Comment on “fishing for sharks: Partner selection in biopharmaceutical R&D alliances” by diestre and rajagopalan

A recent study of R&D alliances between new biotechnology firms (NBFs) and pharmaceutical firms investigated how NBFs deal with the “swimming with sharks” dilemma involved in allying with firms capable of appropriating value. It concludes that NBFs are less likely to select alliance partners with related expertise because of greater appropriation risk. Based on our experience as NBF managers and a survey of NBF executives, we believe that such situations are uncommon, and that the study more likely shows pharmaceutical firms seeking diversification. Thousands of NBFs seek alliances with the top 100 pharmaceutical firms, and the larger company is much more likely to be the one to select among multiple potential partners. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Managerial Political Behavior in Innovation Portfolio Management: A Sensegiving and Sensebreaking Process

By applying formalized innovation portfolio management systems, firms seek to ensure an alignment of their goals and strategy with their employees' different abilities, actions, and outcomes. However, research indicates that nonrational, political behavior also determines formalized innovation portfolio management decision‐making processes. Research on political behavior in respect of innovation portfolio management usually conceptualizes political behavior as a set of self‐serving activities, such as negotiation, bargaining, coalition building, and acquiring power, aimed at protecting, maintaining, or promoting an actor's self‐interest and power. Consequently, extant research tends to focus on political behavior's dysfunctional impacts on decision‐making processes and their subsequent outcomes. This paper challenges this negativity bias by exploring a novel, neutral specification of political behavior and its relation to innovation portfolio management decision‐making processes. By conducting an automotive industry case study focusing on the innovation portfolio management decision‐making processes, the paper analyzed the data from 43 interviewees. The conceptual model shows that managers' political capabilities determine their ability to behave politically. According to the results, political behavior comprises the activities that prepare the stage and orchestrate others in order to form a political coalition. Furthermore, results show that political behavior functions as a sensegiving and a sensebreaking process, with managers seeking to shape an innovation project's understanding according to their interests and to influence portfolio decisions. The resulting novel specification of political behavior extends the construct's scope and validity by investigating their functional and dysfunctional aspects, and by indicating that a political sensemaking process complements formalized innovation portfolio management decision‐making processes.     

Technical Progress and Product Reliability under Competition and Monopoly

Technical progress lowers costs and prices but appears to have an ambiguous effect on product reliability. This paper presents a simple model which explains this observation. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Streets, Malls, and Supermarkets

We develop a model of competition between shopping centers, comparing competitive outcomes in three alternative modes of retail organization, namely: streets (in which neither developers or retailers internalize agglomeration effects between products); malls (in which developers internalize); and supermarkets (in which both developers and retailers internalize). For a fixed number of centers: (i) converting streets to malls intensifies developer (but not retailer) competition, which increases product range (i.e., the number of shops built by the developers) and consumer surplus, reduces profits, and has ambiguous effects on welfare; (ii) converting streets to supermarkets intensifies retailer and developer competition, has ambiguous effects on product range (number of shops), reduces profits, and increases social welfare. With free entry both conversions reduce the number of centers and, if there is excess entry, conversion to supermarkets (but not malls) unambiguously increases welfare.     

The demand for game day attendance in college football: an analysis of the 1997 Division 1‐A season

This paper develops a predictive model which includes game, team and university specific factors that are likely to influence game day demand for Division 1‐A college football. Attendance during the 1997 regular season is used as the dependent variable. Tobit estimates of two separate equations reveal that the quality of both teams, traditional rivalry and membership of specific conferences have a significant influence on demand. In addition, colleges with lower enrollments and a higher percentage of off‐campus students attract smaller crowds. The presence of a nearby professional football team also detracts from a college team's drawing power. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Board Committees in Corporate Governance: A Cross‐Disciplinary Review and Agenda for the Future

The importance of board committees – specialized subgroups that exist to perform many of the board's most critical functions, such as setting executive compensation, identifying potential board members, and overseeing financial reporting – has grown over time due to increased legal requirements and greater complexity of the environment in which firms operate. This has resulted in a large body of work examining board committees across the accounting, finance, and management disciplines. However, this research has developed rather independently within each discipline, preventing scholars and practitioners from developing a comprehensive understanding of board committees. To address this issue, we conduct a comprehensive review of the literature that: 1) summarizes and synthesizes antecedents and outcomes associated with board committees in publicly‐traded firms in English common law countries; and 2) offers a critical analysis of existing research, providing recommendations for advancements and new directions in board committee research.     

