Schools of thought in organizational learning

This article attempts to bring coherence to the diversity that characterizes organizational learning research. It argues that organizational learning is embedded in four schools of thought: an economic school, a managerial school, a developmental school, and a process school. The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the schools, describes how they differ from each other, and outlines how each of them can be employed effectively. To demonstrate the benefits of theoretical plurality, the four schools are applied to the key marketing topics of market orientation and new product development. Implications for future research in marketing are provided. Simon J. Bell is a lecturer in marketing in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne. Gregory J. Whitwell is an associate professor of marketing in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne. Bryan A. Lukas is an associate professor of marketing and director of the Master of Applied Commerce Program in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne.     

Produktgarantien und Aktienkrise — Implikationen für die Kapitalanlagepolitik von Lebensversicherungsunternehmen

The present contribution analyzes the implications of two central factors influencing the asset allocation decision of (German) life insurance companies, the development of the equity market on one hand and the interest rate guarantees included in traditional life insurance products on the other. The adverse development of share prices in 2000–2002 implies the necessity to consider not only ?normal“ volatility but also worst case-developments for the purpose of risk control. Formally this is done by using the risk measures value-at-risk and conditional value-at-risk. The specific ?myopic“ nature of interest rate guarantees in German life insurance products, which are granted on a yearly basis implies — beyond the general control of the shortfall risk with respect to the guaranteed interest rates — the necessity to per-form the asset allocation on a yearly basis to be in conformity with the time horizon of the liabilities.On the basis of a quantitative approach corresponding model calculations are performed. Thereby not only a pure market valuation is considered but also institutional peculiarities (hidden reserves, accounting norms) of German life insurance companies. The possibility of a riskless one-year investment, either based on market values or on balance sheet values, is revealed to be crucial for giving interest rate guarantees on a yearly basis.     

OPPORTUNISTIC MATCHING IN THE HOUSING MARKET*

We construct a model of the housing market in which agents differ in their flow values while searching. Agents enter the market relaxed (with high flow values) but move to a desperate state (low flow values) at a Poisson rate if they have not already transacted. We characterize the equilibrium steady‐state matching pattern and the joint distribution of price and time to sale (for sellers). The expected price conditional on time to sale falls with time spent on the market, whereas the conditional variance of price first rises and then falls with time on the market.     

Firm-hosted online brand communities and new product success

Many firms use online brand communities to support the launch of their new products. This study proposes a typology of firm-hosted online brand communities and examines whether such a classification system can improve predictions of new product success. A cross-industry analysis of 81 firm-hosted online brand communities shows that these communities reflect three archetypes. A subsequent survey of 170 community-hosting firms in the consumer durable goods industry reveals that the three types of communities are not equally important for new product success. Moreover, one archetype generally underperforms the other two as a new product support mechanism. Overall, the results demonstrate that firm-hosted online brand communities can be a predictor of new product success.     

Sharp IV Bounds on Average Treatment Effects on the Treated and Other Populations Under Endogeneity and Noncompliance

In the presence of an endogenous binary treatment and a valid binary instrument, causal effects are point identified only for the subpopulation of compliers, given that the treatment is monotone in the instrument. With the exception of the entire population, causal inference for further subpopulations has been widely ignored in econometrics. We invoke treatment monotonicity and/or dominance assumptions to derive sharp bounds on the average treatment effects on the treated, as well as on other groups. Furthermore, we use our methods to assess the educational impact of a school voucher program in Colombia and discuss testable implications of our assumptions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Innovation speed under uncertainty and competition

Innovation speed is widely considered to be a key factor for a firm's ability to maintain competitive advantage. Primarily, empirical evidence has found contradictory interdependencies regarding the role of innovation speed. The prevailing proposition of “the faster the better” has been challenged by results of empirical studies heavily depending on the methodological setup used. In contrast, we propose a model of the complete innovation process to study innovation speed under uncertainty and competition. We find that higher market uncertainty speeds up innovation and encourages firms to innovate incrementally. Strong competition tends to reduce innovation speed and encourages rather radical innovation.     

Whose trades convey information? Evidence from a cross-section of traders

This paper contributes empirically to our understanding of informed traders. It analyzes traders’ characteristics in a foreign exchange electronic limit order market via anonymous trader identities. We use six indicators of informed trading in a cross-sectional multivariate approach to identify traders with high price impact. More information is conveyed by those traders’ trades which—simultaneously—use medium-sized orders (practice stealth trading), have large trading volume, are located in a financial center, trade early in the trading session, at times of wide spreads and when the order book is thin.