PHD Publications

My dissertation expands the line of inquiry of the contingent value of social capitalto individual performance by raising three novel questions. In the first essay of my dissertationI focus on “How to bridge and how to bond” and propose a new theoretical framework foranalyzing social capital, which deconstructs its major function beyond bridging or bonding intoits substance as social relations versus position in network structure. Considering these twodimensions of social network analysis I propose four distinct sources of social capital that havedifferent predictive value for individual achievements: bridging network, bridging relations,bonding network and bonding relations. The lead question in the second chapter of mydissertation is “When to bridge and when to bond”. Joining the research on the contingentvalue of social capital, I look at organization and individual level factors to predict the value ofeach social capital source to performance and theorize about the strategies individuals shouldpursue in order to achieve better performance. In the third essay I ask “Should one start withbridging or with bonding?” Building on the categorization proposed in the first chapter Iinvestigate the most successful social capital path to on-the-job performance.

This dissertation is made ofthree distinct chapters. The first chapterexamines the causal link between banks’syndicated loan supply and non-financial firms’campaign contributions for US elections duringthe 2007-2008 financial crisis. The resultsindicate that a 10% decrease in loan supply of agiven firm by its pre-crisis relationship lendersduring the early crisis period leads to a 9%increase in firm’s campaign contributions in2008. Further, firms’ level of past campaigncontributions is positively associated withfavorable loan terms for the future. Thefindings lend support to the idea that campaigncontributions are an investment in politicalcapital rather than merely a form ofconsumption good.The second chapter identifies the effect ofbanks’ industry exposures prior to market-entryon the output growth of manufacturing sectorsthrough US bank-entry deregulations. Thefindings indicate that the larger the discrepancyin specialization in an industry between a statepair,the higher the impact of bankingintegration on the growth of that sector in thestate that is less-specialized. The last chapterexamines whether banking integration acrossregions has any impact on the market forcorporate control between them. The resultsshow that there are more M&As and divestituresacross state-pairs whose banking systems haveexperienced a higher integration, compared tostate-pairs with no such integration. The findingsin the last two chapters indicate a bankingchannel that shapes the states’ industriallandscape.

This dissertation explores family firms’ organizational identity from a non-family member’s perspective. The family identity of these firms constitutes both an intangible asset, that is difficult to imitate – and a crucial stake as during their growth process, family firms incorporate external members who tend to progressively represent the majority of the payroll. This stake is even more salient as owning families aim at durably influencing their firms’ identity since the family’s and the firm’s history and reputation are interrelated. However, the role of non-family members’ in the family firm’s identity has not been directly investigated by researchers so far. My dissertation aims at filling in this gap, by investigating the way non-family members contribute to enacting the family identity of the firm. The case study I conducted in a French family firm leads me to formulate three main sets of results. First, the exploration of non-family members’ perceptions of the firm reveals that they associate what they consider to be the core attributes of the firm with the owning family. Secondly, I investigate the mechanisms leading to such perceptions and identify that the family’s image and values are “brought” into the organization through four mechanisms – embodiment, reminding, spreading and adaptation – that together constitute the overall process of “familization” of the firm. Lastly, I suggest a typology of non-family members depending on their motives for contributing to “familization” mechanisms. Two categories (the adopted and the converted) play a crucial role in these mechanisms. Moreover, I show that the top management is composed of adopted and converted, who use this specific family of owners as a managerial tool having a role-modeling function. They do it because they perceive this family as embodying an axiology that is symbolized by the Family – as a generic entity –, an axiology that they consider to be valuable in an organizational context. The theoretical and practical contributions of these results are discussed.