Steven C. Currall

The Coevolution of Trust, Control, and Learning in Joint Ventures

This article examines the evolution of trust, control, and learning in a joint venture relationship. Using a coevolutionary approach, we develop a framework that shows how initial joint venture conditions give way to evolved conditions as joint venture partners develop an understanding of each other and adjust the collaborative process. We explore the relationship between trust and control in joint ventures and identify how these two critical concepts impact joint venture processes. We argue that trust, along with partner collaborative objectives, creates the initial climate that shapes partner interactions. In turn, these interactions lead to subsequent decisions about the nature of controls. We then examine linkages between alliance learning and the trust and control concepts, and argue that learning processes are central to evolving joint venture dynamics. Once the joint venture is formed, and if the initial conditions support continued collaboration, then learning processes will be central to evolving alliance dynamics. As initial conditions give way to evolved conditions, learning and trust will coevolve and impact decisions about control. Propositions linking the concepts are provided as guides for future empirical research.

What Goes Around Comes Around: the Impact of Personal Conflict Style on Work Conflict and Stress

Conflict styles are typically seen as a response to particular situations. By contrast, we argue that individual conflict styles may shape an employees social environment, affecting the level of ongoing conflict and thus his or her experience of stress. Using data from a hospital-affiliated clinical department, we find that those who use a more integrative style experience lower levels of task conflict, reducing relationship conflict, which reduces stress. Those who use a more dominating or avoiding style experience higher levels of task conflict, increasing relationship conflict and stress. We conclude that an employees work environment is, in part, of his or her own making

Conflict Escalation: Dispute Exacerbating Elements of E-mail Communication

In this article, we proffer new theoretical ideas regarding how the structural features of e-mail make it more likely that disputes escalate when people communicate electronically compared to when they communicate face-to-face or via the telephone. Building upon Rubin et al.’s (1994) conflict escalation model, we propose a new conceptual framework that articulates: (i) the structural properties of e-mail communication; (ii) the impact of these properties on conflict process effects; and (iii) how process effects, in turn, trigger conflict escalation. Propositions specify the nature of relationships among process effects and the components of conflict escalation. We also discuss how the extent of familiarity between individuals acts as a moderator of these relationships. Our conceptual framework, the dispute-exacerbating model of e-mail (DEME), is designed to be a foundation for future empirical research.

What Drives Public Acceptance of Nanotechnology

How do the risks and benefits of nanotechnology, as viewed by the public, compare with those associated with other technologies such as genetically modified organisms, stem cells, biotechnology and nuclear power? And when deciding to use a specific nanotechnology product, will consumers consider the risks, the benefits, or both? We report the first large-scale empirical analyses of these questions.

The Fragility of Organizational Trust: Lessons from the Rise and Fall of Enron

R ecent headlines have been filled with stories about the collapse of Enron Corp. After its evolution in the 1980s from an old-style gas pipeline company to an aggressive energy trading and marketing leader, Enron filed for bankruptcy in December of 2001. Congressional hearings, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigations, and lawsuits from shareholders, employees, and customers will keep Enron in the news for years. Although there is plenty of blame to go around, perhaps the most important lesson from the Enron collapse is both the centrality and fragility of organizational trust. The profound implications of the loss of trust can be seen in other corporate collapses as well, such as WorldCom Inc., Tyco International, Global Crossing, and Adelphia Communications Corp. Here, there is certainly a critical lesson for all senior corporate managers regarding the importance of corporate accountability. Recently, Marc Epstein and Bill Birchard described a model for organizational accountability that relies on four elements: improved corporate leadership and governance; improved and broader measurement of corporate financial, operational and social impacts; an integrated system of internal and external reporting and disclosure; and the management systems to implement these elements throughout an organization. Central to this entire discussion of increased corporate accountability is the issue of trust—its importance, how to build it, and how to maintain it. Organizational and individual trust is critical to organizational performance and success. Trust is at the core of analyses of Enron and the closely related case of the fall of the prominent global auditing firm Arthur Andersen. In this article, we develop a generic framework of the factors that lead to organizational trust and discuss the importance of trust to the success and failure of companies and their managers. We then show that excessive trust by some corporate stakeholders is a fundamental concept explaining the rise and fall of Enron, and we discuss why trust is so slow to build—yet can collapse so quickly. Although we focus on the Enron case, our model is generalizable across companies and can be used to explain trust dynamics in corporate disasters, as well as in strong companies where trust has been cultivated as a key source of competitive advantage. Last, we provide specific guidance on how companies and managers can build and maintain trust to enhance success.

