Doctors on the move

We surveyed your colleagues to find out how they're responding to health-care turmoil. Our comprehensive findings show them selling, merging, relocating, or joining up.     

Hybrid value creation: a systematic review of an evolving research area

This systematic review analyses literature on the work of hybrid value creation, i.e. the process of generating additional value by innovatively combining products (tangible component) and services (intangible component). A state of the art report on hybrid value creation is delivered by first systematically identifying and then analyzing 169 publications focusing on hybrid value creation. The identified publications are clustered into eight categories based on their links and interactions and thus a mapping of this evolving field is suggested. A discussion and reflection of the findings with respect to the pervasiveness of literature and the research methodologies used is provided. The paper concludes by identifying some dominant strategic gaps in the overall research landscape and provides directions for future research.     

How do internal capabilities and external partnerships affect innovativeness?

How do a firm’s internal capabilities and external partnerships contribute to its product and process innovativeness? How do their impacts differ? Based on the theoretical framework of exploitation and exploration, we develop an integrative model linking the impact of both internal capabilities and external partnerships on product and process innovativeness. Survey responses from Taiwanese biotechnology firms indicate that research and development (R&;D), marketing, and manufacturing capabilities have different effects on product and process innovativeness. Of the four types of external partnerships, only partnerships with universities and research institutes seem to add value, whereas partnerships with suppliers, customers, and competitors do not contribute to innovativeness. Moreover, marketing capability and customer partnerships have a positive interaction effect on product innovativeness, while manufacturing capability and supplier partnerships have a positive interaction effect on process innovativeness.     

Do investors actually value sustainability? New evidence from investor reactions to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI)

Research Summary: Research exploring investor reactions to sustainability has substantial empirical limitations, which we address with a large‐scale longitudinal financial event study of the first global sustainability index, DJSI World. We examine investor reactions to firms from 27 countries over 17 years that are added, deleted, or continue on the index. We find that once relevant controls and comparisons to observationally equivalent firms beyond the index are included, DJSI events have only limited significance and/or materiality. Nonetheless, investors' valuation of sustainability around the world has evolved over time, involving diminishing reactions to U.S. firms and increasing benefits, particularly of continuation on the index, over time. The study highlights the importance of careful analysis and longitudinal global samples in making inferences about the financial effects of social performance. Managerial Summary: The debate about how investors perceive corporate social responsibility (CSR) predates Milton Friedman's famous statement that the only social responsibility of business is to increase profits. Although extensive research has studied whether sustainability contributes to financial performance, we have yet to understand whether investors believe it pays off. This financial event study of reactions to the addition, continuation, and deletion from DJSI World, the first global sustainability index, shows that investors care little about DJSI announcements. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that global assessments of sustainability are converging and that investors may increasingly be valuing continuation on the DJSI, suggesting that firms may gain at least limited benefits from reliable sustainability activities.     

The role of social proximity in professional CEO appointments: Evidence from caste/religion‐based hiring of CEOs in India

Research Summary: The role of homophily in CEO appointments at the largest corporations is an important subject in corporate governance. This subject is particularly important in a country like India where a multitude of religions, castes, and communities form its social fabric. We test for the role of homophily in professional CEO appointments in India by empirically examining the preference for same caste/religion CEOs by the largest firms. Using a unique dataset, assembled by detailed identification of castes/religions from family names and counterfactuals obtained through the Coarsened Exact Matching technique, we find that caste/religion plays a crucial role in CEO selection as a source of information (positive discrimination). The evidence is not consistent with its use to pursue taste‐based preferences (negative discrimination). Managerial Summary: We test for the role of homophily in the appointments of CEOs in India by empirically examining the preference for same caste/religion CEOs by the largest firms. We find that caste/religion plays an important role in CEO selection, i.e., as a form of information or “positive discrimination.” The evidence is not consistent with its use to pursue taste‐based preferences or “negative discrimination.”     

Role of search for domain knowledge and architectural knowledge in alliance partner selection

Research Summary: The literature on technological alliances emphasizes that search for knowledge drives alliance formation. However, in conceptualizing technological knowledge, prior work on alliances has not made a distinction between domain knowledge—knowledge that firms possess in distinct technological domains—and architectural knowledge—knowledge that firms possess about how to combine elements from different technological domains. We argue that firms seek partners that are similar in domain knowledge to deepen their knowledge, and partners that are dissimilar in architectural knowledge to broaden their knowledge. Our results indicate that the likelihood of alliance formation increases when two firms are similar in domain knowledge and dissimilar in architectural knowledge. Further, our results show that these effects are positively moderated by the degree of decomposability of a firm's knowledge base. Managerial Summary: In dynamic environments, companies need to continually deepen and broaden their technological knowledge, and they often look for alliance partners who can provide them that knowledge. For knowledge deepening, companies are more likely to form alliances with those companies that have expertise in similar technological fields. For knowledge broadening, they are more likely to form alliances with those companies that have expertise in the same technological fields, but have different recipes for combining knowledge from those fields. Furthermore, a company with a modular knowledge base is more likely to seek a partner that has expertise in similar technological fields or whose recipes for combining knowledge from different technological fields are different from the recipes it has.     

