A hospital without walls

Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center has chalked up an impressive string of successes. What's ahead? A $20 million cancer center.     

Navigating compromise: How founder authenticity affects venture identification amidst organizational hybridity

Founders of hybrid ventures encounter organizational tensions that can compel compromise in both their organizations' and their own personal values. Such compromises may, in turn, undermine founders' identification with their ventures. In a multi-case study analysis we examine why social entrepreneurs differ in their responses to organizational tensions, both at the firm- and individual-level, and how such differences relate to their venture identification. Specifically, our findings reveal that strategic decisions made in the context of values-based complexity are often accompanied by concerns regarding founder authenticity—that is, judgments about the alignment between founders' actions and the commitments or responsibilities associated with their identities as entrepreneurs. Yet, because founders differ in the basis from which they seek to maintain such alignment, these differences shape both hybridity management and subsequent venture identification. By unpacking such differences, our findings contribute new theory, bridging recent scholarship on founder authenticity with longstanding research on organizational identification and hybrid organizing.     

Research collaboration and behavioural additionality: A New Zealand case study

Generating the greatest benefit from public research programmes is a major aim for industry managers and policy administrators alike. However, how to measure whether benefit has occurred createsf a considerable dilemma for managers and policy-makers. One approach centres upon the concept of 'additionality' or 'what difference the policy has made'. Traditional 'input additionality' measures of subsequent research and development activity, for example, neither incorporate all impacts nor give adequate signals about adequate signals about aspects of 'output additionality', such as the impact on increased competitiveness at the level of the firm, or national competitiveness, the ultimate goal for the majority of research policies. An intermediate form of impact, 'behavioural additionality', centred upon changes in a firm's subsequent managerial behaviour, is considered to provide an alternative, yet compelling perspective on the impact of public support on the conduct of research. This study outlines empirical eveidence found for the various forms of additionality in a New Zealand collaborative research programme. It discusses how managers and policy administrators can exploit the occrrence of behavioural additionality to maximize the impact of a research policy, on the basis that modified behaviour is likely to strengthen a policy' latent abilityto influence the creation of output additionality. In such circumstances, the study suggests that managers and policy-makers should be identifying those interventions that lead to sustained improvements in mangerial practice, and in competitiveness, and should be managing their diffusion within firms and throughout industries.     

Race and the discouraged female worker: A question of labor force attachment

This article presents an empirical examination of female attachment to the labor market. An econometric model of the discouragement process is built to determine how strongly women exhibit the inclination to remain labor force participants over the course of the business cycle. The estimated results imply that women, as a group, have a stronger response to changes in short-run cyclical fluctuations and therefore will sever their attachment to the labor force significantly sooner than their male counterparts. However, when the analysis is broken down by race, minority females are discovered to demonstrate only a modest response to short-run fluctuations and a very pronounced long-run sensitivity to cyclical swings. Thus, the results suggest that while females as a whole do not exhibit the same degree of labor force attachment as males, minority females respond in a manner similar to that of male workers. Such a conclusion is in agreement with the growing literature on the labor market behavior of minority females who are increasingly playing the same economic role in society as men.     

Right-to-work legislation and the economic position of black workers

Recent empirical analysis of state right-to-work legislation indicates that a negative wage effect may result as a consequence of banning union shop contracts. It has been previously shown that industrial unionism tends to improve the relative wage position of black workers. Thus, it is hypothesized that if state right-to-work laws weaken the economic power of unions to raise wages, black workers will experience a disproportionate decline in their relative wage position. Black workers in right-to-work states would therefore experience a reduction in their relative economic position unless a strong positive relative employment effect occurs in response to the decline in wages. Using a cross-sectional regression model this article examines the relative employment effect due to right-to-work legislation. The results indicate that black workers experience a statistically significant decline in their relative employment rate within right-to-work states. When this finding is coupled with the hypothesized negative wage effect, it is concluded that right-to-work legislation results in a worsening of the net economic position of black workers.     

Inhibition of Brand Integration amid Changing Agency Structures

The all‐important focus upon brands and brand success is underpinned – of necessity – by well‐designed and well‐executed integrated marketing communications (IMC). This qualitative paper explores perceptions of IMC in relation to branding within senior UK‐based advertising and public relations agencies in terms of current perceptions, implementation, coordination, evaluation, barriers, budgetary issues, decision‐making; and managerial implications for the future of IMC. The paper describes the findings from a series of depth interviews with senior executives from leading advertising and public relations agencies. While the findings do indicate the presence of ongoing barriers to the adoption and usage of integrated solutions, these barriers are as much an issue to do with clients as with the agencies themselves. Nonetheless, there seems to be an issue concerned with remodelling working practices to accommodate new and seamless ways of working creatively across all promotional mix elements. Thus, while the principles of integrated marketing communications are sound, the actual mechanisms for application still need further work –in terms of both application and measurement, and the need for in‐depth research. We also endorse and reiterate oft‐repeated calls for research with client organizations.     

HR practices and New Zealand firm performance: what matters and who does it?

We examine the impact of human resource practices, especially those considered as parts of high performance work systems, on firm performance. The analysis is unique in using data from an economy-wide official survey to determine whether firms that adopt high performance HR practices perform better than their rivals. We find that adoption of a suite of high performance practices (and adoption of specific practices pertaining to staff training and performance pay) has a causal impact on firm outcomes. The strength of the relationships differs by firm size and age. Firms that adopt high performance practices are predominantly young and in high-tech related sectors.