Role Of Ambiguity Research Articles

Knowledge Acquisition in International Strategic Alliances: The Role of Knowledge Ambiguity

Although prior research has emphasized the importance of international strategic alliances, we have incomplete understanding of how and why some firms succeed in acquiring knowledge from foreign partners, but others fail. We advance understanding of this important issue by examining (1) two key antecedents of knowledge ambiguity (the perceived difficulty of understanding the causal effects of partner’s knowledge and the use of such knowledge) and (2) by identifying how firms can partly overcome the negative effects of knowledge ambiguity on knowledge acquisition in international alliances. Drawing on organizational learning theory, our analysis not only shows (and explains how) knowledge ambiguity affects international knowledge acquisition through the interaction with absorptive capacity, but also identifies what alliance partners can do to reduce knowledge ambiguity and overcome some of its negative consequences, such as choosing foreign partners with a similar institutional context and building strong relationships with such partners.

The Impact of Coaching Leadership on In-Role Performance of Employees—Based on the Perspective of Social Information Processing Theory

As a new way of leadership, coaching leadership behavior is receiving more and more attention from experts and scholars. Although studies have shown that coaching leadership behavior significantly improves employee performance, there are few studies on how coaching leadership behavior affects and under what circumstances it can affect the in-role performance of employees. Based on the social information-processing theory, this paper discusses the impact of coaching leadership behavior on the in-role performance of employees and its internal mechanism—the mediating role of role ambiguity and the social alertness. Through the investigation and analysis of 224 employees, the coaching leadership behavior has a significant positive impact on the in-role performance of employees; the employee role ambiguity has played a partial intermediary role in this process; In addition, the social astuteness of employees is positively moderating the relationship between coaching leadership behavior and employee role ambiguity, the higher employee’s social astuteness, the stronger the weakening effect of coaching leadership behavior on employee role ambiguity, and the mediating effect of role ambiguity on role performance is enhanced.

수학학습에서 모호성의 역할

This study focused on the positive potential of ambiguity in mathematics teaching and learning, and on identifying the role of ambiguity in specific classroom scenes. To do this, students’ perceived ambiguity in problem solving was analyzed. As a result, it was identified that with the aspects of unintentional ambiguity avoidance, intentional ambiguity avoidance, refinement of ambiguity and resolution, and at each stage they could have different mathematical experiences.

The Necessity of Ambiguity in Self-Other Processing: A Psychosocial Perspective With Implications for Mental Health.

While distinguishing between the actions and physical boundaries of self and other (non-self) is usually straightforward there are contexts in which such differentiation is challenging. For example, self–other ambiguity may occur when actions of others are similar or complementary to those of the self. Even in the absence of such situational challenges, individuals experiencing hallucinations have difficulties with this distinction, often experiencing thoughts or actions of self as belonging to other agents. This paper explores the role of ambiguity in self–other differentiation, drawing from developmental, psychodynamic, and neurocognitive perspectives. A key proposal is that engagement in contexts that make distinctions between self and other challenging yet necessary allow reality-testing skills related to agency to develop. Attunement in typical caregiver–infant interactions is framed as a safe but inherently ambiguous environment that provides optimal condition for the infant to develop a coherent self–other sense. Vulnerability to psychosis may be related to limited access to such an environment in early development. However, the perceptual, cognitive, and social skills that contribution to attribution are likely to be malleable following infancy and improve though opportunities for boundary play in similarly ambiguous settings. Using music-making to illustrate, we postulate that engagement in intricate joint-actions that blurs agentic boundaries can contribute to the continued development of an adaptive sense of self and other essential to healthy social functioning. Increased insight into the self–other ambiguity may enhance our understanding of mechanisms underlying “self-disorders” such as schizophrenia and eventually extend the range of social and arts-based therapeutic possibilities.

