The ambidextrous CEO

Although most managers publicly acknowledge the need to explore new businesses and markets, the claims of established businesses on company resources almost always come first, especially when times are hard. When top teams allow the tension between core and speculative units to play out at lower levels of management, innovation loses out. At best, leaders of core business units dismiss innovation initiatives as irrelevancies. At worst, they see the new businesses as threats to the firm's core identity and values. Many CEOs take a backseat in debates over resources, ceding much of their power to middle managers, and the company ends up as a collection of feudal baronies. This is a recipe for long-term failure, say the authors. Their research of 12 top management teams at major companies suggests that firms thrive only when senior teams lead ambidextrously--when they foster a state of constant creative conflict between the old and the new. Successful CEOs first develop a broad, forward-looking strategic aspiration that sets ambitious targets both for innovation and core business growth. They then hold the tension between innovation unit demands and core business demands at the very top of the organization. And finally they embrace inconsistency, allowing themselves the latitude to pursue multiple and often conflicting agendas.     

The impact of housing rehabilitation on local neighborhoods: the case of small community development organizations

Across the nation, nonprofit organizations located in poor and declining neighborhoods are promoting homeownership in the hopes that their efforts will stave off decline and contribute to neighborhood stability. A common homeownership strategy among nonprofits is to acquire boarded-up or deteriorated homes at a low price, rehabilitate them, and then sell them at an affordable price. As these programs continue, nonprofit organizations want to show quantitatively that neighborhood revitalization works—that the funds devoted to an area stabilize neighborhoods or, even more, that they initiate a surge of continued upward progress. But, unlike their larger counterparts, smaller community development organizations are usually at a disadvantage in undertaking such an evaluation. This study will help illustrate what might be done. It focuses on the case of St. Joseph's Carpenter Society (SJCS) in Camden, New Jersey and assesses the quantitative impact that SJCS has on its target neighborhoods. A three-tiered approach is adopted that ranges from a target and comparison area analysis, to regression analysis of SJCS's impact on local housing prices, and finally to an examination of the relative market performance of SJCS's houses. All told, the analysis suggests that SJCS's rehabilitation and homeownership education activities appear to have a positive influence on the neighborhoods in its target area.     

Cyclical analysis of key US aggregates during a period of macroeconomic stability (1953–1965)

The cyclical response patterns of major financial and macroeconomic aggregates to money shocks in the US economy is estimated. The data set is limited to the 1953–1965 period. The nature of this temporal window is rare in US economic history; growth was stable and noninflationary, and there was a marked absence of major downturns, inflationary expectations and supply shocks. These facts permit a more reliable portrayal of the dynamics associated with conventional monetarism than would otherwise be the case. Instead of a formal structural model, the methodology employs a four-variable vector autoregression. Variables are chosen according to the traditional IS-LM model and include money, the Index of Industrial Production, the CPI and various interest rates. While the method is a theoretical, the variables accord with accepted orthodoxy and the results allow theoretically, plausible interpretation. Significant patterns of persistence are found in major macrofinance aggregates over the period. Money shocks produce peaks at eight, twelve, and twenty-four months for interest rates, the IIP, and the CPI, respectively. We find the liquidity effect dominated by a short-term income effect. The Fed appears to have engaged in significant monetary accommodation over the period. A stable Phillips curve tradeoff is evident. Finally, we find the conventional upward-sloping yield curve replaced by a humpshaped configuration about eight months after a money-induced shock to aggregate demand.     

Demand-led Growth Theory: A Historical Approach

This paper builds upon the Keynesian theory of demand-led growth in order to provide an analytical framework for explaining economic growth and development in concrete terms, consistent with the fundamental idea that growth in output and employment is determined by the growth in aggregate demand. The framework employs a historical approach to identify the main factors and their role in explaining demand-led growth and the accumulation process. The theoretical model developed abandons steady-state conditions by proposing that capacity utilisation varies in the long run as well as in the short run to ensure output has the elasticity to accommodate levels of autonomous demand free of any capacity saving constraint. On the basis of our analytical framework, the paper considers the main factors that explain the growth in aggregate demand: first, by examining the variables that determine the ‘super-multiplier’ and what social, institutional and technical conditions can cause its value to change over time; second, by identifying the components of autonomous demand and the main forces explaining their growth; and third, by considering the manner in which technical progress promotes demand-led growth.     

Estimation of treatment effects: recent developments and applications

The literature on the estimation of treatment effects has matured in economics. The potential outcomes framework guides the estimation of the causal effect of economic choices or policy interventions. The application of methods from the treatment effects literature has spread from the analysis of the effects of labor market programs and the wage return to education to other areas in economics. This special issue involves methodological developments and state-of-the art applications of methods to estimate treatment effects in various areas of economics. The contributions illustrate the emphasis within the treatment effects literature on the separate but related issues of heterogeneous treatment effects and identification. The careful, high-quality substantive applications collected here show just how much applied work on policy-relevant topics has benefitted from the methodological developments in the treatment effects literature. At the same time, many of the substantive papers make important methodological contributions as well.     

An Exploratory Study of the Level of Disaster Preparedness in the Canadian Hospitality Industry

Disaster planning is an important, but often neglected, part of leading an organization. Currently there exists little data on the level of disaster preparedness of organizations in the Canadian hospitality industry. In this article we present the results of a survey of a representative sample of organizations in this industry to assess the level of disaster preparedness. Results reveal an overall low level of preparedness. Implications of these results are discussed and recommendations for research and practice are suggested.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and the Operationalization Challenge for Global Tourism Organizations

Tourism businesses have increasingly sought to contribute to society through corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Larger tourism organizations normally seek to institutionalize CSR under their corporate CSR policy and strategy that is common for their whole organization. This presents challenges for organizations with global operations. This article examines the operationalization of CSR policy by hotel properties in coastal destinations in Thailand. The research found that stakeholders other than the hotels played pivotal roles in the implementation of CSR programs and that there was a preference for involvement by hotels in local projects, over those situated elsewhere in the country or internationally. These hotels tended to partner with other non-hotel stakeholders to execute their external CSR programs and for these to be directed at social issues rather than environmental issues. Overall it was concluded that there are limits to the extent that corporate headquarters may direct the implementation of CSR.     

Communicating across tourism silos for inclusive sustainable partnerships

Abstract

Overcoming traditional tourism silos to develop long-term relationships with stakeholders is essential for transformational change. Adopting broader networks connects researchers to pertinent issues facing society, develops reciprocal capacities for learning, and creates inclusive sustainable partnerships. As critical tourism scholars and not-for-profit employees, we illustrate the journey of how we engaged collaboratively with diverse stakeholders, from businesses, not-for-profits and the university, to tackle issues of economic disadvantage and social exclusion. Critical hospitality and dialogue theory were adopted to provide a framework for the processes of collaboration, research, networking, and advocacy work for inclusive sustainable spaces. Drawing on our involvement with co-founding a collaborative research network, the Network for Community Hospitality, and analysis of data from two Ketso workshops and interviews with 41 network members, we present reflections on setting up and facilitating the network. In addition, two examples of collaborative Network activities are presented to illustrate the techniques and dialogic communication processes for doing critical hospitality. The article thereby contributes by providing empirically informed and reflexive understandings into the experiences of working and communicating within long-term inclusive partnerships with diverse stakeholders to create traction for positive social sustainable change.