Oana Branzei is Donald F. Hunter Professor of International Business and Associate Professor of Strategy at the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. She is also the Director of the Sustainability Certificate program and the founder, convener and host faculty of the Ivey/ARCS PhD Sustainability Academy, an annual event of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability. Oana held a 2012/2014 visiting appointment with the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship and the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. Oana’s research interests, at the intersection of strategy and sustainability, include the pro-social foundations, forms, and functions of business as agents of positive social change and the relational micro-processes of value creation, capture and distribution. She leads major research initiatives on positive social change, social enterprise, sustainable communities, and cross-sector partnerships. At Ivey, Oana has taught in the HBA, MBA, MSc, EMBA and PhD programs. Oana is a field editor for the Journal of Business Venturing and serves on the Editorial Review Boards of the Journal of Management and Academy of Management Learning and Education.
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Parker, S. C.; Gamble, E.; Moroz, P. W.; Branzei, O.,
(Forthcoming), "The Impact of B Lab Certification on Firm Growth", Academy of Management Discoveries.
Abstract: We investigate the impact of B Lab certification – a rapidly growing type of third-party certification for organizations with social and/or environmental missions – on the short-term growth rates of certifying firms. To date, this kind of certification has generally been regarded as an unalloyed good for the organizations that adopt it; but prior research has overlooked the possibility that it may also entail attentional deficits and internal organizational disruption, leading to a short-term growth slowdown. Our study reports results based on a novel, hand-collected dataset of 249 mainly privately held North American Certified B Corporations over 2011-2014. Our results, derived from a difference-in-difference framework, and augmented with insights from a set of in-depth interviews, identifies a short-term growth slowdown arising from certification, which is more pronounced for the smallest and youngest firms. These findings highlight the need for management theorists to pay greater attention to internal re-organization costs as well as external benefits flowing from B Lab certification; they also carry important practical implications for organizations contemplating certification.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amd.2017.0068
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Cui, V.; Vertinsky, I.; Robinson, S.; Branzei, O.,
(Forthcoming), "Trust in the Workplace: The Role of Social Interaction Diversity in the Community and in the Workplace", Business and Society.
Abstract: Extending the literature on social capital development in the community, this article examines the impact of diverse social interactions (in the community and the workplace) on the development of social trust in the workplace, and investigates whether their effects differ in individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Using survey data collected in Canada and China, the authors find that the diversity of one’s social interactions in the community is positively associated with one’s social trust in the workplace, and this relationship is not significantly different between the two cultures. Diversity of one’s social interactions in the workplace is also positively associated with one’s social trust in the workplace, though only in collectivistic cultures.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0007650315611724
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Moroz, P. W.; Branzei, O.; Parker, S. C.; Gamble, E.,
(Forthcoming), "Making Opportunities Pro-social", Journal of Business Venturing.
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Maslach, D.; Branzei, O.; Rerup, C.; Zbaracki, M.,
2018, "Noise as signal in learning from rare events", Organization Science, April 29(2): 225 - 246.
Abstract: Firms increasingly have access to information about the failure events of other firms through public repositories. We study one such repository that accumulates reports of adverse events in the medical device industry. We provide qualitative evidence that shows how firms select a sample of adverse events and then engage in inferential learning. We show that firms use the reports of others to extract new valid knowledge from the adverse events in other firms. We use quantitative evidence to explore how a public repository can be used to provide more direct evidence of vicarious learning. Our findings challenge some standard assumptions about vicarious learning. First, we show that the learning in a repository does not come from referent others. Instead, it emerges directly from failure events that might ordinarily be dismissed as noise. Second, we show that the learning does not come from copying others. Instead, it is constructed by firm members as they assemble individual failure events to identify possibilities they had not considered. Third, in contrast to vicarious learning where the referent others and rare events provide the context, repository-based learning requires that actors impose their own context as part of the learning process. Our qualitative and quantitative evidence serve explanatory purposes by showing how firms use a repository of failure events to identify moments of valid learning, and exploratory purposes by investigating how we can demonstrate reliable learning from a repository of failure events.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2017.1179
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Branzei, O.; Frooman, J.; McKnight, B.; Zietsma, C.,
2018, "What Good Does Doing Good do? The Effect of Bond Rating Analysts’ Corporate Bias on Investor Reactions to Changes in Social Responsibility", Journal of Business Ethics, March 148(1): 183 - 203.
