Strategic Research Partnerships: A Managerial Perspective

Private sector incentives to participate in research partnerships can be grouped roughly into two categories: cost-economizing incentives and strategic incentives. This paper summarizes the argument in two streams of thought that are often identified with these two sides: the transaction-cost/incomplete contracts approach and the strategic management approach. The paper recounts business motives to engage in research partnerships in each and points out that differentiating between more traditional economic perspectives (transaction costs, incomplete contracts) and strategic management/organizational theory perspectives (strategic networks, resource-dependent view, dynamic capabilities, knowledge-based view, organizational learning, options approach) may not be as sharp as one might suppose at first. The complementary nature of these perspectives should be encouraging for theoreticians looking for a more integrated model of collaboration.     

Implications of Regulation Policy Incentives for Strategic Control: An Integrative Model

Abstract ** : This paper proposes an internal management perspective of the company, as a complement to longstanding principal‐agency theory, for understanding the interchange between regulator and company. It draws from a longitudinal research project on understanding the implications of regulation policy incentives for strategic control in the management of UK monopoly network utilities and the management implications of regulatory policy making. This paper reports on how two utility companies have managed regulatory objectives alongside organizational ones in electricity distribution and gas transportation and suggests a new integrative model of strategic control for understanding utility management. It concludes if regulation policies are to be effective then regulators should understand the internal management of the companies if performance targets are to be attained .     

Strategic Innovation with Complete and Incomplete Labour Market Contracts

In a model of strategic R&D competition between two firms that negotiate with independent unions we show that: (i) incomplete labour market contracts may Pareto-dominate complete labour market contracts (ii) even when complete contracts Pareto-dominate incomplete contracts, economies can get stuck in the incomplete contract equilibrium. These conclusions provide additional strategic reasons why complete labour market contracts may not be used—even if they were feasible. We propose two testable predictions to discriminate between complete and incomplete contracts: (i) the variance of wages is lower with complete contracts; (ii) the variance of employment is higher under complete contracts.     

国有企业战略人力资源管理模式研究

国有企业改革非常重视完善市场竞争机制和产权激励机制,但是,内部管理体系建设以及核心能力培育在一定程度上跟不上企业发展的要求,影响到产权制度改革和市场竞争制度建设的实际效果。尤其是在人力资源管理的系统性、战略性上存在的问题,更是阻碍了国有企业人力资源价值转化为组织绩效。因此,运用战略人力资源管理理论来解释国有企业人力资源管理对组织绩效的贡献,并研究人力资源管理系统建设的相关问题,具有十分重要的理论意义和实践意义。战略人力资源管理（strategyHumanResourcesManagement,简称SHRM）简单而言就是系统地将人与企业联系起来,通过人力资源规划、政策及具体实践,达到获取竞争优势的人力资源配置。采用定性定量相结合,理论研究与实证研究相结合的方法,结合国有企业的实际情况,指出战略人力资源管理是影响国有企业组织绩效的重要因素,并深入探讨战略人力资源管理对企业绩效的作用机理,分析战略人力资源管理必须具备的职能,研究国有企业转变人力资源管理功能可能的模式,进行开发人力资源管理人员队伍的素质标准研究,并建立了国有企业战略人力资源管理绩效评价的模型,进行实证分析,最终得出国有企业实施战略人力资源管理的对策。     

Competing on Competence: A Knowledge Perspective on the Management of Strategic Innovation

The resource-based strategy paradigm emphasizes the importance of firm-specific assets and knowledge, variously referred to as core competencies and distinctive capabilities. This perspective on sources of competitive advantage is complemented by knowledge and learning perspectives on strategic innovation. We explore conceptual links between knowledge development and the management of strategic innovation. We argue that the management of strategic innovation is the purposeful orchestration of organizational knowledge development and application and we highlight a variety of managerial dilemmas associated with this view.     

Competing on Competence: A Knowledge Perspective on the Management of Strategic Innovation

The resource-based strategy paradigm emphasizes the importance of firm-specific assets and knowledge, variously referred to as core competencies and distinctive capabilities. This perspective on sources of competitive advantage is complemented by knowledge and learning perspectives on strategic innovation. We explore conceptual links between knowledge development and the management of strategic innovation. We argue that the management of strategic innovation is the purposeful orchestration of organizational knowledge development and application and we highlight a variety of managerial dilemmas associated with this view.     

How do business startup modes affect economic growth?

