Multi-product firms,product mix changes and upgrading: Evidence from China's state-owned forest areas

Product selection matters for a firm's productivity and long-run growth. Recent theoretical and empirical studies indicate that an important margin of adjustment to policy reforms is the reallocation of output within firms through changes in product mix decisions. This paper examines the frequency, pervasiveness and determinants of product-switching and upgrading activities in firms located in China's state-owned forest areas during a period of gradual institutional and managerial reforms (2004–2008). We find that changes to the product mix are pervasive and characterized by adding or churning products rather than only shedding products. Moreover, changes in firms’ product mix have made a significant contribution to the aggregate output growth during our sample period. We also find that firms with different characteristics, human capital and market conditions differ in their propensity to diversify and upgrade product mix.     

Decision making for business model development: a process study of effectuation and causation in new technology-based ventures

This study investigates the decision-making logics used by new ventures to develop their business models. In particular, they focussed on the logics of effectuation and causation and how their dynamics shape the development of business models over time. They found that the effectual decision-making logic was used dominantly to generate a viable value proposition for a specific customer segment. Causal logic is then used dominantly to define the other business model components in relation to the value proposition and customer segment. When a shortage of resources emerges, causal logic is replaced by an increase in effectual decision-making again. They concluded that before investing significant resources in a business model it was crucial for firms to reduce, as far as possible, technological and market uncertainty through effectual strategies to avoid high re-configuration costs later.     

Monitoring, reputation and accountability in issuing banks in mid-nineteenth-century Spain

This paper analyses the determinants of issuing banks' disclosure in the mid-nineteenth century in Spain. Our theses are that the State was the main promoter of accountability because of the public interest in the financial sector, and that banks used disclosure to gain and maintain reputation among their stakeholders in order to facilitate the circulation of their notes. This led to a high level of compliance with regulation, except in the crisis period of 1866–68, and to an increase in voluntary disclosure in bigger banks and in those that received security deposits, which were considered at this time to be a sign of reputation.     

Pursuing the wrong options? Adjustment costs and the relationship between uncertainty and capital accumulation

Abel and Eberly (1999) prove that uncertainty has an ambiguous effect on long run capital accumulation in a real options model. We show that, with adjustment costs quadratic in investment, more uncertainty reduces capital and this effect may be large.     

GMM estimation of panel data models with time-varying slope coefficients

A difference/system generalized method of moments (GMM) model that imposes time-constant coefficients is common in empirical studies using panel data. However, a rejection by the Sargan–Hansen test is sometimes a serious concern for researchers. We highlight the fact that the Sargan–Hansen test for GMM estimators applied to panel data is a joint test of valid orthogonality conditions and coefficient stability over time. A possible reason for a rejection is therefore that the slope coefficients vary over time. One solution is to estimate an empirical model in which the coefficients are time specific. We apply this solution to the system GMM estimator of simple nondynamic Cobb–Douglas production functions for a selection of Swedish industries and find that relaxing the assumption of constant slope coefficients results in more satisfactory outcomes of the Sargan–Hansen test.     

Career coordination strategies among dual career expatriate couples

The combination of two trends common in working life – international work and a dual career situation – is challenging for both genders. In order to cope with the situation, international dual career couples have to be able to coordinate their careers. The purpose of this article is to identify how dual career expatriates view their career coordination strategies with their partners, and how these views differ between the genders. Semi-structured interviews were carried out among 39 expatriates on assignment who had a partner working, at least before the assignment. Our findings identify three career coordination strategies applied by dual career couples, and confirm gender plays an essential role in the formation of those strategies. Male expatriates predominated among the group adopting a hierarchical strategy and female expatriates predominated among the group adopting an egalitarian and a loose coordination strategy. Strategies also seemed prone to change over time. Companies should pay attention to both the career development of the partner and the relationship coping skills of the couple to maximize the chances of dual career expatriate assignments being successful.     

Rational Versus Intuitive Gatekeeping: Escalation of Commitment in the Front End of NPD

The unwillingness of a gatekeeper to let go of a fruitless new product development (NPD) project wastes valuable resources and hampers NPD performance. The onset of such escalation of commitment is likely to occur already in the front end of NPD, where high ambiguity and complexity make it hard to distinguish fruitless from potentially successful projects. This study investigates if a gatekeeper’s thinking style—whether they think rationally or whether they follow their intuition—can prevent escalation of commitment in the front end. Theory on cognition provides arguments for and against either thinking style’s influence on escalation of commitment, but empirical evidence on this matter is lacking. Our study demonstrates that gatekeepers who think rationally are less likely to escalate their commitment than those who follow their intuition. This result holds both in a correlational study of dispositional thinking styles, as well as in an individual‐level randomized experiment in which the thinking style of experienced practitioners before they take gate decisions is induced. Our findings provide ample opportunities for improving existing front end gate review practices, such as allocating candidates for gatekeeper positions based on their thinking style, training gatekeepers to think rationally, and increasing the use of gate‐decision rules and templates.     

大规模MPLS网络中的新兴技术

随着网络规模越来越大,选择一个完善的网络管理框架并有效降低标签需求量对于MPLS网络而言显得十分重要。为此,探讨了基于策略的MPLS管理以及Trainet等近年来出现的大规模MPLS网络新兴技术,并与现有相关技术进行了比较。     

Consumers as Co-developers: Learning and Innovation Outside the Firm

This study describes a process in which a firm relies on an external consumer community for innovation. While it has been recognized that users may sometimes innovate, little is known about what commercial firms can do to motivate and capture such innovations and their related benifits. We contribute to strategy literature by suggesting that learning and innovation efforts from which a firm may benifit need not necessarily be located within the organization, but may well reside in the consumer environment. We also contribute to the existing theory on ‘user-driven innovation’ by showing what firms purposively can do to generate consumer innovation efforts. An explorative case study shows that consumer innovation can be structured, motivated, and partly organized by a commercial firm that organizes the infrastructure for consumers’ interactive learning in a public online domain.     

Development and Psychometric Analysis of an Instrument to Measure the Reasons that Oncological Patients give when Participating in a Psychological Intervention

This work presents the psychometric study of a questionnaire on participation in psychological therapy (QPPT). The study is applied to oncological patients and the questionnaire was designed to evaluate the reasons given by chronic patients when participating or not in programmes of psychological treatment. The questionnaire includes six rational areas which resulted from the confirmatory factorial analysis.The internal consistency of the scales was analysed through Cronbach’s Alpha, and their discriminatory capacity between criterion groups of oncological patients was tested by means of t-tests and discriminant analyses. The results support, to a reasonable extent, the reliability and validity of the QPPT as an instrument to evaluate the reasons of participation or refusal of psychological treatment in oncological patients.