Organization for technological change

This is the third and last in the series of articles on Planning for Technological Innovation. It deals with change, which is seldom predictable in useful detail. A company can therefore best pursue its vital purpose through a preconditioned opportunism, applied with forcefulness and pertinacity. Since forecasting is difficult, business should be organized for change and a corresponding structure is proposed, institutionalizing a readiness for adaptation. Dynamic or adaptive planning is then tested against an historic case of innovative vigour.     

Perceptions of demotion decisions: A social capital perspective

This article examines how demotees and co-workers understand involuntary demotion decisions, using a social capital lens. Drawing on data based on semi-structured in-depth interviews from 23 demotees and 46 co-workers (two co-workers of each demoted worker), we find that the likelihood of being demoted is determined by several factors. The personal characteristics of the demotee influence three aspects of social capital: 1) the quality of the employee-management relationship, 2) the ability to socialise with other organizational members and 3) visibility in the organization. Our findings contribute to the relational embeddedness perspective of social capital as well the growing body of literature on the dark side of social capital in organizations by showing how a lack of social capital impacts on demotion decisions. Relevant implications for organizations and HR practitioners for utilizing demotion as a HR tool are discussed.     

How companies keep abreast of technological change

This paper reports on a study of the incidence and organizational form of monitoring of the technological environment by U.K. companies. Four organizational structures are distinguished for companies undertaking the monitoring of the technological environment: dedicated central units; inclusion within a central group function; diffusion throughout the complany; and decentralizaton. The practice of monitoring the technological environment is found to be related to the absolute size of a company, its capital intensity, planning horizon, degree of diversification and the importance attributed to technological factors in the strategic planning of a company.     

A framework of decision making for technological change

The first article in this series2 drew a distinction between the costs of line operations- or current outputs—and those costs devoted to investment, or future outputs. As investment encompasses technological change—in practice it is dominated by it—this article examines some of the broader issues underlying decisions to invest and describes in outline a study being made of the economic criteria that are relevant to such decisions. In the longer term the objective is to develop a procedure or framework of criteria to assist the process of decision making; and this would include a frame of reference—a set of statistical time-series and analyses designed for the purpose.     

Some shortcomings in the economic analysis of technological change

This paper is concerned with how economic theory traditionally tries to cope with the analysis of technical change. The paper points out some of the shortcomings of conventional analysis and suggests where it needs modification.     

Investigating investment decisions in equity crowdfunding: The role of projects' intellectual capital

The study aims to investigate the signalling role played by the intellectual capital of entrepreneurial projects towards crowdfunders. The study argues that information on; the intellectual capital of entrepreneurial projects posted on equity crowdfunding platforms can be perceived by external small investors or crowdfunders as signals of the venture's quality and can induce them to invest. By leveraging on the role of signalling theory in the mitigation of information asymmetries, the study argues that the intellectual capital of projects looking for equity crowdfunding is a powerful signal that positively affects the investment decisions of crowdfunders. Three components of entrepreneurial projects' intellectual capital – human, structural, and relational capital – are considered as factors affecting the success of equity crowdfunding campaigns, measured in terms of funding collected and the number of investors. The findings reveal that relational capital positively affects the investment decisions of equity crowdfunders and thus explains the success of equity crowdfunding campaigns. Factors related to human capital and structural capital have a positive impact on investment decisions, but only to a limited extent. This study provides valid implications for entrepreneurs, platform managers, and policy-makers/authorities.     

Planning for technological innovation: Part II—investment in technological change in three major industries

In an article in the December 1977 issue the author described an analytical method to determine the reaction of British industry to the oil crisis. The purpose of this paper is to carry forward the discussion by examining and comparing circumstances in three British industries between 1963 and 1975.The paper aims first, to show how and why the cost structures of these three industries differ; second, to examine changes forced upon companies by inflation of earnings, statutory control of prices and the oil crisis; and finally to assess how far these congruent economic forces have impinged on tangible and intangible investment.The data used for this study were drawn from British and Canadian official statistics but, as described in Part 1, a new analytical technique was devised to give due weight to the full range of investment expenditure.     

How will the British post office cope with technological change

This article considers the trends and the new technologies available to the Post Office which will have some bearing of the transfer of message carrying fromt the Post to Telecommunications. It also considers the practicalities of electronic mail and the future prospects for the traditional mail service. The objective is to provide some practical guidelines for the communications input to corporate planning.     

科技环境对风险投资支撑作用的实证研究

对中国各地区风险投资科技环境(STE)水平和风险投资(VC)水平分别进行了聚类分析.为了解释两者在聚类分析结果上的差异,对风险投资科技环境的评价指标和风险投资的评价指标分别进行了因子分析,并依据分析结果将风险投资科技环境按支撑主体分为两类,分别称为"培育性科技环境"和"自发性科技环境".最后,通过结构方程模型,验证了两类科技环境对风险投资支撑作用的差异,进一步揭示出风险投资科技环境与风险投资在聚类分析结果方面有差异的原因.     

