Resource Munificence Research Articles

Organizational Entrainment of Project Launch in the Research Context of Chinese Real Estate Firms

Despite wide recognition of organizational entrainment (i.e., activities pace adjustment to catch emerging opportunity) in case studies, there is a lack of large-sample empirical evidence illustrating entrainment in project management. We examine outcome-based and process-based entrainment using survival analysis with 90,755 observations of 149 Chinese real estate firms’ residential development projects. The results suggest external environmental favorableness—as a zeitgeber—both directly accelerates the project launch pace and strengthens the deceleration effects of structural inertia and acceleration effects of resource munificence on the project launch pace. Our study contributes to organizational entrainment, flexibility-focused project management, and project launch literature.

Network Effectiveness in Context

Abstract Increasingly, scholars and practitioners are interested in evaluating the effectiveness of interorganizational networks. We use a configuration approach to study network effectiveness. This research is a mixed-method study of 26 education networks in the United States. We measure network effectiveness by comparing 4th-grade literacy, 8th-grade literacy, and high-school graduation rates. We compare these scores with all school districts in the state using interrupted time series or parametric difference-in-differences approaches. Then, drawing from qualitative data from interviews and archives, we investigate the network governance, environmental characteristics, and theories of change associated with greater student achievement. We find three configurations associated with network effectiveness using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. One configuration combines decentralized governance with a project theory of change in the context of resource munificence. A second configuration associated with network effectiveness is to combine learning and systems alignment theories of change with smaller network size and resource munificence. The final configuration combines decentralized governance, a learning theory of change, less resource munificence, and larger network size and does not use a systems alignment theory of change. The results support the configurational approach, which suggests multiple configurations of factors in combination may result in network effectiveness.

Firm Scope and Within-Industry Repositioning: Search, Resource Munificence, and Crowding

We analyze the position moves of U.S. auto firms between the industry’s three main market segments over time and find support for arguments that sort out the relationship of scope with search, inertia, and crowding. Our predictions build on structural and behavioral considerations related to broad scope as concomitant to internal variation (which facilitates moves) and to buildup of inertia (which deters them). We reconcile the opposing predictions that broad scope both drives and impedes search by decoupling the direct positive effect of broad scope on likelihood to move positions from its second-order negative effects. The analyses support our conjectures and highlight the advantages of analyzing (changes in) market positions among all firms in an industry and of building cumulative specifications that facilitate theory integration.

Organizational Entrainment of Project Launch: Empirical Evidence from Chinese Real Estate Industry

As entrainment theory often indicates, launching new projects at appropriate timing is critical for organizations to succeed in market competition. Despite this widely recognized concept by case studies in the organizational context, there lacks empirical evidence to support how this entrainment process is formulated by internal or external organizational activities. In the present study, we reveal the entrainment process that how organizational attributes and environmental favorableness influence projects’ launch pace or timing decisions. We empirically examine such propositions through survival analysis with 90,755 observations of residential development projects of 149 real estate firms in China. Specifically, we find that organization inertia and resource munificence will decelerate and accelerate the timing of project launch, while external environmental favorableness can both directly accelerate the timing of project launch and strengthen the main effects of organization inertia and resource munificence on the timing of project launch.

Service Providers’ Influence in Collaborative Governance Networks: Effectiveness in Reducing Chronic Homelessness

Abstract In fragmented policy areas, collaboration between government entities and nonprofit providers is thought to promote knowledge sharing and reinforce mutual accountability, hopefully improving performance. The popularity of this trend is matched only by the difficulties in actually meeting these multiplex goals. This is partly because there are both process (e.g., engagement and mutual learning) and outcome (e.g., effectiveness) goals that can work at cross-purposes. In this article, we use longitudinal data from a specific collaborative governance model—Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Homeless Continuums of Care (CoCs)—to investigate the relationship between meaningful inclusion of nonprofit service providers in the network and a valued outcome: reducing regional chronic homelessness. Specifically, we use structural equation modeling to assess the degree to which provider influence and local government support play mediating roles between network governance structure, growth in federal resource munificence, and reductions in chronic homeless. Combining HUD administrative data and data from a national survey of the population of CoCs (N = 313, 75% response rate), we find that while both (1) provider influence in decision-making and (2) federal funding growth are directly associated with reductions in chronic homelessness, provider influence also serves as an important mediator in the relationships between network governance structure, federal funding growth, and reductions in chronic homelessness. Qualitative case examples are then used to demonstrate how these trends are experienced in practice. Overall, we argue that collaborative governance can best improve client outcomes when it is truly collaborative and providers are given meaningful ways to engage with and influence the process.

