Kyungmook Lee

Complementarity, status similarity and social capital as drivers of alliance formation

Using data on U.S. investment banking firms’ syndication in underwriting corporate stock offerings during the 1980s, this study explores the factors that drive alliance formation between two specific firms. We compare resource complementarity, status similarity, and social capital as a basis of alliance formation. The findings indicate that the likelihood of investment banks’ alliance formation is positively related to the complementarity of their capabilities, as well as their status similarity. Social capital arising from banks’ direct and indirect collaborative experiences also plays a very important role in alliance formation. The number of deals given by a lead bank to a potential partner over the past three years has an inverted U-shaped relationship to the probability that the lead bank will invite the potential partner to form an alliance. Our findings indicate that status similarity and social capital have a stronger effect on alliance formation in initial public offering deals than in secondary offering deals, as the former are more uncertain than the latter. Using these findings, we discuss the role of complementarity, status similarity, and social capital in alliance formation. Copyright

Human Capital, Social Capital, and Firm Dissolution

This study examined the effect of human and social capital upon firm dissolution with data from a population of Dutch accounting firms for the period 1880–1990. Human capital was captured by firm-l...

Institutional Change in Large Law Firms: A Resource Dependency and Institutional Perspective

We integrate resource dependency and institutional theory to argue that resource scarcity drives, and legitimacy enables, institutional change. Building on a historical account, we examine the sources and timing of innovation departing from standard human resource practices using event history analysis of over 200 principal offices of large law firms. Offices with human resource scarcity innovated to acquire alternative resources; highly prestigious offices had the legitimacy to be first or early adopters. Our findings highlight the value of looking to the resource side and to the notion of legitimacy in building an institutional theory of change.

Social Capital of Organization: Conceptualization, Level of Analysis, and Performance Implications

In this chapter we explore the benefits of social capital and the harmful effects of social liabilities. Following Allison (1971), two models of the organizations are juxtaposed: those of the Rational and Political Actors. The issues of social capital require different perspectives when its implications for performance are addressed. The mediation through individuals takes a prominent place in the Political Actor, and moves to the background in the Rational Actor. The issue of aggregation from the member to the organization is primarily an issue when we view the organization as a Political Actor in which the members’ social capital aggregates to that of their organizations. Two illustrative cases that fit the two models are then presented, the industrial business groups in Japan and Korea on the one hand, and the population of professional services firms in the Netherlands on the other. In the case of business groups we point to both the benefits of social capital and the drawbacks of social liability. When we shift to the study of professional services firms, we demonstrate that social capital as a distinct organizational resource diminishes the likelihood of dissolution. The implications for social capital and social liability are exposed and reviewed.

Tangible and Intangible Rewards and Employee Creativity: The Mediating Role of Situational Extrinsic Motivation.

This study examined the effects of tangible and intangible forms of creativity-contingent rewards on employee creativity. Situation-specific intrinsic and extrinsic motivations were proposed as mediators of the reward-creativity link. Based on data collected from 271 employees and their supervisors, results revealed the following: (a) intangible rewards for creativity are positively related to intrinsic and extrinsic task motivations; (b) tangible rewards for creativity are negatively related to extrinsic task motivation; and (c) employee creativity, as rated by the supervisor, is positively related to extrinsic motivation, but not to intrinsic motivation. Results indicate the significance of differentiating the two types of creativity-contingent rewards, and highlight the need to reconsider the roles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in promoting creativity in organizations.

Dynamic Capabilities at Samsung

This article presents a clinical study, based on a decade of ongoing research at Samsung Group, that describes how the Samsung Group and its mobile phone division competed successfully in smartphones. The ability to manage co-opetition—simultaneous forces of competition and cooperation within the business group—is a particular dimension of dynamic capability that has stood Samsung in excellent stead. Relying on internal exhortations to cooperate often leads to a lack of dynamism, whereas untrammeled competition leaves proverbial synergies entirely untapped and spawns duplicative investments. Samsung, however, has succeeded by its ability to strike a balance between the two.

Theory of planned behavior and different forms of organizational change behavior

Complementing prior research on the macro- and system-focused views of organizational change, we examined microprocesses of change by attending to 3 different forms of change behavior as predicted by the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Data were collected from 193 employee–coworker dyads working in various organizations in South Korea. Results showed that the TPB-based predictors were related to distinct forms of change behavior. Specifically, the change efficacy of employees predicted their compliance with change, management support for change predicted employees’ cooperation with change, and change favorableness was related to proactive championing for change. Magnitude of change was a positive predictor of the 3 forms of change behavior (compliance, cooperation, and championing) and moderated the relationship between change efficacy and compliance with change. We have contributed to the literature by elaborating on the microlevel dynamics of organizational change by introducing the TPB to explain behavioral reactions to change.