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An essay is presented on the subject of cigarette smoking among U.S. laborers in factories, corporate spying on workers, and the social culture of shopfloors in the U.S. during the 20th century. It examines the records of Erie, Pennsylvania, paper manufacturer Hammermill Paper Company concerning employee cigarette consumption, how employees attempted to evade corporate surveillance of their smoking, and labor relations in the U.S.

SUMMARY A number of variations of evolutionary operation have been devised since the technique was originally described by G. E. P. Box. One of these variants-Simplex evolutionary operation--is described in this article. The method appears to be particularly suitable for application in the paper industry in which more traditional forms of experimentation are often unsuccessful. Some examples of the use of both the original and Simplex forms of EVOP are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of bibliometric indicators would simplify research assessments. The 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) is a peer review assessment of UK universities, whose results can be taken as benchmarks for bibliometric indicators. In this study, we use the REF results to investigate whether the e p index and a top percentile of most cited papers could substitute for peer review. The probability that a random university's paper reaches a certain top percentile in the global distribution of papers is a power of the e p index, which can be calculated from the citation-based distribution of university's papers in global top percentiles. Making use of the e p index in each university and research area, we calculated the ratios between the percentage of 4-star-rated outputs in REF and the percentages of papers in global top percentiles. Then, we fixed the assessment percentile so that the mean ratio between these two indicators across universities is 1.0. This method was applied to four units of assessment in REF: Chemistry, Economics and Econometrics joined to Business and Management Studies, and Physics. Some relevant deviations from the 1.0 ratio could be explained by the evaluation procedure in REF or by the characteristics of the research field; other deviations need specific studies by experts in the research area. These results indicate that in many research areas the substitution of a top percentile indicator for peer review is possible. However, this substitution cannot be made straightforwardly; more research is needed to establish the conditions of the bibliometric assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To promote the integration of the information industry, chain is of great significance for enterprises to improve quality, efficiency cost reduction and high-quality industry development. In this paper, based on the data envelopment analysis method, the efficiency measurement models of series structure, parallel structure and hybrid structure industrial chain are constructed under two different scenarios of central decision-making mechanism and decentralized decision-making mechanism. By quantifying the input and output resources that is in each link of the information industry chain integration process, measuring the input and output efficiency under different industrial chain integration structure; comparing and analyzing the integration efficiency of different regions, different links, discussing the cause of the differences in the integration efficiency of industry chain; thus, providing policy recommendations for the efficiency of industrial chain integration. In addition, taking the actual situation of two industrial parks with the main characteristics of carbon emission in a city of China as an example, the paper analyzes the difference of the integration efficiency of the information industry chain between the two parks. The empirical analysis shows that the information industry chain integration efficiency measurement model based on data envelope analysis theory is feasible and effective. It can not only measure the industry chain efficiency as a whole but also compare and analyze the integration efficiency of enterprises in different links of the industry chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces the articles that won the Best Paper Competition in Corporate Governance organized by the "Review of Finance" and the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and the recipients of the 2009 Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) Best Research Paper Prize in 2009.

