ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT AND THE INTERPRETATION OF STRATEGIC ISSUES: A NOTE ON CEOS’ INTERPRETATIONS OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT*

This paper explores the relationship between organizational context and the interpretation of strategic issues by examining the hypothesis that CEOs' interpretations of foreign investment in the USA are influenced by the organizational context in which they are embedded. Three aspects of organizational context - the global business experience of the firm; the firm's level of organizational inertia (as represented by firm age and size); and the resources available for responding - are examined as predictors of CEOs' perceptions of foreign investment as a threat or an opportunity. Analysis of data from 320 organizations, controlled by industry, shows that global business experience, firm size, and perceived capability are significant predictors of the perception of threat and opportunity. the discussion addresses the implications of these findings for future research on issue interpretation and organizational context.     

Economists and Data

This paper is concerned with one central question: the choice between theories, and the role played by data in that choice. It deals with the uses economists may make of data and the importance of understanding the institutional basis that gives rise to the data - an area in which labour economists have traditionally been particularly strong - and with the relevance of assumptions. It deals with the ultimate need to choose between competing theories (despite the role of conventionalism) on the basis of data rather than retreating into a comfortable 'methodological pluralism'. It considers the role of test replication, with reference to the practice in natural science (and its role there in checking scientific fraud) and concludes that, despite extensive technical problems of testing, economists have to accept a data check if the rhetoric of mathematical technicality is not to overwhelm the need to explain. Parallels are drawn with experience in physics (and the implications of the development of Chaos and Catastrophe for a naively predictionist view are noted), medicine and history (of which, it is argued, modern economists are far too neglectful).     

Classification and aggregation: An application to industrial classification in cps data

In this paper we offer a method for deciding how to aggregate a set of elementary industries. The method is then applied to the problem of estimating a wage equation that allows for industry-specific effects. Our method explicitly formalizes the trade-off between goodness-of-fit and parsimony implicit in an aggregation problem. By varying the parameter of the assumed loss function, one obtains a whole sequence of aggregation levels. Further, the resulting sequence is consistent; that is, groupings formed at one level of aggregation will never be undone when one aggregates further.     

Rafting the River: A Risk Management Expert System for Dynamic Problem Solving

Commercial project management systems focus on preproject planning and after-the-fact documentation, but not on the dynamic problem solving required in day-to-day project management. Yet the need for risk-oriented management is clear. To understand and control project risks, managers must be able to identify problems as they occur, immediately assess their downstream impacts, and plan a course of action. The Advanced Risk Management System (ARMS) is a prototype system built to address the issues of identifying, analyzing, prioritizing, monitoring, and controlling project risk. ARMS uses expert systems, data base management, and hypermedia technologies to capture and classify project schedule problems, to determine their semantic impacts to future activities, and to alert appropriate project personnel in advance of problem occurrence.     

How Naïve Is the Market’s Use of Firm‐Specific Earnings Information?

Recent studies suggest the apparent delay in the stock-price response to earnings announcements (i.e., post-earnings announcement drift) is caused by investors who underestimate the autocorrelation of seasonally-differenced earnings (persistence). I present results that suggest: (1) a firm's future persistence is predictable on the basis of its past persistence; (2) the immediate stock-price response to earnings is positively related to historical persistence; (3) post-earnings-announcement drift is independent of historical persistence; and (4) consistent with (2) and (3), the difference between a firm's current observed persistence and that implied in stock prices is independent of its historical persistence. These results extend prior research by demonstrating that investors are aware not only that seasonally-differenced earnings are autocorrelated, but that investors recognize firm-specific differences in the magnitude of the autocorrelation.     

Working While the World Sleeps: A Consideration of Sleep and Shift Work Design

The evolution of society and economic pressure has provided the impetus for operating on a 24-hr basis in many industries. This has occurred with relatively little attention toward sleep deprivation and related problems facing shift workers and the organizations employing them. This paper first documents the move toward shift work and some sleep problems associated with it. We then describe sleep disorders that impact job performance. Next, we describe alternative schedules and give suggestions for shift work implementation. Finally, we offer some normative advice regarding the treatment of shift employees.     

Crafting Internal Hybrids: Complementarities,Common Change Initiatives,and the Team-Based Organization

Hybrid governance forms that seek to meld the virtues of both market control and traditional hierarchical control are alluring. Comparatively little research, outside of the M-form literature, has examined internal hybrids - hierarchical forms infused with elements of market control. This paper contends that common change initiatives, such as TQM, re-engineering, autonomous work teams, and group-based rewards, are appropriately viewed as attempts to craft internal hybrids by selectively infusing elements of market control within hierarchy. However, these change initiatives are often implemented in isolation and, as a consequence, violate patterns of complementarity that sustain traditional hierarchy or support the stable infusion of market control.The paper argues that these violations of complementarity often spiral hierarchies toward fundamental transformation. The clear trajectory of these transformations is to quite radically disaggregated organizations structured around teams. The paper presents both theory and evidence supporting the existence of complementarities among these common change initiatives.