The nature, antecedents, and consequences of joint venture trust

Although trust has been identified as a critical factor in alliance management, rigorous conceptual and empirical developments of alliance trust have remained elusive. Our objective in this paper is to develop a conceptual understanding of joint venture (JV) trust. First, we define JV trust as reliance on another JV party (i.e., person, group, or firm) under a condition of risk. Reliance is volitional action by one party that allows that partys fate to be determined by the other party. Risk means that a party would experience potentially negative outcomes from the untrustworthiness of the other party. Thus, under a condition of risk, a JV partners trust is signified by action that puts its fate in the hand of the other partner. Second, we review previous literature on trust and JVs and show that trust has been viewed from three different perspectives: structural, social, and psychological. Third, we develop a framework of the antecedents and consequences of JV trust. The factors considered as antecedents are: prior cooperative relationships, habitualization, individual attachment, organizational fit, and assessment of partner competence. Proposed consequences or outcomes of JV trust include forbearance, governance structures, relationship investments, increases in JV scope, and JV performance. From this framework, we identify various theoretical and methodological implications, and propose a research agenda.

Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies to Study Group Processes:An Illustrative Study of Acorporate Board of Directors

In this demonstration article, the authors explain procedures for combining the richness of detail that is characteristic of qualitative data collection with the hypothesis testing advantage of statistical inference techniques. Qualitative data came from a 5-year participant observation study of a corporate board of directors. Quantification of the participant observer’s qualitative field notes was achieved by using content analysis to code directors’ verbal behaviors. Based on counts of directors’ verbal behaviors, the authors tested illustrative hypotheses concerning group process within the board. Univariate (Cox-Stuart’s test of trend), bivariate (Kendall’s nonparametric correlation), and multivariate (log Poisson regression with post hoc contrasts) analyses were conducted. The study’s use of qualitative and quantitative information promoted both “discovery” (i.e., theory development) and “justification” (i.e., theory evaluation) and facilitated a “discovery-justification-discovery cycle” that was particularly useful for understanding group processes with the corporate board.

Nanotechnology and society: New insights into public perceptions

Research into public perceptions of nanotechnology is becoming more rigorous as increasingly complex theoretical models are developed and tested by social scientists.

Group Representatives in Educational Institutions: An Empirical Study of Superintendents and Teacher Union Presidents

As critical group representatives in public school districts (K-12), superintendents and teacher union presidents have a direct impact on the success of education reform programs. Aspects of the superintendent-union president interface were explored by focusing on one ingredient of effective work relations, namely, interpersonal trust. Regression analyses of survey data from 305 superintendents and 293 presidents investigated potential differences across the two samples concerning variables influencing respondents ` willingness to trust the other group representative. For both samples, willingness to trust was influenced primarily by expectations about the other group representatives future trustworthy behavior Social judgment factors were important predictors of expectations for both superintendents and presidents. For presidents, personality failed to influence expectations. Perceptions of normative referent groups suggested that superintendents and presidents operate under conflicting intergroup pressures.

Developing Engineering Leaders: An Organized Innovation Approach to Engineering Education

Abstract In addition to providing technical expertise in their respective fields, engineers are increasingly assuming leadership roles in academia, industry, government, and even non-profit organizations. We draw from lessons learned in our decade-long study of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center program to provide both a theoretical framework, the Organized Innovation Model for Education, and tangible recommendations to educators, engineering managers, and anyone else interested in developing highly skilled engineers who are also excellent leaders. The model addresses a long-lamented need for systematic ways to integrate leadership development into technical curriculum and skill-building programs.