PhD theses

• Director: Sergio Llebaría (Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull) e Ignacio Beltrán (UOC)
• Date of defense: 10/09/2020

Abstract

El objeto de esta tesis doctoral es estudiar la responsabilidad laboral en el grupo de empresas y sus fundamentos jurídico-laborales en el Derecho Español. Mediante el análisis jurídico y dogmático junto con la incorporación de aspectos del Análisis Económico del Derecho, se persigue determinar si el modelo jurisprudencial español utilizado actualmente para identificar y atribuir responsabilidad laboral en el grupo de empresas es eficaz, efectivo y si responde a un criterio de eficiencia. La finalidad última es determinar si dicho sistema jurisprudencial resulta adecuado para la protección de los trabajadores en España y, en caso negativo, proponer una matriz conceptual y unos fundamentos jurídicos más adecuados a este propósito y, en todo caso, realizar propuestas de lege data y de lege ferenda para dotar de mayor seguridad jurídica a todos los operadores jurídicos en esta materia.

• Director: Miguel Trías (Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull) y José Machado (UB y UOC)
• Date of defense: 24/07/2020

Abstract

En este trabajo se examina el contrato de cash pooling en los grupos de sociedades. El contrato puede definirse como un modelo de gestión centralizada de la tesorería que tiene como finalidad principal optimizar la posición global del conjunto. La ausencia de regulación en el ordenamiento jurídico español tanto del contrato de cash pooling como de los grupos de sociedades, plantea notables problemas que no pasan desapercibidos desde el punto de vista del Derecho positivo. En esta tesis se analizan, en concreto, los de naturaleza contractual, societaria y concursal.

• Director: Dr. Pedro Rey, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull
• Date of defense: July 9th, 2021

Abstract

As individuals, we define our group identities by categorizing others and ourselves into many social categories like gender, race, religion, nationality, political convictions, and profession, among many others. This categorization process confers us a notion of “who” we are, which social groups we belong, and more importantly, how we are expected to behave. This thesis revolves around two phenomena at the core of group identity literature; discrimination and intergroup conflicts. Group identity is considered an underlying factor of discriminatory behaviors and the emergence of conflicts between members of social groups. There is extensive evidence showing that the mere categorization into social categories is enough to trigger discrimination against members of other social groups. Moreover, human history provides many examples of conflicts and genocides rooted in group identity diversity more than in economic disputes. However, not all social group members discriminate in the same magnitude, nor all social groups are involved in conflicts. The first paper of this thesis proposes an empirical measure that goes beyond categorizing individuals into social categories. Using willingness to acquire representative goods of social groups, this paper measures and quantify group identity intensity to investigate reinforcing and attenuating factors of group identity. The results found provide evidence on how convergence and divergence in behaviors among social group members reinforce and attenuate the group identity intensity of individuals, which is crucial in predicting the emergence of intergroup conflicts at the collective level and strong degrees of discrimination at the individual level. The literature studying the effects of group identity on individual decision-making has largely focused on studying discrimination and intergroup conflicts assuming individuals’ group identity is known and observable. However, many group identities rely on convictions and beliefs that are not directly observable from individual physical traits, and therefore, might be uncertain (e.g. religion, ideology). The second paper presented in this thesis explores the effects of group identity uncertainty on discrimination patterns when individuals decide whom to interact with and its repercussions on collective coordination efficiency. Managing group identity diversity and uncertainty is a major factor in determining organizations and firms' profit and success, especially when a diverse workforce might find it difficult to coordinate and cooperate. The results found in the second paper shed light on the role group identity uncertainty plays in individual interaction preferences and offer several managerial insights for deterring discrimination among employees to interact and increase their coordination efficiency when working in teams. Finally, the last paper presented in this thesis, contributes to the literature of policies and interventions aimed at mitigating discrimination and prejudices between members of social groups in conflict. While this literature has focused on studying how the contact between members of different social groups reduces discrimination and prejudices, there is a lack of evidence on interventions with same purposes not requiring contact between individuals.

The last paper presented in this thesis exploits a natural occurring context in which individuals of two social groups currently in conflict see themselves forced to cooperate in order to achieve a superordinate common goal without being able to get in contact. This context offers the opportunity to put the emphasis not in the contact between individuals but in the superordinate common goals as a mitigating factor of discrimination. Results show that individuals got more selfish as the superordinate common goal was gradually achieved. Furthermore, individuals from one social group also increased their discrimination as the common goal was gradually achieved. These results highlight superordinate common goals mitigate discrimination and selfishness.

