Business Commons^™

Technology, Economic Growth, And The State: American Political Culture And Economy, 1870-2000, Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

In the essay that follows, I will examine three periods in American economic life, with a focus on the interplay of technological innovations, economic transformation, and the responses to them. The first period, focused on the decades between 1870 and1920, experienced the emergence of the corporation as the major form of production and, not surprisingly, the development of oppositional political movements to it. The second period, from 1933 to the 1960s, marked an era of reform efforts to balance the relationship between management and labor, efforts that, ironically, accepted as their premise the structure and rationale of the corporation itself. …

Identity Work: Sustaining Transnational Collective Action At General Motors Europe, Ian Greer

Ian Greer

What are the conditions under which transnational collective action is initiated and sustained? This paper presents a case study of General Motors Europe, where labor leaders have mobilized the workforce and bargained with management at the transnational level repeatedly over more than a decade as a response to management whipsawing and threats of plant closures. In contrast to structuralist interest-based theories of union behavior, we identify a process of “identity work‟ that was necessary to sustain transnational worker cooperation.

World Champions In Hospital Privatisation: The Effects Of Neoliberal Reform On German Employees And Patients, Nils Böhlke, Ian Greer, Thorsten Schulten

Ian Greer

[Excerpt] Over the past decade, German hospitals have been privatised at a rate not seen in any other country. In response to massive public-sector debt and the resulting investment backlog, many state and local governments have been privatising hospitals. The most common arguments for privatisation are repeated in a recent study commissioned by the association of private hospital owners (Bundesverband Deutscher Privatkliniken - BDPK) namely that private hospitals manage in a more efficient manner and are economically more successful (Augurzky, Beivers et al., 2009). Indeed, in some cases, private for-profit hospital companies have invested generously and turned inefficient public hospitals …

The Impact Of Team Member Familiarity On Communication Media Use And Subsequent Project Performance, Priscilla Arling, Hongjiang Xu

Priscilla Arling

This study explores how team member familiarity is related to the communication media used in the completion of projects and how that use impacts project performance. We surveyed 148 university undergraduate students who were enrolled in information systems courses. The students worked on projects in teams of 3 to 4 students. The results suggest that prior collaboration with current te am members, as well as a stude nt’s class year, are related to what communication media are used. The influen ce of team member familiarity and class year varies by the type of media used. We also find that higher …

Toward More Effective Implementation Of Evidence-Based Practice: Relational And Contextual Considerations, Priscilla Arling, Rebekah Fox, Bradley Doebbeling

Priscilla Arling

Priscilla Arling's contribution to Handbook of Healthcare Delivery Systems. London: Taylor & Francis, 2010.

Leveraging Social Networks And Team Configuration To Enhance Knowledge Access In Distributed Teams, Priscilla Arling, Mani Subramani

Priscilla Arling

Increasingly organizations are utilizing geographically distributed teams to accomplish their goals. To a great extent this new way of working has been made possible by electronic communication technology. Yet even while managers are leveraging electronic communication technology to gain access to new knowledge and to enable new team configurations, they are concerned about the knowledge acquisition of distributed team members who interact primarily via electronic communication. The objective of this study is to deepen our understanding of the relationship of electronic communication technology use and team configuration with knowledge access in distributed teams. We do so by examining the communication …

Geo, Audio, Video, Photo: How Digital Convergence In Mobile Devices Facilitates Participatory Culture In Libraries, Peta Hopkins, Joanna Hare, Jessie Donaghey, Wendy Abbott

Wendy Abbott

Libraries are often hailed as the cultural and learning hub of their communities. To deepen community engagement and social inclusion, libraries are adopting new technologies to facilitate a participatory and learning culture. With market saturation of smartphones and tablets and their associated apps, new affordances for content creation, curation and sharing show great potential to enhance participatory culture. The typical smartphone or tablet now incorporates digital technologies such as geo-location, audio, video, photo and web technologies. Bringing these technologies into a single device has enabled the development of apps such as Instagram, HistoryPin and SoundCloud. It has also changed the …

A Bayesian Network Estimation Of The Service-Profit Chain For Transport Service Satisfaction, Ronald Anderson, Robert Mackoy

