Group competition for rents

This paper examines rent dissipation in a two-stage group rent-seeking contest without a predetermined distribution rule. the rent in this setting exhibits both public and private good characteristics depending on the stage of the contest. Focusing on the relationship between group size and aggregate rent seeking we find that social waste depends not only on total numbers but also on the distribution of population across groups. We show that group size asymmetry acts to reduce rent dissipation.     

Seven surprises for new CEOs

As a newly minted CEO, you may think you finally have the power to set strategy, the authority to make things happen, and full access to the finer points of your business. But if you expect the job to be as simple as that, you're in for an awakening. Even though you bear full responsibility for your company's well-being, you are a few steps removed from many of the factors that drive results. You have more power than anybody else in the corporation, but you need to use it with extreme caution. In their workshops for new CEOs, held at Harvard Business School in Boston, the authors have discovered that nothing--not even running a large business within the company--fully prepares a person to be the chief executive. The seven most common surprises are: You can't run the company. Giving orders is very costly. It is hard to know what is really going on. You are always sending a message. You are not the boss. Pleasing shareholders is not the goal. You are still only human. These surprises carry some important and subtle lessons. First, you must learn to manage organizational context rather than focus on daily operations. Second, you must recognize that your position does not confer the right to lead, nor does it guarantee the loyalty of the organization. Finally, you must remember that you are subject to a host of limitations, even though others might treat you as omnipotent. How well and how quickly you understand, accept, and confront the seven surprises will have a lot to do with your success or failure as a CEO.     

Spotting patterns on the fly

Recognizing and anticipating change in industry patterns is a core competence for companies today, allowing managers to capitalize on opportunities before they are apparent to others. Yet despite the growing realization that recognizing patterns is important, companies are far from mastering how to do it, especially at the strategic level, where information is usually less profuse and much less precise. Pattern recognition is not a new skill, though, at least not to people outside the business world. Since antiquity, naturalists have relied on their ability to spot patterns to make sense of their surroundings. And surprisingly, there is much businesspeople can learn from bird-watching--as removed as it may seem from the fast-paced, bruising world of business--in terms of the cognitive demands pattern recognition requires. To learn more, HBR spoke with David Sibley, perhaps the nation's foremost birdwatcher and illustrator, and Julia Yoshida, a birder since 1965 and a physician at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts. Sibley explains how expert birders draw on a wealth of tacit knowledge built up over the years to make identifications in a matter of seconds: "Once you've mastered common patterns, the real trick is to educate yourself about where discrepancies are most likely to appear--and to concentrate your attention on those areas." Although so fast as to be almost unconscious, the process he describes seems to be as methodical as one of Yoshida's medical diagnoses. "Recognizing a pattern involves knowing what to look for, what the possibilities are, and then sorting out those patterns when you are actually confronted with the patient," Yoshida says. "I don't think it's a eureka moment at all. It's a methodical process."     

Block Share Purchases and Corporate Performance

This paper investigates the causes and consequences of activist block share purchases in the 1980s. We find that activist investors were most likely to purchase large blocks of shares in highly diversified firms with poor profitability. Activists were not less likely to purchase blocks in firms with shark repellents and employee stock ownership plans. Activist block purchases were followed by increases in asset divestitures, decreases in mergers and acquisitions, and abnormal share price appreciation. Industry-adjusted operating profitability also rose. This evidence supports the view that the market for partial corporate control plays an important role in limiting agency costs in U.S. corporations.     

Self‐regulation through Goal Setting*

Goals are an important motivator. But little is known about why and how people set them. We address this issue in a model based on two stylized facts. First, goals serve as reference points for performance. Second, present‐biased preferences create self‐control problems. We show the power and limits of self‐regulation through goals. Goals increase an individual's motivation—but only up to a certain point. Furthermore, they are painful self‐disciplining devices. Thus, greater self‐control problems may result in tougher goals; but for a severe present bias goals either lack a motivating force, or are too painful to be accepted.     

Would a stock by any other ticker smell as sweet?

Some stocks have meaningful ticker symbols; for example, LUV (Southwest Airlines), MOO (United Stockyards), and GEEK (Internet America). Such tickers might be a useful signal of the company's creativity, a memorable marker that appeals to investors, or a warning that the company feels it must resort to gimmicks to attract investors. This paper investigates the performance of stocks with memorable ticker symbols during the years 1984–2005 and finds that, on average, their daily returns are higher than for the overall market.     

The Reallocation of Labour and the Lifecycle of Firms

This paper uses a unique US panel dataset of firms and workers toinvestigate the relationship between the firm's lifecycle and the reallocation of labour. We distinguish labour reallocation associated with job reallocation, and reallocation of workers over a fixed configuration of jobs. We find that firms at the beginning and end of their lifecycles contribute disproportionately to labour market lows, with sorting between firms particularly important among young firms, whereas sorting within firms is moreimportant among mature firms. We also find that high churning lows are associated with a lower probability of a young firm surviving.     

The Political Economy of Mobility Partnerships – Structural Power in the EU's External Migration Policy

The research on European Union (EU) external relations and the EU's own official discourse frequently portray the EU as a soft power that provides its neighbourhood with good governance principles. The European Mobility Partnerships (EU MPs) can be considered the most recent manifestation of this rhetoric. Studies on EU MPs reflect a narrow understanding of power. This paper aims to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the power dimension inherent in the EU's external relations. It develops a neogramscian theoretical framework to challenge the rhetoric of the EU as a soft power and normative hegemon. Drawing on semi-structured expert interviews and textual analysis of documents, it seeks to reveal whether and in what ways socio-economic power dynamics shape the EU MPs. This article argues that while, at the beginning, the design of the EU MPs as a policy tool has been very much influenced by neoliberal ideas such as the market-oriented liberalisation of mobility and the flexibilisation of labour, implementation is marked by the neo-mercantilist approach of restricting immigration and maximising the efficiency of readmission. Applying a critical political economy concept of power is helpful in understanding how market forces influence EU external migration policy, transcending a narrow understanding of power.     

Formal and Informal Practices of Knowledge Sharing Between Project Teams and Enacted Cultural Characteristics

This article investigates the process of knowledge sharing between project teams and uses a case study approach. This is especially relevant, as organizations face both the needs for separating work into projects and integrating knowledge created in projects into the organization. The results provided by the analysis technique of GABEK^® indicate that, although projects create boundaries, employees and project team leaders use formal mechanisms and develop informal practices for knowledge sharing between project teams. Furthermore, the article identifies organizational cultural characteristics enacted in these practices that can stimulate the discussion in “knowledge culture research” regarding the relationship of organizational cultural characteristics and (specific) knowledge processes.