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In this paper we examine the institutionalization of a new organizational practice around third stream activities in UK higher education from 1994 to 2008. Employing a longitudinal research design, involving archival, survey and contemporary interview data, we show how a new organizational practice diffused through the use of discourse and metrics around commercialization but over time was threatened on pure economic criteria. In response to the threat we explore how actors worked to institutionalize the new practice, reshaping both discourse and metrics to ensure that they were robust so that they could align with the interests and values of major stakeholders. In addition, actors worked to align discourse and metrics, as any misalignment between the two would have undermined the institutionalization of the new organizational practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the co-evolution of third stream activities in UK higher education from 1970 to 2008. Drawing on interviews and archival analysis it identifies four distinct periods through which third stream activities have co-evolved. The research suggests that the co-evolution of the third stream mission in universities is inextricably linked to the emerging requirement for universities to demonstrate they have a purpose in society. It concludes that the rise of third stream activities has presented both universities and government with a means of doing this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The creation of new roles commonly threatens the power and status of elite professionals through the substitution of their labour. In this paper we examine the institutional work carried out by elite professionals to maintain their professional dominance when threatened. Drawing on 11 case sites from the English National Health Service (NHS) where new nursing or medical roles have been introduced, threatening the power and status of specialist doctors, we observed the following. First, the professional elite respond through institutional work to supplant threat of substitution with the opportunity for them to delegate routine tasks to other actors and maintain existing resource and control arrangements over the delivery of services in a way that enhances elite professionals’ status. Second, other professionals outside the professional elite, but relatively powerful within their own professional group, are co-opted by the professional elite to engage in institutional work to maintain existing arrangements. Our work extends Lawrence and Suddaby’s typology of institutional work in three ways. First, we reveal how different types of institutional work interact, and how different types of institutional work cross categories of creating or maintaining institutions. Second, we show how an actor’s social position or status, both intra-professionally as well as inter-professionally, in the institutional field frame the institutional work they engage in. Third, the institutional work of ‘theorizing’ by professional elites appears particularly significant, specifically the focus of the institutional work to invoke the concept of ‘risk’ associated with any change in service delivery, which maintains the model of medical professionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Our ambition in this essay is to challenge received wisdoms about the importance of 'useful' management scholarship. Suggesting that usefulness and uselessness are contingent on issues of temporality and power, we advocate caution in assigning terms such as useful and relevant - they are inherently problematic, we argue, and should be viewed more as ideology than as empirical statements. We conclude by a call for reflexivity about what it is we are doing when we do 'useful' research, along with a greater concern for the values for which business schools stand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We draw on institutional entrepreneurship theory to analyse the dynamics of institutional change in a healthcare context. The focus of our interest is in the relationship between an institutional entrepreneur’s ‘subject position’, defined in terms of their structural and normative legitimacy within the existing institutional landscape, and the nature of the change enacted. We develop this approach through an examination of the implementation of new pathways for cancer genetic services within the English National Health Service. Employing comparative case analysis we show that those who have limited structural legitimacy under prevailing conditions are most willing to engender change, but also least able; whereas those who have strong structural legitimacy are most able, but often least willing. However, those who are able rhetorically to combine a balance of structural and normative legitimacy are most able to produce change. In doing so, we demonstrate the importance of the concept of institutional entrepreneurship to understand healthcare reform. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Syndicates are a form of inter-firm alliance in which two or more private equity firms invest together in an investee firm and share a joint pay-off, and are an enduring feature of the leveraged buyout (LBO) and private equity industry. This study examines the relationship between syndication and agency costs at the investor-investee level, and the extent to which the reputation and the network position of the lead investor mediate this relationship. We examine this relationship using a sample of 1,122 buyout investments by 80 private equity companies in the UK between 1993 and 2006. Our findings show that where agency costs are highest, and hence ex-post monitoring by the lead investor is more important, syndication is less likely to occur. The negative relationship between agency costs and syndication, however, is alleviated by the reputation and network position of the lead investor firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University technology transfer offices (henceforth, TTOs) play a critical role in the diffusion of innovation and the development of new technology infrastructure. Studies of the relative efficiency of TTOs have been based on licensing output measures and data from a single country. In contrast, we present the first cross-country comparison of the relative performance of TTOs, based on stochastic multiple output distance functions. The additional dimension of output considered is the university's propensity to generate start-up companies, based on technologies developed at these institutions. We find that US universities are more efficient than UK universities and that the production process is characterized by either decreasing or constant returns to scale. Universities with a medical school and an incubator are closer to the frontier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Syndicates are a form of inter-firm alliance in which two or more venture capital firms co-invest in an investee firm and share a joint pay-off. Syndication is a significant part of the venture capital market yet little research has been conducted into the process of structuring syndicate deals and the management of syndicates following deal completion. This paper analyses the neglected issues concerning the structuring and management of syndicated venture capital investments from the perspectives of both lead and non-lead syndicate members using two surveys of venture capital firms and examination of syndication documents. Lead investors typically have larger equity stakes and the syndicated investment agreement is a document that enshrines the rights of participants rather than specifying behaviour. Contractual arrangements typically serve as a back drop to relationships as non-legal sanctions are important and decisions are typically reached following discussion and consensus, but lead venture capital investors' residual and specific powers are important in ensuring timely decision-making. The findings extend previous work on alliances by emphasizing the importance of non-legal sanctions, especially reputation effects, in mitigating opportunistic behaviour by dominant equity holders. The paper also adds to the limited research on the dynamics of alliances by highlighting the role of repeat syndicates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides background information on policies of the U.S. and Great Britain promoting innovation in small firms. Summaries of papers presented at a workshop on innovation in new-technology based firms; Themes and objectives of the workshop.

This paper uses UK survey data to investigate the different motives that venture capital firms have for syndicating equity investments, partner selection, and the link between competition and syndication in the market. The traditional finance perspective views syndication as a response to the need to diversify away risk, whereas the resource-based theory views syndication as a means of accessing a competitor's firm-specific resources. The results of the study indicate that syndication is more a response to the need to spread risk than share information and manage investments. Also, when the sample was subdivided according to minimum investment preference the resource-based perspective was found to be even less important for those firms who only invested sums of #5 million and greater. This result also held for the finance theory perspective for syndicating deals. The above findings were mirrored in the results relating to partner selection as the financial characteristics and resource-base of the firm were not found to be important factors in selecting a syndicate partner. Rather, partner selection was found to be far more influenced by a past interaction, reputation and investment style. Finally, evidence was found to suggest that competition in the venture capital market exerts a negative influence over a firm's decision to syndicate out a deal; however, this influence is significantly less for the decision to syndicate in to a deal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]