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Maw-Der Foo Assistant
Professor of Management & Entrepreneurship |
1. Contact information
The best way to contact
me is through email:
foomd@alum.mit.edu (lifetime-forwarding
email address)
Mailing address:
419 UCB
Phone number:
+1 (303) 735-5423
2.
Research interests
I research in the areas of affect in the
workplace and use organizational behavior concepts to understand how
entrepreneurs discover, evaluate and implement business opportunities.
3.
Service to community
Editorial board member, Entrepreneurship:
Theory & Practice (2007-)
Editorial board member, Journal of
Business Venturing (2006-)
Editorial board member, Journal of
Management Studies (2009-)
4.
Teaching
Organization &
Management/Organizational behavior
Designing, conducting, and evaluating training
in organizations
New venture creation
Management of technology
Organizational behavior and
entrepreneurship (Ph.D. seminar)
5.
Publications
(Summaries
of the papers together with links to the full papers below)
Foo, M.D. (in press). Member experience, use of
external assistance and evaluation of business ideas. Journal of Small Business Management.
Lee, L., Wong, P.K., Foo, M.D., & Leung, A.
(in press). Entrepreneurial intentions: The influence of organizational and
individual factors. Journal of Business
Venturing.
Foo, M.D. (in press).
Emotions and entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation. Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice.
Foo,
M.D. (in press). Teams developing business ideas: How member characteristics
and conflict affect member-rated team effectiveness. Small Business Economics.
Uy,
M.A., Foo, M.D., & Aguinis, H. (2010). Using Experience Sampling
Methodology to advance entrepreneurship theory and research. Organizational Research Methods,
13(1), 31-54.
Foo, M.D., Uy, M., & Baron, R.A. (2009). How do feelings
influence effort? An empirical study of entrepreneurs’ affect and venture
effort. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(4), 1086-1094.
Wu, P.C., Foo, M.D., & Turban, D. (2008). The
role of personality in relationship closeness, developer assistance, and career
success. Journal of Vocational Behavior,
73(3), 440-448.
Song, Z., Foo, M.D., & Uy, M. (2008). Mood
spillover and crossover among dual-earner couples: A cell phone event sampling
study. Journal
of Applied Psychology, 93(2),
443-452.
Wong, P., Lee, L., & Foo, M.D. (2008). Occupational choice:
The influence of product vs. process innovation. Small Business
Economics, 30(3), 267-281.
Elfenbein, H., Foo, M.D., Tan, H., & Aik, V. (2007). The benefit of
understanding others' emotions for effectiveness in negotiation. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior,
31(4), 205-223.
Wong, C.S., Foo, M.D., Wang, C., W., & Wong, P.M. (2007). The
feasibility of training and development of EI: An exploratory study in
Elfenbein, H., Foo, M.D., Tan, H., & Boldry, J. (2006). Dyadic
effects in nonverbal communication: A variance partitioning analysis. Cognition & Emotion, 20(1),
149-159.
Foo, M.D., Sin, H., & Yiong, L. (2006). Effects of team inputs and
intrateam processes on new venture team effectiveness. Strategic Management Journal,
27(4), 389-399.
Leung, A., Wong, P., & Zhang, J., & Foo, M.D. (2006). A
multi-dimension of 'fit' and the use of networks in human resource acquisition
for entrepreneurial firms. Journal
of Business Venturing, 21(5), 664-686.
Chia, H., Fang, R., & Foo, M.D. (2006). Work place as communities.
Who seeks, gives, and accepts help on justice issues. Journal of Community Psychology,
34(3), 363-377.
Foo, M.D., Wong, P., & Ong, A. (2005). Do others think you have a
viable business idea? Team diversity and judges' evaluation of ideas in a
business plan competition. Journal
of Business Venturing, 20(3), 385-402.
Tan, H., Foo, M.D., & Kwek, M. (2004). The role of customer
personality traits on the display of positive emotions.
Foo, M.D., Elfenbein, H., Tan, H, & Aik, V. (2004). Emotional
intelligence and negotiation: The tension between creating and claiming value. International Journal of Conflict Management,
15(4), 411-429.
Tan H., Foo, M.D., Chong C., & Ng, R. (2003). Situational and
dispositional predictors of displays of positive emotions. Journal of Organizational Behavior,
24, 961-978.
