Who Is Eligible? Should Affirmative Action be Group‐ or Class‐Based?

We explore the consequences for eligibility of members of subaltern groups for affirmative action (AA), when AA policies are based on social class criteria rather than on group affiliation (race, ethnicity, or gender), by means of a general model with simplifying assumptions. The model is developed first for the case where everyone eligible for AA becomes a beneficiary, and then for the case where beneficiaries are only those eligibles who are able to meet minimum qualification requirements for the positions at issue—an ability that is (reasonably) assumed to be correlated with socioeconomic status. The model demonstrates that class‐based affirmative action cannot provide as many subaltern‐group beneficiaries as group‐based affirmative action, especially when access to the desired positions hinges on performance qualifications. Data on AA‐targeted subaltern groups in rural India and in the United States are used to illustrate the conclusions of the model.     

A Study on Financial Strategy for Determining the Target Enterprise of Merger and Acquisition

To enhance the success rate of merger and acquisition, the acquiring party should make due diligence investigation into the target enterprise＇s counting materials and financial situations when filtering the target enterprises. Meanwhile, the acquiring party must thoroughly analyze the target enterprise＇s motive for selling, making sure that all the financial resources of the target enterprise well satisfy its acquisition criteria. Thus, the acquiring party can determine the most appropriate target enterprise. This paper tends to define the financial features of the target enterprise and the primary factors that affect the filtration of target enterprise in order to provide suggestions for the acquiring party to filter the target enterprise that satisfy its acquisition criteria.     

How do Scientists Contribute to the Performance of Innovative Start‐ups? An Imprinting Perspective on Open Innovation

Our study illustrates how scientists contribute to the performance of innovative start‐ups through an analysis of 211 Italian start‐ups with and without scientist founders. Building upon imprinting theory, we hypothesize and find that scientists provide an advantage to innovative start‐ups to the extent that they stimulate open innovation (i.e., search breadth and depth). However, for this to effectively occur, the involvement of multiple scientist founders is needed, so that their career imprints internalized in the lab are successfully transferred to the start‐up. Moreover, if the start‐up embraces business practices (i.e., strategic planning) or departs from scientific logics (i.e., pursuing non‐commercial goals), scientists’ contribution is further increased. Therefore, our study illustrates how the scientist career imprint can provide an advantage to innovative start‐ups with multiple scientists, but also how it can act as a rigidity if the start‐up does not pursue strategic planning or emphasizes non‐commercial goals.     

Do Boards of Directors Influence Corporate Sustainable Development? An Attention‐Based Analysis

Following the attention‐based view of the firm (ABV), boards of directors’ link to corporate sustainable development (CSD) could be dependent upon certain attention structures: valuation of environmental stimuli, rules of the game and the players. Studying a sample of large Australian firms, the findings indicate that the proposed attention‐directing structures do appear to be linked to CSD in a manner consistent with the ABV. Specifically, creating awareness through scanning efforts links boards to CSD. Stakeholder debate, as a boardroom rule, is also significantly associated with CSD. Furthermore, as a so‐called ‘player’ on the board, women directors have a moderating effect on the relationships between environmental scanning, stakeholder debate and CSD. The findings are discussed along with limitations and directions for future research. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

What Is Organizational Strategy? A Language‐Based View

Under what conditions does a collective strategy exist among organizational members? Where should a scholar look for one? To offer one way to start solving these puzzles I propose a view of organizational strategy as a language game that governs the use of strategy labels at the level of the organization. Organizational strategy exhibits a division of linguistic labour, where responsibility for key concepts is assigned to particular individuals or organizational functions. Such linguistic experts oversee the proper use and maintenance of strategy language. The language‐based view helps to understand linkages between institutional, network, organizational, and micro level views on strategy. It also problematizes widely held intuitions regarding the relationship between strategy and organizational outcomes.     

Friend or foe? The impact of high‐performance work practices on workplace bullying

The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between high‐performance work practices (HPWPs) and workplace bullying and identify possible mediators. The study presents hypotheses based on two competing perspectives: a mutual gains perspective, arguing that HPWPs lead to higher perceptions of justice and less role conflict, thereby reducing the risk of bullying; and, a critical perspective, arguing that HPWPs lead to work intensification and competition among colleagues, and thereby to more bullying. A two‐wave survey (n = 209) was conducted among business professionals in Finland. The results show that HPWPs are associated with less bullying, and justice and role conflict mediated the relationship. Thus, the results provide support for the mutual gains perspective on HPWPs, challenging prevailing assumptions in the bullying literature that suggest performance‐enhancing HR practices are a risk factor. Instead, the results point to the significance of HPWPs as an important tool to prevent bullying.     

