Information flows and crashes in dynamic social networks

We develop a dynamic model of information transmission and aggregation in social networks in which continued membership in the network is contingent on the accuracy of opinions. Agents have opinions about a state of the world and form links to others in a directed fashion probabilistically. Agents update their opinions by averaging those of their connections, weighted by how long their connections have been in the system. Agents survive or die based on how far their opinions are from the true state. In contrast to the results in the extant literature on DeGroot learning, we show through simulations that for some parameterizations the model cycles stochastically between periods of high connectivity, in which agents arrive at a consensus opinion close to the state, and periods of low connectivity, in which agents’ opinions are widely dispersed.

     

Identifying “best” applicants in recruiting using data envelopment analysis

Selecting the most promising candidates to fill an open position can be a difficult task when there are many applicants. Each applicant achieves certain performance levels in various categories and the resulting information can be overwhelming. We demonstrate how data envelopment analysis (DEA) can be used as a fair screening and sorting tool to support the candidate selection and decision-making process. Each applicant is viewed as an entity with multiple achievements. Without any a priori preference or information on the multiple achievements, DEA identifies the non-dominated solutions, which, in our case, represent the “best” candidates. A DEA-aided recruiting process was developed that (1) determines the performance levels of the “best” candidates relative to other applicants; (2) evaluates the degree of excellence of “best” candidates’ performance; (3) forms consistent tradeoff information on multiple recruiting criteria among search committee members, and, then, (4) clusters the applicants.     

The relationship between governance structure and risk management approaches in Japanese venture capital firms

This paper attempts to understand what drives Japanese venture capital (JVC) fund managers to select either active managerial monitoring or portfolio diversification to manage their firms' investment risks [J. Bus. Venturing 4 (1989) 231]. Unlike U.S. venture capitalists that use active managerial monitoring to gain private information in order to maximize returns [J. Finance 50 (1995) 301], JVCs have traditionally used portfolio diversification to attenuate investment risks [Hamada, Y., 2001. Nihon no Bencha Kyapitaru no Genkyo (Current State of Japanese Venture Capital), Nihon Bencha Gakkai VC Seminar, May 7]. We found that performance pay is positively related to active monitoring and that management ownership is positively related to active monitoring and negatively related to portfolio diversification. The managerial implication of our study is that venture capitalists should be as concerned about the structure of their incentive systems for their fund managers as they are for their investee-firm entrepreneurs. Agency theory says that contingent compensation is a self-governing mechanism for individual effort that is difficult to measure and verify. When properly applied, equity ownership and performance-based pay can have powerful influencing effects on the strategic choices of managers.     

The Effects of Participation and Job-Relevant Information on the Relationship Between Evaluative Style and Job Satisfaction

This study investigates the intervening effects of budgetary participation and job-relevant information on the relationship between budget emphasis and job satisfaction. It proposes that budgetary participation and job-relevant information are endogenous to budget emphasis. Using the path analytical technique and based on a sample of 152 senior managers, the study found that budget emphasis has an insignificant direct effect on job satisfaction, but a strong indirect effect through job-relevant information and budgetary participation. The results also indicate that job-relevant information has an intervening effect on the relationship between participation and job satisfaction.     

Heterogeneous ability,career choice and firm size

Entrepreneurial ability is the ability to innovate new products. Managerial ability is the ability to maintain the profitability of current operations. By assuming heterogeneous abilities of acquiring and maintaining an endogenous number of production processes, the model of this paper predicts a distribution of firm sizes, a diversity in the composition of R&D and chosen career. Firms conduct product improvement if and only if managerial ability is high relative to entrepreneurial ability. Individuals choose careers as either innovative entrepreneurs, managerial entrepreneurs or salaried employees depending on their abilities. An individual's entrepreneurial ability may not be high enough to choose a career as an innovative entrepreneur, but if managerial ability is sufficiently high, then a career as a managerial entrepreneur is optimal. Managerial ability has an effect on expected firm size if and only if the individual is a managerial entrepreneur.This material is based upon work supported by the Research Committee of the Rutgers Graduate School of Management. I wish to thank two anonymous referees for helpful suggestions.     

An empirical investigation of firm public and private knowledge

Many studies examine firm private knowledge, but purport to be generalizable to the totality of firm knowledge, both public and private. This study demonstrates that public and private firm knowledge are empirically separable constructs that have significant and yet different influences on innovative outcomes. The example of product development effectiveness within this study shows that both public and private knowledge are significantly related to product development quality; however, public knowledge is negatively related to quality lapses while private knowledge is positively related to quality lapses. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The New Economy is dead,long live the information economy

The arrival of the 2001–2003 recession caused many to suppose that the so-called “New Economy” was now defunct. This article addresses a number of related issues, including the question of the durability and viability of business cycles in the face of the technological developments of the information age. It asks what went wrong with the New Economy and examines its characteristics as well as its remaining possibilities and prospects for the future. Finally, it considers the spread of the Information Economy to Europe, especially to Germany, the country that one might expect to be the leading European player, but which is not at present actually a strong competitor for that role.     

A model of project evaluation with limited attention

Summary This paper characterizes the optimal policy for a model in which manager may adopt an endogenous number of projects but has only limited resources to devote to their evaluation and maintenance. In any period, the manager may discard any subset of existing projects but may evaluate only one existing or one new project which is then either discarded or restored. Both its current return and the probability with which a project may be restored depends only on the number of periods since its last evaluated. For a manager whose objective is to maximize the sum of discounted returns, the optimal policy takes one of two forms. A discard policy specifies that the manager evaluate a new project in each period and discard current projects at some critical age. An age inspection policy specifies that the manager evaluate a new project only if all current projects are sufficiently young.Support from the C. V. Starr Center for Applied Economics and the Research Resource Committee of the Rutgers Graduate School of Management is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Roy Radner for valuable assistance in the early stages of the work.     

Experimental evidence of gender effects in arbitration decisions

The study investigates arbitrator gender and arbitrator-grievant gender effects on the decisions of 146 arbitrators rendered on a hypothetical sexual harassment case. Gender was not found to have a statistically significant effect on the decisions examined. However, other characteristics of the arbitrator—level of experience and level of education—were found to influence the arbitral decision.