Abstract: © 2016, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. In this study, we explore how investors reconcile information on firms’ social responsibility with analysts’ assessments of future firm risk in the pricing of long-term bonds. We ask whether investors pay attention to small strides toward and/or small slips away from socially responsible behavior, arguing that analysts’ corporate bias toward gains and against losses influences investor reactions to corporate social responsibility. We hypothesize that analysts notice and reward improvements in social responsibility, yet excuse lapses. We find support for this hypothesis, using a unique dataset of long-term bonds that combines lagged measures of firm-level financial and social performance with bond-specific data pertaining to risk of default and pricing. The empirically robust asymmetry in investor responses to small but often cumulative increases versus decreases in corporate social responsibility reveals an under-examined root cause of longer-term, larger-scale distortions in financial market returns regarding corporate social performance. Our findings elaborate earlier behavioral research on how corporate bias influences analysts’ short-term assessments of economic risk, by theorizing why this corporate bias may influence long-term assessments of social risk. Our work also motivates more critical scrutiny of the role analysts play in revising the future risk of today’s social action versus inaction.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3357-6
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Moroz, P. W.; Branzei, O.; Parker, S. C.; Gamble, E.,
2018, "Imprinting with purpose: new pro-social opportunities and B Corp certification", Journal of Business Venturing, March 33(2): 117 - 129.
Abstract: Certified B Corporations are for profit ventures that have chosen to embrace third party voluntary social and environmental audits conducted by B Lab: a highly entrepreneurial non-profit enterprise in its own right. In this Special Issue, we focus on the lifecycle of Certified B Corporations and its relevance to the entrepreneurial journey. To do so we argue for and highlight research at the intersection of prosocial certification and opportunities to surface patterns and processes, which we believe add significant value to ongoing conversations in the field of entrepreneurship while also charting new pathways. We develop a framework of prosocial venturing and certification that pinpoints several elements of likely consequence and curiosity to providing new insights on the entrepreneurial process that hint at the importance of opportunity, identity metamorphosis and sedimentation/superseding work. In so doing, we offer our interpretation of how the exploration of prosociality may add to conversations on how and why ventures resist or embrace change over time, to what effect and ultimately, how opportunities may be reBorn.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2018.01.003
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Poldner, K.; Shrivastava, P.; Branzei, O.,
2017, "Embodied Multi-Discursivity: An Aesthetic Process Approach to Sustainable Entrepreneurship", Business and Society, February 56(2): 214 - 252.
Abstract: Sustainable entrepreneurship is a vital and growing area of entrepreneurship studies. Although charged with multiple potentially conflicting discourses, sustainable entrepreneurship is usually viewed from a binary logic of business versus sustainability. This article uses an aesthetic process approach to sustainable entrepreneurship to move beyond this binary logic and unearth the tensions between multiple discourses. The authors introduce the construct of embodied multi-discursivity that addresses this issue methodologically as well as conceptually. By combining discourse analysis with aesthetic inquiry, the article pushes the boundaries of traditional qualitative methods. The aim is to encourage sustainable entrepreneurship scholars to expand their methodological horizon to capture the emotionally charged, value-laden processes they study. Embodied multi-discursivity shows how multi-discursive processes of entrepreneurship come into being, how they are disrupted, and how they can break into a duality that ignores the variety of discourses. The authors conclude by drawing some implications for sustainable entrepreneurship.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0007650315576149
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Jones-Christensen, L.; Siemsen, E.; Branzei, O.; Viswanathan, M.,
2017, "Response Pattern Analysis: Assuring Data Integrity in Extreme Research Settings", Strategic Management Journal, January 38(2): 471 - 482.
