Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2016, Management

High-technology firms struggle to remain relevant in the relentless challenge to innovate in today's high-velocity dynamic markets. One of the most difficult challenges is knowing how to walk the fine line between disruptive or explorative innovations and incremental or exploitative innovations. Leaders struggle with how to switch from one set of innovation disciplines to the other, for example, going from "doing the right things" as a dynamic and entrepreneurial framework focused on disruption---which leverages outlier or inimitable knowledge or assets---to "doing things right," with an entirely different framework motivating technical efficiency. Most of the academic literature focuses on innovation management at the firm level and corresponding process frameworks. Far less attention is paid to how individual technology leaders use managerial capabilities to successfully deliver innovation through the firm's dynamic capabilities framework. The dissertation covers the motivation, detailed research questions, methods, research design, and key findings around this theme of leadership behaviors that contribute to innovation. We also review the implications of the findings for academia and practice. Our research inquiry follows a sequential exploratory mixed-methods research design that combines qualitative and quantitative inquiry. Using a grounded theory approach, the study conducts semi-structured ethnographic interviews among a theoretical sample comparing high-technology firms at key inflection points of growth, decline, and recovery. Based on the findings, a theoretical model is elaborated based on leadership factors underpinning dynamic capabilities. Two quantitative studies from surveys of R and D leaders and their multi-raters from individual companies are analyzed using structural equation modeling (PLS). Triangulation of all three studies finds that an innovation leader's capacity to influence strategic change through the use of managerial dynamic capabil (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Richard Boyatzis (Committee Chair); Diana Bilimoria (Committee Member); Christopher Laszlo (Committee Member); Kalle Lyytinen (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration; Management

Doctor of Management, Case Western Reserve University, 2020, Weatherhead School of Management

Technology disruption is radically challenging contemporary business models forcing business leaders to adopt and innovate continuously. Numerous studies have documented factors that determine the success or failure of technology adoption and the timing of adoption. However, there is a lack of studies that examine the specific means through which CEO leadership and capabilities influence IT-business alignment and the timing of technology adoption. In this mixed-methods study, I extend the concept of dynamic managerial capability theory to examine the effect of the transformational leadership characters of a CEO and his or her influence on IT and business alignment. This also includes the timing of technology adoption using the lens of diffusion of innovations theory. I also examine how the chief information officer (CIO) behaviors influence moderates this relationship. This research suggests that when new transformational CEOs are introduced to or promoted within the organization, their ability to adapt to dynamic situations, intellectual stimulation, charisma, and individual consideration shapes the timing of technology adoption. In addition, the CIO's ability to be effective in his or her role, his or her relationship with the CEO, and the ability to be an active member in the top management team is vital for the success of transformation efforts.

Committee: Kalle Lyytinen Ph.D. (Advisor); Philip Cola Ph.D. (Advisor) Subjects: Management; Technology

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2021, Management

Stakeholders in their cities and communities are increasingly concerned with how sustainable development initiatives are reconfiguring social, economic, political, ecological, built system resources towards the development of sustainable cities. Measuring city-level sustainability performance and implementing concrete sustainable development initiatives toward flourishing cities are among the biggest challenges societies face as we move into the first quarter of the twenty-first century. However, many cities, particularly in the U.S., have stagnated and are declining in their progress towards achieving sustainable cities. Reductionist approaches to managing sustainability and promoting change have not been sufficient to reverse the effects of climate change nor increase social well-being metrics within communities. Integrative, whole systems management approaches are emerging as viable options that are expected to be effective in tackling the challenges at the scale of organizational systems, cities, and communities. My empirical motivation is to extend the literature on integrative ecosystem management approaches that seek to transform cities as sustainable ecosystems filled with a flourishing vitality. I employed a mixed methods approach consisting of qualitative and quantitative methods. The three studies in this dissertation provide empirical evidence interpreted through multiple theoretical lenses. The benefit of the mixed methods approach was to examine various aspects and dimensions of sustainable development in cities ecosystems. These studies seek to explain how integrative systems management can serve as a viable and effective method to address the challenges of transitioning cities into sustainable ecosystems. Study 1 examines factors that lead to successful sustainable development implementation in cities based on interview data from sustainability managers. Study 2 covers a scale development study that observes Appreciative Inquiry (AI) platforms as the (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Chris Laszlo PhD (Committee Chair); Kalle Lyytinen PhD (Committee Member); Jacqueline Stavros DM (Committee Member); Matthew Cole PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Management; Organizational Behavior; Sustainability; Systems Design; Urban Planning

