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This dissertation focuses on corporate contributions to state-level politicians. Scholars have devoted significant attention to the antecedents of corporate political activity, often invoking resource dependence logic to explain managerial motives. Just as managers seek to protect their firms from dependencies on other firms, so too do they seek to protect their firms from dependencies on government. Resource dependence theory is, indeed, an appropriate tool for understanding some of the antecedents of corporate political activity. However, the application of resource dependence theory in the context of corporate political activity can be improved. Dependence on government has been explained as arising from regulatory intensity faced by the firm (i.e., the degree to which the firm's industry is regulated). The argument for regulatory intensity as a source of dependence is inconsistent with the core logic of resource dependence theory. A firm must have a relationship with a government for any firm dependence on government to exist. A state's regulatory environment does not constitute a relationship with any firm. In this dissertation I argue that it is firm operations in a government's jurisdiction that constitutes a relationship between the firm and the government. Because governments possess tremendous power to influence the institutional environment, firms operating in a government jurisdiction are dependent on that government for a predictable institutional environment. I hypothesize that firm political activity in a state will increase as the firm becomes more dependent on that state as a location for its operations. Furthermore, I hypothesize that factors with the potential for disrupting the institutional environment activate the threat posed by the firm's dependence on the state, thus strengthening the relationship between operational dependence and political donations. I test these hypotheses in a cross-classified multilevel model in which firm-state subsidiaries are nested within 78 firms and the 50 US states. The findings provide strong support for most of the hypotheses. I provide a discussion of the results as well as their impacts on theory and practice, the limitations of the study, and ideas for future research directions. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Entrepreneurship, Strategy, and Information Systems in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2015. / April 10, 2015. / Institutions, Political Activity, Resource Dependence, Social Movements, Strategic Management / Includes bibliographical references. / Bruce T. Lamont, Professor Directing Dissertation; Jeffery S. Smith, University Representative; R. Michael Holmes, Jr., Committee Member; Chad H. Van Iddekinge, Committee Member.

A firm's legitimacy becomes a critical issue during an organizational crisis. Blending social identity theory (SIT) and institutional theory, I explain why legitimacy is more difficult to maintain for foreign firms than domestic firms. Specifically, I argue that foreign firms are likely to suffer a greater loss in legitimacy from an organizational crisis because of their legitimacy characteristics and foreign identity. In building the discussion about foreign firms' legitimacy characteristics, I argue that foreign firms face severe restrictions in establishing cognitive legitimacy due to constituents' identity-based bias toward foreign firms. As a result, domestic firms and foreign firms develop differing properties of legitimacy. When an organizational crisis strikes a foreign firm, this ex ante legitimacy property and the magnified foreign identity reinforce each other to result in more damage to legitimacy for foreign firms. Moreover, an organizational crisis that strikes a foreign firm is likely to have a stronger negative spillover effect on other foreign firms within the same industry. The proposition and hypotheses in this study were empirically tested using the recall data of 10 automakers in the US automobile industry between 2006 and 2013. The legitimacy of a firm was measured using two constructs from prior studies: tenor of media and volume of media (Pollock & Rindova, 2003). A total of 15,019 newspaper articles were analyzed using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software to estimate tenor of media, and additional 469 news articles were used to estimate volume of media. Lastly, this study employs GEE to test the ten hypotheses. The results suggest that foreign firms are indeed at a higher risk of losing legitimacy not only from their own crises but also other foreign firms' crises. More specifically, an organizational crisis results in a harsher legitimacy setback for a foreign firm than a domestic firm. Furthermore, when a foreign firm faces a crisis, its negative effects seem to spread only to other foreign firms, whereas domestic firms may even benefit from the foreign firm's crisis. There was no negative spillover affecting domestic firms either from a foreign firm's recall or domestic firm's recall. Therefore, the empirical results point to the existence of the identity-based liability of foreignness. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Entrepreneurship, Strategy, and Information Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2014. / July 24, 2014. / institutional theory, legitimacy, liability of foreignness, product recall, social identity theory, spillover / Includes bibliographical references. / Bruce T. Lamont, Professor Directing Dissertation; Chad H. Van Iddekinge, Committee Member; David Maslach, Committee Member.

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Anchored on the "uncertainty reduction by learning" perspective, most research on organizational socialization has emphasized the role of information acquisition in newcomers' socialization, stressing that the more information newcomers acquire, the more effective the socialization process will be. However, not all of the new information is compatible with the newcomers' previous experience. The learning approach fails to explain and predict the whole story of organizational socialization because the approach does not substantively address the different natures characterizing the information that newcomers receive in work settings: namely, the compatibility and the incompatibility with the newcomers' previous experience. As a result, research on the mechanisms of organizational socialization has not sufficiently explained the aspect of newcomers' adaptation in socialization. / Keywords: socialization, primary control, secondary control, p-o fit / To fill in this void, this dissertation has proposed and tested a model examining the consequences and antecedents of three parallel mechanisms of socialization processes from both the socialization-learning perspective and the control perspective. On top of previous socialization-content mechanisms deriving from the socialization-learning approach, the control perspective explains how newcomers deal with incompatible information during their early organizational experiences by introducing two coping mechanisms: primary control and secondary control. Moreover, this dissertation examines the different effects of learning, primary control, and secondary control on different adaptation outcomes, such as performance, person-organization fit, job stress, and turnover intention. To further investigate certain organizational factors through which the three socialization mechanisms, especially primary and secondary control, are activated, I have introduced a new concept: organizational secure base. I have argued that an organization's secure base can help newcomers develop a secure attachment to their organization and can, in tum, lead to different usages of the primary and secondary control strategies. / To test the hypothesized relationships in the model, I conducted two studies. In study one, I developed and validated two scales for primary control and secondary control in an organizational context. In study two, I conducted a time-lag study with a sample of 150 newcomers from three organizations. Results of study two support my argument that there are several parallel socialization-process mechanisms, which function together to affect adaptation outcomes. Most ofthe hypotheses concerning the distinct consequences of each of the three parallel mechanisms were supported. Organizational secure base was also found to be an important organizational factor for newcomers' adaptation. Implications for theory and managerial practices, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed. / Jiang, Yan. / Adviser: Kenneth S. Law. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-03, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-113). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract and appendix B also in Chinese; appendix C in Chinese only.