A performative exploration of the lifeworlds of human capital and financial capital: an intellectual capital case vignette

Journal of Management and Governance - The primary purpose here is to briefly outline and illustrate how one particular relationist/realist ontological approach to performative research, with a...     

Employee lawsuits and capital structure

Review of Managerial Science - We examine the effect of litigation on corporate capital structure by using a unique, hand-collected dataset of 30,841 employee disputes (after initial court...     

合作技术创新对技术联盟能量效率的影响

通过建立描述技术联盟能量效率的基本模型,研究了合作技术创新对技术联盟能量效率的影响,提出了技术联盟能量效率提高的充分条件,最后得出2条结论①纵向技术联盟比横向技术联盟稳定;②技术联盟比企业集团更有利于技术创新.     

Venture capital and risk perception

This study extends the current state of research on venture capital (VC) determinants by introducing a behavioral perspective. We focus on individuals’ risk perception and connect it to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions of individualism and uncertainty avoidance. Individualism is related to overoptimism and uncertainty avoidance is related to overcaution, and hence affect the perception of risk. In a cross-country empirical analysis with 49 countries, we find that individualism is positively associated with VC activity, whereas uncertainty avoidance is negatively associated with VC activity. Our results are robust to controlling for other determinants as well as using other proxies of VC activity, other time periods, and subsamples of countries.     

双边道德风险与风险投资的资本结构

研究创业者和风险投资家双边道德风险下的融资合约,创业者无初始财富,风险投资家在提供资本支持的同时也扶助企业发展.模型存在贝叶斯均衡解的充分必要条件是,双方的努力互补,且从极大似然原理看,创业者在企业的发展中发挥了关键性的作用.由此内在地导出了风险投资企业的资本结构,仅在某个利润水平之上创业者才能获得普通股,而风险投资家持有可转换优先股.     

In-house capability and supply chain decisions

This study considers an internal production option for a contractor and analyzes its effect on the supply chain decisions when the contractor has innovated and the subcontractor has an incentive for opportunistic behavior. In contrast to the single disclosure threshold in the benchmark scenario where the contractor lacks in-house capability, we find two thresholds in the referred scenario. When information misappropriation is possible and the contractor has in-house capability, the contractor will organize a coordinated supply chain only when innovations fall between the two thresholds. Compared to the benchmark scenario, in-house capability has a positive effect on the contractor's incentive to innovate and an ambiguous effect on the subcontractor's incentive to invest in the production process. When the contractor needs to incur an extra cost to build in-house capability, the contractor keeps the same levels of investment compared to the case of no additional in-house capability cost, whereas the subcontractor increases the levels of investment. Furthermore, we find that in the presence of potential misappropriation on the part of the subcontractor, the higher the level of in-house capability, the less likely the contractor will be to outsource innovative products that generate higher profitability. This study can explain why firms strategically outsource low-end products and produce high-end products themselves. This study provides new results on the effects of in-house capability on the strategic interactions of parties in supply chains and, hence, on supply chain efficiency.     

Joint inventory and technology selection decisions

In some manufacturing systems, the type of production technology selected dictates the lot size, or sets an upper limit on it. In this paper, we formulate a model in which the lot sizing decision has to be made at the technology selection stage. Furthermore, the cost of the technology depends on the lot size it can produce. The problem is addressed under two different assumptions about demand. First demand is assumed to be constant. A closed-form expression for the optimal lot size is derived for this case. Second, demand is assumed to be linearly decreasing. Using an accurate approximation to the total cost function, a closed-form expression for the optimal lot size is derived. We illustrate the models with numerical examples.     

Successfully implementing strategic decisions

Ninety-three company presidents completed a questionnaire evaluating the implementation of one strategic decision each in their respective firms. Ten strategy implementation problems were experienced during implementation by over 50 per cent of the sample group. Firms experiencing high success in implementation, according to an index of implementation success, were compared with the low-success firms to determine which problems were rated at significantly different levels. In 11 instances, the mean rating for the high-success implementation firms was significantly lower in terms of problem intensity. Follow-up interviews with 21 presidents (plus 25 governmental agency heads later on) identified five factors which help promote successful implementation.     

Transnational social capital and scientist entrepreneurship

This paper provides a link between social capital and the entrepreneurial activity of university scientists in the life sciences. The two main hypotheses are that social capital promotes scientist entrepreneurship and transnational social capital is conducive to scientist entrepreneurship. These hypotheses are tested using a large data base of US scientists in the life sciences. The empirical results support the two main hypotheses. Social capital in general, and transnational social capital in particular, are found to enhance scientist entrepreneurship in the life sciences.