A typology of strategic choice

There is an incredible paucity of studies focusing on what it takes to produce a successful strategic decision. The purpose of this paper is to advance the body of knowledge in this most important area. Using a two-dimensional typology of strategic choice, twelve real-world cases of strategic decision making are classified and evaluated. The results of these evaluations tend to confirm the typology of strategic choice and to suggest a need for additional research to validate the hypothesis that a formal decision-making process is conducive to successful strategic decision outcomes. This paper is intended for both professors and practioners of strategic choice.     

IT for green and green IT: A proposed typology of eco-innovation

This article is in support of the development of an ecological economic framework. It discusses, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the increasing use of green IT and their applications (IT for green). IT and sustainable development have had a concomitant rise and reach. The future world emerging from their respective interpretations enables, in both cases, a shift from today's questionable industrial capitalism towards post-industrial capitalism. This paper addresses the following questions: What is known about green IT and IT for green? Are smart solutions (buildings, energy grids, transport) always beneficial to an ecological economy? And, if so, in what ways? In the first part of this article, we analyse the economic, social and environmental impact of IT and argue for the need for green applications of green IT in order to achieve sustainable outcomes. The second part focuses on the managerial dimension of eco-innovation theory and presents one of the distinctive features of green applications of green IT: the collective organisation of innovation. A typology of eco-innovation aimed at reconciling IT development and green growth is then proposed explicitly addressing four kinds of changes towards sustainable development: technological, social, institutional and organisational innovation.     

A new proposal of pension regimes typology: empirical analysis of the OECD countries

In the paper, we present a new typology of pension regimes based on two main dimensions: the extent of involvement of the state and the market, and the role of voluntary schemes. We propose three theoretical pension regimes. The study proves that our theoretical typology is also consistent with empirical pension systems in OECD countries. In order to group them into the similar pension models, we employ multivariate statistical analysis. As a result of our empirical research, the regimes distinguished in the theoretical framework have found their counterparts in the clusters of real pension systems operating in 30 countries.     

Monopolistic competition and the cyclicality of pricing and productivity—A typology of industries

We develop a market model which explains how prices and productivity react to short-run demand variations when the number of price-setting firms is held fixed on its long-run level and profits are endogenous. We assume that for each firm the average production cost function is U-shaped, that customers are imperfectly informed about offer prices, and that customers may search for better offers.For low degrees of market transparency the long-run market outcome exhibits price dispersion with an endogenous finite number of firms. In this case, in the short run, prices and price mark-ups respond countercyclically to demand variations (while input prices are exogenously fixed) and productivity is procyclical. In the complementary case of higher degrees of market transparency, in the long run we have a single-price equilibrium. In that case, in the short run, prices are procyclical while mark-ups remain countercyclical and productivity diminishes with any deviation of demand from its long-run level.Thanks for helpful discussions go to the participants of workshops at the Winter Symposium of the Econometric Society at Warsaw 1990, at the 6th World Congress of the Econometric Society at Barcelona 1990, at the Annual Meetings of the Verein für Socialpolitik in Lugano 1991 and of its Ausschuß für Industrieökonomik in Basel 1992, and at several university workshops. Thanks go also to two anonymous referees. Financial support by the Swiss National Science Foundation, grants No 12-26387.89 and 12-28722.90, are gratefully acknowledged.     

Linking organisational critical activities with business typology

This research aims to discover the connection between strategic typologies and organisational critical activities, and focuses on the organisational critical activities in three functional areas in high-tech organisations: ‘research and development’, ‘marketing’ and ‘manufacturing’. Research methods used include semi-structured interviews with 11 firms and 15 interviewees. And 34 participants were surveyed with analytic hierarchy process (AHP) questionnaires in Taiwan. The results show that organisations adopt different typologies tend to perform organisational critical activities differently to achieve success. Prospectors place more emphasis on ‘research and development’ related activities, Defenders focus on activities of ‘manufacturing and production related fields’, and Analysers care more about activities in ‘marketing related fields’. Defenders tend to pay more attention to activities relating to the manufacturing domain than Prospectors and Analysers. This research establishes a linkage between organisational critical activities and corporate strategy, and it could be useful for high-tech organisations to better manage their strategies.     

