The Role of Broadcasting in National Collegiate Athletic Association Sports

This essay describes important technological changes with regard to broadcasting and the growth of new revenue streams that those changes have created over the last 30 years and their influence on how, when, where and even for whom college sports are played. We discuss college sports broadcasting history, including the advent of cable television and new media technologies, complementary industries such as sponsorships and apparel, and public goods and winner-take-all market considerations as they relate to broadcasting. We examine the impact of these changes on the National Collegiate Athletic Association and its members as they adjust to, and compete for this new money that is on the table. Finally, we speculate about how all of this might play out by 2030.     

Cartel Attributes and Cartel Performance: The Impact of Trade Associations

This paper employs a cartel policy experiment, the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, to examine whether industries that have trade associations in place prior to cartelization were better able to attain collusive outcomes than otherwise. Trade associations could potentially help industries better formulate effective cartel rules and could help with monitoring. We find that industries with trade associations were more successful in achieving collusion–proxied by either reductions in industry output or increases in industry prices–than those without. In fact, industries without trade associations were generally unable to successfully collude under the NIRA.     

Research quality: What it is,and how to achieve it

Researchers are under constant pressure to publish high-quality research. What, however, constitutes high-quality research? Most universities use accepted lists of top-tier journals, citation counts, or other metrics to assess the value of research contributions. We first explore the metrics by which research contributions are evaluated. These metrics provide at least some indication of the impact and value of an academic's stream of research.We then consider the issue of value beyond the commonly accepted metrics of article counts and citations. Should high-quality research create value for students and, especially in the case of business academics, for managers and practitioners? If so, rather than focusing exclusively on theoretical contributions, researchers should demonstrate the value-in-use of the research stream to the broader community. We present a set of conditions to support a research stream that delivers value-in-use to students and practitioners.We then turn to whether high-quality research implies finding solutions to societal challenges and problems. This would require a rethinking of the traditional views on the university's relationship with society at large. We explore issues of research concerning its contribution to society. We conclude by distilling these issues into several pieces of advice to new and mid-career academics regarding strategies and challenges in developing high-quality research.     

What Works at Work: Overview and Assessment

This article discusses why it is difficult to measure the effects of management practices on organizational performance. In spite of these difficulties, a collage of evidence suggests that innovative workplace practices can increase performance, primarily through the use of systems of related practices that enhance worker participation, make work design less rigid, and decentralize managerial tasks. A majority of U.S. businesses have adopted some innovative work practices. However, only a small percentage of businesses have adopted a full system of innovative practices. We outline several constraints on the diffusion of new work practices, and suggest directions for future research     

Improvisers,Incrementalists and Strategists: How and Why Organizations Adopt ADR Innovations

This article identifies three ways in which alternative dispute resolution (ADR) innovations are adopted by organizations in Ireland: improvisation, incrementalism and strategy, and examines how external and internal influences shape different patterns of ADR innovation. The article contributes to the literature in three ways. First, it highlights the limitations of typologies of innovation based on simple dichotomies, such as reactive/proactive and of prevailing understandings of how ADR may interact with strategy. Second, the article develops an integrated framework for the analysis of influences on patterns of innovation that distinguishes between the features of markets and commercial strategies, organizations, stakeholders and champions and institutions, laws and public policies. Third, the article questions the central premise underlying the literature that a strategic approach to ADR equates with the adoption of conflict management systems.     

Cartel formation and pricing: The effect of managerial decision-making rules

We experimentally investigate how the managerial decision-making process affects choices in a Bertrand pricing game with an opportunity to form non-binding cartels. To do so we compare the effects of three decision-making rules for the firm (decisions by CEOs, majority rule and consensus) to each other and to decisions in a benchmark consisting of single-individual firms. It has been argued elsewhere that groups behave more competitively than individuals. In this setting this predicts that for all three decision-making rules we should observe fewer cartels and lower prices. This is not what we find. For the formation of cartels, there are no differences across treatments. For prices asked, we find that first, cartels lead to higher prices in all treatments, despite the fact that they are non-binding. Second, the decision-making rules strongly affect the prices asked. One thing that stands out is that firms run by CEOs ask higher prices (i.e., defect less often from the cartel) than observed in the other treatments.     