This thesis examines organizing and controlling mechanisms within the network structure of Korean business groups, chaebols, for the family-based corporate ownership and control under environmental uncertainty. Research focuses on the groups' changing patterns of inter-firm network structures, the maneuvering strategy by utilizing relational configurations of business groups for the family members' robust control, and the effect of network structure on the corporate performance of affiliated firms. Considering the financial crisis of 1997 in South Korea and the aftermath of this crisis as a natural experiment, social network analysis is used for analyzing each of the 178 cases for 28 chaebols during 1997 to 2003. Although retaining a centralized, hierarchical form of group structure with the tau statistic, the overall inter-firm configurations of each business group, as result of concrete but simplified images of network configurations by blockmodel analysis and the comparison of them with idealized models by simple matching analysis, show the existence of variations within a monolithic form in synchronic comparison and the changing trend to be a less centralized, hierarchical form along with stable transitive patterns in diachronic comparison. Family-based corporate control, by strategically intertwining affiliated people as vicarious agents to carry out the interests of family members and sending these combinatorial equity ties to a few major firms occupying core positions, is guaranteed without losing its substantial controlling power. It is argued that, borrowing from Bourdieu's "condescension strategy," this strategically contrived control is a proactive and reactive strategy in response to environmental pressure even though this strategy is effective in certain intercorporate conditions. The estimated influence of inter-firm network structure on the corporate performance of affiliated firms is minimal in multilevel analysis. In contrast, affiliated firms having direct connections with family members show relatively better corporate performance than those that do not have these connections. The implication of this result is that the network structure of chaebols tend to be shaped, maintained, and reorganized for family-based, effective, overarching corporate control at the business group level rather than for efficient corporate performance of affiliated firms at the firm level. Finally, this thesis suggests that corporate control and corporate gain do not always go hand in hand, and economic practices need to be understood by the simultaneous consideration of pecuniary and not necessarily pecuniary but still related interests, such as control and social relations where economic practices are anchored in.

I propose a nuanced theoretical approach to understanding leader identity development in organizations. Past identity work has ignored or tangentially addressed phases of development that I term `leader identity stagnation' and `leader identity destruction'. Analysis of survey and network data examining West Point cadets' identities and friendship, leadership, and trust networks adds insight into the leader identity development process. Ethnographic research of the institution offers further understanding and helps confirm the new theoretical model of the phases of leader identity development. A concluding chapter examines the application of new social networking technologies and mixed-media interaction to enhance organizational leader identity construction. A gap exists in management literature pertaining to the creation and use of social network technologies for this purpose.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1973. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-151). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

This doctoral thesis seeks to advance our understanding of organizational legitimacy through the analysis of types and properties of legitimacy and of its relation to the concepts of status and reputation. More specifically, this doctoral thesis seeks to contribute to organizational theory and strategic management by (1) reviewing and systematizing legitimacy types discerned in the literature and contrasting legitimacy with related concepts of reputation and status, (2) identifying the properties of legitimacy, and (3) exploring some of the implications of these properties for management practice and strategic management research. / The doctoral research is presented in the form of a manuscript-based thesis consisting of three interrelated papers: / 1. Organizational Legitimacy as a Form of Judgment. Through the analysis of legitimacy definitions, types and typologies, and operationalizations, this study first develops an enumerative definition of organizational legitimacy, maps different types of legitimacy discerned in the literature onto the process of legitimacy judgment formation and highlights the fundamental differences between cognitive and sociopolitical legitimacy types. This paper then advances a conceptualization of cognitive and sociopolitical types of legitimacy, reputation and status as four different types of judgment that actors can render in respect to an organization and explores some implications of this approach for organizational research, namely the role of social judgments in exchange partner selection and the use of social judgments under conditions of uncertainty. / 2. Legitimacy-Based Entry Deterrence in Inter-Population Competition. This paper develops a theory of competitive social norm manipulations and explores the strategies that well-established organizational populations use to build legitimacy-based barriers to entry into their domain. The study develops a typology of legitimacy manipulation strategies that established organizational populations use to prevent, eradicate or palliate the new entrants' impact by: (1) changing the relative importance of legitimacy dimensions, (2) raising the legitimacy threshold and (3) altering perceptions of competitors' performance. Successful legitimacy manipulations are shown to lead to institutional immunization of the incumbents against similar competitive challenges in the future. / 3. Defensive Institutional Strategies in Emergent Industries. Through a comparative analysis of two emergent industries in Canada, this study advances a conceptualization of the process of emergence of a new industry from a successful innovative business model, focusing on sequential lines of institutional defense that are available to emergent industries that come under such attacks: (1) keep a low profile; (2) form a trade association; (3) develop an industry code to provide guidelines and member coordination; (4) enforce the code through self-policing; (5) if everything else fails to end the attack, invite the government to impose regulation. Illustrations of the application of these strategies are provided.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.