Underwork,Work‐Hour Insecurity,and A New Approach to Wage and Hour Regulation

When it was passed in 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sought to address the “evils” of underpay and overwork by establishing an hourly minimum wage and requiring premium overtime pay. However, today's low‐wage, hourly workers more often face underwork than overwork, as well as fluctuating, unstable schedules, neither of which is addressed by the FLSA. This paper presents and assesses the effectiveness of an alternative approach to wage and hour regulation, the “reporting pay” guarantee. We begin by examining the problem of work‐hour insecurity, particularly employers’ practice of sending workers home early from scheduled shifts. We then move to a detailed assessment of state laws that require reporting pay, as well as reporting pay guarantees in union contracts and private‐employer practices that attempt to address the problem of work‐hour insecurity. We conclude by considering paths for strengthening such protections in law.     

The Antecedents and Consequences of Affordable Value Innovations for Emerging Markets

Emerging markets offer tremendous growth opportunities for firms. While established multinational firms typically focus on premium segments in emerging markets, they often fail to leverage additional growth opportunities in so‐called good enough or low‐income segments in emerging markets. Customers in these low‐income markets have substantially different requirements and are very price sensitive. Theoretical and case‐based research suggests that innovating for these low‐income segments in emerging markets differs significantly from innovating for premium or traditional Western markets. We argue that tapping successfully into low‐income segments in emerging markets requires the development of new products that meet the low price expectations while at the same time offering also value to customers in these segments. We refer to these new products as affordable value innovations. We analyze the antecedents of affordable value innovation for emerging markets. We draw on institutional theory to derive three potentially relevant antecedents of affordable value innovation for emerging markets. These are bricolage, local embeddedness, and standardization. We test our hypotheses using multiple informant data from 47 multinational corporations involving 103 innovation projects that target low‐income customers in emerging markets. Our empirical analysis shows that all three antecedents have significant effects on the level of affordable value innovation: while bricolage and local embeddedness are positively related to the level of affordable value innovation, standardization has a negative impact. We also examine the relationship between the level of affordable value innovation and performance. We find evidence for our basic assumption that a firm's capability to develop and launch affordable value innovations is key to success in emerging markets. It indicates that a firm's investments in affordable value innovations for emerging markets pay off financially. Finally, a cross‐regional comparison of our data shows that the key findings on antecedents of affordable value innovation and its impact on performance do not vary across various emerging markets. Overall, our findings offer important implications for research on and the practice of innovation for low‐income segments in emerging markets.     

The collective voice of unions and workplace training in Italy: New insights from mixed methods

Using a three-phase approach that combines quantitative (pooled OLS, fixed effects and IV) with qualitative (semi-structured interviews) analyses, we find that in Italy, workplace unions are more likely to enhance training when they sign a firm-level agreement and when they can get access to external funds for financing. We also identify three channels: what we call a ‘maturation effect’, double-track communication and watch-dog function. We argue that these results are consistent with the idea that the impact of workplace unions on training depends on the empowerment of its collective voice within an institutional framework that does not fit either of the standard models provided by collective and liberal market economies.     

Board diversity reforms: Do they matter for EU bank performance?

We examine the impact of governance reforms related to board diversity on the performance of European Union banks. Using a difference‐in‐difference approach, we document that reforms increase bank stock returns and their volatility within the first 3 years after their enactment. The type of reform matters, with quotas increasing return volatility. The effectiveness of reforms depends on a country's institutional environment. The impact of reforms on return volatility is found to be beneficial in countries more open to diversity, with common law system and with greater economic freedom. Finally, reforms play a bigger role in banks that have ex ante less heterogeneous boards.     

