The Economic Impact of the Boston Living Wage Ordinance*

This paper presents one of the first quantitative assessments of the effect living wage laws have had on firms covered by their mandate. Applying difference‐in‐difference estimation methods to survey data from Boston, Massachusetts, I find little evidence of reduced employment or hours worked, following living wage implementation. Instead, there is strong evidence that firms actually shifted from part‐time towards full‐time staffing as a result of Boston's living wage law. Estimates also reveal a substantial degree of wage compression within firms who raised wages. Finding no evidence of reduced employment or hours, this paper uses qualitative survey data to examine other ways in which firms may have adjusted to higher wages. I find some evidence that covered firms have taken lower profits as a way to adjust to the Boston law.     

The Impact of Technological Change on Work and Wages

This review begins with a discussion of how technology affects wage structures. The literature reviewed is divided into two segments—studies of the impact of technological change on wages (and growing inequality), productivity, and employment and studies of the interrelationship of technology, human resource systems, and labor productivity. We conclude with suggestions for future research topics. Overall, we find that technological change accounts for only part of the changing wage structure in the United States, whereas changes in institutional forces that affect the creation of industry rents and the distribution of rents are also an important factor.     

Fighting for Other Folks' Wages: The Logic and Illogic of Living Wage Campaigns

Living wage campaigns have enacted ordinances/policies to raise low wages in over 100 localities. The campaigns galvanize citizens more than national economic issues and allow for pay increases fine-tuned to local realities, but cover relatively few workers. To help the low-paid broadly, the coalitions in living wage campaigns have to scale up to the state or national level while unions and national groups work to devolve labor issues from the gridlock at the federal level to states and localities.     

The Impact of Growth Control Regulations on Housing Prices in California*

This paper examines the impact of growth controls on the price of new single-family homes. Four types of growth controls are discussed and each is found to have a significantly different impact on housing prices. Regulations that are imposed by one locality only are first compared to those that are imposed by a locality whose neighbors also control growth. In California, increases in house prices in communities with only local growth controls cannot be distinguished from communities that do not control growth. However, the 1969 to 1976 housing price increase in growth control jurisdictions located in extensively regulated housing markets is significantly higher than in local-only or no-control jurisdictions. In addition, controls that restrict the rate of development are compared to those that specify the quality of development. In the extensively regulated San Francisco Bay area, the 1969 to 1976 housing price increase was 35% higher in rate-controlled communities and 20% higher in quality-controlled communities than in no-control communities.     

The Impact of Minimum Wages on Unemployment Duration: Estimating the Effects Using the Displaced Worker Survey

This paper examines the impact of minimum wages on unemployment duration. Our estimates suggest that higher minimum wages are associated with shorter unemployment duration for older males and those with at least a high school diploma, but longer unemployment spells for male high school dropouts and females who are older and in lower‐skilled occupations. The results are consistent with other studies in generating concerns about the distributional impact of minimum wages.     

The Impact of Competition on Investment: Evidence From California Hospitals*

I examine the relationship between bargaining leverage and capital investment using data on California’s hospital markets. I find evidence that investment increases with bargaining leverage; a hospital whose bargaining position improves by one standard deviation will increase its investment rate by 16 percentage points. A positive causal relationship between bargaining leverage and investment fits the institutional details of the health care sector, where many firms have non-profit tax status, making it difficult to return monopoly rents to shareholders. Consistent with this explanation, I find that non-profit hospitals with bargaining leverage invest more than for-profit ones, all else equal. I do not find strong evidence that financing constraints matter disproportionately for hospitals operating in more competitive markets, supporting the hypothesis that the incremental investment may not be socially efficient.     

Managing Innovation Champions: The Impact of Project Characteristics on the Direct Manager Role*

