Separating the Hawks from the Doves: Evidence from continuous time laboratory games

Human players in our laboratory experiment received flow payoffs over 120 seconds each period from a standard Hawk–Dove bimatrix game played in continuous time. Play converged closely to the symmetric mixed Nash equilibrium under a one-population matching protocol. When the same players were matched in a two-population protocol with the same bimatrix, they showed clear movement towards an asymmetric (and very inequitable) pure Nash equilibrium of the game. These findings support distinctive predictions of evolutionary game theory.     

Comment on “Revealing Differences in Willingness to Pay Due to the Dimensionality of Stated Choice Designs: An Initial Assessment”

There are very few studies that quantify the interactions and tradeoffs between statistical and cognitive efficiency in designing stated-choice studies. While a conceptual framework for evaluating cognitive strategies would be desirable, Hensher adopts a strictly empirical approach in this experiment. The success of the study must be evaluated in light of his aggregating attributes rather than controlling the number of attributes, asymmetry in the narrow-range and wide-range attributes, and lack of orthogonality between the number of attributes and number of alternatives. Nevertheless, Hensher challenges uncritical acceptance of any given set of design features and correctly insists that we confirm our experience with rigorous, quantitative experiments.     

Acquisitions and Real Options: The Greenfield Alternative

Although acquisitions are a popular way to enter new markets, empirical evidence tends to indicate few benefits accrue to acquiring firms. This might be the case because firms use acquisitions when they should be employing an alternative mode of expansion. Applying real options theory to this issue, we suggest that greenfield start‐up ventures provide a real option alternative to acquisitions for firms establishing new international subsidiary units. To test this notion we examine a sample of Western European firms entering the emerging economies of Eastern Europe. The evidence suggests that acquisitions are a good choice only when firms enter markets containing low demand uncertainty and when these firms possess acquisition‐based strategic flexibility. Overall, our analysis indicates that greenfield ventures appear to provide firms with a real option when making the acquisition decision.     

Supply management in American public administration: Towards an academic discipline?

This article examines the development of supply management in the U.S. to assess its progress towards academic disciplinary status. A comparison of the fields of business administration and public administration indicates that supply management is more developed in the former than in the latter, which inhibits its disciplinary status. Various reasons for this uneven development in the two fields are explored. The paper argues that a paradigm shift must occur for public supply management, which will re-orient it around the concept of the public interest. This will require public supply professionals to participate strategically in public policy-making in order to ascertain and promote the public interest. A policy framework is used to illustrate this re-orientation and to suggest directions for further research.     

The Contribution of International Graduate Students to US Innovation

The impact of international students in the United States on innovative activity is estimated using a model of idea generation. Results indicate that the presence of foreign graduate students has a significant and positive impact on both future patent applications and future patents awarded to university and non-university institutions. Our central estimates suggest that a 10% increase in the number of foreign graduate students would raise patent applications by 4.5%, university patent grants by 6.8% and non-university patent grants by 5.0%. Thus, reductions in foreign graduate students from visa restrictions could significantly reduce US innovative activity. Increases in skilled immigration also have a positive, but smaller, impact on patenting.     

“Offshoring”: How big an issue?

Spurred by the political debate in the US and several high-profile corporate moves, "offshoring" has become a lively topic of discussion. This paper by Grant Colquhoun, Keith Edmonds and David Goodger tries to put recent developments in context and argues that "offshoring" should be seen as part of a long-standing and largely beneficial trend of international specialisation. In the short term at least, the transfer of service sector activities abroad is likely to involve relatively small numbers of jobs when compared to overall UK employment and labour market turnover. However, specific areas — such as call centres, back office functions and software programming — are expected to be increasingly affected, impacting upon regions of the UK with heavy exposure to those activities and giving rise to adjustment costs. In contrast, retailing, hotels and catering and personal services could well benefit from the move of low value-added jobs abroad. Overall, the impact of "offshoring" on the UK economy in terms of output and productivity should be positive.     

Employee share ownership and performance: golden path or golden handcuffs?

Using matched employer-employee data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, it is suggested that the presence of employee share ownership at a workplace is not significantly associated with employee commitment to the organization. There is evidence of a significant negative relationship between share ownership and workplace turnover, which explains part of the positive share ownership/performance relationship. This calls into question the postulate that share ownership has its main impact upon performance via the closer alignment of employees' and employers' values and interests – the golden path – rather than the lowering of employee turnover – the golden handcuffs.     

Accidental,unprepared, and unsupported: clinical nurses becoming managers

To what extent have hospitals developed their skilled clinicians to perform the administrative and human resources (HR) manager role of the ward manager? We consider this research question through an analysis of an acute hospital called ‘The Hospital’ where the executive team is aiming to adopt a form of high-performance work system (HPWS). We focus primarily on explanations in terms of conditions, rather than the personalities of individual managers, which are most powerful in shaping their behaviour. There has long been a failure of hospitals (and other employing organisations) to develop fully the skills required by employees before they become line managers. Line managers are a critical link in the high-performance chain and this study illustrates that, despite their rhetoric, hospitals may still have much potential for implementing schemes to develop nurses further to prepare them for line-manager positions and to support them after they move into such roles. We infer from this study that such hospitals may not yet have completed the journey to having HPWS. Hence, there is still much scope for such hospitals to progress and enjoy the benefits that proponents claim for HPWS.