Navigating Strategic Inflection Points

In this first of the 1997 Stockton Lectures, the speaker reflects on the turning points which can make or break even the strongest of businesses. How can managers distinguish a "Strategic Inflection Point" from the normal hurly–burly of corporate life? What generic series of actions are necessary to convert the threats of change into opportunities? What are the implications for managers as individuals with their own careers and responsibility for the careers of those working under them? Throughout the article the generic issues are illustrated with examples ranging from small–town retailing to X–ray vision.     

A few good women at the top: The China case

In the face of global economic downturns, an increasing number of women are rising to top management positions. What happened in China seems to resonate with the trend in the West. In China, only one in four have made it to the top management level, with a majority taking the position of chief operating officer, chief financial officer, and human resources director. In China, 53% of women are caught in sticky-floor situations and never advance beyond lower-level positions in the workplace. What holds women back from climbing up the corporate ladder? This research explores the stories of women executives in China's corporate world based on an exploratory study. We investigated the following questions: What are these women's beliefs about and responses to the glass ceiling? What personal, social, and organizational constraints undermine their capacity to play a part in a traditionally male-dominant world? How did these women make their way to the top? And, what factors are unique to Chinese women managers’ career advancement?     

Cooperative Agent Systems: Artificial Agents Play the Ultimatum Game

We explore computational approaches for artificial agents to play the ultimatum game. We compare our agents' behavior with that predicted by classical game theory, as well as behavior found in experimental (or behavioral) economics investigations. In particular, we study the following questions: How do artificial agents perform in playing the ultimatum game against fixed rules, dynamic rules, and rotating rules? How do coevolving artificial agents perform? Will learning software agents do better? What is the value of intelligence? What will happen when smart learning agents play against dumb (no-learning) agents? What will be the impact of agent memory size on performance? This exploratory study provides experimental results pertaining to these questions.     

Social Investing: Mainstream or Backwater?

Social investing, though not yet fully mainstream, has the potential to obtain such status. Questions relating to the future of social investing include the following. (1) What properly falls within the ambit of social investing? Assuming that no single definition of social responsibility is feasible, what then are the limits? (2) What do we need to know about investor psychology concerning social investing? What motivates people to buy socially screened investments and why do they sometimes act inconsistently? (3) How can we improve the measures of social performance? Is it possible to develop GAAP and GAAS equivalents for social reporting? (4) Should social reports by firms be audited? If so, how? (5) What sorts of public policies are necessary to support the social screening of investments?     

Online and offline retailing: What we know and directions for future research

The fast-paced growth of e-commerce is rapidly changing consumers’ shopping habits and shaping the future of the retail industry. While online retailing has allowed companies to overcome geographic barriers to selling and helped them achieve operational efficiencies, offline retailers have struggled to compete with online retailers, and many retailers have chosen to operate both online and offline. This paper presents a review of the literature on the interaction between e-commerce and offline retailing, highlighting empirical findings and generalizable insights, and discussing their managerial implications. Our review includes studies published in more than 50 different academic journals spanning various disciplines from the inception of the internet to present. We organize our paper around three main research questions. First, what is the relationship between online and offline retail channels including competition and complementarity between online and offline sellers as well as online and offline channels of an omnichannel retailer? Under this question we also try to understand the impact of e-commerce on market structure and what factors impact the intensity of competition /complementarity. Second, what is the impact of e-commerce on consumer behavior? We specifically investigate how e-commerce has impacted consumer search, its implications for price dispersion, and user generated content. Third, how has e-commerce impacted retailers’ key managerial decisions? The key research questions under this heading include: (i) What is the impact of big data on retailing? (ii) What is the impact of digitization on retailer outcomes? (iii) What is the impact of e-commerce on sales concentration? (iv) What is the impact of e-commerce and platforms on pricing? And (v) How should retailers manage product returns across online and offline channels? Under each section, we also develop detailed recommendations for future research which we hope will inspire continued interest in this domain.     

Constituent Market Orientation

This paper expands the scope of a market orientation from downstream markets to most of the major constituents of the firm. In so doing this paper addresses four questions: 1) Can constituent market orientation be measured based on modifications of the theory, concepts and measurement scales developed by Kohli and Jaworski (1990, 1993)? 2) What are the antecedents for a constituent market orientation? Are they similar across constituents? 3) What are the consequences of constituent market orientations? Which are unique for a constituent? Which stem from the sum of orientations towards all constituents? 4) What are the historic and situational moderators of orientations and consequences?     

