Organizational and technological antecedents for knowledge acquisition and learning

This paper examines the factors affecting the decision to acquire external technology and the relative importance of different technology acquisition strategies pursued by British and Japanese firms. The paper draws on a study of 38 firms, consisting of 23 UK-based and 15 Japanese firms. This is not a comparative study of British and Japanese technology acquisition strategies. Rather, we aim to identify common factors affecting the decision to acquire external technology and the means by which firms attempt to do this. We identify two clusters of variable which appear to affect the decision to acquire technology. Firstly, an organization's inheritance, which includes corporate strategy, competencies, culture and what we refer to as management's 'comfort' with the technology. Secondly, the characteristics of the technology to be acquired, specifically, its competitive impact, complexity, codifiability and what we refer to as 'credibility' potential. Together, these factors will determine the degree and nature of technology acquisition strategy. We find that contrary to the present academic preoccupation with alliances and joint ventures, the firms examined ranked universities, research consortia and licensing as the most important sources of external technology.     

Is the Grass Greener? Switching Costs and Geographic Proximity in the High Status Affiliations of Professional Baseball

Professional baseball operates a tiered system of talent development facilitated by alliances between Minor League Baseball (MiLB) clubs and higher status Major League Baseball (MLB) parent teams. This study applies management theory to advance the literature on MiLB demand modeling by proposing and testing a new set of demand determinants based on interorganizational alliance principles. Team executives at the AA level should be alert to the high cost of switching team alliances and of changing to a parent club in closer geographical proximity. At the AAA level, affiliation with a winning MLB club exerts a positive effect on AAA demand. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Emergency Land Fund: Robert S. Browne, the Idea and the Man

This article offers a snap shot of one of the several black institutions founded in 1972, by the late Robert S. Browne—the Emergency Land Fund (ELF). The idea of ELF—land ownership by blacks as an asset to build upon for economic well being, a cultural and social glue to ground a sense of family, place and community—was but another strategic and timely insight on the part of Robert S. Browne. The article is the story about the journey of ELF, a southern black-belt African American led institution, lead by Robert S. Browne it’s Chair, and it’s political, economic and policy impact on both public and private institutions, which for the most part, restricted and undermined the aspirations of black’s to own and benefit from landownership. It is also about the positive impact ELF had on rural black landowners, taking the form of organized networks challenging the discriminatory and land grabbing practices of both public and private sector actors. Robert S. Browne was a Man ahead of his time and a giant in the eyes of many who have follow his example today with asset development strategies that benefit communities of color.     

Government investment in natural capital

This paper presents a new approach to the measurement of natural capital. A distinguishing feature of this approach is the use of investment criteria that are consistent with the main features of physical capital, thus maintaining consistency in the measurement of different types of capital. This new approach was applied to the expenditures of the federal government in Canada as recorded in the Public Accounts for fiscal year 2004-05. My results indicate that, in 2004-05, total investment in natural capital by the federal government amounted to 2.6% of net budgetary expenditures. Spending on physical capital, the only component that is currently included as investment in the National Accounts, represented only 5% of total investment in natural capital.     

Bidding and Information: Evidence from Gilt-edged Auctions

Many studies have shown that government debt auctions underprice debt compared with the secondary market. This paper corroborates this for certain forms of gilt auction by comparing the price received at auction with an almost identical parent stock in the secondary market. Although the sample is small, the parent/auction stock price comparison gives a cleaner measure than used in other studies. The paper also compares non-fungible auctions (where the auction stock differs slightly from the parent at auction and merges subsequently) with fully-fungible ones (where they are identical throughout). Significant underpricing only occurs in non-fungible auctions.     

SOCIO‐ECONOMIC STUDIES ON SUICIDE: A SURVEY

Abstract In this paper, we review economic theories and empirical studies on the socio‐economic aspects of suicide. Through our survey, we would like to emphasize the importance of studying suicide by employing a ‘rational’ approach that complements the medical perspective on suicide. We first introduce major economic theories of suicide and then present a summary of a variety of empirical studies from the socio‐economic perspective. To shed light on the mixed empirical evidence, we employ a meta‐regression method to investigate how the existing empirical results vary. We have identified a publication bias, not highlighted previously, in the existing literature with respect to several commonly employed socio‐economic factors. Several characteristics of existing studies have been identified as influencing the qualitative outcome. We then discuss the recent developments in economic studies on suicide, on the basis of the authors’ ongoing project on suicide. In the concluding section, we point out some issues for further studies.     

Modeling the unethical intention of software piracy: a qualitative integration of network externalities and information cascades

Information cascades and network externalities have been increasingly influential in explaining the many market outcomes of information technology (IT), but their application to ethical issues of IT has been limited. This study proposes a conceptual model of unethical intention of software piracy by integrating information cascades and network externalities in terms of a theoretical perspective from the literature of economics. In the conceptual model, unethical intention of software piracy is proposed to be influenced by the network benefits of using pirated software, while the network benefits are proposed to be affected by the overall adopter base of pirated software directly and indirectly through the availability of pirated complementary software. Accordingly, whereas the perception of others’ piracy is proposed to be influenced by the overall adopter base of pirated software, the unethical intention of software piracy is proposed to be influenced indirectly by the perception of others’ piracy through the perceived signal that piracy seems a good idea. Finally, this study also provides the conclusion and limitation.     

Satire and Geopolitics: Vulgarity,Ambiguity and the Body Grotesque in South Park

Humour and laughter have become the subject of recent geopolitical scrutiny. Scholars have explored the affirmative and liberatory possibilities of humour, and the affective bodily dimensions of laughter as tools for transformative action in critical geopolitics. Humour that is vulgar and politically ambiguous is yet to be explored as a potent geopolitical avenue of enquiry. Studies of satire have suggested that rather than contesting entrenched geopolitical beliefs, satirical shows can serve to further divide audiences both amenable and antagonistic to the satire in question. I argue that this should not involve a wholesale rejection of satirical shows, as humour that uses irony, subversion, and other discursive techniques is just one way satirical media becomes an effective commentator on political issues. I examine the show South Park and argue its satire combines bodily and scatological humour with more traditional satirical techniques to produce a comedy that ridicules contemporary issues by reducing complex politics to the most basic and crass condition possible. This is defined in a Bakhtinian sense of the body grotesque, a social inversion through reference to the common bodily functions of all human beings.