Investigating Managers' Exploration and Exploitation Activities: The Influence of Top‐Down,Bottom‐Up,and Horizontal Knowledge Inflows*

abstract This paper develops and tests hypotheses on the influence of managers' knowledge inflows on managers' exploration and exploitation activities. Based on a survey among managers of a leading electronics firm, the findings indicate, as expected, that top‐down knowledge inflows of managers positively relate to the extent to which these managers conduct exploitation activities, while they do not relate to managers' exploration activities. Furthermore, as expected, bottom‐up and horizontal knowledge inflows of managers positively relate to these managers' exploration activities, while they do not relate to managers' exploitation activities. We contribute to current literature on exploration and exploitation by focusing on the manager level of analysis, and by adding the importance of knowledge flow configurations to studies which investigate the impact of organizational factors on exploration and exploitation.     

Budgetary Reforms in the Non-profit Sector: A Comparative Analysis of Experiences in Health Care and Higher Education in the Netherlands

This study reports on budgetary reforms in the Dutch health care and higher education sector in the last twenty years. Comparisons between the two sectors reveal that not all reforms adhere to the principles of New Public Management. New budget systems in both sectors are mixed systems, with university budgets developing from input to more output based systems and hospital budgeting systems from output to more input oriented systems. More output-based budget systems appear to stimulate production, contradicting government's policy of cost reduction. The most effective reform measures turn out to be those who are best aligned with opinions and attitudes of medical and academic professionals.     

Key human resource strategies in an organization downturn

Increasingly often, executives are being called upon to manage organizations through downturns. Of critical importance to the long-term health of a firm is how its employees are treated during these stressful periods. Human resource strategies must minimize the loss of key personnel needed for organizational survival and turnaround. The purpose of this article is to discuss why key employees leave organizations following a downturn. We propose two reasons: Either employees abandon a sinking ship or upon considering a lack of career opportunities, they take well-timed exits. Then, by considering individual career issues that arise from an organization downturn, ways to counteract ill-timed employee exit are identified. These human resource strategies either reduce organizational uncertainty or increase career opportunity.     

Industrial robot technology

Industrial robots are currently being introduced in increasing numbers around the industrialized world. How intelligent are these devices and what threat or challenge do they pose? The evidence is that the current first generation of robot is a rather limited but welcome piece of factory automation. The next generations, likely to be introduced in the late 1980s and 1990s, might lead to a different response.     

Pensions: the voluntary growth of participation*

In spite of the deepening of the economic recession, the issue of employee participation or industrial democracy has not disappeared from the political or industrial agendas. This article, which reports the findings of a two year UK study at Glasgow University, examines one area of survival—employee participation in the management of pension schemes.     

INSIDER TRADING - A REVIEW OF AUSTRALIAN AND UNITED STATES REGULATION

This paper looks at the regulation of insider trading in the Australian and United States context. Both the common law and statutory positions are outlined and where necessary, deficiencies in the law are pointed out. Several areas of potential reform are discussed by the authors.