• Director: Dr Dimo Ringov, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull
• Date of defense: July 16th, 2021

Abstract

Exploiting knowledge is fundamental to realizing competitive advantage, yet it has been a persistent challenge for firms. According to the knowledge-based view of the firm, appropriation and effective replication of knowledge are pertinent to the exploitation of knowledge within the firm. So, firms use different strategies to improve the appropriability and replicability of their knowledge. This thesis focuses on the specific deterrents to knowledge exploitation that have implications for knowledge appropriation and replication within the firm and proposes strategies to deal with them. It examines how firms respond to appropriability threats posed by fragmented markets for technology and anticipated knowledge worker mobility, and how firms achieve accurate replication of practices while expanding. The hypotheses derived in this thesis are tested empirically using novel datasets. This thesis contributes, overall, to the research on knowledge exploitation and, specifically, to the research on the threats to knowledge appropriation and determinants of replication performance.

• Director: Dr. Andrew Barron, Toulouse Business School & Dr. Xavier Mendoza, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull
• Date of defense: July 13th, 2021

Abstract

Despite the strategic importance of firms’ corporate political activity (CPA) and the efforts to study its different aspects, little has been researched about how firms can organise and manage their government affairs (GA) units more effectively. This thesis seeks to shed further light into this relevant aspect of CPA. Specifically, the focus of this thesis is on exploring how firms can design their GA units in ways to improve their ability to perform their information processing activities. To this end, this thesis relies on the case study methodology. The empirical focus is the GA unit working in large firms and its information processing activities as a boundary-spanning unit. This unit mediates the flow of information between its external political environment and the firms’ internal business units. Drawing on organisational design theory, this thesis contributes to CPA scholarship by exposing organisational antecedents of CPA. Ultimately, this thesis offers practitioners a set of mutually-reinforcing organizational mechanisms that can be put in place to improve the ability of their GA units to manage political information.

• Director: Daniel Arenas (Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull)
• Date of defense: 15/04/2021

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship as an innovative approach to tackle societal challenges has become increasingly popular in the past decades. Theoretically, research on this phenomenon has been particularly fruitful as it is situated at the nexus of entrepreneurship and social value creation, which has opened up ample avenues for novel explorations. This thesis builds on the entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship literatures by providing insight into the role of social entrepreneurs’ indirect discursive practices and direct entrepreneurial actions to address societal challenges. Drawing on theoretical concepts from the literature on social movements, crowdfunding, and social identity, the different chapters of this thesis examine the motivational framing tactics of social enterprises, the cognitive and emotional appeals in entrepreneurial narratives in prosocial settings, and the interaction between social identity and entrepreneurial action in the case of marginalized communities. In this thesis, qualitative and quantitative methodologies are employed to empirically investigate these indirect practices and direct actions of social entrepreneurs and their ventures. This thesis further develops our knowledge about the social entrepreneurship field by specifically focusing on the approaches to address societal challenges through motivational framing, cognitive and emotional appeals, and insider social entrepreneurship and, therewith, aims to make both a theoretical and practical contribution.

• Director: Ignasi Martí (Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull) & Robert Wayne Gregory (University of Virginia)
• Date of defense: 09/04/2021

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the rising trend of flat organization and self-management in the post-bureaucratic organization. Recently, an organizational system called holacracy has emerged as a less hierarchical yet bureaucratic organizational system. Through longitudinal ethnographic study, this thesis empirically examines how an organization practicing holacracy is able to function, in order to theorize the phenomenon of post-bureaucratic organization. Additionally, this thesis empirically investigates how managers unmoored by the organization’s conversion to self-management are affected and in turn may affect the organization. Finally, this thesis explores and conceptualizes the usefulness of subjectivity and intimacy in the research approach of novel phenomenon. This thesis contributes to organizational theory by introducing a model of pluralistic bureaucracy, explaining how autonomy and alignment within a pluralistic bureaucracy can be reconciled rather than remaining in paradox. It also analyzes how power relates to identity as managers cope with losing their positional status without losing their jobs in an organizational transformation to holacracy. Finally, this thesis presents early theorization on the concept of hermeneutic intimacy, by offering a nuanced methodological approach for navigating relationship and self to produce high-quality research.

