2010 Funded Research

Matthew Bidwell and J. R. Keller explore the differences between external hiring and internal development as means of acquiring human capital. We draw on personnel data from a number of firms to compare the determinants and consequences of these two strategies. When are firms more likely to hire workers to fill positions? When is internal mobility more likely to be used? And what are subsequent outcomes for the firm, in terms of pay, performance and mobility?

Jitendra Singh and Nandani Lynton (CEIBS, Shanghai, China) are studying the landscape of Indian and Chinese business leadership. While it is widely acknowledged that leader behavior is different from the US in these two economically important countries, less is known about the contours of some of those differences, as seen through the eyes of Indian and Chinese leaders and evident in their behaviors. This exploratory study uses a direct, structured interview approach with senior leaders in Indian and Chinese firms to uncover distinctive leadership patterns in these two countries.

Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury studies the incentives that drive bureaucrats and scientists running public R&D entities in India. The project is also focused on understanding how government owned R&D entities balance priorities among performing basic research and commercializing technologies. Though public R&D labs and state owned entities in general form a large component of innovative output in the U.S. and around the world, very little is known on the incentives that drive bureaucrats and senior scientists running these entities. On one hand, they are expected to contribute to basic research accessible through publications. On the other hand, there are pressures to generate revenue by commercializing research. This research project seeks to understand the incentives that led the leadership of 42 state owned labs in India to move towards more commercially viable projects starting 1994. It uses data from government circulars, annual reports and speeches made by the lab leadership in the period 1985-2004.

Lori Rosenkopf and doctoral student Ram Ranganathan study how firms create and avail themselves of leadership opportunities in technology standards-setting organizations.  They investigate the decision-making process within these cooperative bodies where firms’ representatives arbitrate technological differences and adjudicate amongst alternatives. They examine how some firms control the pace and the direction of change by assuming leadership positions within standards committees, by voting to delay change and by shaping and appropriating technological change outcomes through disclosure and tailoring of patents. Their study thus highlights important and novel ways in which firms lead, manage and control change to their advantage in technologically uncertain environments.

Nancy Rothbard and PhD student Justin Berg, in collaboration with Ariane Ollier-Malaterre of Rouen Business School, explore how people manage the boundary between their work and nonwork lives on social networking websites, particularly Facebook. On Facebook, people often experience the challenge of having their different worlds (e.g., work, family, friends) collide. This study explores how people do and do not manage their content and activities on Facebook in response to this challenge, and the psychological and social consequences of such boundary management.  This study has implications for leadership and management in that it examines questions such as how people handle merging private and professional lives in the context of hierarchical relationships versus peer relationships. For example, what do you do if your boss “friends” you and vice versa?  Moreover, we examine potential cross cultural differences in how these relationships are managed through a focus on employees in both the US and France.