Rhonda Reger

• PhD
• Professor at University of North Texas

The authors empirically examine differences between automatic and controlled processing by executives in an increasingly dynamic industry. The results suggest that cognitive inertia affects judgments in both modes, but the effect is stronger with automatic processing. Specifically, the authors conducted two studies examining executives' cognitive m...

We use content analysis to examine the content analysis literature in organization studies. Given the benefits of content analysis, it is no surprise that its use in organization studies has been growing in the course of the past 25 years (Erdener & Dunn, 1990; Jauch, Osborn, & Martin 1980). First, we review the principles and the advantages associ...

Theorists have suggested that firms seek to maintain or increase their social approval—defined as constituents’ general affinity for a firm—due to the belief that such approval significantly influences support for the firm and other important firm outcomes. However, the mechanisms underlying changes in constituents’ social approval and the translat...

Organizations are starting to actively invest in hiring initiatives aimed at recruiting autistic talent. However, given many of these initiatives are in their infancy, knowledge of autism and how best to assess and support autistic employees is low. Building on person-environment fit (P-E fit) theory and the double empathy problem, we examine how n...

The influence of mass media sentiment on the IPO performance of newly listed firms has received increasing research attention in management and entrepreneurship research. However, prior literature assumes the beneficial role of positive media sentiment in investors' evaluation of the firm yet overlooks the potential downside of too much positive me...

Entrepreneurial persistence is crucial for venture success and entrepreneurs' personal growth. Yet, the extant research on entrepreneurial persistence has largely remained disconnected. The current disjointed profusion of constructs and theories which we believe has made progress on understanding this important construct slower than is ideal. To ad...

Persistence typifies the behavior of most successful entrepreneurs. Yet systematic theory about entrepreneurial persistence is lacking. This paper theorizes about psychological differences that lead some entrepreneurs to persist appropriately while others quit too soon or persist excessively. Building on self-regulation literature, we develop a the...

Recognizing the commercial potential of university-based inventions and discoveries, legislators and administrators have called upon academic scientists to become academic entrepreneurs. Yet, few academic scientists appear enthusiastic about taking on entrepreneurial activities. The intrinsic reasons underlying the lack of enthusiasm are poorly und...

This chapter reviews the broad contours and major contributions of the sociocognitive perspective in strategic management, with a focus on the current state of research and fruitful future research directions. The sociocognitive perspective examines how strategic actors (both internal and external to the organization) perceive, interpret, and react...

Negative social evaluations and the strategies a firm employs to manage them have garnered significant attention among management scholars. However, past research has given less attention to the social media era's revolutionary effects on these dynamics. As such, we theorize that the social media era's greater velocity, emotionality, and communalit...

Many contemporary organizations depend on team-based organizing to achieve high performance, innovate services and products, and adapt to environmental turbulence. Significant research focuses on understanding how teams develop, assimilate, and apply diverse information; yet organizational practices have evolved in new ways that are not fully explo...

Research on organizational celebrity is in its nascence, and our understanding of the process through which this asset is gained, maintained, and lost remains incomplete. We extend this research by examining which information is the primary catalyst of the celebrity process, how and why this process unfolds, and the potential consequences for an or...

Persistence typifies the behavior of almost all successful entrepreneurs. However, persistence, which usually serves entrepreneurs well because they push through difficult times to create successful ventures, might sometimes lead to excessive persistence, continuing to devote resources to a losing business proposition when these resources would be...

Research about the effects of an organization's general reputation following a negative event remains equivocal: Some studies have found that high reputation is a benefit because of the stock of social capital and goodwill it generates; others have found it to be a burden because of the greater stakeholder attention and violation of expectations as...

Research about the effects of an organization's general reputation following a negative event remains equivocal: Some studies have found that a high reputation is a benefit because of the stock of social capital and goodwill it generates; others have found it to be a burden because of the greater stakeholder attention and violation of expectations...

Over the last two decades, a large body of organizational and strategy research has focused on the importance of a firm’s ability to innovate. Using a behavioral strategy lens, our panel discussion will argue that to fully understand the innovation process, one must investigate the complex social context in which innovation develops. Through our ex...