Doctor of Business Administration, Cleveland State University, 2020, Monte Ahuja College of Business

Dynamic capabilities are often the conduit for firms seeking competitive advantage in fast changing environmental conditions. In general, dynamic capabilities refer to the capacity of an organization to purposefully extend, create, or modify its resource base, enabling the firm to achieve evolutionary fitness through adaptation to and/or shaping the external environment. The concept of agile teams can be traced back to the needs of firms to develop software at a faster rate through continuous, emergent customer requirements and involvement. That is, a reason behind the usage of agile software development is to integrate the dynamism of changing customer requirements to develop continuously cutting-edge software that can lead to competitive advantages for firms. In this research, we explore dynamic capability as the missing link between agile software development and firm performance. That is, from a firm perspective agile software development contributes to the dynamic capabilities of firms.

Committee: Raymond Henry (Committee Co-Chair); Radha Appan (Committee Co-Chair); Sreedhar Madhavaram (Committee Member); Yongjian Fu (Committee Member) Subjects: Information Systems

PHD, Kent State University, 2020, College of Business and Entrepreneurship, Ambassador Crawford / Department of Management and Information Systems

Organizations develop and deploy dynamic capabilities to adapt to changing business conditions. Dynamic capabilities help organizations effectively upgrade and update their internal resource bundles. They cannot be readily acquired from the market, but resources that define the composition and orchestration of such capabilities have been or are to be acquired from strategic factor markets (SFMs). In this dissertation, I strive to conceptually understand the coupling between dynamic capabilities and SFM activities (pricing and valuation). I specifically further our understanding of SFM activities, especially pricing capabilities that are foundational to successful development and deployment of dynamic capabilities. I investigate factors that help companies develop pricing capabilities so that they make more accurate and timely pricing decisions in SFMs. I specifically focus on unique-resource pricing instances. Under uniqueness, decision-making agents may not be able to utilize probabilistic valuation models to calculate the value of a unique resource and use these valuation estimates to price it. Rather, absent prior observations, economic agents rely on their opinions and employ simplified heuristic rules. I examine three mechanisms underlying unique-resource pricing decisions in SFMs: similarity, order of pricing experience accumulation, and wealth available to acquire resources. These mechanisms can operate as heuristic rules during resource pricing decisions and help companies develop pricing capabilities. I conduct an experiment with student subjects who price unique resources in a second-price, sealed-bid auction setting. The results of the experiment are consistent with my hypotheses and further demonstrate the relevance and order of prior pricing experiences and wealth effects. I find that people can develop pricing capabilities that increase the accuracy and speed of decisions during resource acquisition in SFMs. This dissertation contributes to the scholar (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ilgaz Arikan (Committee Co-Chair); Asli Arikan (Committee Co-Chair); Robert Hisrich (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Kinesiology

