Haibin Yang

Entrepreneurial orientation: Assessing the construct's validity and addressing some of its implications for research in the areas of family business and organizational learning

Our commentary addresses three papers that we believe make important contributions to the emerging literature on entrepreneurial orientation (EO). The first paper rigorously assesses and enhances the construct validity of EO—an important antecedent to empirical research. The second paper draws on the concepts of identity and social identity and provides a means of predicting how various ownership types of family firms will affect the EO–performance relationship. The third paper synthesizes multiple theoretical perspectives and empirical research to provide insights on the role that EO plays in enhancing a firms acquisitive and experimental learning. We close with a discussion of EO as an area for theory development.

Structural Versus Individual Perspectives on the Dynamics of Group Performance: Theoretical Exploration and Empirical Investigation

This study contrasts the structural perspective with the individual perspective in explaining group performance in a dynamic setting. The authors argue that these perspectives are not mutually exclusive but have different predictive powers at different group stages. Results from 45 project groups show (a) group structures provide stronger performance predictions at the later stage, whereas individual-based attributes do so at the earlier stage, and (b) different group structures and individual-based attributes provide distinctive insights at respective stages. This indicates the need to explore the potential bridge between the two perspectives in advancing group studies.

Does Familiarity Foster Innovation? The Impact of Alliance Partner Repeatedness on Breakthrough Innovations

Does familiarity with alliance partners promote breakthrough innovations? This study draws on the literature of interorganizational routines to examine the impact of repeated R&D collaborations within a firms alliance portfolio on its breakthrough innovations. Specifically, we contend that the benefits and liabilities of interorganizational routines, arising from alliance partner repeatedness at a firms alliance portfolio level, lead to an inverted U-shaped relationship between alliance partner repeatedness and breakthrough innovations. Further, we build on the recent theoretical development of interorganizational routines to propose that technological dynamism will make the inverted U-shaped relationship steeper. Analyses of approximately 230 firms in the US biopharmaceutical industry from 1983 to 2002 support our hypotheses. Our findings provide important implications for research on alliance portfolio and management of firm innovation.

Where do entrepreneurial orientations come from? An investigation on their social origin

This paper explores the origin of entrepreneurial orientations (EO) from an organizational embeddedness perspective. It examines the impacts of firms’ network embeddedness such as structural, positional and relational on three dimensions of EO, namely, risk-taking, proactiveness and innovativeness. After a brief review of the EO construct and social network theory, we derive a set of testable propositions that relate embeddedness properties such as centrality, structural holes, direct/indirect ties, and network density, to the magnitude of three key EO dimensions. We argue that each dimension may vary independently with each other and has its own formation mechanism, which entails rich implications for entrepreneurial network research.

Alliance Formation in the Midst of Market and Network Insights From Resource Dependence and Network Perspectives

Alliances are often formed as a response to challenges from both market and social forces. Although the resource dependence logic posits that firms enter into alliances to stabilize resource flows between different markets and also to increase market power in their primary industry, it remains unclear whether the social power of firms, generated from alliance networks, may motivate firms to respond differently to the dependence logic of alliance formation. By incorporating social network theory, we argue that a firm’s social network advantages in the primary industry may serve as critical contingency conditions of the dependence logic. Analyses of firms in the U.S. computer industry from 1994 to 2007 suggest that a firm’s centrality advantage marginally reduces the positive effects of market dependencies on alliance formation, whereas a firm’s brokerage advantage enhances the market dependence effect.

Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions by Chinese Firms: value creation or value destruction?

Abstract Mixed results from studies on Chinese cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been a puzzle for both academia and business professionals over the years. Do these M&As create value when Chinese firms acquire foreign target firms suffering heavy losses and even on the verge of bankruptcy? This article explores the wealth effect of M&As conducted by Chinese firms as well as the relevant factors from the asset-seeking perspective. The authors use 180 M&A cases conducted by listed firms in China between 2002 and 2012 as samples and examine their wealth effects in a method of event study. The results show that these M&A activities have produced significant positive wealth effects during the event window of [–10, 10]. The authors then study the key factors affecting wealth effects. The findings reveal that an acquiring firm’s strength via research and development (R&D) and M&A experience generates significant positive impacts on the wealth effect. The findings also reveal that an innovation orientation and development stage of host countries helps create positive wealth effects; vertical M&As are particularly favored by the market since they can gain easier access to R&D, marketing channels or mineral resources.

Will You Get What You Want? Managerial Ties, Knowledge Acquisition and Firm Performance in China

Integrating research in knowledge-based view and resource-dependence theory, this study proposes that the utilization of business ties differs significantly from that of political ties in acquiring external knowledge, which subsequently affects firm performance in supplier-distributor alliances. Specifically, we argue that the utilization of business ties enables suppliers to access deeper knowledge from distributors, while the utilization of political ties facilitates suppliers to acquire broader knowledge from distributors. As a result, the knowledge acquisition mediates the influences of managerial ties on firm performance. Further, the power structure between suppliers and distributors moderates the impacts of managerial ties on knowledge acquisitions. Our analyses of matched dyads of suppliers and distributors in China largely support our theses in this study.

In the Eye of the Beholder: Top Managers’ Long-Term Orientation, Industry Context, and Decision-Making Processes

Time orientation matters. While a temporal perspective is widely recognized as an important lens in strategic management research, few studies have explored how top managers’ temporal orientation affects strategic decision-making processes. We propose that top managers’ subjective perception of time, specifically, their long-term orientation, positively affects the comprehensiveness, speed, and creativity of strategic decision-making processes and that industry context moderates these relationships. Drawing on the organization-environment fit perspective and associated compatibility and temporal fit mechanisms, we found considerable support for our hypotheses in the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries in China. Our findings reinforce the perspective that temporal referent points act as anchors for strategic decision-making processes.

Managerial Ties and Exploratory Innovation: An Opportunity-Motivation-Ability Perspective

Drawing on the opportunity-motivation-ability perspective, this study examines the linkages of business and political ties to exploratory innovation, and explores the joint moderating effects of innovation orientation and absorptive capacity on the linkages. It finds that the positive linkage between business ties and exploratory innovation is jointly strengthened by innovation orientation and absorptive capacity, while the insignificant linkage of political ties to exploratory innovation is moderated negatively by the interaction of innovation orientation and absorptive capacity. This study enriches the disciplines knowledge on the antecedents of exploratory innovation. Moreover, it contextualizes the effects of managerial ties on an important but overlooked type of innovation—exploratory innovation—and illustrates how a firm can integrate managerial ties with innovation orientation and absorptive capacity to realize their implications for exploratory innovation, which advances our understanding of the relationships between managerial ties and firm innovations.

Do Alliances Lead to Competition? An Empirical Analysis of the US Biopharmaceutical Industry

This study extends the learning race perspective to examine whether familiarity between firms developed through R&D alliances will motivate them to engage in technological competitions. Specifically, we argue that the payoffs of an alliance, in terms of common and private benefits that accrue to individual firms, are updated over the course of alliances between two firms. Firms are likely to reduce competition in their initial alliance contacts for the prospect of larger common benefits over private benefits. However, the likelihood of competition is heightened at later stages of their repeated interactions due to increased payoffs in private benefits. We further contend that this U-shaped relationship between the number of R&D alliances and technological competition is moderated by partner firm’s reputation of trustworthiness and technological similarity with the focal firm. Analyses of US biopharmaceutical firms during 1985 and 2004 support our hypotheses. Our study contributes to an enriched understand...