Organizational effectiveness

Outsourcing has become a significant factor in the U.S. economy over the past two decades. Annual report disclosures made by a firm related to outsourcing are voluntary disclosures. Understanding the determinants and firm performance implications of initial outsourcing annual report disclosures is important to capital market providers, standards developers, and to the firms themselves. I identify and study firms making initial voluntary disclosures of outsourcing in their annual reports on Form 10-K between 1993 and 2003 after they make non-annual report related public disclosures. Specifically, I investigate if determinants of the initial annual report disclosure decision and subsequent performance are associated with the initial disclosure. This study contends managers disclose information related to outsourcing in their annual reports to reduce information asymmetry and to minimize agency costs. I hypothesize and develop a firm-related variable commonly used in agency theory to test this assertion. Signaling theory and voluntary disclosure theory also explain the determinants for firm voluntary outsourcing annual report disclosures. I develop several hypotheses defining determinants potentially associated with the likelihood of initial annual report outsourcing disclosure decisions, and test these determinants using a conditional logistic regression model and a matched-pair group of firms making public outsourcing disclosures but not making annual report disclosure. Using signaling theory, I also develop hypotheses testing if the initial outsourcing annual report disclosure sends a signal regarding future firm performance--specifically testing firm performance measures related to profitability and cash flow. I test these hypotheses using OLS models and the same matched-pair group of firms. I find firms with high levels of debt, high total cost ratios, and high returns on assets are more likely to make initial annual report outsourcing disclosure.

I examine the presence of earnings management at pre-IPO and lockup periods. Motivated by significant post-lockup insider sales documented in prior research, I investigate whether insiders (managers and venture capitalists) inflate earnings around the lockup period in order to increase share price and maximize personal wealth from selling shares at lockup expiration. I also compare levels of earnings management in the pre-IPO and lockup periods with those in the post-lockup period. Prior research also documents that auditor quality mitigates earnings management behavior. I explore the impact of auditor quality in the unique setting of IPO lockups. ... Cross-sectional analysis reveals that my sample IPO firms also utilize real-activities manipulation, but only in the early pre-IPO period. The results are robust with respect to alternative abnormal accruals and real-activities measures. I also find that IPO firms that hire prestigious auditors experience less earnings management in the lockup period than firms with lower-quality auditors, after controlling for the monitoring role of venture capitalist and underwriter reputation.

Research linking marketing to financial outputs has been gaining significance in the marketing discipline. The pertinent questions are, therefore: how can marketing improve measures of firm performance and draw potential investors to the company, and where is the quantitative proof to back up these assertions? This research investigates the role of marketing expenditures in the context of initial public offerings (IPOs). The proposed theoretical framework comes from marketing and finance literature, and uses econometric models to test the hypotheses. First, we replicate the results of a previous study by Luo (2008) showing a relationship between the firm's pre-IPO marketing spending and IPO underpricing. Next, we extend the previous study by looking at the IPO's long-run returns, types of risk, analyst coverage, and market/industry characteristics. The results of this study, based on a sample of 2,103 IPOs from 1996 to 2008, suggest that increased marketing spending positively impac ts firm performance. We examine different measures of firm performance, such as risk and long-run performance, whose results are important to the firm, its shareholders, and potential investors. This study analyzes the impact marketing spending has on IPO characteristics (IPO underpricing in the short-run and cumulative abnormal returns in the long run); risk characteristics (systematic, unsystematic, bankruptcy risk, and total risk); analyst coverage characteristics (the number of analysts, optimistic coverage, and forecast error) and market characteristics (market volatility and industry type). We control for variables such as firm size, profitability, and IPO characteristics. In this paper, the results show that increased marketing spending lowers underpricing, lowers bankruptcy risk, lowers total risk, leads to greater analyst coverage, leads to more favorable analyst coverage, and lowers analyst forecast error. For theory, this paper advances the literature on the

I investigate the association between large shareholder heterogeneity and firms' accounting quality and information asymmetry. Specifically, I construct three measures of ownership heterogeneity based on the type, size, and monitoring aggressiveness of large shareholders present in a firm. Applying these three measures of heterogeneity, I examine whether large shareholder heterogeneity is associated with the variation in firms' accounting quality and information asymmetry. I also examine new block formations to provide evidence on the consequences of large shareholder investment on firms' accounting quality and information asymmetry. I find that the monitoring aggressiveness of large shareholders is positively associated with firms' accounting quality and information asymmetry. These findings suggest that large aggressive shareholders constrain earnings management, but contribute to firms' overall information asymmetry. Further, using new blockholder data, I find that investments by large aggressive shareholders are positively associated with firms' accounting quality and firms' information asymmetry in the post investment period. This finding provides additional support to my hypotheses that large shareholders play an important role in firms' accounting quality and information asymmetry.