Abstract: Strategy scholars increasingly conduct research in non-traditional contexts. Such efforts often require the assistance of third-party intermediaries who understand local culture, norms, and language. This reliance on intermediation in primary or secondary data collection can elicit agency breakdowns that call into question the reliability, analyzability, and interpretability of responses. Herein, we investigate the causes and consequences of intermediary bias in the form of faked data and we offer Response Pattern Analysis as a statistical solution for identifying and removing such problematic data. By explicating the effect, illustrating how we detected it, and performing a controlled field experiment in a developing country to test the effectiveness of our methodological solution, we encourage researchers to continue to seek data and build theory from unique and understudied settings.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/smj.2497
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Jiang, M.; Branzei, O.; Xia, J.,
2016, "DIY: How Internationalization Shifts the Locus of Indigenous Innovation for Chinese Firms", Journal of World Business, September 51(5): 662 - 674.
Abstract: We elaborate theories of indigenous innovation by explaining how internationalization choices help emerging market firms transition from dependence on external knowledge to self-reliance on internal knowledge. Using a 19982007 census dataset of Chinese manufacturing firms, we theorize and test the moderation effect of foreign equity and export orientation on the relationship between knowledge and indigenous innovation. We show that foreign equity dis-incentivizes, while export orientation incentivizes, investments in internal knowledge. We contribute by showing that internationalization choices may radically change indigenous innovation outcomes by shifting the locus of problem solving outside or inside the firm. Our study corroborates the negative direct and indirect effects of external knowledge on indigenous innovation at the firm level previously suggested by China-centric scholars but also shows how two types of internationalization choices may gradually relieve firm-level dependence on imported technology. We bridge the gap between Western research and Chinese thought and practice by introducing a do-it-yourself (DIY) explanation of how firms may implement China’s indigenous innovation (zizhu chuangxin) policy.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2016.07.005
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Maier, E.; Branzei, O.,
2014, "On Time and on Budget: Harnessing Creativity in Large Scale Projects", International Journal of Project Management, October 32(7): 1123 - 1133.
Abstract: Keeping large scale projects on time and on budget is no trivial accomplishment, especially when they rely on creative contributions from multiple individuals and groups that cannot be precisely timed. Simultaneously delivering on all of these aspects requires a flexible and nuanced approach to controls that builds on the discipline instilled in professional practice. We substantiate this insight with 82-day ethnography of a dramatic television series production as it unfolded in real-time. Our analyses reveal three distinct practices enacted by project members to (re)balance creativity within the parameters of the project: 1) analogically linking controls with creative tasks 2) (in)formally attuning creative tasks to controls as the project unfolds and 3) (re)allocating scarce resources to realize creative aspirations of the project. Taken together, these practices organically but predictably (re)balance creativity and control in large scale projects.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2014.02.009
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Ivanova, O.; Poldner, K.; Branzei, O.,
2013, "Touch and Feel: Signals that Make a Difference", Journal of Corporate Citizenship, December (52): 102 - 130.
Abstract: We use a multi-source, longitudinal case study of one of the world's first and best eco-fashion brands, Osklen, founded by Oskar Metsavaht in Brazil in 1989, to advance a multi-sensorial signalling theory account of sustainable luxury. Our inductive theory-building extends traditional signalling theory, especially its recent applications to sustainability, by adding an appreciation of multiple senses and leveraging multi-sensorial methodologies increasingly popular in the marketing and design disciplines. In contrast to the traditional literature on signalling from economics which suggests that signals are most influential when they are visible, clear and easy to interpret (thus carrying unambiguous messages from sender to receiver), we show that balancing luxury and sustainability requires and relies on multi-sensorial, complex, even contested signals. We catalogue, classify and compare the signals sent by Osklen within and across the 15 different collections Oskar Metsavaht designed between 2005 and 2013 to explain how signals are deliberately de- and re-composed to combine luxury and sustainability. Our findings encourage sustainability researchers to take senses seriously and offer practical how-to recommendations to luxury designers committed to making a difference.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.9774/GLEAF.4700.2013.de.00010
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Branzei, O.; Camp, R.; Vertinsky, I.,
2013, "In Whom Collectivists Trust: The Role of (in)Voluntary Social Obligations in Japan", Management and Organization Review, July 9(2): 319 - 343.
