Community Colleges and Employers: How Can We Understand their Connection?

This paper uses an original, nationally representative survey of manufacturing establishments to shed light on the interaction of employers with community colleges, including information on skill requirements and human resource practices. We test three hypotheses: that high‐skill employers use community colleges, that community colleges are a substitute for employer‐based training, and that community colleges are a complement to so‐called “high‐road” or “high‐commitment” human resource practices. We find limited utilization of community colleges by employers, but those that do establish a relationship are generally satisfied. Employers that demand high skills are more likely to use community colleges, as are “high‐commitment” firms.     

Cheddar or Swiss? How strong are your barriers?

This article describes a company's experience with process safety metrics and describes systematic methods to improve safety performance. As a result of a major accident, an internal investigation identified that although a site may have numerous measures for tracking operational and safety performance, these measures may not focus on leading indicators that could provide early warning of potential major incidents. To systematically reduce incidents, especially, low probability high consequence process safety events, it is necessary to focus on prevention and specifically the strength of the barriers. The approach described in this article, therefore, aims to create a combination of Process Safety Performance Indicators that lead to stronger more robust barriers. While industrial history tells us that such high consequence events are infrequent, this significant process safety risk is always present in production operations, and thus needs to be continuously assessed and reduced through systematic safety management. Within one company, this recognition has resulted in a substantial strengthening of process safety risk management through a more comprehensive system of controls embedded within its new Operating Management System, which is being implemented at the site level across all of its operations globally. This article explores the ongoing methodology and approach being used to select a limited but crucial set of Process Safety Performance Indicators to enable effective measurement and the appropriate management of process safety performance. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog, 2009     

How Does Technological Regime Affect Performance of Technology Development Projects?

In this study, we examine how technological regime affects the performance of technology development projects (i.e., project quality, sales, and profit). Technological regime is defined as the set of attributes of a technological environment where the innovative activities of firms take place. Technological opportunity, appropriability of innovations, cumulativeness of knowledge and capabilities, and closeness of knowledge base to basic sciences (versus applied sciences) are attributes of technological regime. Using data from 381 firms across five industries, we show that high levels of technological opportunity, appropriability, and closeness of knowledge base to basic sciences are associated with higher project performance. Cumulativeness is associated with higher project quality, but not higher sales and profit. We also show that the effect of technological opportunity on project performance is moderated by two other determinants of technological regime: cumulativeness and nature of knowledge base. We find that cumulativeness has a negative moderating effect on the positive relationship between technological opportunity and project performance, while closeness of knowledge base to basic sciences positively moderates the effect of technological opportunity on project performance. We discuss the implications of our findings for new product development research and practice.     

Customer relationship management processes: How faithful are business-to-business firms to customer profitability?

Marketing academicians and practitioners have over the past decade advocated the implementation of customer equity principles within firms. This article draws on adaptive structuration theory to frame the faithfulness of firms to acquiring and maintaining customers according to their profit potential. Using survey data from 158 business units engaged in business-to-business sales, this article examines the motivational effects of market growth rate and customization requirements, and the technology and information integration capabilities of the firm as determinants of firm adherence to treating customers according to their profitability. The study finds that firms are better at maintaining customers according to their profit potential than acquiring customers according to their profit potential. Further, maintenance faithfulness appears to have more ultimate impact on firm performance. The study suggests that pursuing customer profitability has limited effectiveness unless accompanied by a broader range of initiatives aimed at making the firm more customer-focused.     

Lysine and Price Fixing: How Long? How Severe?