Influence of leadership style, training, role of ambiguity on employee performance of higher education of Saudi Arabia (KSA)

Influence of leadership style, training, role of ambiguity on employee performance of higher education of Saudi Arabia (KSA)

Partially dead, partially separated: establishing the mechanism between ambiguous loss and grief reaction among caregivers of patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness

Objectives: To trace the psychological mechanism underlying caregivers’ emotional experience in prolonged disorders of consciousness, by examining the mediating role of boundary ambiguity in the relationship between ambiguous loss and grief. Design: Cross-sectional design. Setting: The Respiratory Rehabilitation Division of a long-term medical and rehabilitation institute. Subjects: A total of 64 primary caregivers (69% female) of patients in a vegetative state (n = 49) or minimally conscious state (n = 15), with a mean age of 55.5 (SD = 12.3) years. Participants were mostly the patient’s children (62%) or partners (27%). The mean caregiving duration was 4.9 (SD = 5.1) years. Main measures: The Boundary Ambiguity Scale, the Revised Need for Closure Scale, an adapted version of the multifactor Two-Track Bereavement Questionnaire, and a sociodemographic questionnaire, which included items regarding caregiving: frequency of visits and perception of the patient’s psychological presence. Results: (1) Caregivers’ grief scores (total TTBQ: mean = 2.97; SD = 0.55) did not significantly differ from those exhibited by a normative bereavement sample. (2) Time since injury did not affect caregivers’ grief scores (three-year cut-point; P > .05). (3) Mediation analyses revealed that boundary ambiguity (mean = 34.03; SD = 7.55) significantly mediates the relationship between need for closure (B = .11; confidence interval (CI) = .04–.23) and grief; frequency of visits (B = .05, CI = .02–.10) and grief and perception of psychological presence (B = .26, CI = .00–.61) and grief in three separate models. Conclusion: Ambiguity concerning relational boundaries hinders caregivers’ ongoing grief reaction and impedes their ability to integrate the loss. High frequency of visits, belief in the patient’s psychological presence and difficulties in tolerating uncertainty are all clinical manifestations of caregivers’ entangled experience.

Effectiveness of eye movement modeling examples in problem solving: The role of verbal ambiguity and prior knowledge

Eye movement modeling examples (EMME) are video modeling examples with the model's eye movements superimposed. Thus far, EMME on problem-solving tasks seem to be effective for guiding students' attention, but this does not translate into higher learning outcomes. We therefore investigated the role of ambiguity of the verbal explanation and prior knowledge in the effectiveness of EMME on geometry problems. In Experiment 1, 57 university students observed EMME or regular video modeling examples (ME) with ambiguous verbal explanations. Eye-tracking data revealed that –as in prior research with unambiguous explanations- EMME successfully guided students' attention but did not improve test performance, possibly due to students' high prior knowledge. Therefore, Experiment 2, was conducted with 108 secondary education students who had less prior knowledge, using a 2 (EMME/ME) x 2 (ambiguous/unambiguous explanations) between-subjects design. Verbal ambiguity did not affect learning, but students in the EMME conditions outperformed those in the ME conditions.

Inter- professional categorization in accounting regulation

We examine the SEC’s Modernization of Oil and Gas Reserves project to highlight the role of categories and professional interactions in accounting regulation. Drawing from analysis of regulatory documents and interviews with key actors, we find that accounting and engineering professionals are engaged in mutually reinforcing category (re-) construction. Previous research has emphasized professional competition and neglected the important role of ambiguity, in our case associated with the characteristics of knowledge objects and technologies themselves. We view corporate financial reporting as networked and distributed, where intersecting complementary professional knowledge systems occupy the same reporting and regulatory space. In oil and gas reporting, the practices of identification, classification and estimation are fraught with uncertainty of the object. We find that, as a way to stabilize uncertainty, professionals collaborate on embedding ambiguity within the revised regulations, maintaining the categories, practices and measurement technologies, and acceptable ways of knowing the products.

