Miracle on Sixth Avenue: Information Externalities and Search

After a long dormant period, Lower Sixth Avenue in New York has under gone a rapid revitalisation. We show that a simple search theoretic model with information spillovers can explain both the period of underuse and the rapid turnaround. The model reduces to a simple equation, which allows us to do comparative statics on the duration of vacancies. We show how the solution reacts to changes in market structure and changes in search technology. The model is suggestive of difficulties that may occur in many markets in which there are changes over time in the optimal use of resources.     

Green technology innovation: Anatomy of exploration processes from a learning perspective

This paper examines how established firms use their core competences to diversify their business by exploring and ultimately developing green technologies. In contrast to start‐ups dedicated to a green mission, diversifying into green markets by developing new products based on existing core competences has proven to be challenging. This is because the exploration processes to find a match between green technology opportunities and internal competences is complex and new to most established firms. This paper gains insights into exploration processes for green technologies and the learning modes and outcomes linked to these processes. We examined exploration processes at the microlevel in an embedded case study of an engineering firm using a combination of the “fireworks” innovation process model and organizational learning theory. First, we found that developing green technologies involves a long‐term exploratory process without guarantee of (quick) success and likely involves many exploration failures. Second, as exploration unfolds along multiple technology trajectories, learning occurs in individual exploration paths (on‐path), when new paths are pursued (path‐initiation), and when knowledge from one path is spilled over to subsequent paths (across‐paths). Third, to increase their chances for success, firms can increase the efficiency of exploration by fostering a failure‐friendly organizational culture, deliberately experimenting, and purposefully learning from failures.     

One-stage estimation of the effects of operational conditions and practices on productive performance: asymptotically normal and efficient,root-<Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis> consistent StoNEZD method

Understanding the effects of operational conditions and practices on productive efficiency can provide valuable economic and managerial insights. The conventional approach is to use a two-stage method where the efficiency estimates are regressed on contextual variables representing the operational conditions. The main problem of the two-stage approach is that it ignores the correlations between inputs and contextual variables. To address this shortcoming, we build on the recently developed regression interpretation of data envelopment analysis (DEA) to develop a new one-stage semi-nonparametric estimator that combines the nonparametric DEA-style frontier with a regression model of the contextual variables. The new method is referred to as stochastic semi-nonparametric envelopment of z variables data (StoNEZD). The StoNEZD estimator for the contextual variables is shown to be statistically consistent under less restrictive assumptions than those required by the two-stage DEA estimator. Further, the StoNEZD estimator is shown to be unbiased, asymptotically efficient, asymptotically normally distributed, and converge at the standard parametric rate of order n ^−1/2. Therefore, the conventional methods of statistical testing and confidence intervals apply for asymptotic inference. Finite sample performance of the proposed estimators is examined through Monte Carlo simulations.     

Entrepreneurship: Cause and Consequence of Financial Optimism

Extant evidence that the self‐employed overestimate their returns by a greater margin than employees is consistent with two mutually inclusive possibilities. Self‐employment may foster optimism or intrinsic optimists may be drawn to self‐employment. Previous research is generally unable to disentangle these effects because of reliance on cross‐sectional data. Using longitudinal data, this paper finds that employees who will be self‐employed in the future overestimate their short‐term financial wellbeing by more than those who never become self‐employed. Optimism is higher still when self‐employed. These results suggest that the greater optimism of the self‐employed reflects both psychological disposition and environmental factors. By providing greater scope for optimism, self‐employment entices the intrinsically optimistic.     

Urban Geographies of Hesitant Transition: Tracing Socioeconomic Segregation in Post‐Ceauşescu Bucharest

Scholars have raised concerns about the social costs of the transition from state socialism to capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe, and geographers are particularly interested in the spatial expressions and implications of these costs, including apparently increasing residential segregation. Applying a range of segregation measures to 1992 and 2002 census data, this contribution studies socio‐occupational residential segregation in Bucharest. The conclusion is that Bucharest was relatively socio‐spatially mixed at both times; in fact, a modest, yet fully legible, decreasing overall trend is observable. This is at odds with many popular assumptions of the past 20 years.     

LGBT Neighbourhoods and ‘New Mobilities’: Towards Understanding Transformations in Sexual and Gendered Urban Landscapes

In this article we apply insights from ‘new mobilities’ approaches to understand the shifting sexual and gendered landscapes of major cities in the global North. The empirical context is the purported ‘demise’ of traditional gay villages in Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia, and the emergence of ‘LGBT neighbourhoods’ elsewhere in the inner city. We reinterpret the historical geography of twentieth century LGBT lives and the associated ‘rise and fall’ of gay enclaves through the lens of the ‘politics of mobility’. In this reading, it is apparent that multifaceted movements — migration, physical and social mobility, and motility — underpin the formation of gay enclaves and recent transformations in sexual and gendered landscapes. After the second world war, LGBT communities in the global North were embedded in specific historical geographies of mobility and we trace these in the Canadian and Australian contexts. The ‘great gay migration’ from the 1960s to the 1980s has been joined by new LGBT constellations of mobility in the 2000s, and these have imprinted upon the sexual and gendered landscapes of Toronto and Sydney.     

Unpacking the client(s): Constructions, positions and client–consultant dynamics

Research on management consultancy usually emphasizes the role and perspective of the consultants. Whilst important, consultants are only one element in a dynamic relationship involving both consultants and their clients. In much of the literature, the client is neglected, or is assumed to represent a distinct, immutable entity. In this paper, we argue that the client organisation is not uniform but is instead (like organisations generally) a more or less heterogeneous assemblage of actors, interests and inclinations involved in multiple and varied ways in consultancy projects. This paper draws upon three empirical cases and emphasizes three key aspects of clients in the context of consultancy projects: (a) client diversity, including, but not limited to diversity arising solely from (pre-)structured contact relations and interests; (b) processes of constructing ‘the client’ (including negotiation, conflict, and reconstruction) and the client identities which are thereby produced; and (c) the dynamics of client–consultant relations and how these influence the construction of multiple and perhaps contested client positions and identities.     

Procuring complex performance in construction: London Heathrow Terminal 5 and a Private Finance Initiative hospital

This paper takes as its starting point the fact that complex projects, interpreted as multiple dependent interactions between many stakeholders over time, challenge traditional procurement practices based on the serial purchase of discrete components. The paper examines how the procurement management of such projects – procuring complex performance – can be conducted. The paper utilises two contrasting case study examples of high-profile UK construction project procurement. The findings suggest that the choice of mechanisms or interfaces for the governance of upstream supply relationships critically relates to subsequent performance. The theoretical contribution is a fusion of procurement literature with the influential CoPS literature.