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Full-Text Articles in Business

Not Featherbedding, But Feathering The Nest: Human Resource Management And Investments In Information Technology, Adam Seth Litwin Jan 2016

Not Featherbedding, But Feathering The Nest: Human Resource Management And Investments In Information Technology, Adam Seth Litwin

Adam Seth Litwin

This study draws on employment relations and management theory, claiming that certain innovative employment practices and work structures pave the way for organizational innovation, namely investments in information technology (IT). It then finds support for the theory in a cross-section of UK workplaces. The findings suggest that firms slow to adopt IT realize that their conventional employment model hinders their ability to make optimal use of new technologies. Therefore, the paper advances the literature beyond studies of unionization’s impact on business investment to a broader set of issues on the employment relations features that make organizations ripe for innovation.


Technology, Economic Growth, And The State: American Political Culture And Economy, 1870-2000, Nick Salvatore Jan 2016

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. …


Market Orientation, Learning Orientation And Product Innovation: Delving Into The Organization's Black Box, William Baker, James Sinkula Nov 2014

Market Orientation, Learning Orientation And Product Innovation: Delving Into The Organization's Black Box, William Baker, James Sinkula

William E. Baker

Many scholars now agree that market orientation is necessary, but not sufficient to facilitate the type of innovation that breeds long-term competitive advantage (cf. Dickson, 1996). In addition to a strong market orientation, a firm must also be able to institutionalize higher order learning processes, the type of learning that enables radical innovation. Recent research (cf. Baker and Sinkula, 1999) has empirically established a synergistic effect of market orientation and learning orientation on organizational performance. This paper attempts to add to the literature by offering a more complete theoretical explanation of how these two constructs interact to affect product innovation …


Coordination Costs And Research Joint Ventures, Rodney Falvey, Joanna Poyago-Theotoky, Khemarat Teerasuwannajak Jul 2014

Coordination Costs And Research Joint Ventures, Rodney Falvey, Joanna Poyago-Theotoky, Khemarat Teerasuwannajak

Rodney Falvey

We consider a simple oligopoly model where firms engage in cost-reducing R&D and compare two R&D regimes: R&D competition and R&D cooperation in the form of a research joint venture (RJV). We introduce coordination costs for the RJV and examine how these affect the equilibrium outcomes. We find that the performance of the RJV in comparison to R&D competition is sensitive to the level of coordination costs. Although the RJV may no longer conduct a unit of R&D at a lower cost compared to an independent firm in the non-cooperative R&D regime, RJV members can still make savings on their …


A Tool For Designing Business Model Innovations, Arcot Desai Narasimhalu Jun 2014

A Tool For Designing Business Model Innovations, Arcot Desai Narasimhalu

Arcot Desai NARASIMHALU

There is a steady stream of business model innovations created to deliver value to customers using new approaches. Famous examples of business model innovations have been Amazon, Dell computers and Starbucks. Several other examples of business model innovations have been created across industries and reported in popular and academic forums. Osterwalder and Pigneur had defined a business model canvas as a framework for analysing business models. They had defined nine key subcomponents of a business model. Companies and individual entrepreneurs who wish to create business model innovations are still deploying trial and error approaches to discovering new business models. There …


The Design Of Teaching Protocols That Develop Creativity, Innovation And Innovative Thinking Within Higher Education Business Schools - A Transfer Of Best Practice From Design And Engineering Education Principles, Lee Styger Mar 2014

The Design Of Teaching Protocols That Develop Creativity, Innovation And Innovative Thinking Within Higher Education Business Schools - A Transfer Of Best Practice From Design And Engineering Education Principles, Lee Styger

Lee Styger

Typically, the construct of innovation within business education has focused around the concept of developing innovative and creative leaders of business. This is particularly so in the higher educational fields and specifically so within the context of the global market positioning of many MBA programs currently. However, in many cases, it would appear that business schools are typically embarking on a journey of curriculum development from the point of the core teaching of business methodologies (i.e. silo thinking), rather than incorporating best practice from other disciplines such as those found in leading design and engineering education, where, for example, applied …