Winning us with trifles: Adverse selection in the use of philanthropy as insurance

Research Summary: We study the use of corporate philanthropy as a form of reputation insurance, developing a formal model of such insurance to examine how the terms of insurance in equilibrium change under different assumptions about the firm and its stakeholders. We then test the predictions from this model in the U.S. petroleum industry and find that philanthropic donations offer insurance‐like benefits, but are also positively associated with subsequent oil spills—firms that give more, spill more—with this association being stronger for spills that are under firms’ control and in states with low civic capacity. These results are consistent with an adverse selection/moral hazard equilibrium and suggest that the use of philanthropy as reputation insurance may benefit firms at the cost of society. Managerial Summary: Firms that donate to social causes develop a reputation for being socially responsible, and are often given the benefit of doubt when negative information about them comes to light. But are philanthropic firms truly more responsible? We argue that firms that donate more may be more likely to do harm—those that expect to do harm later are likely to give more now, and those that know their reputation protects them may become less careful. Evidence from the U.S. petroleum industry is consistent with this argument, with firms that give more having more subsequent oil spills, but only the type of spills that are under the firm's control, and only in states where the firm faces weaker scrutiny.     

Ownership influences on corporate social responsibility in the Indian context

The empirical evidence from the extant literature has been equivocal regarding the influence exerted by different ownership types on corporate social responsibility (CSR), especially in developing countries such as India characterized by institutional voids. We use a longitudinal panel dataset of 500 large Indian companies to test a model of corporate ownership forms as key determinants of CSR engagement in India. Based on neo-institutional theory, our model of CSR determinants investigates the roles of three salient aspects of ownership namely multinational ownership/affiliation, state ownership and family ownership and control, after controlling for the influence of firm size, firm age, leverage, the availability of slack resources, profitability and various governance attributes. Our ordered logit regressions indicate strong support for the role of multinational ownership and family control and management in promoting higher levels of CSR engagement. Contrary to expectations, public sector ownership appeared to negatively impact CSR engagement. We offer our conjectures on this anomalous finding and the research possibilities it opens up.     

Consequential creativity

Creativity is an original cognitive ability and problem solving process which enables individuals to use their intelligence in a way that is unique and directed toward coming up with a product. Architectural education is one of the fields in which human creativity has been exhibited; because, it can be defined as a design study that correlates with other disciplines: social sciences, management, history, operational research, philosophy, graphic design, math and etc. These features which distinguish architecture from other disciplines ascribe different kind of responsibilities for architectural education; since beside technical and professional skills, an architect must have imagination and to be creative at many levels. Thus, this research aims at proving that students can be trained in creative thinking via acquiring specific skills and systematic techniques, which directly acts on design product. The study methodology depends on the concept of experimental research that targets at exposing students to creative problem solving experience via carrying out a creative training course that concerns “Consequential Creativity”. That experiment examined the potentiality of enhancing the students’ ability of viewing problems in non-traditional perspectives that counts on the systematic procedures of problem solving. Tools for assessment before and after training have been implemented. The Experiment findings proved that the students’ creative thinking skill has been clearly improved after attending the course. Therefore, training in creative thinking can be considered as independent courses or within specific architectural curricula.     

Investor perceptions of CEO successor selection in the wake of integrity and competence failures: A policy capturing study

Research summary : Drawing on theory about signaling, sensemaking, and the romance of leadership, we extend inquiry on investors' perceptions of CEO succession following misconduct. Whereas past studies have treated misconduct monolithically, we examine failures of integrity and competence separately. Using a policy capturing methodology that isolates investors' decision making from potential confounds, we find that, following an integrity failure, investors perceive outside and interim successors positively but inside successors negatively. Following a competence failure, investors perceive outside successors positively but are ambivalent toward inside and interim successors. Our findings indicate that whether an act of misconduct was an integrity failure or a competence failure, and what type of successor the firm chooses, are important considerations when using CEO succession as a means to restore investor confidence. Managerial summary: Business headlines regularly feature episodes of organizational misconduct, such as product safety problems, environmental violations, employee mistreatment, and securities lawsuits, and their aftermath. In such scenarios, shareholders demand answers from the people at the top, even if those people were not directly responsible for the problem. As a result, companies often fire the CEO as a means to restore investor confidence. Does this work? It depends on the type of misconduct and who is the CEO's successor. Following a competence failure, investors welcome the appointment of an outsider, but they are indifferent to inside and interim successors. Following an integrity failure, shareholders greet outside and interim CEO successors favorably while frowning on the promotion of insiders. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.