Mark P. Sharfman

• University of Oklahoma

Acquisitions rarely deliver on expectations, often because firms pay too much for their targets. This article suggests the framing of the acquisition decision as an opportunity or as a response to a threat as an explanation for these higher acquisition premiums. The present study examines the effect of framing on acquisition premiums paid by US fir...

Problem Definition The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of diversification on interfirm relationships. Given how extensively firms develop key relationships with customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders, understanding the role that interfirm (relational) strategies are affected by diversification likely will be quite informativ...

This study contributes to the corporate social responsibility, stakeholder theory, and executive succession literature by examining the effect of corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR) on strategic leadership turnover. We theorize that firms’ CSiR increases the likelihood of executive turnover. We also investigate the nature of succession (non-vo...

We examine the value consequences of corporate social responsibility through the lens of institutional shareholders. We find a sharp asymmetry between corporate policies that mitigate the firm’s exposure to environmental risk and those that enhance its perceived environmental friendliness (“greenness”). Institutional investors shun stocks with high...

We examine the role of managers in controlling the positive impact of stakeholder management (SM) on firm financial performance (FP) in the long term. We develop and test competing hypotheses on whether managers act as “good citizens” or engage in “self-dealing” when allowed greater discretion. We test our assertions using dynamic panel data analys...

In prior research which explores the relationship between organizational slack and corporate social performance (CSP) it is implicitly assumed that slack is homogeneous and positively affects CSP. In this study we build on recent research which argues that slack is heterogeneous and can be conceptualized as financial, human resources, and innovatio...

This study offers a broader perspective on the effects of entrepreneurial orientation beyond its well-established implications for firm financial performance. Herein, it is suggested that through higher firm innovativeness, risk taking, and proactiveness entrepreneurial orientation contributes to an increase in the overall value accrued by the firm...

This study offers a broader perspective on the effects of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) beyond its well established implications for firm financial performance. Herein, it is suggested that through higher firm innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness EO contributes to an increase in the overall value accrued by the firm’s base of stakehold...

The vast majority of extant empirical research examining the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and financial performance (FP) selects samples of only those firms which are observed engaging in CSP. In this study, the authors assert that firms’ efforts to pursue CSP and subsequently their appearance in social-choice investment...

Because prior research has largely adopted an agency theory perspective and focused extensive effort on examining shareholder-centric corporate governance mechanisms and their outcomes for shareholders or select groups of stakeholders, relatively little work has focused on whether governance structures can maximize outcomes for all stakeholders. We...

This paper delineates the conceptual domain of dual-identity social entrepreneurship (DISE) and grounds its components theoretically. DISE entails the creation of ventures whose business model is designed by individual founders to create demonstrable and continued public value from strategic actions while simultaneously creating continued economic...

This study contributes to the institutional stakeholder theory and executive succession literature by examining the effect of poor corporate social performance (iCSP) on strategic leadership turnover. We theorize that firms’ iCSP increases the likelihood of subsequent CEO change as a legitimacy-saving and risk reduction behavior. New CEOs are motiv...

While decision makers in organizations frequently make good decisions rooted in stable and consistent preferences, such consistency in outcomes is not always the case. In this study, we adopt a psychological perspective of judgment to investigate managers' erratic strategic decisions, which we define as a manager's inconsistent judgments that can s...

This paper explores the existence and role of high velocity evolution. Specifically, this paper posits that organizational evolution is not a monolithic process and that innovation is the source of high velocity evolution. The timing of the evolutionary process can be greatly accelerated under certain circumstances. This paper suggests that innovat...

Public corporations are under immense pressure to re-direct resources towards maximizing the value that accrues to all stakeholders. But do increased stakeholder demands result in meaningful improvements in firms’ social performance? In this study, we suggest that stakeholder pressure may enhance the organization’s sensitivity to stakeholder issues...

This article examines the concurrent validity of the Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini Research & Analytics (KLD) corporate social performance (CSP) measures. Because KLD changed its evaluation methods to richer approaches, a new look at the concurrent validity of the indicators is necessary. To do this new look, the authors examine the new “Binary” and “C...

We examine how investors respond to corporate environmental policy by studying how the ownership, analyst coverage, stock market performance, and valuation of U.S. firms vary with their environmental performance. Relative to environmentally neutral firms, both positive (“green”) and negative (“toxic”) environmental performers have a larger number o...

