ABSTRACT THE IMPACT OF MOTIVATION AND CONFLICT ESCALATION ON THE FIVE ZONE MODEL FOR PREFERRED CONFLICT HANDLING AND MANAGERIAL DECISION MAKING BY DEWEY WILSON TODD JULY 2005 Committee Chairmen: Dr. Peter Zhang and Dr. Craig Hill Major Department: Managerial Sciences (Decision Sciences) The Todd-Cambridge Preferred Conflict-Handling Mode (PCHM) Instrument is an example of a two-dimensional, five zone model, similar to the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, used to explain how individuals deal with situations in which their desires are in conflict with another individual or group. The instrument, developed for this research, was based on the Managerial Grid (Van de Vliert & Kabanoff, 1990). The two variables in the PCHM model are Assertiveness and Cooperativeness. Two additional interacting, independent variables (Motivation and Conflict Escalation) were posited to affect a sudden change in subject action under situations wherein there are different views of recommended decisions. The third variable being explored by this research is “Motivation”. This represents a measure of one’s degree of attachment with respect to a decision. Motivation may originate in compensation, personal regard or an emotional attachment. The primary theory was that while assertiveness and cooperativeness may be statistically uncorrelated, although interdependent for the purposes of categorization (Van de Vliert & Kabanoff, 1990), motivation creates an interaction effect with the other two variables and can be shown by inserting either a negative or positive motivational vignette between two administrations of the PCHM instrument. In other words, when one is highly motivated on a decision component there will be a predictable change in PCHM. Five of ten hypotheses were supported (null rejected) in investigating the effect of motivation. The fourth variable explored was “Conflict Escalation” – also introduced in the form of a vignette. The purpose was to determine the effect on PCHM when a normal group decision making environment suddenly intensified in conflict. Individuals are classified according to the five preference categories, with one primary preference generally emerging. The research question here was, “…as conflict escalates, does the dominant preference score of the individual change significantly?” This could potentially affect communication and make participants more disparate. In two of the five hypotheses, this theory was supported. The conclusion was that, although PCHM has traditionally been considered static, it can be affected suddenly and with a degree of predictability. This can be evidenced through motivation and conflict escalation.

Abstract An Examination of Linkages Between Personality, Leader-Member Exchange, and the Psychological Contract By Mark George Kunze 2005 Committee Chair: Dr. Edward Miles Major Department: Management While previous research has focused mainly on relationships between various personality variables and either leader-member exchange or psychological contract violation, none has yet to examine how these constructs are linked. A model of these proposed relationships is developed based on theory drawn from literature in the areas of social psychology, leader-member exchange, and psychological contracts. The present research used structural equation modeling to examine the strength of the relationship between the personality variables of negative affect, positive affect, self-monitoring, and trait cynicism with respect to leader-member exchange and perceptions of psychological contract violation. Positive affect and negative affect were found to significantly relate to both LMX and the perception of psychological contract violation. Trait cynicism was not significantly related to LMX and only weakly related to perceptions of psychological contract violation. It was hypothesized that LMX would partially mediate the relationships between the individual personality factors and perceptions of psychological contract violation; however, the data did not support this hypothesis. While self-monitoring was hypothesized to moderate the relationship of positive affect, negative affect, and trait cynicism with LMX, the moderating effect was found to be significant only for the negative affect/LMX relationship.

How should a company best allocate its spending between acquisition and retention? Under what condition should a company devote resources and money to analytics? The above questions are just examples of more general issues concerning many companies when managing their customer acquisition and retention programs. To answer the above questions, I will conduct a study on the allocation of financial resources between incentives that target different types of customers, and the allocation of resources between incentives and analytics spending. This research first distinguishes between customers and acquisition, between incentive and price discount, and between acquisition and retention. It then proposes a new concept, “free rider”, in a customer acquisition and retention context. Building on the free-rider concept, two mathematical models are formulated to examine the optimal allocation between acquisition incentive, retention incentive, and analytics spending. Closed-form solutions are reached for both models and the results are interpreted in the context of marketing practice. The conditions leading to different patterns of optimal solutions of analytics spending, acquisition incentives, and retention incentives are discussed. Specifically, the detailed conditions under which the optimal acquisition incentives is zero or non-zero, the optimal retention incentives is zero or non-zero, and the optimal analytics spending is zero or non-zero, are provided. Factors determining the ceiling for acceptable level of cost of analytics are also examined.

