Conducting Mode 2 research in HRM: A phase‐based framework

Recent studies in the field of human resource management (HRM) have highlighted that current research is mostly performed and consumed by academics, and is driven by theoretical and disciplinary concerns rather than practical ones. This debate has invoked the need to produce more Mode 2 research in the HRM field, that is, research driven by practical problems that integrate collaborative efforts by academics and practitioners. Yet, guidelines on how academics and practitioners may implement Mode 2 research remain disjointed and incomplete. Our study provides a phase‐based collaborative‐based framework for the implementation of Mode 2 research in the HRM field, in ways that both academic rigor and practical relevance are achieved. Our framework is informed by a comprehensive review of previous Mode 2 research, within and outside the HRM field. The proposed framework details four macro‐phases: the codevelopment of research questions with practitioners; the design of collaborative spaces and mechanisms; the design and management of double‐loop iterative research processes; and finally the academic and practice legitimization of Mode 2 outcomes. Our framework has the objective to support HRM researchers and practitioners, as well as relevant institutions and gatekeepers in the design, implementation, education, and assessment of Mode 2 research.     

Narrow Replication of ‘A Spatio‐Temporal Model of House Prices in the Usa’ Using R

I narrowly replicate Holly et al.'s (Journal of Econometrics 2010; 158 (1): 160–173) analysis of the housing market in the USA, using the open source R software instead of the original ad hoc GAUSS routines. Their main findings are confirmed and most results are matched exactly. Attention is given to providing a self‐contained and fully reproducible analysis, exclusively using user‐level features available in the public domain. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An alternative procedure for imputing missing data based on principal components analysis

This work entailed tackling the significant problem of missing data which was solved by identifying a new substitution procedure, following an empirical approach based on the analysis of the information contained in the entire set of data collected. This procedures offers a number of advantages compared to other techniques commonly mentioned in the statistical–methodological literature.     

Technology Exploitation Paths: Combining Technological and Complementary Resources in New Product Development and Licensing

Technological resources in the form of patents, trade secrets, and know‐how have become key assets for modern enterprises. This paper addresses a critical issue in technology and innovation management, namely, the commercial exploitation of technological resources resulting from research and development (R&D) investments. Extracting economic value from these resources by maximizing the benefits for shareholders is an extremely challenging task because technological resources are intangible, idiosyncratic, uncertain, predominantly tacit, and with poorly defined property rights. In their attempt to extract the maximum value from their technological resources, firms increasingly combine their internal exploitation through new product development (NPD) with external exploitation through licensing. However, most existing studies on NPD and technology licensing have treated the two exploitation paths independently and in isolation, which has resulted in two separate research streams using different theories and addressing different managerial challenges. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to filling this gap by developing and testing a comprehensive conceptual framework that simultaneously considers the antecedents affecting the successful implementation of NPD and licensing strategies as well as their consequences on firm profitability. The paper in particular investigates the effects of the interplay between technological resources and three types of complementary resources, marketing, manufacturing, and relational. We test the model using structural equation modeling on a sample of 733 Spanish manufacturing firms observed from 2003 to 2007. The data provide support for the existence of different paths to market firm technologies: an internal path, whereby the ownership of technological resources fully explains NPD performance, and an external path, whereby high intensity of marketing and relational resources reinforces the positive effect of technological resources on licensing performance. This sustains the relevance of the resource‐based value‐enhancing effects of complementary resources in licensing, as opposed to the motivation‐reducing effects advanced by transaction cost‐based literature. Moreover, the empirical analysis shows a substitution effect between NPD and licensing, whereby their simultaneous pursuit at intense levels is associated with lower profit margins. This provides evidence of the much theorized, but seldom tested, rent dissipation effect. These findings offer several contributions to research on licensing, NPD, open innovation, and the resource‐based view of the firm. On a managerial level, they suggest that achieving maximum value from proprietary technologies may not entail exploiting them both through external and internal paths. Managers are also informed that the resource combinations that enhance licensing performance include marketing and relational resources.     

Collusion and heterogeneity of firms

We examine the impact of heterogeneous discounting on collusion in dynamic Bertrand competition. We show exactly when collusion can be sustained and how collusion would be organized efficiently with heterogeneous discounting. First, we show that collusion is possible if and only if the average discount factor exceeds a certain threshold, with or without capacity constraints. Next, we identify a dynamic pattern of market share that characterizes efficient collusion and obtain the unique long‐run prediction despite the presence of multiple equilibria. In the long run, the most patient firm and the most impatient firm tend to dominate the market.     

Sharp IV Bounds on Average Treatment Effects on the Treated and Other Populations Under Endogeneity and Noncompliance

In the presence of an endogenous binary treatment and a valid binary instrument, causal effects are point identified only for the subpopulation of compliers, given that the treatment is monotone in the instrument. With the exception of the entire population, causal inference for further subpopulations has been widely ignored in econometrics. We invoke treatment monotonicity and/or dominance assumptions to derive sharp bounds on the average treatment effects on the treated, as well as on other groups. Furthermore, we use our methods to assess the educational impact of a school voucher program in Colombia and discuss testable implications of our assumptions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Debt enforcement,investment, and risk taking across countries

We argue that the prospect of an imperfect enforcement of debt contracts in default reduces shareholder–debtholder conflicts and induces leveraged firms to invest more and take on less risk as they approach financial distress. To test these predictions, we use a large panel of firms in 41 countries with heterogeneous debt enforcement characteristics. Consistent with our model, we find that the relation between debt enforcement and firms’ investment and risk depends on the firm-specific probability of default. A differences-in-differences analysis of firms’ investment and risk taking in response to bankruptcy reforms that make debt more renegotiable confirms the cross-country evidence.     

The asymmetric effects of tariffs on intra-firm trade and offshoring decisions

This paper studies the effects of tariffs on intra-firm trade. Building on the Antràs and Helpman (2004) North–South theoretical framework, I show that higher Northern tariffs reduce the incentives for outsourcing and offshoring, while higher Southern tariffs have the opposite effects. I also show that increased offshoring and outsourcing imply a decrease in the ratio of Northern intra-firm imports to total imports, an empirically testable prediction. Using a highly disaggregated dataset of U.S. (the North) imports and relevant U.S. and foreign tariffs, I find robust evidence to support the model's predictions.     

Promoting Persistent Strategic Reasoning Behavior: An Experimental Approach

The present research is aimed to apply experimental techniques to study strategic behavior in one-shot-hide-and-seek games as a frame to elicit more real and elaborated business situations. To promote strategic thinking and persistence, we conducted treatments with repeated matching games among strangers, and one of them with a fixed endowment (fixed initial payment that decreases each round an amount) with the possibility of abandon in any round, retaining the remaining of endowment. In fact, effortful strategic reasoning is found in deviation of subjects’ random choices along the repetitions and abandon, loss aversion, and cultural differences seem articulate a strategic behavior.     

Difference‐in‐differences when the treatment status is observed in only one period

This paper considers the difference‐in‐differences (DID) method when the data come from repeated cross‐sections and the treatment status is observed either before or after the implementation of a program. We propose a new method that point‐identifies the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) via a DID method when there is at least one proxy variable for the latent treatment. Key assumptions are the stationarity of the propensity score conditional on the proxy and an exclusion restriction that the proxy must satisfy with respect to the change in average outcomes over time conditional on the true treatment status. We propose a generalized method of moments estimator for the ATT and we show that the associated overidentification test can be used to test our key assumptions. The method is used to evaluate JUNTOS, a Peruvian conditional cash transfer program. We find that the program significantly increased the demand for health inputs among children and women of reproductive age.