Business Commons^™

Value Relevance Of Blog Visibility, Nan Hu, Ling Liu, Arindam Tripathy, Lee J. Yao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This study empirically examines the effect of a non-traditional information source, namely a firm's blog visibility on the capital market valuation of firms. After controlling for earnings, book value of equity and other value relevant variables, such as traditional media exposure, R&D spending, and advertising expense, we find a positive association between a firm's blog visibility and its capital market valuation. In addition, we find blog visibility Grange causes trading, not vice versa. Our findings indicate that non-traditional information sources such as blogs help disseminate information and influence consumers' investment decisions by capturing their attention.

From Primordial Soup To Platform-Based Competition: Exploring The Emergence Of Products, Systems, And Platforms, C. Jason Woodard, Eric K. Clemons

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We use an agent-based NK model to explore the conditions under which standard platforms emerge among competing products. Our findings were inconclusive. We find that the usual Darwinian conditions needed for the emergence of complexity are sufficient to yield a limited reliance upon platforms with a core of common components, simply because evolution causes the population to converge on a set of products that contain combinations that "work well," yielding what we call "coincidental platform emergence." Economies of scale yield more use of common components, or "production platform emergence." Positive participation externalities initially induce the highest degree of platform emergence …

Four Perspectives On Architectural Strategy, C. Jason Woodard, Joel West

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A recurring theme in the literature on technology and organizations is the concept of mirroring, which posits a duality between technological and organizational design decisions. In this paper we highlight a second, orthogonal duality between components and interfaces: designers of both products and organizations must decide what information to hide within component boundaries and what to expose to other designers. Although the component-interface duality appears in many settings, it presents especially vexing strategic challenges in the design and production of complex digital artifacts. We present a typology of four interlinked perspectives on these kinds of strategic design problems, and discuss …

Information Technology For Service Innovation: The Impact On Business Productivity And Channel Disruption From Cloud Computing And Smart Device Computing, Insoo Son

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The advancement of IT has brought great deal of impact to both businesses and individuals such as increased business productivity and new type of digital communications and entertainment. Yet, IT is still in need of developing itself to enable firms’ requirement of enhancing business competence and satisfy customers’ growing expectations for new IT products and services. In line with the situation, there have been two emerging IT innovations that take more evolutionary features for both business and individual computing. For business computing, the concept of cloud computing has recently emerged and become commercialized to meet firms’ budget constraint and improve …

Agile Innovation Management, Arcot Desai Narasimhalu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The volume and velocity of innovations are on the increase resulting in increased pressures on every company for attaining, retaining and increasing its market leadership. Many companies need to retool their innovation management processes to address two agility related objectives in order to survive and grow in such a rapidly changing innovation environment. The first objective would be the ability to assemble an innovation team within the shortest possible time. This can only be satisfied by companies that are capable of forming innovation teams rather quickly. The related second objective would be to reduce the I2M (Idea to Market) cycle …

Cloud Computing: Low Cost High-Rise Living For Small And Medium Businesses, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The trajectory of Information Technology’s (IT) growth and its impact has been explosive. Its continual evolution has created new paradigms in the way businesses are conducted, and how people interact with one another. One might even say that IT has trumped television to become the most important household entertainment medium.

Cloud Computing: Low Cost High-Rise Living For Small And Medium Businesses, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

The proposition that one can cut costs whilst increasing operation efficiencies should be music to the ears for all business owners. Yet, many are adopting a wait-and-see approach to cloud computing - a scalable information technology service that supports a wide range of computing needs, and at the same time, minimises the burdens of IT ownership, maintenance and management. Speaking at a UOB-SMU Entrepreneurship Alliance Centre seminar, IT services entrepreneur Moonshi Mohsenruddin offered tips and pointers on how businesses may harness the power and efficiencies of operating on the cloud.

Measuring Social Networks For Real-Time Competitive Advantage, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Social networks offer up a goldmine of information. Save for privacy concerns, it has never before been easier for researchers to understand the needs and wants of their subjects or to examine links between the likes and dislikes of connected individuals. Going beyond the report of human quirks over the internet, however, web 2.0 data has practical uses too, especially for professionals in finance and marketing. At the 3rd International Conference on Social Informatics, hosted by SMU's School of Information Systems, academics discussed the hurdles and real-world benefits of data mining.

Strategic Responses To Standardization: Embrace, Extend Or Extinguish?, C. Jason Woodard, Joel West

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Prior research on technology standardization has focused on two common patterns: processes in which product developers and other stakeholders cooperate to achieve a consensus outcome, and “standards wars” in which competing technologies vie for dominance in the market. This study examines Microsoft's responses to 12 software technologies in the period between 1990 and 2005. Despite the company's reputed tendency to pursue a strategy dubbed “embrace, extend, and extinguish,” a content analysis of news articles from the same period reveals surprising diversity in Microsoft's responses at the product level.

We classify these responses using a typology that treats “embrace” and “extend” …

Taxonomy-Analytical Study For The Project On Open Collaborative Projects And Ip-Based Models (Recommendation 36), Linus Dahlander, David Gann, Gerard George

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.

