Areas of Expertise

Firm resources, human capital, IPOs, corporate governance, organizational lifespans

Academic Degrees

• Ph.D., Strategic Management, Texas A&M University, Mays Business School
• M.S., Financial Management, Texas A&M University, Mays Business School
• B.B.A., Accounting, Summa Cum Laude & Brown-Rudder Outstanding Graduate, Texas A&M University, Mays Business School

Professional Experience

• Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship
• Texas A&M University, Mays Business School, Lecturer of Accounting
• HSBC
• Bank of America
• PricewaterhouseCoopers

Awards, Honors & Certificates

• Certified Public Accountant
• Chartered Financial Analyst ®
• IU Trustee Teaching Award
• Most Influential Faculty Award, Kelley School of Business Honors Program
• IU Institute for Advanced Study Collaborative Research Award
• Kelley School of Business Research Award
• SAGE/Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies Junior Faculty Best Paper Award

Selected Publications

• Fisher, G., Josefy, M., and Neubert, E. (2024). Event-based entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 39(1), 106366. View Full Text

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  Abstract

  Many entrepreneurial opportunities are associated with events, including sports competitions, races and tournaments, concerts and music festivals, and conferences and exhibitions, yet this variant of entrepreneurship has not been specifically accounted for in the literature. We integrate insights from entrepreneurship research with research on temporary organizational forms, stakeholder theory, and platform strategy to define Event-Based Entrepreneurship (EBE) and propose factors that account for the founding and scaling of event-based ventures. In so doing, we lay the conceptual foundations and offer theoretical and practical directions for an expanded research agenda on EBE.

• Brymer, R., Paraskevas, J. P., Josefy, M., and Ellram, L. (2024). Pipeline hiring’s effects on the human capital and performance of new recruits. Strategic Management Journal, 45(9), 1822-1850. View Full Text

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  Pipeline hiring, repeatedly hiring individuals from the same external source organization, is a common recruiting practice. Yet, whether this pipeline approach improves incoming human capital quality or performance has limited empirical evidence. We argue that, in cooperative source-hiring organization contexts, pipelines reduce the information asymmetries present in labor markets in a way that both attracts individuals with higher pre-entry human capital and predicts postentry performance that surpasses pre-entry expectations. In the context of particularly intense recruiting competition—American college football—we test and find support for these hypotheses. We also probe key boundary conditions, specifically discontinuity, geographic proximity, and factor market competition that highlight the limits of when the informational advantage is more or less salient.

• Josefy, M. A., Harrison, J. S., and Howard, M. D. (2023). Elite Pipelines: How Elite School Ties Are Reflected in Interfirm Employee Migration. Journal of Management, 49(5), 1570-1600. View Full Text

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  Abstract

  Recent research has pointed to pipelines, or sequenced hiring of individuals from the same source organizations over time, as a common practice employed by firms to reduce labor market imperfections and create human capital resource advantages. We extend this literature by considering how pipelines may emerge not just out of strategic intent but also out of informal social processes reflecting network transitivity and homophily. Using bipartite social network analysis techniques in a sample of 110 public U.S. electronics component manufacturers, we argue and find evidence for transitive effects between firms’ employee-based ties to elite educational institutions and the formation of interfirm employee pipelines. We demonstrate that pipelines are more likely to form between firms that both hire educational elites, especially when those firms share ties to the same elite schools and when those shared elite schools are executives’ alma mater(s). We also find that these effects tend to be more pronounced when the focal firm has higher growth potential, encouraging mobility by attracting potential elite candidates and facilitating the two-way matching process in labor markets. Our theory and findings contribute to a better understanding of informal processes underlying pipeline formation and specifically demonstrate how hiring tendencies may lead to closed recruiting networks characterized by elite replication.

• Harrison, J. S., Josefy, M. A., Kalm, M. and Krause, R. (2023). Using supervised machine learning to scale human-coded data: A method and dataset in the board leadership context. Strategic Management Journal, 44(7), 1780-1802. View Full Text

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  Human coding of unstructured text can enable scholars to measure complex latent constructs for use in empirical analysis, but also requires substantial time and resources that limit the number and sample sizes of studies using this approach. We demonstrate how supervised machine learning (ML) can overcome these constraints by allowing scholars to scale human‐coded data. Using board leadership as an illustrative context, we apply this method to create a large‐scale dataset (N = 22,388) from smaller scale human codings of CEO duality and board chair orientations from company proxy statements. We further demonstrate the potential value of this approach by using the resulting dataset to examine the relationships among board leadership, firm performance, and CEO dismissal. The ML code and dataset are available at 10.5281/zenodo.7304697.

• Astvansh, V., Ball, G., and Josefy, M. (2022). The Recall Decision Exposed: Auto Recall Timing and Process Dataset. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 24(3), 1457-1473.
• Bolinger, M., Josefy, M., Stevenson, R., and Hitt, M. (2022). Experiments in Strategy Research: A Critical Review and Future Research Opportunities. Journal of Management, 48(1), 77–113. View Full Text

