A Man's Blessing or a Woman's Curse? The Family Earnings Gap of Doctors

We examine the size and determinants of the family earnings gap for Australian general practitioners (GPs). Female GPs with children earn more than $30,000 less than comparable female GPs without children, while male GPs with children earn more than $45,000 more than comparable male GPs without children. The main determinants of the family gap are differences in observable characteristics such as working hours, labor‐force attachment, and demographics, and additionally, for men, entrepreneurship and practice size. A fixed‐effects extension of the analysis confirms both the carer effect of children on female GPs and the breadwinner effect of children on male GPs.     

How Do Consumer Characteristics Affect the Bias in Measuring Willingness to Pay for Innovative Products?

Getting the price right is essential for successful new product introductions. An accurate estimate of consumers' willingness to pay is a crucial part of this task. Measurement of willingness to pay for innovations, however, often yields biased results. In this paper, we investigate consumer‐related characteristics and motives that might underlie this bias. Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model, we develop a conceptual model to identify consumer characteristics relevant for preference measurement for innovative products. In doing so, two main factors that potentially influence hypothetical bias are distinguished: ability and motivation. Our conceptual discussion and empirical results demonstrate that the validity of willingness to pay statements is higher among consumers who show a high ability to assess the new product's utility and who are truly interested in purchasing the new product. Counter to intuition, willingness to pay statements from innovators, consumers with good product category knowledge, or consumers who perceive the new product to be highly innovative are relatively more biased and should be interpreted with caution. This research is among the first to look at consumer characteristics rather than methodological issues when it comes to measuring consumer willingness to pay for innovative products. Our conceptual discussion and empirical examination of the drivers of hypothetical bias can be used to refine the validity of the results of the direct willingness to pay approach. These findings should help improve new product pricing surveys and open new avenues for research in measuring consumer preferences.     

Can Quality‐Oriented Firms Develop Innovative New Products?

Research suggests that a strong focus on quality improvement can adversely affect exploration and thus the development of innovative new products. The focus on quality improvement including total quality management (TQM) has been termed quality orientation. The literature suggests that one way to reduce the adverse effect of a quality orientation on innovativeness is to adopt ambidextrous or dual organizational forms. However, dual organizational forms are cumbersome and expensive to implement. This paper argues that a less demanding structural arrangement for developing innovative products in quality‐oriented organizations involves the creation of cross‐functional teams that are explicitly encouraged to take risk and granted autonomy. In this model, the two dimensions of innovativeness—namely, novelty and appropriateness— are treated separately because quality orientation and encouragement to take risk can have differential effects on these two dimensions. A survey of 141 new product development projects reveals that quality orientation does not adversely affect product novelty in cross‐functional product development teams. However, encouragement given to cross‐functional teams to take risk leads to more novel products. On the other hand, while a quality orientation improves product appropriateness, encouragement to take risk affects it adversely. Quality orientation is able to mitigate the adverse effect of encouragement to take risk on appropriateness. But encouragement to take risk does not influence the relationship between a quality orientation and novelty. Autonomy improves the positive effect of encouragement to take risk on new product novelty but does not influence the effect of a quality orientation on novelty. Both novelty and appropriateness enhance a new product's performance, and both these dimensions of innovativeness partially mediate the effect of quality orientation and fully mediate the effect of encouragement to take risk on new product performance.     

Is Boreout a Threat to Frontline Employees' Innovative Work Behavior?

With the recognition that innovation is the lifeblood of competitive firms, researchers have investigated multiple antecedents of employees' innovative work behaviors. Most studies focus on supportive work conditions, work requirements, or even high work challenges as drivers of innovative work behavior as the extent to which frontline employees (FLEs) generate new problem‐solving ideas and transform these into uses during the service encounter. This study focuses instead on a lack of resources at the service encounter. Specifically, boreout is a negative psychological state of low work‐related arousal, manifested in three main forms: a crisis of meaning at work, job boredom, and crisis of growth. According to the conservation of resources theory, these three dimensions of job boreout as lack of resources draw energy from FLEs and thus, likely affect innovative work behavior. Data from 142 FLEs and their customers confirm that these dimensions of boreout affect FLEs' innovative work behavior, though in varying ways. A crisis of meaning at work and crisis of growth both impede innovative work behavior, but job boredom has no effect. Furthermore, support provided by customers moderates the relationships of these three boreout dimensions with innovative work behavior in unique ways.     

Sketching: Friend or Foe to the Novice Designer?

