Does regulation drive international research cooperation? Evidence from the pharmaceutical sector

To what extent is an increased stringency of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) system apt to stimulate research cooperation between developed and emerging economies? To address this question, we empirically investigate how international joint research projects in the pharmaceutical sector are affected by the regime of IPR in force in the two countries involved in the collaboration. Looking at the joint signature of both patent documents and scientific papers by researchers located in developed and emerging markets, our investigation indicates two opposite effects: joint publications are fostered by stricter IPR rules, whereas joint patents are discouraged. A recently proposed theory provides a plausible rationale for this apparently contradicting result.     

Mind the gap: line managers as effective or non‐effective talent spotters

Due to the centrality of line managers’ role in the talent identification process, this qualitative study aims to determine what effective and non‐effective talent spotters do differently from one another in relation with an ‘ideal’ talent identification model offered by the literature. A double‐blind design was applied to the sample designated by the Corporate Talent Management Director of a Latin American multinational firm. 20 senior and middle managers, some effective and some others non‐effective, who work in different countries, participated in the study. Findings show that effective talent spotters perform three key stages of the talent identification model and they do it extremely well: differentiation of potential from performance, matching process and design of developmental challenges. The clear differentiation of potential from performance constitutes the crucial stage since a fuzzy differentiation taints the following stages. Not only is it necessary to perform these key stages but they should be executed in line with the principles of the talent management literature. Recommendations for practice, including specific guidelines for Talent Managers are proposed.     

Public sector corporate branding and customer orientation

The objectives of branding and marketing in the public sector can differ in nature from those in the private sector, to include an improved responsiveness to public needs, rather than an increase in customer numbers. In addition, the customer orientation (a disposition that will influence brand perception) of public services is often questioned. Drawing from prior work in the private sector on the relationships expected between employee and organization customer orientation (hereafter referred to as CO), corporate brand personality, and both employee and customer satisfaction, the authors propose a number of models. These models are tested using structural equation modeling on data from a study of the employees (n = 302) and customers (n = 200) of a public hospital. Corporate brand personality mediates the positive links between employee customer orientation (hereafter referred to as ECO) and satisfaction; ECO influences brand personality, which in turn influences satisfaction. However, while both the needs and enjoyment dimensions of ECO improve customer satisfaction, the former has an unexpected, negative effect on employees. Organization customer orientation (hereafter referred to as OCO) influences customer, but not employee, satisfaction. The paper discusses the implications for managing and researching corporate branding in the public sector.     

Managing the reputation of the banking industry after the global financial crisis: Implications of public anger,processing depth and retroactive memory interference for public recall of events

The global financial crisis of 2007/2008 devastated the reputation of the UK banking industry. This paper examines possible connections between the depth of an individual's cognitive processing of information about the banking industry's role in the onset of the crisis obtained from UK media (and elsewhere) and the subsequent extent and accuracy of the person's memory of events. Depth of processing was posited to depend on the level of an individual's feelings of anger at the banks' reported behaviour before and during the crisis and on the degree to which a person had suffered financially as a consequence of the crisis. A number of hypotheses were developed on the basis of Nabi's (1999) cognitive functional model and were tested via a survey of 413 members of the public in Greater London. It was further hypothesised that, because media coverage of the banks' involvement in the crisis was largely hostile, many members of the public attributed blame for the crisis mainly to the banks, resulting in extensive feelings of anger and hence deeper cognitive processing.     

An examination of gender stereotyping as an explanation for vertical job segregation in public accounting

Theorizing that sex-related stereotypes impede women's progression to leadership positions, this study tests the hypothesis that sex-role stereotypes negatively influence the evaluation of female accountants, thus reducing the upward mobility of women to partnerships in public accounting. Although the pro-male bias in our findings was less than robust, the study revealed instances where male managers devalued female managers who exhibited certain “masculine” leadership styles.     

