationship between ERP scanning and ERP assimilation. Collective mindfulness is an elevated state of alertness toward expectations, in the face of new and unprecedented situations or changes, with a nuanced appreciation of the specific context. IS mindfulness makes more likely the identification and realization of unexpected ERP adaptation opportunities leading to a higher level of ERP assimilation for the firm. A model is proposed to describe the relations among IS mindfulness, ERP scanning, ERP evaluation, and ERP assimilation. This model has been tested by collecting survey data from 113 firms. The results suggest that first, collective mindfulness is a construct with two dimensions: alertness/attention, a state of vigilant alertness, and change/situation, an awareness or knowledge of an unprecedented situation or change in the firms environment; second, scanning of the internal environment (scanning of needs) has a main effect on ERP assimilation, and this effect is moderated by the presence of IS mindfulness (alertness dimension), as predicted by the model; and third, ERP evaluation has rather a direct effect on ERP assimilation and does not moderate the scanning-assimilation relationship as expected.

I examine the effects of firms cluster membership on their alliance network structure, and how firms absorptive capacity moderates the relationship between alliance network structure and innovation. Little is known regarding the inter-relationship between cluster membership, network structure and innovation. This study bridges this gap by first establishing the endogenous nature of network structure with respect to cluster membership and then by studying the moderating effect of absorptive capacity for the alliance network structure and innovation relationship. I contribute to the strategic management literature in several important ways. First, I clarify the implications of cluster membership on network structure by including two competing explanations: complementary and substitution mechanisms. Contrary to the popular belief that cluster membership does not matter, I find that it does matter in the study of the US biopharmaceutical industry. My findings show that firms location within a cluster area does not substitute for their strategic choices specifically for their alliance strategies. Second, I theoretically argue and then empirically demonstrate that network structure is an endogenous phenomenon with respect to cluster membership. Third, I demonstrate that when controlled for endogeneity with respect to cluster membership, alliance network structure and innovation relationship is positively moderated by firms absorptive capacity. In contrast to prior literature, I find that the main effect of firms structural holes on innovation is not significant when controlled for endogeneity. This finding is important given the mixed findings for structural holes and innovation relationship in previous studies. Finally, to the best of my knowledge, in the strategic management literature this study is the first study to introduce an exponential regression model with Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) estimation that accounts for both the endogenous nature of independent variables and the count nature of dependent variable.

The concept of cognitive organizational obstruction is developed in this dissertation. Cognitive organizational obstruction is defined as an employees global belief that the organization obstructs, hinders or interferes with the accomplishment of his or her goals and objectives and is a detriment to his or her well-being. In addition to developing the COO construct, COO is theoretically differentiated from the related constructs of psychological contract breach, perceived organizational support, organizational politics and organizational frustration. In addition to being theoretically distinct, a new concept should be empirically differentiated from existing related constructs. The development of the COO scale is described. One major implicit assumption running throughout the theoretical development of the cognitive organizational obstruction construct is that employees distinguish between the treatment received from the organization and from agents of the organization. Employees ability to differentiate between similarly conceptualized constructs of cognitive organizational obstruction, cognitive supervisor obstruction (CSO) and organizational frustration is assessed. A cognitive supervisor obstruction scale is created by changing the referent of the COO scale from organization to supervisor. Results suggest that employees are able to distinguish between these sources of obstruction and frustration. The results from a validation study are presented next. The main objective of this study is to validate the COO scale and empirically distinguish COO from the related constructs of organizational frustration, perceived organizational support (POS), psychological contract breach (PCB), and perceived organizational politics (POP). Results suggest that employees are able to distinguish between these concepts. Additional analysis evaluates whether COO explains additional variance beyond POS, PCB, POP and frustration is described next. The overarching hypothesis of this study is: COO explains additional variance in the exit, voice, loyalty and neglect outcome framework beyond the existing constructs of psychological contract breach, perceived organizational support, organizational politics and organizational frustration. More specific hypotheses are developed and tested using hierarchical multiple linear regression. Results suggest that COO explains additional variance for exit, voice and neglect, but not loyalty.

