Understanding Stewardship Governance: Theory Development and Empirical Evidence


Speaker


Abstract

Morela Hernandez will provide an overview of her work with an emphasis on a few under review and in press articles. In particular, she will discuss the following two projects:

1. AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF THE PERFORMANCE OUTCOMES OF STEWARDSHIP BEHAVIOR
The literature on stewardship theory has focused largely on theoretically examining the structural and psychological factors that lead to stewardship behavior (i.e., the sacrifice of short-term personal gains to serve longer-term broadly beneficial ends) in organizations. An underlying assumption in this area is that such factors create an organizational context for stewardship, which, in turn, generates long-term, positive results for the organization. We theoretically develop and test the role of stewardship behavior as a central mechanism that can account for the effect of stewardship context on performance. Data gathered from 2,466 individuals in 81 business units, across three field studies conducted in a large multinational company, supported our hypotheses.

2. IDENTIFIED AMBIVALENCE: WHEN COGNITIVE CONFLICTS CAN HELP INDIVIDUALS OVERCOME COGNITIVE TRAPS
In this article we investigate the functional effects of ambivalence on decision-making processes. We build on the misattribution literature and recent work on ambivalence to propose that individuals who properly identify the causes of their ambivalence (i.e., identified ambivalence) can systematically process relevant situational cues to make more effective decisions. The results of four studies demonstrate that individuals experiencing identified ambivalence are less influenced by cognitive biases (i.e., the framing effect, availability bias, and conjunction bias) than individuals experiencing no ambivalence or felt ambivalence. Notably, we find that contextual awareness accounts for the effect of identified ambivalence on decision effectiveness. We then investigate the role of trait self-control as a specific contingency in our model; our results indicate that identified ambivalence leads to effective decisions when individuals are low in trait self-control. Taken together, we advance theory and offer robust, consistent empirical evidence that explains why and how ambivalence can result in functional outcomes.