Browsing by Author "Osiyevskyy, Oleksiy"
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- ItemOpen AccessThe Dynamics Behind Using Scenario Planning Enabling Innovation and Organizational Learning(2022-12-20) Mortlock, Lance; Vredenburg, Harrie; Osiyevskyy, Oleksiy; Marchant, TimOrganizations face challenges in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environments. It is vital to manage the change's rate and magnitude in new and different ways to stay competitive. Potential or existing VUCA environments are expected to create a context that requires more innovation and organizational learning. This thesis focuses on the phenomenon of scenario planning that can help organizations proactively plan for, react and adapt to VUCA forces if and when they occur. Scenario planning is a structured process for businesses to explore and think about the future. This research addresses how organizations can leverage scenario planning to innovate and learn more effectively. The first integrative essay proposes a novel typology of scenario planning benefits based on an extensive literature review. In addition, two qualitative case-based empirical studies were conducted. One focuses on the mechanisms between scenario planning and innovation within four organizations. The other focuses on the mechanisms between scenario planning and organizational learning within two organizations. Both case studies involved extensive interviews, coding, inductive analysis and cross-case comparisons. The novel typology adorned several benefits of scenario planning in an integrated model explained using systems theory. These benefits included risk, uncertainty, options analysis, strategic flexibility, complex decision-making, strategy testing and validation, innovation and organizational learning. The relationship between input, process and output benefits was explained. The research itself demonstrated how scenario planning supports the generation of innovative ideas. Idea generation is enabled by the proper structure, governance, people, process, integration, culture and engagement. External market context can also facilitate more innovative ideas to emerge from scenario planning, mainly when more change and disruption occur. However, a direct connection between scenario planning and the actual commercialization of innovative ideas was not found. Scenario planning also helps an organization emphasize organizational learning more. The findings uncover how continuous learning using scenario planning is enabled by executive leadership, systems thinking and connection, a culture conducive to learning, insight from action and collection, analysis, storage and usage of information. The enablers operate in a continuous and reinforcing learning cycle. These qualitative studies contribute a significant perspective on ‘how’ scenario planning influences aspects of both innovation and organizational learning, including related mechanisms, practical considerations, cross-case comparisons and a novel maturity assessment model. This new knowledge helps fill a gap in past academic research, paves the way for future research, and has the potential to shape managerial practice.
- ItemOpen AccessEstablished Firms’ Strategic Decision Making when Faced with Low-End Disruptive Innovation(2014-04-09) Osiyevskyy, Oleksiy; Dewald, JamesHow should incumbent firms respond to emerging disruptive business model innovations (i.e., substantive changes in the way the value is created and appropriated) in their industries? Despite much discussion, the current literature provides no clear-cut answer. This lack of theoretical understanding is reflected in frequently observed in practice problem when established firms are unable to adapt to their industries’ disruptive changes. This sets the motivation for the current dissertation, aimed at advancing our understanding of the phenomenon of disruptive business model innovations. I intend to achieve this goal by addressing the following two research questions: (1) what are the optimal responses of established incumbent companies to disruptive business model innovations gaining momentum in their industries, and (2) what are the factors causing managers of incumbent companies to make different strategic choices in such situations? To address these questions, I unite existing views in a deductively developed model of incumbent response to disruptive business model innovations. Then, I build a dynamic behavioral model of incumbent firms’ responses. The model describes observed behavioral patterns in disrupted industries and explains incumbent actions and reasons why these actions might deviate from the rational paths. Also, I propose a rational response model, comprising a set of testable propositions regarding the contingency factors determining optimal incumbent actions when facing a disruptive business model innovation. Empirical parts of the dissertation are based on two surveys of incumbents facing low-end disruptive business model innovations in their industries – real estate brokerage and higher education.
- ItemOpen AccessMobilizing Female Entrepreneurship Research to Inform Policy(2024-04-15) Carlson, Jessica Lynn; Keyhani, Mohammad; Kano, Elena (Liena); Osiyevskyy, Oleksiy; Saunders, Chad; Huq, Jo-Louise; Musabende, JacquelineGender and entrepreneurship scholars are increasingly called upon to consider policy implications in both identifying research questions and analyzing research results. Similarly, policy professionals are looking to inform policy with best available evidence. Yet, gaps between policy and gender and entrepreneurship scholars remain in both the availability of policy relevant academic research and the applied use of such research within policy domains. This dissertation represents an attempt to fill at least part of this gap by three diverse methods as represented in chapters two through four. Chapter two leverages qualitative methodology to a real-time policy problem and explores how women entrepreneurs experienced the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to inform the development of specific policy supports. Chapter three leverages an application of the public organization management science approach to identify policy relevant research questions for gender and entrepreneurship scholars, alongside of a review of current literature. Chapter four advances a particular policy relevant research question of special relevance within the current Canadian context, the impact of institutional support, subnational variation and providing unpaid care on the choice to become an entrepreneur. Collectively, these papers aim to advance theory, policy, and practice in helping to close the gap between the academy and policy professionals. The main limitation of this thesis is scope, as the setting both academically and for policy is limited to Alberta. Despite this, the findings of from this thesis can be broadly applied to both theory and practice. Contributions include an increased recognition of who policymakers are and what they are looking for alongside of an extension to the institutional theory of gender inequality of entrepreneurial entry. Future research can further explore policy-relevant research questions such as implications of subnational variations in institutional context on entrepreneurship.