Keh, H. T., Foo, M.D., & Lim, B. (2002).
Shane, S., & Foo, M.D. (1999). Institutional explanations for new
franchisor mortality. Management
Science, 45(2), 142-159.
6.
Summaries of papers and links to the full papers
Copyright
Notice: You may download each of the following
articles for one-time personal use only. Please obtain publisher permission for
any further distribution, publication, or commercial use.
Foo,
M.D. (in press). Member experience, use of external assistance and evaluation
of business ideas. Journal of Small Business Management.
How do members’ experience
and external interactions shape evaluation of the team’s business idea? With a
sample of 74 teams that participated in a business idea competition, we showed
that experience as defined by size, mean work experience, and assistance from
individuals with business founding experience related positively to the teams’
business idea evaluations. The benefits of external founders are more
pronounced for smaller than for larger teams. Having a founder in the team did
not relate to idea evaluation but interaction effects showed smaller sized
teams had worse evaluations if they did not have a founder in the team.
Lee,
L., Wong, P.K., Foo, M.D., & Leung, A. (in press). Entrepreneurial
intentions: The influence of organizational and individual factors. Journal of
Business Venturing.
An individual’s intent to
pursue an entrepreneurial career can result from the work environment and from
personal factors. Drawing on the entrepreneurial intentions and the
person-environment (P-E) fit literatures, and applying a multilevel
perspective, we examine why individuals intend to leave their jobs to start
business ventures. Findings, using a sample of 4192 IT professionals in
Foo, M.D. (in press). Emotions and entrepreneurial
opportunity evaluation. Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice.
Emotions may affect
opportunity evaluation yet emotions’ influence in entrepreneurship research has
been neglected. Our findings indicate that appraisal dimensions of emotions
influence risk perceptions and preferences. In Study 1 (N=187) the
participants’ scores on risk perception for a venture scenario were significantly
lower for anger and happiness induced participants (emotions associated with
outcome certainty and control) than for fear and hope induced participants
(emotions associated with outcome uncertainty and a lack of outcome control).
In Study 2 (N=66), the entrepreneurs’ preference for the higher value but
uncertain outcome related positively to their scores on trait anger and trait
happiness.
Foo, M.D. (in press).
Teams developing business ideas: How member characteristics and conflict affect
member-rated team effectiveness. Small Business Economics.
Team researchers have
found that the diversity to effectiveness ratings are mediated by team
conflict. Using a sample of 73 teams developing their business ideas, we find
direct effects of diversity and conflict on member-rated team effectiveness. We
explain how the circumstances under which these teams operate can lead to these
findings. For these teams, task conflict was found to relate negatively to
member-rated team effectiveness. This
finding contrasts with research on organizational teams, where task conflict
usually relates positively to team effectiveness ratings. We also find that both diversity and average
member experience influence member-rated effectiveness. The findings imply that
diversity, conflict, and ratings of team effectiveness may differ for teams
developing business ideas as compared to organizational teams. Thus, findings
from organizational team research should be applied with caution to teams
developing business ideas and possibly to new venture teams in general.
We propose the use of
experience sampling methodology (ESM) as an innovative methodological approach
to address critical questions in entrepreneurship research. ESM requires
participants to provide reports of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors at
multiple times across situations as they happen in the natural environment.
Thus, ESM allows researchers to capture dynamic person by situation
interactions as well as between- and within-person processes, improve the ecological
validity of results, and minimize retrospective biases. We provide a
step-by-step description of how to design and implement ESM studies beginning
with research design and ending with data analysis, and including issues of
implementation such as time and resources needed, participant recruitment and
orientation, signaling procedures, and the use of computerized devices and
wireless technologies. We also describe a cell phone ESM protocol that enables
researchers to monitor and interact with participants in real time, reduces
costs, expedites data entry, and increases convenience. Finally, we discuss
implications of ESM based research for entrepreneurs, business incubators, and
entrepreneurship educators.
How do feelings influence the effort of
entrepreneurs? To obtain data on this issue, we implemented experience sampling
methodology (ESM) in which 46 entrepreneurs used their cell phones to provide
reports on their affect, future temporal focus, and venture effort twice daily
for 24 days. Drawing on the affect-as-information theory, we find that
entrepreneurs’ negative affect directly predicts their effort towards tasks
that are required immediately. Results were consistent for both within-day and
next-day time lags. Extending the theory, we also found that positive affect
predicts venture effort beyond what is immediately required, and that this
relationship is mediated by future temporal focus. The mediating effects were
significant only for next-day outcomes. We discuss the implications of our
findings on the nature of the affect-effort relationship for different time
lags.
