Thesis (S.M. in Management Research)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2013. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-63). / One of the major objectives of implementing service-oriented architecture (SOA) is to enhance IS agility and improve IT-business alignment. However, the contradictory experiences about SOA implementation turn out to be a paradox: why many organizations failed to meet their expectations about SOA implementation efforts, while others succeeded? Contrast to prior research on SOA, this study adopts the process perspective and provides plausible theoretical explanations for the "SOA implementation paradox". The study uses multiple case studies and literature review to develop a system dynamics model which highlights the feedback loops and time delay during the SOA implementation process. The results reveal the dynamic characteristics of learning curve of SOA implementation and two organizational traps (technology learning trap and implementation effectiveness trap) associated with SOA implementation. The theory of the organizational traps can be generalized to a broad context of innovative IS implementation. Further, the theoretical causes of the traps are discussed. / by Xitong Li. / S.M.in Management Research

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, February, 2019 / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 141-158). / In this thesis, I investigate the challenges of 21st century global integration by examining it indepth at a Fortune 200 global supplier (CC) that faces strong pressures of both global integration and local responsiveness. While global integration is typically discussed at a macro level, here I use qualitative methods to study senior managers at a micro level. In this way, I establish critical internal struggles with integration, and reveal external dynamics of integration in a close inter-firm relationship as a strategic supplier. Results highlight the role of Global Management Teams as an essential linking tool. At the same time, I find that conflicting temporalities across locations, accompanied by a globally-shared logic of appropriateness, place restraints on this mechanism of integration: limiting the hours available, and consistently advantaging and disadvantaging specific geographies. / I also draw on a unique data set to examine global integration in the context of a close, dependent relationship, with multiple boundary-crossing links. This consists of thirteen months of observations of the weekly virtual meeting of the global account team responsible for CC's largest customer (Alpha). Tracing the collective process by which the team constructs the organizational identity (01) of the "other" from their individual distributed interactions, I find that in constructing Alpha's global 01 the team is also co-creating their own global 01. Further, the process by which the team constructs Alpha's 01 to answer the question "who are they?" parallels well-documented internal processes used by organizational members to answer "who are we?" Importantly, through this co-creation, identity acts both as an alignment mechanism within CC, and across firm boundaries in the relationship. / Finally, CC's identity work on Alpha extends beyond construction to shaping and enforcing Alpha's 01 as partner through active voice, engaging the customer's hierarchy from outside to discipline and shape the customer's behavior from within. / by Laurel Edwards Grassin-Drake. / Ph. D. / Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-54). / by William J. Flynn, III. / M.S.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2013. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / This thesis is composed of three papers, each relating to labor market imperfections and their implications for firms' staffing practices. In the first paper, I examine why hospitals provide direct financial support to nursing schools and faculty. This support is striking because nursing education is clearly general, clearly paid by the firm, and information asymmetries appear minimal. Using AHA and survey data, I find hospitals employing a greater share of their MSA's registered nurses are more likely to provide such support, net of size and other institutional controls. I interpret this result as evidence that technologically-general skills training may be made defacto-specific by mobility frictions. In the second paper, I present a theory of couples' job search whereby women sort into lowerpaying geographically-dispersed occupations due to expectations of future spouses' geographically-clustered occupations and (thereby) inability to relocate for work. Results confirm men segregate into geographically-clustered occupations, and that these occupations involve more-frequent early career relocations for both sexes. I also find that the minority of the men and women who depart from this equilibrium experience delayed marriage, higher divorce, and lower earnings. Results are consistent with the theory's implication that marriage and mobility expectations foment a self-fulfilling pattern of occupational segregation, with individual departures deterred by earnings and marriage penalties. In the third paper, I examine the use and misuse of authority and incentives in organizational hierarchies. Through a principal-supervisor-agent model inspired by sales settings, I propose organizations delegate authority over salespeople to front-line sales mangers because they can decompose performance measures into ability and luck. The model yields the result that managers on the cusp of a quota have a unique personal incentive to retain and adjust quotas for poor performing subordinates, permitting me to distinguish managers' interests from those of the firm. I parametrically estimate the model using detailed person-transaction-level microdata from 244 firms that subscribe to a "cloud"-based service for automating transaction processing and compensation. I estimate 13-15% of quota adjustments and retentions among poor performers are explained by the managers' unique personal interest in meeting a quota. I use agency theory to evaluate firms' mitigation practices. / by Alan Benson. / Ph.D.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-192). / This study starts from the notion that leadership is about mobilizing learning, and simultaneously pursues multifaceted purposes that benefit from each other: 1) to shed new light on learning behaviors of teams facing unfamiliarity, 2) develop one model of practical and effective leadership education, and 3) apply new technology to make methodological contributions to organizational studies, leadership education, and management practices. 