Business Commons^™

Enhancing Dyadic Performance Through Boundary Spanners And Innovation: An Assessment Of Service Provider–Customer Relationships, Scott J. Grawe, Patricia J. Daughterty, Peter M. Ralston

Peter Ralston

Firms recognize that working together through collaborative relationships offers potential benefits such as improving cooperation, information sharing, and overall performance. An additional and extremely valuable benefit of working together is the potential for creating innovative business approaches and solutions. Thus, developing external linkages has become a higher priority within many organizations. Boundary spanning employees offer one means of achieving closer cross‐firm relationships. We investigate the roles of boundary spanners by examining service providers and their relationships with customers. More specifically, we examine boundary spanning employees that are physically on‐site at customer facilities. Results provide strong support that boundary spanners perceiving …

Intra-Organizational Communication, Understanding, And Process Diffusion In Logistics Service Providers, Scott J. Grawe, Peter M. Ralston

Peter Ralston

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate, using survey data, how a firm may be able to leverage innovation or processes specifically developed for one customer across its entire customer network using onsite, or implanted, employees.

Design/methodology/approach – Data collected from a survey of 309 implanted logistics service provider (LSP) representatives are analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Findings – The findings show that intra-organizational task interdependence and face-to-face communication can lead to a greater understanding of firm processes developed for specific customers and greater diffusion of these new processes to other customers. Rather than separating customers that …

Nano Adhesion Technology, Dan Meador, Pranabesh Dash, Rahulkumar Sadanand Koche, Yonghee Cho, Nuttavut Intarode

Joseph Cho

Slides from a presentation on a newly developed graphene nano-adhesion technology, with a technology background, its potential as a new product, analysis of its market, and a technology roadmap.

Impact Of Life-Cycle Costs Threshold Criteria In The Alternate Design Pavement Bidding Practices Of Public Transportation Agencies, Ilker Karaca, Douglas Gransberg, Ashley F. Buss

Ilker Karaca

This paper proposes a model that enables Department of Transportation (DOT) policy makers to quantify the expected volume of projects that will qualify for letting in their alternate design/alternate bid (ADAB) pavement bidding programs. Current guidance on alternate bidding recommends a fixed percentage as the life cycle cost (LCC) threshold criterion to determine whether pavement selection decisions should be made through ADAB bidding practices. The paper’s analysis shows that the fixed LCC threshold percentage approach may have considerable shortcomings. Instead, a dynamic threshold value is proposed that can subsequently be calibrated by agencies, based on the desired size of their …

Nchrp Synthesis 499: Alternate Design/Alternate Bid Process For Pavement-Type Selection. A Synthesis Of Highway Practice, Douglas D. Gransberg, Ashley F. Buss, Ilker Karaca, Michael C. Loulakis

Ilker Karaca

Highway administrators, engineers, and researchers often face problems for which information already exists, either in documented form or as undocumented experience and practice. This information may be fragmented, scattered, and unevaluated. As a consequence, full knowledge of what has been learned about a problem may not be brought to bear on its solution. Costly research findings may go unused, valuable experience may be overlooked, and due consideration may not be given to recommended practices for solving or alleviating the problem. There is information on nearly every subject of concern to highway administrators and engineers. Much of it derives from research …

Top-Down Construction Cost Estimating Model Using An Artificial Neural Network, Douglas D. Gransberg, H. David Jeong, Ilker Karaca, Brendon Gardner

Ilker Karaca

This report contains the information and background on top-down cost estimating using artificial neural networks (ANN)_to enhance the accuracy of MDT early estimates of construction costs. Upon conducting an extensive review of MDT’s budgeting and cost estimating efforts, and following a survey of agency experts on the identification of the most salient project attributes with the dual-objectives of low effort and high accuracy, a rational method for top-down variable selection is proposed. Selected variables were further tested in their explanatory power of construction costs through the application of two cost estimating methodologies—multiple regression and artificial neural network methodologies. Both methods …

Toward A Theory Of Entry In Moral Markets: The Role Of Social Movements And Organizational Identity, Brandon Lee, Panikos Georgallis

Brandon Lee

How Corporate Governance Is Made: The Case Of The Golden Leash, Matthew D. Cain, Jill E. Fisch, Sean J. Griffith, Steven Davidoff Solomon

Steven Davidoff Solomon

This Article presents a case study of a corporate governance innovation—the incentive compensation arrangement for activist-nominated director candidates colloquially known as the “golden leash.” Golden leash compensation arrangements are a potentially valuable tool for activist shareholders in election contests. In response to their use, several issuers adopted bylaw provisions banning incentive compensation arrangements. Investors, in turn, viewed director adoption of golden leash bylaws as problematic and successfully pressured issuers to repeal them. The study demonstrates how corporate governance provisions are developed and deployed, the sequential response of issuers and investors, and the central role played by governance intermediaries—activist investors, institutional …

