The triggers of local and distant search: Relative magnitude and persistence in explaining acquisition relatedness

Research on problemistic search has assumed negative attainment discrepancy to be the trigger of both local and distant search. Extending this research, we present and compare two additional triggers: (1) relative attainment discrepancy, which reflects how much a firm's attainment discrepancy deviates from its past negative attainment discrepancies; and (2) persistent attainment discrepancy, which reflects how often the firm experiences below-aspirations performance. Our triggers for distant search model a behavioral explanation for the timing and relatedness of acquisitions. We find support for baseline arguments of problemistic search whereby firms increase both industry- and skill-related acquisitions when they perform below aspirations. When they persistently perform below aspirations, however, this likelihood is reduced and firms engage in acquisitions that are more unrelated, thereby providing support for the notion of expanding search boundaries from local to distant search. Of the two triggers of distant search proposed, relative attainment discrepancy does not induce firms to expand search boundaries. Our results indicate that persistent attainment discrepancy is a key construct to consider when studying the expansion of search boundaries.     

Language roulette – the effect of random placement on refugees’ labour market integration

Placement of refugees and subsequent labour market integration within a host country represents a key challenge for policymakers and has emerged as one of the most divisive topics in the public debate. Immigration policy in Switzerland adopts random placement of asylum seekers across its different language regions. Hence, this policy allows to estimate the causal effect of language skills on employment chances, as refugees are exogenously placed across regions where the spoken language could either match or deviate from individual language skills. The results of this ‘natural experiment’ indicate substantially higher probabilities of finding employment when asylum seekers are placed in regions with a lingua franca that matches their individual language skills. Additionally, the findings suggest that language course participation can offset the reduced likelihood of employment in cases of a language mismatch. While random placement of refugees may be desirable for political reasons, it is detrimental to the economic integration process. Thereby, the study draws relevant conclusions for a larger European immigration policy.     

信息技术与高中数学课程整合探究

信息技术与数学课程整合已成为必然趋势,各种教学辅助软件的出现使教师应接不暇。数学软件Maple凭借其简单的操作和强大的功能等优势被越来越多的数学教师作为辅助教学软件。本文用数学实验的方法介绍了Maple在高中数学教学中的几个应用实例,并对信息技术与课程整合与传统教学法之间的优缺点进行了比较。     

“I feel and think,therefore I am”: An Affect-Cognitive Theory of management decisions

I propose an Affect-Cognitive Theory to comprehensively understand how decisions occur in organizations. To this aim, I first review the assumptions of sensemaking and decision-making streams of research, especially the influence of bounded rationality, affective states and their relationships with cognition; then, I integrate them on the common basis of socially situated cognition. This new theory emphasizes the role of affective states in determining/being determined by cognition and its errors, pointing out decision makers’ affect as the result of multi-level adaptations to the physical and social environment. Management decisions are path dependent but not immutable; they, indeed, bank on the predominant feeling resulting from the modifying interactions and regulations of decision makers with their physical and social environment. Here, decision makers are proposed as “emotional cognizers” overcoming the thinking-feeling dichotomy that has often featured in the study of management decisions. This theory is beneficial for behavioral strategy, offering the needed assumptions to intertwine human cognition, emotions, and social behavior.     

State work and the testing concours of citizenship

Anyone trying to be a citizen has to pass through a set of practices trying to be a state. This paper investigates some of the ways testing practices calibrate citizens, and in doing so, perform “the state.” The paper focuses on three forms of citizenship testing, which it considers exemplary forms of “state work,” and which all, in various ways, concern “migration.” First, the constitution of a “border crossing,” which requires an identity test configured by deceptibility. Second, the Dutch asylum process, in which “being gay” can, in certain cases, be reason for being granted asylum, but where “being gay” is also the outcome of an examination organized by suspicion. And third, the Dutch measurement of immigrants’ “integration,” which is comprised of a testing process in which such factishes as “being a member of society” and “being modern” surface. Citizenship is analyzed in this paper as accrued and (re)configured along a migration trajectory that takes shape as a testing concours, meaning that subjects become citizens along a trajectory of testing practices. In contributing both to work on states and citizenship, and to work on testing, this paper thus puts forward the concept of citizenship testing as state work, where “state work is the term for that kind of labor that most knows itself as comparison, equivalency, and exchange in the social realm” (Harney, 2002, pp. 10–11). Throughout the testing practices discussed here, comparison, equivalency, and exchange figure prominently as the practical achievements of crafting states and citizens.     

Subjective utility with upper and lower probabilities on finite states

This article is concerned with thresholds of discrimination of preference judgments under uncertainty. We establish an axiomatic characterization for a threshold representation, where thresholds are represented by inexact measurement of subjective probabilities, i.e., upper and lower probabilities. Since upper and lower probabilities need not be additive, the representational form adopts the Choquet integration.     

虚拟空间交织的取向原则

虚拟空间交织是人们常用的思维与认知方式之一。本文通过对交织及其原则的介绍,描述了虚拟空间交织的运作,指出虚拟空间交织构建中主观取向的原则应为最佳关联。     

供应链与海尔的战略调整

供应链是现代工商业的一种新的业态形式 ,它通过有效的客户和市场管理、对客户需求的准确预测和迅速反应以及最大程度地降低从原材料到生产、再到销售整个过程的库存和运转费用 ,为终端顾客提供最大的让渡价值 ,提高供应链成员整体的竞争力。海尔集团以超前性的战略眼光对公司的组织管理结构和经营方式进行了战略性的调整 ,为推行供应链管理和经营创造了条件。     

人力资源管理理论整体性缺陷与对策

当前人力资源管理理论缺陷引起多方面的重视 ,这些缺陷可以归结为理论的整体性缺陷。对人力资源管理的定义、历史和研究方法的分析表明 ,人力资源管理概念上的不完整和冲突 ,研究对象、范围和方法的不全面 ,以及核心原理的缺失是造成人力资源管理理论整体性缺陷的根源 ,由此能够找到克服整体性缺陷的对策     

论资本市场全球一体化趋势

资本市场全球一体化是当前全球资本市场发展的基本趋势。是指相对独立的全球各主要资本市场日益融合形成的统一市场网络组织结构体系。表现为市场组织形式的全球网络化 ;筹资主体的国际化 ;投资者的机构化及投资活动的国际化 ;资本流动的全球化 ;同质的金融资产价格趋同化 ;金融机构经营业务的混业化和全球化。资本市场全球一体化降低了市场主体的交易成本 ,提高了市场效率 ;为一些国家调节国际收支失衡与国际储备的保值增值提供了便利条件 ;有利于长期资本的优化配置 ,促进世界经济增长。同时也使各国运用货币政策调控宏观经济的有效性降低 ;市场的系统性风险增大 ;金融监管面临新的挑战