Abstract: This study contributes to an emic understanding of how different types of social obligations may help or hinder the formation of initial organizational trust within collectivist cultures. We extend prior social categorization insights by challenging the expectation that in-group favouritism automatically facilitates higher levels of initial trust among collectivists. We theorize and test the asymmetric effects of two different types of social obligations toward members of distinct social categories (kinship and friendship in-groups) on the formation of initial organizational trust. Using a quasi-experimental research design in a collectivist culture (Japan), we hypothesize and show that in ambivalent situations, voluntary social obligations toward members of friendship in-groups encourage early trust in trustees' organizations however, involuntary social obligations toward members of kinship in-groups discourage early trust development toward the organization these trustees represent. The effects of (in)voluntary social obligations on initial organizational trust are contingent on how collectivists perceive each encounter: voluntary social obligations are more conducive to trust-building at lower levels of perceived opportunity involuntary social obligations have stronger effects on initial organizational trust at higher levels of perceived risk.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/more.12009
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Le Ber, M. J.; Branzei, O.,
2011, "Value Frame Fusion in Cross Sector Interactions", Journal of Business Ethics, March 94(1): 163 - 195.
Abstract: Prior research cautions that clashing value creation logics and conflicting identities can stall social innovation in cross sector partnerships and flags inherent incompatibilities between for-profit and nonprofit partners. Process narratives of successful versus unsuccessful cross-sector partnerships paint a more optimistic picture, whereby the frequency, intensity, breadth and depth of interactions may afford frame alignment despite partners’ divergent value creation approaches. However, little is known about how cross-sector partners come to recognize and reconcile their divergent value creation frames so they can manage to co-construct social value. Using longitudinal narratives from four dyads, we show that partners initially contrast their sector-embedded diagnostic frames and then work together to deliberately develop partnership-specific prognostic frames. We extend the literature on framing by developing a four-stage model of prognostic frame negotiation, elasticity, plasticity and fusion which unpacks the relational process of value-creation in cross-sector partnerships. Our qualitative analyses further show how partners orchestrate multilevel coordination that helps scaffold and calibrate this relational process of frame fusion.
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Branzei, O.; Nakamura, M.; Vertinsky, I.,
2011, "Learning in Collaborative R&D: When Multinationality Matters", Asian Business and Management, March 10(1): 9 - 36.
Abstract: We explore when and why MNCs invest more in collaborative R&D than domestic firms. The received wisdom in R&D research is that firms invest more in R&D when their strong capabilities lead them to expect higher returns. Yet the stronger firms’ capabilities get, the greater their incentives to specialize and the lesser their incentives to collaborate. Prior research resolved this paradox by concluding that firms with strong capabilities do their own R&D, while those with weak capabilities partner with others. But some firms choose to invest in collaborative R&D despite having strong capabilities. We discuss a multinationality-asymmetry: MNCs and domestic firms invest differentially in collaborative R&D depending on their approach to learning. Using a random sample of manufacturing firms in Japan we hypothesize and find that MNCs invest less than domestic firms in collaborative R&D when they learn anticipatorily, more when they learn experientially, and equally when they learn vicariously. These differences are significant when and only when firms are motivated to (re)build capabilities.
Link(s) to publication:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/abm.2010.34
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Le Ber, M. J.; Branzei, O.,
2010, "Towards a Critical Theory of Value Creation in Cross-Sector Partnerships", Organization, September 17(5): 599 - 629.
Abstract: This paper develops a critical theory of value creation in cross-sector partnerships by recasting value creation from the standpoint of the beneficiary. We first explain how distinct combinations of principles, relations and relational processes set largely non-overlapping foundations for conceptualizing the role of the beneficiary in value creation within Marxist, pragmatist and Frankfurt schools of thought. We introduce the construct of beneficiary voice to delineate and illustrate three distinct roles that beneficiaries may play in value creation in cross-sector partnerships: voice-receiving, voice-making and voice-taking. We then focus on the generative tensions to bridge value creation arguments across these three critical theories and thus contribute an overtly socialized and explicitly relational foundation of value creation in cross-sector partnerships.
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