In the highly dynamic and competitive environment of major college football, recruiting has often been called the “lifeblood” of a program (Wasserman, 2017). Schools spend tremendous financial and time resources to identify and attract the athletes they desire (Caro & Benton, 2014). For years, scholars, coaches, and athletic administrators have attempted to determine which school resources—e.g., academic reputation, athletic reputation, head coach reputation, facilities, etc.—are most important in achieving recruiting effectiveness (Dumond, Lynch, & Platania, 2008; Pitts & Evans, 2016). The classic framework for understanding this relationship is the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, which argues that organizations should seek and obtain valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable resources to achieve sustained competitive advantage (Barney, 1991). Given the amount of scholarship already focused on the relationship between school resources and recruiting effectiveness, Magnusen, Kim, Perrewe, and Ferris (2014) called for researchers to turn their attention to how schools can best leverage these assets. A similar movement in the broader organizational studies literature has criticized RBV as tautological, causally ambiguous, and overly simplistic (Barney & Zajac, 1994; Kraaijenbring, Spender, & Groen, 2010). One response has been to extend RBV to the theory of dynamic capabilities (DC; Teece, 1997). DC are “organizational and strategic routines by which firms achieve new resource configurations as markets emerge, collide, split, evolve, and die” (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000, p. 1107). In the context of intercollegiate athletics recruiting, as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) deregulated some online contact between coaches and potential student-athletes, social media capabilities have emerged as one possible example of DC (Bigsby, Ohlmann, & Zhao, 2017, 2019). The purpose of this research was to examine how schools utilize their socia (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Brian Turner (Advisor); Leeann Lower-Hoppe (Committee Member); Donna Pastore (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Management; Sports Management

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2019, Management

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) are the engines of growth and innovation in many parts of the world, including the United States—yet they face continual challenges to adapt and survive. We designed three sequential explanatory mixed-methods inquiries that consisted of both qualitative and quantitative research projects to explore what adaptive practices, strategies, and decisions are associated with SMEs' successful adaptation. The three phases of research comprised, first, a series of qualitative semi-structured interviews with 32 CEOs and managers; second, a quantitative online survey of 356 entrepreneurs, CEOs, and managers; and finally, a comparative qualitative case study of four SMEs from the U.S. and Canada. The first phase of the study provided five leadership practices that collectively increase a firm's ability to survive difficult periods. The second phase examined the effect of adaptive strategic leadership, adaptive capabilities, and empowerment towards a collective vision on adaptive performance. The results indicate that adaptive capabilities and empowerment have a strong positive effect on adaptive performance. Strategic leadership shows a negative direct effect, but also a positive indirect effect on adaptive performance, mediated by employees' empowerment and adaptive capabilities. The third phase of the dissertation research provided five dimensions of a firm's adaptive practices that operate in combination to produce adaptive change. However, for adaptive success, these practices manifest in various ways in different organizations depending on their particular organizational markets and features. The combination of these three studies provides comprehensive insights into adaptive leadership, adaptive practices, and adaptive strategies associated with SMEs' strategic adaptation. For SMEs, the dissertation provides empirical support for a knowledge-based view of adaptation, and for the theories of dynamic capabilities, emergent s (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Paul Salipante (Committee Chair); Kalle Lyytinen (Committee Member); Christopher Laszlo (Committee Member); Ted Ladd (Committee Member) Subjects: Entrepreneurship; Management; Sustainability

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2019, Management

Big data analytics is a new and emerging business opportunity and soon a strategic necessity that established industrial firms have embraced with mixed success. While venturing into the uncharted and shifting territory of analytics, most firms encounter a steep learning curve. At the same time those who have succeeded in developing the organizational knowledge and skills to leverage big data analytics enjoy disproportionate gains in market share and profit. We apply dynamic capabilities theory to understand how firms successfully develop big data analytics capabilities at the organizational level, and how such capabilities manifest at the operational level as micro-foundations in specific practices. We conduct an exploratory mixed method study to establish a tentative theory of big data capabilities. The overall research program consists of three studies that (1) explore and validate the effect of firm level capabilities on big data success, and (2) identify as micro-foundation a set of project level practices that underlie successful big data projects in configurations of routines. The first qualitative study explores and identifies higher order firm level capabilities such as continuous learning, cross functional collaboration, experimental validation and market orientation that firms garner to succeed with big data analytics. The second study includes a quantitative structural equation modeling analysis of 224 industrial firms and what explains their success in big data analytics. We find broad support for the positive effect of firm level organizational capabilities such as learning and experimentation on successful analytics outcomes. Surprisingly, collaboration and market orientation are not found to have a significant effect. The study indicates the significant role of project level operational practices of firms in influencing big data analytics success. Drawing on this insight, we conduct an exploratory third study into the emergence, stabilization and d (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kalle Lyytinen (Committee Chair); Rakesh Niraj (Committee Member); Nicholas Berente (Committee Member); Varun Grover (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration; Information Systems; Management