- ItemOpen AccessProcess Innovation in Colombia: Engaging Front-Line Employees in a High Power Distance National Culture(2023-01-06) Davidson, Philip Miles; Verbeke, Alain; Hinings, Bob; Schulz, Robert; Osiyevskyy, OleksiyWhile hierarchy may benefit efficiency, scholars have shown that hierarchy is not conducive to innovation. Other scholars focus on the importance of innovation in strengthening firms and national economies. Both findings correlate strongly with my extensive practitioner experience in a Central American nation that demonstrates high levels of power distance. However, even in nations with high power distance, innovative firms exist that overcome this challenge. This existence raises the question, how do firms succeed at process innovation under conditions of a national culture of high power distance? This thesis integrates three papers to investigate this problem of practice. The first study presents an integrative paper that combines learnings from the Doctorate of Business Administration program with a conceptual practitioner-scholar model to demonstrate how to pursue this investigation with academic rigor. Critical realism plays a significant role, given the complexities of culture and innovation. Next, a survey-based study explores Colombian employees’ impressions of the impact of power distance on their innovation participation levels and their firm’s ability to reach innovation objectives. This survey also investigates intentional design and communication’s role in increasing lower-level employees’ (implementers) participation in innovation design. Finally, chapter four builds on the survey findings to present a case study of five Colombian firms, all of whom have completed some innovation training yet show different systems and intentionality to incorporate implementers’ tacit knowledge in process innovation. These studies found that innovative firms’ employees see their firm as having less power distance than the typical Colombian firm. Secondly, management’s will to use systems and opportunities to encourage participation impacts implementers’ input into process innovation design more than the system or structure itself. Finally, most firms showed limited implementer involvement at the ideation stage but had extensive use of employee feedback before implementation. Some innovative firms in Colombia intentionally use their existing hierarchy to obtain feedback on ideas proposed by the mid and upper levels of the hierarchy, contrary to the western ideal of inclusion, where innovation leaders and implementers collaborate at the same level.
- ItemOpen AccessThree Essays on Early Internationalization: Antecedents, Process and Performance Outcomes(2018-07-27) Fariborzi, Hadi; Verbeke, Alain; Keyhani, Mohammad; Osiyevskyy, Oleksiy; Roessingh, Hetty; Sui, SuiInternationalization of firms in the early years after their start-up is a phenomenon on the rise. Scholarly work on these early internationalizing firms have made significant contributions to our understanding about the antecedents to their emergence, the process of their formation and operation, and their performance outcomes. There are, however, important gaps in our understanding about these firms due to inconsistency in findings of past research and lack of cohesive, integrative and theory-driven studies. This dissertation is an attempt to fill these gaps by integrating findings of past research and exploring processes and outcomes seldom analyzed before. The meta-analysis structural equation modelling in Chapter 2 integrates findings of past empirical research and finds support for an explanatory framework consistent with mainstream international business theories. The analysis in Chapter 3 showed that firms rely on balancing the slack in their human resources across alternative growth paths, whereby lower levels of slack motivate international product development while higher levels of slack stimulate international expansion. Lastly, the survival analysis in Chapter 4 shows that when the preparedness of firms based on their firm-specific advantages to enter international markets is accounted for, young ventures with an international presence have a higher survival rate compared with their domestic counterparts. Despite limitations, the totality of these findings have important contributions to our understanding of early internationalization. They show that mainstream international business theories can be used to explain the case of early internationalizing firms. This theoretical framework can be supplemented, rather than supplanted, by findings of empirical research on early internationalization. This dissertations also provides details about growth decisions of young firms explaining a choice of international expansion as opposed to alternative growth paths, and offers insights about the performance outcomes and survival effects of early internationalization. The findings of these manuscript cast new light on the significant role of firm-specific advantages at the individual- and firm-level in the internationalization process of entrepreneurial firms. Besides they suggest there might be boundary conditions to a widely accepted concept in international entrepreneurship, the learning advantages of newness that can be further explored in future research.
- ItemOpen AccessUnderstanding and Addressing Barriers to Indigenous Learners in Business and Accounting Studies(2023-05-17) Andrews, Cyril Robert; Osiyevskyy, Oleksiy; Osiyevskyy, Oleksiy; Jones, Vernon James; Radnejad, Amir Bahman; Dewald, James Richard; Prete, TiffanyThis research addresses a significant gap in understanding the barriers Indigenous peoples face as they pursue business and accounting disciplines at the post-secondary level. Using structured interviews and content analysis, the study explored barriers and means the learners used and opined to remove or reduce those barriers. In addition, the research offers policy recommendations, including but not limited to the accounting profession, to address these challenges. The research also examines Indigenous peoples’ attitudes toward the accounting and business profession. This practical approach, with application to the accounting profession, bridges the practitioner-scholar gap noted in extant research. The findings suggest that the challenges are complex and interconnected and are deeply socialized in the fabric of Canada through societal biases and structural impediments within institutions that directly result from government policy, reserves, and residential schools. The research highlights issues not previously identified in the literature, including lateral violence and anti-business stigma within the Indigenous community as well as identifying an ontological reductionist fallacy of grouping dissimilar peoples together and forming policy as programs as though these groups were homogenous. Moreover, the colonial legacy, legislative and regulatory environments create a unique context for the study. It concludes that the nature of the problem may best be understood as a “wicked problem” and that collaborative approaches are likely the most suited to addressing the identified barriers. A conceptual co-evolutionary framework is proposed to relate the various barriers, structural impediments, and resulting barriers to business education specifically but also to post-secondary education generally.