We investigate the role
of relationship closeness, which is adapted from social network theory, in
developmental relationships using a sample of 278 full-time working
individuals. We theorize that personality, operationalized with the Five Factor
Model, is associated with relationship closeness which is positively related to
developer assistance received, which in turn is linked to objective and
subjective measures of career success. In general, results supported our
hypothesized model, although personality had direct effects on career success
beyond the indirect effects through relationship closeness and developer
assistance. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
This study examined
affective experiences of dual-earner couples. More specifically, it explored
how momentary moods can spill over between work and family and cross over from
one spouse to another. Fifty couples used their cell phones to provide reports
of their momentary moods over eight consecutive days. Results showed
significant spillover and crossover effects for both positive and negative
moods. Work orientation moderated negative mood spillover from work to home,
and the presence of children in the family decreased negative mood crossover
between spouses. Crossover was observed when spouses were physically together
and when the time interval between the spouses' reports was short. This study
contributes to the work and family research by examining the nature of mood
transfers among dual-earner couples including the direction, valence, and
moderators of these transfers across work and family domains. The study also
contributes to the event sampling methodology by introducing a new method of
using cell phones to collect momentary data.
Prior studies have found
that knowledge gained from work experience is a way to gather insights for
business opportunity recognition. However, little is known about the specific
types of knowledge that lead to business founding. Utilizing concepts from
knowledge spillovers and from the opportunity recognition literatures, this
paper argues that an organization’s technological innovation activities can
help its employees develop specialized knowledge that provides them with the
entrepreneurial opportunities to found new businesses. Besides highlighting the
positive relationship between technological innovation activities in
organizations and the propensity of individuals leaving the organizations to
start new businesses, this paper also provides a more fine-grained explanation
of the types of technological innovation activities that can lead to business
founding. We argue that knowledge acquired through product innovations is more
easily adopted by individuals for commercial uses, while knowledge acquired
through process innovations must be integrated with other parts of the
organization to be valuable. This study proposes that product innovation
activities in an organization, more so than process innovation activities, are
related to new business founding. Implications for opportunity exploitation and
ways to exploit knowledge spillovers are discussed.
Using meta-analysis, we find a consistent positive
correlation between emotion recognition accuracy (ERA) and goal-oriented
performance. However, this existing research relies primarily on subjective
perceptions of performance. The current study tested the impact of ERA on
objective performance in a mixed-motive buyer-seller negotiation exercise.
Greater recognition of posed facial expressions predicted better objective
outcomes for participants from
Emotional intelligence
(EI) has been an emerging topic for psychological, educational, and management
researchers and consultants in recent years. However, existing literature has
concentrated on demonstrating the effects of EI on either the mental health or
on job outcomes such as job attitudes and performance. There is relatively
little discussion concerning how EI, as a set of interrelated abilities about
handling emotions, is developed. Understanding how EI is developed may be the
significant first step for organizations to develop effective EI training
programs. As an exploratory effort, we borrowed the basic argument from
theories in human development to argue that life experiences affect EI
development. Based on samples of university students from
Using Kenny's (1994) Social
Relations Model, a block-round robin design provided the first reported
evidence for dyadic effects in nonverbal communication. That is, some dyads
were systematically more or less accurate than the individual level skill of
perceivers and expressors would predict. This dyadic effect appears to be
similar in magnitude to individual differences in emotional perception, a topic
garnering extensive research attention over several decades. Results generally
replicated for judgments across genders and across two cultural groups. These
preliminary findings have implications for research on emotional intelligence
and other models of affective skill, raising the possibility that accuracy in
nonverbal communication combines individual differences with factors beyond the
individual level.
A new venture team is a
particular type of top management team neglected by the literature. This study
investigated the effects of team inputs and processes on team members’
perceptions of team viability and satisfaction in nascent ventures. These
outcomes are important as they may be antecedents of team perseverance. The
study of 51 new venture teams showed that the presence of a distinct leader was
positively related to team satisfaction, while member diversity in educational
backgrounds was positively related to perceived team viability. Intrateam
processes of social integration and open communication were positively related
to both perceived team viability and member satisfaction.