Using institutional theory as the foundation, this study examines the role of organizational visibility from a variety of sources (i.e., slack visibility, industry visibility, and visibility to multiple stakeholders) in influencing corporate social performance (CSP). The conceptual framework offers important insights regarding the instrumental moti...

While decision makers in organizations frequently make good decisions rooted in stable and consistent preferences, such consistency in outcomes is not always the case. In this study, we adopt a psychological perspective of judgment to investigate managers' erratic strategic decisions, which we define as a manager's inconsistent judgments that can s...

Should firms take account of social norms when setting corporate environmental policy? We examine this question by studying how the ownership, analyst coverage, stock market performance, and valuation of U.S. firms vary with their environmental performance. Relative to environmentally neutral firms, both positive (“green”) and negative (“toxic”) en...

The article examines the effects of environmental performance on the cost of capital internationally, specifically the differing effects in the North American and European contexts. Emphasis is placed on a firm's discretionary choices regarding the issue of the environment. Evidence is presented that a company's environmental performance lowers its...

We examine how the ownership, analyst coverage and stock market valuation of U.S. firms vary with their environmental performance. Relative to environmentally neutral firms, both positive ("green") and negative ("toxic") environmental performers have a larger number of shareholders but lower institutional ownership. Socially responsible investing (...

The article presents the results of research on socially responsible investing (SRI) in green businesses, focusing on the question of whether corporate environmentalism affects a firm's stock market liquidity. An overview of related previous studies is provided, along with details of the research protocol, which involved data analysis using a varie...

Given the importance of the CEO in adapting to a changing environment, and the role that identification of opportunities for change plays in organizational adaptation, with this study we investigate the individual-level cognitive factors that affect change in a CEO's existing opportunity images. With a sample of 64 presidents/owners/CEOs of technol...

The pressures on firms to improve their environmental performance have caused them to look outside their boundaries towards their supply chains. In such approaches, firms work with vendors to develop the environmental profile of supplied materials (for example) by reducing materials' toxicity or the amount of packaging used. While large firms can m...

The study and practice of business strategy is fundamentally based on employing creative solutions to differentiate a firm from its competitors. Theories used to describe the causes and consequences of strategic differentiation tend to focus on organization-level characteristics such as resources, capabilities and structures. However, less is known...

Our study of 267 U.S. firms shows that improved environmental risk management is associated with a lower cost of capital. Our findings provide an alternative perspective on the environmental-economic performance relationship, which has been dominated by the view that improvements in economic performance stem from better resource utilization. Firms...

In the late 1980s, with the advent of increased consumer environmental awareness, DuPont faced a challenge with its TYVEK® family of nonwoven polyethylene textile products. TYVEK is used in a wide variety of applications ranging from house wrap to medical packaging. One of the most visible portions of the business is envelopes used by FedEx (previo...

Although business firms have improved their environmental performance, a variety of forces are pushing businesses toward adopting environmental management throughout the entire life cycle of their products and processes. In this article we discuss the information systems elements of an environmental management approach we call “life-cycle-oriented...

Individual's attitude towards computers is a key component to understanding user's acceptance and satisfaction with computer-based information systems. As such, individuals' attitudes towards computers have been of interest to researchers in a variety of settings for sometime. Therefore, numerous instruments have been developed to assess this const...

Stories of firms that exceed local compliance requirements in their environmental performance appear routinely. However, we have limited theoretical explanations of what propels these firms to exceed compliance. Our theory suggests that global competitive and institutional pressures lead multinational firms to develop highlevel, environmental manag...

In the Wall Street Journal, Chad Bray writes, The recent rash of accounting scandals has made executives much more aware of the costs that questionable financial practices can have on their reputations. However, not enough companies are evaluating the potential cost of poor environmental records or unacceptable social activities Socially acceptable...

We examine use of environmental information systems by ASG AB (hereafter ASG), an international logistics and transport firm headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, as a case study to illustrate the role of information systems in life-cycle-oriented environmental management. This case provides an example of how a firm can use interorganizational inform...

Conoco manufactures lubricants and oils from petroleum and markets them to the mining, trasportation, recreation, construction and related industries. In the wake of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, the company became concerned that certain customers would be obligated to discontinue the use of lubricants that contained chlorinated solvent...

A growing number of firms have begun work toward the development of innovative systems that consume fewer resources, reduce waste, enhance productivity, while creating new market opportunities. However, all of this environmentally friendly innovation occurs under varying types/levels of regulation and the role of such regulation is still debatable....