This paper starts with a critical assessment of the recent paper by Cowan, Foray and David. It also provides the authors' own assessment of why the tacit/codified distinction is important in relation to economic analysis and knowledge management practice. The criticism of Cowan, Foray and David centres on three points. Firstly, it is argued that the discussion on codification must make the fundamental distinction between knowledge about the world (know-what) and knowledge in the form of skills and competence (know-how). Secondly, it is argued that the dichotomy between codifiable and non-codifiable knowledge is problematic since it is rare that a body of knowledge can be completely transformed into codified form without losing some of its original characteristics and that most forms of relevant knowledge are mixed in these respects. Thirdly, we contest their implicit assumption that codification always represents progress. We conclude that for these reasons their intellectual exercise of extending definitions of what is codified and possible to codify, while in principle addressing very important issues related to innovation policy and knowledge management, ends up having limited practical implications for these areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on theories of socio-economic change stemming from political economy and economic sociology to examine the financialization of the US forest products industry. I argue that the widespread adoption of shareholder value norms of corporate governance constitutes one of the core ideological foundations for explaining how the financialization of non-financial firms was accomplished. At the same time, I suggest that economic sociologists' emphasis on the role of shareholder value ideology tends to obscure the concrete realities of contemporary capitalism and the socio-economic relations that underlie managerial conceptions of control. In this paper, I adopt a dialectical methodology that works at multiple levels of abstraction in order to highlight the internal relationship that exists between managerial conceptions of control and the material processes of capital accumulation. Using data mined from corporate proxy statements, I show that increases in concentrated stock ownership among institutional investors and the use of incentive-based compensation--among other important factors--underlie the adoption of shareholder value strategies in the US forest products sector. I then demonstrate how the pursuit of shareholder value reshaped the US forest products in the interests of the financial community while undermining long-term stability of the industry and the people who depend on it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The articles published in the special edition of the periodical 'Industrial and Corporate Change' were discussed. The periodical explores the issues facing the telecommunications industry managers and regulators. The papers in this special issue discuss institutional issues that affect cost and innovation in the telecommunications sector. The first theme of the papers is that institutional changes to public policies and corporate boundaries must take place in response to fundamental changes in the cost structure and performance parameters of telecommunications services. The second theme concerns universal service. The third theme concerns the source of telecommunications innovations. The central message of the papers is that the challenge now is to overcome the institutional barriers.

In this paper, I consider a specific channel through which trust between parties to an exchange can go on to affect nations' comparative advantage in certain industries. My approach revolves around the autonomy that employers (principals) grant to workers (agents), which is a key feature of workplace organization. I hypothesize that social trust generates a comparative advantage in industries with more autonomous micro production environments. I employ individual-level data on work autonomy to construct a measure of the extent to which industries are characterized by autonomy in the production process. Results of a cross-country cross-industry analysis confirm that countries with higher levels of social trust have a comparative advantage in high-autonomy industries and vice versa. Results are robust to the possibility of reverse causality. The paper's key contribution is to provide a link between the microeconomic literature on workplace organization and the comparative macroeconomic literature on social trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an empirical methodology for evaluating the development of production networks. It looks at the linkages between the flow of knowledge within the production network and the development of firm-endogenous capabilities, and applies this methodology to the Argentinean automotive industry in order to study its weaknesses and potential. The paper finds that the automotive network is partially integrated and based on incomplete interactions. In general, the firm's innovative performance is based on its own strategies and background, and the effects of a closer interaction with the network are undermined. However, this paper concludes that the network is significant for explaining the complexity of innovative activities and work organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the application of frameworks in order to explain how key features of the intra-firm learning processes influence inter-firm differences in technological capability accumulation in the late-industrializing or latecomer context. This relationship is examined in two of the largest steel firms in Brazil over their lifetimes of 40 and 60 years. These issues have been addressed, individually or together, in