Information styles of marketing and R&D personnel during technological product innovation projects

Abstract The research question in the present article can be phrased in the following way: what are the elements which influence the perception of the utility of information received from another function? A field study research has been conducted in 40 Belgian companies. In each company, we have studied two on-going innovation projects (one planning project, one development project). Crossfunctional communication behaviours at the R&D/marketing interface have been measured by means of mailed structured questionnaires. Three-hundred and eighty-six questionnaires have been returned. The data analyses show that there are four underlying information dimensions, i.e. the perceived relevance, the perceived comprehensibility, the perceived novelty and the perceived credibility of information. We also discuss some contingency variables (function of the message receiver, stage in the innovation process) that might moderate the impact of these dimensions. It will be shown that the interaction between source and receiver has a significant impact on the perceived credibility, the perceived comprehensibility and the perceived novelty of the received information.     

Time dependency of trade union membership

Event-history analysis is used to model the time dependency of two decisions: the decision to join a trade union, and the decision to leave a trade union. We formulate two hypotheses with regard to these two decisions and parametric regression models are used to investigate these hypotheses. The process of joining a trade union can be described by a decreasing rate, using a Weibull. For the process of leaving a trade union, we suggest an increasing rate that decreases after several years, a process best described by a log-logistic model.     

是否应当欺骗--关于合作的经验或教训

本文通过欺骗与合作的成本比较探讨如何与合作伙伴建立一种双赢的合作关系.我们的结论是,合作比欺骗能给双方带来更大的利益.     

On the Use of Nonfinancial Performance Measures in Management Compensation

It is often claimed that (i) managers work too hard on operational issues and do not spend enough effort on strategic activities, and (ii) something can be done about this by introducing nonfinancial performance measures, as for instance with a balanced scorecard. We give an explanation for both claims in a formal model. The distortion toward operational effort arises because with financial performance measures strategic effort can only be rewarded in the future. But renegotiation-proof long-term compensation plans entail too weak variable components in the future. This problem can be reduced by introducing performance measures that help to disentangle strategic and operational effects.     

Within Occupation Wage Dispersion and the Task Content of Jobs

Most analyses linking task content of jobs to income inequality focus on the effects between occupations, e.g. the growing dispersion between lousy and lovely jobs. The theory, meanwhile, provides insights on links between task content of jobs and inequality also within occupations: models predict compression of wages in more routine jobs, that is those where capital is a direct substitute for labour, and an increase in dispersion in jobs where capital and labour are complements. I document that within occupations dispersion of wages is empirically relevant, as it represents around half of total wage inequality across Europe. I then link wage inequality to the task content of jobs. Using matched employee–employer data from Europe for the period 2002–14, I show that occupations where tasks complement newer technologies exhibit higher wage dispersion. This relationship is robust to adjusting for a variety of confounding and mitigating channels.     

Corporate bond credit spreads and forecast dispersion

Recent research establishes a negative relation between stock returns and dispersion of analysts’ earnings forecasts, arguing that asset prices more reflect the views of optimistic investors because of short-sale constraints in equity markets. In this article, we examine whether a similar effect prevails in corporate bond markets. After controlling for common bond-level, firm-level, and macroeconomic variables, we find evidence that bonds of firms with higher dispersion demand significantly higher credit spreads than otherwise similar bonds and that changes in dispersion reliably predict changes in credit spreads. This evidence suggests a limited role of short-sale constraints in our corporate bond data sets. Consistent with a rational explanation, dispersion appears to proxy largely for future cash flow uncertainty in corporate bond markets.     

Perceptions of the value of the HR function

This article explores the added value of the HR function as it is perceived by three groups of managers: top managers, HR managers and line managers. Despite the fact that literature about strategic HRM focuses almost exclusively on the value of the HR function as a strategic partner, it was assumed that its perceived value for the business would not be restricted to the area of strategy formulation and implementation. Several 'result domains' can be distinguished in which the HR function can deliver value to the business. Based on our review of the literature, the degree of strategic involvement of the function was used as a second perspective to investigate its perceived added value. To examine our propositions, a qualitative study was carried out in which 97 HR managers, 38 top managers and 178 line managers participated. The results confirm our thesis that the perceived value of the HR function contains more than just the fulfilment of its role as a strategic partner. Based on our results, an integrated model for the perceived value of the function has been developed.     

Unternehmenstheater & ein neues Change Management-Instrument für das Controlling?

Controller sehen sich in ihrer Rolle im Unternehmen einem wachsenden Ver?nderungsdruck ausgesetzt.