Heather Elms

Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis in Strategic Management Research An Examination of Combinations of Industry, Corporate, and Business-Unit Effects

The authors present qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) as a viable method for strategic management research. Specifically, they demonstrate its ability to examine the potential interdependence and complexity among effects through a study of how industry, corporate, and business-unit attributes combine in determining business-unit performance. They present in an accessible manner the consecutive phases of the QCA approach by analyzing a sample of 2,841 cases of business-unit performance, and they examine the insights that the QCA analysis provides for this particular stream of literature. The authors conclude with a discussion of the benefits and limitations QCA poses for strategic management research more generally, including major contingencies under which QCA or linear methods may be more appropriate for strategy research.

Strategy, stakeholders and managerial discretion

We begin by elaborating on the building blocks for understanding the dynamic interrelationships between stakeholder theory, managerial discretion and stakeholder orientation. We then provide a sketch of the dynamic between managerial discretion and stakeholder orientation and their likely interaction. We conclude by considering some future research directions motivated by this dynamic.

Ethics and Incentives: An Evaluation and Development of Stakeholder Theory in the Health Care Industry

This paper utilizes a qualitative case study of the health care industry and a recent legal case to demonstrate that stakeholder theorys focus on ethics, without recognition of the effects of incentives, severely limits the theorys ability to provide managerial direction and explain managerial behavior. While ethics provide a basis for stakeholder prioritization, incentives influence whether managerial action is consistent with that prioritization. Our health care examples highlight this and other limitations of stakeholder theory and demonstrate the explanatory and directive power added by the inclusion of the interactive effects of ethics and incentives in stakeholder ordering.

Corporate (and stakeholder) responsibility in Central and Eastern Europe

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), offering a characterization, explanation, and critique. A recent European Commission conference on “CSR in an Enlarged Europe” suggests European interest in such an understanding, and other developments in the paper suggest a broader interest.Design/methodology/approach – The paper utilizes local observations and analyses of secondary materials available from multinational and local companies in the region. Throughout, it offers examples of and perspectives on corporate and stakeholder responsibility in CEE. The paper suggests that CSR should be understood as corporate responsibility to stakeholders, rather than as corporate philanthropy, public relations, or marketing, and that limitations associated with corporate responsibility in CEE are associated with limitations in stakeholder responsibility. It proposes that in a market in which stakeholders place value on ethical behavior, ...

Stakeholder Orientation, Managerial Discretion and Nexus Rents

Building on prior research (Phillips et al. 2010), we make explicit the implied assumptions – both managerialist and determinist – in stakeholder research. We argue that three elements – managerial discretion, stakeholder orientation and nexus rent – interact in important and under-examined ways. A firm’s orientation toward its stakeholders determines how it will use the discretion accorded to it by external and internal circumstances. The interaction between these two factors affects a firm’s ability to create value in the short term and influences the level of discretion available to the firm in the long term. We argue that the interplay of discretion and orientation create a vicious (or virtuous) cycle, in which the firm either creates or destroys goodwill with stakeholders, thereby making it more or less likely that stakeholders will grant discretion in the future.

Firm Partial Modularity and Performance in the Electronic Manufacturing Services Industry

Firms continue to develop new ways to decentralize non-core activities to outside parties. Scholars have approached this issue with modularity theory, suggesting a continuum of arrangements ranging from hierarchy to market. Hierarchy relies on fiat, while partially modular forms, those forms between hierarchy and market, require greater coordination, communication and relationships between firms than do fully modular (or market) forms. While modularity theory identifies this continuum, the associated empirical literature tends to dichotomize modularity: firms are either modular or they are not. Nor does the empirical literature examine the performance outcomes of modular arrangements within this continuum. By examining firms that vary between full integration and partial modularity with a continuous modularity measure, this paper empirically examines the performance outcomes associated with a range of modularity levels. We derive this measure from a peculiar inventory option available within the electronic manufacturing services (EMS) industry. Our data include observations on 260 firms over five years. We find that more firms rely on partially modular arrangements, the lower their performance. We suggest explanations for this result, and areas of future research meant to pursue it.

Foreign Direct Investment, Stock Exchange Development, And Economic Growth In Central And Eastern Europe

Understanding economic development in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) requires an analysis of investment in these economies. Previous analyses, however, have focused primarily if not singularly on the role of foreign direct investment (FDI; Akbar & McBride, 2004; Clague & Rausser, 1992; Uhlenbruck & De Castro, 2000). This focus follows that of regional policy-makers, who heavily encouraged FDI through acquisition or greenfield investments (Frydman, Rapaczynski, & Earle, 1993). These policy-makers, however, additionally established stock exchanges in each of their countries. There are now at least 24 operating stock exchanges in CEE and the countries that previously made up the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia.1 The role of the development of these local stock exchanges in the development (LSED) of local economies (primarily through foreign portfolio investment) has not yet been systematically examined, nor has it been linked explicitly to the role of FDI. Finally, the role of local companies’ listings on foreign exchanges (FSEL) has not been examined in tandem with the role of FDI or LSED (for an examination of the relationship between FDI, LSED, and FSEL, however, see Claessens, Klingebiel, & Schmukler, 2001).