different studies of 'technological capability' and 'learning' in industrialized and latecomer firms. However, there is a scarcity of analytical frameworks and supporting empirical evidence to explore the practical implications of the underlying learning processes for inter-firm differences in technological capability-accumulation paths, particularly within the latecomer context. The framework for capability accumulation identifies different types and levels of technological capabilities. The framework for learning identifies four processes: external and internal knowledge acquisition, knowledge socialization, and knowledge codification. These are examined on the basis of key features: variety, intensity and functioning. Drawing on in-depth comparative case study methodology, the study has found that: (i) the technological capability accumulation paths followed by the two firms diverged and have proceeded at differing rates over time, and (ii) key features of the intra-firm learning processes have played a substantial part in influencing these differences. The paper suggests that, at least within large latecomer steel firms, purposeful, continuous and effective efforts to improve on key features of the underlying learning processes are likely to generate positive implications for the manner and rate of technological capability accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a deductively derived model to help managers who preside over decisions to integrate or outsource to assess ex ante whether, when and why it might be strategically and competitively important to develop internal capabilities to perform certain activities in-house, and when it would be sensible and safe to outsource elements of value-added. Among the paper's conclusions are that the competitive advantage from vertical integration is strongest in tiers of the market where customers are under-served by the functionality or performance available from products in the market. Vertical integration tends to be a disadvantage when customers are over-served by the functionality available from products in the market. Vertically integrated firms will therefore often dominate in the most demanding tiers of markets that have grown to substantial size, while a horizontally stratified, or disintegrated, industry structure will often be the dominant business model in the tiers of the market that are less demanding of functionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the evolution of corporate organization with special attention to the organization of R&D. More specifically, the paper addresses the comparative long-term organizational dynamics of management of innovation and technology in two different types of technology-based industrial companies: the 'related diversifier' pursuing 'synergistic economies' and the 'vertical integrator' pursuing 'vertical economies'. These types of companies are illustrated by case studies of two large Danish manufacturing companies. The analysis aligns the strategic management literature on strategy and structure in large companies with the literature on management of innovation and technology. It is argued that the organizational design for managing innovation and technology is contingent on both the overall strategy-structure profile and dynamics of the companies, and on key characteristics of their particular innovation and technology strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of computer-based production technologies on firms' choice of governance mode for vertical transactions. We argue that in the long run diffusion of the new technologies should lead to a wider use of arm's length relationships with suppliers of increasingly standardized intermediate goods. In the early stage of diffusion, however, vertical transactions should tend to be internalized under hierarchical control. In any case, network configurations based on subcontracting are negatively affected. Evidence supporting these arguments is provided through a 'laboratory' study of make-or-buy decisions made by 100 adopter firms in the Italian metalworking industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its inception, the international quality standard ISO/IEC 17025 has been revised twice. The most recent edition adopted a new structure to align with other conformity assessment and quality management standards, harmonized the terminology with the International Vocabulary of Metrology and introduced the concept of risk-based thinking. This paper disseminates the experience of the IAEA Radiation Safety Technical Services Laboratory in successful transition and re-accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025:2017. It covers all stages of the transition cycle: from conducting a gap analysis between the existing quality system and the requirements in the revised standard, updating the corresponding quality documents, developing training and communication plans for laboratory personnel, to monitoring the changes and improving the system through auditing, management review and participation in proficiency testing schemes. Lessons learned about building operational resilience and maintaining a business continuity management system to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptions are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the functionalist approach's dominance in international organization law and proposes the need for other viewpoints. It discusses the shortcomings of the functionalist approach, particularly in terms of accountability to third parties. It mentions the finding of unnoticed innovations by Anne-Marie Leroy, former World Bank legal counsel, who presented a distinct legal risk management approach that deviates from typical techniques based on legal permissiveness.