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  We review extant experimental work in strategic management and argue that experiments constitute an underused methodology that has significant potential. We examine and categorize 179 experiments from 119 published articles over a 20-year period, delineating the contributions of these experiments to the strategic management literature. In doing so, we identify topic areas in which experiments have been effectively deployed, as well as several literature streams that have a limited amount of prior experimental research. We discuss specific challenges of using experiments in strategy research, especially given its strong focus on the firm-level of analysis. We also emphasize approaches for how experiments can be instrumental in extending management theories and accelerating behavioral microfoundations of strategy research. In light of past contributions and gaps, we discuss specific opportunities and means of designing innovative experiments, propose novel potential research questions, and provide a best practices methodological guide which scholars can use when considering experimental designs. Overall, our work documents experimental research and provides a methodological practicum, thereby offering a platform for future experiment-based research in strategic management. Supplemental best practice guide for conducting strategy experiments can be found here - https://sites.google.com/view/researchguides

• Titus Jr, V., Pieper, J. R., Josefy, M., and Welbourne, T. M. (2022). How Does Your Garden Grow? The Interface of Employee and Sales Growth Post IPO. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 16(4), 671-698. View Full Text

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  Abstract

  Firms often succumb to a growth imperative, yet little is known about how congruence between various forms of growth affects firm value. We argue that the (in)congruence between net hiring rates (e.g., growth in the number of employees) and sales growth has significant implications for firm value, assessed via Tobin’s Q. We further contend that R&D expenditures and industry dynamism—factors that influence a firm’s ability to realize value creation—moderate the relationship between growth pattern and firm value. We use a sample of 1,181 firms that conducted their initial public offerings from 1996-2006 to test our conceptual model. Findings indicate that employee-dominant growth is most strongly associated with firm value, and that high levels of R&D expenditures and industry dynamism intensify these relationships.

• Murray, A., Kuban, S., Josefy, M., and Anderson, J. (2021). Contracting in the Smart Era: The Implications of Blockchain and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations for Contracting and Corporate Governance. Academy of Management Perspectives, 35(4), 622-641 (equal authorship). View Full Text
• Stevenson, R. M., Josefy, M., McMullen, J., and Shepherd, D. (2020). Organizational and management theorizing using experiment-based entrepreneurship research: Covered terrain and the next frontiers. Academy of Management Annals, 14(2), 759–796. View Full Text

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  The entrepreneurship setting—an extreme organizational context—provides fertile ground for organizationally relevant theory testing and development. In this paper, we propose that randomized entrepreneurship experiments have considerable potential to advance theory in entrepreneurship as well as other areas of organization science using a full-cycle approach. We ground this proposition in a multipronged review of randomized experiments in entrepreneurship (REE). Based on this review of prior work and emerging trends, respectively, we provide illustrative examples of innovative theory-driven experiments and motivate future research to consider randomized experiments in the entrepreneurial context both for testing boundary conditions and enhancing organizational theorizing broadly.

• Bacq, S., Geoghegan, W., Josefy, M., Stevenson, R., and Williams, T.A. (2020). The COVID-19 Virtual Idea Blitz: Marshaling Social Entrepreneurship to Rapidly Respond to Urgent Grand Challenges. Business Horizons, 63(8), 705-723. View Full Text
• Stevenson, R M.., & Josefy, M. (2019). Knocking at the gate: The path to publication for entrepreneurship experiments through the lens of gatekeeping theory. Journal of Business Venturing, 34(2), 242-260. View Full Text

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  We draw on gatekeeping theory to explore the individual and routine-level criticisms that entrepreneurship experimentalists receive during the review process. Using a multi-study approach, we categorize common gatekeeping themes and present illustrative critiques derived from a unique sample of decision letters and a supplemental survey of entrepreneurship editors. In combination, we extend gatekeeping theory by considering how it applies to the scholarly domain, contribute to the literature by exploring an alternative theoretical explanation as to why entrepreneurship experiments might fail to survive the review process, and finally, provide contextualized recommendations for authors and reviewers of experimental research.

• Bakker, R.M. & Josefy, M. (2018). More than just a Number? The Conceptualization and Measurement of Firm Age in an Era of Temporary Organizations. Academy of Management Annals, 12(2), 510-536. View Full Text
• Josefy, M., Dean, T. J., Albert, L. S., & Fitza, M. A. (2017). The Role of Community in Crowdfunding Success: Evidence on Cultural Attributes in Funding Campaigns to 'Save the Local Theater.' Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 41(2), 161-182.  View Full Text
• Josefy, M., Harrison, J., Sirmon, D. & Carnes, C. (2017). Living and dying: Synthesizing the literature on firm survival and failure across stages of development. Academy of Management Annals, 11(2), 770-799. View Full Text
• Li, D., Eden, L. & Josefy, M. (2017). Agent and task complexity in multilateral alliance: The safeguarding role of equity governance. Journal of International Management, 23(3), 227-241.
• Zardkoohi, A., Harrison, J,. S., and Josefy, M. (2017). Conflict and Confluence: The Multidimensionality of Opportunism in Principal–Agent Relationships. Journal of Business Ethics, 146(2), 405-417. View Full Text
• Nalick, M., Josefy, M., Zardkoohi, A., & Bierman, L. (2016). Corporate Sociopolitical Involvement: A Reflection of Whose Preferences? Academy of Management Perspectives, 30(4), 384-403.  Available at: https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2015.0033. For a discussion, see http://tx.ag/CSPIvideo
• Josefy, M., Kuban, S., Ireland, R. D., & Hitt, M. A. (2015). All Things Great and Small: Organizational size, boundaries of the firm, and a changing environment. Academy of Management Annals, 9(1), 715-802.  View Full Text
• Haynes, K.T., Josefy, M., & Hitt, M. A. (2015). Tipping point: Managers’ self-interest, greed and altruism. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 22(3), 265-279. View Full Text

Edited on February 28, 2025