Revisiting incubation performance: How incubator typology affects results

Relevant literature has discussed incubator versus nonincubator firm performance and the characteristics of different types of incubators. However, it has not considered assessing performance individually by archetype. We studied company performance in four archetypal incubators. Performance measures used fall into five categories drawn from literature: a) firm growth b) participation in R&D programs c) Input R&D d) Output R&D e) Employment generation cost. We find there are significant differences in three of the five performance categories among incubator types. We assess the performance of each one by determining whether the objectives for which each was created are met. Private, basic research and University archetypes meet their objectives. Regional development archetype does not.     

A survey of agency models of organizations

In recent years Neoclassical economists have begun to turn their attention to issues of firm organization, stimulated in large part by methodological advances in the economics of incentives and incomplete information. The paradigm on which much of this work is based views an organization as an agency relationship. Agency models incorporate two basic features of organizations: incomplete information and goal conflict among members of the organization. This essay characterizes and critiques the existing research on agency models of organizations in order to broaden the set of consumers of such models and to stimulate the production of new research.     

External technology commercialisation projects: objectives,processes and a typology

Firms increasingly consider external technology commercialisation (ETC) – the commercialisation of technology assets – as an important part of their strategies. ETC goes beyond the marginal activity of commercialising residual technologies, yet prior research has not systematically analysed its monetary and strategic benefits, nor has much been published about the process of managing ETC. Accordingly this paper offers a classification of ETC objectives based on case studies of 25 technology-oriented companies. A detailed segmentation of the process of managing these projects is established by focussing on large industrial companies whose main business is internal technology exploitation (i.e. the application of technologies in their own products and/or services). Based on these classifications, four types of external technology exploitation projects are identified and the different managerial challenges are described along the process segmentation.     

A commodity-money refinement in matching models

We apply a commodity-money refinement to matching models in which people meet in pairs and buyers make take-it-or-leave-it offers to sellers. The refinement is applied by attaching a utility value to nominal money and letting that value approach zero. An equilibrium satisfies the refinement if it is such a limit. We show that the refinement eliminates a class of non-full-support steady states.     

A note on linear heteroscedasticity models

The familiar practice of estimating residual variance functions via regression of squared estimated residuals is examined in a method of moments framework. In many situations, the covariance matrix estimator will reduce to White's (1980) heteroscedasticity-consistent computation. Extensions to higher moments and multiple equation systems are discussed.     

A modified procedure for simulation of macroeconometric models

The rational expectations literature suggests that even the effects of unanticipated changes in policy variables may not be accurately described by conventionalsimulations of macroeconometric models. Beginning with Zellner and Palm's time-series approach to structural econometric modelling, a modified simulation procedure is developed to examine the effects of changes in policy variables which are consistent with historic time-series processes. A state-space representation and the Akaike Information Criterion are used to model exogenous variable processes, and results from modified and conventional simulations are compared.     

A particular class of continuous-time stochastic growth models

This paper generalizes to uncertaintly the neoclassical one-sector model by transforming the basic differential equation on the capital labor ratio into a “stochastic” differential equation. The capital-labor ratio and related economic variables become random variables whose probability distributions vary with time, and the paper is focused on the existence of a steady state denfined by the (probabilistic) stationarity of these variables. An application of the results is given for a specific example with a Cobb-Douglas production function and uncertainty on the saving coefficient, the labor-force rate of growth, and the capital depreciation rate.     

A Monte Carlo evaluation of labor supply models

In the area of labor supply and taxes advanced microeconometric methods have been developed in order to measure wage and income elasticities. Large variations in estimated elasticities have previously been reported in the literature. The purpose of the present study is to assess the sources for these discrepancies, and propose a robust estimator. According to our findings the commonly used maximum-likelihood estimator is sensitive to measurement errors in those variables that are needed in order to construct the individuals' budget sets. An iterative least squares estimator is preferred in small samples under several forms of specification and measurement errors.     