Previous research by one of the authors showed that novice designers do not use sketching as a way to generate, develop and communicate design proposals, but move immediately to three-dimensional modelling. Neither do they generate multiple solutions. The follow-up study described here addressed the questions: Does teaching two-dimensional modelling enable Grade 7 pupils to better express their ideas and organize their thoughts? What role does discussion play in pupils' attempts to generate a design proposal? Does the use of contextualising items make a difference to pupils' success with designing? Eight Grade 7 pupils were drawn from each of two classes. One class had received instruction in sketching; the other served as a control group. Each group of eight pupils was divided into single-sex dyads. The eight dyads were videotaped while producing a solution to a common design brief. Analysis of the data has provided insights into the effects of instruction on the proposals produced by pupils. Additionally, their ability to generate, develop and communicate design ideas is enhanced by both the dynamic relationship between pupils' talk and 3D modelling and the way the task is contextualised. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Sketching: Friend or Foe to the Novice Designer?

Previous research by one of the authors showed that novice designers do not use sketching as a way to generate, develop and communicate design proposals, but move immediately to three-dimensional modelling. Neither do they generate multiple solutions.     

Competition or regulation for multimedia?

The reform undergone in telecommunications within the European Union promotes competition as the main tool for regulation. Yet, the rules related to competition may not be easily distinguished from additional regulation.     

Curse or Cure? Why Was the Enactment of Britain's 1909 Trade Boards Act so Controversial?

The Trade Boards Act of 1909 was introduced in Britain to counteract sweating. Associated with long hours, insanitary work conditions and inadequate pay — with the accent falling on low wages — sweating probably afflicted some 30 per cent of Edwardian Britain's labour force. Trade boards supporters as diverse as Winston Churchill and R. H. Tawney heralded the legislation as marking a significant break in economic and social thought. Opponents declared that the enactment of the legislation would be ruinous for Britain. The future Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, and his wife denounced trade boards as pallid reformism and campaigned for the licensing of home workshops. On the other hand, proponents of a subsistence minimum wage, such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, were disappointed that the legislation did not go further. Initially, it encompassed less than a quarter of a million workers. The rates set were not based on the cost of living but on what the individual trade could bear. On their own, trade boards were insufficient to eradicate Britain's long and historical tradition of being a low-paying economy. Trade boards (and their successors, wages councils) were trapped in their collective laissez-faire origins. However, despite its sanctioning of a statutory national minimum wage in 1998, the British state is still far from being interventionist in the labour market. If Britain is to break with the past, she must also implement a comprehensive framework of minimum rights. Otherwise, the principle of collective laissez-faire will still remain triumphant over the Webbs' alternative conception of a comprehensive labour code.     

When to Use Loose or Tight Alliance Networks for Innovation? Empirical Evidence

This study examines the impact of different degrees of organizational coupling among the members of innovation alliance project networks on the commercial performance of collaborative innovations. Specifically, we study how type of innovation (modular vs. architectural innovation) moderates this relationship. Using data from 664 product innovation networks from five different industries in the United States, we find that the degree of organizational coupling among innovation network members significantly affects the commercial performance of collaborative innovations and that the type of innovation has a significant moderating effect. More specifically, the impact on commercial innovation performance of organizational coupling is positive for modular innovations and negative for architectural innovations.     

Assessing evaluation: Why student engages or resists to active learning?

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - This research shows, on a wide dataset of students, that evaluation methods to promote active learning improve students’ academic...     

Paths to Success: How Do Market Orientation and Entrepreneurship Orientation Produce New Product Success?

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between strategic orientation and the performance of new products. In this paper, we develop a conceptual model that explores the roles of market orientation (MO) and entrepreneurship orientation (EO) on new product performance and seek to understand the mediating roles of process and product characteristics. Based on a survey of 471 small and medium‐sized enterprises in Korea, we found that MO and EO positively affect new product performance. The main impact of MO is through new product development proficiency and product meaningfulness and that of EO is through proficient intellectual property management and product novelty. Academic and managerial implications are also discussed.     

Educating for environmental sustainability and educating for creativity: actively compatible or missed opportunities?

This paper identifies the importance of both creativity and environmental sustainability for developing individual learners and society as a whole. It suggests that sometimes these two concepts appear to be in tension and that, politically, each is often championed by different communities. The relationship between creativity and environmental sustainability is explored in three separate contexts: in a design and technology schools context where teenage learners are being facilitated to develop creative responses within design briefs that include environmental considerations; through interviewing student teachers who have undertaken an ecodesign project; and through interviews with professional ecodesign practitioners. The tensions, compromises and contradictions evident where there is limited experience of environmental issues is contrasted with the level of optimisation and creativity engaged when designers have more maturity in this area. Finally, some suggestions are made for taking forward creativity and environmental sustainability in technology education through an ecodesign capability approach.

