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Corporate spin-offs have become more popular as a restructuring technique in recent decades. The market performance of these spun-off subsidiaries has been considered critical, as positive market signals are vital to the success of these newly independent firms. Drawing on both the stewardship and resource dependence theories, this study aims to examine how two critical governance characteristics (namely, CEO duality and board size) affect the change in the market valuation of spun-off subsidiaries. This study proposes that both board size and CEO duality of spun-off subsidiaries should positively influence the change in market valuation.

This study used the SDC Platinum database to identify completed corporate US spin-offs between 2000 and 2014. To ensure consistency across spin-off events, this study included only those in which 100 percent of outstanding shares of spun-off subsidiaries were distributed. The study confirmed the SDC Platinum listings using online resources such as The Wall Street Journal and Lexis/Nexis. The study used weighted least square (WLS) regression to test all the proposed models.

This empirical analysis of 134 US-based spin-offs supported both main hypotheses. Furthermore, the analysis also finds that firm size has significant moderating effects on the link between governance structure and market performance.

These findings contribute to the governance literature on corporate spin-offs by advancing our understanding of the role of CEO and board characteristics in improving these subsidiaries' market valuation, as well as the moderating effect of the firm size.

How do business groups manage their internal processes? The purpose of this paper is to explore how board interlocks between members serve as control and coordination mechanisms within business groups. The authors propose that centrality of groups’ affiliates in the group network of interlocking directorates is shaped by agency and resource dependence forces. In particular, the authors examine the role of international board ties as a resource and information conduit.

This study leverages proprietary information on firm-to-firm transaction ties among all 155 affiliates belonging to a large Italian business group. The authors use network analysis to develop multiple measures of the centrality of each group member, and link these to resource transactions, ownership patterns and geographic distributions. The authors test the hypotheses in a structural equation model using LISREL.

The results demonstrate that both resource exchanges and the presence of cross-national relations increase an affiliate’s central position in the group’s network of board ties. In contrast, ownership ties between members were unrelated to affiliate centrality.

Internal governance mechanisms of business groups are rarely studied. While groups are often portrayed as inefficient or value-destroying, the analysis of proprietary firm data suggests a very different scenario: inter-unit ties are much more supportive of a model of business groups as strategic portfolios, using internal ties to share information and resources.

Vladimir Nabokov's 1954 novel Lolita is one of the most frequently mentioned works in discussions of censorship, probably because of its undeniable literary merit and the enthusiasm with which its detractors and defenders have condemned and praised it. It has been condemned as pornography for its sexual content and as depravity for its unusual and even shocking subject matter, and has been praised as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

Managerial constraint is a central theme in strategic management research. Although discussed using a variety of labels (including choice and determinism) and theoretical perspectives (including resource dependence and population ecology), the common question is the degree to which executives have choices or options when making decisions. Two of the most commonly used approaches for discussing constraint are organizational task environments (Dess & Beard, 1984) and managerial discretion (Hambrick & Finkelstein, 1987). These two papers share substantial commonalities in both their theoretical background and operationalization, raising the question of whether discretion and task environment are indeed separate constructs. This chapter reviews both conceptual and methodological issues associated with the use of task environment and discretion. Drawing on a review of published studies and original data analysis, we offer methodological suggestions for future research.

In this volume, we take the baton from previous editors Dave Ketchen and Don Bergh in the Research Methodology in Strategy and Management series. Our approach is to stand on the shoulders of these editors and authors who have published in the series. So, we begin, in this chapter, by highlighting innovative work published in this volume that has provided actionable and practical suggestions for problems researchers face in their work. We briefly describe the chapters, including the first two chapters in this volume from Kathleen M. Eisenhardt and Dennis Gioia, and introduce new methodologies and tools to guide researchers in their efforts to build high quality, publishable work. We also describe future work that, in our view, needs to be addressed for the fields of strategic management in particular and management more generally to continue to evolve.

The field of strategic management has advanced substantially in both theory and empirical research over the last 25 years. However, there are “cracks” beginning to occur in the methodology “dam.” To grow as a discipline, strategic management research must meet and deal effectively with methodological challenges in several areas. We address these challenges in each of the following areas: research questions, data collection, construct measurement, analysis of endogenous relationships, and applications. We present a concise view of the future suggesting ways in which these challenges can be overcome and explain the benefits to the field.

Designing a top-quality research study is a complex challenge. We introduce the research design canvas as a tool to help researchers manage this complexity and create better studies. Completing a research design canvas requires researchers to a priori articulate one or more research questions, identify a gap in the literature in need of closing, select a guiding theory or theories, construct hypotheses, choose a sample, select measures, recognize boundary conditions, plot a data analysis strategy, ascertain a study’s limitations, clarify the value added of key research partners, pinpoint a target journal for potential publication, and think ahead about their backup plans in case the research process goes awry. Many studies are doomed to bad fates by poor decisions about these elements. Using the research design canvas can help researchers ensure that they have selected a valid approach to each element, reason through the interrelationships among each decision point within the canvas to ensure that there is consistency among them, and critically assess whether the design as a whole provides the basis for a new advance. By doing so, scholars may be able to improve their chances of defying the high rejection rates of leading journals.

Purpose: At a conference inspired by Hans Christian Andersen, this chapter makes the case for his shadowy American contemporary, Edgar Allan Poe.

Methodology: Employing a comparative literary analysis, it contends that consumer culture theory (CCT) can learn more from Poe’s quothful raven than Andersen’s ugly duckling.

Findings: Principally that Poe’s Ps of Perversity, Pugnacity, and Poetry are particularly pertinent to an adolescent, self-harm-prone subdiscipline that’s struggling to find itself and make its way in the world.

Originality: Poe and Andersen’s names rarely appear in the same sentence. They do now.