Milestone Payments Or Royalties? Contract Design For R&D Licensing, Pascale Crama, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve Aug 2011

Milestone Payments Or Royalties? Contract Design For R&D Licensing, Pascale Crama, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve

Zeger Degraeve

We study how innovators can optimally design licensing contracts when there is incomplete information on the licensee's valuation of the innovation, and limited control over the licensee's development efforts. A licensing contract typically contains an up-front payment, milestone payments at successful completion of a project phase, and royalties on sales. We use principal-agent models to formulate the licensor's contracting problem, and we find that under adverse selection, the optimal contract structure changes with the licensee's valuation of the innovation. As the licensee's valuation increases, the licensor's optimal level of involvement in the development-directly or through royalties-should decrease. Only a risk-averse …


A 10-Year Longitudinal Investigation Of Strategy, Systems, And Environment On Innovation In Family Firms, Justin Craig, Ken Moores Mar 2011

A 10-Year Longitudinal Investigation Of Strategy, Systems, And Environment On Innovation In Family Firms, Justin Craig, Ken Moores

Justin B. Craig

This article studies innovation in family firms, filling in some gaps in existent literature. The research addresses the idea of shifting leadership, different mechanisms of facilitating communication, and the importance to the firm of technical progress, linking each to innovation. Shifting leadership is addressed through the longitudinal design. Communication mechanisms are monitored through two constructs: scope of information and timeliness of information. Technical progress is included in an environmental uncertainty factor technoeconomic uncertainty. The findings suggest that linkages between established family firms and innovation may be substantially stronger than currently assumed by many.


Corporate Governance As A Repeated Game Prisoners' Dilemma - And The Push To The Defect-Defect Cell, Peter Cebon Oct 2010

Corporate Governance As A Repeated Game Prisoners' Dilemma - And The Push To The Defect-Defect Cell, Peter Cebon

Peter Cebon

Governance of strategic risk can be understood as a repeated-game prisoners’ dilemma. In the cooperate-cooperate cell, boards and managers work together in a trusting, highly communicative relationship to make sense of the environment and to create and enact a strategy. In the defect-defect cell, the board distrusts the CEO and is concerned with monitoring and incentive alignment. Organisations with a focused strategy built on innovation-like actions benefit from being in the cooperate-cooperate cell. However, various internal and institutional forces push organisations, and particularly listed corporations, to the defect-defect cell.


The Natural Environment, Innovation And Firm Performance: A Comparative Study, Justin Craig, Clay Dibrell Nov 2006

The Natural Environment, Innovation And Firm Performance: A Comparative Study, Justin Craig, Clay Dibrell

Justin B. Craig

In this article, we investigate the effect of firm-level natural-environment-related policies on innovation and financial performance in family and nonfamily firms. Our findings demonstrate that family firms are better able to facilitate environmentally friendly firm policies associated with improved firm innovation and greater financial performance more effectively than their nonfamily competitors.


Establishing Individual Differences Related To Opportunity Alertness And Innovation Dependent On Academic-Career Training, Justin Craig, Debra Johnson Dec 2005

Establishing Individual Differences Related To Opportunity Alertness And Innovation Dependent On Academic-Career Training, Justin Craig, Debra Johnson

Justin B. Craig

Purpose – The purpose of this research was to investigate using the seminal writings of Schumpeter and Kirzner as a guide – individuals who are potentially involved in entrepreneurship can be identified as being innovators or opportunity-alert. Specifically, this exploratory project attempts to answer the following question: “Are some individuals better at being innovators, while others are better able to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities and, if so, does academic-career training matter?” Design/methodology/approach – The study relied on purposive sampling and received survey responses from postgraduate students in business and engineering. The 26-item survey was made up of demographic indices and questions …