Studying innovation processes in real-time: The promises and challenges of ethnography

This paper discusses the promises and challenges of innovation ethnographies. We depart from the notion that innovation processes are highly contingent, messy and non-linear and examine ways in which these processes have been studied. Our focus is on the challenges posed by the use of ethnographic methods to study innovation in-the-making. Our discussion is illustrated by an example culled from a longitudinal, real-time study of an innovation process in the food industry, inspired by actor-network theory (ANT) and its injunctions to focus on controversies and follow the actors. We conclude that although innovation ethnographies pose plenty of theoretical, methodological and practical challenges, they remain a promising and powerful method to map out the complex and tortuous paths of these processes.     

Heterogeneity, Job Creation and Unemployment Volatility

In this paper, I explore the impact of match‐specific heterogeneity at the job creation margin on business cycle fluctuations. I show that this form of heterogeneity alone does not help to amplify labor market volatility, either under full or under asymmetric information. First, I show analytically that, under full information, heterogeneity has no first‐order effect on the response of unemployment and job creation to productivity, and actually tends to dampen the response of market tightness. Then, in a series of calibrations, I show that with both full and asymmetric information, the model delivers labor market volatilities close to the representative‐agent, full‐information benchmark.     

Linking individual performance to business strategy: The people process model

During the last five years, a team of researchers has worked with the senior human resource (HR) teams of seven large companies with United Kingdom operations. This research initiative has focused on a number of aims, one of which has been to understand and model how business strategies are translated through human resource strategies and people processes into individual and organizational performance. This article summarizes the key findings, provides a map of how this translation takes place in these companies, and discusses why some people processes are more strongly linked to business strategy. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Brand equity of defectors and never boughts in a business financial market

Buyer acquisition is important for any supplier looking to maintain or expand its customer base. This study uses a brand equity perspective to compare the future customer potential of those who used the brand in the past but stopped (defectors), with the potential of those who have never bought the brand. On the surface, both groups possess the same propensity to consider the brand for future purchase. However, the underlying reasons for these propensities differ. Defectors hold both positive and negative information about the former brand. In contrast, those who have never bought the brand possess largely neutral opinions. The results imply that managers should consider treating these two groups separately because they require different acquisition strategies.     

Bootstrap prediction intervals for autoregressions: some alternatives

A new method is proposed to obtain interval forecasts for autoregressive models taking into account the variability due to the estimation of the order and the parameters. The procedure improves that introduced by Masarotto (1990), allows a substantial reduction of the variance of the predictive distribution percentile estimators and should thus be considered as a useful alternative to the classic Box and Jenkins interval forecast. The method uses the bootstrap technique and is distribution-free. An empirical application is considered.     

Soft and Hard Models of Human Resource Management: A Reappraisal

Two of the most widely adopted models of human resource management are the hard and soft versions. These are based on opposing views of human nature and managerial control strategies. The hard model is based on notions of tight strategic control, and an economic model of man according to Theory X, while the soft model is based on control through commitment and Theory Y. We argue that because these assumptions are so divergent, they cannot both properly be incorporated within a single model of human resource management. Eight in-depth case-studies were carried out, involving questionnaires, interviews and focus groups in order to find out whether organizations were practising either form of HRM. We found that no pure examples of either form existed. The paper concludes that the rhetoric adopted by the companies frequently embraces the tenets of the soft, commitment model, while the reality experienced by employees is more concerned with strategic control, similar to the hard model. This distinction between rhetoric and reality needs to be taken into account in conceptualizations of human resource management.     

Comparative perspectives on research dynamics and performance: A view from the periphery

The author takes a global look at the entire world of R and D, dividing it into the Centre (the large countries of the developed world) and the Periphery (small developed countries and the Third World). Her objective is to help to formulate a programme of studies to make R and D carried out in the Periphery more relevant to its needs.
Her view is that (a) too many past studies of R and D productivity have been carried out by the Centre on the Centre and (b) too much effort has been expended on measuring outputs and too little on the inputs that could be controlled to produce more output. In the paper she looks at the three major clusters of controllable input factors that could influence R and D productivity. The clusters considered are those pertaining to research groups, the 'atoms' of R and D (size, age, composition, management style and task diversity), to the institutional setting (organizational form, institutional goals etc.) and to the general socio-cultural environment of the country concerned. In each case she questions whether their effects on productivity, mainly derived from studies of R and D at the Centre is likely to apply in the same way to R and D carried out at the Periphery.
The author remarks that the factors listed in the paper are not exhaustive and in any case their interrelationships would also need to be discovered. The paper contains a large number of so far unanswered questions about input/ output relations in the context of the periphery that could provide starting points for research.     