Within the diversification literature the concept of corporate coherence has been referred to as the ability of the firm to generate and explore synergies of various types. However, the empirical studies have insofar provided only approaches taking explicitly into account the product/market side of the phenomenon. The present paper operationalizes the concept of corporate coherence as a dynamic interconnectedness between the company's technological competencies and its downstream activities. It also provides some further empirical evidence on the widely discussed relationship between corporate diversification and performance. Specifically, it offers some (albeit rather weak) evidence that economic performance is positively influenced not by the degree of diversification per se, but by the ability of the company to increase its corporate coherence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for greater attention to employment-based organizational identities in ecological theory and research. I define and explore three dimensions of particular relevance to labor market identities: sharpness/resonance, focus and authenticity. The paper offers some speculations regarding: (i) when labor market identities are most decisive for organizations; (ii) how product market and labor market identities interact; (iii) how employment-based organizational identities might be operationalized; and (iv) how greater attention to such identities would illuminate key issues in organizational ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the complex relationship among innovation, technological regimes and selection of the firms of different organizational forms in the evolution of an industry. For this purpose, this paper develops a `history-friendly' model for the dynamic random access memory industry that replicates the history of the industry by simulation. The shift of industry dominance by small, specialized (SS) firms to large, diversified (LD) firms is explained by the technological regimes of the industry, characterized by low cumulativeness and strong impact of innovation on productivity increase. The simulation analysis also found the following causal relationship underlying the evolution of the industry. First, the stronger innovation impact in terms of productivity jump tends to enlarge the productivity difference among the incumbent firms and increase the speed of productivity catch-up by the LU firms. Second, the possibility of entry and eventual dominance by the LD firms increase when the innovation-productivity linkage is stronger and there is less cumulativeness in productivity determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a conceptual framework for the analysis of economic learning is developed. Economic learning, by analogy with organizational learning, results in the development of economic competences, or capabilities, shared between firms, which rest on a foundation of economic resources, from which value is generated, and economic routines, through which resources are utilized. It is the mobility of resources, nd their exchange and production dynamics, long evolutionary pathways, which underpins the plausibility of a notion of economic learning. The paper elaborates this framework as a 'resource-based view' (RBV) of the economy as a whole, as an extension of the RBV of the firm. Such a framework captures the dynamics of exchange and circulation of technologies, know-how and intangible assets, as well as of tangible assets and capital goods; it is concerned with investment behavior by entrepreneurs rather than with the behavior of producers and consumers in goods and services markets. Within this resource economy framework, it is possible to generate an account of the resource dynamics that underpin production of goods and services—including resource propagation, diffusion, imitation, replication and recombination. These processes encompass evolutionary pressures, experienced through resource variation, selection and retention. Entrepreneurial initiatives take the form of resource recombinations, while resource innovation captures the creation of new economic resources, such as technological standards. Such a perspective brings into focus the resource specialization and configurations that drive real economies, within firms and between firms, that translates into enhanced or diminished performance of the economy as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article responds to a commentary on worker management and industrial enterprise. The author reemphasizes that the paper owed a great deal to earlier writers. The purpose of his article was simply to put forward a rather different model from that used by previous authors, which is in some respects more suited to examining certain aspects of worker management. The paper failed to make sufficiently clear the relevance of the comparison between the labor-managed and capitalist firms, and I should like to stress that the paper was concerned with comparing behavior and not with making any normative judgments. It was certainly not intended to suggest that large scale or a high growth rate were necessarily desirable.

Empirical studies of corporate governance address potential endogeneity problems, but fail to place endogeneity in the context of a model and ignore the possibility of disparate treatment effects across companies. This paper tackles these defects. The model and analysis in the paper demonstrate that: (1) Valid and positive estimates for the effect of governance can only arise if there is random variation in governance and governance is systematically underproduced, or governance is chosen randomly without bias and the randomness under study concerns a subpopulation with below-average governance. (2) Governance models that correct for endogeneity using subsamples of firms, fixed effects, or instrumental variables estimates focus on subpopulations of companies that may have different responses to a governance treatment than the average firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion that firms generate rents from proprietary knowledge is widely accepted. However, the