Shaping Concepts of Technology: What Concepts and How to Shape Them

Philosophy of technology is a discipline that has much to offer for technology education. Insights into the real nature of technology and its relationship with science and society can help technology educators to build a subject that helps pupils get a good concept of technology and to learn to understand and use concepts in technology. Here the way science educators have gained from the philosophy of science, for example in the idea of the way pupils learn concepts by reconstructing pre-concepts that they picked up from daily-life experiences. Research has shown that the learning of concepts and the learning of process skills have to be connected.     

Price Competition and Market Structure: The Impact of Cartel Policy on Concentration in the UK

This paper examines the impact of firms' conduct on market structure. It studies the evolution of concentration in UK manufacturing following the abolition of cartels using a theoretical framework based on Sutton's theory of market structure and a panel data set of four-digit industries over 1958–1977. The econometric results suggest that the intensity of price competition has a positive effect on concentration in exogenous sunk cost industries as well as in advertising-intensive and R&D-intensive industries. The concentration-market size relationship, while negative in exogenous sunk cost industries, breaks down in industries with high advertising or R&D intensity.     

The Relationship Between Outcome Uncertainties and Match Attendance: New Evidence in the National Basketball Association

This paper investigates the determinants of game-day attendance for the National Basketball Association for the 2009/2010–2011/2012 seasons. Six different measures of short-run league-level competitive balance and game uncertainty for two rivals are incorporated at the same time in a Tobit model. The results for the effect of league-level uncertainty support the hypotheses of outcome uncertainty, but the effect of game-level uncertainty does not. Closer wins by the competing teams within a league and a larger gap in terms of the point spread between two teams in the betting market lead to higher attendance.     

Food self-sufficiency: Making sense of it,and when it makes sense

Food self-sufficiency gained increased attention in a number of countries in the wake of the 2007–08 international food crisis, as countries sought to buffer themselves from volatility on world food markets. Food self-sufficiency is often presented in policy circles as the direct opposite of international trade in food, and is widely critiqued by economists as a misguided approach to food security that places political priorities ahead of economic efficiency. This paper takes a closer look at the concept of food self-sufficiency and makes the case that policy choice on this issue is far from a straightforward binary choice between the extremes of relying solely on homegrown food and a fully open trade policy for foodstuffs. It shows that in practice, food self-sufficiency is defined and measured in a number of different ways, and argues that a broader understanding of the concept opens up space for considering food self-sufficiency policy in relative terms, rather than as an either/or policy choice. Conceptualizing food self-sufficiency along a continuum may help to move the debate in a more productive direction, allowing for greater consideration of instances when the pursuit of policies to increase domestic food production may make sense both politically and economically.     

Bridging the gender gap in science and technology: How long will it take?

Conclusions Throughout the year the girls maintained the progress made in the first school and continued to develop their ability to implement physical science concepts in their modelling work. They reached a point sometime during year 4 when collectively they achieved parity with the boys in this respect. By the end of the year there were more concepts put into practice with greater frequency by girls than by boys as groups. Although it took a long time to reach this point it was achieved through practices compatible with normal teaching using materials easily available in school.Analysis of the models under the two criteria of variety and creativity showed that despite the greater frequency which girls incorporated physical concepts into the models made there was still a tendency for them to be conservative. They chose to make models which were the same as those illustrated on the work cards or those produced by other girls. Despite the fact that they made more models than the boys the range of models made by girls was smaller. Girls were also less likely to be creative They did not often modify their models by adding elements of their own design and rarely developed designs of their own in contrast to the boys which were often original and innovative.     

Works Councils and Separations: Voice,Monopoly, and Insurance Effects

Using a large linked employer–employee data set for Germany, we find that the existence of a works council is associated with a lower separation rate to employment, in particular for workers with low tenure. While works council monopoly effects show up in all specifications, clear voice effects are only visible for low tenured workers. Works councils also reduce separations to nonemployment, and this impact is more pronounced for men. Insurance effects only show up for workers with tenure of more than 2 years. Our results indicate that works councils to some extent represent the interests of a specific clientele.     

Why Put Off Until Tomorrow What You Can Do Today: Incentives and the Timing of New Product Introduction

Using related statistical studies and specific industry examples, William Putsis, Jr. illustrates how incentives for delaying the introduction of a new technology has played a major role in the development of certain consumer electronics markets over the past 25 years. Specifically, the introduction of a new product which incorporates some new technology can often be delayed until the firm's need for growth exceeds the fear of cannibalizing the firm's current product line. This concern is viewed as only one of many concerns that may delay or speed a new technology to market.