Oliver Schilke

University of Arizona | UA · Department of Management and Organizations

How actors construe legitimacy perceptions of their social environment has been subject to considerable interest in social psychology and organization studies, with much research focusing on how collective validity cues inform individual propriety judgments. However, this research has either focused on one validity cue at a time or has assumed that...

When people want to conduct a transaction, but doing so would be morally disreputable, they can obfuscate the fact that they are engaging in an exchange while still arranging for a set of transfers that are effectively equivalent to an exchange. Obfuscation through structures such as gift-giving and brokerage is pervasive across a wide range of dis...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the significance of safeguards in digital ecosystems and their role in generating trust among participants. This paper argues that the right mix and number of safeguards are crucial for an ecosystem’s growth and success. It offers ecosystem orchestrators concrete guidelines for how to implement and...

Experiments have long played a crucial role in various scientific disciplines and have been gaining ground in organization theory, where they add unique value by establishing causality and uncovering theoretical mechanisms. This essay provides an overview of the merits and procedures of the experimental methodology, with an emphasis on its applicat...

Trust represents a key social mechanism facilitating collaboration in interorganizational relationships. Yet, the concept of interorganizational trust is surrounded by substantial ambiguity, especially as it pertains to the levels of analysis at which it is located. Some scholars maintain that trust is an inherently individual-level phenomenon, whe...

This article adopts a relational perspective to demonstrate that characteristics of the dyadic relationship between supervisors and their employees are critical to understanding individual-level exploration—understood as the extent to which organizational members pursue new opportunities and experiment with changes to current practices. To this end...

How do organizational structures influence organizational decision making? This article reveals organizational structures’ dual function: they both (1) aggregate and (2) shape individuals’ decisions. What makes this dual function so remarkable is that the two effects are diametrically opposed to one another. Ceteris paribus, a less stringent decisi...

This case is based on the author’s ethnographic study of a Silicon Valley accelerator, in which they sought to explore how generalized exchange emerges and evolves over time. They describe their experience employing an abductive, sequential mixed-methods approach to interpret their ethnographic findings. The case begins with an explanation of why t...

Many people believe trust will become obsolete with the advancement oftechnology. Fabrice Lumineau, Oliver Schilke, and Wenqian Wang disagree. For them, trust will continue to play an important role. They writethat the concept of trust needs to be viewed in three ways: in terms ofwhat form organisational trust takes, how it is produced, and who nee...

This is a Call for Papers for Organization Studies Special Issue with a theme on "Trust in Uncertain Times" with dl. June 30th, 2023. https://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cmscontent/OSS/Final%20SI%20Trust%20in%20Uncertain%20Times-1653543976.pdf

Blockchains have become increasingly important for organizing contemporary economic and social activities. This Element offers a deeper understanding of blockchains to both management scholars and practitioners, with an emphasis on blockchains' strategic implications for fundamental issues in organizing. It provides a critical examination of the co...

In this essay, we argue that the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution calls for a reexamination of trust patterns within and across organizations. We identify fundamental changes in terms of (1) what form organizational trust takes, (2) how it is produced, and (3) who needs to be trusted. First, and most broadly, trust is likely to become mor...

Are competent actors still trusted when they promote themselves? The answer to this question could have far-reaching implications for understanding trust production in a variety of economic exchange settings in which ability and impression management play vital roles, from succeeding in one’s job to excelling in the sales of goods and services. Muc...

This article introduces the concept of “flexible reactivity” to describe and analyze a form of economic actors' response to multiple judgment devices. Using the example of government regulation in the Tuscan wine industry, we show that wineries can in part comply with the government's quality classifications system while, at the same time, also off...

Trust is key to understanding the dynamics of social relations, to the extent that it is often viewed as the glue that holds society together. We review the mounting sociological literature to help answer what trust is and where it comes from. To this end, we identify two research streams—on particularized trust and generalized trust, respectively—...

Collaborations that require information sharing and mutual trust between companies, suppliers, and clients can be tough, particularly in the remote era. But blockchain’s distributed ledger — and its use of smart contracts — can simplify the process, creating a common, reliable record of transactions and avoiding costly disputes. In doing so, blockc...