Why Do I Feel Valued and Why Do I Contribute? A Relational Approach to Employee's Organization‐Based Self‐Esteem and Job Performance

Drawing on the relational perspective and self‐consistency theory, we theorize how relationships involving work‐centric, off‐work‐centric, and/or personal components can affect an employee's organization‐based self‐esteem and job performance in Chinese organizational contexts. Matched data were collected from a multi‐source sample that included 219 employee–supervisor dyads from a Chinese bank. Results based on hierarchical regression analyses reveal that a high‐quality relationship with a supervisor through work and off‐work domains (leader–member exchange and guanxi) is positively related to organization‐based self‐esteem. Organization‐based self‐esteem plays a mediating role in the relationship between guanxi and job performance. Additionally, career mentoring from a supervisor (a work‐centric relationship involving personal components) moderates the relationship between organization‐based self‐esteem and job performance.     

Falsified or Substandard? Assessing Price and Non‐price Signals of Drug Quality

Pharmaceutical products can be of poor quality either because they contain zero correct active ingredient (referred to as “falsified”) or because they contain a nonzero but incorrect amount of the right active ingredient (referred to as “substandard”). Although both types of poor‐quality drugs can be dangerous, they differ in health consequence, price, and potential policy remedies. Assessing basic quality of 1437 samples of Ciprofloxacin from 18 low‐to‐middle‐ income countries, we aim to understand how price and nonprice signals can help distinguish between falsified, substandard, and passing drugs. Following the Global Pharma Health Fund e.V. Minilab® protocol, we find 9.88% of samples have less than 80% of the correct active ingredient and 41.5% of these failures are falsified. Falsified and substandard drugs tend to differ in two observable attributes: first, falsified drugs are more likely to mimic drugs registered with local drug safety regulators. Second, after controlling for other factors, substandard drugs are on average cheaper than passing generics in the same city but the price of falsified drugs is not significantly different from that of passing drugs on average. These data patterns suggest that careful consumers may have information to suspect a drug is substandard before purchase but substandard drugs can still exist to cater to poor and less‐educated population. In contrast, falsified drugs will be more difficult for consumers to identify ex ante because they appear similar to high‐quality, locally registered products in both price and packaging.     

When Do Employees Cyberloaf? An Interactionist Perspective Examining Personality,Justice, and Empowerment

Cyberloafing—using the Internet for non‐work‐related activities—is a prevalent counterproductive work behavior in the workplace, but researchers have not yet paid sufficient attention to this issue, especially related to the role of personality in cyberloafing. Recognizing such a research gap, and using a trait activation theory framework, this study examines whether conscientiousness and emotional stability negatively relate to cyberloafing. We further investigate how organizational justice perceptions and psychological empowerment moderate the negative relationship between these personality traits and cyberloafing. Based on a sample of 247 employees, we find that those high in conscientiousness cyberloaf less when they perceive greater levels of organizational justice. In addition, highly conscientious individuals cyberloaf less when they have low, rather than high, levels of psychological empowerment. Implications for research and practice as well as future research directions are discussed. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Differences in Opportunities? Wage,Employment and House‐Price Effects on Migration*

Most empirical studies of individual migration choice analyse factors associated with out‐migration from an origin location. In contrast, we model the migration decision within the context of potential destinations, combining British panel data over the period 1992–2008 with other data sources. Contrary to earlier micro studies, we show that differences in house prices levels (but not growth) are important determinants of household migration for homeowners. Unemployed individuals respond to regional differences in expected individual wages, whereas the employed are more sensitive to employment opportunities. Our evidence is consistent with partners of heads of households being tied migrants.     

Customer‐oriented employees: Blessing or curse for firms?

I investigate whether the presence of customer‐oriented employees benefits firms in a competitive environment. Employees are defined as customer‐oriented if they are interested not only in their wage but also in the well‐being of their customers. I find that firms may obtain higher profits by hiring self‐interested rather than customer‐oriented employees. This is because the employees' customer orientation has opposing effects on the profits obtained by the firms. On the one hand, customer‐oriented employees provide a given level of quality for a lower wage. On the other hand, the employees' customer orientation increases competition reducing prices. If the second effect dominates, firms find themselves trapped in a prisoners' dilemma as the strategy of hiring self‐interested employees is strictly dominated by that of hiring customer‐oriented employees. Hence, the very presence of customer‐oriented employees may hurt firms. If motivated employees are merely interested in the quality of the good provided, the effect on the price outlined before disappears.     