Measuring An Organisation’S Innovation Climate: A Case Study From Singapore, Siu Loon Hoe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Purpose: The article aims to discuss the six key factors that were proposed and included in the design of a customized innovation climate questionnaire. Design/methodology/approach: The implementation case study of an innovation climate survey for a Singapore‐based real estate group is presented. In particular, the design of the questionnaire and selection of key factors to be measured are discussed. Findings: While not a “rigorous” instrument in the academic sense, the article can guide managers and organization development professionals to better gauge an organization's innovation climate and deepen the understanding of innovation culture. Originality/value: This article contributes to the existing innovation …

Diving Into The New Innovation Landscape: The Eastern Current, Arnoud De Meyer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Thirty years ago, when the business world sought innovation, most eyes looked West – mainly to the OECD countries considered to be the most economically advanced. We focused on technology-based product innovations, which were conceived for Western customers, developed in laboratories close to the headquarters of Western companies, and rolled out in the world’s wealthiest markets: North America, Western Europe and Japan, an honorary member of the Western club. This is no longer the case. Now, when the business world asks where the next innovative product or process will come from, what it will consist of, where it will be …

Entry Into New Niches: The Effects Of Firm Age And The Expansion Of Technological Capabilities On Innovative Output And Impact, Reddi Kotha, Yangfeng Zheng, Gerard George

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We provide evidence that young firms systematically differ from older firms in their innovative output when they enter ‘new to the firm’ technological niches. We analyze data from 128 biotechnology firms since their inception and track these firms over time. Our analyses reveal that the organizational age at which the firm branches into new technological niches significantly influences its innovative activity. We refine the focus of the extant literature by separately examining the effects of branching on the quantity of innovative output and the impact that this output has on the technology domain. Subsequent to branching into new niches, we …

Avoiding Road Bumps: Four Reliable Wheels For Biomedical Start-Ups, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Starting up a business in the biomedical industry is much like driving a car. According to Ting Choon Meng, a doctor and chief executive officer of HealthStats Singapore, there are four main 'wheels' that the entreprenuers must learn to operate. And just as in a real car, all four wheels must run in unison, or the business will not advance according to plan.

Managing Risk In A Failing It Project: A Social Constructionist View, Wee Kiat Lim, Siew Kien Sia, Adrian Yeow

CMP Research

Why do IT projects continue to stumble, despite the proliferation of risk management methodologies and a growing body of knowledge on project risk assessment and mitigation? In this paper, we propose an alternative theoretical perspective that views project risk as a social construction process shaped by the risk accounts of social groups and actors within an implementation context. Risk management is embedded in the social processes where risks are negotiated and contested, with some risk accounts amplified and some attenuated. Through the analysis of a large IT implementation in an Asian logistics firm and its trajectory of successive crises, we …

A Quality Metric For Sustainable Innovations, Arcot Desai Narasimhalu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Sustainability has become a major concern for nations and firms especially since the Kyoto Protocol was defined in 1997. While there have been several studies on benchmarks for national innovation systems and effectiveness of innovation management within firms there is as yet no reasonable metric for determining the quality of an innovation much less its quality relating to sustainability? Similarly, there have been several studies on sustainability but that such research groups have also not focused on developing a metric for denoting the quality of sustainable innovations. This paper offers a metric that defines the quality of an innovation, especially …

The Impact Of Transnational Intellectual Property Rights On Firms’ Knowledge Formation: Evidence From China-Us Patent Dyads, Kenneth Guang-Lih Huang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

As firms and organizations increasingly operate and conduct R&D in emerging economies, “transnational patenting” – patenting of the same invention across more than one country – is becoming the cornerstone of their intellectual property strategy. Drawing on works from signaling theory and intellectual property strategy, I examine the dynamics and impact of transnational patenting on technological knowledge formation across distinct intellectual property right (IPR) institutions. Using a novel dataset of 4226 China-US patent dyads covering 1104 firms and organizations, I find patent grant to technological invention under a weak IPR institution such as China significantly increases (by up to 108%) …

Relation-Specific Creative Performance In Voluntary Collaborations: A Micro-Foundation For Competitive Advantage?, Terence Ping Ching Fan, Duncan Robertson

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A fundamental question in the strategy literature is how sustainable competitive advantage can be generated within one firm and yet difficult to copy by another. We offer one solution to this conundrum by way of relation-specific performance that is developed in creative projects – where the individuals involved have significant latitude on the intended objectives as well as their collaborators on these projects. Because higher-level cognition is involved in navigating such projects from conception to implementation, there is heightened relation-specificity in their performance – as measured by how widely they are adopted by third-party users. This relationspecificity means that any …

Risky Ventures With Possibly No Returns: The Allure Of The "Wonderful But Weird World Of Biotechnology", Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Entrepreneurs in the biotech industry require large risk thresholds. For one, the business of research is an expensive one, the results of which may not necessarily translate to commercial viability. Investors with the foresight and patience for such long-term, high-risk ventures are also hard to come by. At a talk organised by SMU's Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Dr. Steven Fang, founder of CordLife, shared insights on what 'biotechopreneurship' entails.