Blockchains are disrupting the business world, and their impact on the global economy will only continue to grow over the next decade, according to a recent study by PwC. While blockchains have previously been used mainly in the financial sector, they are becoming more and more widespread across all kinds of industries. But what changes do they bri...

In this essay, we argue that the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution requires a reconceptualization of trust patterns within and across organizations. We propose fundamental changes in (1) what trust is, (2) how trust is produced, and (3) who needs to be trusted. First, and most broadly, the nature of trust is likely to become more impersona...

Recent research on start-up accelerators has drawn attention to the central importance of social resource exchange among peers for entrepreneurial success. But such peer relationships contain both cooperative and competitive elements, making accelerators a prime example of a mixed-motive context in which successful generalized exchange—unilateral g...

Recent research has conceptualized legitimacy as a multi-level phenomenon comprising propriety and validity. Propriety refers to an individual evaluator’s belief that a legitimacy object is appropri-ate for its social context, whereas validity denotes an institutionalized, collective-level perception of appropriateness. In this article, we refine t...

The recent emergence of blockchains may be considered a critical turning point in organizing collaborations. We outline the historical background and the fundamental features of blockchains and present an analysis with a focus on their role as governance mechanisms. Specifically, we argue that blockchains offer a way to enforce agreements and achie...

Institutional theory has developed into a leading perhaps the dominant perspective in organizational analysis these days. One prominent point of criticism of institutional theory has been its overly strong emphasis on the macro level. In recent years, however, institutional scholars have begun to vigorously address this issue by expanding the scope...

A wide class of economic exchanges, such as bribery and compensated adoption, are considered morally disreputable precisely because they are seen as economic exchanges. However, parties to these exchanges can structurally obfuscate them by arranging the transfers so as to obscure that a disreputable exchange is occurring at all. In this article, we...

The relationship between entrepreneurs is reduced to one of competition in entrepreneurship research, thanks to the conceptualization of the entrepreneur as a strategic actor. Yet, mutually supportive ties with each other might provide respite from their lonely and daunting journey as entrepreneurs. Using quantitative and qualitative data from ethn...

Recently, scholars have begun to transform and expand institutional theory to a multi-level approach that explicitly incorporates the role of micro-processes. Although the emerging research stream of microinstitutionalism has seen much advocacy and enthusiasm, it is still in its infancy and relatively little consensus exists on what exactly microin...

This article advances a cross-level model of trust development. Drawing upon an embedded-agency perspective from institutional theory, we combine a top-down with a bottom-up approach, reflecting the inherent duality of trust in organisational settings. Specifically, we elaborate a reciprocal process that illustrates how organisational structures in...

Organizational scholars have long underscored the positive consequences of trust, yet trust can also have dysfunctional effects if it is not placed wisely. Though much research has examined conditions that increase individuals’ tendencies to trust others, we know very little about the circumstances under which individuals are likely to make more ac...

Alex Bitektine, Jeffrey W. Lucas, and Oliver Schilke describe the unconventional use of experimental research designs, using fundamental or applied research logics, to develop understanding of institutions in organizational contexts. The advantages and challenges of experimental designs are explored, and examples of experimental research in institu...

Although the dynamic capabilities perspective has become one of the most frequently used theoretical lenses in management research, critics have repeatedly voiced their frustration with this literature, particularly bemoaning the lack of empirical knowledge and the underspecification of the construct of dynamic capabilities. But research on dynamic...

This article contributes to the emerging stream of micro-institutional research, which zooms in on the internal organizational processes that are responsible for organizations' differential responses to the external environment. Specifically, the investigation offers new knowledge of how organizational identity processes can shape whether decision-...

Significance Social scientists have devoted much attention to studying the sources and consequences of the disposition to trust but have only recently begun to investigate the disposition to distrust. An increasing consensus is emerging that distrust is not merely the opposite of trust. This article provides initial empirical evidence indicating th...

How do organizations build trust under varying degrees of uncertainty? In this article, we propose that different degrees of uncertainty require different bases of trust. We distinguish between three different forms of trust production (process-based, characteristics-based and institution-based) and develop hypotheses regarding their relative effec...

