Organizational forms in the knowledge economy: a comparative institutional analysis

This paper provides a framework with which to analyze organizational forms in the knowledge economy. We focus on an important trade-off facing modern firms: firms can acquire the property of all the innovations developed by their employees and can greatly increase their profits, yet this type of private intellectual property rights regime can discourage the innovative effort of the very same workers. Allowing workers to carry their knowledge outside the firm eliminates this disincentive. Hence, strategic complementarities may exist between innovative partners and a disclosure driven intellectual property rights regime, and passive employees and a private intellectual property rights regime. An evolutionary game theoretic model demonstrates these strategic complementarities and shows when economies tend towards disclosure driven or private intellectual property rights regimes.     

Cost-effectiveness of currently recommended direct-acting antiviral treatments in patients infected with genotypes 1 or 4 hepatitis C virus in the US

Objective: This study compared the cost-effectiveness of direct-acting antiviral therapies currently recommended for treating genotypes (GT) 1 and 4 chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients in the US.

Methods: A cost-effectiveness analysis of treatments for CHC from a US payer’s perspective over a lifelong time horizon was performed. A Markov model based on the natural history of CHC was used for a population that included treatment-naïve and -experienced patients. Treatment alternatives considered for GT1 included ombitasvir/paritaprevir/ritonavir?+?dasabuvir?±?ribavirin (3D?±?R), sofosbuvir?+?ledipasvir (SOF/LDV), sofosbuvir?+?simeprevir (SOF?+?SMV), simeprevir?+?pegylated interferon/ribavirin (SMV?+?PR) and no treatment (NT). For GT4 treatments, ombitasvir/paritaprevir/ritonavir?+?ribavirin (2D?+?R), SOF/LDV and NT were compared. Transition probabilities, utilities and costs were obtained from published literature. Outcomes included rates of compensated cirrhosis (CC), decompensated cirrhosis (DCC), hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and liver-related death (LrD), total costs, life-years and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). Costs and QALYs were used to calculate incremental cost-effectiveness ratios.

Results: In GT1 patients, 3D?±?R and SOF-containing regimens have similar long-term outcomes; 3D?±?R had the lowest lifetime risks of all liver disease outcomes: CC =?30.2%, DCC = 5.0?%, HCC = 6.8%, LT =?1.9% and LrD =?9.2%. In GT1 patients, 3D?±?R had the lowest cost and the highest QALYs. As a result, 3D?±?R dominated these treatment options. In GT4 patients, 2D?+?R had lower rates of liver morbidity and mortality, lower cost and more QALYs than SOF/LDV and NT.

Limitations: While the results are based on input values, which were obtained from a variety of heterogeneous sources—including clinical trials, the findings were robust across a plausible range of input values, as demonstrated in probabilistic sensitivity analyses.

Conclusions: Among currently recommended treatments for GT1 and GT4 in the US, 3D?±?R (for GT1) and 2D?+?R (for GT4) have a favorable cost-effectiveness profile.     

Investment bank monitoring and bonding of security analysts’ research

We assess investment banks’ influence over the agreement between their analysts’ research behavior and their clients’ interests, in the post-reform era. Competing banks discipline their analysts with worse career outcomes for producing biased reports, issuing shirking reports, and for involvement in the earnings guidance game, showing meaningful monitoring of their analysts. Highly reputable banks provide more monitoring discipline of their analysts and bonding of their moral hazard than other banks. The findings agree with the banks taking responsibility for aligning analysts’ behavior with clients’ interests.     

The multivariate Variance Gamma model: basket option pricing and calibration

In this paper, we propose a methodology for pricing basket options in the multivariate Variance Gamma model introduced in Luciano and Schoutens [Quant. Finance 6(5), 385–402]. The stock prices composing the basket are modelled by time-changed geometric Brownian motions with a common Gamma subordinator. Using the additivity property of comonotonic stop-loss premiums together with Gauss-Laguerre polynomials, we express the basket option price as a linear combination of Black & Scholes prices. Furthermore, our new basket option pricing formula enables us to calibrate the multivariate VG model in a fast way. As an illustration, we show that even in the constrained situation where the pairwise correlations between the Brownian motions are assumed to be equal, the multivariate VG model can closely match the observed Dow Jones index options.     

