Organizational Sponsors Research Articles

Job content plateau and career commitment: the mediating role of developmental i-deals and the moderating role of proactive personality

PurposeGiven the detrimental effects of job content plateau, the paper aims to study the impact of job content plateau on employees’ career commitment. In doing so, the authors examine whether the lapses in job content plateau can be addressed through developmental i-deals. A final purpose is to examine whether proactive employees are better positioned to obtain work arrangements that help them develop and remain committed to their careers.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from full-time working executives employed in different organizations. These executives enrolled in a part-time MBA program. Data was collected at different time points and analyzed using the process macro (Preacher and Hayes, 2004).FindingsThe results suggest that developmental i-deals mediated the relationship between job content plateau and career commitment. In addition, proactive employees were better disposed to seal the deal and develop themselves – helping them to stay committed to their careers.Originality/valuePrior studies highlight the negative consequences of job content plateau because it does not provide avenues to learn and develop. This paper addresses the gap in locating opportunities to learn and develop (an aspect that was missing in the job content plateau) through developmental i-deals. First, the study helps answer how to address learning gaps in jobs. Second, who can capitalize on their efforts once the organization sponsors learning opportunities.

Do research experience programs promote capacity building in Qatar: Investigating the trend and participation differences

Research Experience programs (REPs) inspire students to pursue advanced degrees and shape their research career paths. Government and commercial organizations sponsor REPs to promote the capacity building of the country. In Qatar, the national youth is reported to show concerning participation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines at the K-12 level. However, none of the studies investigate these participation trends at the undergraduate level, especially in scientific research, which is deemed necessary for building a knowledge-based economy in Qatar. Therefore, to bridge this gap, the current study uses a quantitative approach to analyze the REP in Qatar through the participation data of 2455 undergraduate students. For this, statistical measures, including descriptive analysis, independent samples t-test, and Pearson's correlation analysis were used. Results indicated concerning trends in national student participation rate, implying underlying issues restricting their representation in undergraduate research activities. Also, statistically significant differences were found in student participation rates among students' gender and ethnic distributions. While female students demonstrated higher participation rates than males, national students showed lower participation than the non-nationals. Moreover, this low participation of national students suffered more drastically in STEM disciplines. Therefore, these findings determine the outlook for stakeholders and academic institutions in making meaningful educational decisions and envision synchronizing REPs at the university level, gauging measures to bolster the adjacent funding agencies and government organizations. Furthermore, being the first research addressing REPs in the Middle East region, this study has the potential to support educators in neighboring and other developing nations where STEM education is especially significant for human capacity building.

Coming from a Good Pond: The Influence of a New Venture’s Founding Ecosystem on Accelerator Performance

Startup accelerators, which aim to improve the set of choices representing a startup’s entry strategy, have become increasingly influential in both regional development and the strategies of individual startups. This article explores an accelerator’s impact on startup performance and whether that impact varies substantially by features of the startup’s founding environment. Leveraging data from a leading startup accelerator, I use a regression discontinuity framework to hold startup quality constant so that I can compare the performance of admitted startups to those that do not make the cut, and I examine whether any observed performance differentials are driven by accelerator admission and by characteristics of the startup’s earlier environment. I find evidence that startups from better pre-accelerator environments experience stronger gains from accelerator admission. I also find evidence of home bias, as local startups have a stronger treatment effect. These results provide evidence of ecosystem effects whereby the impact of one organizational sponsor in an ecosystem is strongly moderated by other features in the ecosystem. The findings help to explain the concentration of accelerator programs in already successful entrepreneurial ecosystems and reveal how such programs may interact with founding environments to complement resource abundance or magnify prior resource inequalities.

The Basic and Clinical Science of Wounds in the Austere Environment

Surgery in developing countries is challenging on many levels. U.S. organizations sponsor approximately 200,000 surgeries performed abroad every year (Miclau et al. 2021a). These altruistic surgeons and physicians– despite their good intentions—may not be equipped with the specific surgical and communication skills necessary for a successful surgery in an austere environment. Surgical skill set, nutrition, facilities, and sociology all play a role in successful surgical outcomes. A thorough understanding of the basic science and clinical science of wounds in the austere environment is imperative for physicians and surgeons providing care in developing nations. Basic science research, in regards to nutrition, parasites; skin, dermal, and bone physiology; as well as microbiome interaction with these structures, can help optimize surgical outcome and reduce adverse events such as infection. Clinical science research and the development of algorithms for surgery in the austere environment can also help improve surgical outcomes and mitigate these adverse events.

