Skating on thin ice: rule changes and team strategies in the NHL

Abstract.  In an effort to stimulate a more exciting and entertaining style of play, the National Hockey Association (NHL) changed the rewards associated with the results of overtime games. Under the new rules, teams tied at the end of regulation both receive a single point, regardless of the outcome in overtime. A team scoring in the sudden-death 5-minute overtime period would earn an additional point. Prior to the rule change in the 1999–2000 season, the team losing in overtime would receive no points while the winning team earned 2 points. This paper presents a theoretical model to explain the effect of the rule change on the strategy of play during both the overtime period and the regulation time game. The results suggest that under the new overtime, format equally powerful teams will play more offensively in overtime resulting in more games decided by a sudden-death goal. The results also suggest that while increasing the likelihood of attacking in overtime, the rule change would have a perverse effect on the style of play during regulation by causing them to play conservatively for the tie. Empirical data confirm the theoretical results. The paper also shows that increasing the rewards to a win in regulation time would prevent teams from playing defensively during regular time.     

The Performance of Public and Private Enterprise under Conditions of Active and Passive Ownership and Competition and Monopoly

Privatisation is driven by the belief that public ownership is cost inefficient, in particular under monopoly. However, some theoretical and empirical studies have questioned whether privatisation will necessarily lead to efficiency gains. This paper focuses on the impact of ownership when owners can be either active or passive. Active owners decide on output, whereas passive owners delegate this decision to a risk-averse manager. It turns out that managerial slack as reflected in the marginal costs will actually be the same or higher in a private monopoly than under public ownership. The impact of entry is theoretically ambiguous, but an increased number of firms in an oligopoly may lead to lower efficiency.     

Conceptualizing dysfunctional consequences of performance measurement in the public sector

ABSTRACT

Performance measurement (PM) has become increasingly popular in the management of public sector organizations (PSOs). This is somewhat paradoxical considering that PM has been criticized for having dysfunctional consequences. Although there are reasons to believe that PM may have dysfunctional consequences, when they occur has not been clarified. The aim of this research is to conceptualize the dysfunctional consequences of PM in PSOs. Based on complementarity theory and contingency theory we conclude that dysfunctional consequences of PM are a matter of interactions between PM design and PM use, between control practices in the control system and between PM and context.     

Sourcing ethics in the textile sector: the case of C&A

During the last years competition in the textile sector has increased, putting financial returns under considerable pressure. As a result, production has shifted to low wage countries in the third world. This has raised the relevance of ethical procedures. This paper analyses how C&A, as one of the largest Western apparel companies, organises its sourcing ethics, notwithstanding the financial pressure in the market. Based on interviews with Asian suppliers of C&A during the second half of 2000, we review the opinions of external stakeholders about the sourcing ethics of C&A. Finally, we evaluate C&A's sourcing ethics from a theoretical perspective.     

Does Competition Make Firms More Flexible? A Study of Limited Managerial Cognition

A model of procedural decision making in firms is combined with an oligopoly model to study the effect of limited managerial cognition on firm flexibility. It is argued that a firm may vary its flexibility, and, hence, that there exists a trade-off between decision-making costs and costs due to imperfect adjustment to the environment. The main conclusions are the following: (1) The level of flexibility chosen by firms tends to be too low, from a social welfare point of view. (2) Entry reduces firm flexibility. Aggregated flexibility in the market may, however, increase in which case consumers are unambiguously better off. (3) Integration of isolated markets increases firm flexibility and consumer welfare.     

Kritische Bemerkungen zur wissenschaftlichen Grundlage der Ausbeutungslehre

Ohne ZusammenfassungDer Verfasser dankt Herrn Dr. jur. Edmund Marhefka, Berlin, bestens für seinen wertvollen Beistand bei der deutschen Fassung der Abhandlung.     

A theory of rent seeking with informational foundations

I develop a model of rent seeking with informational foundations and an arbitrary number of rent seekers, and I compare the results with Tullock’s (1980) classic model where the influence activities are “black-boxed.” Given the microfoundations, the welfare consequences of rent seeking can be studied. In particular, I show that competition among rent seekers can be socially beneficial, since the additional information that the decision maker gets access to makes the increase in rent-seeking expenditures worthwhile. However, the analysis also highlights a logic that, under natural parameter assumptions, makes the rent seekers spend more resources on rent seeking than is in society’s interest, which is consistent with the spirit of the rent-seeking literature.      

Nurturing and growing innovative start-ups: the role of policy as integrator

Nurturing and growing innovative start-ups have become an important point on the political agenda. After the dotcom bubble, however, many financial schemes and incubation initiatives initiated, in the mid-nineties, were cancelled or down scaled. There was a consensus that innovative start-ups need more than just money. Networking and coaching were identified as additional needs. Besides this, there is a change in the intensity and nature of these needs during the different stages of the early life cycle. In this paper we make an in-depth study of three approaches to nurture and grow innovative start-ups. Each of these initiatives embeds in a very different national innovation system: Chalmers Innovation in Sweden and Anvar/Banque de Développement des PMEs in France, and Sitra's PreSeed Service in Finland. Each approach is compared in terms of its financing, networking, and coaching support, along the different stages of the start-up's life cycle.