Revisiting the Miles and Snow strategic framework: uncovering interrelationships between strategic types,capabilities, environmental uncertainty,and firm performance

The Miles and Snow strategic type framework is re‐examined with respect to interrelationships with several theoretically relevant batteries of variables, including SBU strategic capabilities, environmental uncertainty, and performance. A newly developed constrained, multi‐objective, classification methodology is modified to empirically derive an alternative quantitative typology using survey data obtained from 709 firms in three countries (China, Japan, United States). We compare the Miles and Snow typology to the classification empirically derived utilizing this combinatorial optimization clustering procedure. With respect to both variable battery associations and objective statistical criteria, we show that the empirically derived solution clearly dominates the traditional P‐A‐D‐R typology of Miles and Snow. Implications and directions for future research are provided. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Benefiting from network position: firm capabilities,structural holes,and performance

While strategy scholars primarily focus on internal firm capabilities and network scholars typically examine network structure, we posit that firms with superior network structures may be better able to exploit their internal capabilities and thus enhance their performance. We examine how innovative capabilities—both those of focal firms and those they access through their networks—influence the performance of Canadian mutual fund companies. We find that a firm's innovative capabilities and its network structure both enhance firm performance, while the innovativeness of its contacts does not do so directly. Innovative firms that also bridge structural holes get a further performance boost, suggesting that firms need to develop network‐enabled capabilities—capabilities accruing to innovative firms that bridge structural holes. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New development: Private finance over public good? Questioning the value of impact bonds

This article contrasts the proposed benefits of social impact bonds (SIBs) with the more mixed performance of initial projects, and reviews the early literature, revealing a similar divide between initial optimism and subsequent critique. Despite this, SIBs continue to receive high-level support, while expanding their reach through controversial new ‘development’ and ‘environmental’ impact bonds. This situation deserves more scrutiny in the accounting literature.     

Translating sustainable and smart city strategies into performance measurement systems

This paper shows how sustainable and smart strategies can be implemented in cities and how these strategies influence, and are influenced by, performance measurement systems. Drawing upon the Foucauldian notion of governmentality, the authors present the case of Gothenburg in Sweden, where they interviewed the key actors involved in a new sustainability strategy. Translating strategy into performance measurement systems requires collaboration across organizational boundaries and considerations of financial goals and social and human aspects.     

Board governance and corporate performance

We examine the link between the monitoring capacity of the board and corporate performance of UK listed firms. We also investigate how firms use the flexibility offered by the voluntary governance regime to make governance choices. We find a strong positive association between the board governance index we construct and firm operating performance. Our results imply that adherence to the board‐related recommendations of the UK Corporate Governance Code strengthens the board's monitoring capacity, potentially helping mitigate agency problems, but that investors do not value it correspondingly. Moreover, in contrast to prior UK findings suggesting efficient adoption of Code recommendations, we find that firms at times use the Code flexibility opportunistically, aiming to decrease the monitoring capacity of the board, which is followed by subsequent underperformance. This finding questions the effectiveness of the voluntary approach to governance regulation followed in the UK and in many countries around the world.     

股权制衡、非国有股东委派董事与公司绩效

从公司治理层面完善国有控股企业的股权制衡是国企混合所有制改革的重点和难点,以往学者仅仅研究了股权制衡与公司绩效之间的关系,很少研究两者关系的作用路径和影响机理.因此,引入非国有股东委派董事这一概念,研究非国有股东委派董事在股权制衡与公司绩效之间发挥的中介效应.结果表明:股权制衡有利于公司绩效的提升,非国有股东委派董事在股权制衡与公司绩效两者之间发挥了中介效应.     

Can Foreigners Improve the Profitability of Emerging Market Banks? Evidence from the Vietnamese Strategic Partner Program

Foreign ownership and foreign management are often assumed to improve the efficiency of emerging market banks. Our article examines this relationship for the Vietnamese strategic partner program, where foreign banks have been allowed to take minority stakes in local banks. We add to the existing literature by distinguishing between ownership by foreign strategic and non-strategic investors, and between foreign management sent by the strategic partner and independent foreign executives. We show that only the presence of independent foreign executives has a positive impact on banks. We interpret these results as the consequence of conflicts of interest and power struggles between local shareholders and the strategic partner, which prevent efficiency in enhancing technology transfer.     

Are there major differences in the attitudes and service quality of standard and seasonal employees? An empirical examination and implications for practice

Despite the increased use of seasonal employees by organizations, few studies have been completed on the attitudes and service quality of seasonal office workers. Using Lautsch's classification model, we analyzed the organizational context in which the standard and seasonal workers in this study were employed. Hypotheses were developed based upon the organizational analysis and social exchange theory. Results from archival data obtained from a web‐based organizational survey of 205 clerical and professional workers indicated contrary to expectations, standard and seasonal employees did not significantly differ in terms of perceptions of overall job conditions, perceived organizational support (POS), or job engagement. However, seasonal employees did report significantly fewer opportunities to work on challenging tasks, less comfortable physical working conditions, and less job security than the standard workers. As predicted, standard employees reported significantly higher levels of service quality performance than seasonal employees. Additionally, job engagement mediated the relationship between POS and service quality for both the standard and seasonal employees. Implications for managing seasonal employees are discussed.     

信贷供给、资产配置及企业绩效——来自中国制造业上市公司的证据

近些年,中国“金融与实体经济”的研究愈发成为热点。宏观层面,资金“脱实入虚”“金融空转”的讨论亦此起彼伏。然而,针对微观层面的企业资金“脱实入虚”的研究则寥寥无几。本文选取2003—2016年中国A股制造业上市公司的年度报告数据,利用2009年宏观调控措施营造的“准自然实验”环境,采用双重差分方法探究在资金资源充足的前提下,企业配置金融资产的倾向性,并进一步研究企业绩效的后续变化情况。实证结果表明,当制造业企业获得更多的信贷资金支持,同时缺乏有效的外部监管时,企业更倾向于配置金融资产,金融活动也会在企业的日常生产经营中扮演愈发重要的角色。在此基础上,企业的主营业务却未得到发展,反而盈利能力、成长能力均受到损害,且后者受到的影响更大,即进行过多金融投资对中国A股制造业上市公司的远期影响更为深重。基于上述结论,本文从实体经济从业者、资金提供方以及监管层三个角度提出了相关政策建议。     

Whither seniority? Career progression and performance orientation in South Korea

Framed by institutional theory, this study reassesses the influence of seniority on (HRM) in South Korea today. We analyze first the overall influence of seniority in business, second its significance for career progression (i.e. promotion), and third its relation to individual performance orientation. By conducting in-depth interviews among local and expatriate managers, we find that the role of seniority is still pronounced. Seniority-based promotion remains significant, and individual performance evaluation systems, as are typically found in Western countries, hardly fit the cultural environment and tend to be ineffective. By contributing to the extant theories on institutional dynamics and the convergence–divergence–hybridization debate alike, our results strengthen the culturalist approaches, holding that informal institutions persist and do not disappear quickly. Further, rather than moving towards global convergence, we see the Korean HRM system as being in a state of hybridization caused by coercive isomorphism resulting from experimentation with foreign best-practice systems. As a result, some HRM practices are dysfunctional. We recommend that firms should reinterpret their valuation of individual performance towards team achievements and pay more attention to the optimal team composition.