This paper examines researchers’ choices between either collaborating with venture capitalists or going independent when investing in research (e.g., labs, scientists, equipment, perishable materials, etc.) and how their interaction affects long‐run growth in an economy characterized by incomplete contracts and financial market imperfections. We find that venture capital is more likely to be selected by entrepreneurs when startup risks are median to high. A ranking of the welfares associated with each startup mode under different legal and financial environments shows that economic policy and research incentives may not always align as entrepreneurs may not select the mode that provides the highest welfare level.     

THE EFFECT OF OWNERSHIP IN NGOS’ COMMERCIAL VENTURES

ABSTRACT: Amidst pressure to become self‐financing, Non‐Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have become increasingly involved in profit‐generating business ventures. Because NGOs are traditionally financed by donations with the expectation that they focus on their social mission, the commercialization of NGOs has generated criticism. This paper examines the effect of ownership on investment incentives in NGOs’ commercial ventures, using an incomplete contracts framework. NGO‐ownership helps minimize the tension between primary social mission and managerial decisions. However, external ownership provides better incentives to invest in mission‐enhancing innovations. Finally, because relationships with firms are repeated, NGOs may use relational contracts to align their ventures’ incentives. However, such contracts need to be credible to work.     

企业如何从绿色管理中获利:战略更新视角

绿色管理已经成为企业应对政府和公众环境关切的重要战略选择。企业如何以及在何种情况下能依靠绿色管理提高绩效成为重要研究问题。整合资源基础观和战略更新研究,构建一个被调节的中介模型,以阐明绿色管理如何通过战略更新的中介作用影响绩效,同时分析竞争强度的调节作用。基于288家企业的实证结果表明,绿色管理与企业战略更新、战略更新与企业绩效显著正相关,战略更新对绿色管理与绩效之间的关系具有完全中介作用,竞争强度正向调节战略更新对企业绩效的影响,也正向调节战略更新在绿色管理与企业绩效之间的中介作用。研究有助于从战略更新视角深化对绿色管理影响企业绩效路径机制的理解,对企业成功实施绿色转型有重要实践启示。     

企业家导向、市场导向与企业绩效的关系研究——一项基于组织冗余调节效应的实证分析

基于资源基础理论,探讨了企业家导向、市场导向对企业绩效的作用,以及组织冗余在企业家导向-绩效、市场导向-绩效关系之间的调节作用。通过对270家我国企业的实证研究发现:市场导向与企业家导向都对绩效有正向的促进作用;不同种类的组织冗余在两种战略导向与企业绩效之间发挥的调节作用不同,未吸收冗余正向调节了企业家导向与企业绩效的关系,已吸收冗余正向调节了市场导向与企业绩效的关系。研究结论发展了战略管理文献,具有一定的理论与实践意义。     

Innovation Policy in Search of an Economic Foundation: The Case of Research Partnerships in the United States

Research partnerships are not a new organizational form, but since the mid 1980s the US government, like other national governments, has provided a favorable environment for them to flourish. The purpose of this paper is to address the question: What is the economic foundation upon which public support of research partnerships in the USA is based? In addition, given that foundation: What additional information is needed to increase the efficacy of the current policy environment? We summarize the relevant literature and find that as a whole, the theoretical literature makes clear that research partnerships are a socially beneficial organizational form once formed. However, more empirical research is needed of a different type that has occupied the journals to date. We offer an agenda for such research that will complement the policy process.     

Signaling quality with increased incentives

Previous work on informed-principal problems with moral hazard suggested that the principal should signal project quality by retaining a larger share of the project and hence lowering incentives for the agent. We show that this view is incomplete. If project quality and effort are complements and effort is more valuable for high-quality projects, a principal with a high-quality project may separate from a principal with a low-quality project by increasing incentives for the agent. This holds with a risk-neutral agent who is protected by limited liability as well as with a risk-averse agent and unlimited liability. A dynamic version of our model in which the agent learns project quality in later periods provides an explanation for the use of initially reduced royalty rates in business-format franchising contracts.     

Long-term Impacts of Competitive Tendering of Public Services on Market Structures

The EU intends to use calls for tenders to serve in the general economic interest, with a view to replacing administration by the market. Service providers and contracting authorities are expected to enter into lasting partnerships, based on incomplete contracts and flexible outputs. These partners in public service contracts are very different economic entities and to what extent calls for tenders will see the intended services delivered depends considerably on the partners' negotiating abilities and behaviour towards one another. Possible outcomes in different market situations are discussed under both static and dynamic circumstances.     

