哈佛商学院 何时该听激进投资者的话

如今,当你管理的公司的业绩不理想时,对冲基金（资本市场里最常见的激进投资者）很可能会对你施加压力,要求你改变战略方向。我们的建议是,你不一定要听他们的话。     

Sustainable Development in Affluent Countries and the Neo-Institutionalist Synthesis

Since development is a process rather than an end-state, all countries are always in a constant state of change, regardless of their level of income. This article focuses on the challenges that affluent countries face today in shifting to a sustainable development path. These challenges include improving the quality of life, achieving environmental sustainability, and addressing inequality. In the United States in particular, these challenges have increased in recent decades, despite significant economic growth. The neoclassical development model assumes that growth makes it easier to achieve sustainable development and that wellbeing rises with per capita income. We question these assumptions, and find a theory of economic development in institutional economics that better explains and accommodates sustainability. We draw on the work of many original institutionalist economists (OIE), and others working in this tradition, to analyze the challenges of sustainable development in affluent countries, especially in the United States.     

HR Professional Role Tensions: Perceptions and Responses of the Top Management Team

The aims of the research are to explore evidence of professional human resource management (HRM) role tensions, the factors that affect HRM role tension, and to consider the impact on management perceptions when role tensions exist. Using a qualitative approach, 25 interviews were conducted in Australia with senior HRM personnel, top management team (TMT) executives, and a management consultant. Findings reveal that the failure of the HRM profession to attract people with a business focus increases HRM role tensions. Respondents report that tensions were reduced when aspects of the HRM role were devolved or outsourced, there was an acceptance of a changed psychological contract, and clearer attempts were made to communicate an agreed‐upon strategic focus for HRM. HRM role bias led to a reduced willingness among TMT members to respect, and communicate with, HRM professionals. The implications of the negative outcomes of HR role tensions are discussed with reference to the power of the HRM function. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Digital innovation and transformation: An institutional perspective

In this conceptual piece we suggest that the institutional perspective is a prolific lens to study digital innovation and transformation. Digital innovation is about the creation and putting into action of novel products and services; by digital transformation we mean the combined effects of several digital innovations bringing about novel actors (and actor constellations), structures, practices, values, and beliefs that change, threaten, replace or complement existing rules of the game within organizations and fields. We identify three types of novel institutional arrangements critical for digital transformation: digital organizational forms, digital institutional infrastructures, and digital institutional building blocks. From this vantage point, an institutional perspective invites us to examine how these novel arrangements gain social approval (i.e. legitimacy) in the eyes of critical stakeholders and their interplay with existing institutional arrangements. Questioning the disruptive talk associated with digital transformation, we draw on the institutional change literature to illustrate the institutionalization challenges and that existing institutional arrangements are pivotal arbiters in deciding whether and how novel arrangements gain acceptance. We close this essay with discussing the implications of an institutional perspective on digital transformation for policy, practice and research.     

On the sensitivity of mean-variance-efficient portfolios to changes in asset means: some analytical and computational results

This paper investigates the sensitivity of mean-variance(MV)-efficientportfolios to changes in the means of individual assets. Whenonly a budget constraint is imposed on the investment problem,the analytical results indicate that an MV-efficient portfolio'sweights, mean, and variance can be extremely sensitive to changesin asset means. When nonnegativity constraints are also imposedon the problem, the computational results confirm that a positivelyweighted MV-efficient portfolio's weights are extremely sensitiveto changes in asset means, but the portfolio's returns are not.A surprisingly small increase in the mean of just one assetdrives half the securities from the portfolio. Yet the portfolio'sexpected return and standard deviation are virtually unchanged.     

SOCIAL CHANGE: THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION*

In 1900 only 6% of unwed teenage females engaged in premarital sex. Now, three quarters do. The sexual revolution is studied here using an equilibrium matching model, where the costs of premarital sex fall over time due to technological improvement in contraceptives. Individuals differ in their desire for sex. Given this, people tend to circulate in social groups where prospective partners share their views on premarital sex. To the extent that society's customs and mores reflect the aggregation of decentralized decision making by its members, shifts in the economic environment may induce changes in what is perceived as culture.     

Tourism as an agent of change: A Spanish basque case

Beginning with a brief general discussion of mass tourism in historical and social scientific perspective, this article reviews the history and effects of international tourism in the Spanish Basque municipality of Fuenterrabia. Paying particular attention to the effects of tourism on the local people, the article details the process by which tourism first benefited them, only later to come to be controlled by outside developers who have captured most of the major economic rewards. It also discusses changes in local social stratification and political structure wrought by tourism development. The need for a systematic, broadly conceived appraisal of the costs and benefits of tourism as an agent of economic development is stressed.