The impact of coding time on the estimation of school effects

Multilevel growth curve models are becoming invaluable in educational research because they model changes in student outcomes efficiently. The coding of the time variable in these models plays a crucial role as illustrated in this study for the case of a three-level quadratic growth curve model. This paper shows clearly how the choice of a time coding affects school effects estimates and their interpretation. A new definition for school effects for growth curve models with random intercepts and slopes is proposed. This study recommends that the choice of a time coding should not only be based on the ease of interpretation and model convergence but also on its consequences on the student status and growth parameter estimates. The current application illustrates that in general the school effects for student growth in well-being and language achievement in secondary school, are greater for student growth than for student status.     

The Visible Hand of corporate entrepreneurship in state-owned enterprises: a longitudinal study of the Spanish National Postal Operator

This study explores how the corporate entrepreneurship (CE) of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) evolves under varying conditions of state ownership and control, laws and norms, and competence in the market. For this purpose, we present a longitudinal case study focused on the Spanish postal operator Correos using qualitative archival data and interviews. Our results indicate that the willingness and capacity of an SOE to act entrepreneurially depends critically on its degree of autonomy from the state and on the extent to which its legal and market environments increase its dynamism, complexity, and hostility. We also show that the development of CE in an SOE may lead to improved service quality, operational efficiency, and business specialization; facilitate its market positioning; and foster its sustainability through the exploration and exploitation of strategic alliances that can increase its business scope.

     

The α-beauty contest: Choosing numbers, thinking intervals

We present a model for the α-beauty contest that explains common patterns in experimental data of one-shot and iterative games. The approach is based on two basic assumptions. First, players iteratively update their recent guesses. Second, players estimate intervals rather than exact numbers to cope with incomplete knowledge of other players' rationality. Under these assumptions we extend the cognitive hierarchy model of Camerer et al. [Camerer, C., Ho, T., Chong, J., 2003b. A cognitive hierarchy model of one-shot games. Quart. J. Econ. 119, 861–898]. The extended model is estimated on experimental data from a newspaper experiment.     

What explains the performance of students in a heterogeneous environment? Conditional efficiency estimation with continuous and discrete environmental variables

Efficiency estimations which do not account for the operational environment where production units are operating in may have only a limited value. This article presents a fully nonparametric framework to estimate relative performance of production units when accounting for continuous and discrete background variables. Using insights from recent developments in nonparametric econometrics, we show how conditional efficiency scores can be estimated using a tailored mixed kernel function with a data-driven bandwidth selection. The methodology is applied to the sample of Dutch pupils from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment (OECD PISA) data set. We estimate students' performance and the influence of its background characteristics. The results of our application show that several family- and student-specific characteristics have a statistically significant effect on the educational efficiency, while school-level variables do not have impact on performance.     

Partnership,reciprocity and team design

This paper studies the effect of intention-based reciprocity preferences on the free-riding problem arising in partnerships. Our results suggest a tendency of efficient partnerships to consist of members whose sensitivity to reciprocity is – individually or jointly – sufficiently high. Sufficient conditions for the implementation of the efficient strategy profile require a reciprocity-based sharing rule so that each partner gets a fraction of the output, which is a percentage of his own sensitivity to reciprocity with respect to the overall sensitivity in the team. Finally, we introduce the concept of psychological strong Nash equilibrium and show that it allows for the unique and collusion-proof implementation of the efficient strategy profile.     

Innovation And Inter-Firm Co-Operation: The Case Of The West Midlands

Drawing upon the innovative milieux and industrial districts literature, the paper provides substantial empirical evidence that firms have a greater chance of being innovative if they co-operate with other firms over innovation, albeit undertaking no investment in RLD. This is an important result especially for small firms. In particular, the paper focuses on inter-firm cwperation along the supply chain, using a swey of firms in the West Midlands to investi-gate co-operation over innovation between suppliers and buyers. A probit model is used to test the link between innovation performance and four innovation inputs: R&D expenditure, R&D personnel, networking with suppliers and networking with client firms.     

Fundamentals or trends? A long-term perspective on house prices

Using a long-term time series covering 350 years of house prices along the Herengracht in Amsterdam, we examine whether a fundamental factor or a trend explains house prices and whether their explanatory power is time varying. We find that agents in the housing market switch in their formation of expectations about future changes in house prices between fundamental and momentum strategies. Specifically, we show that agents base their expectations more on fundamentals during economic slowdowns and more on recent trends or momentum during economic booms.     

Freedom of Choice in Technology Strategy? An Analysis of Technology Strategy in the Large Commercial Aircraft Industry

Many companies experience difficult situations as a result of their selected strategy. Strategic management theories implicitly assume that companies have a free choice in setting their strategy. Hence, when companies experience difficult situations this is because of management inadequacy. It is questionable whether companies always have a free choice. This research examines this issue by examining the new product strategies of the two main competitors in the commercial aircraft industry. The development of the A380 aircraft was selected to determine to what extent the companies had a choice in setting their product development strategies. The conclusion is that neither has the alleged freedom for setting its strategy. Implications of this finding are that the strategy theory needs to be adjusted for this choice issue, and that management should not always be held fully responsible for the developing events.     

The Impact of Collaborative Agreement on Firms' Performances: The Case of the IT Industry in the 1990s1

In the information technology (IT) industry, which confronted a major transition phase during the 1990s, partnerships became a strategic component of the new ‘divided technical leadership’ that emerged from the industry's vertical disintegration. This paper attempts to evaluate the impact of 1676 partnerships on the financial performance (revenue and profit) of 14 large firms and 725 of their partners. On average, there is a positive impact of collaborative agreements on large incumbents and their partners' financial performance. These results vary according to the type, form and content of the agreement and according to the partner's field of activity. Incumbents get the most benefit from broad informal alliances while smaller and more hierarchical forms of partnerships (consortia, joint-ventures) do profit to their partners. For large incumbents, partnerships are more effective with partners from the services industry than with partners from the IT industry.     

The Discovery of the Third World

Corporatism in the academy continues to invite controversy just as it did nearly a century ago. Thorstein Veblen articulated many of the early concerns in Higher Learning in America ([1918] 1965). Many current commentaries on the subject echo Veblen's sentiments but appear to be oblivious of his tremendous intellectual legacy. This sad state of affairs may be a product of the severe reaction of early critics to Higher Learning followed by years of scholarly indifference. Nevertheless, the modern critiques of corporatism in the academy attest to the remarkable prescience of Veblen and his unique evolutionary perspective. Furthermore, critical opinion to the contrary, Higher Learning lacks neither logical consistency nor methodological integrity. Instead, Veblen's thoughts on the limits of pragmatic utilitarianism offer valuable insight into the ongoing controversy surrounding corporatism and higher learning.