Bargaining under Uncertainty and the Monotone Path Solutions

Uncertainty with respect to the feasible set of utility vectors is introduced in an axiomatic bargaining model. Given a criterion for nonprobabilistic decision-making under uncertainty, a natural efficiency requirement can be imposed on a bargaining solution. Using the maximin ordering, thestrictly monotone pathsolutions (generalizations of theegalitariansolution) to the bargaining problem are characterized as the only continuous solutions that satisfy this efficiency axiom. If the maximin criterion is replaced by the maximax ranking or a strict convex combination of the maximin and the maximax criterion, imposing our efficiency axiom and continuity leads to thedictatorialsolutions.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Number: C78.     

Cashlessness and scalable multi-pay practices: Capturing the everyday financial transactions in local contexts

While macro-level volume growth in India's move towards cashless payment systems is captured relentlessly, most often what gets ignored is a realization that everyday financial transactional practices are socially and culturally embedded in the local contexts. This paper drawn from an anthropological ethnography explores how people use and hierarchically order different payment systems in their everyday financial transactions for products and services. It explores how aspects such as trust, economic and social values, demographic differentials and scalable multi-pay practices influence such ordering and usage of the payment systems within their everyday local contexts.     

Firm Scale and the Endogenous Timing of Entry: a Choice between Commitment and Flexibility

This paper presents a model of stochastic oligopoly with demand uncertainty where firms endogenously choose entry timing. We examine two extreme types of market structure and show that the equilibrium correspondence that connects them is continous. With two identically sized firms, there are symmetric, Cournot type equilibria where the probability of early entry declines with greater uncertainty, and for low uncertainty two asymmetric equilibria. With one large firm with a continuum of nonatomic firms, there is a unique Stackelberg equilibrium. We conclude that the behavior of a dominant firm with a finite fringe can be approximated by Stackelberg equilibrium.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers?: D21, L11.     

Knowledge relatedness and the performance of multibusiness firms

This study examines corporate performance effects of cross‐business knowledge synergies in multibusiness firms. It synthesizes the resource‐based view of diversification and the economic theory of complementarities to conceptualize cross‐business knowledge synergies in terms of the relatedness and the complementarity of knowledge resources across business units of the multibusiness firm. The study hypothesizes that corporate performance is improved when the firm simultaneously exploits a complementary set of related knowledge resources across its business units. In a sample of 303 multibusiness firms, the study finds that synergies arising from product knowledge relatedness, customer knowledge relatedness, or managerial knowledge relatedness do not improve corporate performance on their own. Synergies arising from the complementarity of the three types of knowledge relatedness significantly improve both market‐based and accounting‐based performance of the multibusiness corporation. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

EQUILIBRIA IN NON-COOPERATIVE GAMES II: DEVIATIONS BASED REFINEMENTS OF NASH EQUILIBRIUM

In any Nash equilibrium no player will unilaterally deviate. However, many games have multiple Nash equilibria. In this paper, we survey some refinements of Nash equilibria based on the hypothesis that any player may consider a deliberate deviation from a Nash equilibrium vector while expecting other players to respond optimally to this deviation. The concepts studied here differ in the expectations players have about other players' responses to a deviation. This sort of deviations philosophy is predicated on the thought process of players. Therefore, the validity of a particular equilibrium concept to an economic model may depend upon the relevance of the thought process implied by the concept.     

Consuming digital technologies and making home

Recognizing digital technology's dislocating impact on home, this paper focuses on an underrepresented consumer, the female head-of-household. This interpretive research study of army men's wives elucidates three issues: the digital home's structure, technology's roles, and women's technology consumption. First, the study introduces the center–periphery model of home. Second, the results go beyond technology's tool role to building a support system. Finally, this study sheds light on the neglected area of women's play with digital technology.     

The work of mapping and the mapping of work: prosumer roles in crowdsourced maps

This paper presents an analysis of crowdsourcing work with a particular focus on exploring what forces and characteristics of the collaboration practices and technologies encourage and discourage prosumer work behaviours. Data were gathered through depth interviews with prosumers of a crowdsourced digital nautical map, observational netnographic research of prosumers on angling forums, and interviews and meetings with the map providers. Incorporating research on consumer work and prosumption, three distinct prosumer roles are identified based on how angling prosumers differentially produce and consume the crowdsourced maps. These roles show multiple behaviours along the prosumption continuum, and in so doing extend the continuum by introducing a second dimension – work as private versus public prosumer activity. It concludes by offering suggestions for marketers to engage with prosumers in crowdsourcing contexts.     

Strategic Options in the Digital Era

The collapse of the dot-com euphoria coupled with the downturn in the business cycle is driving many firms to abandon their high-growth strategies in favor of current earnings. This article argues that, whilst hedging against adverse future conditions, firms must retain an ability to seize up-side business benefits by framing IT investments as strategic options. The authors use three illustrative examples to develop a strategic management process that they term the "Strategic Options Navigator". They conclude by drawing implications for CEOs, CIOs and CFOs.     

The market share-profitability relationship: An empirical assessment of major assertions and contradictions

While previous research on the relationship between market share (MS) and business profitability (BP) has found a positive relationship, its nature (i.e. direct versus spurious), its context-specificity, and the validity of MS as a predictor of BP have not been adequately addressed. Employing path analysis, this study examined the nature of this relationship across a taxonomy of homogeneous environments. The major findings were that (1) the association between MS and BP is context-specific; (2) both direct and spurious relationships exist, and their relative strengths vary across environments; and (3) the validity of MS as a predictor of BP is context-specific. Further, key firm conduct variables accounting for the spuriousness have been identified. Finally, implications of these findings for managers pursuing market share as a goal are discussed.     

Strategic delay and endogenous offers in bargaining games with private information

This paperendogenously determines the order of offers and the duration of delay in reaching agreement between buyers and sellers in a continuous-time bargaining game in which a seller wishes to vend an object of known cost to a buyer, to whom the value of the good is private information, and in which each player can choose to strategically delay a response to a previous offer or to interrupt the delay of his rival. Both buyers and sellers are shown to prefer to move first in a model of bargaining in which: (1) either player can make the first offer; (2) after the minimum time has elapsed from the previous offer, either player can make an offer; and (3) players can choose to strategically delay and refrain from making an offer after the previous offer. When the buyer moves first, the equilibrium response for the seller is to accept the offer immediately. When the seller moves first the equilibrium is characterized by the seller making all but the last offer, with minimal feasible delay between successive offers. Observable endogenous delay in reaching an agreement in such equilibria approaches zero as the minimal feasible delay between offers approaches zero. This indicates that in noncooperative bargaining models with private information, where players can strategically delay their offers, endogenizing the order in which players make offers removes the ability of informational asymmetries to generate equilibria exhibiting endogenous delay in reaching an agreement.