Michael D. Michalisin

Top Management Team Cohesion and Superior Industry Returns An Empirical Study of the Resource-Based View

Empirical research of the resource-based view (RBV) is still in its embryonic stages. Existing studies show that certain resources are associated with firm performance, that firms appear to be unique bundles of resources, and that some resources appear relatively immobile—thus lending support to RBV’s main premise and its two assumptions. Another important step in systematically testing RBV is to test its main prescription that strategic assets (SAs) are sustainable sources of superior returns. The current research argues that top management team cohesion (TMTC) possesses the characteristics of an SA. Then, in a longitudinal study of 81 classroom simulation teams functioning as the top management teams of competing airlines, the authors show that TMTC is significantly associated with superior returns during the second half of the simulation. Hence, the results lend support to RBV.

Validity of annual report assertions about innovativeness: an empirical investigation

Abstract Over the last few decades, annual reports have been content-analyzed to measure various organizational phenomena. These studies assume, either implicitly or explicitly, that Annual Report Text (ART) assertions are accurate representations of the firm and its managers. This assumption diverges from a common suspicion that corporate managers use their ART as a public relations tool. To date, only three ART validity studies have been occasioned and the results are mixed and dated. In this study, the ARTs of 100 randomly selected Fortune 500 and Service 500 firms were content-analyzed to test the relationship between ART assertions about firm innovativeness and two external measures of firm innovativeness. The results strongly indicate that ART assertions about innovativeness are valid.

The effects of performance and team cohesion on attribution: a longitudinal simulation

Abstract Prior attribution research has found that firm managers attribute good firm performance to sound management, and bad firm performance to external, uncontrollable factors. However, this research has relied mainly on content analysis of annual report text and has not considered the impact of team processes and temporal factors on attribution. The current study examined the effects of team cohesion and relative firm performance on attributions using 81 teams of undergraduate seniors that managed mock firms within a complex strategic management simulation for 11 weeks. Superior firm performance was attributed to the team, whereas inferior firm performance was attributed to external factors. Team cohesion was positively associated with internal attributions, regardless of relative firm performance. Interestingly, team cohesion did not strengthen the relationship between superior firm performance and team-serving attributions.

Entrepreneurial Drive in the Top Management Team: Effects on Strategic Choice and Firm Performance

Based on upper echelons theory and the logic embodied in the entrepreneurship, strategic choice, and resource-based view literatures, a theoretical model was developed showing the relationships between top management teams’ (TMT) entrepreneurial drive, TMT strategic choices, and superior industry performance, from which testable hypotheses were formed. The authors used a strategic management simulation model to gather the requisite data to perform their empirical testing. The results strongly support the hypotheses that TMT entrepreneurial drive is positively associated with superior industry performance and that the entrepreneurial orientation of the TMT’s strategic choices is positively associated with superior industry performance.This study also found evidence that the relationship between TMT entrepreneurial drive and superior industry performance is moderated by TMT’s strategic choices. These results have important implications in terms of how TMT’s entrepreneurial drive and their strategy choices can affect firm performance in today’s hypercompetitive environment.

An Empirical Study of the Posturing-Implementation Gap in Quality Management

Existing studies show that top management commitment to quality is a major factor in determining the success of a companys quality management program. Many of these studies measure the commitment and success of a companys quality management programs using information from the companys own managers. This raises an important research question: Do managers make accurate statements about their commitment to quality and the organizations emphasis on quality? If not, then the conclusions drawn from existing studies that relied on these statements will he inaccurate. The aim of this study is to answer that research question using the textual data in annual reports and external measures of organizational emphasis on quality. Annual reports are a key communication vehicle used by senior managers to articulate important matters of the firm, such as their commitment to qualify and to its stakeholders. In this study, the textual content of 100 randomly selected annual reports of firms listed in Fortunes 1988 list of “Americas Most Admired Corporations” was analyzed to measure their emphasis on quality. This measure was then compared against external measures of each organizations emphasis on qualify. The strong positive relationship between senior managements annual report emphasis on quality and external measures indicates that senior managements assertions about organizational commitment to quality appear accurate.

Identifying sources of competitive advantage for new form organizations

New organizational forms have emerged based on increased levels of horizontal coordination, streamlined organizational structures and processes, and renewed emphasis on customer satisfaction. This paper outlines how various dimensions of group decision support systems might be adapted to suggest sources of competitive advantage in the context of new form organizations.

Ethical receptive capacity and teaching business ethics

In this study, we proposed the ethical receptive capacity (ERC) perspective on teaching business ethics. The ERC perspective was developed on two premises: the separation of personal moral values and professional ethics, and the path dependent nature of professional ethics, such that individuals in the early stage of their profession have higher ERC (i.e., individuals’ capacity to receive ethical contents) and thus are more receptive to new ethical contents prescribed to them. The experimental results in this study supported the ERC perspective, suggesting that business ethics education should be introduced to students as early as possible in their business programme.