This dissertation examines the relationship between professionalization, economic motives, and authenticity in an Airbnb context. While perceived authenticity (defined and measured by both genuineness and consistency with category expectations) benefits organizations, it may be in tension with economic motives or professionalization which offer their own sets of benefits to an organization. This study qualitatively (using pilot interviews) and empirically (using an experimental survey design) explores the tensions surrounding authenticity, economic motives, and professionalization. This study also considers potential moderators of personalization and connection to place that could offset hypothesized negative relationships or preserve authenticity in spite of professionalization and economic motives. The findings from this study support the negative relationship between professionalization and authenticity - but only when authenticity is measured as genuineness. Surprisingly, economic motives were not found to be negatively related to authenticity, and the explored moderators, were insignificant in affecting these relationships. The two-factor structure of authenticity (comprised of genuineness and consistency) and the implications of the professionalization finding are discussed. Theoretical reasons for non-findings, empirical limitations, and suggestions for future research to further investigate the tensions surrounding authenticity are also considered. This study contributes to the understanding of the complex interplay between authenticity with professionalization and economic motives, offering insights for organizations wanting to navigate these tensions.

This dissertation examines the impact of chief executive officers’ (CEO) numeracy on strategic decisions and outcomes. CEO numeracy refers to the capacity of a CEO to perform one or more mental activities on information and/or concepts that are numerical in nature. Although numeracy is widely studied in disciplines such as health sciences, education, and psychology and is commonly associated with superior and more effective decision making, it is largely missing from organizational scholarship. Numeracy is particularly relevant in the context of top management teams as the conditions in which executives operate compromise the effectiveness of strategic decision making. As such, I examine the effect of CEO numeracy on acquisition decisions and outcomes. Despite global growth in acquisition investments over the years, studies suggest that acquisitions more often erode instead of improve acquiring firm value. Therefore, I propose that CEO numeracy is negatively associated with acquisition decisions such as the number of acquisitions, value of acquisitions, and number of large acquisitions undertaken by a firm. Moreover, among CEOs that engage in acquisitions, I propose that more numerate CEOs will experience better acquisition-related outcomes compared to less numerate CEOs. Specifically, I hypothesize that CEO numeracy is negatively related to acquisition premiums and positively related to post-acquisition performance. I use a longitudinal sample comprised of 250 randomly selected U.S. based firms from the S&P 500 index to empirically test my hypothesized relationships. Furthermore, I use CEO-attributed text from earnings calls transcripts and a closed-language analytical approach to develop a novel and accessible measure of CEO numeracy. My analyses did not yield support for my hypotheses. I discuss potential theoretical and empirical explanations for the null findings in my research and propose directions to mitigate those issues in future research.

How do firms differentiate themselves from others, and how do audiences respond to their distinctiveness? Optimal distinctiveness theory suggests that an intermediate level of distinctiveness in a single point or a balance in the level of distinctiveness across multiple points is most beneficial to a firm as it addresses both competition and conformity pressures. However, empirical studies have found positive, inverted U-shaped, and U-shaped relationships between distinctiveness and audience evaluation. Using CSR strategy as a research context, I develop a theory of two forms of distinctiveness—positioning distinctiveness and topic distinctiveness—and explore each form’s unique and interactive effect on audience evaluation. Building on cognitive categorization research, I argue that positioning distinctiveness, or the extent to which the pattern of resource allocation across an established set of strategic decisions differs from that of category prototypes, will have a positive relationship with subsequent audience evaluation. However, topic distinctiveness, or the extent to which a firm differentiates itself from others by introducing new practices to its category, will show an inverted U-shaped relationship with audience evaluation. I also examine how positioning distinctiveness moderates the effect of topic distinctiveness and predict that audiences will assess a firm’s topic distinctiveness more positively when a firm has a high level of positioning distinctiveness in its main topic domain. In addition, I investigate how strategic distinctiveness in business strategy and environmental-level factors moderate the effects of positioning and topic distinctiveness by influencing audiences’ demands for differentiation and conformity. Utilizing the sample of S&P 500 firms from 2001 to 2018, I empirically examine the hypothesized relationships. By analyzing annual CSR reports using state-of-the-art natural language programming and topic modeling techniques, I develop a novel measure of topic distinctiveness in CSR strategy. This dissertation contributes to the optimal distinctiveness literature by simultaneously examining multiple forms of distinctiveness and by unpacking the conditions under which demands for conformity and differentiation may vary.

Scholars have been studying firm innovation as a process or an outcome. Recently a couple of studies have examined the less tangible aspect of firm innovation, that is, a firm’s reputation for innovation, and have suggested that reputation for innovation is a distinct resource. However, these studies have never dug deeper to uncover the mechanism of this reputation. As a result, it is unclear how this reputation is built, maintained, or utilized. Innovation, as a form of creative destruction, is associated with uncertainty, complexity, conflict, and setback. It is thus expected that the characteristics of innovation may endow reputation for innovation with distinctive organizational implications. Yet no systematic study that integrates innovation research with reputation research exists. The purpose of the dissertation is to provide a general theory that systematically explores the antecedents, outcomes, and nature of reputation for innovation. In the first chapter, I provide a literature review of reputation multiplicity and introduce a configurational framework that maps each reputation into the following facets: actor, attribute, audience, intermediary, and valence. In the second chapter, I integrate innovation research into reputation research to build a general theory of reputation for innovation and further conclude that reputation for innovation has a paradoxical nature, since it is easy to manipulate but hard to sustain. In the last chapter, I study how a firm’s reputation for innovation impacts its response strategy for a negative event: being sued for patent infringements. I propose and find that a firm’s reputation for innovation has differential effects on its response strategies for patent litigation initiated by different parties. By providing an integrative literature review, a conceptual framework, and an empirical verification of reputation for innovation, the dissertation builds a solid foundation for future research.

The Equifax data breach took place in 2017 and was the largest data breach of its time. The breach affected 143 million individuals and caused large amounts of confidential and sensitive data, such as credit cards, birthdays, addresses, and social security numbers to be stolen (Brinkley-Badgett, 2018). This paper will closely analyze the Equifax data breach. Specifically, Equifax’s background, crisis history, and breach timeline will be broken down. These three components are all important when it comes to understanding Equifax’s actions. Timothy Coombs is a founder of Situational Crisis Communication Theory, and his interpretation of the theory will be used as a framework for this paper. Both his book, Ongoing Crisis Communication and article, Protecting Organization Reputations During a Crisis: The Development and Application of Situational Crisis Communication Theory, will be heavily referenced. Using Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) as a framework, these components will be assessed and categorized. “SCCT provides a mechanism for anticipating how stakeholders will react to a crisis in terms of the reputational threat posed by the crisis” (Coombs, 2007). By identifying the crisis type and crisis response strategies, Equifax’s actions will be analyzed and measured. The size, timeline, and media response will help identify what type of crisis Equifax falls into, and why their actions caused them to be categorized so. After analyzing the Equifax data breach, two other breaches will be analyzed and compared. The comparison of Equifax to Capital One and Home Depot, will help determine how Equifax could have been more effective through crisis response strategies. Capital One and Home Depot are two data breaches that were able to implement “effective” uses of crisis management and meet consumer expectations. Through the comparative analysis, recommendations as to what Equifax could have done differently will be made. The comparisons of their crisis type, actions, and response strategies will help shape recommendations for Equifax’s past crisis.