An internal control perspective on the market value consequences of IT operational risk events

IT internal controls are an important component of an organization's arsenal of internal controls. Upon conceptualizing failures of operational IT systems, or what we call IT operational risk events, as signals of IT internal control weaknesses, we theorize about these events' impact on internal control objectives in general and about how this impact is influenced by the regulatory environment in particular. We then perform an event study to examine the economic impact of a diversified sample of IT operational risk events from the U.S. financial services industry during 1985–2009. We specifically test the impact of contextual factors on the degree of this effect, including the events' target (confidentiality, integrity, or availability of IT assets), the source of disclosure (regulatory or voluntary), the enactment of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, and firm-specific attributes. We find that investors penalize firms most strongly for experiencing events that compromise the availability of IT systems, consistent with our prediction that these events more negatively impact the reliability of financial reporting and the efficiency and effectiveness of operations. This result contrasts extant empirical studies that are predominantly concerned with information and security breaches. We find also that investors' penalty is the strongest for firms experiencing IT operational risk events that occurred after the passing of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act or were disclosed by a regulatory body. Finally, the market reaction is shown to be stronger for firms with high growth potential, firms that are larger, riskier, and are in the banking sector. Implications for research and practice are discussed along with directions for future research.     

Empirical Evidence on Corporate Risk‐Shifting

We study empirically whether nonfinancial firms’ behavior is consistent with systematic risk‐shifting. We compare firms’ operating risk before and after a debt issue, under the assumption that if there is any risk‐shifting it is most likely to occur right after a debt issue. We document a significant increase in firms’ operating risk, even after adjusting for industry influences. The risk‐shifting is higher for firms with no subsequent debt issues, and for firms with lower credit ratings. Other determinants are earnings volatility, size of debt issue, and whether the bond is callable.     

An integrated approach to supply chain risk analysis

Despite the increasing attention that supply chain risk management is receiving by both researchers and practitioners, companies still lack a risk culture. Moreover, risk management approaches are either too general or require pieces of information not regularly recorded by organisations. This work develops a risk identification and analysis methodology that integrates widely adopted supply chain and risk management tools. In particular, process analysis is performed by means of the standard framework provided by the Supply Chain Operations Reference Model, the risk identification and analysis tasks are accomplished by applying the Risk Breakdown Structure and the Risk Breakdown Matrix, and the effects of risk occurrence on activities are assessed by indicators that are already measured by companies in order to monitor their performances. In such a way, the framework contributes to increase companies’ awareness and communication about risk, which are essential components of the management of modern supply chains. A base case has been developed by applying the proposed approach to a hypothetical manufacturing supply chain. An in-depth validation will be carried out to improve the methodology and further demonstrate its benefits and limitations. Future research will extend the framework to include the understanding of the multiple effects of risky events on different processes.     

Good Cop–Bad Cop: Trust,Control, and the Lure of Integration

Based on a longitudinal case study of four interorganizational product development collaborations, this paper identifies a lure to cross‐functional integration that has hereto been neglected. In particular, findings suggest that when the buyer firm separates the Research and Development (R&D) Department from the Procurement Department, the two departments play a good cop–bad cop strategy toward the supplier. Thereby, they are able to foster a high level of goodwill trust between R&D personnel of the collaborating firms, while procurement personnel maintain a high level of formal control. Using an intricate sample design with polar cases, the study shows that cross‐functional integration of the two departments hampers interorganizational goodwill trust at the benefit of formal control. The findings offer a way forward for managers seeking to reap the benefits of collaboration, while limiting their exposure to the associated risks.     

Controlling the commercialisation of science across inter-organisational borders: Four cases from two major Swedish universities

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how different types of controls are applied in different mechanisms for commercialising science, depending on the inter-organisational interactions involved. To achieve this purpose, we followed a multiple-case study design and selected four cases from Uppsala University and the Karolinska Institutet that provided variation in the commercialisation mechanisms (PET Centre, Ångström Materials Academy, Actar, and Karolinska Development). We find that action and result controls dominate in linear ‘spin-out’ funnel mechanisms, while interactive mechanisms entail a combination of action, result and personal controls. However, the inter-organisational interactions also impact which controls are applied in a commercialisation mechanism: conflicting goals between a few closely related organisations or limited external interactions are associated with result controls, while action controls dominate in the absence of external interactions if time and efficiency are key goals. Result controls also assume very different roles, depending on the inter-organisational context of a specific commercialisation mechanism.