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2017, Management

Effective strategy execution depends on the organization's capacity to understand the dynamics around strategy execution and to shape its strategy. The body of knowledge around strategy formulation is well established, but there is less clarity as to how organizations are to implement strategy to close the execution gap between their intent and reality. Although literature suggests that most successful organizations adapt significantly their strategy during implementation and ultimately realize a different strategy, we find that understanding the role of dynamic strategy process, which connects the firm's strategic intent with the observed velocity of change and competitiveness within the environment is crucial but less understood. This calls for firm level dynamic capabilities and ambidextrous strategy implementation. Yet most studies of dynamic strategy processes focus less on connecting the interactions between volatility and strategy with the theory of dynamic capabilities to explain how this dynamic is expressed in the implemented strategy. Research largely ignores three important considerations: 1) how volatility and related variations in strategy jointly influence the effectiveness at closing the gap between strategic intent and implementation. 2) the mechanisms through which these factors interact and 3) how such interactions are expressed in the implemented strategy in relation to dynamic capabilities. We pose three related research questions: 1) how does volatility influence the configurations (molar structure) of the implemented strategy? 2) how does volatility affect the strength of each strategy orientation (operational, core expanding, core transforming) in the implemented strategy (Strategy variation)? and 3) to what extent does the presence of each of the strategy orientations mediate the effects of volatility on reducing strategy execution gaps? We study these questions using a sample of 557 companies in the US and Nigeria operating in several indus (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kalle Lyytinen Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Simon Peck Ph.D. (Committee Member); Bernard Bailey Ph.D. (Committee Member); Robin Gustafsson Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration; Entrepreneurship; Management; Organization Theory; Organizational Behavior

MDES, University of Cincinnati, 2011, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Design

This thesis focuses on the interaction between design and business, exploring its impact on the success of organizations through two case studies of design managers, Dan Harden, Chief Executive Officer for Whipsaw Inc and Sam Lucente, Global Vice President of Design for Hewlett-Packard. Through an analysis of organizational strategy and design, this thesis proposes a theoretical model that identifies how design becomes a dynamic capability for any organization when its promotion and support shifts from a person to a function. Finally, based on this model, this thesis analyzes the effectiveness of design thinking in supporting design as a dynamic capability and offers conclusions for the elevation of a design function in support of a sustained competitive advantage in organizations.

Committee: Craig Vogel MD (Committee Chair); Dale Murray MA (Committee Member); Martha Ann Welsh PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Design

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, Business Administration

The main objective of this dissertation is to study the role of continuous improvement as a mechanism to build dynamic capabilities. Through three related essays we address how continuous improvement projects are related to performance. The first essay illustrates a configuration research method, qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). Based on its descriptions in the literature, QCA appears to be an appropriate method for examining multiple paths to performance using set theory. The main benefit of QCA in contrast to traditional statistical methods is the assumption of complex causality and nonlinear relationships.In the second essay we employ the lens of the problem solving to derive a list of learning activities related to continuous improvement. Further, we analyze how organizations that have deployed continuous improvement conduct projects leading to success. We use content analysis to code 111 projects from five organizations that have deployed continuous improvement programs. We investigate universal causes and complementary causes that lead to project success to examine the equifinality. The QCA analysis identified multiple configurations that achieved project success inferring that multiple paths lead to project success. The commonality of dynamic capability functionsin the configurations establishes that continuous improvement is a mechanism for building dynamic capabilities. The third essay empirically addresses the question of how continuous improvement contributes to growth performance. Adapting existing scales for growth performance constructs, data on 78 improvement projects is collected and analyzed using qualitative comparative analysis. Dynamic capability functions and project success enables growth performance. These causes are always present when growth performance occurs but does not guarantee growth performance. In addition, we examine how improvement projects combine implementation and identification or formulation to achieve growth performanc (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Peter Ward D.B.A. (Committee Chair); Jay Anand Ph.D. (Committee Member); Ken Boyer Ph.D. (Committee Member); Randy Hodson Ph.D. (Committee Member); Gopesh Anand Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Management; Operations Research

