Rebekka Sputtek

Rediscovering the Individual in Strategy : Methodological Challenges, Strategies and Prospects

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to advance research that relies on information from or about individuals and their role in strategic outcomes. Methodology/approach – We start by identifying three streams of strategy research that call for individual-level data (upper echelons, micro-foundations, and strategy-as-practice) and proceed by examining the methods employed across 43 recent empirical studies. Findings – Our analysis addresses three key challenges faced by researchers in these domains and catalogues the strategies used to surmount them. Social implications – By helping to improve methods for research on individuals and strategy, this chapter advances understanding of how people throughout the organization may contribute to strategic outcomes. Originality/value of paper – Our chapter is one of the first to analyze methods across three research domains that have heretofore been considered separate. In addition to describing what has been done, we suggest opportunities for improvement, frequently by finding ways to cross-fertilize methods from one stream into another.

Developing a Measurement Instrument for Supply Chain Event Management-Adoption

Supply Chain Event Management (SCEM) is an emerging topic in both business practice and academia. It receives increasing attention as more companies implement SCEM-systems. However, despite its practical relevance, no general definition of SCEM exists in literature or within companies until today. Also, so far SCEM has not been operationalized for quantitative studies. Thus, the goal of this paper is to contribute to an understanding of SCEM by defining a measurement instrument to measure the level of SCEM-adoption in companies. This has been approached on the one hand by pursuing a literature review of both practitioners and academic literature and on the other hand by conducting case studies in companies using SCEM-systems. First, a common definition of SCEM is generated from a combination of findings from literature and expert interviews, and second, a measurement instrument for SCEM-adoption is developed. Implications include advice on how to test the SCEM-adoption measurement instrument statistically in order to asses its ability to measure SCEM-adoption with high validity.

Narcissism, Core Self Evaluation and Sensitivity to Criticism on the Executive Level - How do Executive‘s Personalities and Anger Influence their Decision Making and Leadership Behavior?

Upper Echelons Theory establishes relationships between individual executives, their behavior and firm outcomes. However, this stream of research suffers from approximating executive’s individual psychological traits via observable characteristics and neglecting interaction effects between personality variables, which limits the theory’s ability to convincingly explain executive behavior. The purpose of this chapter is to develop a personality profile of individual executive characteristics that are important in explaining decision making and leadership behavior. Developing this profile we define generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, exploitativeness/entitlement, leadership/authority, superiority/arrogance and selfabsorption/self admiration as reflecting the general level of positive self perception of an executive, while the levels of self esteem stability, emotional stability and sensitivity to criticism are decisive differentiators leading to either an overt or covert positive self perception. Consequently, we link these profiles to individual decision making comprehensiveness as well as authentic and pseudo-transformational leadership while introducing anger as an explanatory mechanism mediating this relationship.

Opening the Black Box : The Role of Personality and Anger in Executives Decision Making and Leadership

This publication sheds light upon the question of how the personality and emotional traits of executives influence their decision making and leadership behavior. While recent strategic management research has started to recognize the relevance of an executives personality traits as antecedents of organizational outcomes, this stream has called for a more fine-grained clarification of the psychological processes underlying executive decision making. In order to contribute to the understanding of these processes, a holistic model integrating the role of an expedient set of personality variables and anger in executive s decision making comprehensiveness as well as authenticity of transformational leadership is developed. Rebekka Sputtek sheds light upon the question of how the personality and emotional traits of executives influence their decision making and leadership behavior. While recent strategic management research has started to recognize the relevance of an executives personality traits as antecedents of organizational outcomes, this stream has called for a more fine-grained clarification of the psychological processes underlying executive decision making. In order to contribute to the understanding of these processes, a holistic model integrating the role of an expedient set of personality variables and anger in executive s decision making comprehensiveness as well as authenticity of transformational leadership is developed.

Overall Discussion and Conclusion

This final chapter depicts an integration of the three previously presented chapters by summarizing the collective findings and contributions. Consecutively, I refer to limitations of the compiled dissertation which become apparent when holistically considering all three content chapters.

Narzissmus, zentrale Selbstbewertung und Kritikempfindlichkeit auf der Führungsetage

Im Rahmen dieses Kapitels erstellen die Autoren ein Personlichkeitsprofil fur Fuhrungskrafte, das einen Beitrag zur Erklarung von Entscheidungsverhalten und transformationaler Fuhrung leisten kann. Es werden dafur die Konzepte einer offenen bzw. verdeckten positiven Selbstwahrnehmung entwickelt. Ebenfalls wird dargestellt, wie diese beiden Konstrukte mit Entscheidungsverhalten und transformationaler Fuhrung in Verbindung stehen. Als vermittelnder Mechanismus wird Arger eingefuhrt, der die unterschiedlichen Einflusse einer offenen bzw. verdeckten Selbstwahrnehmung auf das Entscheidungsverhalten und auf transformationale Fuhrung erklart. Eine solche Verbindung soll helfen, zu beschreiben, wann und wie Charaktereigenschaften wie Narzissmus, zentrale Selbstbewertung und Kritikempfindlichkeit Entscheidungs- und Fuhrungsverhalten positiv bzw. negativ beeinflussen.