• Director: Dr. Annachiara Longoni, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull
• Date of defense: July 23rd, 2021

Abstract

Developing sustainability in supply chains is a pressing concern for businesses. To address such concerns buyer firms frequently adopt sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) based on supplier assessment and supplier collaboration. The effectiveness of supplier assessment and supplier collaboration for improving environmental and social outcomes in global supply chains characterized by high geographic distance between buyers and suppliers, however, is increasingly debated. Anecdotal evidence and recent research suggest that secondary stakeholders that are not traditionally considered part of the supply chain, such as NGOs or trade associations, can aid buyer efforts to develop sustainability in their global supply chains (GSCs). The purpose of this research was to explore the development of sustainability in GSCs. To achieve the research goal a systematic literature review focused on the main structural and relational elements that characterize SSCM in GSCs was conducted first. The results of the systematic review suggest that further analysis of geographical distance and of the role of secondary stakeholders is needed for understanding how sustainability can be developed in GSCs. Building on these results, statistical analysis of secondary data from 186 certified B Corporations was then carried out to examine the relationship between geographical distance, secondary stakeholder engagement, and buyer firm adoption of supplier assessment and collaboration for sustainability. Results suggest that buyer adoption of supplier assessment and collaboration is greater in presence of geographic distance, and that secondary stakeholder engagement negatively moderates this relationship. Qualitative research based on a case study of the fresh banana supply chain in Costa Rica was then conducted to explore the role of secondary stakeholders in greater depth. Results suggest that secondary stakeholders play specific roles and operate simultaneously for developing sustainability in the upstream part of the GSC. This research contributes to extending the SSCM literature by highlighting the role of secondary stakeholders for developing sustainability in global supply chains. The research also has implications for managers and policymakers.

• Director: Marco Bertini (Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull)
• Date of defense: 28/10/2020

Abstract

Marketplace morality is defined as consumers’ beliefs about what is right and wrong in the marketplace. In other words, marketplace morality refers to morality within any market setting with a potential exchange relationship between two parties. Extensive research in the field of morality in the marketplace essentially consists of clearly immoral or clearly moral behavior. This thesis demonstrates with three essays that moral judgment in the marketplace might not only be ambiguous at times, but also sensitive to the market environment. This thesis demonstrates in the first two essays that the ambiguity of morality in the marketplace is at least partially caused by the context: while in one given context the consumption experience might be judged as appealing, in a different context the same experiences might be judged as appalling. The third essay approaches moral ambiguity in the marketplace from a different angle. The third essay looks at the same phenomena from the viewpoint of firm-customer relationships and adds conceptually to the marketing literature by demonstrating how price communication can be perceived as deceiving and immoral to the consumer, therefore hurting firm-customer relations. While the first two essays are empirical essays, the third essay explores conceptually how the morally ambiguous behavior is reflected in the market place.

• Director: Maria José Parada (Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull) & Georges Samara (University of Sharjah)
• Date of defense: 04/03/2021

Abstract

Freshwater systems - The influences of informal institutions on the family, family businesses, and the ethnic group are immense due to these organizations' embeddedness within their local context, which is where most informal institutions originate. Despite that, when institutions function effectively, we often assume that it is the formal rules that drive actors' behaviors. Yet the underlying informal norms may complement, substitute, accommodate, or compete with formal institutions. Previous studies on informal institutions are scattered and fragmented, and present informal institutions as ambiguous. This thesis sheds light on the informal institutions that shape the family, family businesses, and the ethnic group in a developing country to yield entrepreneurial outcomes. A systematic literature review is a vital starting point as it allows for understanding and reconciliation of existing studies and underscoring areas where research is lacking. The literature review is followed by two qualitative research pieces. The first qualitative study focuses on religion and traditions—substitutive informal institutions—to understand how they imbue family features and business practices that foster or hinder transgenerational entrepreneurship. The second qualitative study explores the process through which an ethnic group anchors on an informal apprenticeship system—a competing informal institution—to foster intergenerational value creation and, more importantly, entrepreneurship propagation. By doing so, this work offers several contributions that extend theoretical understanding in the contexts of the family business, entrepreneurship, and an ethnic group in a developing country. Its findings can guide practitioners and policymakers.

• Director: Daniel Arenas (Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull)
• Date of defense: 10/11/2020

Abstract

Freshwater systems - such as rivers, lakes or wetlands - provide a myriad of ecosystem goods and services to human societies. Nonetheless, the management of those systems is complex, inter-organizational and often unsustainable from an ecological perspective. Research in organization and management studies, although potentially fruitful, cannot contribute to solving this issue as long as it does not include conceptually ecological aspects of freshwater systems, or does not take a system perspective. Such conceptual and methodological recommendations are easier said than done. How can organization and management studies integrate the inter-organizational management of a freshwater system with the ecological conditions of that system? This PhD thesis endeavors to learn by doing and studies the relationship between the inter-organizational management of freshwater systems and the ecological condition of those systems in various ways, with an interdisciplinary approach. Three essays and three methodological approaches are developed - a systematic review of the existing management literature on freshwater management, a qualitative study of ecological embeddedness, and a quantitative test of the ecological outcomes of different forms of actors' participation.

