In search of global leaders

For all the talk about global organizations and executives, there's no definitive answer to the question of what we really mean by "global." A presence in multiple countries? Cultural adaptability? A multilingual top team? We asked four CEOs and the head of an international recruiting agency--HSBC's Stephen Green, Schering-Plough's Fred Hassan, GE's Jeffrey-lmmelt, Flextronics's Michael Marks, and Egon Zehnder's Daniel Meiland--to tell us what they think. They share some common ground. They all agree, for example, that the shift from a local to a global marketplace is irreversible and gaining momentum. "We're losing sight of the reality of globalization. But we should pay attention, because national barriers are quickly coming down", Daniel Meiland says. "If you look ahead five or ten years, the people with the top jobs in large corporations ... will be those who have lived in several cultures and who can converse in at least two languages." But the CEOs also disagree on many issues--on the importance of overseas assignments, for instance, and on the degree to which you need to adhere to local cultural norms. Some believe strongly that the global leader should, as a prerequisite to the job, live and work in other countries. As Stephen Green put it, "If you look at the executives currently running [HSBC's] largest businesses, all of them have worked in more than one, and nearly all in more than two, major country markets." Others downplay the importance of overseas assignments. "Putting people in foreign settings doesn't automatically imbue new attitudes, and it is attitudes rather than experiences that make a culture global," says Fred Hassan. The executives' essays capture views that are as diverse and multidimensional as the companies they lead.     

Embodying Embodiment in a Structural,Macroeconomic Input-Output Model

In this paper, I develop a regression-based system of labour productivity equations that account for capital-embodied technological change and I incorporate this system into IDLIFT, a structural, macroeconomic input-output model of the US economy. Builders of regression-based forecasting models have long had difficulty finding labour productivity equations that exhibit the "Solowian' property that movements in investment should cause accompanying movements in labour productivity. The production theory developed by Solow and others dictates that this causation is driven by the effect of traditional capital deepening as well as technological change embodied in capital. Lack of measurement of the latter has hampered the ability of researchers to estimate properly the productivity-investment relationship. Recent research by Wilson (2001) has alleviated this difficulty by estimating industry-level embodied technological change. In this paper, I utilize those estimates to construct capital stocks adjusted for technological change and then use these adjusted stocks to estimate Solow-type labour productivity equations. It is shown that replacing IDLIFT's former productivity equations, based on changes in output and time trends, with the new equations, results in a convergence between the dynamic behaviour of the model and that predicted by traditional (Solowian) production theory.     

Commercial exploitation of new technologies arising from university research: start-ups and markets for technology

The creation of start-up firms is an important method of commercializing new technologies arising from R&D at universities and other research institutions. Most research into start-ups presumes that these firms develop products or services. However, start-ups may operate through markets for technology by selling or licensing rights to use their technology to other firms – typically established firms – who develop and sell new products or services based on the technology. In this study of 57 public start-up firms created to commercialize the results of university research, we find evidence that (1) operating through markets for technology is a common approach to commercialization, (2) start-ups that operate in markets for technology can be effectively distinguished in practice from start-ups operating through product markets, and (3) there are substantive differences in the business activities of firms depending on whether they operate through product markets or markets for technology.     

Sales channel integration after mergers and acquisitions: A methodological approach for avoiding common pitfalls

This article addresses the integration of sales channels after mergers and acquisitions (M&A) by appraising the strengths, weaknesses, and biases associated with the four most common frameworks for evaluating sales channels (sales management, historical performance, strategic fit, and customer choice) for their appropriateness in a post-M&A context. The authors develop a methodological approach that uses a balanced-scorecard framework to guide managers through the sales channel integration process, and then apply this approach to the merger of two industrial firms' sales organizations across 21 territories. In so doing, they reveal various pitfalls and propose and test some analytical corrections. Longitudinal performance data support comparisons across the different evaluative frameworks; in particular, the sales management and customer choice frameworks provide the most insight into channel partners' post-integration performance. The results support the premise that channel integration can be improved by accounting for factors unique to the M&A context and using an approach that triangulates multiple perspectives.     

Has Advertising Lost Its Meaning? Views of UK and US Millennials

The findings of a study of Millennials in USA and the UK—an increasingly important and digitally savvy segment of consumers—reveal that they see advertising as Companies promoting a product or service to people through media. Their perception is simple and all-encompassing with no evidence that they distinguish between different types of media or different types of communication. Some variation between the views of Millennials in the two countries is also identified, although this is less than expected. The findings contribute to an important and continuing debate among academics and marketing practitioners over how advertising should be defined in today’s multichannel environment. The findings are also compared with other recent definitions of advertising, and their implications are discussed.     

An historical perspective on governmental accounting education

This paper presents a senior governmental accounting educator’s perspectives on how governmental accounting education has changed over the past 35 years and what we can expect for the future. Having begun my academic career during the 1970s, a period of turmoil and debate about the deficient state of governmental accounting, I look at how events of this period influenced my personal decision to specialize in governmental accounting education and how those events led to a path of dramatic improvement in governmental accounting standards, practice, and education. Key trends in governmental accounting education are discussed along with major changes in practice guidance over the years that have challenged textbook authors and faculty in staying abreast of change. The paper identifies many governmental accounting educators who have made significant contributions to governmental accounting and auditing policy and encourages current educators to seek ways to participate in the policy-making process. Finally, the paper discusses the future outlook for governmental accounting education and concludes that governmental accounting educators are well positioned to contribute to achieving the recently released recommendations of the Pathways Commission (2012).     

A decomposition algorithm for N-player games

An N-player game can be decomposed by adding a coordinator who interacts bilaterally with each player. The coordinator proposes profiles of strategies to the players, and his payoff is maximized when players’ optimal replies agree with his proposal. When the feasible set of proposals is finite, a solution of an associated linear complementarity problem yields an equilibrium of the approximate game and thus an approximate equilibrium of the original game. Computational efficiency is improved by using vertices of a triangulation of the players’ strategy space for the coordinator’s pure strategies. Computational experience is reported.     

The changing consumer in the Netherlands : Recent changes in environmental variables and their consequences for future consumption and marketing

Changes in many environmental (exogenous) factors during the eighties and early nineties affect marketing management and consumer behaviour in the Netherlands. Some of these factors relate to the effects of the economic recessions in the early eighties and the early nineties. Other factors are autonomous trends in a number of economic, demographic, and cultural factors. These factors determine a “macro marketing mix” for marketing management decisions of companies. In this article, we discuss the changing consumer environment and its impact on production and retailing of consumer goods and services in the Netherlands for the last decade of this century. This information on the Netherlands, as well as on the other nations of the European Community, is relevant for marketers operating in, or considering entering, the Dutch market. For governmental decision makers and scientists this information on future consumption and marketing is relevant for their policy and research.     

Olympians or lemmings? the postmodernist fun run

The phenomenon of mass fun running in Britain dates from the early 1980s and displays much of the ideology of the ‘Sport For All’ campaign. While running as an activity can be viewed as a natural pastime, the notion of mass jogging, as exemplified by the Great North Run and the London Marathon, is more difficult to comprehend and requires further analysis. This paper argues that the mass fun run is an example of the ‘Society of Spectacle’: a commercial creature which is heavily reliant on media coverage and sponsorship and which serves as an endorsement and symbol of postmodern society. The media stresses the ‘tradition’ of such events and uses them as images of human decency and national unity. Yet the relationship between audience, participant and spectacle remains fragile and dependent upon commercial considerations.