Firm-Level Information Ambiguity and the Earnings Announcement Premium

We study the role of firm ambiguity on stock price reaction to earnings announcements. By using the firm’s variance risk premium (VRP) prior to earnings news arrivals as a proxy for firm-level information ambiguity, we provide evidence that this “micro” form of ambiguity has a significant positive impact on the earnings announcement market reaction. On average, a unit standard deviation increase in the firm’s VRP is associated with 0.33% increase in the firm’s three-day cumulative abnormal returns. We further show that the firm ambiguity is more influential than the market-level ambiguity in affecting the earnings announcement premium. Finally, consistent with predictions of the behavioural and regime-switching models of Barberis et al. (1998) and Veronesi (1999), we find that the news asymmetric effect on stock price returns decreases with firm-level ambiguity.

Accounting for ambiguity and trust in partial outsourcing: A behavioral real options perspective

Concerned with the hidden costs of outsourcing, this paper examines the role of ambiguity and trust in partial outsourcing decisions from the perspective of real options theory. We study pricing and quantity dynamics between an ambiguity averse vendor and a less (more) trusting client in a leader-follower framework with fixed timing. We find that a client's partial outsourcing quantity increases with the vendor's ambiguity if outsourcing is meant for cost-saving purposes. Meanwhile, the effect of trust on outsourcing quantity is jointly moderated by the vendor's ambiguity and quality of shared information forecasts when cost advantages are exaggerated. In terms of pricing effects, the vendor increases (decreases) their threshold with increasing ambiguity for long-term (short-term) contracts. These insights hold under the multiple-priors and worst-case ambiguity specification. When Choquet ambiguity and rank-dependent utility are considered, more complex and subtle dynamics are obtained. Ambiguity has additional non-linear effects on outsourcing quantity due to heterogeneity in ambiguity preferences (seeking versus aversion) and probability weighting. The vendor's price not only increases (decreases) with increasing ambiguity-seeking for long-term (short-term) contracts, but also with ambiguity aversion when specific risk-return conditions are met. Trust effects are qualitatively similar under both ambiguity specifications.

Inter-organizational knowledge acquisition and firms' radical innovation: A moderated mediation analysis

Inter-organizational knowledge acquisition has become an increasingly important strategy for firms to improve their levels of innovation. Building upon the knowledge-based view (KBV) and the organizational learning perspective, and using data from 376 high-tech Chinese firms, we examine the underlying mediating mechanisms and contextual conditions in the relationship between inter-organizational knowledge acquisition and firms' radical innovation. Our results demonstrate that inter-organizational knowledge acquisition has a significant positive impact on firms' radical innovation. We also find that realized absorptive capacity mediates the relationship between inter-organizational knowledge acquisition and firms' radical innovation. Moreover, we discover that knowledge ambiguity negatively moderates both the direct and indirect effects of inter-organizational knowledge acquisition on firms' radical innovation through realized absorptive capacity. Our findings contribute to open innovation research by discussing the mediating mechanisms of how inter-organizational knowledge acquisition can be converted to firm innovation via realized absorptive capacity. Our results also provide fine-grained insight into the contingent role of knowledge ambiguity, and how its interaction with inter-organizational knowledge acquisition and realized absorptive capacity can have profound effects on firms' innovativeness.

Ownership in the virtual world and the implications for long-term user innovation success

Virtual worlds have become an arena for user-generated innovation enabling a new wave of entrepreneurs to extract real world value from virtual property. Interestingly, virtual world property and revenue generation are understudied and the concept of ownership in the metaverse is distinct and more complex than in the real world. In this article, virtual user innovation and ownership are conceptualized in two layers: (1) the content, and (2) the virtual platform. In-depth case studies of virtual user innovators are used to understand the role of ownership ambiguity in relation to success in a virtual environment. The data consists of transcripts from courts (1279 pages), blogs, interviews and expert commentary regarding six virtual user innovators. The findings reveal that the separation of content and platform ownership and their inherent interdependencies are a source of ownership tensions posing significant challenges to entrepreneurs. Moreover, the virtual world business model favors the platform's ownership rights while undermining other kinds of competing ownership interests. The current structures around ownership rights and control seem detrimental for successful business creation, profitable technology development and long-term user innovation success. The implications for theory and the practical implications for virtual entrepreneurs are discussed.

