Inter-Unit Executive Redeployment in Multiunit Firms: Evidence from Korean Business Groups
( Chang, Sea-Jin | Kim, Young-Choon | Park, Sangchan )ORGANIZATION SCIENCEforthcoming
Abstract
Building on the literature on resource reconfiguration theory, we formulate a new theoretical framework that explains how executive redeployment within a diversified firm transfers different types of human capital embodied in executives to different units facing specific business challenges. In the empirical context of Korean business groups, we find that executives with unit-specific human capital, like turnaround experience, competitive experience, and international expansion experience, are redeployed to units with corresponding business challenges like financial difficulties, intensifying competition, and early-stage international expansion, respectively. We also show that executives with unit-generic human capital, like corporate management practices and interunit coordination experiences, are redeployed to younger units seeking to establish corporate-level policies and practices. Additional analyses also show that the value of firm-specific human capital in driving the redeployment of executives is contingent on their functional orientation and seniority.
From Investor Nudges to SME Operational Resilience: Evidence on Financial Slack in Revenue-Based Lending
( Chung, Sunghun | Bhattacharya, Siddharth | Lee, Chul Ho | Kumar, Subodha )JOURNAL OF OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT2026-09
Abstract
Revenue-based lending (RBL) has emerged as a prominent alternative to traditional fixed-term debt for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), whose survival often depends on operational resilience, defined as the ability to maintain essential business functions under demand volatility, liquidity shocks, and external disruptions. Because SMEs frequently face severe credit frictions, short cash-to-cash cycles, and limited access to traditional operational buffers, timely and predictable financing can create financial slack that helps them absorb short-term disruptions. In RBL, repayment is tied to realized revenue, but the resilience benefits of this model depend on a stable and responsive supply of investor capital. Drawing on behavioral operations, investor psychology, and OM research on financial slack, we examine whether investor-directed digital nudges can increase investor engagement and, through more timely and reliable capital flows, strengthen SME operational resilience. Collaborating with a major RBL platform in Asia, we conduct a large-scale randomized field experiment in which investors are randomly assigned to one of five messages: (i) cooperative social-value message (ii) competitive social-value message, (iii) precommitment message designed to mitigate time-inconsistent preferences, (iv) ease-and-convenience message designed to reduce perceived cognitive costs, or a plain message control that accounts for attention effects. Our results show that the ease-and-convenience-framed nudge significantly increases investor engagement, leading to more timely and predictable funding aligned with SMEs' operational needs. These improved capital flows reduce delinquency and shorten payoff durations, suggesting that investor-side nudges can strengthen borrower resilience by creating financial slack that helps SMEs maintain operational continuity under cash-flow pressure. Our empirical evidence combines an investor-side online experiment, a borrower-side mechanism experiment, and semi-structured interviews with SME borrowers. Together, these analyses show that ease-and-convenience messaging is especially effective for long-tenured, risk-averse, institutionally affiliated, and urban-based investors, while borrower-side evidence suggests that financial slack is the most strongly supported borrower-side mechanism through which timely and predictable funding helps SMEs absorb short-term shocks, meet urgent operating obligations, and maintain repayment continuity. By documenting how investor-side nudges generate cross-side benefits for SME borrowers through financial slack and buffering, this study advances behavioral operations research on context-dependent nudging, extends OM work on platform-mediated resilience, and offers guidance for fintech platforms seeking to stabilize capital flows to vulnerable SMEs.
Pairwise Imitation and Tournament Graphs
( Hwang, Sung-Ha | Neary, Philip R | Newton, Jonathan | Sawa, Ryoji )INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW2026-08
Abstract
This paper investigates strategic dynamics under the behavioral rule of pairwise interact and imitate (PII), which requires minimal information and emphasizes outperforming opponents in pairwise interactions. We characterize PII using weak tournament graphs and, for a broad class of dynamics, establish a one-shot stability result for stochastic stability. Applications include Cournot competition, strategic complements and substitutes, externalities, Nash demand games, and status-seeking contests. The analysis highlights the competing roles of spite effects and perturbations in favoring relative success versus efficiency.
Communicating Attribute Importance Under Competition
( Lee, Jae-Yun | Shin, Jiwoong | Yu, Jungju )MARKETING SCIENCE2026-05
Abstract
When consumers encounter unfamiliar products, they often face difficulty in understanding which attributes are crucial, leading to challenges in product comparison and potential diminished interest in the category. This study examines how firms strategically communicate the importance of product attributes in a competitive environment. Despite consumer awareness of attributes and their levels, uncertainty regarding their relative importance remains. We analyze a situation where two firms each receive a noisy signal about the true importance of the attribute and communicate to consumers through cheap-talk messages. Following these communications, consumers decide whether to incur a cost to explore the category by visiting stores. Our findings reveal a truthful equilibrium in which firms report their received signals honestly. In this equilibrium, firms can credibly convey information about the most important attribute if their messages align, thus encouraging store visits and purchases. Interestingly, firms may still find it advantageous to truthfully highlight an attribute, even if it does not align with their competitive advantage. Moreover, we show that without competition (i.e., a single firm communicating), this truthful equilibrium does not exist. Thus, the presence of competition enables the credible communication of information about attribute importance, benefiting both firms by enhancing consumer engagement with the product category.
High-investment human resource practices and firm performance in the context of national education systems and labor markets: A cross-national meta-analysis
( Han, Joo Hun | Kang, Saehee | Allen, David G. | Pan, Yan )JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS STUDIES2026-04
Abstract
Organizations?especially multinational corporations (MNCs)?do not always realize comparable performance gains from investing in people across national borders. Prior research has attempted to explain such variation in the effects of high-investment human resource practices (HIHRPs) by emphasizing their fit with national cultural values, yet empirical support for this cultural fit perspective has been limited. To address this gap, we focus on national institutional factors that more directly shape how HIHRPs influence performance. Drawing on human capital resources (HCR) theory and institutional perspectives in International Business (IB), we identify two institutional conditions?national education quality and labor market flexibility?that moderate HIHRP effectiveness. We theorize that high-quality education systems enhance the HIHRPs?performance relationship by supplying workers with strong general human capital and that this effect is amplified in flexible labor markets where employees are motivated to contribute. A meta-analysis of 1,285 effect sizes from 170,938 organizations across 29 countries offers nuanced evidence: HIHRPs were more effective when national education quality and labor market flexibility were both high or both low than when they were mismatched. These findings advance comparative and strategic HRM research and guide organizations about how comprehensively or selectively to invest in managing people in what institutional contexts.