mechanisms that firms, as institutions, can differentially deploy to protect their knowledge form appropriation by rivals are not well understand. This paper examines three broad classes of 'protective mechanisms' that firms can deploy to keep their knowledge secret: rules, compensation schemes, and structural isolation. The paper concludes that keeping organizational secrets through the deployment of protective mechanisms is both difficult and costly. Economizing considerations can therefore be expected to bear strongly on this aspect of firm organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the rationales of corporate headquarters (CHQ). In organizational economics, the role of the CHQ is mostly seen to be limited to monitoring and incentive issues. However, it has also long been recognized that the CHQ may assist in exploiting economies of scope and other synergies and in building up internal capital markets—that is to say, it may 'create the positive' rather than merely 'avoid the negative'. This paper links up with the positive' view of the CHQ but expands substantially on it. Starting from the capabilities view of the firm, I suggest that an important part of the rationales of the CHQ lies in its ability to (i) perform 'knowledge-direction' (i.e. use, blend and direct the initial knowledge endowments of input owners) and (ii) exploit the flexibility of incomplete contracts, particularly with respect to growing capabilities through coordinated organizational learning. While these functions of the CHQ are recognized within the business history and strategy literature, they are neglected within the literature on organizational economics. The novelty of the paper lies in giving an economically oriented treatment of these value creating capabilities of the CHQ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper closely studies the historical experiences of computer users faced with incompatibility problems. One key point throughout the discussion is that operating system compatibilities and application software were the principal source of switching costs. The larger point here is that vendor specificity is partially a choice-variable for the buyer. It influences many facets of an organization, as well as management and employee behavior. Foresighted users anticipate that daily decisions regarding programming practices and equipment maintenance influence the costs of switching during a later vendor decision. Buyers take a wide variety of actions, both simple and complex. Most of the paper is concerned with documenting and analyzing how buyers change investments, collect information, manipulate bidding procedures and change managements practices—either in anticipation of, or in response to, incompatibility problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we offer an interpretation of the social and institutional context that promoted the development and evolution of the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. Our interest is in defining the historical circumstances that led to the geographic concentration of the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry in the Mid-Atlantic region. Our focus is both geographic and institutional as we seek to understand the forces behind geographic localization and the ways in which geographic localization may contribute to the advancement of science and to the evolution of industries. In this paper, we describe the general development of the industry in the Mid-Atlantic region of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic analysis concerning new product innovation is divided between the perspective (associated with Bain) that new product designs are based on product differentiation which erects barriers to new competition insulating incumbent firms, and the perspective (associated with Schumpeter) that innovation erodes the position of incumbent firms. This paper offers an analysis of the US disposable diaper industry which emphasizes the long-run effects of technological competition and entry on market performance over the short-run effects of incumbency advantages. As the disposable diaper industry evolved, neither product differentiation, supported by large advertising expenditures, nor technological leadership in new product development insulated the major company Procter & Gamble from the 'gales of creatives destruction'. Spillovers created by the market leaders became the means of successful entry and the channels of technology diffusion that sustained entrants in the technology race and enlarged consumer benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Chinese efforts to join the ranks of the East Asian developing economies of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. It describes Chinese efforts to emulate the Japanese model of industrial management rather than American management schemes, and it notes the compatibilities between certain legacies of Maoist socialism in China's state enterprises and the Japanese model. In particular, the paper traces the development of the Chinese employment system in the state sector. Compatibilities include indications that the Chinese workers could become company men, that they prefer paternalistic managers, that their work responds to appreciation, and that they do not regard management and worker interests as necessarily conflictual. Granted the evolution of greater autonomy for Chinese state enterprises, the paper concludes that an organization-oriented system can develop within Chinese state enterprises and that a shift to a market economy need not be accompanied by a marketoriented employment system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper adopts a novel career perspective to examine theories of corporate control in the context of executive pay. Detailed career histories of boardroom executives in all FTSE 350 companies between 1996 and 2008 are utilised. The paper highlights the failure of existing arrangements to adjust pay outcomes where career performance is poor. The leading theoretical reasons for this disconnect, namely managerial power and neoinstitutionalism, are not consistent