This study proposes a
multi-dimension, multi-contingent ‘fit’ perspective for examining different
practices adapted by entrepreneurial firms in acquiring human resources. We
posit that while environmental constraints are important considerations for
adapting recruitment practices through networks, strategic needs and
interpersonal dynamics are the key drivers behind the evolution of such
practices. As they transit from the startup to the growth phase,
entrepreneurial firms utilize different network pools in search of diversity,
yet cling to strong ties to find talents with common values and goals. Our
findings carry important implications for future research in human resource
management by integrating the macro- and micro-perspective, and at the same
time, enhance the understanding of network effects and their strategic bearings
in the entrepreneurial process, specifically in the acquisition of human
resources.
This article examines
individuals in a community as defined by their membership in an organization.
In such a setting, individuals often make use of their social contacts to make
sense of events in the organization. Yet, the organizational justice literature
is generally silent on how these contacts shape information seeking,
volunteering, and acceptance. Using a social network perspective, we found that
expressive ties were positively related to information seeking, volunteering,
and acceptance for both procedural and interactional justice issues.
Instrumental ties were related to all dependent variables for procedural
justice issues but only related to information seeking for interactional
justice issues. The role of ties and networks in information flow is discussed.
The study examines how
team diversity affects external evaluation of the teams’ business ideas. Using
an information perspective, we argue that task-related diversity of member
characteristics enhance team effectiveness. Nontask diversity hurt team
effectiveness by steering teams away from their tasks. Some support was found.
Task-related diversity of education level was positively related with
evaluation while nontask diversities of age and employment status negatively
related with evaluation. The positive relationship of task diversity on
evaluations was higher for larger teams. The findings were robust across
different functional forms for the demographic factors. Implications of team
affects on venture outcomes are discussed.
We extended past research
on the display of positive emotions within customer service settings by
focusing on customer traits. Adopting an emotional contagion perspective, we
found that customer traits relate to the display of positive emotions by the
service provider. This display of positive emotions was also found to relate to
customer satisfaction. Implications for emotion management and service
personnel training are discussed.
As a departure from past
research on emotional intelligence (EI), which generally examines the influence
of an individual’s level of EI on that individual’s consequences, we examined
relationships between the emotional intelligence (EI) of both members of dyads
involved in a negotiation in order to explain objective and subjective
outcomes. As expected, individuals high in EI reported a more positive
experience. However, surprisingly, such individuals also achieved significantly
lower objective scores than their counterparts. By contrast, having a partner
high in EI predicted greater objective gain, and a more positive negotiating
experience. Thus, high EI individuals appeared to benefit in affective terms,
but appeared to create objective value that they were less able to claim. We
discuss the tension between creating and claiming value, and implications for
motion in organizations.
The study examined the
effects of situational (store busyness and customer demand) and dispositional
(extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism) factors on the display of
positive emotions. We found that for situational factors, customer demand was positively
related to displayed positive emotions. For personality factors, extraversion
was positively related to displayed positive emotions and neuroticism was
negatively related to displayed positive emotions. Usefulness analysis showed
that both situational and personality factors contributed significantly to
explain the level of positive displayed emotion.
Even though the
entrepreneurship literature places much emphasis on opportunity recognition,
little is known about how entrepreneurs actually evaluate opportunities. This
study uses a cognitive approach to examine opportunity evaluation, as the
perception of opportunity is essentially a cognitive phenomenon. We present a
model that consists of four independent variables (overconfidence, belief in
the law of small numbers, planning fallacy, and illusion of control), a
mediating variable (risk perception), two control variables (demographics and
risk propensity), and the dependent variable (opportunity evaluation). We find
that illusion of control and belief in the law of small numbers are related to
how entrepreneurs evaluate opportunities. Our results also indicate that risk
perception mediates opportunity evaluation.
Why do some new firms succeed and others
fail? Economists argue that new firms fail because entrepreneurs inefficiently
manage production and organizational design (Williamson 1985). Sociologists
(e.g., Granovetter 1985) have typically viewed this explanation as
undersocialized, and argue that institutional legitimacy must also be
considered to explain the survival of new firms. This paper examines the
survival of 1292 new franchisors established in the