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Management International Review

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04.06.2019 | Research Article

Expectations for Help Within and Across the Formal Boundaries of Executives’ Professional Advice Networks

verfasst von: Stewart R. Miller, Marie Louise Mors, Michael McDonald

Erschienen in: Management International Review | Ausgabe 4/2019

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Abstract

We develop a theoretical framework for executives’ expectations for receiving help from professional contacts in their advice networks across national (local/nonlocal) and organizational (inside/outside) boundaries. Moreover, we examine the effects of relational duration and trust in the relationships. In a study using unique data on 1807 professional relationships in a US-headquartered multinational consulting firm, we find that executives expect less help from outside contacts. This result is partially mediated by trust. Also, relational duration mitigates expectations for help from outsiders. Surprisingly, we find no evidence that executives expect less help from nonlocal contacts. Yet a test of nonlocal professional contacts reveals that geographic distance rather than cultural distance, affects the expectations for help. Another supplemental analysis shows that the type of help provided in the network influences the effects of organizational and national boundaries.

Vorheriger Artikel The Effect of Institutional Capabilities on E-Business Firms’ International Performance

Nächster Artikel ‘2R-Based View’ on the Internationalization of Service MNEs from Emerging Economies: Evidence from China

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To preserve anonymity of the firm, we are unable to provide the exact level of income and size of the firm. For further descriptions of the firm and data collection process, please see Mors (2010). Note that the study by Mors (2010) differs in that it looks at innovation performance based on network structures across boundaries. Further that examines the partner aggregate-level data. In contrast, we are here concerned with expectations for help in a focal relationship and therefore examine the dyadic (relationship-level) data.

Some of the initial 133 interviews were cancelled due to illness or the partners being unexpectedly out of the office when the interviewers visited. To rule out systematic bias between the partners sampled and those that participated in the final interviews, we tested for differences in the mean values of the main organizational units of the firm (Levene 1960). There were no significant differences across industry group and functional specialization and only slight differences in geographic location. These differences were due to the availability of the interviewers in different geographic locations at different times and not the partners’ propensity to participate.

We considered a cultural distance measure in supplemental analysis. In that case, every local contact, i.e., contacts located in the same country as the focal partner, was assigned a culture distance of zero. The coefficient for cultural distance was not significant, which is consistent with the general findings on nonlocal as reported.

In another supplemental analysis, we sought to examine whether there was a home-country bias with respect to expectations of advice from professional contacts. For this analysis, we split the sample and estimated the results for executives who were located in the same country as the corporate headquarters (i.e., the USA) separately and then for the executives who were located outside of the country of the corporate headquarters (all non-USA countries). In both sets of analyses, the results were similar to results presented in Tables 2 and 3 respectively. Hence, we conclude that there is not a home location bias in terms of expectations for help from professional contacts.

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Titel: Expectations for Help Within and Across the Formal Boundaries of Executives’ Professional Advice Networks
verfasst von: Stewart R. Miller
Marie Louise Mors
Michael McDonald
Publikationsdatum: 04.06.2019
Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Erschienen in: Management International Review / Ausgabe 4/2019
Print ISSN: 0938-8249
Elektronische ISSN: 1861-8901
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-019-00390-x

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