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This thesis explores supply network structures, from the perspective of service innovation, over a period of five years (2005-2010). The initiating actor in the network, a financial institution, could be regarded as being the source, or at least the catalyst, for network interactions linked to service innovation. Research underpinning this thesis investigates the nature of network interactions. Of particular interest are interactions that co-created opportunities at the point of knowledge exchange, which in turn led to innovative value propositions. The services sector generates over 70% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in developed economies and over 50% in developing ones. Nonetheless, most innovation-related research has focussed on goods rather than services (Paton and McLaughlin, 2008). In studies of services the focus of attention is generally the enabling Information and Communications Technology (ICT) provision. This focus, however, reinforces a goods- dominant view of innovation; namely, that services follow advances in knowledge associated to tangible goods - the ICT. Moreover, most such studies have focused their analysis at the dyad level. Literature reviewed led to a greater understanding of how a service innovation takes places within a supply network, what enables such an innovation, and what characteristics can be associated to a particular level of analysis. Answers contribute to theory building in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) field (Madhavan et al., 2004, Wu and Choi, 2005, Dubois and Fredriksson, 2008, Choi and Wu, 2009a, 2009b, Li and Choi, 2009, Wu et al., 2010), by evidencing that dynamic triads within a network are the key to fostering service innovation. Research was exploratory, embracing an inductive theory-building methodology based on a qualitative approach. Altogether, 42 semi-structured interviews were conducted, transcribed and analysed; and 265 documents (hardcopies, electronic files, e-mails and web sites) were examined. Research was undertaken in three stages: initial exploration, in-depth research and findings validation. The method led to an iterative dialogue between data collection and analysis, supported by NVivo, which allowed pattern identification and category coding (labelling). Three issues highlight changes in the triads observed: a focal dyad, roles played by participating actors, and network interactions among actors. Findings helped develop a proposal for the de Vries (2006) service system model—used in literature on services—to include a set of customers, a set of suppliers, a set of buyers and a set of outcomes interacting through their respective competencies and technologies. This model has already been used in service literature, and the enriched model proposed by the researcher is one he argues can strengthen SCM literature.

This study investigates a recent UK Government Intervention established to develop Micro- and Nano- Technologies (MNTs) for technology-based economic growth. While the need for such innovation policies is well recognised, there is also a need to understand the key challenges to developing effective policy interventions for the innovation process that will create sound economic leverage (Harvey, 2010). A new method that helps us understand the innovation process at the organisational level has been developed, by working across disciplines and synthesising different methodologies. Constructs adopted from the Minnesota Innovation Research Programme (MIRP) were used to gather and analyse data. The methodological approach followed was a fusion of the Interactive Process Perspective (IPP) and Institutional Theory (IT). This method has been used to further explain the complexities of the innovation process by demonstrating the co-operation and contestation between actors from different interest groups in terms of agency and structure. Evidence of how innovation centres exhibit different characteristics relating to their local context along with the specific actors populating them is provided. Those actors bring their own institutional logics, belief systems and associated practices to their centres. The importance which the local context of an MNT Centre has within the extra-local context of the state intervention is shown to have a major bearing on its original purpose. For practitioners some important points have been raised: the intended purpose of the MNT government intervention was shown to evolve across MNT centres; the key influential actors of each centre demonstrably followed different institutional systems of reasoning, which in some cases resulted in internal conflicts. As demonstrated in this study, the ingrained institutional thinking and reasoning of actors can be difficult to change for the intended purpose of an intervention, once funding has already been awarded.

Received entrepreneurship research suggests that entrepreneurial action helps people and communities in the aftermath of disastrous events. To study this phenomenon, scholars focus on two central themes: 1) entrepreneurial actors (individuals, organizations, or firms in the community) with the right knowledge and motivation possess capabilities determine whether an identified opportunity represents an opportunity for them to exploit so as to alleviate others' sufferings, and 2) the feedback from an exploitation of an existing opportunity significantly influences the recognition and evaluation of subsequent opportunities of helping others. However, contemporary research has examined the first theme while largely ignoring the second one. Addressing this oversight, we develop three graph-theoretic models and operationlize them using the computational social science approach to investigate both the temporal dimension of entrepreneurial action as a process of opportunity identification, evaluation and exploitation over time, and the spatial dimension of entrepreneurial action as a feedback to identify subsequent opportunities among networked actors under disasters. The first model depicts a simple supply-chain structure where each actor's entrepreneurial action can feed back to his/her spatially interdependent upstream and downstream neighbors. Our model suggests that feedback mechanisms significantly influence actors' entrepreneurial action decisions to alleviate the negative impacts of unanticipated disasters on supply chain performance. Next, we extend the one-dimensional chain structure into a grid network setting in the second model. This model highlights the importance of reciprocal feedback between neighboring actors in facilitating recovery entrepreneurial actions in the aftermath of disasters. Finally, our last model examines the spatiotemporal dynamics of entrepreneurial action over additional network structures, such as small-world and scale-free, determining how information and knowledge feedback circulates in the system facing disastrous events. We show that a shift in the network structure at the spatial dimension changes the number of actors who act entrepreneurially over time. In sum, we consider entrepreneurial action emerging from the interactions among community members over not only time but also space in times of disasters. The modeling and analysis extends the action-based entrepreneurship framework into the context of disasters by explicitly specifying dynamic and interactive behavior among community members that are inputs to, and outcomes of, one another in the entrepreneurial process to alleviate the sufferings.

