The Impact of Industry Structure and Penalty Policies on Incentives for Compliance and Regulatory Enforcement

This paper examines the optimal fine for violations of environmental regulations, taking into account financial constraints facing regulated firms and the hierarchical structure of regulatory enforcement. Contrary to the existing literature, which suggests that maximal fines are sub-optimal, we find that the optimal fine is either the maximum amount the firm can afford to pay or zero (i.e., no regulation). The impact of a change in industry structure on the optimal fine, firm compliance and regulatory resource strategies is considered. We identify conditions under which the equilibrium level of regulatory resources decreases with an increase in the number of firms in the industry.     

Tradeoffs Among Resource,Social, and Managerial Conditions on Mountain Summits of the Northern Forest

This research examined the relative importance of indicators and standards of quality at three mountain summits in the Northern Forest. The three summits ranged from low to high levels of use, development, and management. Computer-generated photographs were used to present a range of resource, social, and managerial conditions in a stated choice survey. Results suggest that visitors prefer minimal resource impact, few other people, and low intensity management. However, when faced with tradeoffs, respondents accept more intensive management to help ensure resource protection. Findings also suggest that a range of recreation opportunities should be provided at mountain summits in the Northern Forest.     

A measure of alienation from the marketplace

For the purpose of equipping researchers in marketing with a more sophisticated method to measure alienation in a marketing context, the authors have constructed and initially tested an alienation from the marketplace index. Alienation is defined in terms of Melvin Seeman's (1959) five basic variants of alienation: powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, social isolation, and self-estrangement. After pretesting, two questions per variant of alienation remained as the operational measures of alienation from the marketplace. These questions focused specifically on marketing phenomenon. Test-retest reliability was tested with 35 paired observations. Validity was checked with survey data from 140 households. In terms of face or content validity, the questions met the criterion of “looking as if” they should indicate the corresponding dimensions of alienation. Correlations between the marketplace alienation items and a measure of general alienation established concurrent validity. The authors propose that the use of the marketplace alienation index in studies involving those who are affected by our country's business climate may prove useful. For example, one would hypothesize that increasing alienation from the marketplace would be associated with support of consumerist goals, or even of additional government legislation to control problems that the individual feels is uncontrollable by him because of the bigness and indifference of modern day enterprise. Pepsico, Inc.     

The role of the ideal organization in comparative management: A cross cultural perspective of Japan & Korea

It is popular to talk of the Confucian Work Ethic when explaining the successes of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. This is not an accurate impression. The authors of this article found significant differences in management practices — both actual and ideal — between Japan and South Korea.Professors Lane Kelley, Reginald Worthley and Harry Lie are from the College of Business Administration, University of Hawaii while Professor Arthur Whatley is from the College of Business Administration & Economics, New Mexico State University.     

Complementary technologies,knowledge relatedness,and invention outcomes in high technology mergers and acquisitions

Prior research on M&As and invention outcomes has not systematically examined the influence of two types of knowledge differences. Knowledge relatedness has typically been equated with knowledge similarity and the separate influence of knowledge complementarity has been overlooked. Similarly, studies examining innovation outcomes of M&As have typically focused on the role of technological knowledge and overlooked the influence of scientific knowledge. We develop a model of relatedness and invention performance of high‐technology M&As that considers science and technology similarity and complementarity as important drivers of invention. We test the model using a sample of M&As from the drug, chemical, and electronics industries and a fine‐grained measure of knowledge relatedness that distinguishes between science and technology relatedness. We find that complementary scientific knowledge and complementary technological knowledge both contribute to post‐merger invention performance by stimulating higher quality and more novel inventions. This suggests that high‐technology firms seeking acquisitions should search for, identify, and acquire businesses that have scientific and technological knowledge that is complementary to their own. Our results also suggest that similarities in knowledge facilitate incremental renewal, while complementarities would make discontinuous strategic transformations more likely, and that absorptive capacity research should be expanded to consider complementarities as well as similarities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.