Normative power Europe in crisis? Understanding the productive role of ambiguity for the EU’s transformative agenda

The Euro, refugees, Brexit, thriving right-wing populism and time and again a lack of coherence and consistency in EU foreign policy, as in Iraq 2003 or in Libya in 2011—seem to point to the EU in crisis. The idea of normative power Europe (NPE) essentially entails that the EU has a transformative impact on international society also outside its own borders. In light of such developments, the question arises whether such a transformative impact still seems possible. Rather than dealing with all such different moments of crisis, this article focuses on an alleged EU foreign policy crisis and asks whether—as NPE sceptics argue—inconsistencies and a lack of coherence in EU foreign policy undermines the idea of a transformative agenda and thus puts NPE to crisis. This article introduces the concept of ambiguity as a particular way of studying NPE. Ambiguity in this sense is an inevitable feature of the social world—of the EU as a global actor and of processes of change. Thus, the argument is put forward that ambiguity does not necessarily impinge on the EU’s transformative agenda. Rather than being an indication of a foreign policy crisis, the ambiguous nature of the EU and resulting ambiguous policies actually do underpin the EU’s transformational potential.

Learning as a Necessary but Not Sufficient Condition for Major Health Policy Change: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis Combining ACF and MSF

ABSTRACTFollowing the financial crisis, Bismarckian health systems underwent some major reforms. This article analyzes under which conditions major reforms occurred. To do so, it theoretically combines conditions from the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) to emphasize the added value of merging them to explain major policy change. By combining these two approaches, it is possible to present a more comprehensive picture of the reform processes, relying on the significance of both policy learning within actor coalitions (as particularly important in the ACF) and the role of ambiguity and timing (as particularly important in the MSF). Empirically, the article focuses on the health care reform packages from 2009 to 2013 in the four traditional European Bismarckian countries, Austria, Belgium, France and Germany. The analysis reveals learning as a necessary condition for major policy change. Consequently, a major reform only happens as a result of learning processes, either combined with a negotiated agreement, which presents a pure ACF-related configuration, or combined with a window of opportunity opening in the problem stream. The latter configuration thus confirms the need for integrating a condition from the MSF into the ACF to explain major policy change.

Sovereign Debt and Moral Hazard: The Role of Collective Action and Contractual Ambiguity

The ambiguous phrasing of pari passu (equal treatment) clauses in sovereign debt contracts has long baffled commentators. We show that in the presence of asymmetric information on a sovereign borrower's ability to pay, an uncertain clause gives rise to a collective action problem among creditors that can reduce sovereign moral hazard. By varying the clause, parties can calibrate a sovereign's expected default costs and payments to creditors and thereby optimally trade off the sovereign's moral hazard and (deadweight) default costs. As information asymmetry decreases, a pari passu clause becomes a coarser instrument for configuring creditors' incentives and mitigating moral hazard.

Clients and cases: ambiguity and the division of labour in professional service firms

PurposeBy drawing on a detailed case study of the work of tax consultants, the purpose of this paper is to develop a more detailed understanding of the role of ambiguity in professional work, and its relationship to the division of labour in professional service firms (PSFs).Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a three-year, longitudinal interpretive case study comprising 42 interviews, supplemented by observations and document data.FindingsThe research determines that processes of “obfuscation” and “privatisation” separate client work from case work. This maintains a division of labour between junior and senior professionals, which in turn facilitates financial leverage. The findings indicate that a more nuanced view on the role and origins of ambiguity is needed; particularly the role ambiguity plays in the division of labour. While inherent in professional work, ambiguity is also an effect of the way work processes are organised in order to obtain leverage.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is based on a case study. Therefore, the paper explores its topic in empirical detail, but at the same time calls for exploring the topic in different contexts. The paper encourages further research on the role ambiguity plays being constituted by structural arrangements, and on the way the core of professionalism is inverted by the division of labour. The paper highlights the value of detailed empirical approaches for understanding professional work.Practical implicationsThe paper draws attention to the way ambiguity becomes a part in sustaining a division of labour among professional workers, and to the importance of this in maintaining financial leverage as well as in creating a precarious work situation for junior professionals.Social implicationsThe paper raises concerns about the way professional work is legitimated in society as opposed to how it is constructed in PSFs.Originality/valueThe paper challenges prevalent notions of professional work as ambiguous, offering instead a way of engaging with professional work processes in detail, theoretically and methodologically. Traditional assumptions about the division of labour and the “core” of professional work are problematized, and traditional assumptions about ambiguity as a cause of specific structural arrangements are questioned.