1) The central research question is what behavioral factors affect team learning when the team faces both internal and external unfamiliarity - which stems from diversity and cultural barriers, and disruptive threats from the environment. The study examines 6 multicultural teams undergoing increasingly complex tasks, revealing the structures and processes with which they self-organized and temporal responses to the difficulties. 2) The experimental setting was a 10-days intensive leadership workshop with a distinct educational purpose to raise the participants' levels of contextual, reflective, and moral awareness, with the premise that exercising leadership involves mobilizing learning to adapt to unfamiliarity. The study attempts to assess the effectiveness of the workshop, while examining the effects of exercise of leadership on the teams' learning processes. 3) The study also applies wearable sensors that capture nonlinguistic social signals and visualize group interaction patterns, for 3 intended applications as (a) research tool for social network analysis to supplement ethnography, (b) learning tool to stimulate reflection and dialogue, and (c) intervention tool to alter the flows of information. / (cont.) The study identified 3 team learning strategies: inoculation (face internal difficulties earlier and get prepared for an external threat), time out (stop actions when facing a threat and use it to re-orient team's attention to internal difficulties), and structure it away (develop an internal structure that eliminates the internal difficulties). The conditions for team learning and personal development, appropriate challenge and support, resulted from exercise of leadership that emerged from complex interactions among the team members and the facilitators. Commonly observed signs of such conditions included surfacing and facing conflicts, revealing vulnerabilities, accommodating emotional breakdowns, and sense of mutual respect based on demonstrated acceptance. The study indicates that use of sensors contributed to formation of the team learning condition. / by Naoto Kanehira. / S.M.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-60). / by Solomon Israel. / M.S.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Jean-Louis Malinge. / M.S.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Alfred P. Sloan School of Management. Thesis. 1972. M.S . / MICROFICHE COPY ALSO AVAILABLE IN DEWEY LIBRARY. / Bibliography: leaves 123-125. / M.S .

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. / The primary goal of this research was to determine if Micronotes, a start-up company based on an electronic bill-pay service that enables customers to prepay and discount their bills, is a viable business proposition. Here is how Micronotes works: On April 15th, a customer receives a $1,000 insurance bill due on May 15th. She enters the bill amount and due date into the Micronotes server, accessible via cell phone, handset, or the internet, and determines that she can pay Micronotes $996.12 today to settle that bill and Micronotes will pay her $1,000 bill, in full, on May 15th. Micronotes aggregates her $996.12 payment on April 15th with millions of other customer payments, and invests it into short-term, low-risk, institutional-grade securities which mature just before the due date of her bill; Micronotes then pays her $1,000 insurance bill on May 15th. The idea is to get people to think about paying bills incrementally earlier as a discount opportunity, rather than a burden to avoid - and by doing so, create perfect ontime payments for customers which will eliminate late fees, yield higher credit scores, and ultimately lower credit costs. The research design comprised qualitative and quantitative market research to understand the level of customer interest in the concept, creation and maintenance of customer trust, the firm's system of innovation as a competitive advantage, the regulatory and tax environment in which this business will operate, system and financial modeling to understand business drivers and sensitivities, market timing, international expansion, and routes to liquidity for investors. / (cont.) Our results reveal that Micronotes (Mnotes) is an electronic bill-pay service that will enable 24.8 million U.S. small businesses to quickly, conveniently, and securely discount and pay any of the $5 trillion dollars in bills they pay annually via handset or internet and by connection to the institutional-grade money markets. Our market research suggests that 27% of the 7.7 million female-owned small businesses, our initial target market, would use the Mnotes service yielding $486B/year in shortduration investment volume for the firm. 13.3% target market penetration, or 320,155 customers are needed to reach break-even operations under present assumptions. / by Devon Andrew Kinkead. / S.M.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2010. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 92-94). / Historically, incumbent assembly firms with unquestionable strong positions in such industries as the automobile, consumer electronics, computer and mobile phone industries, have lost power when new technology is introduced; at the same time, supplier firms have taken over the power and gained value in the industry. We characterize this phenomenon as value-shift. Many industry experts have intuitive understandings of this phenomenon but not many scholars have identified its mechanism with a full-fledged theory. This paper identifies a mechanism that causes value-shift within the TV set industry, suggesting its application to other industries. This thesis then proposes a clear spectrum of strategies for incumbent assembly firms to prevent value-shift. At the same time, it indicates a set of strategies for supplier firms to take over the industry leadership. The work firstly defines value-shift and presents evidences that it exists in various industries by calculating the transition of value-added. By quantifying the impact of the value shift with this calculation, the thesis urges incumbent firms to take immediate actions to defy the value-shift. Then the thesis closely examines recent technology transition from the Cathode Ray Tube to the Liquid Crystal Display and describes how the value-shift took place in the TV set industry. From this industry analysis, the thesis describes the mechanism of the value-shift and discussed the possible strategies that incumbent firms could use to maintain their power over the industry. Finally, the thesis suggests the generalized mechanism of value-shift as an evolution in four stages using the modularity theory. The thesis implies the proposed mechanism is generally applicable by citing examples from other industries and suggests possible actions for both parties: for the incumbent firms to defy the value-shift and for the supplier firms to obtain industry leadership. / by Yukari Kuramoto. / M.B.A.