The New InstitutionalismContradictory Notions of Change

This article suggests that the new institutionalism contains ambiguous and contradictory notions of change. By setting up a model that explains institutional constraints on decision makers, the new institutionalism correctly points out the limits of a rational choice framework of economic decision making. However, by failing to explain the sources and avenues of modifications of those constraints, the new institutionalism is unable to provide a satisfactory explanation of change. Instead, we find a patchwork of exogenous factors, such as technology, culture, and ideology, which feed into institutional change in unclear ways. This paper reaches the conclusion that those factors for change should be examined directly, rather than through the proxy of institutions.     

The institutional dynamics of early modern Eurasian trade: The commenda and the corporation

The focus of this article is on legal-economic institutions that organized early-modern Eurasian trade. It identifies two such institutions that had divergent dispersion patterns, the corporation and the commenda. The corporation ended up as a uniquely European institution that did not migrate until the era of European colonization. The commenda that originated in Arabia migrated all the way to Western Europe and to China. The article explains their divergent dispersion based on differences in their institutional and geographical environments and on dynamic factors, claiming that institutional analysis errs when it ignores migration of institutions and providing building blocks for the modeling of institutional migration.     

Strategic Value Assessment and Explorative Learning Opportunities with Customers

This study recognizes that collaboration with customers for new product development may bring important financial benefits to firms, but at the same time may seriously hamper explorative learning. Many firms are approached by customers with requests to develop new products for them. While such requests may strengthen customer relationships and result in short‐term financial gains, it may force a firm in technologically undesirable directions. As a result, many firms struggle with the dilemma of, on the one hand, responding to customer requests, and on the other hand, safeguarding the long‐term competitive position of the firm. Firms with strong customer ties are particularly prone to this dilemma. Drawing on opportunity recognition literature, capability monitoring literature as well as goal setting theory, the authors have developed a framework arguing that Strategic Value Assessment (SVA) can help resolve this. SVA is defined as an a priori business evaluation of the value of a particular innovation collaboration, based on anticipated long‐term strategic benefits. It helps innovative firms to focus on collaboration with customers with lead user status and to develop intense relationships, allowing for more effective knowledge transfer and learning. The framework is tested using data collected from a sample of 136 business‐to‐business firms in the Netherlands. The sampling frame was a panel of small and medium‐sized high‐tech enterprises. The study finds positive direct and indirect effects of SVA on explorative learning. In addition, the findings show that the intense collaboration/learning relationship is positively moderated by customer lead user status, and negatively moderated by customer dependence. The findings suggest that SVA is a useful heuristic for managers to utilize opportunities for innovation involving collaboration with customers.     

Weight-Based Discrimination in the Workplace: Is Legal Protection Necessary?

Legal protection against weight-based discrimination in the workplace exists in the U.S. However, it is quite limited and its application across jurisdictions is inconsistent. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether such protection is needed—in other words, whether significant weight-based discrimination exists in the workplace, and, if it does, to what extent the legal system should intervene to prevent such discrimination.     

Distribution Equity: Creating Value through Managing Knowledge Relationships with Distribution Channels

We introduce the concept of distribution equity torepresent the asset value of a distribution relationship. Distributionequity is characterized as the increase in options value ofmarketing opportunities that result when a firm effectively utilizesits knowledge relationships with an existing distribution channelpartner to create and market its products. By providing a frameworkcharacterizing various forms of knowledge in a channel partnerrelationship and the ways in which they can increase the optionsvalue of a firm's product development and marketing opportunities,we provide a framework for improving the management of distributionequity.