Emergent Leadership in Self-Managed Virtual Teams

The issue of leadership in virtual teams is an increasingly important one for many modern organizations, because these teams – typically project-based with a finite lifespan and specific deliverables – are frequently self-managed, having no designated leader within the team (Yukl 1998). While such teams may have increased flexibility in setting goals and achieving them, the virtual context may hinder team members' abilities to coordinate activities and influence others (Manz and Sims 1993). Longitudinal data were collected over the course of a semester from virtual teams, comprised of students from three North American universities. Our results suggest that high performing self-managed virtual teams displayed significantly more leadership behaviors over time compared to their low performing counterparts. Specifically, these teams displayed significantly more concentrated leadership behavior focused on performance (i.e. “Producer” behavior) and shared leadership behavior focused on keeping track of group work (i.e. “Monitor” behavior) than the lower performing teams. Interestingly, these behaviors emerged strongly during the first half of the groups' lifespan, and stayed throughout the life of the groups, but steadily dissipated in strength over time.     

Corporate Taxes in the European Union

The enlargement of the European Union in 2004 and 2007 by a number of countries with comparatively low corporate tax rates – seen by some as representing an unfair competitive advantage – has refuelled the debate on corporate taxation in Europe. The present Forum highlights a number of pertinent issues and discusses the challenges implied for European corporate tax policy. *The authors are indebted to Andreas Reutter for helpful comments. **The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the author. They should not be attributed to the European Commission. The author wishes to thank Anton Jevcav for valuable comments. ? European Communities, 2007.     

Partitioning for Profit: An Empirical Study of Methods for Handling Unequal Costs of Error in Predictive Data Mining

This paper expands prior work on the Sequential Binary Programming (SBP) algorithm as a framework for cost-sensitive classification. The field of cost-sensitive learning has provided a number of methods to adapt predictive data mining from engineering and hard science applications to those in commerce. This discussion will test theoretical limitations of classical cost-sensitive algorithms empirically and outline the appropriate conditions under which various methods (specifically SBP) should be implemented in favor of others.     

Business ethics: A cross-cultural comparison of managers' attitudes

A comparison of attitudes among managers from France, Germany and the United States is made with respect to codes of ethics and ethical business philosophy. Findings are also compared with past studies by Baumhart and by Brenner and Molander where data are available. While the current data appear to be consistent with the past studies, there appear to be differences in attitudes among the managers from the three countries. Helmut Becker is Professor of Business Administration at the University of Portland. He has published two books, The Information Seekers and International Marketing Strategy, with Hans Thorelli of Indiana University. His articles have appeared in various journals and he serves on the board of editors of the Journal of International Business Studies. David J. Fritzsche is Professor of Business Administration at the University of Portland. His articles have appeared in Journal of Marketing Research, Academy of Management Journal, Marketing Ethics: Guidelines for Managers and Research in Corporate Social Performance and Policy.     

Reform der Abstimmungsregeln und Inflationspräferenz im EZB-Rat

Die Reform der Abstimmungsregeln im EZB-Rat kann bei Aufnahme von neuen Mitgliedstaaten in die W?hrungsunion Auswirkungen auf die Geldpolitik haben. Welche Konsequenzen sind für die in einem solchen erweiterten Rat pr?ferierte Inflationsrate im Vergleich zum Status quo zu erwarten? Wie sind alternative Abstimmungsregeln zu beurteilen? Wie h?tten sich die Vorschl?ge für die elf bzw. derzeit zw?lf Euro-L?nder ausgewirkt, wenn sie bereits 1999 implementiert worden w?ren? * Der Autor dankt Prof. Dr. Roland Vaubel für die Anregung und Korrektur des Artikels.     

Gaining leverage effects from knowledge modes within corporate incubators

This paper analyzes the kind of knowledge that facilitates hatching and leveraging of technologies through the incubation process. Four corporate incubator types can be distinguished according to their source and type of technology: fast-profit incubators, market incubators, leveraging incubators, and in-sourcing incubators. Applying the knowledge-based view of the firm, four modes of mainly tacit knowledge were identified in respect to the different incubator types: (1) entrepreneurial knowledge, (2) organizational knowledge, (3) technological knowledge, and (4) complementary market knowledge. Knowledge strategies include both the leveraging of internal knowledge as well as the in-sourcing of external knowledge for the firm through the corporate incubator. The research is based on an analysis of a European Commission dataset from a benchmarking survey of 77 incubators as well as 52 interviews in 25 large technology-driven corporations in Europe and the United States.