Trading-up on unmet expectations? Evaluating consumers’ expectations in online premium grocery shopping logistics

Geography and retail store locations are inherently bound together; this study links food retail changes to systemic logistics changes in an emerging market. The later include raising income and education, access to a wide range of technologies, traffic and transport difficulties, lagging retail provision, changing family structure and roles, as well as changing food culture and taste. The study incorporates demand for premium products defined by Kapferer and Bastien [2009b. The Luxury Strategy. London: Kogan Page] as comprising a broad variety of higher quality and unique or distinctive products and brands including in grocery organic ranges, healthy options, allergy free selections, and international and gourmet/specialty products through an online grocery model (n?=?356) that integrates a novel view of home delivery in Istanbul. More importantly from a logistic perspective our model incorporates any products from any online vendors broadening the range beyond listed items found in any traditional online supermarkets. Data collected via phone survey and analysed via structural equation modelling suggest that the offer of online premium products significantly affects consumers’ delivery logistics expectations. We discuss logistics operations and business management implications, identifying the emerging geography of logistic models which respond to consumers’ unmet expectations using multiple sourcing and consolidation points.     

Smallest Meaningful Pay Increases: Field Test,Constructive Replication,and Extension

The authors extend prior literature by examining, in two distinct field settings, smallest meaningful pay increases (SMPIs) in terms of magnitude, behavioral intention, and affective reactions. In Study 1, a two‐wave study of 177 employees of a university medical center in the United States, the authors find stable thresholds of about 5.0 percent for positive reactions to pay increases (magnitude [5.4 percent], behavioral intentions [4.2 percent], and affective reactions [5.6 percent]). In Study 2, a sample of 495 university employees in Finland, the authors also find stable but slightly higher thresholds of about 8 percent for behavioral intentions (8.4 percent) and positive affective reactions (7.2 percent) to pay increases. They also find threshold effects of ?5.7 percent for behavioral intentions and ?5.8 percent for negative affective reactions in response to restricted future pay increases levied in the transition to a new pay system. Discussion of the results centers on pay raise administration and future research regarding implied and direct pay reductions. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Why did the average duration of unemployment become so much longer?

There has been a substantial increase in the average duration of unemployment relative to the unemployment rate in the U.S. over the last 30 years. We evaluate the performance of a standard job-search model in explaining this phenomenon. In particular, we examine whether the increase in within-group wage inequality and the decline in the incidence of unemployment can account for the increase in unemployment duration. The results indicate that these two changes can explain a significant part of the increase over the last 30 years, although the model fails to match the behavior of unemployment duration during 1980s.     

Commonalities in the order book

This paper uses data from one of the most important European stock markets and shows that, in line with predictions from theoretical market microstructure, a small number of latent factors captures most of the variation in stock specific order books. We show that these order book commonalities are much stronger than liquidity commonality across stocks. The result that bid and ask side as well as the visible and hidden parts of the order book exhibit quite specific dynamics is interpreted as evidence that open order book markets attract a heterogeneous trader population in terms of asset valuations and impatience. Quantifying the informational content of the extracted factors with respect to the evolution of the asset price, we find that the factor information shares are highest (about 10%) for less frequently traded stocks. We also show that the informational content of hidden orders is limited.

Managing the paradox of unwanted efficiency: The symbolic legitimation of the hypermarket format in Finland, 1960–1975

Abstract

Occasionally, organisations are forced to adopt new practices that are inconsistent with the expectations of their stakeholders. An immediate adoption of the practices would risk the organisation’s legitimacy, but as previous research has noted, the perceptions of organisational stakeholders can be managed through symbolic actions. In this article, I examine how actors from four retail organisations symbolically legitimated the adoption of the hypermarket format within their individual contexts by means of internal professional magazines. The analysis suggests that the organisations buttressed their legitimacy by reversing Meyer and Rowan’s idea of loose coupling – adopting the new practice but maintaining their formal appearances.