Towards an organic perspective on strategy

The strategy field's core issues—the concept of strategy, causal models relating strategy to other constructs, and models of strategic management and choice—have been previously addressed by two key progressions. The mechanistic perspective based on disciplinary‐based theories, the design model, and a view of strategy as a planned posture, has provided a unified view, but a narrow and increasingly less pertinent one. The advent of organic developments that included strategy process research, evolutionary and process models, and interactive and integrative views, has provided richness and pertinence, but not a unified perspective. These two progressions marked an epistemological shift from mechanistic to organic assumptions: from discrete to incessant time, from directional to interactive flow, and from differentiated to integrated constructs and models. Building on this shift, this paper proposes an organic perspective that combines the insights and coherence of the mechanistic perspective with the more relevant organic ideas. It makes use of the organic assumptions to advance a view of strategy as an adaptive coordination, introduce the Organization–Environment–Strategy–Performance (OESP) integrative theoretical model, and present an organic model of strategic management. The organic perspective provides a basis for an upgraded, more unified, and better‐attuned view on strategy's core issues. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Extended Framework for Modeling Choice Behavior

We review the case against the standard model of rational behavior and discuss the consequences of various anomalies of preference elicitation. A general theoretical framework that attempts to disentangle the various psychological elements in the decision-making process is presented. We then present a rigorous and general methodology to model the theoretical framework, explicitly incorporating psychological factors and their influences on choices. This theme has long been deemed necessary by behavioral researchers, but is often ignored in demand models. The methodology requires the estimation of an integrated multi-equation model consisting of a discrete choice model and the latent variable model system. We conclude with a research agenda to bring the theoretical framework into fruition.     

Performance measurement for investment decisions under capital constraints

An owner delegates investment decisions to a better informed manager whose time preferences are unknown to the owner. Due to exogenous capital constraints, not all profitable projects can be undertaken, and therefore the owner wants the manager to select the NPV-maximizing set of projects. We show that the relative benefit cost allocation scheme proposed by prior literature does not solve this problem. Adopting the same information structure as in Rogerson (J Polit Econ 105, 770–795, 1997) and Reichelstein (Rev Account Stud 2, 157–180, 1997), we demonstrate how to obtain robust goal congruence using residual income. The resulting revenue recognition and cost allocation rules lead to a performance measure reflecting the expected NPV-ranking of projects in each and every period.

Homogeneity and heterogeneity in stochastic models of brand choice behavior

Heterogeneity of consumers is one of the cornerstones of empirical findings and theories in marketing. It serves, for example, as the foundation for such areas as market segmentation and product differentiation. This paper attempts to trace and clarify the evolution over the last twenty years of the homogeneity assumptions in the area of stochastic models of brand choice behavior. In analyzing individual choice behavior by means of stochastic models, all individuals were often assumed to possess the same set of transition probabilities or follow the same stochastic process. However, empirical studies at the individual level indicate that individuals are actually non-homogeneous in those probabilities and processes. In this article we provide an analytical proof that if the behavior of individuals is specified to be homogeneous when it is not, wrong inferences about the type of stochastic process individuals follow and about the expected behavior of the total population will be drawn. Ways to remedy these problems by allowing for heterogeneity are reviewed. The implications of heterogeneity and our findings in the various application areas which utilize stochastic choice models are examined.     

Portfolio choice and mortality-contingent claims: The general HARA case

We solve a portfolio choice problem that includes mortality-contingent claims and labor income under general HARA preferences. Our contribution beyond existing literature is to (i) focus on the covariance between shocks to human capital and financial capital, to (ii) model the utility of a family with basic needs and (iii) include life insurance and pension annuity claims in one unified life-cycle model. Our solution employs a “similarity reduction” mapping which reduces the two-dimensional HJB equation into one dimension. This allows for the implementation of a quick numerical scheme. And, when shocks to human capital and financial capital are perfectly correlated, a closed-form expression is obtained as a special case.     

Determinants of internal migration in Israel: expected returns and risks

"A multinomial logit model of place-to-place migration focusing on economic, geographic and demographic factors is applied to empirical data on inter-regional migration in Israel in 1980. It explains 75% of the (cross-sectional) variance in the data. The results presented in this paper depart from previous empirical work due to its industrialized context and its focus on risk aversion as a determinant of the migration decision. The results support the Harris-Todaro (1970) hypothesis, and indicate that regional similarities in the structure of industrial employment promote migration."     

Happiness and travel mode switching: Findings from a Swiss public transportation experiment

We present results from a recent experiment conducted in Switzerland that studies the effects of a temporary change in the mode of travel to work on travel happiness and mode switching. The primary aim is to study the dynamics in travel satisfaction ratings obtained before and after the intervention. Two behavioral mechanisms driving the change in satisfaction ratings are analyzed. The first one is that satisfaction ratings are influenced by reference points. The second mechanism is that satisfaction ratings are affected by cognitive awareness, whereby the disruption of routine travel conditions makes people think more fully about their travel happiness with different modes of transportation.It is found that the measure of satisfaction with the commute by car obtained right after the temporary intervention is significantly different from the measure obtained before the intervention, and both behavioral hypotheses are supported by the pattern of change in satisfaction ratings. The policy and modeling relevance of different well-being measures obtained at different points in time is discussed.As to mode switching, none of the 30 participants switched completely to public transportation after the intervention but a number of them continued to commute occasionally by public transportation. The relationship between mode switching and satisfaction and the implications of this intervention for public transportation agencies and other organizations interested in behavioral modification are discussed.     

The influence of supportive leadership and job characteristics on work alienation: A six-country investigation

This study examines the relationships between supportive leadership and job characteristics and workers’ alienation in Cuba, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Russia, and the United States. One thousand and nine hundred and thirty-three workers and non-managerial personnel participated in the research. Supportive leadership and job characteristics were found to be related to alienation. Evidence is provided along with implications for theory and practice.     

Identification of parameters in normal error component logit-mixture (NECLM) models

Although the basic structure of logit-mixture models is well understood, important identification and normalization issues often get overlooked. This paper addresses issues related to the identification of parameters in logit-mixture models containing normally distributed error components associated with alternatives or nests of alternatives (normal error component logit mixture, or NECLM, models). NECLM models include special cases such as unrestricted, fixed covariance matrices; alternative-specific variances; nesting and cross-nesting structures; and some applications to panel data. A general framework is presented for determining which parameters are identified as well as what normalization to impose when specifying NECLM models. It is generally necessary to specify and estimate NECLM models at the levels, or structural, form. This precludes working with utility differences, which would otherwise greatly simplify the identification and normalization process. Our results show that identification is not always intuitive; for example, normalization issues present in logit-mixture models are not present in analogous probit models. To identify and properly normalize the NECLM, we introduce the ‘equality condition’, an addition to the standard order and rank conditions. The identifying conditions are worked through for a number of special cases, and our findings are demonstrated with empirical examples using both synthetic and real data. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.