Amy Y. Ou

Cross-National, Cross-Cultural Organizational Behavior Research: Advances, Gaps, and Recommendations

The advent of the 21st century has witnessed an increasing interest in developing knowledge of international management to meet the needs of global business development. To take stock of the progress in organizational behavior research with national culture as the major explanatory variable, the authors analyzed 93 empirical studies published in the 16 leading management journals from 1996 to 2005. This analysis shows some advances but also identifies many gaps in both theory and methods. They offer seven recommendations to address these gaps and advance future research.

Organizational culture and organizational effectiveness: a meta-analytic investigation of the competing values framework's theoretical suppositions.

We apply Quinn and Rohrbaughs (1983) competing values framework (CVF) as an organizing taxonomy to meta-analytically test hypotheses about the relationship between 3 culture types and 3 major indices of organizational effectiveness (employee attitudes, operational performance [i.e., innovation and product and service quality], and financial performance). The paper also tests theoretical suppositions undergirding the CVF by investigating the frameworks nomological validity and proposed internal structure (i.e., interrelationships among culture types). Results based on data from 84 empirical studies with 94 independent samples indicate that clan, adhocracy, and market cultures are differentially and positively associated with the effectiveness criteria, though not always as hypothesized. The findings provide mixed support for the CVFs nomological validity and fail to support aspects of the CVFs proposed internal structure. We propose an alternative theoretical approach to the CVF and delineate directions for future research.

Humble Chief Executive Officers’ Connections to Top Management Team Integration and Middle Managers’ Responses

In this article, we examine the concept of humility among chief executive officers (CEOs) and the process through which it is connected to integration in the top management team (TMT) and middle managers’ responses. We develop and validate a comprehensive measure of humility using multiple samples and then test a multilevel model of how CEOs’ humility links to the processes of top and middle managers. Our methodology involves survey data gathered twice from 328 TMT members and 645 middle managers in 63 private companies in China. We find CEO humility to be positively associated with empowering leadership behaviors, which in turn correlates with TMT integration. TMT integration then positively relates to middle managers’ perception of having an empowering organizational climate, which is then associated with their work engagement, affective commitment, and job performance. Findings confirm our hypotheses based on social information processing theory: humble CEOs connect to top and middle managers through collective perceptions of empowerment at both levels. Qualitative data from interviews with 51 CEOs provide additional insight into the meaning of humility among CEOs and differences between those with high and low humility.

Do Humble CEOs Matter? An Examination of CEO Humility and Firm Outcomes

We propose a mediation model to explain the relationship between CEO humility and firm performance. Building on upper echelons, power, and paradox theories, we hypothesize that when a more humble CEO leads a firm, its top management team (TMT) is more likely to collaborate, share information, jointly make decisions, and possess a shared vision. The firm will also tend to have lower pay disparity between the CEO and the TMT. The humble CEO and TMT, in turn, will be more likely to adopt an ambidextrous strategic orientation, which will be associated with stronger firm performance. We tested the model by using both survey and archival data that were collected at multiple time points from 105 small-to-medium-sized firms in the computer software and hardware industry in the United States. Findings largely support our theoretical assertions, suggesting that CEO humility has important implications for firm processes and outcomes.

International Collaboration for Academic Publication Implications From the Resource-Based View and Transaction Cost Theory

In this study, the authors examine factors that explain international scholars’ success in publishing in North American management journals through collaboration. Drawing on the international entry mode literature, the authors propose that international collaboration teams are more successful when they increase complementary resources and reduce transaction costs. A sample of 364 articles from 10 North American management journals shows that teams published in higher impact management journals when they had U.S. or Canadian collaborators, higher proportions of assistant professors, and less gender diversity. Combining additional findings from 23 semistructured interviews, the authors provide a research model to explain the resources and costs embedded in international collaboration teams as well as mechanisms that help transform costs into resources.