This dissertation consists of three essays that examine the effects of consumers identities and connections to others on their behaviors. In the first essay I examine the notion that consumers have multiple identities that interact to influence charitable judgments and behaviors. In the first study, I examine the effect of internal moral identity and gender on adult volunteers donation allocations to terrorist victims in London or Afghanistan. In studies 2 and 3, I explore the effect of these identities on judgments of relief efforts and donation intentions for terrorist victims in London and Iraq. The pattern in these studies indicate that males give more to ingroups (i.e., London) than to outgroups (i.e., Afghanistan or Iraq) when they have high internal moral identity whereas females with high internal moral identity give equally to both the ingroup and outgroup. Study 4 examines how self-construal moderates the effect of these identities on donation likelihood to victims of natural disasters. I show that consumers have multiple identities that interact to influence judgments, rather than a single salient identity that influences behavior. In my second essay I explore the role of closeness to others and domain relevance, using the self-evaluation maintenance model, on consumer regret. In the first study, I show that closeness to others moderates the effect of performance on regret in entrée choice. In two additional studies, I show that relevance moderates the effect of closeness and performance on regret such that consumers experience more regret when they compare to a friend than to a stranger for high relevance domains with the reverse effect occurring for low relevance domains. Jealousy mediates this interactive effect on regret. Finally, in my third essay I explore the effect of special promotions on purchase intentions. I consider when special promotions such as extended employee discounts or birthday discounts increase consumers intentions to purchase. Self-construal, or ones view of him or herself as connected to or distinct from others, moderates the effect of these inclusively- and exclusively-framed promotions on purchase intentions. Furthermore, I explore the role of feelings of brand connectedness in the effect of self-construal and promotion type on purchase intentions.

This dissertation integrates three perspectives capable of explaining how top managers identify their organization's competitors: categorization, economic and organizational identity. In order to explore these perspectives a qualitative theory elaboration methodology is employed. Accordingly, a model of managerial competitor identification is developed. In addition, the three perspectives are integrated into this model to produce a robust theoretical framework.

My dissertation examines in three essays how firms utilize exploitation and exploration strategies, independently and in combination, for competitive advantage. The first essay examines whether firms can gain competitive advantage by the simultaneous pursuit of exploitation and exploration (i.e., an ambidextrous strategy). Utilizing a cross-industry survey of marketing executives, I demonstrate that ambidextrous firms outpace non-ambidextrous ones across several performance dimensions. Importantly, implementation of an ambidextrous strategy at the marketing function level mediates the relationship between a firms ambidextrous strategy and its performance. Finally, differences in the mediating relationship between manufacturing and services firms are found. Essay two conceptualizes exploitation and exploration as capabilities. Drawing on longitudinal objective data from publicly-traded pharmaceutical companies, this study examines how firms maintain exploitation and exploration capabilities over time. Stochastic frontier estimation is used to create capability measures for exploitation and exploration for each firm in each period. The capabilities are then linked to historical and forward-looking performance, as measured by Return on Assets and Tobins q respectively. The results show that firms with stronger exploration capabilities have higher Tobins q values. Stronger exploitation capabilities, however, negatively affect Tobins q. In contrast, exploitation has a positive effect on historical performance while exploration has no effect. Surprisingly, firms that have stronger capabilities in both exploitation and exploration gain no significant performance advantage. Finally, given the difficulty of managing exploitation and exploration, the third essay investigates how firms can improve their focus on these strategies. Specifically, it examines customer divestment, or strategically terminating relationships. Research notes that most customers offer little or no value to a firm. This means that a firms investments in exploitation and exploration are potentially greatly misapplied. I use archival data to explore the prevalence of customer divestment across industries. I then investigate the customer divestment concept with managers and customers, yielding a broad framework of key relationships. Finally, an experiment is used to begin to empirically test key relationships. The results demonstrate that it is better for managers not to provide a warning prior to divestment as it creates more negative attitudes toward the firm.

