Paper Included in Best Paper Proceedings

It is with great pleasure that I am able to announce that another research project I'm involved in will be included in the Best Paper Proceedings of the Academy of Management Meeting, this time for the 2009 Meeting in Chicago, IL:

The corporate context and the speed of SBU-level decision making

Maximilian Kownatzki*, Jorge Walter**, & Christoph Lechner***

* Oliver Wyman, ** Portland State University, *** University of St. Gallen

In this paper, we examine the impact of the context the corporate headquarter sets for its strategic business units (SBUs) on the speed of strategic decision making at the SBU level. Using two related empirical studies, we first inductively develop a taxonomy of corporate context categories and, second, deductively examine their effects on decision processes at the SBU level. Our results suggest that from a set of nine corporate context categories, four enhance decision speed (financial incentives, target definition, process-related involvement, and HR-/career incentives), one has a negative influence (content-related involvement) and four have no direct effect (arenas for discourse, coercive enforcement, sanctioning, and conflict resolution). Combining these insights with our inductive analysis, we are further able to provide explanations for why certain categories influence decision-making speed. Our study provides novel insights into strategic interactions between headquarters and SBUs as well as into the effects of the corporate context on SBU-level decision-making speed, a crucial determinant of firm performance.

Keywords: Strategic decision making; decision-making speed; corporate context; corporate-SBU interactions; grounded theory; repertory grid

Exceptional Performance Recognition Award Received

The School of Business Administration at Portland State University has generously granted me the 2009 Exceptional Performance Recognition Award.

This is a competitive annual award and salary increase granted to the top 10% of faculty of the School of Business Administration.

Upcoming Symposium at the 2009 AOM Annual Meeting

My colleague Daniel Z. Levin and I are happy to announce the upcoming symposium we just got accepted at the 2009 Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL:

"Decay, death, and rebirth of networks and network ties."

Participants: Jason P. Davis (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Ranjay Gulati (Harvard University), Sérgio Lazzarini (IBMEC, Sao Paulo), J. Keith Murnighan (Northwestern University), Ray E. Reagans (Carnegie Mellon University), and Todd R. Zenger (Washington University-St. Louis).

For more information, check the AOM Website.

New York Times Article on Facebook

Since I'm recently doing some research on reconnecting dormant ties (see the previous posts from Aug 13, Apr 10, and Mar 20), a colleague sent me this interesting article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/magazine/15wwln-lede-t.html

The author contrasts the ever increasing number of 35-54 year-old users--and their main interest to reconnect with old acquaintances--with the way Facebook may profoundly change the way young people create their adult identity...

Journal of Management Editorial Board

I gladly accepted an invitation by the new editor of the Journal of Management, Prof. Talya Bauer, to join the editorial board of the journal.

Please check JOM's website for more information.

2008 SMS Annual International Conference

From October 11-15, the Strategic Management Society Annual International Conference took place in Cologne, Germany. Under the conference theme "How does knowledge matter?", we presented our papers:

For more information, check the SMS website.

2008 Academy of Management Annual Meeting

From August 8-13, the Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2008 took place in Anaheim, CA. Under the conference theme "The questions we ask", we presented our paper:

Our paper was also included in the Best Paper Proceedings (see the post from April 10).

For more information, check the AOM website.

JoMS Article Published

New Article Published in the Journal of Management Studies 45(3): 530-560

Disentangling alliance management processes: Decision making, politicality, and alliance performance

Jorge Walter*, Christoph Lechner*, & Franz W. Kellermanns***

* Portland State University, ** University of St. Gallen, *** Mississippi State University

Using a sample of 106 organizations engaged in strategic alliances, we develop and test a framework of alliance-related organizational decision-making processes and their impact on alliance performance. With regard to direct effects, our results show a negative impact of decision-making recursiveness and no significant relationship for openness and procedural rationality. Acknowledging the importance of the organization’s micropolitical context in which these decision processes are embedded, we also test the moderating influence of politicality. Our findings provide support for our hypotheses that in a context of low politicality, the decision-making characteristics of openness and procedural rationality have a positive influence, whereas recursiveness negatively affects alliance performance. In a context of high politicality, however, openness and procedural rationality exert a negative influence, and the negative impact of recursiveness is aggravated. We suggest that alliance-related decision making cannot be adequately understood without explicitly considering the micropolitical context in organizations.

Keywords: Strategic alliances, alliance performance, alliance-related decision-making processes, politicality.

For a copy of the article, please contact me directly.