The COVID-19 outbreak and the municipal administration responses: resource munificence, social vulnerability, and the effectiveness of public actions

Abstract Facing the unprecedented situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, public officials at the municipality-level have no clear benchmarks or tested policies. In this situation, decision-making becomes a controversial process. This article provides insights for public agents in the Brazilian municipalities to deal with the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed the actions taken by city halls of the 52 Brazilian municipalities at least thirty days since the first confirmed case of COVID-19. We used a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to identify the combinations of contextual factors and public actions that reduced COVID-19 transmission during the critical initial stage. The empirical results show three main paths to guide policy-making: (1) a plural collaboration path involving public and private sectors, operating in a fragile health system; (2) a public action path providing aid programs through intense collaboration inside public bureaucracy; and (3) a resource-based path relying on a well-structured health system.

The COVID-19 outbreak and the municipal administration responses: resource munificence, social vulnerability, and the effectiveness of public actions

Abstract Facing the unprecedented situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, public officials at the municipality-level have no clear benchmarks or tested policies. In this situation, decision-making becomes a controversial process. This article provides insights for public agents in the Brazilian municipalities to deal with the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed the actions taken by city halls of the 52 Brazilian municipalities at least thirty days since the first confirmed case of COVID-19. We used a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to identify the combinations of contextual factors and public actions that reduced COVID-19 transmission during the critical initial stage. The empirical results show three main paths to guide policy-making: (1) a plural collaboration path involving public and private sectors, operating in a fragile health system; (2) a public action path providing aid programs through intense collaboration inside public bureaucracy; and (3) a resource-based path relying on a well-structured health system.

Search Heuristics and Market Entry: The Impact of Policy Availability on Novel Market Entry

Whereas prior research highlights that firms rely on competitors’ actions and market resource munificence in market entry decisions, the effect of policy availability remains overlooked. In this study, we explore the direct and indirect effects of policy availability on the likelihood of novel market entry. Grounded in the behavioral theory of the firm, we hypothesize that policy availability in a novel market: (1) increases the firm’s likelihood of entry into this market and (2) positively moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship between the number of competitors active in this market and the likelihood of entry into it. Analyzing rich data on the market entry activities of 134 wind turbine manufacturers over a 25- year time period, we largely find empirical support for our predictions. Our study offers new theoretical insights about how search heuristics, and policy availability in particular, influence market entry decisions.

Network Resource Munificence, Geographical Dispersion and Inventor Performance

This paper explores the variation of knowledge resources embedded in the collaboration networks of corporate inventors. Focusing on the semiconductor industry, we examine the impact of intraorganiz...

Unpacking HR Systems: How organizational strategy and resource munificence explain HR variations

Responding to the need to better understand HR system design beyond so called “high performance” HR systems, this study develops and tests a typology of four different HR systems based on two firm ...

Network Configurations and Modes of Network Funding: A QCA-Comparison of German Health Networks

This study explores the relation between network characteristics and network funding. We define network funding as the financial resource supply that allows the installation, reproduction and transformation of a network’s governance structure and of collaborative interactions among its participants. Sufficient network funding (captured by the concept of resource munificence) has long been pushed to the fore as an environmental condition for network effectiveness. However, research has remained scarce on the ways networks are funded. In this paper, we identify and analyze different modes of network funding with relation to network and context characteristics of 19 German health networks. We use first, crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to explore configurational aspects of network funding. We then expand these findings with an exploration of the rationales behind the selection of specific network funding modes using in-depth case analysis. The results reveal three modes of network funding: participant-based funding, third-party funding, and self-generated funding. Additionally, we show how the mode of funding evolves together with brokered governance structures. A finer analysis of the case studies also reveals a symbolic use of brokered governance structures to attract funds by staging the promise of professional network management.

