Noushi Rahman

Green Governance: Boards of Directors’ Composition and Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility

This study contributes to the work on board composition and firm corporate social responsibility by extending it to the environmental domain. It evaluates the relationship between boards of directors’ composition and environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) by integrating literatures on board composition, firm corporate social responsibility, and individual differences in attitudes toward and information about environmental issues. Using disclosed company data and the natural environment ratings data from Kinder Lydenberg Domini (KLD) Inc. for 78 Fortune 1000 companies, the study finds that a higher proportion of outside board directors is associated with more favorable ECSR and higher KLD strengths scores. Firms with boards composed of three or more female directors received higher KLD strengths scores. And, boards whose directors average closer to 56 years in age and those with a higher proportion of Western European directors are more likely to implement environmental governance structures or processes. Our results also reinforce growing concerns around unidimensional KLD measures.

Resource and Risk Trade-offs in Guanxi -based IJVs in China

Many western firms are trying to conduct business in the Peoples Republic of China, and one of the prevalent approaches has been through the formation of international joint ventures (IJVs). While extant literature suggests that firms should focus on developing guanxi (that is, a form of political economic connection) to succeed in these IJVs, it is argued in this article that the effects of guanxi are mixed. Using resource contribution and risk-based perspectives of IJVs, eight propositions are offered that link guanxi and relative risks when IJVs are formed to access different kinds of resources.

Alliance structuring behavior: relative influence of alliance type and specific alliance experience

Purpose – Further understanding of structural hierarchy is critically needed to assess the usefulness of different alliance structures. This study goes beyond transaction cost reasoning and incorporates social exchange theoretic perspective with the aim of capturing the concurrent relationships of alliance type and specific alliance experience with hierarchy of alliance structure.Design/methodology/approach – Logistic regression analysis of data on 402 strategic alliances is used to test the two hypotheses advanced in the paper.Findings – The social‐exchange‐based hypothesis is supported – specific alliance experience is negatively related to hierarchy of alliance structure. The transaction‐cost‐based hypothesis is not supported – hierarchy of alliance structure is not greater in horizontal alliances than in vertical alliances.Research limitations/implications – Strategic alliances with different purposes, such as R&D, supply procurement, marketing, co‐production, and co‐development, may have different in...

Formation conditions, innovation, and learning in R&D consortia

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on formation motivations and processes of R&D consortia to appreciate their differential innovative and learning capabilities.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents its argument in two separate steps. First, a two‐by‐two framework, comprising four consortium types, is developed based on two formation motivations (i.e. risk sharing and networking) and two formation processes (i.e. emergent and engineered). Four case vignettes are used to demonstrate the practical relevance of the two‐by‐two consortium typology framework. Second, the innovative and learning capabilities of each of these consortia are explored and eight propositions are advanced.Findings – The paper introduces four types of consortia: community builders, gamblers, visible hands, and opportunists. It is argued that visible hands generate greater innovation than community builders and opportunists, and community builders and opportunists generate greater innovation than gamblers. It is also argued t...

European and North American origins of competitive advantage

This chapter explores the origins of the theme of competitive advantage in 19th and early 20th century economics. This theme, which forms the core of modern Strategic Management, was a battleground for debates about the value of abstract theory versus observations about real-life events. Intellectual genealogies, citations, and other sources show the central roles played by the University of Vienna and Harvard University. These two institutions strongly influenced the theory of monopolistic competition as well as all three modern views of competitive advantage – the industrial as expressed by Porter, the resource-based as expressed by Penrose, and the evolutionary as expressed by Schumpeter.

Toward a Theory of Restaurant Décor: An Empirical Examination of Italian Restaurants in Manhattan

Restaurants have seldom been the subject of theory-driven empirical research. Moreover, extant literature has generally focused on food and service quality issues, ignoring décor as a key influencing factor in restaurant performance. Hence, we have much data on restaurants but limited useful understanding of restaurant décor. This study addresses the gap by examining décor of restaurants from an evolutionary theoretic and classical economics perspective. Age and competitive intensity are introduced as the predictor variables affecting the décor of restaurants. OLS regression analysis of 243 Italian restaurants in Manhattan finds that age and competitive intensity are negatively associated with décor, and competitive intensity exacerbates the extant negative association between age and décor.

External Knowledge Accession and Innovation Speed in the Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SME)

Abstract In this paper we examine the effects of two sources of external knowledge, alliances and outsourcing activities, on the innovation speed of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). We integrate relevant literature, consider key conceptual issues and tradeoffs, and develop falsifiable hypotheses related to these relationships. A multi-industry study of 158 new product development projects in 73 SMEs is presented that empirically tests the effects of alliances and outsourcing on SMEs’ innovation speed, for both radical and incremental technological advances. The clearest finding is that external sourcing does not appear to speed up innovation in SMEs and may indeed act as a barrier to fast-paced development.

Fit between corporate strategy and alliance purpose: implications on partnering firms' performance

The fit between corporate strategy and alliance purpose is examined in this paper. While early research on alliances recognises various alliance purposes, their role in facilitating corporate strategy implementation is not delineated in the literature. Identifying two alliance purpose dimensions – impetus and context – we develop a framework to organise the different classes of alliance purposes. We argue that since alliances are moves to pursue corporate strategies, selecting alliance purposes to align with specific corporate strategies would increase the performance of partnering firms by facilitating successful strategy implementation.

A Replicable Evaluation Method of Social Entrepreneurship Centers and Programs

Prominent social entrepreneurship centers and programs in North America, Europe, and Asia are examined in terms of their position in the institutional structure, initial and additional funding, teaching initiatives, research achievements, and outreach activities. We computed performance by using a transparent coding scheme. Low correlations with institutional endowment and social entrepreneurship center/program performance offer evidence of discriminant validity of our ranking approach. Performance scores were used to rank-order social entrepreneurship centers/programs. Such an approach to examine social entrepreneurship center/program performance goes beyond the perception-based ranking instruments that popular magazines employ to evaluate subject-specific rankings. We examined data from 28 centers/programs and, in addition to an unweighted approach to ranking, we computed regression-weighted ranking of these centers/programs. The ranking instrument has strong discriminant validity and moderate inter-item reliability. With quickly growing numbers of centers/programs and associated faculty, additional attention and evaluation may be needed for related activities including role modeling, student mentoring by practitioners, and resultant social ventures. Implications for social entrepreneurship centers/programs, social entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurship scholars, and funders are discussed.

DIVERSITY DRIVERS: HOW GENDER COMPOSITION AND DIRECTOR RESOURCE DIVERSITY AFFECT CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND REPUTATION.

The article examines the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a mediator of the relationship between board composition and corporate reputation. It considers evidence that board diversity and composition improve CSR and the increasing importance of CSR in evaluating firms. A view of CSR in terms of institutional strength and technical strength is presented, wherein the former is said to be based on positive actions toward diversity and community stakeholders while the latter is based on positive actions towards stockholders, consumers and employees. Health care companies were assessed in consideration of how the boards of such firms may be more proactive in managing CSR responsibility initiatives in order to enhance stakeholder relations.