This study investigates the relationship of executive fire officers' use of strategic thinking skills and their proficiency using information and communication technology. A non-experimental quantitative study design was employed. The study consisted of 400 graduates of the National Fire Academy's Executive Fire Officer Program. The use of strategic thinking skills was measured by the Strategic Thinking Questionnaire (STQv6) (Pisapia & Reyes-Guerra, 2007). The use of information and communication technology tools was measured by the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Fluency Questionnaire (Hilberg, 2007). The EFOs' strategic thinking capabilities of systems thinking (3.58 +/- .447) and reflecting (3.82 +/- .445) compared to previously reported samples from the literature, both empirically and theoretically. Depending upon the sample, some means were significantly higher and others were significantly lower. The strategic thinking questionnaire and the ICT fluency questionnaire were not directly correlated to one another ; however, there were some strong correlations within their subscales. ICT fluency and ICT comfort were highly correlated (r = .516), as well as systems thinking and reflecting (r = .688) at the 0.05 level. There was a significant correlation between age and ICT comfort (r = -.235), as well as between years of experience and ICT comfort (r = -.203) at the 0.05 level. Age moderated the relationship between systems thinking*reflection, and ICT comfort. Race moderated the relationship between systems thinking*reflection, and ICT education/training. This research was significant because it was the first time that Executive Fire Officers have been studied regarding their strategic thinking capabilities and their information and communications technology fluency.

This study examined and compared the developmental experiences of leaders who have successfully developed their capacities to engage in and maintain a vision and practice for sustainability over time in themselves and others in business, education and community. Through the application of grounded theory as a systematic comparative method for the analysis of qualitative data, the study generated a substantive theory of leadership called regenerative leadership. This leadership approach is especially relevant at a time when humankind is faced with accelerating change and increasing evidence that numerous natural and social systems at the global level have reached or are rapidly approaching points of overshoot and collapse. Among the major findings, the study revealed that the more evolved sustainability leaders are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the construct of sustainability, and indicate the need for a profound cultural shift towards regenerative human systems. In this framework, regenerative organizations are driven by a sense higher purpose, and leadership is exercised heterarchically. Leaders and followers engage in generative conversations to create desirable futures which are then backcasted to eliminate unanticipated consequences. Throughout, participants emphasized the critical importance of engaging in personal and collective consciousness development or "inner work" in order to make regenerative practices possible.

There is a growing need to better understand what influences user behavior for developing comprehensive IT security systems. This study integrates two prominent bodies of research, the theory of planned behavior used to frame the factors influencing user behavior and individual level climate perceptions used to frame organizational environment influences, to develop a multidimensional IT security user behavior model. The model is then used as the basis for a survey based research to empirically test the hypotheses whether the perceived IT security climate of an organization significantly influences the users beliefs regarding the use of IT security. The intent of the study is to extend the theory of planned behavior and IT security literature by investigating salient IT security beliefs and environmental influences on those beliefs. First, anti-spyware was identified as an appropriate target IT security artifact, and then incorporated into a multi-phased research approach. Second, a semi-structured interview process was used to elicit salient beliefs regarding use of the IT security artifact. Third, IT security psychological climate was conceptualized based on the extant literature on organizational climate, safety climate and IT security in order to examine the organizational environment influences on these beliefs. Finally, a survey was used to collect data to validate the constructs and test the hypothesized relationships.

This study examined organizational member and housing staff perceptions of organizational culture and effectiveness of residence hall associations. Two instruments, the Residence Hall Government (RHA) Effectiveness Instrument designed by Tucker (2001) and the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) designed by Cameron and Quinn (1999, 2006) were utilized to gather quantitative data, while individual interviews and focus groups were conducted utilizing selected questions from the Interview Questions for Doing a Competing Values Organizational Analysis (Quinn 1988) to collect qualitative data. A mixed methodology was utilized to collect and analyze data from three sites yielding 217 assessments, 27 interviews, and 6 student focus groups with members of residence hall associations during the spring 2008 semester. The study indicated that there is a positive relationship between all ideal culture type scores identified by the OCAI and effectiveness constructs identified by the RHA Effectiveness Instrument. Additionally, there is a difference in the perceptions of Clan and Hierarchy ideal culture type scores and Housing Relationship and RHA Effects effectiveness construct scores based upon housing staff membership or RHA Legislative Body membership. Furthermore, the research indicated that level of student involvement, emphasis on leadership development and training, patterns of communication and teamwork, financial resources, implementation of rules and procedures, roles in program planning, student voice, member evaluation, collaborative partnerships with host housing departments, and relationships with university Student Government were constructs for the development of organizational culture and influenced the organizational effectiveness of RHAs. Recommendations are provided for the organizational development and evaluation of residence hall associations.

The ability to understand the individuals that we deal with on a daily basis can give anyone who focuses on this knowledge a competitive advantage in today's business world. In today's fast paced and globally expanding business world, it is critical to explore innovative approaches that will facilitate the process and time it typically takes to establish business relationships. When it is imperative to quickly create a business relationship between individuals that are unknown to each other, identifying the city or region of the individual with whom a relationship is being formed and understanding that culture will help build a common ground which will facilitate and enhance the newly established working relationship. This paper shows how this can be achieved.