Launching a new venture

With the current economic storm raging, can a better understanding of business models make for smoother sailing for today's entrepreneur? What strategies can entrepreneurs adopt to help them weather this storm? John Mullins has researched entrepreneurial ventures and offers some valuable insights.     

The Firm's Management of Social Interactions

Consumer choice is influenced in a direct and meaningful way by the actions taken by others. These “actions” range from face-to-face recommendations from a friend to the passive observation of what a stranger is wearing. We refer to the set of such contexts as “social interactions” (SI). We believe that at least some of the SI effects are partially within the firm's control and that this represents an exciting research opportunity. We present an agenda that identifies a list of unanswered questions of potential interest to both researchers and managers. In order to appreciate the firm's choices with respect to its management of SI, it is important to first evaluate where we are in terms of understanding the phenomena themselves. We highlight five questions in this regard: (1) What are the antecedents of word of mouth (WOM)? (2) How does the transmission of positive WOM differ from that of negative WOM? (3) How does online WOM differ from offline WOM? (4) What is the impact of WOM? (5) How can we measure WOM? Finally, we identify and discuss four principal, non-mutually exclusive, roles that the firm might play: (1) observer, (2) moderator, (3) mediator, and (4) participant.     

Occupational segregation in Spain: Differential treatment of immigrants

Spain today faces simultaneously one of the world's largest immigrant populations and one of the highest unemployment rates. This difficult dilemma makes it a test case for how rich countries should deal with a surplus immigrant population. Do Spanish markets and policies make it more difficult to absorb immigrants? What policies could help? What are the consequences if the challenge is not faced successfully? This article focuses on the occupational segregation between Spanish and foreign workers. It explores whether observed characteristics (gender, age, and education) aggravate segregation, and suggests policies to promote inclusion of immigrants in developed countries. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Disaster planning and response by tourist business executives

The tourist industry represents a disaster vulnerability of catastrophic potential. Disaster evacuation planning is one strategy for mitigating this vulnerability. Based on intensive interviews with executives responsible for 185 tourist businesses, this article reports the first empirical data base for answering five questions: (1) What factors stimulated their disaster evacuation planning? (2) What model patterns described the planning processes used? (3) How much planning had been done? (4) What modal patterns described their disaster evacuation decision-making process? (5) What are the lessons? The key conclusion is that the tourist industry must respond proactively to a rapidly expanding vulnerability through both internal firm-specific disaster planning initiatives and partnerships to ensure adequate levels of community response capacity. Failure to do so will keep an expanding tourist population at risk. This, in turn, threatens future customer relations that may place such businesses in jeopardy.     

The Cognitive Side of Social Responsibility

Individuals sit on the board of directors and set organizational goals, individuals make the product, push new marketing campaigns, make tough decisions, create new products, and so on. What is the role of social responsibility (SR) in their thinking? Do individuals need to behave responsibly to live in a social environment? Could this be grounded in their cognition? Furthermore, is there room for SR in our cognitive processes? And then, how can this analysis help studies on socially responsible business? The article presents how the distributed cognition approach provides a viable explanation for SR in human thinking. The exploitation of external – both social and nonsocial – resources shapes cognitive processes such that the idea of the “isolated brain” is definitely abandoned. Our social cognition uses responsibility as a support mechanism that sustains or discharges distributive processes. The article uses the notion of docility to keep cognition and social behavior together. The conclusion is that SR is (1) a mechanism that allows individuals to maintain cognitive advantages and (2) it emerges when the same social channel is exploited for extended periods of time.     

The Manufacturing Sector’s Environmental Motives: A Game-theoretic Analysis

What motivates manufacturing companies to make costly investments in producing in an environmentally clean manner? The traditional argument is that such behaviour is value reducing, and that therefore, firms must be forced by regulation to invest in “green” production processes. A counter-argument is that firms have an incentive to make environmental investments in an attempt to attract “green” consumers and investors, hence gaining competitive advantage over their rivals. In this paper, we employ a game-theoretic approach that demonstrates that competing firms’ incentives to make voluntary investments in environmental “clean-up” are affected by the size of the investment costs and the extent of consumer and investor “green” awareness. We argue that an increase in green behaviour can be induced by a combination of governmental subsidies for firms that invest in environmentally clean production processes, together with an education program that promotes “green” awareness amongst consumers, investors and the managers themselves.     