A key challenge for organizations seeking to improve the management of innovation lies in determining when to lend direct managerial support, and how much support, to those championing such projects. This research provides insights into the connection between project characteristics and the type and frequency of direct manager involvement. As such, it addresses the following research question: how does the level of project innovativeness, strategic relatedness, and resource requirements impact the level of empowerment of innovation champions and the sponsor or supervisor role played by managers? The research method involves a survey of 89 project champions from four divisions of large, multinational Korean companies. The results show that when innovativeness was high but projects were strategically related, there was greater project champion empowerment but also a more frequent managerial sponsor role. This suggests it may be best to allow innovators, who are close to the project's markets, technologies, and industry conditions, to have greater freedom over objectives and decisions. Yet they may also need the advice and support of their managers to function optimally under the highly uncertain conditions that characterize innovative projects. This combination of empowerment and a sponsor role, though appropriate for highly innovative projects, may also require high strategic relatedness, however. On the other hand, when projects are less strategically related and when resource requirements are high, the analysis suggests managers are more likely to exert control. Managers may therefore need to become more closely involved in decision making for costly ventures representing new strategic directions for their organizations. Overall, this research suggests that both empowerment and manager roles are relevant to the management of innovation. These results offer academic value in recognizing the nature of the direct manager role under different innovation project conditions. It further reveals a need for academics to recognize both the supervisor and sponsor roles in the management of innovation. For managers, the findings suggest that for organizations to effectively develop and commercialize innovations managers need to recognize when certain projects call for different levels and types of involvement.     

Managing External Information in Manufacturing Firms: The Impact on Innovation Performance*

Drawing upon a sample of 206 medium‐sized manufacturing firms, this article investigates the extent to which management of external information is associated with innovation performance. The overall purpose of the article is to examine whether or not those organizations that are better at managing external information are also those that are the better innovators. The research strategy used was a survey, and data were collected by means of mail questionnaires (with a 62.4% response rate). A multiple regression analysis was used for hypothesis testing. The results show that scanning the technological sector of the environment was positively associated with innovation performance, while scanning customers, suppliers, and competitors proved to be negatively correlated with innovation performance. Cross‐functional integration in the form of collaboration also proved significantly correlated with innovation performance, while interaction showed no such relationship. Further, decision‐making based on information from the industry environment correlated significantly with innovation performance. Research and managerial implications of these findings are presented and are discussed.     

雇主视角下的高级技工短缺问题探析

针对我国高级技工短缺问题,从雇主视角出发,构建＂委托—代理＂模型对专业技能培养的投资行为进行数理推导,并在此基础上对雇佣双方的行动策略作单次动态博弈与重复动态博弈分析。结果表明由于存在技工离职的风险,企业会选择放弃对高级技工培养进行投资。为此,建议企业实施有利于雇佣双方在技能培养中采取合作行为的管理措施,为培养高级技工创造良好的博弈环境。     

The Impact of Industrial Design Effectiveness on Corporate Financial Performance*

Despite the growing recognition of industrial design's value in creating sustainable competitive advantage, few studies have attempted to quantify the contribution that design makes to company financial performance. This article examines the relationship between industrial design and company financial performance in order to assess industrial design's contribution to this performance. Effective industrial design was evaluated by asking a panel of 138 industrial design experts to rank the industrial design effectiveness of publicly traded firms within nine selected manufacturing industries; the ranking process yielded 93 firms. Based on the rankings, firms within each industry were divided into two groups: those judged as exhibiting high design effectiveness versus those judged as low in design effectiveness. Audited financial data reported to the SEC across a seven‐year period from 1995 to 2001 were used to evaluate financial performance. Using traditional financial ratios senior managers consider essential performance measures, those firms with high design effectiveness were hypothesized to have higher returns on sales, returns on assets, and growth rates of sales, net income, and cash flow than firms with low design effectiveness. High design effectiveness firms further were hypothesized to have higher stock market returns. These comprehensive, corporate financial measures incorporate expenditures made on industrial design (industrial designers' salaries, design consultants' fees, computer‐aided industrial design equipment) and expenditures that designers influence through their design choices (material costs, manufacturing equipment). This analysis reveals that firms rated as having “good” design were stronger on all measures except growth rate measures. These results provide strong evidence that good industrial design is related to corporate financial performance and stock market performance even after considering expenditures on industrial design. Further, the patterns of financial performance over the seven‐year horizon suggest that these effects are persistent.     