Civic Environmental Stewardship: Aligning Organizational and Participant Motivations

Natural area management and sustainability in cities is ever more reliant on civic environmental stewardship. Many conservation organizations sponsor stewardship programs that enlist volunteers to care for the land and restore urban ecosystems. Stewardship program success depends on alignment of individuals’ and sponsoring organizations’ goals. We conducted surveys with a sample of 165 volunteers across natural areas stewardship events in metropolitan King County (Washington, U.S.). An adapted Volunteer Functions Inventory framework was used to understand volunteers’ motivations, satisfactions, and volunteering history. Our findings confirmed the multidimensional dynamics of volunteerism, as stewardship volunteers were motivated and expressed satisfaction for practical altruism, social interactions, experiential learning and a sense of positive impact. High frequency volunteers expressed higher values across all satisfactions outcomes. People who participated in stewardship events closer to home indicated higher event-related social esteem and personal efficacy. Overall, volunteers were generally of greater education attainment, more affluent, and culturally identified as white at a higher rate than the region’s populace, suggesting the need for program innovations to improve stewardship participation diversity. Findings that differ from more general volunteer studies indicate volunteers’ concerns for other people and the environment, in the near term and as legacy for the future. Stewardship organizations’ programs are guided by goals and values. A systematic approach to knowledge building about volunteer motivations can inform more successful volunteer engagement, such as recruitment and retention.

Venture distress and problemistic search among entrepreneurs in Brazilian favelas

When do entrepreneurs in emerging markets seek out help from organizational sponsors? Problemistic search theory suggests that entrepreneurs will seek out sponsors in moments of venture distress. However, this theory was developed in the context of large organizations; it is not clear how it might apply to entrepreneurs in resource-constrained contexts. We use three inductive studies conducted in favelas in Brazil to examine when entrepreneurs seek help. Consistent with problemistic search theory, we find evidence that entrepreneurs seek out help from organizational sponsors in moments of venture distress. We also explore what types of entrepreneurs are most likely to seek help in a situation of venture distress and find that entrepreneurs who are more socially embedded and have more social obligations are more likely to take up sponsorship services, leading to important heterogeneity in our results on take-up. We find that women, more mature ventures, and middle-aged entrepreneurs are all more likely to engage in problemistic search. We contribute to a more contextualized theory of problemistic search for small entrepreneurs in emerging markets. We also provide important theoretical and practical insights about the demand-side of organizational sponsorship.

Shared Identity, Says Who? How Diverse Organizations Interact in Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

Entrepreneurial ecosystems are comprised of a diverse and interacting set of organizations which aim to support and develop new ventures and their surrounding regions. Although prior research has celebrated the diversity of these support organizations as a necessary enabler of entrepreneurial capacity in a region, such diversity can at times introduce liabilities given different motives and interests. In this study, we explore how different organizations orient toward such diversity, thereby enabling or constraining the capacity for collaboration across ostensible divisions. Through an inductive case analysis of 15 organizations, we surface an inductive model of how leaders’ perceptions of a regional ecosystem identity combine with their organizations’ identity orientation to influence their interactions across the ecosystem. Based on this model, we propose a typology of organizational sponsorship, which characterizes organizations as either builders, partners, participants, or bridgers. This model and typology extends our understanding of the differences between organizational sponsors within entrepreneurial ecosystems, while bridging the study of organizational identity, categories and ecosystems.