An empirical analysis of the effect of business incubation process on firm performance in Nigeria

Small and medium enterprises (SME), acknowledged as tools of economic development, are faced with size-related challenges. Governments around the world design institutions to support them. Business incubation is one of such frameworks for entrepreneurial promotion and SME development. This study predicts firm performance from the constructs of the business incubation process: selection performance, business assistance intensity, resource munificence and professional management services. Using hierarchical multiple regression, the overall model was significant explaining 13.5% of the variation in firm performance with a moderate effect size. Business assistance intensity and professional management services were significant predictors while incubator selection performance and resource munificence were not significant predictors of firm performance. Incubation should be promoted as a tool for entrepreneurial promotion to complement the broader strategic entrepreneurial framework for entrepreneurship promotion. The focus should be on evolving strategies to expand and deepen incubators capacity by intensifying business assistance and professional management services to their clients.

Resource Munificence in a Human Services Network: Inertia and Change in Organizational Cliques

Effective human service organizational networks are organized around subgroups of closely coordinated provider organizations, or organizational cliques. This study examines changes in organizational cliques within a regional children’s behavioral health service delivery network over a two-year period characterized by substantial funding increase. Leveraging a naturally occurring regional experiment, quantitative network survey data were gathered from 22 non-profit service organizations before, and two years after an influx of funding. Over time, cliques expanded and overlapped resulting in restructuring within these groups; clique changes were associated with greater service complementarity suggesting that cliques aligning organizations with more distinct services may be more vulnerable to change. Findings have implications for network and nonprofit managers interested in promoting system coordination.

Searching in the Non-market Environment: The Impact of Regulatory Search on Firm Innovativeness (WITHDRAWN)

This paper investigated the relationship between regulatory search and firm innovativeness in a contingency framework. First, regulatory search was conceptualized as a non-local and exploratory knowledge acquisition capability in a firm’s non-market environment, specifically, the regulatory environment. Second, a self-developed scale was used to measure regulatory search and the results suggested that the non-local search conducted in the regulatory environment formed two independent factors, namely, reactive and proactive regulatory search, aligning with firms’ non-market strategies of positive anticipation/compliance and proactive participation/influence respectively. Third, a contingency analysis of the regulatory search-innovativeness link conditioned on a firm’s internal resource munificence (proxied by slack) was conducted. We found that slack moderated the relationship between the two regulatory search factors and innovativeness in different manners. Specifically, under a high (low) slack environme...

The home country of the MNE: The case of emerging economy firms

Research on multinational enterprises that originate from emerging economies has highlighted the importance of the home country for firms’ strategies of internationalization. In this paper, we outline a simple analytical framework linking institutions and resource munificence in the home country to the domestic business eco-system in an emerging economy, and thereby to strategies of outward investments. Specifically, we argue that businesses interact with each other in their home economy, and these patterns of interactions influence strategies of internationalization as companies not only compete with each other, but share resources, coordinate actions and serve as each other’s role model. Strategies of outward investment thus reflect the competition and collaboration in their home country business eco-system.

From resource munificence to ecosystem integration: the case of government sponsorship in St. Louis

Government sponsorship of entrepreneurship has become a popular policy tool in the last 15 years. Despite this popularity, past academic studies have largely focused on firm-level survival rates and treated the effects of government sponsorship in isolation, which fails to capture the full effect of the sponsorship. That is, the objectives of the public sector include enhancing the macro-level entrepreneurial environment of the region as well as the success of individual firms. We expand research in this area through a case study in St. Louis, Missouri. We focus on the Arch Grants, a public–private coalition that provides $50,000 to 20 winners through their annual competition. Based on interviews of 46 recipient firms and 15 support organizations, we first demonstrate how government sponsorship can create a cohort of entrepreneurs who are able to learn from each other about business strategy, local mentors and other resources. Second, we uncover the process through which sponsorship can facilitate coordination among local entrepreneurship support organizations. Thus, we conclude that the evaluation of government sponsorship should go beyond the traditional firm-level performance measurement and consider the integration and enhancement of the local entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Exploring the Determinants of Network Effectiveness: The Case of Neighborhood Governance Networks in Beijing