Perceptions of Affirmative Action Based on Socioeconomic Status: A Comparison with Traditional Affirmative Action

Past research has examined reactions to traditional, gender- and ethnicity-based affirmative action programs. However, research has not examined reactions to affirmative action based on socioeconomic status (SES), even though such programs are promoted by the U.S. government (e.g., Work Opportunity Tax Credit) and thus act as a de facto supplement to traditional affirmative action. Based in theories of self-interest, Study 1 compared reactions of men and women to a traditional affirmative action program and a hypothetical, SES-based affirmative action program in terms of general perceptions of such programs and organizational attractiveness. While women had more positive reactions to traditional affirmative action, men had more positive reactions to SES-based affirmative action. Study 2 took a different approach, examining the reactions of potential job applicants to four hypothetical job ads which included different types of diversity statements. We found that job ads that mentioned any type of specific diversity statement - either based on race and gender or based on SES - were perceived as less fair than job ads that did not include specific diversity statements. Results of the studies are discussed in terms of self-interest theories of affirmative action and considerations of SES-based programs as a supplement to traditional affirmative action.     

THE PRICE-QUALITY RELATIONSHIP UNDER MONOPOLY AND COMPETITION

The standard economic approaches (screening and signalling) to product quality imply an upward sloping relationship between price and product quality. In the case of screening models it is a relationship which applies to the product line of each individual firm. In the case of signalling models it applies across firms. Both types of model have their shortcomings. An alternative approach is presented which involves endogenising the quality control process. Firms voluntarily provide a warranty contract for their products and this, in turn generates an incentive to control quality. The model compares monopolistic and competitive markets in respect of warranties. quality control and the price-quality relationship. Under monopoly, the price-quality relationship is always upward-sloping or flat. Under competition, however, cost shifts or certain demand side shifts can generate a downward-sloping relationship between price and quality.     

Signalling Theory and Equilibrium in Strategic Management Research: An Assessment and a Research Agenda

Actors within organizations commonly must make choices armed with incomplete and asymmetrically distributed information. Signalling theory seeks to explain how individuals are able to do so. This theory's primary predictive mechanism is ‘separating equilibrium’, which occurs when a signal's expectations are confirmed through experience. A content analysis finds that most strategic management signalling theory studies have not fully leveraged separating equilibrium. This presents two possible paths for future research. First, some researchers may wish to incorporate separating equilibrium. We illustrate how doing so can uncover new relationships, generate novel insights, and fortify the theory's application. Others who want to theorize about signals, but not examine separating equilibrium, could integrate ideas from signalling theory with other information perspectives. Here a signal becomes one stimulus among many that corporate actors interpret and act upon. We provide research agendas so strategy scholars can apply signalling theory most effectively to meet their research objectives.     

Managers’ Corporate Entrepreneurial Actions and Job Satisfaction

Through the development and extension of theories and scholars’ subsequent empirical analyses of significant, theoretically grounded research questions, the knowledge about corporate entrepreneurship (CE) and its successful use continues to advance. Moreover, the literature suggests important relationships between the corporate environment, managers’ entrepreneurial behavior and successful implementation of corporate entrepreneurship actions. In an attempt to test some of those relationships, we describe an empirical study of 523 managers that examines the relationships among the antecedents to managers’ entrepreneurial behavior, a decision to implement entrepreneurial actions, and resulting job satisfaction and reinforcement practices.