Firm Recruitment Behaviour: Sequential or Non‐sequential Search?

In the extensive job search literature, studies assume either sequential or non‐sequential search. This article introduces a novel method to test the hypothesis that firms search sequentially based on the relationship between the number of rejected job applicants and the number of filled vacancies. We distinguish between ten different search methods. For most search methods, including methods that rely on social networks and temporary help agencies, we find that sequential search cannot be rejected. However, when firms use advertising or public/private employment agencies, sequential search is rejected. Hence, we find that both forms of search are relevant for our understanding of the labour market. Further, the form of search is closely related to the search method used.     

Customer or Complementor? Intercarrier Compensation with Two‐Sided Benefits

Both senders and receivers derive benefits from telecommunications messages. Hence, consumers’ sending and receiving decisions generate external effects. We explore whether intercarrier compensation (i.e., an access charge) can induce carriers to set retail prices that internalize these external effects. We find that an access charge can induce constrained‐efficient sending and receiving prices for exchanging messages across networks, taking the sum of these prices as given, but cannot induce the correct sum. We also show that the internalizing role for the access charge can imply a nonzero access charge is efficient even in highly symmetrical situations, and that the efficient access charge may be positive or negative.     

Single‐loop project controls: Reigning paradigms or straitjackets?

This article reports on the results from an ongoing research program to study the role mental models play in project decision making. Project management belongs to the class of multiloop nonlinear feedback systems, but most managers do not see it that way. Our experimental results suggest that managers adopt simplistic single‐loop views of causality, ignore multiple feedback interactions, and are insensitive to nonlinearities. Specifically, the article examines single‐loop models of project planning and control, discusses their limitations, and proposes tools to address them.     

Which Resources Matter How and Where? A Meta‐Analysis on Firms’ Foreign Establishment Mode Choice

Firm resources play an important role in explaining the foreign establishment mode choice. However, a theoretical framework that simultaneously a) differentiates between heterogeneous types of resources, b) provides a rationale that consistently explains how firms adapt their establishment mode choice to their resource base, and c) reflects on contextual factors that intervene in the consistency of the direct relationships is largely missing. The present paper draws on the resource‐based view (RBV) to develop such a framework. More specifically, we study the effect of knowledge‐based and experience‐based resources on a firm's establishment mode choice and the moderating impact of cultural distance on these relationships. We validate our theoretical framework by a meta‐analysis (integrating 31 studies with 13,559 establishment mode choices) and find that knowledge‐based resources enhance a firm's propensity for greenfield investments, while experience‐based resources more likely lead to acquisitions. Further, cultural distance increases knowledge‐intensive firms’ preference for greenfield investments.     

Charity E‐volution? An evaluation of the attitudes of UK charities towards website adoption and use

• The objective of the research was to assess attitudes in relation to website adoption and use, across a broad spectrum of UK charities. A survey methodology was adopted for the research, administered using a self‐completion questionnaire. The results reveal that although the majority of responding charities have websites, most appear to be using them to deliver information about the organisation and its mission, rather than acquiring new supporters, raising funds or allowing beneficiaries/clients to interact. However, overall, respondents were positive regarding the use of websites by charities, and most are optimistic about future improvements in their own online performance.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Standardization of Network Technologies: Market Processes or the Result of Inter‐Firm Co‐operation?

As recent studies on the evolution of a technology indicate, the role of a standard, or dominant design, is highly significant in a number of contemporary industries such as computer, telecommunications and consumer electronics. Following Katz' and Shapiro's pioneering works (1985), our paper rationally evaluates the concepts and results developed over the past ten years in this field. It is grounded on a typology of two types of models: the first is based on users' anticipatory behaviour, and the second, on the collaborative behaviour of existing firms. The article initially discusses the specificity of network technologies, then analyses market standardisation models, and finally, studies the different actors models. Our conclusion builds upon existing works in network technologies. We next propose a research agenda     

An Exploratory Study on Value Relevance of Sustainable Growth Rate—— Evidences from Chinese and American Listed Companies

Based on relevant researches, it can be said that it is a development of valuation perspective to determine sustainable growth rate （SGR） as an accounting variable for study on value relevance. The author selects samples from Chinese and American listed companies. The finding includes： the SGR of Chinese listed companies has value relevance and SGR is more significant than EPS, BV and EVA; the SGR of American listed companies does not have value relevance, with possible reason of timeliness of data that are selected after 2001, and the most significance of EVA.