How to build a strategic network: A practitioner-oriented process model for the ICT sector

One critical success factor for the future will be the ability to build and develop strategic networks. This ability is especially vital in the dynamic information and communication technology (ICT) sector, where the development of competitive offerings often requires a coalition of platform and service providers. However, the academic literature has yet to propose a systematic managerial tool for the strategic network building process. Our distinctive contribution is the development of a practitioner-oriented process model for building a strategic network, which is linked to the resource-based view and the value creation system approach. Moreover, we suggest that instead of being a sequential stage-wise process, the construction of a strategic network can be divided into parallel, although not necessarily simultaneous, sub-processes based on the required value activities in the entire business concept. The resulting network-building model is used to provide managerial suggestions for the efficient construction of strategic business networks.     

Role of Knowledge in Value Creation in Business Nets*

abstract This paper focuses on the role of knowledge in intentionally created business networks called nets. Nets are seen to offer firms collective benefits beyond those of a single firm or market transaction. We propose that the types of knowledge and learning required in the management of different types of business net are dependent on the value creation characteristics of the net types. Based on this we suggest a classification of three generic net types –‘current business nets’, ‘business renewal nets’, and ‘emerging new business nets’– and argue that they pose different conditions for management in nets. Using this framework and integrating notions from the industrial network approach, strategic management and dynamic capabilities view, and organizational learning we make a number of observations and propositions about the role of knowledge and learning in the three types of business net. The paper contributes to the emerging theory of network management.     

In-work policies in Europe: Killing two birds with one stone?

Generous social assistance has been held responsible for inactivity traps and social exclusion in several European countries, hence the recent trend of promoting employment through in-work transfers. Yet, the relative consensus on the need for ‘making work pay’ policies is muddied by a number of concerns relative to the design of the reforms and the treatment of the family dimension. Relying on EUROMOD, a EU-15 integrated tax-benefit microsimulation software, we simulate two types of in-work benefits. The first one is means-tested on family income, in the fashion of the British Working Family Tax Credit, while the second is a purely individualized policy. Both reforms are built on the same cost basis (after behavioral responses) and simulated in three European countries suspected to experience large poverty traps, namely Finland, France and Germany. The potential labor supply responses to the reforms and the subsequent redistributive impacts are assessed for each country using a structural discrete-choice model. We compare how both reforms achieve poverty reduction and social inclusion (measured as the number of transitions into activity). All three countries present different initial conditions, including existing tax-benefit systems and distribution of incomes and wages. These sources of heterogeneity are exploited together with different labor supply elasticities to explain the cross-country differences in the impact of the reforms.     

Model reference adaptive systems applied to regression analyses

The adaptive estimation procedure of model reference adaptive systems is modified and applied to linear models. In general the principle can be used for almost any time series model. Because of the recursive nature of the resulting estimator, it is computationally appealing, especially when a time series is considered as a flow of data. In addition, the estimator turns out to have certain statistical optimality properties.
In the linear regression setting, Ridge estimators turn out to constitute a subclass of the adaptive estimators considered, whereas for unknown measurement variance, the resulting estimators are related to J ames -S tkin type estimators, and have better properties than the latter. The estimator is shown to be strongly consistent and to converge in law to a normal variate under the standard assumptions of linear models. Further it is shown to be admissible and minimax in restricted parameter spaces. The connection between K alman filters and the classical least-squares estimator is also pointed out.     

Blockholder Exit Threats and Financial Reporting Quality

Recent theoretical and empirical studies suggest that blockholders (shareholders with ownership ≥ 5 percent) exert governance through the threat of exit. Blockholders have strong incentives to gather private information and sell their shares when managers are perceived to underperform. To prevent blockholders from selling their shares and the firm from suffering a stock price decline, managers align their actions with the interests of shareholders. As a result of the greater manager‐shareholder alignment, managers' actions are more likely to be in shareholders' best interest, and consequently there is less need for managers to manipulate earnings. Consistent with these predictions from economic theory, we find evidence that as exit threat increases, firms have higher financial reporting quality. Theory also predicts that the impact of blockholders' exit threat on financial reporting quality (FRQ) should increase as the manager's wealth is tied more closely to the stock price, and this is what we find. Our study contributes to the research on the impact of shareholders on FRQ and to an emerging literature on the impact of blockholders in financial markets. Blockholders play an important role in managers' reporting outcomes through their actions as informed investors.     

Internal Markets,Management by Targets,and Quasi‐Markets: An Analysis of Health Care Reforms in the English NHS

There have been two major attempts to introduce market mechanisms into England's National Health Service: the ‘internal market’ reform project of the 1990s, and the ‘quasi‐market’ of the 2000s. Despite their similarities, the former attempt was on balance unsuccessful while the latter succeeded. This article examines and compares the outcomes of the two periods, analysing the reasons for their relative successes and failures. It goes on to highlight options for future reforms that would build on those achievements.     

Agglomeration and clusters: Tools and insights from coagglomeration patterns

Geographic clusters have received first‐order policy attention despite our limited academic knowledge about them. I explain how coagglomeration patterns of industries can inform the analysis of clusters by allowing us to better delineate them; to explore the causal mechanisms underlying them; and to more finely assess their impact on various economic outcomes.     

John Rawls’ Concept of the Reasonable: A Study of Stakeholder Action and Reaction Between British Petroleum and the Victims of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

Journal of Business Ethics - In his political philosophy, John Rawls has a normative notion of reasonable behaviour expected of citizens in a pluralist society. We interpret the various strands of...     

Time-specific disturbances and cross-sectional dependency in a small-sample heterogeneous panel data unit root test

In their seminal work, Im et al. (1997 Im, KS, Pesaran, MH and Shin, Y. 1997. Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels. 1997. Working paper, Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge. Mimeographed [Google Scholar], 2003 Im, KS, Pesaran, MH and Shin, Y. 2003. Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels. Journal of Econometrics, 115: 53–74. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) suggested that time series for several cross-sectional units could be used to increase the power of the Dickey--Fuller unit root test. They argued that when cross-sectional correlation is a problem that can be modelled by a time-specific factor, demeaning across the cross-sectional units can solve the problem. In this study, this proposition is proven valid, but it is also shown that previously supplied standardizing moments are inappropriate when the number of cross-sections are small, causing size to differ from the significance level. To correct this size distortion, the current paper supplies response surface parameters that can be used to obtain moments that are valid when a time-specific factor suffices for modelling cross-sectional correlation in the heterogeneous panel data unit root framework. The correct size of the panel data unit root test comes at the cost of a somewhat lower power against a stationary alternative.