Accounting for competitive advantage: The resource-based view of the firm and the labour theory of value

This article uses accounting concepts to assist the field of strategic management in its search for a theory of value, competitive advantage and superior profitability. Specifically, it argues that the resource-based view of the firm requires a labour theory of value creation. Using the circuit of capital as an organizing framework this article integrates RBV and Marx's value theory, by introducing the notion of value as socially necessary labour time, into the analysis of resource-based advantage. This enables us to identify the impact of particular sources of competitive advantage as they become diffused through an industry. Some resource-based advantages, when eventually imitated lead to an overall reduction in industry profitability, and other advantages lead to increases in industry average profitability.     

Tacit Knowledge: Some Suggestions for Operationalization

With the emergence of the resource-based view of the firm and of the concept of core competencies, intangible resources, and tacit knowledge in particular have been argued to occupy a central place in the development of sustainable competitive advantage. This is because tacit knowledge is argued to be difficult to imitate, to substitute, to transfer and it is rare. However, there is little empirical research to support this theoretical proposition. Tacit knowledge has so far resisted operationalization. This paper sets out to define the term tacit knowledge and proposes to redefine it, within the context of the resource-based view of the firm, as tacit skills. A methodology (based on causal mapping, self-Q and storytelling) for empirically researching the subject is outlined.     

Music in the time-spectrum: routines,spaces and emotional experience

ABSTRACT

Music streaming, structured by an expanding network of social interdependencies (e.g. musicians, sound engineers, computer scientists and distributors) has made it easier to consume music in a wider number of social and private spaces and to a greater degree. This paper examines the emotional experience of contemporary music consumption by drawing from an Eliasian perspective, specifically Elias and Dunning’s sociology of leisure. We explore the relationship between work, spare time and leisure spaces, rather than examining specific spaces in isolation. We argue that music is used to demarcate, transition between, and blur space. Music plays an important role in facilitating the rhythm of routine, helping individuals to adjust to the demands of different spaces (based on varying intensities and immediacies of social pressures) and manage mood. The key characteristics of leisure that Elias and Dunning identify (motility, sociability and mimetic tension) are explored across the spectrum of time and space.     

Prospective measures of competitive balance: application to money lines in major league baseball

This study examines competitive balance in Major League Baseball (MLB) by looking at the money lines for the games during the regular season. The assertion is that the closer the money lines are to indicating that each team has an equal chance of winning each game, the more competitive balance there is in the league. This study extends the model developed by Bowman et al. (2012), which used point spreads to assess competitive balance in the National Football League (NFL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA). In this study, money lines for the 1999–2011 seasons were used to develop several measures of competitive balance. The results indicate that competitive balance increased rather substantially during this period. A by-product of this research is to identify the most highly rated team and pitcher. In 2002, New York Yankees were the highest rated team and from the year 2000 Pedro Martinez was the highest rated pitcher.     

Marital Status and Productivity: Evidence from Personnel Data

Although a robust wage premium for married men has been documented extensively in the labor economics literature, prior studies have been hampered in testing competing explanations of the premium by a lack of data on worker productivity. This study exploits a unique data set that contains job-performance measures for employees of a large, hierarchical organization. The quasi-longitudinal data track the marital status and job productivity, including performance reviews and promotions, of male Naval officers in technical and managerial jobs. Compared with single men, married men receive significantly higher performance ratings and are more likely to be promoted. In estimates that control for selection arising from quit decisions, the size of the marriage productivity effect falls but in most cases remains robust. Also, based on supplementary tests, selectivity arising from the decision to marry appears to explain only a small portion of the unadjusted marriage premium for Navy officers.     

A budget model of a university

Yale University operates a number of budget systems for purposes of planning and control. These include a capital budget, a cash budget, an operating budget, and an operating growth budget. The operating growth budget might be the one of most potential interest to people concerned with Operations Analysis in Education.

The operating growth budget is a model of what the University fiscal flows and structure might look like under varying conditions over an extended period, e.g., 20 years. It is composed of a set of ideas, a set of equations, and a computer program.

It is important to us to point out that this work is in a development stage. We have run many simulations, adjusted the program, refined the parameter estimates, and modified the questions we have been asking. Part of our efforts have followed a concern that we have captured the appropriate structure, part that we are investigating our own spectrum of decisions, and part that we can reflect the varying “external” conditions outside of the University's immediate influence and control.

Our work with the operating growth budget has already started to influence some of the decisions of the University including the yearly operating budget, the capital funds programs, and the endowment investment portfolio.     

Evaluating marketplace synergies of ingredient brand alliances

This research examines the marketplace performance of ingredient brand alliances (IBAs). In this type of alliance, a component or feature of a primary or focal brand is branded using a secondary brand. Performance is affected by both the primary and secondary brands, each of which has functional and emotional associations. Drawing on concept combination theory, the authors examine congruent and incongruent effects in both associations as a means of achieving synergy in the brand. While the extant literature largely focuses on consumer perceptions of ingredient brand alliance products as an outcome, the authors examine the market share and revenues for 126 ingredient brand alliances in 49 product categories of consumer packaged goods over 14?years. A generalized estimation equation shows that, on average, each brand's associations have positive main effects on ingredient brand alliance performance. However, congruent associations (such as the perceived functional associations of both brands) attenuate these effects, while incongruent associations (the perceived functional association of one brand with the perceived emotional association of another) were not significant. The article concludes with a simulation showing that managers can do better by picking a partner brand whose associations are more incongruent, rather than merely what seems to be the strongest partner on both associations.     

Calls on high-technology: Japanese exploration of venture capital investments in the United States

The strategic logic of Japanese high-technology venture capital investment reveals the existence of an implicit call option, or ‘shadow option’, on new technology. This option is exercised by further investment in product development, manufacturing and distribution. The process is described with reference to a comparative study of Japanese and U.S. venture capital firms. Similarities and differences between the two groups are reported, and a conceptual model of Japanese option strategy is formulated. The implications for our understanding of Japanese strategy and for strategic management theory are discussed.