Risk and ambiguity in 10-Ks: An examination of cash holding and derivatives use

We explore the role of ambiguity, as opposed to risk, in explaining firms' corporate financial policies. We create text based measures of ambiguity and risk for U.S. firms between 1995 and 2013. Measured ambiguity is high in for instance high tech industries, whereas the risk measure is high for homogeneous goods. Using within-firm variation to identify effects we find that greater ambiguity is associated with greater cash holdings and more risk with a higher probability of derivatives use. The results are in line with a simple model of liquidity management with ambiguity averse agents.

Positive fEMG Patterns with Ambiguity in Paintings.

Whereas ambiguity in everyday life is often negatively evaluated, it is considered key in art appreciation. In a facial EMG study, we tested whether the positive role of visual ambiguity in paintings is reflected in a continuous affective evaluation on a subtle level. We presented ambiguous (disfluent) and non-ambiguous (fluent) versions of Magritte paintings and found that M. Zygomaticus major activation was higher and M. corrugator supercilii activation was lower for ambiguous than for non-ambiguous versions. Our findings reflect a positive continuous affective evaluation to visual ambiguity in paintings over the 5 s presentation time. We claim that this finding is indirect evidence for the hypothesis that visual stimuli classified as art, evoke a safe state for indulging into experiencing ambiguity, challenging the notion that processing fluency is generally related to positive affect.

Beyond the Binary: Exploring the Role of Ambiguity in Biphobia and Transphobia

ABSTRACTA sample of 273 college students who were heterosexual completed measures of religious fundamentalism and three aspects of social cognition to test the proposition that there are key differences between the bases of different sexual and gender prejudices (homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia). Specifically, because bisexuality and transgenderism are ambiguous by nature, with bisexuality challenging the sexual orientation binary and transgenderism challenging the gender binary, it was predicted that fear of invalidity and possibly need for structure would be associated with greater biphobia and transphobia, but not homophobia, over and above the general effect of religious fundamentalism. Need for cognition was predicted to be associated with lower prejudice across homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. Results were supportive of the predictions, with fear of invalidity being associated with transphobia and biphobia, but not homophobia, even after controlling for religious fundamentalism and the other social cognition variables.

How does cultural intelligence affect organisational culture: the mediating role of cross-cultural role conflict, ambiguity, and overload

Drawing on the tenets of role stress theory for insight into the cross-cultural and relational effects of role stressors, adaptability and organisation, we explain the mediating effect of these stressors to identify the extent of relationships across a broad scope of cultural settings. The current study examines cross-cultural role conflict, ambiguity and overload – the three role stressors – as mediators of the relationship between cultural intelligence and organisational culture. Survey data were collected from 299 employees across high-risk industries in four countries: Australia, the United Kingdom, United States of America and Singapore. Results demonstrated that cultural intelligence is positively related to organisational culture, while cross-cultural role conflict, ambiguity and overload are negatively associated with organisational culture. Moreover, results from mediation analysis highlighted that cross-cultural role conflict, ambiguity and overload partially mediate the relationship between cultural intelligence and organisational culture, providing a broader understanding of its connective influence both locally and in a cross-border setting. Implications for theory and managerial practice, along with avenues for future research, are discussed.