In fine dining, a Michelin star is commonly seen as the ultimate certification that a restaurant meets a particular standard of excellence. As a result, Michelin stars attract diners willing to pay hundreds of dollars per person. What most industry outsiders don't appreciate, though, is just how much is involved in achieving and maintaining a star...

Despite substantial scholarly interest in the role of contracts in alliances, few studies have analyzed the mechanisms and conditions relevant to their influence on alliance performance. In this paper, we build on the information-processing view of the firm to study contracts as framing devices. We suggest that the effects of contracts depend on th...

In our article (1), we present evidence that individuals low in power are more trusting than those high in power. In a letter to the editor, Wu and Wilkes argue that our finding is “subject to two caveats about the kind of power and trust being considered” (2). Although refinements of our theory are welcome, we have reservations about the caveats b...

The majority of trust research has focused on the benefits trust can have for individual actors, institutions, and organizations. This “optimistic bias” is particularly evident in work focused on institutional trust, where concepts such as procedural justice, shared values, and moral responsibility have gained prominence. But trust in institutions...

This chapter contributes to defining a common research agenda on organizational trust, first by content-analyzing scholarly recommendations for future research published between 2007 and 2011 across 347 articles and 58 social science journals, and second by reviewing the latest developments in trust research published between 2012 and 2015 across 1...

Significance Trust is pivotal to the functioning of society. This work tests competing predictions about how having low vs. high power may impact people’s tendency to place trust in others. Using different experimental paradigms and measures and confirming predictions based on motivated cognition theory, we show that people low in power are signifi...

This paper reviews prior applications of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in marketing and consumer research. After documenting and characterizing key applications from the past years, we discuss important methodological issues related to fMRI and assess the quality of previous applications in terms of three aspects: (1) issues related...

It has become increasingly difficult for today’s companies to stand out against competitors. This phenomenon has been labeled commoditization. While few industries remain merely specialty industries, an increasing number of firms find themselves in commodity environments. The controversial question is, however, whether marketing strategy is an effe...

This study sheds new light on the performance implications of corporate social responsibility by investigating its interactive effect with marketing capabilities and competitive intensity on firm performance. We argue that in environments where competitive intensity is high rather than low, marketing capabilities have a stronger positive relationsh...

Research on the sources of organizational trustworthiness remains bifurcated. Some scholars have adopted a calculative perspective, stressing the primacy of actors’ rational calculations, while others have approached trustworthiness from a relational perspective, focusing on its social underpinnings. We help to reconcile these seemingly disparate v...

Commoditization of an industry is considered high when competitors in comparatively stable industries offer homogenous products to price-sensitive customers, who incur relatively low costs in changing supplier. In other words, businesses facing high industry commoditization sell products whose core offerings are essentially identical in quality and...

A key problem faced by organizational decision makers is uncertainty regarding the relative value of alternative courses of organizational action. Two largely isolated streams of research in organization theory have emphasized different mechanisms for dealing with such uncertainty. Research in institutional theory indicates that uncertainty leads o...

Similar to the fairly well-established distinction between substantive capabilities and dynamic capabilities, a further distinction can be made between first-order dynamic capabilities (which have been the subject of much interest and debate over the last two decades) and second-order dynamic capabilities (which have received considerably less atte...

We investigate how and when contracts matter to alliance performance. Despite the substantial scholarly interest in the role of contracts in alliances, few studies analyze the mechanisms and conditions relevant to their influence on alliance performance. Drawing upon recent contract literature suggesting that alliance contracts may have multiple fu...

Public trust in business is one of the most important but least understood issues for business leaders, public officials, employees, NGOs and other key stakeholders. This book provides much-needed thinking on the topic. Drawing on the expertise of an international array of experts from academic disciplines including business, sociology, political s...

This article suggests that dynamic capabilities can give the firm competitive advantage, but this effect is contingent on the level of dynamism of the firm's external environment. A nonlinear, inverse U-shaped moderation is proposed, implying that the relationship between dynamic capabilities and competitive advantage is strongest under intermediat...