Robert Mackoy

Bayesian network methodology is used to model key linkages of the service-profit chain within the context of transportation service satisfaction. Bayesian networks offer some advantages for implementing managerially focused models over other statistical techniques designed primarily for evaluating theoretical models. These advantages are (1) providing a causal explanation using observable variables within a single multivariate model, (2) analysis of nonlinear relationships contained in ordinal measurements, (3) accommodation of branching patterns that occur in data collection, and (4) the ability to conduct probabilistic inference for prediction and diagnostics with an output metric that can be understood by managers and academics. Sample …

Matching Slack Resources And Investment Strategies To Achieve Long-Term Performance: New Perspectives On Corporate Adaptability, Abolhasson Jalilvand, Sung Kim

Sung Min Kim

Managers are continually challenged to balance the tradeoffs between adapting to rapidly changing market environments and focusing on existing core efficiencies. In this paper, we advance new perspectives on corporate adaptability by departing from the premise of the previous research that treats a firm’s investment strategies and management of its slack resources in isolation. We contend that firms with adaptive capabilities attempt to match the type of slack resources (i.e., absorbed/specific or unabsorbed/flexible) with the nature of their investment strategies (i.e., exploration vs. efficiencies in existing assets). We further advance that the dynamics of strategy and performance relationship is moderated …

Matching Slack Resources And Investment Strategies To Achieve Long-Term Performance: New Perspectives On Corporate Adaptability, Abolhasson Jalilvand, Sung Kim

Abol Jalilvand

Managers are continually challenged to balance the tradeoffs between adapting to rapidly changing market environments and focusing on existing core efficiencies. In this paper, we advance new perspectives on corporate adaptability by departing from the premise of the previous research that treats a firm’s investment strategies and management of its slack resources in isolation. We contend that firms with adaptive capabilities attempt to match the type of slack resources (i.e., absorbed/specific or unabsorbed/flexible) with the nature of their investment strategies (i.e., exploration vs. efficiencies in existing assets). We further advance that the dynamics of strategy and performance relationship is moderated …

The Effects Of Within-Country Linguistic And Religious Diversity On Foreign Acquisitions, Douglas Dow, Ilya Cuypers, Gokhan Ertug

Douglas Dow

A Teaching Supplement On Sensitivity Analysis For Linear Programming In Undergraduate Business Programs (Forthcoming), Jomon Aliyas Paul, Leo Macdonald

Jomon Aliyas Paul

Sensitivity analysis, a key linear programming (LP) concept, is often explained in text books using complex problem scenarios that students have difficulty relating to. Consequently, many students do not fully comprehend nor appreciate significance of shadow prices or range of optimality for objective coefficients. This adds to the challenges instructors face in promoting critical thinking, a key goal in operations research and management science courses. Limited student-faculty interactions further exacerbates the problem in online learning environments. These issues can be effectively addressed through use of simple real world examples for instruction, followed by discussion of insights and intuition behind results …

Decision Support Tools For Competitive Usda Food Aid Bidding, Jomon Aliyas Paul, Xinfang (Jocelyn) Wang

Jomon Aliyas Paul

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) currently uses a bidding system to determine carriers and suppliers that would partner in providing food aid annually in response to global emergencies and famine. We mimic the USDA approach via a robust optimization model featuring box and ellipsoid uncertainty frameworks to account for uncertainties in demand, supplier and carrier bid prices. Through a case study utilizing historical invoice data, we demonstrate our model applicability in improving ocean carrier and food supplier bid pricing strategy and similar supply chain network optimization problems. Through a validation algorithm we demonstrate the value of our robust models.

The Corporate Shell Game, J.S. Nelson

J.S. Nelson

Location And Capacity Allocation Decisions To Mitigate The Impacts Of Unexpected Disasters, Jomon Aliyas Paul, Leo Macdonald

Jomon Aliyas Paul

A Stochastic Dynamic Programming Approach For Strategic National Stockpile Location-Allocation Planning For Improved Hurricane Preparedness, Jomon Aliyas Paul, Leo Macdonald

Jomon Aliyas Paul