An Empirical Investigation into the Antecedents of Knowledge Dissemination at the Strategic Business Unit Level

Knowledge dissemination is of crucial importance for the strategic planning in new product development. Many new ideas stem from recombination of previously successful, disseminated actions, and knowledge dissemination offers a clear overview of market needs, technology developments, and competitors' actions. Moreover, in dynamic environments, where strategic planning has to be added by some kind of improvisation, knowledge dissemination leads to a high quality of improvisation. It leads to a quick awareness of external or internal surprises, gives an opportunity to learn quickly from the past, and compensates for a coordination mechanism instead of planning. The dissemination of knowledge does not always happen spontaneously. Especially, people with a technical background often are highly individualistic and do not disseminate knowledge naturally. So, this must be fostered by the organization. In management research, particularly on technology and innovation management, many facilitating factors have been identified that enhance communication. Intuitively, they also would seem useful in enhancing knowledge dissemination; however, these factors have not been tested empirically for this specific use. Research on knowledge and its management has not given much attention to the way knowledge in an organization is disseminated and the factors that can facilitate it. If such factors are mentioned, they are not tested empirically and their relative impact is not addressed. In this study we identified 17 important factors in enhancing knowledge dissemination and validated 10 of these factors empirically and determined their relative impact. We focused on technological knowledge in new product development—not on the project level but on the level of the strategic business unit. The field research comprised three parts. In the first step, we conducted in‐depth interviews with research and development (R&D) managers and their supervisors to select the most important potential facilitating factors. In the second step, in‐depth interviews with senior executives, information technology (IT) officers, and R&D experts were conducted to determine whether the constructs regarding knowledge dissemination and the potential facilitating factors had face validity. Finally, the potential factors were tested empirically in 277 U.S. high‐technology firms at the strategic business unit (SBU) level. It was our intention to examine potential factors beyond the level of the particular project, so we looked for antecedents in an SBU environment with a longer‐term impact. Our results indicate that individual commitment to the firm is very important to facilitate knowledge dissemination as well as organizational crises and risk‐taking behavior. Individual commitment was found to have the greatest impact on the level of knowledge dissemination, followed by organizational crisis and risk‐taking behavior. It is thus up to management to find new ways to control individual commitment. More research, however, is required to better understand the ways by which managerial interventions stimulates knowledge dissemination.     

Contagion inside the credit default swaps market: The case of the GM and Ford crisis in 2005

We study the General Motors (GM) and Ford crisis in 2005 in order to determine if the credit default swap (CDS) market is subject to contagion effects. Has the crisis spread to the whole (CDS) market? To answer this question, we study the correlations between CDS premia, by using a sample of 226 CDSs on major US and European firms. We do evidence a significant rise in correlations during the crisis episode, but little “shift-contagion” as defined by Forbes and Rigobon (2002). When using dynamic measures of correlations (EWMA and DCC-GARCH), we also show that correlations significantly increased during the crisis, especially in the first week.     

Revealing different understandings of soil held by scientists and farmers in the context of soil protection and management

This paper aims to analyse and draw together results from similar studies in England, Switzerland and France which investigated farmers’ understanding of soil and compared it with that of scientists, researchers and advisors (collectively called scientists in this analysis). A range of methods were used across the three studies and different theoretical approaches, looking at forms of knowledge, local practice of knowledge production and conceptions of reality, were employed to explain the results. Despite the different contexts, methodologies and theoretical approaches in the three studies, the results reveal similar patterns of difference in farmer and scientist understanding of soil. In the English study, farmers demonstrate a ‘know-how’ form or intuitive working knowledge of soil while advisors rely on scientifically established forms of ‘know-why’ and seek to understand and explain soil processes. Similarly in the Swiss study farmers’ and scientists’ differing perceptions are directed and shaped by their respective aims, methods and context of work. In the French study, farmers and researchers are shown to have different conceptions of soil, they attribute different meaning to the same activities, and use different words and language to describe the same features. In all three studies understanding is shown to be cultural and contextual, as such an integrative theoretical framework is proposed.     

Correction Processes in Consumer Choice

Consumers sometimes recognize that irrelevant contextual factors may influence their judgments and decisions. When such factors are detected, consumers might engage in correction processes to counteract unwanted influences in their judgments and decisions. An experiment demonstrated that correction processes can reduce the magnitude of the compromise effect and the attraction effect.     

Cash flow at risk valuation of mining project using Monte Carlo simulations with stochastic processes calibrated on historical data

Mining projects are subject to multiple sources of market uncertainties such as metal price, exchange rates, and their volatilities. Assessing a mining project's exposure to market risk usually requires Monte Carlo simulations to capture a range of probable outcomes. The probability of a major loss is extracted from the probability density function of simulated prices at a given time into the future. This article proposes an approach to calibrate the stochastic process to be used in Monte Carlo simulations. The simulations are then used for measuring the cash flow at risk of a mining project. To assess the performance of the proposed approach, a case study is conducted on a mining project. The results show that the calibration approach is robust and apt at fitting various stochastic processes to historical observations.     

Multi-agent technologies in economics

This paper summarizes some of the trends in the use of multi-agent technologies in economics. Multiple agent systems, fuzzy sets and neural networks are critical tools used to investigate the emerging economics research agenda related to data mining, dynamic markets stock selection and bank stress testing. This paper reviews the contributions of four such examples.     

Retirement Incentives in Belgium: Estimations and Simulations Using SHARE Data

The paper studies retirement behavior of wage-earners in Belgium—for the first time using a rich survey dataset to analyze retirement incentives as faced by individuals. Specifically, we use SHARE data to estimate a model à la Stock and Wise (Econom Econ Soc 58(5):1151–1180, 1990). Exploring the data on individual life-histories from SHARELIFE, we construct a measure of financial incentive to retire. Our analysis explicitly takes into account the different take-up rates of the various early retirement exit paths across time and ages. The results show that financial incentives play a strong role. Health and education also matter, as do regional differences. Against the general background of the 2020 strategy, we perform a set of policy simulations and illustrate the scope but also the limits associated with selective parametric reforms.