The aim of the study was to better understand the business model change process at the firm level with specific reference to small firms, an area that remains under researched. Business model change drivers, constraints and facilitators were examined in the context of small, independent videogame development firms. The videogame industry is a fast-moving, global industry with entrepreneurial characteristics and a notable number of small and micro firms involved in games development. Such firms have traditionally operated using a contractor-based, ‘work-for-hire’ business model. This is characterised by project-based activities, little or no proprietary intellectual property, a weak financial model, and limited possibilities to build value into the firm. In recent years, new market and technology-related opportunities have emerged for such firms to change to a higher value model that incorporates proprietary intellectual property ownership, an ‘IP’ model. However despite the attraction of this model, and support from industry and policymakers, the successful change from work-for-hire has been limited thereby restricting both firm and industry development. Understanding the rationale for this can contribute to the business model change literature and inform videogame industry policy. This was an empirical study incorporating an exploratory, inductive approach with an embedded single case design that focused on independent videogame development firms and four business model change routes. Qualitative, longitudinal data were collected via 37 semi-structured interviews with purposefully selected entrepreneurs and industry experts; personal observations from interviews and 13 industry events in the UK and abroad; and documentation analysis of firm and industry data. The key findings indicated that: (i) business model change drivers were internal and external in nature with the entrepreneur’s preferences and the business model characteristics being dominant; (ii) certain business model change constraints influenced the composition, timing and success of business model change but were rarely preventative at business model adoption; (iii) the change process was opportunistic, ad hoc and facilitated by experimentation, finance, parallel models and a supportive firm and external environment; and (iv) parallel models were a critical part of business model change. For industry the study indicated that: (i) the IP model opportunity is questionable for many firms; (ii) the work-for-hire and combination models were prevalent but underrated; and (iii) innovation at the business model component may be a more appropriate way for videogame development firms to gain value.

My thesis examines how employees’ psychological contracts form and evolve over time conjointly with their social network ties. It comprises three separate papers, one conceptual and two empirical, written with the purpose of capturing the antecedents of psychological contracts through pre-entry expectations and social relationships of newcomers. Paper 1 is a conceptual piece that theorizes the concurrent formation of newcomers’ social relationships and psychological contracts from a sensemaking perspective. I develop propositions explaining how newcomers make sense of information they gather from pre-entry to post-socialization. The key contribution of this paper is the establishment of a testable two-way process model, which captures the dynamic nature of psychological contracts, and how and why social relationships are important building blocks of the psychological contract. Paper 2 is a qualitative empirical study that investigates the pre-entry expectations and content dimensions of millennial employees’ anticipatory psychological contracts. The key contribution of this paper is the conceptualization of pre-entry time in the psychological contract formation process. The importance of pre-entry expectations in shaping employees’ initial psychological contracts are conceptually acknowledged but widely overlooked in empirical studies. This qualitative study empirically investigates pre-entry expectations and role of these in shaping the content dimensions of anticipatory psychological contracts, which guide millennials’ behavior and sensemaking once they join the organization. Paper 3 is a quantitative empirical study that examines the mechanisms of homophily and assimilation driving the coevolution of newcomers’ psychological contract formation and social network ties. This study challenges earlier views of the unidirectional influence of social interactions on the psychological contract. As a key contribution, through introducing a novel simulation methodology (SIENA), this study shows psychological contracts are both the products and predictors of employees’ social network ties.

