Understanding the drivers of organizational innovations

Organizational innovations involve the implementation of significant changes in business practices, the workplace organization, and external relations. The article reports an analysis of organizational innovations' objectives and adoption in 240 Spanish healthcare businesses. Statistical tests find a dynamic behavior in healthcare organizations with 40.8% having developed an organizational innovation in the period from 2007 to 2009. The main objectives pursued are related to improved knowledge sharing and innovation skills. Results also reveal a close relationship between organizational and product/process innovations. Specifically, healthcare companies developing new organizational methods to improve innovation skills and knowledge sharing are more successful in adopting product and process innovations.     

Remittances,monetary institutions,and autocracies

ABSTRACT

How do remittances affect the choice of exchange rate regimes? Previous research shows that remittances, by easing the ‘impossible trinity’, increase the probability of governments adopting fixed exchange rates. However, that research overlooks the conditioning effect of monetary and political institutions. We argue that remittances, by altering recipient governments’ incentives to use monetary policy counter-cyclically, make central bank independence a credible anti-inflationary tool in less credible regimes; that is, autocracies. Thus, autocracies that receive remittances do not need to rely on fixed exchange rates. In this way, remittances open policy alternatives for developing autocracies. Statistical tests on a sample of 87 developing and transitional countries between 1980 and 2010 support our argument.     

Perspective: Changing Product Development Strategy—A Managerial Challenge

By changing its product development strategies to match more closely the wants and needs of the marketplace, a firm can transform product development into a formidable competitive weapon. Just as formidible, however, is the effort that this transformation requires. Established organizational structures and corporate politics present significant barriers to acheiving fundamental changes in product development strategy. Christer Karlsson and Pär Åhlstrom present a case study of one firm's efforts to build capabilities for creating new products quickly and efficiently. Rather than focus on the content of the firm's product development strategies, however, they emphasize the process this electromechanical manufacturing firm used for changing its product development strategy. Drawing on their experiences as clinical researchers in this effort, they describe key lessons learned during the change process, and they offer suggestions for managing the process of changing product development strategy. They highlight five key lessons learned during the strategy development process. First, rather than viewing product development as a line function, a firm should view product development as a key executive area with responsibility for the company's competitive position. Second, market issues are the responsibility, not only of marketing, but also of product development and production. Third, to avoid corporate myopia, management control systems must consider not only time and money, but also acheivement of goals. Fourth, strategic planning flows more smoothly if the participants start by mapping the firm's past and present position before attempting to define the desired position. Finally, formulation of a product development strategy is the responsibility of a multifunctional team of executives. Managers should keep a few rules in mind when devising a process for formulating a product development strategy. First, adopt a learning strategy throughout the change process. Formulation of a product development strategy involves many abstract concepts, and a successful strategy requires cross-functional consensus. Second, combine tangible, direct activities with long-term strategic aims. Third, avoid the pitfall of best practice. The form that the product development organization takes depends, to a great extent, on the type of development work. Finally, before discussing future strategies, the strategy formulation process should focus on analyzing the current situation.     

Innovation strategies and firm performance: Simple or complex strategies?

This paper analyzes the effect of various innovation strategies (ISs) of firms on their future performance, captured by labor productivity. Using five waves of the Community Innovation Survey in Sweden, we have traced the innovative behavior of firms over a decade, that is, from 2002 to 2012. We defined ISs to be either simple or complex (in various degrees). We call an IS a simple IS when firms engage in only one of the four types of Schumpeterian innovations, that is, product, process, marketing, or organizational, while a complex IS is when firms simultaneously engage in more than one type. The main findings indicate that those firms that choose and afford to have complex ISs are better off in terms of their future productivity in comparison with those firms that choose not to innovative (base group) and also in comparison with those firms that choose simple ISs. The results are mostly robust for those complex innovators that have a higher degree of complexity and also keep the balance between technological (product and process) and non-technological (organizational and marketing) innovations.     

Mapping retailing research with bibliometric indicators

Our study aims to give a global perspective regarding scientific research on retailing for the 1990–2014 period. The research shows a knowledge-domain-map that identifies the collaboration networks between authors and the links between journals. This was conducted through a bibliometric study that can be viewed with Visualization of similarities (VOS) viewer software. The results show that the Journal of Retailing and Management Science is the current leader in the field. In addition, Morgan and Hunt’s (1994) article in the Journal of Marketing is the most cited source to date.     

Time and Risk Diversification in Real Estate Investments: Assessing the Ex Post Economic Value

Welfare gains to long-horizon investors may derive from time diversification that exploits nonzero intertemporal return correlations associated with predictable returns. Real estate may thus become more desirable if its returns are negatively serially correlated. While it could be important for long-horizon investors, time diversification has been mostly investigated in asset menus without real estate and focusing on in-sample experiments. This article evaluates, ex post, the out-of-sample gains from diversification when equity real estate investment trusts (REITs) belong to the investment opportunity set. We find that diversification into REITs increases both the Sharpe ratio and the certainty equivalent of wealth for all investment horizons and for both classical and Bayesian (who account for parameter uncertainty) investors. The increases in Sharpe ratios are often statistically significant. However, the out-of-sample average Sharpe ratio and realized expected utility of long-horizon portfolios are frequently lower than that of a one-period portfolio, which casts doubt on the value of time diversification.     

Returns to Skills and the Distribution of Wages: Spain 1995–2010

In contrast to the pattern observed in other developed countries, the Spanish wage distribution compressed between 1995 and 2006 and became more disperse afterwards, so that in 2010 wage inequality was roughly similar to 1995. In this paper, we analyze the role of supply and demand factors when accounting for these facts. We start by decomposing observed wage changes into changes in the composition of the labour force and changes in the returns of workers' and jobs' characteristics. The results indicate that the compression of the wage distribution between 1995 and 2006 is largely explained by changes in returns, and particularly, by a decrease in the returns to education. We show that both the increase in the supply of high‐skilled workers and the increasing weight of low‐skilled occupations are related to the decreasing trend in the skill premium over this period. In contrast, the widening of the wage distribution after 2006 is largely explained by an increase in the relative demand for high‐skilled workers generating an increase in the school premium.     

The price of deposit liquidity: banks versus microfinance institutions

Using data from Bangladesh, this article finds that the liquidity premium – the difference between the interest paid on illiquid and liquid savings accounts – is higher in commercial banks than in microfinance institutions. One possible interpretation lies in the higher prevalence of time-inconsistency among the poor. The observed difference in liquidity premia could be due to poor time-inconsistent agents willing to forgo interest on illiquid savings accounts in order to discipline their future selves.     

Public–private innovation: barriers in the case of mobility as a service in West Sweden

Departing from open innovation (OI), this case study explores the development of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) in West Sweden. An analysis of 19 interviews reveals how representatives from involved actors perceive internal and external barriers as hampering the regional public transport authority’s attempts to collaborate with private actors, and that the perception of barriers is incongruent across public and private actors. Transferability to other cases of public–private OI is discussed, and implications for public actors are proposed. The paper expands the knowledge of preconditions for MaaS’ development and of the unique conditions for OI in public–private settings.     

The effect of private high school education on the college trajectory

We use the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) to estimate the effect of private secondary schooling on the average college trajectory of a student in the United States, examining college enrollment and degree attainment across the private and public sectors. We provide the first estimates of the effect of private schooling on college degree attainment using the most recent NELS survey. To account for potential non-random selection we exploit the variation in the grade spans of the students’ middle schools. Results indicate that private schooling has a significant, positive effect on college enrollment and degree attainment. The effect on college enrollment diminishes with time, suggesting that private schools influence degree attainment by getting students to college sooner.