A new research model of Perceived Organizational Support (POS) was proposed and tested. This model proposed that moral reasoning would moderate the relationships between six justice constructs and POS. The six justice constructs were distributive justice for self, coworkers, and employees in general as well as procedural justice for self, coworkers, and employees in general. The model was tested using two studies. Study 1 consisted of 284 students at a large southeastern university, while Study 2 was comprised of 215 employees from multiple organizations. The hypothesized relationships of the model were tested using hierarchical moderated regression analysis. Overall, while the results were consistent with most prior research, there was no support for the moderating role of moral reasoning that was proposed. The findings and implications of both Study 1 and 2 are discussed. Directions for future research are also suggested.

This research develops a real options perspective framework for firms‘ valuation of strategic investments. I propose that a real options perspective can provide an effective means of re-examining and revising firms‘ strategic investment decisions in general, and of making individual, investment-level abandonment decisions in particular. The principal purposes of this research are to explore whether firms make abandonment decisions in accordance with real options theory, and the relative strength of the traditional economic theory, the behavioral theory of the firm and real options theory in explaining firms‘ abandonment decisions. I develop a set of hypotheses in the context of firms‘ R&D investment strategies in the world chemical industry. Using U.S. patent renewal data, I empirically test the hypotheses. The results from the empirical analyses suggest that, 1) firms‘ actual innovation abandonment decisions are consistent with the predictions made from real options theory; and 2) a real options perspective provides better explanation of firms‘ abandonment decisions than traditional economic theory and the behavioral theory of the firm. Therefore, taking such a perspective allows us to better predict abandonment than the other models. In investigating whether insights from real options theory enlighten firm‘s abandonment decisions, this research contributes to the strategic decision making literature, real options research, RBV and dynamic capability research and innovation literature.

Multimarket competition has become a substantial part of the modern economy. As such, it has drawn the attention of academics in both economics and strategy fields. Many studies have found empirical evidence of mutual forbearance in several industries, but despite its importance, its behavioral roots have not been explored. In my dissertation I integrate the reality of boundedly-rational decision makers into the mutual forbearance hypothesis. I apply an outgrowth of the behavioral theory of the firm – the shifting focus model of risk taking – to the study of competitive behavior. I propose a behavioral model of multimarket competition that focuses on corporate strategic decisions - market entry and exit decisions, regardless of entry mode (e.g. acquisitions) or exit mode (e.g. divestitures). This approach provides a granular view of changes in the business scope of the firms in terms of product and geographic markets served. I test my hypotheses in the U.S. property liability insurance industry over a 12-year period (1998-2008). I argue that firms follow the mutual forbearance logic as long as their performance goals are satisfied. However, under conditions of adversity, firms shift attention to recovering from the performance shortfall and their actions deviate from the mutual forbearance predictions. This dissertation shows that underperforming firms with abundant slack take longer to forbear, and underperforming firms with limited slack start forbearing sooner, as predicted. By bridging behavioral and competitive perspectives to the study of market entry and exit decisions, I underscore the value of cross-fertilization in strategy research.

This dissertation introduces the model of opportunistic adaptation to explain new venture growth. In established firms processes of change and adaptation usually imply a transition from one steady-state strategy to another and a problem oriented perspective as firms change in response to potential threats to their current positions. However, in the context of new ventures, adaptation is less about moving from one existent strategy to another and more about the entrepreneur’s effort to reach a steady state for the first time by continuously experimenting and combining resources in creative and innovative ways. The model of opportunistic adaptation rests on three key assumptions: 1.) new venture growth results from actions grounded in an opportunistic (proactive) logic; 2.) entrepreneurial cognition is viewed as an antecedent to all organizational actions leading to growth; 3.) the relationship between entrepreneurial cognition and action is influenced by industry and firm level attributes. The model is tested using quantitative and qualitative data on new ventures founded between 1996 and 2006 in technology intensive industries. The results provide partial support for the notion of opportunistic adaptation as a process in which entrepreneurial cognition, firm and industry related factors are closely intertwined. The results of the dissertation suggest that some aspects of entrepreneurial cognition, such as entrepreneurial schema focus have a more direct effect on actions related to new venture growth than others whose effect is strongly moderated by contextual influences such as industry growth and social network heterogeneity. This dissertation also finds that not all types of organizational actions associated with an opportunity logic lead to new venture growth. Of the three action types included in the model (fast, diverse and frequent) only action diversity was found to have a positive impact on new venture growth. Theoretical implications of the study results for both the literature on new venture growth and the literature on organizational adaptation, as well as practical implications are discussed.