The value captor's process: getting the most out of your new business ventures

The high failure rate among new business ventures is usually chalked up to the fundamental uncertainty of the process. In actuality, say McGrath and Keil, flawed ways of assessing and managing ventures may account for the disappointing amount of value they generate. Instead of taking the go/no-go approach, whereby a project either advances toward launch or is killed, decision makers should consider a range of alternatives: recycling the venture by aiming it at a new target market; spinning it off to other owners or a joint venture; spinning it in to an established business unit; or salvaging useful elements such as technologies, capabilities, knowledge, and patents. Firms that excel in value extraction--the "value captors" whose practices and mind-set this article explores--have created formal processes to systematically mine successes, failures, and everything in between. They know that a venture should be treated like a scientific experiment, in which learning plays a critical role. They are ready to seize new opportunities if a venture falters on its original course. They foster networks to promote cooperation and collaboration between established business leaders and venture teams and involve people from throughout the company in the venture review process. They don't allow financial criteria to dominate the reviews, and they recognize that the best people to launch a business may not be the ones who developed the idea. If your innovation pipeline is dry, your promising projects are being strangled for lack of a speedy payback, or someone else has made a fabulous business out of a slightly altered idea that you abandoned, consider the value captor's path.     

Learning Through Interactions: Improving Project Management Through Communities of Practice

Communities of practice are a possible mechanism for improving knowledge sharing among project managers, both within and between organizations. Based on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, we theorize a model of participation intensity in communities of practice by project managers and explore the use of Web 2.0 technologies to increase this participation. Using structural equation modeling, we test the research model and find that the factors of reputation, enjoyment, and management support impact the participation intensity of project managers in communities of practice. However, we do not find support for the impact of Web 2.0 technologies on participation intensity. This study provides evidence that participation in communities of practice can result in individual benefits for the project manager, as well as in more far‐reaching organizational benefits.     

Exploring heterogeneity among backpackers in hostels

This study’s goal was to validate the core dimensions of hostel service quality and to test whether each dimension has a different impact on behavioural intentions across guest segments defined by age, gender and nationality. This research targeted guests staying at Lisbon hostels (N?=?313). Both covariance-based structural equation modelling (SEM) and variance-based SEM were used to meet this study’s exploratory and confirmatory objectives. The results confirm that service quality in this sector is a multidimensional construct comprising four core dimensions: quality of staff, social atmosphere, hostel tangibles and city connection. These four aspects are relevant when explaining levels of satisfaction, recommendation and revisiting intentions. Moreover, these dimensions allow the identification of differences across market segments in regards to responses to marketing outcomes, thus providing useful insights into how best to meet guests’ needs.     

MarketBusting: strategies for exceptional business growth

If company leaders were granted a single wish, it would surely be for a reliable way to create new growth businesses. Business practitioners'overwhelming interest in this subject prompted the authors to conduct a three-year study of organizational growth--specifically, to find out which growth strategies were most successful. They discovered, somewhat to their surprise, that even companies in mature industries found rich new sources of growth when they reconfigured their unit of business (what they bill customers for) or their key metrics (how they measure success). In this article, the authors outline these and other moves companies can make to redefine their profit drivers and realize low-risk growth. They offer plenty of real-world examples. For instance: CHANGING YOUR UNIT OF BUSINESS: Once a conventional printing house, Madden Communications not only prints promotional materials for customers but also manages the distribution and installation of those materials on-site. Its revenues grew from dollars 1o million in 1990 to dollars 133 million in 2004, in an industry that many had come to regard as hopelessly mature. IMPROVING YOUR KEY METRICS-PARTICULARLY PRODUCTIVITY: Lamons Gasket, with dollars 80 million in revenues, built a Web site that radically improved its customers' ability to find, order, and pay for goods. The firm's market share rose along with its customer retention rate. The authors also suggest ways to identify your unit of business and associated key metrics and recognize the obstacles to changing them; review the key customer segments you serve; assess the need for new capabilities and the potential for internal resistance to change; and communicate to internal and external constituencies the changes you wish to make in your unit of business or key metrics.