危机中的中国品牌

中国品牌现在处于危机中 :在国际市场上缺乏知名度 ,在国内市场上面临外企的蚕食吞并 ,国内消费者的漠视误解……种种状况 ,危机四伏。造成这种现象的原因是什么 ,企业该如何应对 ,以缓解这场危机 ,本文进行了探讨。     

中国本土管理研究中的“传统文化构念”及其变迁

“本土理念是否仍然存在？它们在进行何种变迁？它们如何在与西方理念相冲突的情形下接受、发展与融合？”等问题完全可以使用实证的方法进行研究。上述实证研究可以对“所谓‘本土’是否存在？本土管理研究是否能导致一种区别于主流的‘本土管理学’？是否存在‘管理的中国理论’？”等问题做出清晰的回答。研究中还应注意将“差序格局”“家长式领导”“关系”等构念进行哲学层次上的深层上溯，从而避免中西构念的混同，并在此基础上，明确地进行中西对比。事实上，中国本土管理学就是以中国本土构念的变迁与发展及其对管理效能的影响为主要研究对象的学科分支领域。     

Implementing new business models: What challenges lie ahead?

What strategic choices do business leaders make when implementing new business models? This study tries to answer this question by analyzing the development of several business model innovations that were new to the industry. We find that business model innovators face four strategic trade-offs and accompanying tensions during the implementation of their business model innovation process: (1) the level of independence granted to the developer (independence vs. dependence), (2) the degree to which the roadmap is planned in advance (discovery vs. planned execution), (3) the degree to which the value proposition challenges the status quo (challenging vs. maintaining status quo), and (4) the rigor to which business model innovators preserve the logic of the initial value proposition (solid vs. fluid logic). Our in-depth analysis reveals that business model innovators make pragmatic decisions that may deviate from the guidelines offered by existing literature, and we offer insights into the drivers behind these decisions.     

The case method: A perspective

The task of preparing a case is similar to writing a legal brief or an essay insofar as all three should contain a thesis or main point and argumentation or logically arranged facts and inferences. However, different from a brief or an essay, case studies should not contain a conclusion. A case should lead the reader through the facts, but it should not offer a firm or fixed resolution or moral judgment. Ideally it should leave the reader with the opportunity to create and insert their own conclusion. A good case study should be amenable to the following kinds of questions or analysis procedures:

1. What is the problem? or What is at stake?
2. What are the non-normative or factual issues involved?
3. What are the normative or ethical issues involved?
4. What are the alternatives available?
5. What decision would you make?

     

Responsible Leadership in a Stakeholder Society – A Relational Perspective

We understand responsible leadership as a social-relational and ethical phenomenon, which occurs in social processes of interaction. While the prevailing leadership literature has for the most part focussed on the relationship between leaders and followers in the organization and defined followers as subordinates, we show in this article that leadership takes place in interaction with a multitude of followers as stakeholders inside and outside the corporation. Using an ethical lens, we discuss leadership responsibilities in a stakeholder society, thereby following Bass and Steidelmeier’s suggestion to discuss “leadership in the context of contemporary stakeholder theory” (1999: 200). Moreover, from a relational and stakeholder perspective we approach the questions: What is responsible leadership? What makes a responsible leader? What qualities are needed? Finally, we propose a so-called “roles model” of responsible leadership, which gives a gestalt to a responsible leader and describes the different roles he or she takes in leading stakeholders and business in society.     

The Harm of Symbolic Actions and Green-Washing: Corporate Actions and Communications on Environmental Performance and Their Financial Implications

We examine over 100 top performing Canadian firms in visibly polluting industries as we seek to answer four research questions: What specific environmental issues are firms addressing? How do these issues differ between industries? Are both symbolic and substantive actions financially beneficial? Does green-washing, measured as the difference between symbolic and substantive action, and/or green-highlighting, measured as the combined effect of symbolic and substantive actions, pay? We find that substantive actions of environmental issues (green walk) neither harm nor benefit firms financially, but symbolic actions (green talk) are negatively related to financial performance. We also find that green-washing (discrepancy between green talk and green walk) has a negative effect on financial performance and green-highlighting (concentrated efforts of the talk and walk) has no effect on financial performance. In this article, we provide explanations of our findings and put forth future research directions.     

The EC and the changes in Central and Eastern Europe

Political developments in Central and Eastern Europe and the process of German unification present the EC with a major challenge. How has the EC reacted to these changes so far? What contribution can the eC make to overcoming the division of Europe?     

The inside scoop: Acceptance and rejection at the journal of international economics

There is little work on the inner workings of journals. What factors seem to affect the ability to publish in a journal? Could simple rules (which are already used by some journals) like the desk rejection of a significant minority of papers, help to streamline the process? At what cost? How well do journals seem to do in choosing papers? What can we say about the extent of type 1 and type 2 errors? Do editors seem to have uniform standards or are some harsher than others? We use data on submissions to the Journal of International Economics to help answer these questions.