This article suggests that due to the value-laden nature of social issues, managerial values, as a framework or schema, play an important role in the social issues evaluation process. Our data show that there is clearly a relationship between the issues managers evaluate as important and the values of those managers, with values being defined accor...

We describe Conoco's closed‐loop approach to reducing undesirable emissions through vapor recovery at some of its natural gas production facilities near Corpus Christi, Texas. In response to the U.S. Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (CAAA), Conoco developed a technological solution that routed emissions from the facilities to fuel scrubbers and con...

This paper suggests that due to the value-laden nature of social issues, managerial values, as a framework or schema, play an important role in the social issue identification and evaluation processes. This results in this paper show the relationship between managerial values and subsequent evaluation of social issues.

Adaptation is a crucial challenge for organizations, and an important theme in the strategy and organization theory literature. We still have much to learn, however, about the strategic processes by which adaptation is achieved. In this paper we focus on a basic element in the adaptation process, i.e. flexibility within the strategic decision-makin...

This chapter summarizes a 5-year, longitudinal field study of strategic decision making (SDM) which examined the effects of context on the processes of SDM and how these processes then affect the outcome of the strategic initiatives. We posited that SDM occurs within “contexts”: the business environment, the characteristics of the organization, the...

This study examined whether strategic decision-making processes arerelated to decision effectiveness, using a longitudinal field study design.We studied 52 decisions in 24 companies to determine if proceduralrationality and political behavior influence decision success, controllingfor the favorability of the environment and decision implementation....

Carroll (1991) encouraged researchers in Social Issues Management (SIM) to continue to measure Corporate Social Performance (CSP) from a variety of different perspectives utilizing a variety of different measures. In addition, Wolfe and Aupperle (1991) (and others) have asserted that there is no, single best way to measure CSP and that multiple mea...

Corporate philanthropy is considered to be an integral part of corporate social performance; however, this was not always the case. At one time, the use of corporate funds for philanthropy was illegal. This article uses institutional theory to examine the evolution of corporate philanthropy from its illegal status to the time when it became both le...

Despite the central place of rationality and political behavior in the decision-making literature, we know little about the relationship between these two dimensions. Can decisions be made using both rational and political methods, or must managers use one approach or the other? These questions were addressed in a study of 61 strategic decisions in...

This paper presents a probabilistic selection model that attempts to unite the strategic choice and ecology perspectives. We propose that a firm's strategy/structure choice, age, size, and managerial risk attitude, coupled with the magnitude, direction, and certainty of niche movements produce conditions that affect a firm's ability to survive.

Despite the central place of rationality in the organization theory, strategic management, and decision-making literatures, we know relatively little about why some strategic decision-making procedures are more rational than others. This question was addressed in a study of 57 strategic decisions in 24 companies, using a multiple-informant, structu...

This study advances a nascent perspective in the strategic management literature: a focus on the beneficial effects of competition among firms in an industry. Such a perspective supplements the traditional view of competition as firm rivalry. The overall purpose of the study is to provide a theoretical foundation for the study of the mutual gains a...

Neither a single set of constructs nor a single set of measures of the organizational environment is widely accepted, making it difficult to build a comprehensive literature on the impact of the environment on thefirm. In this article we review three constructs-complexity, instability, and resource availability common to most environmental research...

In their thoughtful critique, Professors Dess and Rasheed raise several important issues about the conceptualization and measurement of the organizational environment in general and our work in particular In this rejoinder, we discuss afundamental difference between their position and ours regarding the place of theoretical constructs and observabl...

This article presents a model of the context of interorganizational collaboration. The model is made up of driving and restraining forces from both the competitive and institutional sectors of the organizational field surrounding the collaborative effort. A case study of an alliance among garment manufacturers, state agencies, and educational insti...

Organizational slack has been widely discussed, but only in its role as an antecedent of performance, political behavior, bankruptcy, and other phenomena. A model that describes the antecedents of organizational slack is presented here. It contains three sets of predictors: environmental contigencies, organizational characteristics, and the values...

This study assessed the relationship between the phase of the full moon and the incidence of overdose as reported in five metropolitan Phoenix hospitals and the Maricopa County Medical Examiner over the 15-mo. period from January 1, 1976, through and including March 31, 1977. A chi-squared analysis was performed and no significant difference betwee...

Thesis (Ph. D. - Business Administration)--University of Arizona, 1985. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 138-145). Microfiche. s