Mining external R&D

Open Innovation presses the case for timely and thorough intelligence concerning research and development activities conducted outside one’s organization. To take advantage of this wealth of R&D, one needs to establish a systematic “tech mining” process. We propose a 5-stage framework that extends literature review into research profiling and pattern recognition to answer posed technology management questions. Ultimately one can even discover new knowledge by screening research databases.Once one determines the value in mining external R&D, tough issues remain to be overcome. Technology management has developed a culture that relies more on intuition than on evidence. Changing that culture and implementing effective technical intelligence capabilities is worth the effort. P&G's reported gains in innovation call attention to the huge payoff potential.     

What Makes a Family Firm Innovative? CEO Risk‐Taking Propensity and the Organizational Context of Family Firms

Investigating the new product portfolio innovativeness of family firms connects two important topics that have recently received considerable attention in innovation and family firm research. First, new product portfolio innovativeness has been identified as a critical determinant of firm performance. Second, research on family firms has focused on the questions of if and why family firms are more or less innovative than other organizational forms. Research investigating the innovativeness of family firms has often applied a risk‐oriented perspective by identifying socioemotional wealth (SEW) as the main reference that determines firm behavior. Thus, prior research has mainly focused on the organizational context to predict innovation‐related family firm behavior and neglected the impact of preferences and the behavior of the chief executive officer (CEO), which have both been shown to affect firm outcomes. Hence, this study aims to extend the previous research by introducing the CEO's disposition to organizational context variables to explain the new product portfolio innovativeness of small and medium‐sized family firms. Specifically, this study explores how the organizational context (i.e., ownership by top management team [TMT] family members and generation in charge of the family firm) of family firms interacts with CEO risk‐taking propensity to affect new product portfolio innovativeness. Using a sample of 114 German CEOs of small and medium‐sized family firms operating in manufacturing industries, the results show that CEO risk‐taking propensity has a positive effect on new product portfolio innovativeness. Moreover, the analyses show that the organizational context of family firms impacts the relationship between CEO risk‐taking propensity and new product portfolio innovativeness. Specifically, the relationship between CEO risk‐taking propensity and new product portfolio innovativeness is weaker if levels of ownership by TMT family members are high (high SEW). Additionally, the effect of CEO risk‐taking propensity on new product portfolio innovativeness is stronger in family firms at earlier generational stages (high SEW). This result suggests that if SEW is a strong reference, family firm‐specific characteristics can affect individual dispositions and, in turn, the behaviors of executives. Therefore, this study helps extend the knowledge on the determinants of new product portfolio innovativeness of family firms by considering an individual CEO preference and the organizational context variables of family firms simultaneously.     

Are Investors Sensitive to the Quality and the Disclosure of Financial Statements?

This paper investigates the influence of Swiss firms' disclosurepolicy and of their financial analysts' coverage on stock priceabnormal reactions to the publication of the annual reports.It first shows that, after controlling for the number of analysts,the absolute abnormal returns are significantly and positivelyaffected by the rating measure used as a proxy of the informationalquality of annual reports. It furthermore emphasises asymmetryin the relationship between stock price abnormal reactions andtwo informational variables, namely the quality of the firm'sdisclosure policy and its financial analysts' coverage. It appearsthat while positive abnormal returns are significantly and positivelyrelated to the rating variable, negative abnormal returns areonly affected by the number of financial analysts. The inverserelationship between abnormal negative returns and the financialanalysts' coverage supports the fact that competition amonganalysts reduces investors' adverse selection problem. Finally,the study evidences a non-linear relationship between ratingand positive abnormal returns which is meaningful for the "good"and "very good type" firms and thus emphasises the signalingrole played by a firm's financial disclosure policy.     

über die Wirkung der Optionsbündelung auf die Ablaufplanung einer Variantenflie?fertigung

Zusammenfassung Bei der Optionsbündelung werden einzelne Ausstattungsmerkmale (Optionen) zu Paketen (Bündeln) zusammengefasst, so dass der Kunde, von einem Grundmodell ausgehend, durch die Auswahl unterschiedlicher Optionsbündel eine bestimmte Produktvariante konfigurieren kann. Im Mittelpunkt dieses Beitrags steht die Beantwortung der Frage, ob eine solche Optionsbündelung den Produktionsablauf positiv beeinflusst. Dabei richtet sich das Augenmerk auf die Produktionsform der Variantenflie?fertigung, die in der Endmontage variantenreicher Endprodukte (etwa in der Automobilindustrie) eine dominierende Stellung einnimmt. Eine umfangreiche computergestützte Evaluierung verdeutlicht einerseits den generell positiven Einfluss der Optionsbündelung und identifiziert andererseits im Rahmen der Betrachtung unterschiedlicher Bündelungsarten die kumulative Bündelung als besonders geeignet.      

The Impact of Investment Constraints on Portfolio Performance Measurement: The Power Utility Function Case

This paper examines the effect of investment constraints on performance measurement of institutionally managed funds. Assuming that these funds have a power utility function and using an optimal portfolio choice model, one can show that the Security Market Line remains a valid benchmark for these constrained funds under the perfect market assumption. Relaxing the perfect market assumption, one can prove that a non-stationary constrained investment policy will bias traditional measures of timing ability differently across managers types. Finally, the magnitude of this bias is illustrated with a numerical example.     

The grain trade in northern Europe before 1350

A network of interregional grain routes extended across northern Europe in the century before 1350. With an interlude from c . 1310 to 1330 English grain was shipped to western Norway and the last decades before 1350 witnessed increasing English deliveries to the Netherlands. The most important of these commercial links were the grain routes from Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and Prussia to Norway, England, and the Netherlands established on a regular basis c . 1300. In western Europe the Baltic grain deliveries were an alternative source of supply which affected prices, urbanization, and the profitability of arable farming.     

Designing electricity auctions

Motivated by the new auction format in the England and Wales electricity market, as well as the recent debate in California, we characterize bidding behavior and market outcomes in uniform and discriminatory electricity auctions. Uniform auctions result in higher average prices than discriminatory auctions, but the ranking in terms of productive efficiency is ambiguous. The comparative effects of other market design features, such as the number of steps in suppliers' bid functions, the duration of bids, and the elasticity of demand are analyzed. We also consider the relationship between market structure and market performance in the two auction formats.