平台到底是什么——基于分工与协调视角

以技术管理、战略管理、产业组织和生态系统为代表的研究视角,对平台本质的限制性理解直接导致学术界对平台到底是什么存在异议,将平台本质限制性理解为特定情境的平台功能是导致上述问题的根本原因。突破现有研究视角局限,引入分工与协调视角,对平台本质特征进行阐释是解决这个问题最好方案。在梳理平台本质特征的基础上,认为平台是一个以共享界面和接口为黏合剂的互补性自治主体进行分工与协调的元组织。通过解决平台本质研究中存在的争议与问题,揭示平台到底是什么,进而深化对平台的理解及在现实中的应用。     

International outsourcing and incomplete contracts

Abstract.  International outsourcing to lower cost countries such as China and India can best be understood through the enrichment of trade models to include concepts from industrial organization and contract theory that explain the vertical organization of production. The combination of trade with the choice of organizational form represents an important new area for both theoretical and empirical research. This survey paper provides a perspective on this new literature so as to gain insights into the forces driving international outsourcing. The paper focuses on relationship‐specific investment, incomplete contracts, and also search and matching, as fundamental concepts that explain outsourcing decisions. JEL classification: F1, L14     

EFFECT OF FIRM ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE ON INCENTIVES TO ENGAGE IN PRICE FIXING

This article examines price fixing and bid rigging by applying the theory of the economics of crime to explain the calculus of the individual decision maker in the firm. This approach departs somewhat from the traditional approach to investigations of collusion. The latter has emphasized market structure and firm interrelationships while it has ignored the characteristics of the firm itself. But analyses ignoring firm organizational and financial structure are incomplete insomuch as these factors are crucial to the incentives and costs that the decision maker confronts. This paper offers an alternative approach in which price-fixing and bid-rigging offenders' prominent characteristics apparently are mirrored in defendant firms and individuals that the Antitrust Division has prosecuted recentlv.     

企业的性质:要素使用权交易合约之履行过程

本文对企业的性质进行了分析 ,发现企业的性质在于 ,企业是市场中由要素所有者签订的一组不完备的要素使用权交易合约的履行过程。要素使用权交易合约的履行过程包括要素投入、要素使用权 (核心是剩余控制权 )的行使以及要素增值的分配 (核心是剩余索取权的行使 )以及企业组织资本与组织资产的创造和使用等 ,这一过程融交易功能与生产功能于一体。该组合约的关键内容就在于企业剩余索取权与剩余控制权的安排。作为要素使用权交易合约的履行过程 ,企业与市场是不能截然对立分离的 ,即要素市场、资产及服务市场等与要素使用权交易合约的签订与履行是互为基础 ,互相促进的。     

战略人力资源管理对组织绩效的影响分析

从分析战略人力资源管理和组织绩效的概念着手,简单介绍了目前国内学者关于战略人力资源管理对组织绩效影响的研究现状,并在总结学者研究成果的基础上,尝试提出战略人力资源管理对组织绩效的作用机理模型来说明实施战略人力资源管理对组织绩效的影响。     

Toward a Phylogenetic Reconstruction of Organizational Life

Synopsis Classification is an important activity that facilitates theory development in many academic disciplines. Scholars in fields such as organizational science, management science and economics and have long recognized that classification offers an approach for ordering and understanding the diversity of organizational taxa (groups of one or more similar organizational entities). However, even the most prominent organizational classifications have limited utility, as they tend to be shaped by a specific research bias, inadequate units of analysis and a standard neoclassical economic view that does not naturally accommodate the disequilibrium dynamics of modern competition. The result is a relatively large number of individual and unconnected organizational classifications, which tend to ignore the processes of change responsible for organizational diversity. Collectively they fail to provide any sort of universal system for ordering, compiling and presenting knowledge on organizational diversity. This paper has two purposes. First, it reviews the general status of the major theoretical approaches to biological and organizational classification and compares the methods and resulting classifications derived from each approach. Definitions of key terms and a discussion on the three principal schools of biological classification (evolutionary systematics, phenetics and cladistics) are included in this review. Second, this paper aims to encourage critical thinking and debate about the use of the cladistic classification approach for inferring and representing the historical relationships underpinning organizational diversity. This involves examining the feasibility of applying the logic of common ancestry to populations of organizations. Consequently, this paper is exploratory and preparatory in style, with illustrations and assertions concerning the study and classification of organizational diversity.     

Contracts with endogenous information

I study covert information acquisition and reporting in a principal agent problem allowing for general technologies of information acquisition. When posteriors satisfy two dimensional versions of the standard First Order Stochastic Dominance and Concavity/Convexity of the Distribution Function conditions, a first-order approach is justified. Under the same conditions, informativeness and riskiness of reports are equivalent. High powered contracts, that make the agent's informational rents more risky, are used to increase incentives for information acquisition, insensitive contracts are used to reduce incentives for information gathering. The value of information to the agent is always positive. The value of information to the principal is ambiguous.