Examining Strategic Fit And Misfit In The Management Of Knowledge Workers, Christopher J. Collins, Rebecca Kehoe

Christopher J Collins

This study advances research on strategic human resource management by examining whether better firm performance depends on the alignment between an organization’s human resources (HR) system and its innovation strategy. The authors argue that the unique problems underlying exploration innovation strategies and exploitation innovation strategies require core workers to engage in different types of knowledge-search and -combination behaviors. Alternative HR systems theoretically produce different knowledge-search and -combination behaviors by way of their effect on employees’ ability, motivation, and opportunity structures at work. Drawing on a field study of 230 software firms, the authors demonstrate that alternative HR systems support either …

Strategic Management Practices Help Hospitals Get The Most From Volunteers, Sean Rogers Ph.D.

Sean Edmund Rogers

Hospital administrators are facing twin challenges with regard to their volunteers—a generational change that may mean fewer volunteer hours in the future, and the need to set strategies to manage and recognize the value of current volunteers. This report, based on a survey conducted with a group of more than 100 hospital officials, identifies a specific set of 23 management practices to improve the volunteer experience, grouped into four categories: job design; recruitment and selection; orientation, training, and development; and performance management and supervision. The report also highlights the importance of making a complete accounting of the volunteer contribution, by …

Alleviating Managerial Dilemmas In Human-Capital-Intensive Firms Through Incentives: Evidence From M&A Legal Advisors, Olivier Chatain, Philipp Meyer-Doyle

Olivier Chatain

Factor Market Myopia: A Driver Of Factor Market Revalry, Peter Ralston, Steven Lemay, Rose Opengart

Peter Ralston

A Rasch Model Analysis Of Technology Usage In Minnesota Hospitals, John Olson, James Belohlav, Lori Cook

John Olson

No abstract provided.

Grassroots Strategic Planning: Involving Library Staff From The Beginning, Anne Marie Casey

Anne Marie Casey

Strategic planning is often considered a managerial tool. The management of an organization surveys the environment and develops a plan that they introduce to the organization as a whole. Most modern organizations seek employee involvement in the planning process and feedback to some degree with varied results. But for one academic library, employee involvement in the development and execution of the strategic plans has been a vital part of the processes. The Hunt Library at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has been developing strategic plans for several years with active input from the librarians and staff. This case study chronicles the different …

Strategic Priorities: A Roadmap Through Change For Library Leaders, Anne M. Casey

Anne Marie Casey

Twenty-first century academic libraries need to adapt on a regular basis because external forces such as increased pressures from the institution and accreditation organizations, emerging technologies, or budget reductions create new conditions. In a twenty-year period ending in 2008, academic library spending shifted substantially from physical to electronic resources and from staff and student salary lines to professionals, signaling profound changes in the way libraries do business. “Then just as academic … libraries were settling into these new behaviors, the worst recession in seventy-five years occurred, forcing many … to concern themselves with survival and making difficult decisions based on …

Change Is Always Constant, Anthony Jackson

Anthony J Jackson Prof

Are you keeping up with companies who despite the economic downturn are still making a profit or are you making excuses like once the economy get's better we'll change, and when the economy gets better you say we just got back on our feet and now is not the time to change, and once you start doing better financially you say we have so many things to catch up on first before we change, and when you catch up on things the economy slips a bit and you can't change, and guess what my friends this is where you started.

Can Strategic Management Techniques Be Applied To Small And Medium Enterprises, Anthony J. Jackson Prof

Anthony J Jackson Prof

This research focused on strategic management techniques and how these techniques are applicable to small and medium enterprises. The use of generic or specific strategic management tools and techniques among small and medium size businesses has had insignificant value because strategic application are thought in terms of for only larger companies. This paper examined the benefits of using strategic tools and techniques to companies seeking profits and growth. This research also supports how strategy can improve performance of small and medium businesses. Qualitative research was used for this study to determine if there was a correlation between strategic management, market …

Evaluating Policy Measures To Tackle Undeclared Work: The Role Of Stakeholder Collaboration In Building Trust And Improving Policy-Making, Colin C. Williams, Anton Kojouharov

Colin C Williams

The aim of this paper is to examine and analyse the realm of policy evaluation approaches and methods as they relate to assessing measures to tackle undeclared work. The discussion is set at the backdrop of a brief review of the more prominent theoretical and conceptual considerations in the policy evaluation literature. The paper then investigates results from policy assessments and evaluations illuminated in the previous GREY working papers, as well as some selected from the Eurofound database. The analysis of a limited sample of available policy evaluations and results demonstrates that a common probable cause of policy failure with …