集团公司工程项目成本控制浅析

项目成本控制是在保证满足工程质量、工期等合同要求的前提下,对项目实施过程中所发生的费用,通过计划、组织、控制和协调等活动实现预定的成本目标,并尽可能地降低成本费用的一种科学的管理活动,它主要通过技术(如施工方案的制订比选)、经济(如核算)和管理(如施工组织管理、各项规章制度等)活动达到预定目标,实现盈利的目的。     

The Coastal Construction Control Line: A Cost-Benefit Analysis

This paper reports on a cost-benefit study of the Florida Coastal Construction Control Line (CCCL) in Martin County, Florida. The study compared the costs of implementing and maintaining the line with the value of the potential benefits resulting from (1) storm damage reduction and (2) increased open space. A systems model of development patterns was designed to project forward the historic development patterns along the beach which were compared with the patterns that have occurred subsequent to implementing the CCCL. The analysis showed the CCCL not to be cost effective in the area studied.     

Competition in Grocery Retailing: The Impact of a New Strategic Group on BLS Price Increases

Metropolitan areas with a significant presence of warehouse stores had lower retail food price increases during 1977 to 1992 than did areas with no warehouse stores. The negative impact occurred largely during the first half of the 15-year period. Strategic learning appears to have led to a different response from incumbent supermarkets during 1985–1992. Change in prices was positively related to change in concentration and negatively related to entry.     

Non-competition Goals and Their Impact on South African Merger Control: An Empirical Analysis

Review of Industrial Organization - Merger control regimes in various jurisdictions—especially in Africa—feature non-competition objectives in addition to conventional goals, such as...     

The Immediate Impact of New Product Introductions on Stock Price: The Role of Firm Resources and Size*

New product development and introduction is an ongoing important issue to facilitate a firm's success. To demonstrate the financial impact of new product introductions and the supporting role of firm resources and organizational structure, the authors collected 409 new product announcements from 1990 to 1998 and used event methodology and regression models in this research. Building on resources and capabilities perspectives, the present study argues that firm resources with emphases on research and development (R&D) are imperative to materialize new product concepts. However, the research revealed that R&D resources have dual effects on immediate shareholder value (i.e., abnormal stock returns). On one hand, when the firm commits only lower to moderate levels of R&D, investors would have perceived such R&D as expenditures reducing the firm's profit margin and thereby negatively evaluate R&D resources. Nevertheless, when the firm has dedicated its resources to R&D significant enough to signal investors its potential benefits can outweigh its costs, it generates positive shareholder value. Further, the study found that investors honor positive marketing resources that are critical to promote and launch new products to customers. Apart from resources perspectives, according to the organizational structure literature, firm size reflects the layers of bureaucracy within an organization. The research found a negative effect on shareholder value, indicating that investors evaluate more optimistically smaller firms that are likely to be more innovative and entrepreneurial resulted in more breakthrough products. In conclusion, this study provides value to practitioners in understanding the impact of firm size and, more importantly, to what extent they dedicate their resources in R&D and marketing to generate different performance outcomes.     

In Search of the Classics: A Study of the Impact of JPIM Papers from 1984 to 2003*

The Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM) was launched in 1984 and over its first two decades of existence evolved into the leading journal in the field of innovation and the management of technology. During these 20 years JPIM contributed to the field by publishing 488 academic papers. This paper is a follow‐up study to an earlier study that looked at how JPIM evolved in terms of knowledge stock and knowledge flows during the first two decades (published in JPIM, March 2007). That paper looked at what was published during the first 20 years, which sources were cited, and which journals cited JPIM papers. This study takes a closer look at the impact of JPIM on the field of innovation and the management of technology by identifying the most classic papers published in JPIM during its first two decades of existence. This study used multiple research methods to identify 64 candidate potential classics from the 488 papers published in the first 20 years of JPIM's existence, to analyze how they differ from the other 424 papers published in the journal, and to investigate authors' motivations for writing these papers. Finally, using survey responses from the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) membership and other academics in innovation and new product development, the research then determines which 5 of the 64 candidate papers are considered to be the “most classic” papers published and the factors driving that determination. The findings show that classic papers are those presenting a “pioneering idea” in the field that creates buzz in both the academic and practitioner worlds. High numbers of citations are indeed the outcome of these endeavors, but being a classic requires more than having high numbers of citations. Authors of the true classics generally have worked hard to disseminate their research, usually to both academics and practitioners, perhaps also contributing to the network buzz created by their findings. While one of the five most classic papers represented the first investigation into a particular stream of research, the other four were culminations of a significant body of research, providing a distinct summary of known information on a topic at the time they were published and a clear road forward for future research on the topic. These bodies of knowledge have yet to be superseded by other culminating papers.