No abstract

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version.Permanent repository link: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/23466/ Link to published version: http://dx. AbstractPurpose: Online B2B markets offer buyers a new source of information provided by social media signals about suppliers. These signals have not yet received much attention in the supplier selection literature. This study advances our understanding of how buyers respond to social media signals in the supplier selection process.Design: We develop a choice-based conjoint experimental design to isolate and manipulate two signals from social media: volume (i.e. the number of ratings) and valence (i.e. average evaluation of the ratings). We test how these signals are interpreted in the context of varying deal sizes and price points.Findings: Both volume and valence are positively correlated with supplier selection. However, (i) the signals exhibit diminishing returns and (ii) the efficacy of valence is interpreted in the context of volume. We also find that (iii) there is no influence of the deal size and that (iv) the relationships between signals and supplier selection are negatively moderated by deviations from the reference price.Implications: Social media signals should be considered in supplier selection decisions as they convey valuable information to the buyer. However, signals go through a process of interpretation which has implications for buyers, suppliers, and owners of online B2B markets.Originality: Our research opens new lines of inquiry in behavioural operations management research regarding the mechanisms by which buyers interpret social media signals and how these ultimately influence their choice.

In this article, we argue for an expanded view of problemistic search. Recent behavioral theory research suggests that individual search preferences influence problemistic search. We draw on this to challenge the view of problemistic search as a centrally directed organizational process that proceeds sequentially from local to distant search. We argue that search activities in organizations are heterogeneous—some individuals will first engage in local search while others may move directly to distant search. We propose that problemistic search at the macro-organizational level is therefore the result of a mix of local and distant search activities at the micro-level that shifts toward distant search in response to negative performance evaluation. We test this idea in a laboratory experiment using a repetitive task and performance feedback.

Extant research mostly looks at the process of how temporary organizations proliferate within a single organization field. This study examines temporary organizations that emerge in one organizational field and are then introduced into other organizational fields. We argue that when this occurs, organizers must contend with the illegitimacy threat posed by temporary organizational forms that have long been institutionalized in the other fields. Organizers must decide whether they should accept the threat and retain the original form of the temporary organization, or whether they should modify the new temporary organizational form in order to make it more acceptable to audiences in other organizational fields. We argue that organizers will use legitimacy claims from the organizational field in which the temporary organization first emerged to mitigate the threat of illegitimacy. We further argue that the effectiveness of this strategy will depend on similarity in norms and beliefs between these fields: The more similar the organizational fields the more persuasive are the legitimacy claims, and the easier it is for the organizers to retain the form as it was first created; the more dissimilar are the organizational fields when it comes to norms and beliefs the harder it is for organizers to persuasively use these legitimacy claims, and the more organizers will have to modify the temporary organizational form to take account of audience expectations. We examine this using the case of the so called "unconferences": an alternative conference form that emerged within the software development community at the start of the millennium in conjunction with the Web 2.0 movement. Our data comprises of 228 distinct unconferences between 2004-when the unconference was first launched, and 2015. We examine the influence of organizational field dissimilarity of unconferences from the original field where it was first held, on the extent to which the pure unconference format is retained. We show that as adopters of the new form move away from the original organizational field, they are more likely to modify the original unconference form.

The launch of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, followed by the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, and the increasing focus on achieving universal health coverage has led to numerous interventions on both supply-and demand-sides of health systems in low-and middle-income countries. While tremendous progress has been achieved, inequities in access to healthcare persist, leading to calls for a closer examination of the equity implications of these interventions. This paper examines the equity implications of two such interventions in the context of maternal healthcare in Senegal. The first intervention on the supply-side focuses on improving the availability of maternal health services while the second intervention, on the demand-side, abolished user fees for facility deliveries. Using three rounds of Demographic Health Surveys covering the period 1992 to 2010 and employing three measures of socioeconomic status (SES) based on household wealth, mothers' education and rural/urban residencewe find that although both interventions increase utilisation of maternal health services, the rich benefit more from the supply-side intervention, thereby increasing inequity, while the poor benefit more from the demand-side intervention i.e. reducing inequity. Both interventions positively influence facility deliveries in rural areas although the increase in facility deliveries after the demand-side intervention is more than the increase after the supply-side intervention. There is no significant difference in utilisation based on mothers' education. Since people from different SES categories are likely to respond differently to interventions on the supply-and demand-side of the health system, policymakers involved in the design of health programmes should pay closer attention to concerns of inequity and elite capture that may unintentionally result from these interventions.