Work–life policies and female faculty representation in US doctoral‐granting economics departments

This article examines the relationships between work–life policies and female faculty representation and promotion at US doctoral‐granting economics departments. The data were collected in 2012 on tenure‐track and tenured full‐time faculty from 125 departments and updated in 2018 to include promotion status. Variables include individuals and their educational backgrounds, professional experience and publications. Only publications and experience are statistically significant for predicting academic rank for the female subsample, and the impact of publications is much larger for women compared with men. Work–life policies differ in explaining the representation of women across academic ranks. Dual‐career policies have a positive effect on female representation at the assistant and associate levels but do not have a statistically significant impact at the full professor level. National Science Foundation ADVANCE grantee universities have increased female representation across all ranks, but the effect is the smallest at the full professor level. Work–life policies are insignificant in predicting promotion.     

Distortions,endogenous managerial skills and productivity differences

We develop a span-of-control model where managerial skills are endogenous and the outcome of investments over the life cycle of managers. We calibrate this model to U.S. plant-size data to quantify the effects of distortions that are correlated with the size of production units, and how these effects are amplified by managerial investments. We find a quantitatively important role for managerial investments. Distortions that consist of a tax rate of 20% on the top 50% managers reduce steady-state output by about 14.6% in our benchmark model. When skills are exogenous the reduction is about 9.2%.     

Future-oriented technology analysis as a driver of strategy and policy

The methodology known as strategic foresight is an important tool to be used in long-term strategic planning activities and in support of the decision making process in public as well as private sectors. This article addresses the use of strategic foresight applied to the strategic management plan for an agency that deals with the funding and promotion for the development of science, technology and innovation in Brazil, and the logic that permeated its construction, promoting an alliance of the concepts of strategy and foresight. It has as key elements the long-term vision and the adoption of participatory approach and qualitative and quantitative methods. The methodological framework involved the use of different techniques, methods and tools, including, among others, web survey, diagnosis, SWOT, future timeline, interviews, workshops and strategic roadmap.     

Strategic actions in European soccer: Do they matter?

The objective of this paper is to discover (if and) what kind of strategic actions European football clubs conduct and whether these actions affect their financial performance and therefore their competitive position. In this paper we measure the context, content and process dimensions of strategic renewal and relate these to financial performance. The individual strategic actions undertaken by eight football organisations during the period 1995–2002 were examined. In total, 963 strategic actions could be assigned to three dimensions of strategic action. Our study shows that even in an environment in which other factors are crucial for surviving, undertaking strategic actions does contribute to the financial performance of firms. In the European football industry that requires some kind of ‘competitive balance’, strategic actions positively contribute to financial performance.     

Naubauer,Robert G. Packaging,the Contemporary Media. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1973

Abstract

Additional advertising regulation is being proposed for both tobacco and alcoholic beverage products. The possible outcome of these proposed regulations is examined based on the effect that advertising regulation has had on tobacco consumption in the past.     

Managerial Work in a Practice-Embodying Institution: The Role of Calling, The Virtue of Constancy

What can be learned from a small scale study of managerial work in a highly marginal and under-researched working community? This article uses the ‘goods–virtues–practices–institutions’ framework to examine the managerial work of owner–directors of traditional circuses. Inspired by MacIntyre’s arguments for the necessity of a narrative understanding of the virtues, interviews explored how British and Irish circus directors accounted for their working lives. A purposive sample was used to select subjects who had owned and managed traditional touring circuses for at least 15 years, a period in which the economic and reputational fortunes of traditional circuses have suffered badly. This sample enabled the research to examine the self-understanding of people who had, at least on the face of it, exhibited the virtue of constancy. The research contributes to our understanding of the role of the virtues in organizations by presenting evidence of an intimate relationship between the virtue of constancy and a ‘calling’ work orientation. This enhances our understanding of the virtues that are required if management is exercised as a domain-related practice.     

Can Ethical Organizational Character Be Stimulated and Enabled?: “Upbuilding” Dialog As Crisis Management Method

Crisis management can be simultaneously a content specific problem solving process and an opportunity for stimulating and enabling an organizations ethical tradition. Crisis can be an opportunity for ethical organizational development. Kierkegaardian upbuilding dialog method builds from within the internal ethical tradition of an organization to respond to crises while simultaneously adapting and protecting the organizations tradition. The crisis itself may not be a directly ethical crisis, but the method of responding to the crisis is built upon the ethical foundations of an organizations tradition. A limitation of this method is that it may be less applicable to organizations with questionably ethical traditions. The concept of upbuilding dialog is derived from Kierkegaard, but here is applied to organizational crisis management. The method is illustrated and discussed in the context of a wrongful death crisis of the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute, a nonprofit organization, and an economic survival crisis at Ben and Jerrys, a business organization.     

MUTUAL FUND PORTFOLIO CHOICE IN THE PRESENCE OF DYNAMIC FLOWS

We analyze the implications of dynamic flows on a mutual fund's portfolio decisions. In our model, myopic investors dynamically allocate capital between a riskless asset and an actively managed fund which charges fraction‐of‐fund fees. The presence of dynamic flows induces “flow hedging” portfolio distortions on the part of the fund, even though investors are myopic. Our model predicts a positive relationship between a fund's proportional fee rate and its volatility. This is a consequence of higher‐fee funds holding more extreme equity positions. Although both the fund portfolio and investors' trading strategies depend on the proportional fee rate, the equilibrium value functions do not. Finally, we show that our results hold even if investors are allowed to directly trade some of the risky securities.