Firm Adaptation,Preadaptation, and Sequential Ambidexterity in Firm Boundaries During an Era of Ferment and an Era of Incremental Change

We explore the relation between firms’ internal skills and knowledge from past applications and the mechanism they use to adapt during an era of ferment and then to an era of incremental change in a new technological domain. We extend current research on incumbent firms’ success at facing radical technological change by studying dynamic firm boundaries of incumbents within the industry along a new technological trajectory. We use the concepts of problem, search, and solution from the knowledge‐based view and foundational view of knowledge recombination to develop our theoretical framework. We propose that preadapted firms—the ones with accumulated internal skills and knowledge from past applications that prove relevant by chance to the new technological domain—are more likely to choose internal technology sourcing during an era of ferment (than nonpreadapted firms). Subsequently, firms that choose internal sourcing during an era of ferment are more likely (than firms that source externally) to choose external sourcing during an era of incremental change leading to greater market acceptance for their innovation. Analysis of a longitudinal data set of 161 U.S. banks provides support for our hypotheses. The findings of this study indicate an important temporal dependency between internal and external sourcing, thus contributing to the sequential ambidexterity literature. Our theoretical framework provides support to the foundational view of knowledge recombination and contributes to the knowledge‐based view of the firm.     

Commodity price stabilization and the developing countries

Discussions on the development problems of commodity producing countries have been dominated by proposals for stabilizing world prices of commodities, in particular via the establishment of a “Common Fund” within the framework of UNCTAD’s Integrated Program for Commodities. Professor Ahmad argues that price instability is, however, merely a symptom of other, underlying problems, and outlines the implications of this for development policy.     

Qualitative analysis of feminine morality and visible personality characteristics among young adults

This article documents the perceptions and judgments of youth about character of female as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, based on her visible personality characteristics. A qualitative study is carried out among the undergraduate students in two public sector universities. This study highlights contextual factors linked with the choice of clothing and quality of physical appearance among young girls. The judgments about a girl’s character are based on immediate, apparent personality characteristics. This study found that there are two contrasting categories of clothing and visible personality associated with positive and negative feminine morality. Certain expectations are also found to be associated with the attire of young women in Pakistani society which restricts their individual choices. Pakistani and Britain national boys judged girl’s character as immoral or bad based on cosmetics usage, fashion-ability, body exposedness, physical attractiveness, friendliness, bold temperament, and easiness while interaction with boys.     

The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship: the developing country context

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - This is among the few studies to test the Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship (KSTE) at the city level in a developing country...