Technological trajectories and R&D for environmental innovation in UK firms

This article reports results of a 1993 questionnaire survey of how UK companies have been innovating technologically in response to environmental pressures. The survey sought to identify factors stimulating UK firms to innovate more environmentally friendly products and processes, and to investigate the changes in R&D activity they have undertaken to facilitate such innovation. In devising the questionnaire and interpreting the results, we have been strongly influenced by the theoretical frameworks developed over the past 15 years which describe technological developments in terms of ‘selection environments’ and ‘technological trajectories’. Useful though such frameworks are, we conclude that they need to be supplemented by concepts derived from the sociology of technology and from studies of corporate strategies.     

Evaluation of cooperative research

This report looks at evaluation studies of a number of cooperative academic-industrfy research programmes in Europe, and suggests that indirect economic benefits should be taken into account as well as motives and goals of participating firms.     

A conceptual framework of anonymity in Group Support Systems

As the development and use of automated systems for collaborative work grows, the need for a better understanding of these systems becomes more important. Our focus is on one type of system, a Group Support System (GSS) and, in particular, on one important aspect of a GSS—anonymity. A conceptual framework for the study of anonymity in a GSS is presented, which describes the general classes of variables and their relationships. These variables include the factors that influence anonymity in a GSS, types of anonymity, and the effects of anonymity on a message sender, receiver, group process, and outcome. Each of these variables is discussed with working propositions presented for important group process and outcome measures. The objectives of this article are to highlight the importance and complexity of anonymity, to act as a guide for empirical investigations of anonymity, and to influence future GSS development and use.     

Issues in the estimation and application of latent structure models of choice

Our paper provides a brief review and summary of issues and advances in the use of latent structure and other finite mixture models in the analysis of choice data. Focus is directed to three primary areas: (1) estimation and computational issues, (2) specification and interpretation issues, and (3) future research issues. We comment on what latent structure models have promised, what has been, to date, delivered, and what we should look forward to in the future.     

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT AND THE INTERPRETATION OF STRATEGIC ISSUES: A NOTE ON CEOS’ INTERPRETATIONS OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT*

This paper explores the relationship between organizational context and the interpretation of strategic issues by examining the hypothesis that CEOs' interpretations of foreign investment in the USA are influenced by the organizational context in which they are embedded. Three aspects of organizational context - the global business experience of the firm; the firm's level of organizational inertia (as represented by firm age and size); and the resources available for responding - are examined as predictors of CEOs' perceptions of foreign investment as a threat or an opportunity. Analysis of data from 320 organizations, controlled by industry, shows that global business experience, firm size, and perceived capability are significant predictors of the perception of threat and opportunity. the discussion addresses the implications of these findings for future research on issue interpretation and organizational context.     

Classification and aggregation: An application to industrial classification in cps data

In this paper we offer a method for deciding how to aggregate a set of elementary industries. The method is then applied to the problem of estimating a wage equation that allows for industry-specific effects. Our method explicitly formalizes the trade-off between goodness-of-fit and parsimony implicit in an aggregation problem. By varying the parameter of the assumed loss function, one obtains a whole sequence of aggregation levels. Further, the resulting sequence is consistent; that is, groupings formed at one level of aggregation will never be undone when one aggregates further.     

How Naïve Is the Market’s Use of Firm‐Specific Earnings Information?

Recent studies suggest the apparent delay in the stock-price response to earnings announcements (i.e., post-earnings announcement drift) is caused by investors who underestimate the autocorrelation of seasonally-differenced earnings (persistence). I present results that suggest: (1) a firm's future persistence is predictable on the basis of its past persistence; (2) the immediate stock-price response to earnings is positively related to historical persistence; (3) post-earnings-announcement drift is independent of historical persistence; and (4) consistent with (2) and (3), the difference between a firm's current observed persistence and that implied in stock prices is independent of its historical persistence. These results extend prior research by demonstrating that investors are aware not only that seasonally-differenced earnings are autocorrelated, but that investors recognize firm-specific differences in the magnitude of the autocorrelation.     

Crafting Internal Hybrids: Complementarities,Common Change Initiatives,and the Team-Based Organization

Hybrid governance forms that seek to meld the virtues of both market control and traditional hierarchical control are alluring. Comparatively little research, outside of the M-form literature, has examined internal hybrids - hierarchical forms infused with elements of market control. This paper contends that common change initiatives, such as TQM, re-engineering, autonomous work teams, and group-based rewards, are appropriately viewed as attempts to craft internal hybrids by selectively infusing elements of market control within hierarchy. However, these change initiatives are often implemented in isolation and, as a consequence, violate patterns of complementarity that sustain traditional hierarchy or support the stable infusion of market control.The paper argues that these violations of complementarity often spiral hierarchies toward fundamental transformation. The clear trajectory of these transformations is to quite radically disaggregated organizations structured around teams. The paper presents both theory and evidence supporting the existence of complementarities among these common change initiatives.