政府公益性项目管理模式--实施建设管理代理制引起的思考

如何管理好政府工程项目是世界各国一直在探索的问题，对于发展中国家来说更是如此。我国当前政府公益性投资项目正处于高速发展时期，加之体制的改革，政府公益性投资项目效益低下更为明显。目前许多地区，特别是西部地区，一方面继续进行着体制的转轨，另一方面面临着大规模的政府公益性投资项目，寻求合理的项目管理模式具有重要的现实意义。本文针对目前一些地方政府提出的政府公益性投资项目实行建设管理代理制为研讨对象，在对国外政府公益性项目管理模式进行分析的基础上，通过与我国一些地区目前做法的比较，提出地方政府可借鉴的一…     

A spectral decomposition for structural VAR models

Based on structural VARs, this paper proposes a spectral decomposition which allows to infer the effects of changes in one variable on the other variables in the frequency domain. It is shown that there is a close relationship between this concept and conventional forecast error variance decomposition techniques for VARs. An empirical example demonstrates the usefulness of this additional tool in analyzing the relationships among time series.     

A procedure for adapting technological forecasting models

A simple procedure is presented for adapting available mathematical models for forecasting technological substitution. The procedure takes into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of the available models and the environmental interactions to identify a set of feasible alternative forecasts, from which a selection is to be made by the decision-maker based on judgement.     

Marx's socialism in the context of his typology of economic systems

This paper restates the major structural properties of Marx's conception of socialism in the broader context of his typology of economic systems, commencing with feudalism and ending with his unique vision of postcapitalist economy. It also discusses briefly some of the major applications of this typology to contemporary practice, notably to Soviet experience. Clarification and systematic examination of Marx's views on the basic organizational properties of socialism in the broader context of Marx's views on economic systems, although important in its own right, can also sharpen critical understanding of debates concerning relations between the classical Marxian vision and contemporary practice.     

A critique of the microfoundations of macroeconomic policy models

The contemporary economic debate is focused mainly on the causes and cures of stagflation. There are three major macroeconomic parties to this debate: Incentivists (supply siders), Keynesians, and Monetarists. Each of these schools prepares policy forecasts promoting the merits of its particular remedies for countering stagflation. Though the models driving these forecasts are different in terms of the determinants they emphasize and the economic casuality they invoke, all are predicated on the same set of microeconomic assumptions: those organized under the neoclassical theory of the firm. The fact that the Incentivist, Keynesian, and Monetarist models all share the same microfoundation pretty much eliminates the firm and its properties from the arena of argument. From the standpoint to be developed in this article, this omission is unfortunate, as contemporary enterprises bear increasingly little resemblance to their neoclassical predecessors. The disparities are particularly important in two respects. First, increases in organizational size and complexity mark modern firms as increasingly susceptible to certain inefficiencies that ultimately affect aggregate economic performance adversely. But the mainstream macroeconomic models do not comprehend microeconomic stimuli to stagflation and therefore cannot presume to control them. The result is perhaps a consistent understatement of the reparative task the Incentivists, Keynesians, and Monetarists are promoting for themselves. Second, modern firms entail a potential for autonomous activities that is a priori denied neoclassical enterprises. Increases in autonomy imply some unresponsiveness to exogenous controls of the type the mainstream schools propose to employ as means of restoring economic integrity. To this extent, their policy models may be uniformly overstating the effect their instruments can enjoy in the present economic context. When the likelihood of underestimating the magnitude of the stagflationary problem is coupled with the probable overestimation of interventionist capabilities, the policy forecasts of the Incentivist, Keynesian, and Monetarist schools may be suspected of a degree of optimism entirely unwarranted by current microeconomic realities.     

A difficulty with the address models of product differentiation

Summary. In models of product differentiation and location models it is implicitly assumed that consumers can afford to buy the differentiated goods in the market. I show that with income heterogeneity there are severe existence problems of a price equilibrium in models of horizontal product differentiation with unit demand because some consumers are income-constrained. The result generalizes to other models of product differentiation, search, and switching costs. I present an alternative specification of variable individual demand in which this kind of existence problem cannot arise. Received: October 17, 1997; revised version: February 20, 1998     

Estimating models of expectations: A simplified sequential approach

This paper outlines a simple method for continuous updating of parameters that requires direct estimation only in the initial period. The basic technique, which is fairly well-known in the statistics literature, is useful for estimating models of expectations where period by period updating is typically necessary.