In October 1996 the Archer Daniels Midland Company(ADM) pleaded guilty to criminal price fixing withrespect to sales of lysine and agreed to pay a $70million fine. Earlier, in August 1996 two Japaneseproducers and a Korean producer of lysine had agreedto plead guilty to criminal price fixing charges. Andearlier still, in July 1996 ADM and the two Japanesecompanies settled the civil suits filed by some harmedbuyers by agreeing to pay a sum of $45 million.It is this last event that serves as the focus forthis paper. The adequacy of the settlement amount wasa major area of dispute. Connor (1996, 1997, 1998)has claimed that the trebled damages to lysinepurchasers were an order of magnitude larger. Crucialto Connor's conclusions are his assumptions as to thetime period during which the conspiracy had an effecton prices and the but for price that otherwise wouldhave prevailed in the absence of the conspiracy. Thispaper will argue that Connor substantiallyover-estimated the period of the conspiracy andunder-estimated the but-for price.     

How are students’ attitudes related to learning outcomes?

This article is a part of a research project aimed to find out how different background variables are related to learning outcomes in technology education related to the school subject Sloyd (craft). The research question of this article is: “How are ninth grade students’ attitudes towards the subject related to their learning outcomes?” The empirical data (n = 4792) was collected by stratified sampling from 152 secondary schools as a part of the Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE) assessment. A shortened Finnish version of the Fennema–Sherman attitude test was carried out in a narrowed sample (n = 1548). The three attitude factors for learners were ‘Liking Sloyd as a school subject’, ‘Experiencing Utility in Sloyd’ and ‘Self-concept in Sloyd’. Structural equation modelling revealed that ‘Experiencing Utility’ predicts learning outcomes while ‘Liking’ and ‘Self-concept’ were interveners. The results suggest more learner-centred pedagogics for developing technology education.     

Trust formation in Korean new product alliances: How important are pre-existing social ties?

The focus of this study is on the nature and influence of social connections versus other relational mechanisms on trust formation in an emerging Asian economy. We examine the role of communication quality, perceived fairness, and pre-existing social relationships for the formation of trust in 47 vertical new product development alliances in South Korea. The empirical results indicate a relatively minor importance of pre-existing social ties vis-à-vis communication quality and fairness for the development of trust. Contrary to widespread perceptions, pre-existing social ties do not appear to directly contribute to establishing trust with external alliance partners in Korea. Multiple explanations are offered for this unexpected finding. Instead, existing social relationships moderate the importance of fairness for trust formation. When conducting partnerships with Korean firms, managers should focus more on a quality communication and fair behavior when trust formation is the objective, than on social connections.     

Do Retailers Really Profit from Ambidextrous Managers? The Impact of Frontline Mechanisms on New and Existing Product Selling Performance

When manufacturers introduce a new product to the market, downstream retail partners are faced with inherent trade‐offs. Retail sales personnel have to support the new product's introduction with substantial sales efforts but also sell the existing products in stock, before storage and devaluation costs spin out of control. This study shows how retail sales managers can guide sales personnel's performance of new and existing product selling, respectively. The authors argue that a manager may prioritize selling new products, existing products, or both (i.e., have an ambidextrous selling orientation). Based on data gathered from sales representatives and company databases of a large European consumer electronics retailer, the authors perform a time‐lagged partial least squares analysis to test empirically their conceptual model. The authors find that ambidextrous sales managers outperform their singular‐oriented counterparts if they properly align their orientation with a frontline management mechanism consisting of task autonomy, performance feedback, and employee age. More specifically, ambidextrous managers promote net profit obtainment if they grant their sales employees task autonomy and give little performance feedback. In addition, a remarkable finding is that older sales agents tend to outperform their younger counterparts when working under an ambidextrous manager. The authors discuss the implications of these findings.     

Standing out in the crowd: How unique are the lobbying patterns of the broadcast and wireless industries?

This study examines if, in addition to increasing lobbying expenditure amounts, corporations in the broadcast and wireless industries are also attempting to change lobbying strategies in order to gain competitive advantage. This study examines possible changes in lobbying strategies though the lens of institutional isomorphism, a mechanism of institutional theory. Using institutional isomorphism, the study examines if the broadcast and wireless industries have altered lobbying strategies in the face of competition. This examination is conducted through the construction and analysis of an original data set of lobbying expenditures for the broadcast and wireless industries from 1998 to 2012.     