Tracing States’ Messages About Common Core Instruction: An Analysis of English/ Language Arts and Close Reading Resources

Background A common set of standards enables the sharing of curricular and professional development resources across state lines. In a previous study of state-provided standards resources for English/language arts, we identified the number of state educational agencies linking to different organizations’ resources. We then identified the 10 most influential organizations; in other words, the organizations to which the highest number of states had linked as resource sponsors. However, little is known about the content of the resources from the most influential organizations. Purpose The first goal of this study was to describe the state-provided resources sponsored by the 10 most influential organizations, including the standards and topics addressed. The second goal was to identify the instructional messages about close reading present in those resources, as well as how consistent those messages were across resources and across organizations. Research Design This study used qualitative coding and descriptive analyses to identify standards and topics included in 177 individual resources in the form of articles, curriculum guidelines, instructional aids, professional development, and student work. We utilized social network analysis to visualize the connections between topics the resources addressed and their organizational sponsors. Then, we used qualitative coding and social network analysis to identify and visualize messages about close reading from a smaller set of resources. Conclusions This study finds that resources emphasized standards focused on reading closely and academic vocabulary. Resources focused most heavily on the topics of reading informational text, complex text and academic language, and reading literature; topics that were less represented included special student populations, curricular design, and narrative writing. This study also finds that the resources’ positions on how teachers should enact close reading diverged around the extent to which historical or background knowledge ought to be allowed to inform students’ reading. This work adds to a small but growing body of research applying social network analysis to visualize the relationships between organizations and ideas. We recommend that teachers, as well as state and district leaders, who are searching for helpful resources turn to literacy organizations like the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Literacy Association as organizations that are concerned with the profession as a whole rather than with one particular standards policy and may therefore present a broader and more integrated view of ELA instruction.

Evolutionary Medicine – A Great Way to Teach Biology

Great teaching is often all about the questions posed to students. When learners get their teeth into an interesting question, they grow as they chew on it. As physicians, we have discovered that disease makes more sense if you ask evolutionary questions, and these questions make a great starting point for science education. One of Darwin's two main questions was how species are related to each other. His answer was that all organisms have common ancestors. This is the foundation for studies of phylogeny. To teach phylogenetic trees, you can use canids or birds, but students are particularly interested if they are tracing the origins of HIV or tuberculosis, or the history of human traits, such as the appendix. Darwin's other question was about why bodies work so well. His answer was natural selection. The characteristics of individuals who have more offspring than others become more common over the generations. This explains why kidneys, hearts, eyes, and brains are so astoundingly well suited to their purposes. As physicians, we constantly confront a very different question. If natural selection is so …

H‐1B and L‐1 visa‐sponsored guest workers in the USA: An analysis of the strategic impact of Indian and other firms

Organizational sponsors of guest workers to the United States claim foreign‐born workers enhance productivity and innovation. Drawing upon a unique dataset of all organizational sponsors of guest workers in the United States from 1993 to 2008, we find a 10% increase in guest worker sponsorship is associated with a 2.2–3.1% increase in patenting within firms. Furthermore, we examine how organizational industry and country of origin are associated with the effects of guest worker sponsorship on organization‐level measures of innovation and productivity. Despite an overall within‐firm positive association between sponsorship and patenting, higher percentages of a firm's workers on visas are associated with lower patenting, but higher labor productivity. Firm‐level industry and country of origin heterogeneity is significantly related to the relationship between guest work sponsorship and both patent‐related and nonpatent investment in innovation such as research and development (R&D) expenditures. Semiconductor firms and universities spend more on R&D in conjunction with guest worker sponsorship, while semiconductor companies and hardware companies patent less. We discuss theoretical and human resource implications, and offer suggestions for future research.

Developing the Alliances to Expand Traditional Indigenous Healing Practices Within Alberta Health Services.

Indigenous people have unique health needs that require culturally appropriate holistic care that addresses physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Access to both traditional Indigenous healing practices and Western medicine are needed for all encompassing holistic health. This inquiry addresses actions suggested by the United Nations (UN) and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) with regard to traditional Indigenous medicine and healing and was guided by an Organizational Sponsor and Inquiry Team. The fieldwork for this study took place within Alberta Health Services (AHS), established in 2008 when 12 separate health entities merged to become Canada's first and largest fully integrated provincial health system. Two Elders and a Cultural Helper provided perspectives on cultural protocols surrounding the traditional Indigenous sweat lodge ceremony. Three Indigenous community members provided perspectives on AHS services and holistic health through participation in the traditional Indigenous sweat lodge ceremony. Seven AHS administrative employees provided perspectives on implementation. This study was conducted within an action research framework and the researcher conducted a literature review, interviews, and a focus group to allow for triangulation. Throughout the interviews and focus group, participants consistently emphasized the importance of increasing efforts to expand traditional Indigenous healing practices within AHS, giving rise to the primary study theme: Expanding Traditional Indigenous Healing Practices within AHS. Several subthemes emerged in support of this primary focus, including the following: (1) enhancing cultural competency and safety training among leadership and employees; (2) adhering to tradition and protocol; (3) establishing meaningful partnerships; (4) strengthening organizational facets of program delivery; and (5) need for additional financial, human, and logistical resources. During this time of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada and beyond, health care leaders and providers have an ethical responsibility and important opportunity to help improve the troubling health disparities at hand. This will inevitably require tremendous reflection, humility, courage, and commitment by stakeholders at all levels, as they work to transform health systems that disproportionately disadvantage Indigenous ways of knowing and being while implicitly privileging Eurocentric, biomedical perspectives. This pursuit, despite the barriers that may arise, is a moral, social, and political imperative for all those health care workers who seek to reduce suffering.