Mergers with Differentiated Products: Where Do We Stand?

Review of Industrial Organization - On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the 2010 U.S. Horizontal Merger Guidelines, this article provides an overview of the state of economic analysis of...     

Dream or reality: providing universal access to basic telecommunications in Nigeria?

Nigeria has publicly announced its intentions to make basic telecommunications, specifically telephones, affordable and universally available to its people. However, several issues make this proposition especially difficult for countries such as Nigeria. For instance, Nigeria's population is large at 110 million with less than 1% presently able to access telephones. Furthermore, over 70% of Nigerians, the majority of them poor, live in rural areas where telephone lines do not presently exist. This paper studies the universal service proposition viz a viz these conditions by analyzing Nigeria's attempts to provide telephone service since the country's independence in 1960. The paper notes impending problems with Nigeria's attempts to achieve critical mass, which is essential for universal access. Ultimately, it suggests various strategies that the country should use to stimulate critical mass and achieve universal access.     

Fish: Friend or foe? Food policy and subpopulation warnings for consumers

Fish is a healthy food that provides valuable nutrients for heart health and cognitive development. However, for some subpopulations, consuming fish containing higher levels of methylmercury may pose a health risk. This research seeks to identify the impact of including a seafood warning disclosure in the advertisement of a can of tuna fish on consumers’ purchasing behaviors. An experimental survey is employed to examine the resulting impact for two segments of the population – those considered at risk for methylmercury overexposure and all others. Findings indicate the use of warning disclosures increases respondents’ negative product perceptions without significantly altering positive product perceptions. Attention to the warning is short-lived and does not significantly impact perceived healthful levels of consumption. Modeling purchase behavior using a random utility choice framework indicates that the inclusion of a warning in an advertisement of a can of tuna fish has no adverse affect on purchase behaviors for the population not at-risk and may, in certain cases, serve to decrease tuna purchase likelihood for “at-risk” respondents. Communicating advisory statements on healthy products, such as fish, creates a public health challenge; message pre-testing is imperative.     

New Product Development Speed: Too Much of a Good Thing?

New product development (NPD) speed has become increasingly important for managing innovation in fast‐changing business environments due to continuous reduction in the product life cycle time and increase in competition from technological advancements and globalization. While the existing literature has not produced consistent results regarding the relationship between speed and success for NPD projects, many scholars and practitioners assert that increasing NPD speed is virtually always important to NPD success. The purpose of this paper is to examine the implicit assumption that faster is better as it relates to new product success (NPS). From the perspectives of time‐compression diseconomies and absorptive capacity, the authors question the assumption that speed has a linear relationship with success. The authors further argue that time‐compression diseconomies depend on levels of uncertainty involved in NPD projects. Using survey data of 471 NPD projects, the hypotheses were tested by hierarchical regression analysis and subgroup polynomial regression. The results of this study indicate that NPD speed has a curvilinear relationship with NPS, and the nature of the speed–success relationship varies, depending on type and level of uncertainty. When turbulence or technological newness is high, the relationship is curvilinear, but when uncertainties are low, the relationship is linear. In contrast, the results of this study suggest a curvilinear relationship under conditions of low market newness but not when market newness is high. The present paper asserts that time‐compression diseconomies and absorptive capacity are important theoretical constructs in understanding speed in NPD. The different impact of market newness and market turbulence on NPD speed supports the distinction of newness and turbulence as two different sources of uncertainty. Discussion focuses on the implications of NPD speed under the different conditions of uncertainty. NPD teams need to pursue NPD speed as a critical strategy, but it is necessary to analyze the source and degree of uncertainty about projects before a time‐based strategy is selected. In order to address the challenges of high uncertainty, a firm needs to probe, learn, and iterate fast. In particular, NPD teams need to distinguish between the different requirements for new products in emerging and new markets, and those in fast‐changing markets. Moreover, NPD teams need to balance how fast they need to go with how fast they can go by considering team absorptive capacity and customer absorptive capacity.     

Training and Labour Market Flexibility: Is There a Trade-off?

This paper explores the nexus between work-related training and labour market 'flexibility' (which we proxy by contract type, part-time employment and lack of union coverage), using the first five waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) conducted over the period 1991–5. Our results show that workers on short-term employment contracts, who are working part-time or are not covered by a union collective agreement, are significantly less likely to be involved in any work-related training to improve or increase their skills. These findings suggest that there is a trade-off between expanding the more marginal forms of employment and expanding the proportion of the work-force getting work-related training.