An Entrepreneur’S Voyage, With The Five Rs As His Guide, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Behind the glamour of the booming marine industry, are the various supporting players like ship chandlers and maintenance service providers that help keep the vessels well-oiled and their crews well fed. In a recent talk organised by SMU’s Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Danny Lien, founder of Amos International, shares how he run this business based on relationship, reputation, resilience, realism and recreation.

Engaging Knowledge Management Learners Through Web-Based Ict: An Empirical Study, Thomas Menkhoff, Tze Yian Thang, Yue Wah Chay, Yue Kee Wong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The purpose of this paper is to examine how to successfully blend an e-learning module into a knowledge management (KM) course aimed at getting KM students interested in the respective subject matter (=KM) in a web-based learning environment. Based on data obtained from 138 undergraduate business management students at a university in Singapore, practical aspects of effectively implementing an e-learning system with a focus on KM are analyzed and the importance determined of three conceptual variables in the context of successful blended learning approaches: online faculty to student interaction, social presence and personal e-learning experiences. The study shows some positive …

Innovation And Commoditization: Prioritizing And Profiling Asian Managers’ Cross-Border Sourcing Practices, Sudhindra Seshadri

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The paper investigates several sourcing practices and argues that two main behavioral constructs, supply commoditization and supply innovation, underlie many of these practices. It then develops hypotheses involving these constructs and company profiling ratios such as revenue per employee. The paper reports on survey research with a subset of ASEAN country based purchasing managers; on new scales. The results contribute to a growing literature on dynamic customer value in business markets and sourcing competencies. The paper also discusses managerial implications for sales targeting and sales approaches arising from the model.

The Business Of Art, The Art Of Business, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Fuelled by her life-long passion for the arts, Krisstel Martin chucked aside her degree in finance and banking to open an art gallery. At a recent talk organised by SMU’s Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Martin, owner of a gallery named after herself, shares the intricacies of dealing with prospective buyers, the joys of dealing with artists, and the passion and satisfaction of immersing herself in a business that she loves.

Innovation And Employment, Hian Teck Hoon, Edmund S. Phelps

Research Collection School of Economics

Is employment higher in an economy that has a higher rate of innovation? In Hoon and Phelps (1997), we study this question in the small open, and closed, economy under the assumption that the rate of technological progress is exogenous to the economic system.In this paper, we reexamine this question in the context of a model with endogenous product innovation (and thus endogenous technological progress) and endogenous labor supply first in a small open economy taking the world interest rate as given and then ina closed economy that determines the whole term structure of the interest rate. In our present …

The Indian Dream: How Former Subjects Of The Licence Raj Overcome Odds On The Path To Successful Entrepreneurship, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Not many Asian parents will pull their child from school to help out in the family business. AVS Raju, owner of Indian construction company, Nagarjuna, did just that. Speaking at a recent Wee Kim Wee Centre talk at SMU, author Peter Church shared Raju's story, along with that of several other successful Indian entrepreneurs who are making their fortunes in areas such as textile, hotels, and airlines – amid a backdrop of poverty, hardship and red tape.

Social Innovations In Thailand, Walaiphorn Wajavuth, Amarit Charoenphan

Social Space

Walaiphorn Wajavuth and Amarit Charoenphanare enthusiastic about the social innovations that are taking place in the Land of Smiles.

The Global Ecosystem For Social Innovation, Louise Pulford

Social Space

Louise Pulford shares how the social innovation industry is applying its own medicine to accelerate social innovation globally.

Transition To Is Project De-Escalation: An Exploration Into Management Executive's Influence Tactics, Gary Pan, Shan Ling Pan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper seeks to understand the factors that shape management executives' influence behaviors and the influence tactics that may be utilized during de-escalation of commitment to information systems (IS) projects. De-escalation is potentially a more important issue than escalation because de-escalation provides remedies for the ills of escalation. Therefore, it is important to understand how project stakeholders' commitment to troubled IS projects may be transformed under management executives' influence, hence allowing project teams to carry out their de-escalation activities. Here, we adopt theories of leadership, politics, and interpersonal influence, as our lenses to examine the management executive's influence behaviors during …

Innovation And Price Competition In A Two-Sided Market, Mei Lin, Shaojin Li, Andrew B. Whinston

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We examine a platform's optimal two-sided pricing strategy while considering seller-side innovation decisions and price competition. We model the innovation race among sellers in both finite and infinite horizons. In the finite case, we analytically show that the platform's optimal seller-side access fee fully extracts the sellers' surplus, and that the optimal buyer-side access fee mitigates price competition among sellers. The platform's optimal strategy may be to charge or subsidize buyers depending on the degree of variation in the buyers' willingness to pay for quality; this optimal strategy induces full participation on both sides. Furthermore, a wider quality gap among …