This article examines the economic effects of prizes with implications for the diversity of market positions, especially in cultural fields. Many prizes have three notable features that together yield an emergent reward structure: (1) consumers treat prizes as judgment devices when making purchase decisions, (2) prizes introduce sharp discontinuiti...

Significance Will people be more likely to forgive a breach of trust in an earlier or later stage of an interpersonal relationship? The present article reports behavioral and neurophysiological experiments that speak to this important question. Results show that trust recovery is facilitated with increasing relationship experience. Differential act...

Despite corporate social responsibility (CSR) having become a key strategy for firms to use in advancing on a sustainable path, the role of CSR for firm performance outcomes remains poorly understood. Thus, in a large empirical study across several industries and countries, we examined CSR as moderator of the relationship between marketing capabili...

Most research on trust in interorganizational relationships focuses on a single level of analysis, typically the individual or organizational level, and treats trust as a fairly static phenomenon. To stimulate more cross-level research, we propose a theoretical model that explains how trust in interorganizational relationships is related across var...

Organizational capabilities are socially complex practices that determine a firm’s effectiveness in transforming inputs into outputs (Collis 1994). The resource-based view (RBV) thus theorizes that firms with capabilities that are valuable, rare, inimitable, and nonsubstitutable can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage by better leveraging t...

In an effort to establish and enhance key informants’ accuracy, organizational survey studies increasingly rely on triangulation techniques by including supplemental data sources that complement information acquired from key informants. Despite the growing popularity of triangulation, little guidance exists as to when and how it should be conducted...

Although offering bundled services promises firms potential synergies in supply and increased revenues, the realized benefits of such a strategy are highly contingent on consumer acceptance of the bundles. Borrowing from TAM, Information Integration Theory, and the customer value concept, we developed a comprehensive model for consumer acceptance o...

The relationship between a firm’s dynamic capabilities and competitive advantage has been the subject of much debate in the literature, with relatively little empirical documentation. In this paper, we propose that dynamic capabilities can give the firm competitive advantage, but this relationship is contingent on the level of the dynamism of the f...

As firms increasingly use design to successfully differentiate their products from competitors, the concept of design thinking has lately received raised attention among practitioners. Many consider design thinking to fundamentally change the way firms will strive to innovate. Design thinking can be thought of as a methodology for innovation that s...

Although the field of psychology is undergoing an immense shift toward the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the application of this methodology to consumer research is relatively new. To assist consumer researchers in understanding fMRI, this paper elaborates on the findings of prior fMRI research related to consumer behavior an...

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of distribution channel choices of new entrepreneurial ventures (NEVs). First, factors that influence NEVs’ choice of distribution channels are examined. Second, performance consequences of those choices are investigated. A research model drawing from transaction cost economics as well as customer relati...

Despite the widespread acceptance of trustworthiness as an important organizational resource, empirical knowledge of the intricacies of the antecedents to trustworthiness is limited. In this paper, we investigate the relative effects of contractual safeguards and organizational culture on the perceived trustworthiness of alliance partners and exami...

One of the most signicant economists of our time, Kenneth Arrow, argued over three decades ago that trust has implications for the economy as well as the polity. In the current “economic crisis” his words seem prophetic. For Arrow, trust has not only economic value but also sheer pragmatic value. It simply makes life easier. Like Luhmann, Arrow vie...

This research conceptualizes and operationalizes alliance management capability. The authors develop alliance management capability as a second-order construct to capture the degree to which organizations possess relevant management routines that enable them to effectively manage their portfolio of strategic alliances. In addition to identifying an...

This paper aims to improve current knowledge on the commoditization of industries, a unique phenomenon of evolving marketing competition characterized by increasing homogeneity of products, higher price sensitivity among customers, lower switching costs, and greater industry stability. As commoditization pertains to an ever greater number of divers...

Trust, when established, contributes to the smooth running of political and economic systems which require the success of collective undertakings. Trust must be based on trustworthiness of the actors involved and the reliability of the institutions that are created to provide for the public good. Public trust is low when this is not the case. Even...

This paper aims to improve current knowledge on the commoditization of industries, a unique phenomenon of evolving marketing competition characterized by increasing homogeneity of products, higher price sensitivity among customers, lower switching costs, and greater industry stability. As commoditization is relevant to an ever-greater number of div...