Patenting Activities and Firm Performance: Does Firm Size Matter?

Whereas prior research has provided valuable insights into the willingness of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and large firms to engage in patenting, a comparison of the performance implications of patenting activities across small and large firms is still lacking. This gap is important because SMEs and large firms, having different resources and capabilities, might benefit from patenting activities in different ways. In particular, SMEs can be expected to benefit less from patenting activities in terms of protection against imitators than large firms. On the other hand, the propensity and ability of SMEs to license out their patents and generate additional revenue streams might be relatively higher than that of their large counterparts. This paper studies the impact of patenting on licensing, innovation, and financial performance for both SMEs and large firms, using multiple‐group path analyses on a sample of 358 manufacturing firms. Contrary to expectations, this study demonstrates that not only large firms, but also SMEs benefit from patenting in terms of commercializing product innovations. Moreover, for both SMEs and large firms, such increased innovation performance in turn contributes to higher profit margins. Patenting activities also increase the ability of SMEs and large firms to license out knowledge to external parties, and this positive effect is significantly stronger for large firms. However, neither in SMEs nor in large firms, these outward licensing activities generate short‐term financial benefits. Finally, the study demonstrates that patenting activities do not trigger significant cost disadvantages for either SMEs or large firms. Jointly, these findings provide unique insights in the value‐generating and cost‐increasing effects of patenting, suggesting that not only large firms, but also SMEs should consider patenting as a viable strategy to fully reap commercial benefits from their innovation activities. At the same time, they temper open innovation scholars’ expectations regarding the financial benefits of licensing out knowledge. Overall, these findings point to opportunities for optimizing the intellectual property management of both SMEs and large firms.     

New Product Success: Is It Really Controllable by Managers in Highly Turbulent Environments?

This research proposes and tests a model of direct and indirect effects linking four antecedents to new product success: (1) a proactive strategic orientation along with enabling (2) organic organizational structures should lead to more (3) innovativeness and (4) market intelligence. Innovativeness and market intelligence should in turn lead to greater new product success. The relationships among the four antecedents are not hypothesized to be moderated by environmental turbulence because their domain is intraorganizational. However, the relationships from intraorganizational constructs to new product success are hypothesized to be moderated by environmental turbulence because success depends in part on the environment in which the new product must compete. The model was tested using a sample composed of 202 small business units of manufacturers on the Fortune 500. The sample was heavily involved in new product development: Their average annual research and development budget was $360.4 million, and approximately 8.2% of sales came from products introduced in the last five years. A two-group structural equation model analysis supports the moderation model overall and reveals the pattern of direct, indirect, and total effects. The results show that innovativeness (but not market intelligence) directly predicts new product success when turbulence is high, whereas market intelligence (but not innovativeness) directly engenders new product success in low turbulence. Environmental turbulence also affects the total indirect impact of strategy proactiveness and organizational organicity on new product success. These indirect effects operate through innovativeness and market intelligence as complete mediators.     

Shareholders and stakeholders: How do directors decide?

This study examines how directors make decisions that involve shareholders and other stakeholders. Using vignettes derived from seminal court cases, we construct an index of directors' shareholderism as a general orientation on this issue. In a survey of the entire population of directors and CEOs in public corporations in one country, we find that directors' personal values and roles play an important part in their decisions. Directors and CEOs are more pro‐shareholder the more they endorse entrepreneurial values—specifically, higher achievement, power, and self‐direction values and lower universalism values. While employee representative directors exhibit a lower baseline level of shareholder orientation, they nonetheless often side with shareholders. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mortgage Shoppers: How Much Do They Save?