Because new growth ventures have been recognized as the engine of job creation, communities and states have made the creation and support of entrepreneurship a top priority. Community leaders, policy-makers, investors, corporations, and local media have an interest in increasing the formation and success of new ventures. While entrepreneurs and the...

The capital market’s efficiency in valuating companies is predicated through information. It is through the processing, dissemination, and interpretation of information that the constituents in the capital market formulate their valuation of the firm and its future prospects. Management’s information disclosure to the financial community, the probi...

This symposium will address the recent trend in the strategy literature to take more micro perspectives on strategy, examining the impact of individuals’ cognitions, dispositions and activities in the strategy process. These perspectives include Behavioral Strategy, Behavioral Theory of the Firm, Cognitive approaches, Microfoundational approaches a...

We contribute to research on the management of social perceptions by considering the relative effectiveness of a firm's technical and ceremonial actions in managing media coverage after its own or its competitors' wrongdoing. We examine these relationships in the context of product recalls by U.S. toy companies over the ten-year period 1998–2007. A...

We contribute to research on the management of social perceptions by considering the relative effectiveness of a firm's technical and ceremonial actions in managing media coverage after its own or its competitors' wrongdoing. We examine these relationships in the context of product recalls by U.S. toy companies over the ten-year period 1998–2007. A...

The purpose of this research is to explore how and why US business schools and corporations attend differently to social issues. A content analysis of leading organisations websites reveals that US business schools lag behind corporations in attention to social issues and the tendency to frame social issues as salient and inherently justified. Draw...

We examine the effects of organizational identity on the competitive dynamics of firms. Identity increases the awareness, motivation, and capability to respond to competitors' actions within the firm's identity domain, defined as cognitive competitive space that holds psychological value for a focal firm's management. Because of the psychological a...

This article explores the relationships among influence, autonomy and control in a joint venture setting. It addresses the mechanisms available to joint venture (JV) managers to influence and gain compliance from parent firms. Control categories derived primarily from research on unified structures are explored in a new domain, an international joi...

This article provides a tool for creating change that produces observable results in complex organizations. Linkage analysis helps managers map, evaluate, and overcome barriers that underlie the organizational improvement paradox. In this paradox, organizational changes are expected to lead to performance benefits for a unit as well as for the firm...

For marketers and other strategists, the importance of strategic alliances is increasing in both research and practice. Despite frequent considerations of the potential benefits of these interorganizational relationships in both domestic and international markets, alliances have often failed to live up to expectations in practice. Traditional resea...

Rapidly changing environments are pervasive. Based on social cognitive theory, we propose a new perspective on alignment of organizational identity with punctuated disequilibrium conditions. The paper discusses rapidly changing environments and proposes resolutions of two paradoxes for organization-environment alignment that are created by turbulen...

Executive Overview Due to the stress of operating in increasingly dynamic environments, organizations are under tremendous pressure to fundamentally change the way they do business. Restructuring, rightsizing. and re-engineering all represent attempts to implement fundamental change. Unfortunately, many companies fail to achieve the results promise...

This article presents a cognitive theory of why planned organizational change efforts, such as total quality initiatives, often fail. The theory suggests that employees resist total quality because their beliefs about the organization's identity constrain understanding and create cognitive opposition to radical change. We propose a dynamic model in...

The strategic group concept provides an attractive middle ground between firm and industry for both theory development and empirical analysis. To date, this concept has been defined by researchers in terms of secondary accounting and financial data, and a number of critics have questioned the validity of this work. Our research shows that industry...

This study explores the effects of regulation and deregulation on strategic choice and performance in the U.S. banking industry. Drawing on literature from strategic management, industrial organization economics, and organization theory, we develop a framework which suggests that regulatory scope and regulatory incrementalism influence strategic ch...

Typescript. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 257-268). Available on microfilm from University Microfilms.

This article reviews research on the process of strategic management reported over the last six years in seven leading journals. Nine " 'streams" of work are identified and critiqued. The field is described as giving continuing attention to the possibilities and problems of strategic planning and decision making, but also moving into new areas of r...

Content analytic approaches have made great strides in organization studies in the course of the past two dec-ades. However, management scholars are often challenged to choose the best software solution to implement their research project. In order to assist in such a critical methodological decision, we develop a more thorough and comprehensive ca...