Endowed chairs in entrepreneurship: deans’ preferences versus chair holders’ expericences

Business school deans’ feelings about the importance of various teaching research and service activities in the roles played by holders of endowed chairs in Entrepreneurship were contrasted with the views of chair holders themselves, based on their experiences. Differences were highlighted and discussed. Results suggest that the chair holder role is negotiated between multiple constituencies, with deans’ influence being strong but limited. Implications for individuals aspiring to hold chairs are discussed.     

Are hyperinflation paths learnable?

Earlier studies of the seigniorage inflation model have found that the high-inflation steady state is not stable under learning. We reconsider this issue and analyze the full set of solutions for the linearized model. Our main focus is on stationary hyperinflationary paths near the high-inflation steady state. These paths are shown to be stable under least-squares learning if agents can utilize contemporaneous data. In an economy with a mixture of agents, some of whom only have access to lagged data, stable hyperinflationary paths emerge only if the proportion of agents with access to contemporaneous data is sufficiently high.     

Productivity and Welfare

Technical change is generally characterized by a rate and biases, both evaluated for given producer prices. This paper examines the potential discrepancy between this rate and the corresponding rate of consumer welfare change as measured by Allais distributable surplus. We postulate a general equilibrium context with various market failures (taxes, quotas, imperfect competition, and “poorly priced” commodities), and use comparative statics to express the rate of welfare change in terms of the rate and biases of the technical change. An elementary simulation model of a taxed economy suggests that the rate of welfare change may differ from the rate of technical change by as much as 50% under plausible circumstances.     

Business communities in the European confectionery sector: A U.K.-Finland comparison

This paper is based on the early stages of an international collaborative project investigating the structural changes of the confectionery sectors in Finland and the U.K. over the past two decades. An institutional perspective is used to extend conventional understandings of industries via the development of the sector concept. The network and community constructs are shown to be important devices for understanding the institutional character of a sector. Accordingly, the paper reveals the similarities and differences between the two national examples. An explanation is offered of the way domestic networks persist in both countries while contrasting community profiles are apparent.     

STRATEGIC INVESTMENT DECISION-MAKING: COMPLEXITIES, POLITICS AND PROCESSES*

This article is a preliminary report on an investigation into the processes of investment decision-making. Three case studies from three firms are presented which show disparities in a number of aspects of process, for example, the length of time taken to arrive at a decision, the number and intensity of disagreements and uncertainties encountered. Data were collected for these cases through semi-structured interviewing from multiple informants in the three organizations, thereby permitting the use of analysis of variance techniques of the different perspectives given by informants. Perceptions of the effectiveness of the decisions were also gathered. One finding from the study is that the decisions with the lowest perceived effectiveness (in firm HE) also lost support from those involved in making the decision during the process, although the decision was eventually implemented. This decision also had the least agreement amongst informants as to the main sources of disagreements. Informants of all three decisions saw effect upon product quality and productivity, fit with business strategy and competitive position of the company as the most important factors to take into account in evaluating the decisions. In firm CG, however, there were disagreements as to how the investment should be evaluated. In the conclusions to the article a disucssion is given as to the nature of evaluation procedures in relation to the developing theory of information systems.     

An Integrative Framework for Measuring the Extent to which Organizational Variables Influence the Success of Process Improvement Programmes

abstract    Studies on the three types of process improvement programmes (Continuous Improvement, Reengineering and Benchmarking) have appeared many times in the literature. These studies suggest that certain organizational variables act as enablers and their presence or absence can significantly influence success rates. Such studies have tended to examine companies where a single programme has been implemented. In contrast, this paper examines a sample of companies who have experienced all three programmes. Our aim is to compare and contrast each programme's impact on firm performance and identify which organizational variables are common and which are programme-specific enablers of success. We build and test an integrative framework to support our analysis. Our study found that: (1) Reengineering delivered the greatest impact on performance; (2) executive commitment was needed to make this happen; (3) strategic alignment was the major influence on the success rate of Reengineering and Continuous Improvement programmes; and (4) employee empowerment was necessary for each programme to work effectively.     

Roles of chairs in entrepreneurship: What deans expect

Major donations, especially for endowed chairs, put Colleges of Business and Universities in the spotlight and create a great deal of excitement, highlighting the important role that educational institutions play in benefiting the students, the community, and society in general. This kind of excitement needs to be sustained over time, signifying the link that the endowed Chair or Professorship in Entrepreneurship creates between the past, the present, and the future. Consequently, there is a need for a long-term personal connection and close relationship between the donor, the faculty holding the endowed chair, and the institution represented by the Dean that should be preserved over time. This study reports findings of a survey of the perceptions of AACSB Deans on what an Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship is, and what it could, and should mean for their institution.     

Furthering the integration of marketing and logistics through customer service in the channel

Recent emphasis on customer service in both the academic and trade literature reveals a growing but confusing body of knowledge. Both the marketing and logistics disciplines have offered varying definitions of customer service, but have failed to offer a comprehensive framework which represents customer service and its related marketing and logistics issues. This article offers the viewpoint that customer service is a conceptual unifying factor for integrating marketing and logistics. The channel system is introduced as the vehicle by which buyer/seller relationships must be analyzed to understand formation of buyer expectations, interaction of marketing and logistics activities, and subsequent customer service performance. The institutional, behavioral, and physical dimensions of channel activity influence many of the marketing and logistics decisions made by management. The framework offered in this article differs from previous efforts in that customer service is the output of the unified activities of marketing and logistics. It considers marketing and logistics decisions jointly, re-evaluates and expands the production function in logistics, and ties customer service to customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction.     

The adaptive consequences of pride in personal selling

This study examines the adaptive consequences of pride in personal selling and its self-regulation with colleagues and customers. Study 1 investigates the effects of experiencing pride, where two benefits were found. First, pride increases salespersons’ performance-related motivations. Specifically, it promotes the use of adaptive selling strategies, greater effort, and self-efficacy. Second, pride positively affects organizational citizenship behaviors. Study 2 takes an emotion-process point of view and compares excessive pride (hubris) with positive pride. The results show that salespeople are capable of self-regulating the expression of these emotions differently toward colleagues and customers via anticipated feelings of fear, shame, and regret. Salespeople, in other words, are affected by their emotions, but they also are capable of controlling them to their advantage. Willem Verbeke (verbeke@few.eur.nl) is a chaired professor of sales and account management at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. His research has appeared in a number of academic journals, including theJournal of Marketing, theInternational Journal of Research in Marketing, theJournal of Management, theJournal of Organizational Behavior, and theJournal of Applied Psychology. His area of research interests includes personal selling, sales management, emotions and emotion regulation, social capital, and knowledge management. Frank Belschak (belschak@few.eur.nl) is an assistant professor of marketing and organizational behavior at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He received his Ph.D. in organizational behavior from the University of Cologne in Germany. His current research interests include emotions and emotion regulation in organizations and across cultures, as well as social capital and networks. Richard P. Bagozzi (bagozzi@rice.edu) is the J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Management in the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management and a professor of psychology at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He conducts research on human emotions, the theory of action, goal setting and goal striving, and structural equation methods.