with the data. The paper identifies a settling-up process at work, whereby pay is adjusted in the light of both past pay and past performance. From a policy perspective, a case is made for adopting a cumulative or career-oriented approach to rewarding executive performance through the use of truly long-term incentives in the form of 'career shares'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper exploits the staggered initiation of takeover laws across countries to examine whether the threat of takeover enhances managerial discipline. We show that following the passage of takeover laws, poorly performing firms experience more frequent takeovers; the propensity to replace poorly performing CEOs increases, especially in countries with weak investor protection; and directors of targeted firms are more likely to lose board seats following corporate-control events. Our findings suggest that the threat of takeover causes managerial discipline through the incentives that the market for corporate control provides to boards to monitor managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the important issues in a merger between two or more decision making units is identification of the levels of inherited inputs and outputs from merging units. This paper introduces new inverse data envelopment analysis models for target setting of a merger in the presence of negative data. It enables the merged entity to identify the levels of required inputs and outputs from merging units to realize an efficiency target. The applicability of the proposed method in this paper is illustrated through an example from banking; however, it can be used in other merger contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers a rather tired argument in corporate governance circles, that corpo- rate laws only giving rights to stockholders somehow implicitly empower directors to regard other constituencies as equal ends in governance. By continuing to suggest that corporate boards themselves are empowered to treat the best interests of other corporate constituencies as ends in themselves, no less important than stockholders, scholars and commentators obscure the need for legal protections for other constituencies. As a case study, this paper examines what happened when an activist investor came to DuPont, illustrating how its board knew that they were expected to make their end investors' best interests, even if that hurt other constituencies. This isn't a story about bad people, but a reminder to those genuinely concerned for non-shareholder constituencies to face reality and support changes in the power dynamics affecting corporate governance that make regard for non-shareholder constituen- cies an obligation for business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the end of New Labour's first term four central objectives of energy policy had become established: ‘cheap’ energy, the relief of fuel poverty, a major reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, and energy security through maintaining a wide diversity of primary fuel supplies, all to be achieved through ‘competition’. After surveying New Labour energy policy documents, the paper argues that New Labour failed to appreciate (i) the extent to which, under such a laissez faire policy regime, these objectives were mutually inconsistent; (ii) that the apparent successes of energy market liberalisation during the preceding Conservative Governments had little to do with ‘competition’; and (iii) that the transaction costs of injecting increasing ‘competition’ into both British and European energy systems are likely to exacerbate the growing threat to energy security. The paper concludes with a brief examination of the implications of transaction cost economics for the organisational structure of the UK energy supply industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of wireless systems has led recently to the deployment of cooperative network infrastructures where networks based on different technologies cooperate together to offer innovative services which the networks individually could not offer. Cooperative network infrastructures are hybrid systems. Examples of hybrid systems are already in use in areas as diverse power systems and locomotion systems. It is very important to apply efficient system management techniques to hybrid systems that produce advantageous business case scenarios for each participating system and efficient use of the available resources. In this paper, scenarios are investigated where cooperation between an integrated project (IP)-based broadcast network and an IP-based mobile telecommunications network has the potential to allow services to be provided to mobile users which would not be economical to offer over either an IP-based broadcast network or an IP-based mobile telecommunications network alone. The paper presents a novel technique for determining which network to use to deliver such services at a given point in time. The application of this technique in appropriate scenarios has the potential to generate additional income for both the IP-based broadcast network operator and the IP-based mobile telecommunications network operator in an infrastructure where the operators cooperate to offer innovative services. The paper explains the construction of utility functions for cooperative IP-based broadcast and mobile telecommunications networks. These utility functions are then used to provide results that enable the efficiency of the management of the network to be assessed in terms of the utility volume generated by the innovative services provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the presence of voice regime at the workplace in the U.S. The practices that form part of most formal voice regimes can be quite diverse. It involves two-way forms of communication between employers and employees and attempts to gain valuable information and improved worker performance with or without third-party involvement. It also provides the overarching framework for the five essays that form part of symposium on workplace and the role of employers in the voice provision.