Institutional Change and Early-Stage Startup Selection: Evidence from Applicants to Venture Accelerators

Existing research at the nexus of institutional theory and entrepreneurship suggests that lowering institutional barriers to forming, growing, and exiting new firms through legal and regulatory reforms can affect the types of startups that entrepreneurs found in a region. These institutional changes could affect entrepreneurs' willingness to partner with organizational sponsors to develop high-growth startups and potentially enhance these sponsors' ability to select high-growth startups to fund and develop. This study evaluates these ideas by developing and testing three hypotheses, that institutional reforms (a) improve entrepreneurs' perceived benefits of the resources that organizational sponsors provide, (b) increase the number, quality, and diversity of applicants for these resources within sponsors' local ecosystems, and (c) enhance sponsors' capacity to select high-growth startups into their cohorts. To evaluate these hypotheses, I analyze data from 13,770 applicants to venture accelerators over multiple application cycles between 2016-2018 in 170 countries, using a difference-in-differences design that exploits institutional reforms that aimed to reduce the time and procedures to start new firms, obtain credit, and resolve bankruptcy for entrepreneurs. The findings have important implications for how institutional reforms affect early-stage entrepreneurship and the capacity of organizational sponsors to select high-growth early-stage startups to fund and develop within their local ecosystems.

Gender, Culture, and Corporate Communication: A Cross-Cultural Study of Japan and India

As in every social context, gender continues to hold a special significance even in the organizational environment. Workplaces in male-dominated societies are also male-oriented, as gender stereotypes, beliefs, and assumptions of such societies are reinforced in organizations. This domination of the male is embedded mostly within the organizational structure (e.g. hierarchy), organizational activity (e.g. the organization sponsors rugby tournaments for its male employees), working hours, or the organization's language (e.g. the organization expects women to be cooperative and caring and men to be competitive, confrontational, and assertive). Also, the members of the organization internalize this orientation as the normal or natural manner in which the organization functions. Thus, the manner in which a society defines the roles and responsibilities for its men and women clearly influences the roles of men and women in the workplace, and in their occupational situations as well. This is why the present research study, which uses case study as a methodology, argues that the socio-cultural challenges of women such as her limited rights, constrained freedom, and considerable duties at home gets replicated in the workplace as well and that they are often placed at the very bottom of the hierarchical pyramid providing minimal access to positions of authority. The present study makes an attempt to analyze the culture's influence on gender in the corporate communication departments of two organizations located in Japan and India. The authors study Kobe Steel, Ltd., Japan and RINL-VSP, India.

The Role of Accelerator Designs in Mitigating Bounded Rationality in New Ventures

Using a nested multiple-case study of participating ventures, directors, and mentors of eight of the original U.S. accelerators, we explore how accelerators’ program designs influence new ventures’ ability to access, interpret, and process the external information needed to survive and grow. Through our inductive process, we illuminate the bounded-rationality challenges that may plague all ventures and entrepreneurs—not just those in accelerators—and identify the particular organizational designs that accelerators use to help address these challenges, which left unabated can result in suboptimal performance or even venture failure. Our analysis revealed three key design choices made by accelerators—(1) whether to space out or concentrate consultations with mentors and customers, (2) whether to foster privacy or transparency between peer ventures participating in the same program, and (3) whether to tailor or standardize the program for each venture—and suggests a particular set of choices is associated with improved venture development. Collectively, our findings provide evidence that bounded rationality challenges new ventures differently than it does established firms. We find that entrepreneurs appear to systematically satisfice prematurely across many decisions and thus broadly benefit from increasing the amount of external information searched, often by reigniting search for problems that they already view as solved. Our study also contributes to research on organizational sponsors by revealing practices that help or hinder new venture development and to emerging research on the lean start-up methodology by suggesting that startups benefit from engaging in deep consultative learning prior to experimentation.