• Director: Dr. Maja Tampe, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull & Dr. Kenichi Matsuno, Babson College
• Date of defense: June 8th, 2021

Abstract

Environmental sustainability issues, such as climate change, are often global in scale but necessarily local and material in their manifestations. Yet the sustainability and the management literature has paid little attention to how the natural environment affects organizations and their operations. A burgeoning view in the sustainability literature portrays organizations as embedded in nature and allows for a deeper look at the local interrelations between organizations and the surrounding natural environment. This Ph.D. thesis adopts this perspective to provide a better understanding of how organizations and their members understand and interpret the natural environment in which they are embedded, and how these interpretations shape organizational practices. To that purpose, qualitative and quantitative research methodologies are applied to examine to what extent and how the direct experience of natural phenomena, such as climate change effects or natural disasters, affects organizational responses and outcomes. A first mixed-methods study of cocoa producers in Brazil explores how decision makers in vulnerable contexts experience the consequences of climate change and how their different interpretations shape organizational adaptive responses. This study focuses on the immediate organizational responses to adverse natural phenomena. A second study empirically investigates the long-term effects of experiencing natural phenomena on the organizational outcomes. Based on analyzing quantitative data on Japanese companies in the context of the Great East Japan Earthquake, this study proposes the concept of organizational post-traumatic growth to capture the emerging change in organizational values and responsiveness to social needs following the natural disaster. These studies hone in on local interrelations between organizations and the natural environment in which they are embedded. While this approach contributes to the burgeoning literature on organizations and the natural environment, it also implies a risk to get lost in the myriad of specificities and interpretations that characterize each context and that need to be integrated with the global scale of sustainability issues. Reconciling the local and global scale that are both required to address these sustainability challenges is far from trivial. Therefore, a third study aims to make a theoretical contribution to the tensions emerging between the local implementation of sustainable practices and the need for global coordination in the context of voluntary sustainability standards. Together, the three studies of this Ph.D. thesis aim to delve into the local interrelation between organizations and the natural system in which they are embedded, to understand how organizational interpretations of local natural phenomena affect organizations and how tensions between local and the global levels can be effectively addressed. The main arguments are grounded in both theory and empirical evidence, thereby providing a comprehensive methodological approach apt to make substantial contributions to the study of organizations and the natural environment.

• Director: Dr. Núria Agell, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull & Dr. Mónica Casabayó, Esade - Universitat Ramon Llull
• Date of defense: August 31st, 2021

Abstract

New product innovation with customer participation has helped reinforce the paradigm shift from organisation to customer centric logic. The benefits of customers’ participation for cocreation in new products are specifically prolific, giving rise to interesting phenomenon of crowdsourcing with tournaments, broadcasting and contests. However, with increased participation, firms face challenges in filtering the best solutions or ideas for their problems. Acknowledging these facts, we employ a customer-adoption perspective to investigate the problem. First, we identify 72 articles that examine customer adoption of innovation in a systematic literature review of 30 years across multiple disciplines. By synthesising the existing knowledge, we propose a conceptual framework linking Innovator Group (IG) customers to new product performance. Similar to lead users, the role of IG customers is crucial in New Product Development (NPD) process, and we propose ways to identify these customers and link them to new product performance by utilize their knowledge for preference dissemination, idea generation or new product information diffusion. Despite their contribution and usage in the innovation process, identification of these early adopters has remained unsystematic. Prior research has included netnography, pyramiding and screening techniques with surveys to capture the potential IG. However, there remains a gap in the systematic way to identify these customers.

To bridge the gap, we explore specific ways to select these customers from Big-Data for mitigating the challenges of overcrowding in cocreation process. We developed an intelligent system framework by combining knowledge from experts and knowledge on customer behavioural information. By employing supervised machine learning models, we help identify and predict the early adopters from the firm’s database. By doing so, we show managers that they can develop Artificial Intelligence (AI) models to utilise the Big-Data they have on customers for early adopter identification. For academia, we show with knowledge aggregation from experts and customers, AI techniques perform in identification better than the existing methods. We also advance the knowledge on the key factors that affect the early adopters the most in their new product adoption decisions. Theoretically, we contribute to the NPD and customer classification literatures with applied machine learning algorithms. We also provide insights and suggest future directions for advancing knowledge in the cocreation and crowdsourcing research.