This paper analyses the effects of tying arrangements on R&D incentives. It shows that tying is a means through which a firm can commit to more aggressive R&D investment in the tied goods market. Tying also has the strategic effect of reducing rivals’ incentives to invest in R&D. The strategy of tying is a profitable one if the gains, via an increased share of dynamic rents in the tied goods market, exceed the losses that result from intensified price competition in the market. The welfare implications of tying, and consequently the appropriate antitrust policy, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bulk of corporate governance theory examines the agency problems that arise from two extreme ownership structures: 100% small shareholders or one large, controlling owner combined with small shareholders. In this paper, we question the empirical validity of this dichotomy. In fact, one-third of publicly listed firms in Europe have multiple large owners, and the market value of firms with multiple blockholders differs from firms with a single large owner and from widely held firms. Moreover, the relationship between corporate valuations and the distribution of cash-flow rights across multiple large owners is consistent with the predictions of recent theoretical models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most value chain analyses remain at an abstract level, underplaying political economy issues and the importance of local context. The paper analyses the manner in which global automotive forces (the dominance of the German assemblers and their multinational corporation first-tier suppliers) combine with local institutional influences (the government's automotive industrial policy) to drive, shape, and restructure the trajectory of the South African automotive industry under the hegemony of the 'German connection'. It shows 'how' and 'why' the German corporations, unlike their American and Japanese counterparts, were able to successfully integrate their global value chains with local institutional and policy conditions and reap the benefits. Its conclusions both add to a general understanding of how governance (power, command, control) operates within producer-driven value chains and illuminate the political economy dynamics of German control underpinning the South African automotive industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some of the world's leading suppliers are developing strategies to move into the provision of innovative combinations of products and services as 'high-value integrated solutions' tailored to each customer's needs. Rather than simply 'moving downstream' into services (as much of the business strategy literature assumes), this paper argues that the provision of integrated solutions is attracting firms--traditionally based in manufacturing and services--to occupy a new base in the value stream centred on 'systems integration'. In addition to an ability to design and integrate systems using internal or external sources of product supply, these firms are developing novel combinations of service capabilities (operations, business consultancy and finance) required to provide complete solutions to each customer's needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the premise that learning and inertia develop and operate in organizations simultaneously, this paper examines under what conditions adaptation or selection will take place. We have analyzed the process of technological scope expansion among Italian automobile firms, and found that firms prone to expanding their technological competencies tend to be either specifically organized to benefit from variation-based learning or do so in response to pressures from competitive intensity in their environment. But these effects hinge on the structure of the market that evolves as the industry consolidates. We also examine the failure rates of Italian auto firms and find that implementing a core change generates negative repercussions for survival but this effect can be countered by properties of the organizational design that facilitate variation-based learning. Our results suggest that organization theory will benefit if ecological and learning theories are further integrated in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in transaction cost economics and structural sociology has emphasized the role of opportunism and trust in the choice between equity and non-equity governance forms in alliances. This paper suggests that the uncertainty surrounding partner cooperation is not straightforwardly predictive of governance structure in alliances. Instead, task uncertainty and strategic uncertainty associated with the activities performed within alliances induce coordination and adaptation requirements that are important determinants of alliance governance, independently of partner uncertainty. Support for this view is provided based on a 12-year panel of alliances formed in the US telecommunications, entertainment and computer industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vast majority of products (i.e. goods and services) are provided to the consumer through several co-ordinated and contributing agents acting together. This paper is concerned with improving our understanding of processes of provision and innovation that involve several contributing and co-ordinated agents (firms or organizations). The distributedness of provision and innovation varies in scale and takes a variety of (dynamic) forms (or modes), and their analysis brings to the fore the significance of dependency and asymmetric power relations between classes of economic agent. The approach thereby opens up considerations on `distributed innovation' beyond those addressed by the 'systems of innovation' perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational rules face competing pressures that can make them more or less permanent. On the one hand, pressures for reliability, legitimacy and efficiency demand unchanging rules that provide lasting guidelines for organizational action. On the other hand, changes in the environment and the imperatives of organizational