Tessa Christina Flatten

Absorptive Capacity and Firm Performance in SMEs: The Mediating Influence of Strategic Alliances

Absorptive capacity (ACAP) is a firms ability to innovate by identifying, assimilating, and exploiting knowledge available in its environment. ACAP has been widely researched, but this research has not sufficiently analyzed the influence of ACAP on an interfirm level, especially regarding the multidimensional character of this construct. The present study intends to reveal whether the relationship between ACAP and firm performance in small and mediun sized enterprises (SMEs) is mediated by strategic alliances. Furthermore, different moderating characteristics such as age and size of the companies are taken into consideration. The findings indicate that strategic alliances of SMEs mediate both the relationship between ACAP and firm performance and the relationship between each dimension of ACAP and firm performance. However, these results might not be valid under certain circumstances since strategic alliances have no mediating influence when it comes to young SMEs, for example.

The Effect of Organizational Culture on Entrepreneurial Orientation: A Comparison between Germany and Thailand

Prior research has emphasized the positive impact of a firms entrepreneurial orientation on its performance. An unanswered question concerns what organizational antecedents and drivers foster entrepreneurial orientation. Based on a sample of 643 German and Thai companies, this study analyzes how organizational culture influences a firms entrepreneurial orientation and how this relationship is influenced by national culture. Results show that an organizational culture that is an adhocracy is most effective in advancing entrepreneurial orientation, especially in national cultures that are characterized by strong individualism and low power distance, whereas a hierarchical organizational culture is generally a barrier to entrepreneurial orientation.

How Organizational Culture Influences Innovativeness, Proactiveness, and Risk-Taking: Fostering Entrepreneurial Orientation in SMEs

The beneficial outcome of a firms entrepreneurial orientation () has been widely researched, but literature and empirical studies about factors and conditions that foster remain scarce. The ompeting alues odel is used to investigate the relationships between key dimensions of organizational culture (group, hierarchical, developmental, and rational) and three dimensions of in small and medium enterprises. A study of 298 enterprises showed that developmental, group, and rational culture has a strong positive impact on , whereas the impact of hierarchical culture is negative. Thus, our results highlight the importance of an external orientation of organizations to foster .

What Drives Advertising Success on Facebook? An Advertising-Effectiveness Model : Measuring the Effects on Sales Of “Likes”and Other Social-Network Stimuli

ABSTRACT Online social networks have challenged the current knowledge of advertising effectiveness. Using 12 months of aggregate-level, daily data from a major German e-commerce retailer, the authors of the current study analyzed four types of advertising stimuli on Facebook—“stream” (news feed) impressions, page views, “Likes,” and user contributions—to determine their short-term and long-term impact on sales. Access to the data provided an opportunity to integrate a direct-aggregation approach that accounted for time lags between user activity and sales effects. This research builds on an earlier framework for studying how advertising works (Vakratsas and Ambler, 1999), reflecting changes brought on by emerging online channels.

Alignment of Market Orientation and Innovation as a Success Factor a Five-Country Study

The traditional perception of market orientation – as the satisfaction of expressed customer needs – is considered to be too customer-led, thus producing no radical but only incremental innovation. The present study deals with the second facet of market orientation – proactive market orientation, i.e. the discovery and satisfaction of latent customer needs – and investigates the relationship of firm performance with both market orientation facets in conjunction with incremental and radical innovation. We test interaction effects based on survey data from 737 firms from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Thailand and the USA, and conduct a cross-cultural comparison of the results. The empirical results indicate significant relationships between market orientations and market effectiveness and reveal significant interactions between each market orientation facet and the corresponding innovation focus. These findings suggest that firms across cultures benefit when they act in a market-oriented way and when they align their market orientation with their innovation strategy.

A Measure of Absorptive Capacity: Development and Validation.

Recently, academic interest in the absorptive capacity (ACAP) construct has steadily increased, triggered by the seminal work of Cohen & Levinthal, 1989, 1990, 1994. These researchers have conceptu...

CEOs' Passion for Inventing and Radical Innovations in SMEs: The Moderating Effect of Shared Vision

Based on a sample of 388 small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), we investigate how a CEOs passion for inventing is associated with radical innovations in SMEs. Furthermore, we examine whether this relationship is moderated by a shared vision. Our results demonstrate that CEOs who are passionate about inventing play a significant role with regard to radical innovation and that the degree to which a firms members share its vision is positively correlated with this relationship. Our findings enrich upper echelons theory by incorporating insights into how deep‐level psychological traits are related to firm outcomes. In addition, we enhance our understanding of how passion can actually predict firm‐level outcomes.

How Entrepreneurial Firms Profit From Pricing Capabilities: An Examination of Technology-Based Ventures

This study sheds light on the evolution of the specialized marketing capability, pricing. We develop an operationalization for and empirically validate the pricing–capability dimensions from the perspective of the resource–based view. Using a sample of 420 technology–based ventures, we examine the relationship between pricing capabilities and firm performance, with a particular focus on how age and uncertainty impact these relationships to determine how entrepreneurial firms can profit. We deconstruct pricing capability into four dimensions—price discrimination, dynamic orientation, performance goal orientation, and value delivery—to show, for example, that young companies should focus on their price discrimination capability to improve performance.

Temporal Change Patterns of Entrepreneurial Orientation: A Longitudinal Investigation of CEO Successions

This study investigates the temporal change patterns of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) subsequent to chief executive officer (CEO) successions. Integrating prior research, we hypothesize that CEO successions lead to a change in EO and that this change exhibits an inverse U‐shape over time. Based on data collected for 67 CEO successions, our empirical results support our hypotheses, showing that successions effectuate changes in EO and tend to increase the level of EO in firms. Changes in EO peak in the second to fourth year of a new CEOs tenure, with less change before and after. We also demonstrate that changes in EO occur later but are more pronounced if the newly appointed firm leader is an outside CEO.

CONSEQUENCES AND ANTECEDENTS OF ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY IN A CROSS-CULTURAL CONTEXT

Continuous innovation is one of the key challenges businesses are currently facing, which makes organisational absorptive capacity (ACAP) — a firms ability to explore and exploit external knowledge — a highly relevant topic. This study addresses ACAPs consequences and antecedents in an international context by analysing data from 549 small and medium-sized companies in Austria, Brazil, Germany, India, Singapore, and the US First, we reveal that both potential and realised ACAP have an equally strong positive impact on firm performance around the world. Second, we assess that the relationship between organisational structure and potential ACAP is not moderated by national cultural values. Furthermore, we show that the role a formalised organisational structure plays with regard to realised ACAP is positively moderated by the national cultural characteristic of power distance and negatively by the national cultural trait of masculinity. In contrast, masculinity positively moderates the relationship between specialisation and realised ACAP. Overall, with our study, we advance research on the consequences as well as the antecedents of ACAP and provide managers with mechanisms to support corporate knowledge absorption and innovation generation throughout the world.