Influence of Human Behavior on Success of Complex Public Infrastructural Megaprojects in Kenya

The main objective of this study was to investigate the influence of human behavior on the success of public infrastructural megaprojects in Kenya. The need for this study arose from the thesis that complexity due to human behavior is the main cause of waste and failure that results in infrastructural megaprojects being delivered over budget, behind schedule, with benefit shortfalls, over and over again. The study was designed as multiple-method research, based on virtual constructionist ontology recognizing that complexity is the mid-point between order and disorder. A cross-sectional census survey of 27 completed public infrastructural megaprojects was conducted using two interlinked questionnaires assessing human behavior constructs and project success. A total of 108 respondents made up of project managers, team members and organizational sponsors, participated in this study. Using both descriptive and inferential analysis, the results of this study have confirmed that human behavior significantly influences success of public infrastructural megaprojects. Optimism bias remains the main individual behavior that leads to cost and schedule underperformance in infrastructural megaprojects but loss aversion is the most occurring cognitive bias. In light of this finding, the study recommends that implementing organizations adopt structures that allow for continued business justification, focus on products and give project managers sufficient authority over project resources in line with the postulations of the structural contingency theory.

Organizational Sponsorship in Contexts of Poverty

Organizational sponsors seek to help new ventures survive and thrive, in large part by providing facilitating learning among entrepreneurs. As such, organizational sponsorship has been used as a tool in the alleviation of poverty. The purpose of this study is to better understand why some entrepreneurs in the context of poverty benefit from organizational sponsorship more than others. We explore this question with 24 months of pre- and post-intervention sales data for 151 ventures in an organizational sponsorship program in Central America. We find that greater access to learning opportunities may not be the critical driver of entrepreneurial growth. Rather, we find that the constraints from prior experience and knowledge are more important predictors of learning. Finally, we find that within this context women benefit less from organizational sponsorship than men. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms associated with organizational sponsorship in the context of desperate poverty, and have important implications for organizational sponsors seeking to alleviate poverty.

Organizational Sponsors: Journal of Risk and Insurance 4/2016

Journal of Risk and InsuranceVolume 83, Issue 4 p. 808-809 Issue Information - Organizational SponsorsFree Access Organizational Sponsors: Journal of Risk and Insurance 4/2016 First published: 10 November 2016 https://doi.org/10.1111/jori.12124AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume83, Issue4December 2016Pages 808-809 RelatedInformation

Issue Information ‐ Organizational Sponsors

Issue Information ‐ Organizational Sponsors

Organizational Sponsors: Journal of Risk and Insurance 3/2016

Organizational Sponsors: Journal of Risk and Insurance 3/2016

Impact of a Leadership Development Institute on Professional Lives and Careers.

An evaluation study was conducted to determine the impact of a leadership institute, The Dorothy Wylie Health Leaders Institute (DWHLI), over the decade since its inception. The aim was to better understand the perceived influence of the Institute over time on professional lives and careers of alumni and identify the critical design features that supported leadership development. Nurses and other health disciplines from all levels of leadership and from most provinces completed an online survey (n = 165) and a subset was interviewed (n = 33). The majority of alumni (50-68%) rated the impact of the Institute as significant or very significant on seven of the eight selected intended leadership outcomes. For 73-78% of the alumni, the Institute had a recurring or profound positive impact on their professional lives as leaders and personal careers. Alumni who reported the greatest impact of the program on their knowledge, skills and confidence as leaders also had higher levels of career satisfaction and work engagement. Design elements that impacted their development included the theoretical and conceptual content, interactive and experiential structure and mentoring. Recommendations for organizational sponsors included the need for opportunities to apply learning, ongoing coaching, mentoring and career counseling specific to their leadership career path.