growth demand timely adaptation of organizational rules. How do organizations respond to such pressures, and what are the resulting patterns of rule change? Prior explorations of this question have emphasized either (i) institutional predictions: the likelihood of rule changes should decrease with duration (waiting time between changes); or (ii) obsolescence mechanisms: the likelihood of change should increase with duration. Surprisingly, recent studies on rule change find that in some contexts the likelihood of radical rule changes ('suspensions') increases with duration, while the likelihood of incremental rule changes ('revisions') decreases. In order to explain this surprising finding, I develop simulation model that allows me to explore how rule changes are affected by organizational tolerance for obsolescence. The findings suggest that the model offers a valid explanation for the observed patterns of rule change. A main implication of this paper is that organizational rules can become impermanently institutionalized when their obsolescence is tolerated and they grow obsolete beyond repair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a general model of organizational problem-solving in which we explore the relationship between problem complexity, decentralization of tasks and reward schemes. When facing complex problems that require the co-ordination of large numbers of interdependent elements, organizations face a decomposition problem that has both cognitive dimensions and reward and incentive dimensions. The former relate to the decomposition and allocation of the process of generation of new solutions: since the search space is too vast to be searched extensively, organizations employ heuristics for reducing it. The decomposition heuristic takes the form of division of cognitive labour and determines which solutions are generated and become candidates for selection. The reward and incentive dimensions fundamentally shape the selection environment which chooses over alternative solutions. The model we present begins to study the interrelationships between these two domains of analysis: in particular, we compare the problem-solving performance of organizations characterized by various decompositions (of coarser or finer grain) and various reward schemes (at the level of the entire organization, team and individual). Moreover we investigate extensions of our model in order to account for (admittedly rudimentary) power and authority relationships (giving some parts of the organization the power to stop changes in other parts), and discuss the interaction of problem representations and incentive mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfred Chandler's portrayal of the managerial revolution of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries does not extend well into the late twentieth century, when widespread vertical disintegration began replacing the classical multi-unit managerial enterprise. This paper attempts to explain the new economy in a manner consistent with Chandler by providing an enlarged theoretical account of industrial evolution. In this account, clusters of Chandlerian firms appeared as a temporary episode within a larger Smithian process of the division of labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite an increasing emphasis on the role of senior management cognition in shaping organizational action, there have been few attempts to link top management mental models to strategic choice in the face of discontinuous innovation. This paper uses 23 years of data covering 15 major pharmaceutical firms to explore the degree to which each firm's response to the revolution in biotechnology was shaped by the senior team's recognition of biotechnology's importance. Controlling for a number of important alternative explanations, we show that recognition may be an important predictor of action, suggesting that cognition at the most senior level can play a critical role in shaping established firms' response to discontinuities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, firms are facing many contradictions: efficiency versus creativity; exploitation versus exploration; speed versus time-consuming resource building. This paper argues that a firm's capability to synthesize such contradictions is the key to understanding why a firm can be more efficient at producing knowledge than market. A firm can create new knowledge and capability that go beyond the balancing point in the existing frontier with its synthesizing capability, which is embedded in its knowledge vision, its ba, its creative routines, its incentive systems and its distributed leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a theoretical account of the reconstruction of workforce downsizing as a shareholder-value strategy since the 1980s. This account has two components. First, building on resource-dependence theory, I suggest that growing corporate dependence on institutional investors makes firms susceptible to their demand for greater returns, especially when these institutional investors are blockholders and resistant to counter-pressure from managers. Second, building on Fligstein's theory of conceptions of control, I suggest that the rise of shareholder value reorients managerial behavior, by changing the decision context in a way that induces managers to maximize shareholder value. Crucial to constructing this new decision context are a set of agency-theory prescriptions for reforming corporate governance. My analysis of downsizing announcements, drawing on a sample of 714 US firms between 1981 and 2006, shows that both the pressure from institutional investors and the new decision context encourage firms to downsize more frequently. By demonstrating how both pressure from investors and changed managerial decision contexts have contributed to the prevalence of workforce downsizing, this paper makes a strong case for the financialization of the American corporation, and contributes to the sociological research on growing job insecurity and income inequality over the past three decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]