Mobile technology has become increasingly common in today’s everyday life. However, mobile payment is surprisingly not among the frequently used mobile services, although technologically advanced solutions exist. Apparently, there is still a lack of acceptance of mobile payment services among consumers. The conceptual model developed and tested in...

As managers and academics increasingly raise issues about the real value of CRM, the authors question its direct and unconditional performance effect. The study advances research on CRM by investigating the role of critical mechanisms underlying the CRM-performance link. Drawing from the sources → positions → performance framework, the authors buil...

There is virtually a consensus that, to remain competitive, firms must continuously develop and adapt their business models. However, relatively little is known about how managers can go about achieving this transformation, and how, and to what extent, different types of business models should be adapted. To illustrate the differential effect of en...

Scholarship in marketing journals serves a critically important role in developing the knowledge base of marketing. Knowledge contributions lead to advancements in the marketing field as well as to individual recognitions such as promotions, merit increases, and various accolades. In this study of 629 faculty members from a sampling frame of the...

The topic of standardization of international marketing programs is an important one faced by managers of global firms and has attracted significant research attention. Although previous research has established that standardization enhances performance outcomes, more recent theorizing suggests that this may not always be the case. However, empiric...

Die betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung greift zur Erhöhung der Datenqualität zunehmend auf den Triangulationsansatz, also die Kombination multipler Datenquellen zur Untersuchung desselben Phänomens, zurück. Dieser Beitrag umfasst eine inhaltsanalytische Untersuchung der Triangulation von Umfragedaten auf Basis von 127 Artikeln in vier Marketing- und...

Strategische Allianzen sind für nahezu jedes Unternehmen zu einem zentralen Bestandteil der Strategie und einer wichtigen Quelle für Wettbewerbsvorteile geworden. Bisherige Forschungsbemühungen fokussieren jedoch lediglich auf die isolierte Analyse einzelner Allianzen. Durch eine systematische Betrachtung organisationaler Einflussfaktoren des Allia...

Strategische Allianzen erfreuen sich in der Wirtschaft anhaltender Beliebtheit. Es ist jedoch festzustellen, dass eine Vielzahl von ihnen als erfolglos einzustufen ist. Die Erfolgsquote unterscheidet sich dabei von Unternehmen zu Unternehmen, weshalb organisationale Faktoren, wie die Allianzfähigkeit, für die zu beobachtende Erfolgsheterogenität ve...

While industries such as ICT and biotechnology have been characterized as high-velocity environments, in which demand, competition and technology are constantly changing, there has been little systematic empirical research focusing on the conceptualisation and operationalisation of strategy in such environments or its effect on performance. This ar...

The article discusses the extent to which routine-based alliance capabilities of companies improve their chances of successful strategic alliances. It is noted that many such alliances do not live up to expectations. Research into organizational variables which mediate the relationship of corporate experience and structures to organizational perfor...

Derzeit werden in der wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Forschung mit zunehmender Intensität neurowissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse und Methoden hinzugezogen, um die Zustände und Prozesse der ,,Black Box“ des menschlichen Gehirns vor, während und nach ökonomischen Entscheidungen präziser erklären zu können. Dieser Beitrag zielt darauf ab, die Grundlagen d...

Mehrdimensionale Konstrukte finden in der empirischen betriebswirtschaftlichen Forschung verbreitet Anwendung, um komplexe theoretische Konzepte abzubilden. Jedoch ist die Analyse mehrdimensionaler Konstrukte mithilfe von Strukturgleichungsmodellen mitunter mit Schwierigkeiten behaftet. Ziel des Beitrages ist es, zunächst die konzeptionellen Grundl...

Kundenwertmanagement hat sich im Laufe der letzten Jahre zu einem der am meisten diskutierten Themen in Marketingforschung und -praxis entwickelt. Dies wird sowohl durch die steigende Anzahl an Veröffentlichungen auf diesem Gebiet als auch durch die zunehmende Anwendung entsprechender Konzepte in der Unternehmenslandschaft deutlich.