Competitive dynamics,strategic consistency,and organizational survival

This study investigates strategic consistency in competitive behavior. We construct a logically consistent evolutionary model, providing a causal argument to link a level of strategic consistency to long‐term organizational survival. According to our results, strategic consistency seems to be related to both organizational survival and the most efficient change over time concerning the key elements of a firm's strategy. One of the benefits of the model is that some of the components and processes may be manipulated through experimental or simulation interventions. This means that the model can be formally tested in future studies and managers can use it to fine‐tune patterns of competitive behavior. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Payments for Ecosystem Services Programs: Predicting Landowner Enrollment and Opportunity Cost Using a Beta-Binomial Model

This paper concerns predicting enrollment in payment for ecosystem services (PES) programs to promote habitat preservation on private lands. We develop a beta-binomial model to address both program participation and the amount of land enrolled by each potential enrollee. We apply the estimation approach to stated preference data from non-industrial private forest owners in Finland. As an alternative econometric model, we also develop a multivariate censored regression model of enrollments. Using cross-validation, we find that the beta-binomial model predicts at least as well as the multivariate censored model yet has fewer parameters. Using our estimation results, we demonstrate policy predictions regarding program enrollment and landowner opportunity cost.     

The Effect of Information Sources on the Success of the Organizational Buying Process

The objective of this empirical study was to investigate how the use of internal and external information sources influence the success of an organization’s buying process, and how the characteristics of the buying task influence the employment of these information sources during the buying process. Quantitative data were collected by structured interviews among Finnish business organizations early in 2008. The results suggest that the employment by an organization of information provided by a supplier during the buying process has a significant but contradictory influence on the success of the buying process. Furthermore, the complexity, newness, and importance of the buying situation were found to have a significant influence on the employment of different sources of information during the various stages of buying process. Perceived risk of the buying task was found to have no significant effect on the use of different information sources.     

Frictions in Project-Based Supply of Permits

Emissions trading in climate change can entail large overall cost savings and transfers between developed and developing countries. However, the search for acceptable JI or CDM projects implies a deviation from the perfect market framework used in previous estimations. Our model combines the search market for projects with a frictionless permit market to quantify the supply-side frictions in the CO₂ market. We also decompose the effects of frictions into the effects of search friction, bargaining, and bilateralism. A calibration using previous cost estimates of CO₂ reductions illustrate changes in cost savings and allocative implications.     

Existential–Experiential View of Self‐Sourced (In)Authentic Healthcare Identity

In the healthcare context, both nurses and doctors derive their professional identities from diverse backgrounds, thus resulting in two distinct professions. Becoming a leader and forming a leader identity that is separate from a strong professional identity is a difficult task. However, assuming a leader identity is considered an important aspect of actually being a leader, not just a professional with a leader position. The current article explores authenticity in generic healthcare leader identity formation by utilizing the concept of professional identity. Instead of committing to the humanistic ontological roots of the authentic leadership construct, the research analyzes the concepts of self and authenticity from an existential–experiential perspective. A conceptual framework of self‐sourced healthcare identity formation, including leader identity and professional identity, is presented. The framework shows how leader identity originates in the leader's experiencing self‐in‐situation, which is understood as the source of authenticity. The experiencing self, or the self as a subject, is differentiated from the experienced self, or the self as an object, by which professional identities are formed. The conceptualization provides a way of understanding and developing leadership in fields consisting of strong professional identities. The applications of the framework are also discussed.     

Understanding Stakeholder Thinking: Themes from a Finnish Conference

Discussion and debate on stakeholder theory continues unabated, but not a lot of people know that it first began in Finland in the 1960s, as this report of a recent Conference there shows. Archie B. Carroll, the well-known writer on corporate social responsibility, is Robert W. Scherer Professor of Management at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA (e-mail acarroll@uga.cc.uga.edu); and Juha Näsi is Professor of Management at the University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland.