Signaling Theory: A Review and Assessment Connelly, Brian L.; Certo, S. Trevis; Ireland, R. Duane ...
Journal of Management,
01/2011, Volume:
37, Issue:
1
Book Review, Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Signaling theory is useful for describing behavior when two parties (individuals or organizations) have access to different information. Typically, one party, the sender, must choose whether and how ...to communicate (or signal) that information, and the other party, the receiver, must choose how to interpret the signal. Accordingly, signaling theory holds a prominent position in a variety of management literatures, including strategic management, entrepreneurship, and human resource management. While the use of signaling theory has gained momentum in recent years, its central tenets have become blurred as it has been applied to organizational concerns. The authors, therefore, provide a concise synthesis of the theory and its key concepts, review its use in the management literature, and put forward directions for future research that will encourage scholars to use signaling theory in new ways and to develop more complex formulations and nuanced variations of the theory.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Using resource–based logic, we integrate and extend theory and research on familiness and innovation in family firms. Supporting our efforts to do this is the suggestion that recent mixed results ...regarding the ability of family firms to innovate are at least partially accounted for by the failure to fully consider the importance of resource bundling processes as a mediator of the relationship between familiness as a unique organizational resource and innovation. Specifically, we suggest that the individual components of the resource bundling process—stabilizing, enriching, and pioneering—each mediate the relationship between familiness and innovation, and that these mediation effects account for at least part of the previously reported inconsistent results. Using theory and by integrating insights about familiness, innovation, and resource bundling, we seek to provide a more complete model of conditions affecting family firms’ ability to innovate.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
We address current criticisms of the RBV (oversight of dynamism, environmental contingencies, and managers' role) by linking value creation in dynamic environmental contexts to the management of firm ...resources. Components of the resource management model include structuring the resource portfolio; bundling resources to build capabilities; and leveraging capabilities to provide value to customers, gain a competitive advantage, and create wealth for owners. Propositions linking resource management and value creation are offered to shape future research.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
The informal economy consists of economic activities that occur outside of formal institutional boundaries but which remain within informal institutional boundaries for large segments of society. We ...draw from diverse disciplines to frame research concerning entrepreneurship in the informal economy around three separate theories: institutional theory, motivation-related theories from a sociological perspective, and resource allocation theory. Each of these theories provides a complementary lens through which to examine the incentives, constraints, motivations, strategies, and abilities of entrepreneurs to operate and grow their ventures in the informal economy. Employing these theoretical perspectives facilitates efforts to highlight the breadth of informal economy research in different domains and lays foundations for future entrepreneurship research.
► We frame informal economy research within three separate theories. ► Institutional theory, motivation-related theories, and resource allocation theory frame informal economy research. ► Each framing is used to develop propositions that may serve as a foundation for future research.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPUK
Management researchers rely frequently on theoretical perspectives originating in North American and European contexts. Given the influences context has on scholarship, the question becomes if using ...primarily Western theories provides researchers with the design insights needed to capture the robust context of the setting in which they conduct their studies. Herein, we seek to establish a foundation for developing fertile exchanges of ideas regarding contextualized management research. To do this, we examine some of the main theories in management studies through the heuristic lens of an ‘open systems’ framework that allows us to build on comparative management and institutional theories. We discuss existing theory advances in selected areas of management studies, including corporate governance, strategic management, entrepreneurship, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) to offer avenues for future research. Completing studies with a solid grounding in contextualized management theories has the potential to provide novel research avenues and opportunities to integrate diverse theoretical perspectives. We also identify a need for multidisciplinary research, epistemological openness, and methodological pluralism.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Corporate entrepreneurship strategy (CES) represents a firm’s coordinated efforts towards entrepreneurship and is an over-arching strategic approach that may be suitable for diverse types of ...organizations and industries. Yet, it remains on the knowledge frontier because the actual implementation of this strategy remains a challenge for many organizations. CES is built upon three internal elements: an entrepreneurial strategic vision, a pro-entrepreneurship organizational architecture, and entrepreneurial processes and behaviors. We integrate CES with the precepts of configuration theory to extend our knowledge boundaries in order to suggest a proper alignment of these elements for successful CES implementation. By examining the relationship between external CES fit (conceptualized and operationalized as ‘matched’ linkages between the external environment and the internal elements of CES) and internal CES fit (conceptualized and operationalized as aligning the internal elements of CES in a manner consistent with a specified ‘ideal’ profile), as well as the relationship between internal CES fit and firm performance, our results suggest that the fit of these elements is associated with greater financial performance.
Full text
Available for:
CEKLJ, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Our knowledge of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) continues to expand. However, this knowledge remains quite fragmented and non–cumulative. Herein, we conceptualize CE strategy as a useful focal point ...for integrating and synthesizing key elements within CE's intellectual domain. The components of our CE strategy model include (1) the antecedents of CE strategy (i.e., individual entrepreneurial cognitions of the organization's members and external environmental conditions that invite entrepreneurial activity), (2) the elements of CE strategy (i.e., top management's entrepreneurial strategic vision for the firm, organizational architectures that encourage entrepreneurial processes and behavior, and the generic forms of entrepreneurial process that are reflected in entrepreneurial behavior), and (3) the outcomes of CE strategy (i.e., organizational outcomes resulting from entrepreneurial actions, including the development of competitive capability and strategic repositioning). We discuss how our model contributes to the CE literature, distinguish our model from prior models, and identify challenges future CE research should address.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The eclectic and pervasive benefits of entrepreneurship are generating research questions that interest scholars in a variety of disciplines. These questions have been primarily examined within the ...context of a scholar's home discipline while ignoring insights from other disciplines. This approach has left entrepreneurship research as a widely dispersed, loosely connected domain of issues. In this review, the authors explore entrepreneurship research in accounting, anthropology, economics, finance, management, marketing, operations management, political science, psychology, and sociology. They seek to identify common interests that can serve as a bridge for scholars interested in using a multitheoretic and multimethodological lens to design and complete entrepreneurship studies.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
In this article, the authors discuss how an emerging research stream, which they term resource orchestration, has the potential to extend the understanding of resource-based theory (RBT) by ...explicitly addressing the role of managers’ actions to effectively structure, bundle, and leverage firm resources. First, the authors review this emerging stream by comparing two related frameworks, resource management and asset orchestration. This comparison leads to their integration, which enables a more precise understanding of managers’ roles within RBT. Then the authors discuss what is known and what remains to be known about resource orchestration. This leads to in-depth reviews of three areas where research on resource orchestration can be used to extend RBT. These areas are (1) breadth (resource orchestration across the scope of the firm), (2) life cycle (resource orchestration at various stages of firm maturity), and (3) depth (resource orchestration across levels of the firm). They close with a discussion of future research that will extend resource orchestration and contribute to a more robust RBT.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Research findings have established a relationship between organizational size and a substantial set of organizational outcomes, resulting in size's distinction as "perhaps the most powerful ...explanatory organizational covariate in strategic analysis". We draw on the theory of the firm to provide a theory-driven definition of firm size and as a framework to organize the diverse research on firm size. We examine studies over the last 20 plus years since the last review of research on organizational size that have expanded our understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of larger firms, the environmental factors that have changed the merits of firms relative to markets, the managerial bias to pursue growth, and the most recent findings on the performance implications of organizational size. In doing so, the review provides extensions to our understanding of the theory of the firm, by integrating contingency theory, the resource-based theory of the firm, leadership theories, and the knowledge-based view of the firm. In addition, based on an extensive review of the measurement methodologies for the most common control variable employed by strategy scholars, this review outlines a rich and robust set of opportunities for future research to explore the nature of organizational size and its effects.