This thesis investigates the role of skills and universities in explaining differences in economic performance between firms and regions. The first chapter examines the relationship between university entry and GDP growth between 1950 and 2010 based on new data that combines university entry in 1,500 regions across 78 countries. It finds that a 10% increase in a region’s universities is associated with 0.4% higher GDP per capita in that region, with evidence of spillovers to neighbouring regions. Part of the university effect appears to be mediated through increases in human capital and innovation, and we also find evidence that universities shape views on democracy. Focusing on the UK, the second chapter studies how university growth impacts on local industry composition and productivity using panel data on firms and nearby university enrolments over the period 1997-2016. This spatial analysis reveals that university growth stimulates high-tech start-ups and the effects are stronger for higher quality, research intensive universities and areas of higher initial human capital. Employment effects are more muted, though smaller establishments appear to get larger as universities grow. On average, positive productivity impacts are found only in more high-tech intensive areas. The third chapter provides evidence for a complementarity between modern management practices and higher education using data on manufacturing firms, universities and labour markets across 19 countries. It finds that firms further from universities have lower management scores, even when controlling for a rich set of observables and region fixed effects. Analysis using estimates of regional skill premia suggests that variation in the price of skills drives these effects. The fourth chapter examines differences in economic performance across the UK using a variety of data sources and measures. Ten stylised facts are presented which are relevant for policymakers and researchers engaged in the development of industrial strategy in the UK.

This thesis explores an important yet underexplored aspect of leadership studies, the phenomenon of an intermediate leader, here defined as an individual embodying both roles of a leader and a follower. Whilst these two roles are usually seen as belonging to people interacting with each other, this body of work is innovative in investigating one individual co-enacting both the roles and identities of leader and follower, as he/she connects different leadership relationships. This exploration starts with a broad research question: how do intermediate leaders enact both roles effectively? This thesis provides some answers by presenting three separate papers, each focusing on a separate study. Paper 1 reviews previous literature categorizing the tensions faced by intermediate leaders. It introduces the leadership triad, formed by an intermediate leader, his/her leader and his/her follower as a promising area of enquiry. It then contributes a theoretical dynamic model of coenactment, through which intermediate leaders balance the tensions by embracing both leader and follower self-concepts as mutually important. Paper 2 and 3 are both based on longitudinal, inductive, qualitative studies, focusing on leadership triads in large financial organizations. Paper 2 unveils the practice of skip-level leadership, whereby the intermediate leader's sensemaking is bypassed by meaning formed in a direct leadership relationship between his/her leader and his/her follower. It reveals the disruptive effects that this can have on intermediate leaders' identity. Paper 3 explores authentic leadership from the perspective of intermediate leaders, who face two separate audiences, their boss and their teams, often embracing contrasting interests. This paper contributes a model of 'bounded authenticity' in leadership, revealing tactics used by intermediate leaders to be authentic amidst organizational-, relational- and individual-level barriers to authenticity. The overarching contribution of this thesis is to expose the interconnectedness of the roles of leader and follower, highlighting how the enactment of one informs the enactment of the other.

As a result of the rise in globalisation, international markets have become important for SMEs. However, the study of internationalisation decisions has been limited, and no coherent body of theory has materialised so far. Furthermore, previous research has produced contradictory results. To further develop the mostly non-generalisable outcomes, research is required that (1) specifically conceptualises and measures decision-making in the context of SME internationalisation, and (2) which examines the direct and moderating influence of the context, as well as (3) sheds light on several decision outcomes. This thesis tests an integrative model incorporating a range of decision antecedents and outcomes using data from 218 questionnaires completed by German and Australian SMEs and drawing from multiple theoretical perspectives. The present study makes several substantial and original contributions to knowledge: (1) a valid measurement tool for procedural rationality is developed, which satisfies the special requirements of internationalising SMEs. This study presents evidence (2) that perceived environmental uncertainty does not influence the degree of procedural rationality and that (3) procedural rationality is positively related to a firm’s growth rate, but not to its internationalisation performance. An integrated model is crucial to reaching a comprehensive understanding of decision-making in SME internationalisation.

Companies constantly hit rough patches. Unfortunately, not all firms manage to survive decade after decade. Some companies morph throughout the years and bear little resemblance to their original setup (Krakovsky, 2013). Johnson & Johnson began in the late 1880s by manufacturing commercial sterile surgical dressings, while Nokia was kicked off in 1865 as a riverside paper mill. The explanation for this longevity: organisational ambidexterity. The engagement in organisational ambidexterity has grown substantially over the past ten years as studies have found it promotes superior performance. This thesis examines the role of ambidexterity in promoting firm survival and performance through the 2008-2009 financial crisis. 11,290 U.S. firms, listed on the stock markets from 2006 through 2014, are used to form a longitudinal study. The first empirical chapter explores the research question, Did actually Corporate America experience a crisis in 2008 and 2009? The findings confirm that Corporate America did go through a crisis, based on the high bankruptcy rate, which underlines the importance of crisis survival knowledge and the value of this research. Then, the thesis identifies the influence of ambidexterity on the probability of firm survival during the Global Financial Crisis, through the research question, Why and how did some firms survive, while others did not? This thesis distinguishes the role of ambidexterity in relation to firm survival and performance. Survival and performance are not purely dependent on luck or the possession of slack resources. Hence, the knowledge and the ability to exploit and explore resources are essential for long-term survival and prosperity.