Survey evidence suggests that many U.S. and European consumers do not spend a lot of time comparing mortgage products. We show, however, that mortgage shopping is associated with a substantial monetary payoff, using a unique data set from a website where borrowers (not the lenders) can post their complete set of received mortgage rate offers. A borrower who shops for five mortgage offers is able to save 7,078 euros in net present value on average. The potential savings suggest suboptimal mortgage shopping as the opportunity cost of time to renegotiate additional quotes is unlikely to be that high.     

Organizational leadership: How much does it matter?

I study the influence of leadership on organizational performance and worker wellbeing using data from the 2004 and 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS). Our most conservative estimates from fixed effects regressions on a panel of organizations reveal that virtuous leadership is significantly and positively linked to an upbeat assessment of organizational performance, and an increase in worker wellbeing. Specifically, the estimates reveal that an increase in leadership quality by one standard deviation increases organizational performance and worker job satisfaction by 0.27 and 0.73 standard deviations, respectively, while it leads to a fall in worker job anxiety by 0.13 standard deviations. The results support the hypothesis that good leadership is vital for the success of business, including worker wellbeing, which organizational policymakers ought to heed. There is a dearth of empirical evidence on organizational leadership as an institution and its influence on organizational outcomes, which this article aims to address.     

How to Build an AI Climate-Driven Service Analytics Capability for Innovation and Performance in Industrial Markets?

AI climate-driven service analytics capability has been anecdotally argued as a viable strategy to enhance service innovation and market performance in B2B markets. While AI climate refers to the shared perceptions of policies, procedures, and practices to support AI initiatives, cognitive service analytics capability refers to the analytical insights driven by AI climate and augmented by both machines and humans to make marketing decisions. However, there is limited knowledge on the antecedents of such analytics capabilities and their overall effects on service innovation and market performance. Drawing on service analytics literature and the microfoundations of dynamic capability theory, this study fills this research gap using in-depth interviews (n = 30) and a survey (n = 276) of service analytics managers within the AI climate in Australia. The findings confirm the five microfoundations of cognitive service analytics capabilities (cognitive technology, cognitive information, cognitive problem solving, cognitive knowledge & skills, cognitive training & development). The findings also highlight the significant mediating effect of service innovation in the relationship between analytics climate and market performance and cognitive service analytics capability and market performance.     

Are Important Innovations Rewarded? Evidence from Pharmaceutical Markets

This paper focuses on the relationship between therapeutic value and different measures of market rewards: the number of patents, price, market share, and revenues. Using an assessment of therapeutic value that is provided by the French Haute Authorité de Santé (HAS), I find a weak relationship between most measures of rewards and this assessment of therapeutic value, which suggests that the returns to developing a “me-too” product are not very different from developing treatments with greater therapeutic effects. One interpretation is that the HAS score is a poor assessment of therapeutic value, in which case the use of similar health technology assessments by governments and other payers should be re-examined. Alternatively, if the HAS score is informative, the results suggest that countries are overspending on less innovative products, and that a re-balancing of innovation incentives may be worth considering if therapeutic value is highly related to social welfare.     

Personalized pricing and advertising: Who are the winners?

This paper investigates who wins and who loses when firms depart from a mass advertising/uniform pricing strategy (benchmark model) to a targeted advertising/price discrimination one. Considering a duopoly market in which firms simultaneously compete in prices and advertising decisions, we examine the competitive and welfare effects of personalized pricing with targeted advertising by comparing equilibrium outcomes under customized advertising/ pricing decisions to the results arising under mass advertising and uniform pricing. We show that, when both firms compete in both market segments, all segment consumers are expected to pay higher average prices under the personalized advertising/pricing strategy. We also show that, in the context of our simultaneous game, targeted advertising with price discrimination might boost firms’ profits in comparison to the case of mass advertising and uniform prices. The overall welfare effects of the personalized strategy are ambiguous. However, even when the personalized strategy boosts overall welfare, consumers might all be worse-off. Thus the paper gives support to concerns that have been raised regarding the firms’ ability to adopt personalized strategies to boost profits at the expense of consumers.