Antecedents and consequences of opportunism in buyer–supplier relations: Research synthesis and new frontiers

Buyers and suppliers must concern themselves with opportunism, a phenomenon empirically established in exchange relationships. What causes firms to behave opportunistically? What are the consequences of firms' opportunistic behavior? To date, these antecedents and consequences have not been comprehensively synthesized. Herein, the opportunism phenomenon is revisited to expose research gaps and chart new directions that will enhance our understanding of buyer–supplier relationships. First, we provide a brief review of two critical theories of exchange that provide a theoretical foundation for opportunism. We next provide an overview of opportunism. Then each of the antecedents and consequences is discussed with emphasis on the contribution of each finding. Finally, and most importantly, several promising paths for further research are proposed.     

Pharmaceutical marketing through the customer portfolio: Institutional influence and adaptation

This paper discusses the dilemma of managing marketing in institutionalized business contexts. On the basis of a study of pharmaceutical marketing practices it is argued that business aspirations are dependent on understanding institutional influence and adaptation mechanisms on the customer-portfolio level. As relationships are perceived as such mechanisms, understanding network dynamics, institutional co-evolution and actor cognitions are key managerial issues. Furthermore, it is suggested that institutional discontinuities leverage institutional entrepreneurship to a critical extent.     

How many singularities are near and how will they disrupt human history?

This paper reviews a large number of approaches that have been used for considering technologically driven profound societal change. We agree with Vinge's suggestion for naming events that are “capable of rupturing the fabric of human history” (or leading to profound societal changes) as a “singularity”. This is a useful terminology especially since a mathematically rigorous singularity seems impossible for technological and related societal change. The overview of previous work is done within the context of a broader look at the role of technological change within human history. The review shows that a wide variety of methods have been used and almost all point to singularities in the present century particularly in the middle of the century. The diversity of the methods is reassuring about the potential robustness of these predictions. However, the subjectivity of labeling events as singularities (even well studied past events) is a concern about all of the methods and thus one must carefully pause when relying in any way on these predictions. The general lack of empirical research in this area is also a concern.Quantitative considerations (by proponents and opponents) about past singularities or future singularities often confound two types of metrics. The first type is essentially related to diffusion of technologies (or bundles of technologies) where the logistic curve is empirically well established as the proper time dependence. The second type of metric is for technological capability where hyper-exponentials are empirically well established for their time dependence. In this paper, we consider two past singularities (arguably with important enough social change to qualify) in which the basic metric is alternatively of one type or another. The globalization occurring under Portuguese leadership of maritime empire building and naval technological progress is characterized by a metric describing diffusion. The revolution in time keeping, on the other hand, is characterized by a technological capability metric. For these two cases (and thus robust to the choice of metric type), we find that:

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  People undergoing profound technologically-driven societal change do not sense a singularity.

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  The societal impacts depend in complicated ways on human needs, institutional variables and other more uncertain factors and thus are particularly hard to project;

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  The societal impact is apparently not determined by the rate of progress on either type of metric or by projections to mathematical points with either kind of metric. This finding supports the existing concept that social change due to technology is a more holistic phenomenon than can be characterized by any technical metric.

In the final section, we use these empirical findings as the basis for exploring the possibilities for and nature of future singularities. In this we speculate that the potential for a future strong singularity based upon computational capability does not appear particularly probable but that one may already be occurring and is not fully noticed by those (us) going through it. Other possible 21st century singularities (life extension and fossil fuel elimination are two examples considered) may also be already underway rather than waiting for the predicted mid-century changes.