An Application of Focus Theory to Project Management Processes

This article presents the findings of an exploratory study of the degree to which Focus Theory, a general theory about group productivity, can be used to improve the productivity of project management activities. Guided by the theory and the principles of collaboration engineering, we developed a collaborative template for project progress status reporting. We evaluated the template in both face-to-face and distributed group interactions. The study indicated that a collaborative template helped structure status reporting activity and provided a permanent record of project status for future reference. As a result, it was efficient and effective for team leaders to prepare topics for project status meetings by using the template. The meetings became focused on topics outlined on the template and meeting participants commented that the meeting record helped them keep track of what had been either accomplished or decided. The major limitation observed for use of the template was that, when used in distributed and synchronous interactions, it needed to be augmented by voice communication because communication in text-only format, as provided by the template, was too time-consuming. We discuss implications of the research outcomes with respect to the usefulness and limitations of Focus Theory.     

Immigration policy and the U.S. economy: an institutional perspective

The author examines some aspects of the current situation concerning immigration to the United States. He predicts that the 1990s will witness the largest flow of immigrants into the population and labor force of any decade in the country's history; furthermore, since there is no universally accepted right to immigrate, the adoption of migration policy is one area of economic policymaking that is not controlled by market forces. He also notes that while the country's need is for a highly skilled, motivated, and educated labor force, the majority of current immigrants have low skill levels and relatively little education. The need to develop and implement a migration policy that is in tune with the country's economic objectives is stressed. He concludes that "the resurrection of mass immigration from out of the nation's distant past was a political accident; its perpetuation in the 1990s is contrary to national interest. Immigration reform, therefore, needs to be [in] the forefront of the nation's economic policy agenda."     

On The Relationship Between Idea-Quantity and Idea-Quality During Ideation

A great deal of research has been conducted to develop methods and techniques to improve group ideation. Most of this research focuses on techniques for increasing the quantity of ideas generated during ideation; less attention has been given to the quality of the ideas produced. This focus stems from the widely held quantity–quality conjecture, that, all else being equal, more ideas give rise to more good ideas. In this paper, we argue that cognitive inertia and scarcity of solution space may affect the relationship between idea-quantity and idea-quality as ideation proceeds, resulting in a condition of diminishing returns for additional ideas. Results of a laboratory study using fourteen groups supported the diminishing returns hypothesis. Recommendations for future ideation research are suggested.     

Mitigating endogeneity in corporate social responsibility research: An investigation using a neoclassical production function

This paper investigates the growing need to control for endogeneity in corporate social responsibility (CSR) research. We modify the theoretical constructs of a neoclassical production function to include CSR and in doing so provide theoretical evidence of endogeneity in the estimation equation. We find that failure to empirically control for endogeneity leads to results that suggest CSR has a negative impact on firm production. However, when controlling for endogeneity through a two-stage approach, the negative impact disappears. Moreover, we demonstrate the efficacy of using a proven theoretical estimation technique to include CSR and, therefore, mitigate endogeneity concerns.     

There will be exports and licensing: The effects of patent rights and innovation on firm sales

Previous work has focused on how intellectual property rights affect inward technology transfer. This paper is among the first to study whether patent rights contribute to outward technology transfers. Patent protection can affect the ability of firms to be sources of technology through its effects on innovation and commercialization. Using micro data, this paper finds that patent rights and innovation are positively associated with the exporting and licensing of firms, controlling for other determinants of technological capacity, although the effect is not symmetric across firms in all countries. Patent rights have a strong impact on the export and licensing activities of firms in developed countries, and only on the licensing activities of firms in developing countries. Moreover, transfers of technology develop sequentially – namely, exporting before licensing – due to the differing sunk costs of each type of entry. The results have implications for how innovation policies and activities contribute to the outward orientation of firms.