Computer security has become increasingly important to organizations as the number of security incidents skyrockets. While many technical means are used to secure corporate systems, individual employees remain the last line and frequently the weakest link in organizational defenses. When individuals choose to disregard security policies and procedures meant to protect the organization, they leave the organization at risk. How, then, can organizations motivate their employees to follow security guidelines? Using organizational control and the fear of crime as the lens, we build a model to examine this research question. The research model examines the relationship between the elements of control (specification, evaluation, and reward), risk elements and risk antecedents (direct experience, indirect experience, and risk) and precautions that can be taken at the individual level which are typically motivated by organizational policies and procedures. The model also introduces the concept of mandatoriness which is generally not specifically highlighted in extant literature. The specific hypotheses are developed and tested using a field survey. An organization was identified for data collection and 1,738 total responses were collected from a population of approximately 3,500. The model was tested using PLS analysis after examination of the data, scale reliability, and item validity. The results from the analysis suggest that the acts of specifying a policy and evaluating behaviors are effective in convincing individuals that security policies and procedures are mandatory. The perception of mandatoriness, in turn, is effective in motivating individuals to take security precautions. Likewise, both direct and indirect experience have a significant positive effect on perceptions of risk, but risk perceptions do not have any effect on the level of precautions taken by individuals. The findings highlight the need for management to clearly specify computer security policies and procedures and to evaluate individual employee compliance with those policies. The findings also indicate that the perceived impact of specific scenarios is more likely to affect individual precaution taking behaviors than statistics indicating the likelihood that they will be affected. Additionally, managers need to address the problems of apathy as it relates to security and bolster individuals efficacy as it relates to computers.

The purpose of this dissertation is to provide a foundation for grounded theory to be built regarding the way in which successful entrepreneurs in high tech ventures make decisions and explore the unique team-focused adjustments that must be made to achieve the goal of a successful venture. Thus, the product of this paper will be the development of propositions that can be used in the initiation of new theories regarding entrepreneurial team building. The goal of this research is to help entrepreneurs with different levels of managerial and technical expertise build teams that will help them increase the likelihood of launching a successful venture. Such teams exceed what is normally understood as a top management team (TMT), and instead consist of TMT members, board members, and investors (Venture Capitalists and Angels), as well as outsider advisors who help plan and execute the strategy of an entrepreneurial venture. This research adds to the literature because a new venture team is a particular type of top management team that is largely neglected by the literature.

Prior research suggests that members¡¯ ongoing participation in a community is influenced by their psychological identification with it, the community¡¯s internal structural dynamics, and characteristics of the communication exchanged within the community. However, most of this research has focused on characteristics of the individual members and the community under consideration, taking the existence of the community as a given and giving little attention to the larger context in which the community resides. This dissertation extends prior research by proposing an ecological perspective when studying community success, taking into account the ecological and structural context of individuals¡¯ interaction with an online community. Two empirical studies were conducted to test the impact of context on the ongoing interactions between individuals and communities. The first study develops a theory of online community ecology, focusing on the impact of competition created by other communities in the same niche. Analysis of a longitudinal sample of 241 Usenet newsgroups over 64 months implies that both internal characteristics and external context affect communities¡¯ capability to retain members. Specifically, competition - the extent to which a community shares content with other communities and the extent to which the community¡¯s members also participate in other communities - represents an external threat that leads to a lower likelihood of members to return in the following time period. The second study builds on the first to explore the impact of contextual factors on individual members¡¯ ongoing participation decisions in online communities. Applying social exchange theory, I propose to treat individuals¡¯ interaction with online communities as a series of social exchanges. In addition to the ecological context, individuals¡¯ prior exchanges with an online community are also expected to shape the ways they make decisions about ongoing interaction. A research model based on social exchange theory is proposed and tested, with participation data of 43,758 individuals in seven Usenet newsgroups. The results suggest that an individual¡¯s level of current participation, the prior exchange history with the online community, and the availability of other alternative communities all play a role in the individual¡¯s continuance decision.

Organizational social practices (e.g., corporate social responsibility and corporate citizenship practices), as well as their costs and the benefits companies accrue from undertaking them, have been widely described and analyzed in the business and society literature. However, the debate over the mechanisms that motivate such practices has yet to evolve. This study aims at contributing to the explanation of these mechanisms. Using the institutional framework and Scotts (2001) concept of institutional pillars, I present a theoretical framework that reconciles strategic, principled, institutional, and emotional mechanisms that motivate organizational social action. I propose that commitment, calculation, conformance, and caring mechanisms motivate organizations to adopt social practices. Analyzing social practices used by companies in their interaction with the stakeholder local community, this study examines the effects of environmental conditions and decision-maker orientation on the four motivation mechanisms.