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2012, Management

Over the last two decades, firms have operated in increasingly accelerated ‘high-velocity' dynamic markets, which require them to become agile. During the same time frame, firms have increasingly deployed complex enterprise systems - large-scale packaged software innovations that integrate and automate enterprise-wide organizational processes. While supporting efficiency, literature is divided on whether such innovations promote or hinder organizational agility. Relatively little is known about the effects of enterprise systems on organizational agility along the dimensions of organizational impact, organizational processes and organizational knowledge. These dimensions form the basis for the research in this dissertation: 1) What is the organizational impact of enterprise systems on agility i.e. do enterprise systems promote or hinder agility? 2) What are the organizational processes by which organizations reconcile with enterprise systems' changing business needs driven by organizational agility? 3) What are the effects of organizational knowledge and competencies on the impact of enterprise systems on organizational agility? To address these research questions the dissertation adopts a mixed methods approach. Part 1 proposes a theoretical framework based on innovation assimilation and dynamic capabilities and utilizes a quantitative approach to empirically validate the framework, by measuring the impact of enterprise systems on organizational agility, the effects of systems agility on organizational agility, as well as how systems agility influences enterprise systems' impact on organizational agility. Part 2 employs a qualitative approach to examine a) how organizations reconcile with enterprise systems' changing business needs driven by agility, as well as b) the outcomes of such reconciliation processes. Part 3 uses a quantitative approach to more deeply delve into the critical role of two organizational competencies - business competence in IT (BCIT) and IT (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kalle Lyytinen PhD (Committee Chair); Nick Berente PhD (Committee Member); Bo Carlsson PhD (Committee Member); Varun Grover PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration; Information Systems; Information Technology; Management

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2009, Management

This study presents a review and re-appraisal of the epistemological and theoretical frameworks underlying an expansive body of literature that is of central importance to strategy, namely, the literature on resources, capabilities and competences (RCC). A thorough examination of epistemological and fundamental assumptions results in a structuring of the literature into three distinct schools of thought: (1) the rational-equilibrium school; (2) the behavioral-evolutionary school; and (3) the social constructionist school. The three schools are differentiated according to a set of dimensions spanning several levels of inquiry, including the epistemological, methodological and conceptual levels. In addition, the epistemological perspective employed results in an important re-interpretation of, arguably, the most important classic in the RCC field, namely the work of Edith Penrose (1959), showing that her Theory of the growth of the firm displayed a constructionist epistemology. The study further proceeds to scrutinize and compare the dynamic capabilities (DC) and competence research programs and to show that they stem from two distinct schools of thought. Employing behavioral assumptions and an evolutionary economic theoretical base, the DC program is shown to focus on the dynamics of organizational capabilities, specifically as they relate to systematic adaptation by firms to environmental changes. On the other hand, the competence program employs a constructionist epistemology and springs from a theoretical base rooted in organizational theory, Schumpeterian and Penrosian economics blended with closed systems theory. As such, it uniquely tackles the entrepreneurial dimension whereby companies actively shape their environments and create future markets. The influence of the epistemological and theoretical foundations of the programs on the progress of their core theory is traced and the differences between dynamic capabilities and competence programs are elaborated w (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Bo Carlsson PhD (Advisor); Matthias Huehn PhD (Committee Member); Susan Helper PhD (Committee Member); Vasudevan Ramanujam PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Management