Learning across the life cycle: Experimentation and performance among the hollywood studio heads

Guided by notions from the literature on organizational learning, this paper investigates how product line experimentation and organizational performance change across the careers of top managers. Its subjects are the studio heads who ran all the major Hollywood film studios from 1936 to 1965. The study found first, that product line experimentation declines over the course of executive tenures; second, that there is an inverse U‐shaped relationship between top executive tenure and an organization's financial performance; and third, that product line experimentation is more likely to benefit financial performance late in top executives' tenures. These findings are consistent with a three‐stage ‘executive life cycle’. During the early years of their tenures, top managers experiment intensively with their product lines to learn about their business; later on their accumulated knowledge allows them to reduce experimentation and increase performance; finally, in their last years, executives reduce experimentation still further, and performance declines. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Strategic groups as reference groups: Theory,modeling and empirical examination of industry and competitive strategy

Previous studies on strategic groups have mainly focused on their static characteristics in order to test the theory of strategic groups and intraindustry performance differences (Porter, 1979; Cool and Schendel, 1988; Fiegenbaum and Thomas, 1990). In contrast, this study takes a longitudinal, dynamic perspective and describes the forces driving strategic group membership and structural evolution. It proposes that a strategic group acts as a reference point for group members in formulating competitive strategy. A partial adjustment model of strategic mobility is then developed which incorporates the idea of a strategic group as a reference group. It models strategic change in an industry both within and across strategic groups. The model is tested in the context of an in-depth industry analysis of the more significant firms in the insurance industry over the 1970-84 time period. The results suggest that strategic groups act as reference points for firm strategies and that predictions of future firm strategies and industry/group structures may also be successfully derived.     

Adjustment, Stabilisation and the Analysis of the Employment Structure in Turkey: An Input- Output Approach

The aim of the paper is to examine the effects on employment of the large-scale structural adjustment programme undertaken by Turkey from the early 1980s onwards. In this respect, we particularly analyse how appropriate the choices of factor intensity after structural adjustment programme have been in the domestic production in comparison with the availability of domestic factor endowment. Our findings show that foreign trade in intermediate goods creates extra use of domestic labour, which can be considered as the labour cost of importing intermediate goods. This is the case in the majority of industries in the pre- and post-liberalisation period in Turkey. However, the capacity of using extra labour as a result of importing intermediate goods appeared to have decreased in the post-liberalisation period.     

The topography of metropolitan employment: Identifying centers of employment in a polycentric urban area

While it is well recognized that US metropolitan areas are polycentric, there is little consensus as to the appropriate method for identifying concentrations of employment within them. Existing methods suffer from strong assumptions about parametric form, misspecification, or reliance on local knowledge to calibrate model parameters. This paper introduces a new nonparametric method for identifying subcenters. Results indicate that this, more flexible, nonparametric approach yields greater accuracy with regard to both urban and suburban centers compared with other approaches. This approach should provide better data for the numerous topics that depend on the spatial accounting of employment within metropolitan areas.     

Localized Innovation and Productivity Growth in Asia: An Intertemporal DEA Approach

Recent contributions to growth theory stress the importance of localized innovation for the performance of more backward countries. In earlier papers, analyses by means of DEA techniques confirmed this intuition. In this paper, we extend this type of analysis by relaxing the macroeconomic viewpoint adopted until now. New databases on output, labor and capital input in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors are developed for 40 countries. Using intertemporal DEA, it is found that changes in the global production frontier are localized at high levels of capital intensity. This result is stronger in agriculture than in manufacturing. Further, a decomposition of labor productivity growth in eight Asian countries for the period 1975–1992 into the effects of capital intensification, learning and innovation is made. The results suggest that there is a particular development path in which increases in capital intensity appear to be a prerequisite to benefit from international technology spillovers.JEL Classification: O14, O30, O40, O47     

Applying efficiency measurement techniques to the measurement of productivity change

Deterministic frontier analysis (DFA), stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), and data envelopment analysis (DEA) are alternative analytical techniques designed to measure the efficiency of producers. All three techniques were originally developed within a cross-sectional context, in which the objective is to compare the efficiencies of producers. More recently all three techniques have been extended for use in a panel data context. In the latter context it is possible to measure productivity change, and to decompose measured productivity change into its sources, one of which is efficiency change. However when efficiency measurement techniques, particularly SFA, have been applied to panel data, it has infrequently been made clear what the objective of the analysis is: the measurement of efficiency, which may vary through time as well as across producers, or the measurement and decomposition of productivity change. In this paper I explore the use of each technique in a panel data context. I find DFA and DEA to have achieved a more satisfactory reorientation toward productivity measurement than SFA has.     

In at the deep end: Conducting processual research on organisational change

This article provides a series of reflections on the practice of carrying out processual research on organisational change. At a broad level, some of the main tasks associated with conducting company case studies are described and the benefits of this approach for dealing with complex change data are outlined. At a more specific level, the article addresses three main areas tied to the actual “doing” of processual research. First, the notion of tacit knowledge and “getting your hands dirty” by engaging in ongoing in-depth fieldwork. Second, the design and implementation of a longitudinal case study research programme. Third, the advantages and concerns of combining a range of different data collecting techniques in carrying out processual studies. Overall, the main intention is to provide some useful reflections and practical insights, as well as providing something of the flavour of carrying out this type of research.     

城市化进程中的产业政策选择

当前我国已进入城市化加速阶段,促进城市化水平的提高应成为制定产业政策的重要出发点.从各产业的比较劳动生产率、国际竞争力和就业吸纳能力等方面入手进行分析,筛选出了若干发展潜力大、就业吸纳能力强的行业;并指出这些行业在我国未来的城市化进程中将起到至关重要的作用,应制定相应的政策加以重点扶持.     

信息披露监管模式变更影响企业投资效率吗？——基于双重差分模型的实证检验

基于制度变迁理论考察信息披露监管模式由“辖区监管”变更为“分行业监管”对投资效率的影响。研究发现：分行业信息披露监管模式的实施有效抑制了上市公司非效率投资行为,且对于低质量信息披露以及高盈余管理行为的上市公司抑制效应更加明显;提高会计信息可比性,降低代理成本是其发挥抑制作用的重要路径。在排除了替代性解释和内生性问题以及通过安慰剂检验后,研究结论仍然成立。     

中国证券市场发展战略研究

本文从制度变迁的角度来探寻中国证券市场的历史变迁与发展战略.本文首先全面阐述了当代金融理论对证券市场功能与作用条件的再认识,认为证券市场的功能发挥必然依靠一国的经济、信用与法治基础.而这更依赖于中国证券市场的制度创新,随后本文在梳理了证券市场制度变迁过程中的几个基本要素的基础上,针对我国目前证券市场发展的现状与存在的问题,指出制度创新单一主体的局限性,提出了以政府为主、市场为辅转化为以市场为主、政府为辅的渐进式制度变迁路径.