Based on the models proposed by Provan and Milward and Provan and Kenis, this article employed a mixed-methods approach to study the determinants of the effectiveness of governance networks. The article is based on 22 neighborhood governance networks in Beijing with each network consisting of public, business, and civic organizations. Linear regression was used to identify independent variables that exert statistically significant influence over network effectiveness, and the fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis was used to investigate the complex interactions between explanatory variables. The analysis revealed different but functionally equivalent configurations of causal conditions that led to network effectiveness and showed that configurations of factors leading to network effectiveness were different from those leading to network ineffectiveness. The results also suggested that network structural characteristics such as network centralization and density are neither sufficient nor necessary conditions for network effectiveness. In contrast to Provan and Milward’s findings, the results suggest that network density is more important than network centralization in affecting effectiveness in small networks. Resource munificence was identified as an “almost always” necessary condition for network effectiveness.

HOW TO MAKE PUBLIC NETWORKS REALLY WORK: A QUALITATIVE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Many studies have striven to understand which factors affect the performance of public networks. However, there are very few studies in the field of public management that investigate the joint, interactive effects of different determinants on network performance. This article uses the relatively new method of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to investigate the complex causality of determinants and network performance. It examines the combination of resource munificence, centralization of the network structure, formalization of coordination mechanisms, network management and their joint effects on network performance. An analysis of 12 Swiss networks providing home and social care services shows that there are a range of possible paths. Various combinations of the above‐mentioned factors can in fact lead to high network performance. The paths provide insight into how to make public networks really work.

The configuration of corporate venturing logics: An integrated resource dependence and institutional perspective

In this paper, we use an integrated resource dependence and institutional perspective to examine how parent companies and their corporate venturing (CV) programs negotiate and construct their venturing logic. Building on prior CV configuration research, we develop a theoretically grounded typology consisting of eight CV logics. Our typology holistically integrates aspects of institutional duality and competing logics with the influence of mutual resource dependencies and power imbalances arising from the three-way interplay between the parent company, the CV program, and the external environment. In particular, our typology captures the effects of the relative resource munificence of the external environment on the bilateral dependence between the parent company and the CV program, and on the emergence of either existing distinct venturing logics or unique hybrid logics. These eight venturing logics provide guidance with respect to the optimal configurations of CV programs, both in times of economic crisis and in times of economic plenty. We conclude by discussing implications for the CV and broader corporate entrepreneurship literatures.

Building Service Delivery Networks: Partnership Evolution Among Children's Behavioral Health Agencies in Response to New Funding.

Meeting the complex needs of youth with behavioral health problems requires a coordinated network of community-based agencies. Although fiscal scarcity or retrenchment can limit coordinated services, munificence can stimulate service delivery partnerships as agencies expand programs, hire staff, and spend more time coordinating services. This study examines the 2-year evolution of referral and staff expertise sharing networks in response to substantial new funding for services within a regional network of children's mental health organizations. Quantitative network survey data were collected from directors of 22 nonprofit organizations that receive funding from a county government-based behavioral health service fund. Both referral and staff expertise sharing networks changed over time, but results of a stochastic actor-oriented model of network dynamics suggest the nature of this change varies for these networks. Agencies with higher numbers of referral and staff expertise sharing partners tend to maintain these ties and/or develop new relationships over the 2 years. Agencies tend to refer to agencies they trust, but trust was not associated with staff expertise sharing ties. However, agencies maintain or form staff expertise sharing ties with referral partners, or with organizations that provide similar services. In addition, agencies tend to reciprocate staff expertise sharing, but not referrals. Findings suggest that during periods of resource munificence and service expansion, behavioral health organizations build service delivery partnerships in complex ways that build upon prior collaborative history and coordinate services among similar types of providers. Referral partnerships can pave the way for future information sharing relationships.