What makes entrepreneurs select one international opportunity while rejecting or ignoring others? Furthermore, what makes entrepreneurs decide to exploit an international opportunity earlier or later? Two theories of internationalization provide answers to these questions: the Uppsala Model and International Entrepreneurship theory. However, these two theories provide competing answers to these questions, and empirical research offers inconsistent evidence about what influences entrepreneurs to select an international opportunity – and when to exploit the opportunity. To address these issues, I develop a cognitive model that explains when and why the predictions of these theories do (and do not) explain entrepreneurs’ behavior regarding new venture internationalization. More specifically, I propose that entrepreneurs’ internationalization decision making rests, in part, on cognitive processes of similarity comparison and structural alignment. I use a multi-method / multi-study approach to answer the above questions. In the first study, I use verbal protocol techniques to analyze the cognitive processes of entrepreneurs as they ‘think out loud’ while making decisions on international opportunity selection and age at entry. In the second study, I use a survey plus secondary data to test if the actual decisions made by entrepreneurs on international opportunity selection and age at entry correspond to the dissertation’s predictions. Results show that cognitive processes of similarity comparison and structural alignment underpin entrepreneurs’ internationalization decisions. Entrepreneurs rely heavily on commonalities and look for high levels of similarity between the home and host country when deciding when to internationalize their firms. Regarding entrepreneurs’ decisions on international opportunity selection, their decisions reflect the influence of both comparable and noncomparable opportunity features. Interestingly, I observe that prior international knowledge directly impacts entrepreneurs’ internationalization decisions, but also moderates the relationship between similarity considerations and entrepreneurs’ decisions on international opportunity selection. Ultimately, I reconcile and integrate two competing internationalization theories by resolving tensions between them. I demonstrate that the different predictions of the two internationalization theories can be explained by the differential focus that entrepreneurs place on comparable and noncomparable attributes of their opportunity set. I also show the importance of taking an individual-level and cognitive view to understanding these decisions.

The financial crisis of 2007-2009 had divesting effects around the globe. Many financial institutions and government officials failed to see the build up of problems predicting the crisis and hence failed to take actions to keep the crisis from breaking out. Thus, it is important to see if the emerging problems could have been identified in advance in order to develop types of analysis that could help us avoid future crises. A full investigation of such possibilities will require many different studies taking different approaches. This dissertation contributes to that collective effort by investigating the extent to which balance sheet information could have been used to identify the emerging problems. We implement our research strategy by analyzing what types of balance sheet information did the best job of explaining how hard different major financial institutions were hit during the crisis. We constructed a large data set of financial variables from the financial reports of financial institutions over the years 2002 to 2011. We used this data to developed models to predict the damage to an individual firm when a systemic crisis occurred based on its financial position and performance over varying time periods and relative to other institutions’ characteristics. We used changes in stock market prices as our measure of performance. We found that the financial leverage ratio and the mismatch between current assets and current liabilities are the most significant ratios to predict the degree of stock market declines each institution would face if a systemic crisis occurred. We quantified the degree of the financial leverage and current ratios in two different ways, an average level and accumulated time-weighted rate of change over different lags of periods using two different estimation techniques. We found that the financial leverage and current ratios can be used as early warning signals based on both the multivariable fractional polynomials estimation technique and structural equation modeling. However, the out-of-sample tests showed that the imbalance between current assets and current liability would be the only significant predictor of the changes in stock market prices. The test confirmed that the changes in pre-crisis stock prices are less sensitive to the leverage ratio but more sensitive during crisis.

The resolution of the image is one of the main measures of image quality. Higher resolution is desired and often required in most of the applications, because higher resolution means more details in the image. The use of better image sensors and optics is an expensive and also limiting way of increasing pixel density within the image. The use of image processing methods, to obtain a high resolution image from low resolution images is a cheap and effective solution. This kind of image enhancement is called super resolution image reconstruction. This thesis focuses on the definition, implementation and analysis on well-known techniques of super resolution. The comparison and analysis are the main concerns to understand the improvements of the super resolution methods over single frame interpolation techniques. In addition, the comparison also gives us an insight to the practical uses of super resolution methods. As a result of the analysis, the critical examination of the techniques and their performance evaluation are achieved.