A Social Capital Perspective of Innovation from Individuals to Nations: Where is Empirical Literature Directing Us?

Social capital is regarded as the bedrock of innovation. However, inadequate efforts have been made to synthesize the way in which different components of social capital dynamically influence innovation. This paper reviews existing empirical studies on the relationship between social capital and innovation of the individual, team, organization, city and nation. Analyses were carried out to identify consensus, discordances and gaps in the social capital–innovation connection. The findings suggested that the structural components of social capital, including ego network size, structural holes, tie strength and centrality have a significant impact on innovation. Their impact, however, tends to be moderated by contextual and intellectual factors, such as the nature and type of innovation, internal vs external ties, costs of maintaining the ties and existing intellectual capital. The relational components of social capital, trust and cognitive norms, demonstrated a consistently positive relationship with innovation across contexts. The cognitive components of social capital have not sufficiently established their contribution to innovation apart from the other two dimensions. Several insights regarding the general literature on social capital and innovation were identified, including the conceptualization of social capital, measurement of innovation, and the causal relationship between social capital and innovation. Suggestions are offered for future research agenda. Implications for managerial practices based on the study findings are also drawn.     

Where did “Tex-Mex” come from? The divisive emergence of a social category

Research on social categories has become one of the more active lines of research on organizations. Much of this research presumes the pre-existence of at least the “seed” of the category and then proceeds to study and explain how the category developed and became institutionalized. By contrast, this study joins several recent others in attempting to identify and explain why a previously non-existent social category emerged in the first place. Empirically, we examine the emergence of the Tex-Mex social category for food and cuisine. In studying Tex-Mex food, we present a brief analytical social history of the cuisine starting in Old Mexico and continuing up to contemporary times. We juxtapose the social facts that we report with prevailing theoretical ideas (social-activist theorization and similarity clustering) about category emergence drawn from organization theory. While insightful, we find current theoretical accounts to be incomplete in explaining why Tex-Mex emerged. By contrast, our analysis directs attention to the status dynamics of ethnic majority/minority populations, early inexpensive mass industrialization of the food and certain geographic factors. Casual comparisons to other ethnic food categories appear to support the speculative argument we advance.     

Where can we learn about change?

Presented here are some resources--books, consultants, and personal growth practices--that you might find useful in the struggle to become adept at dealing with change. Mastering change is a long process, but unlike building a cathedral or growing apples, as soon as you start you will have something that you can use--some insight, a different way of looking at what is confronting you, something to help jar you to a more creative strategy.     

What “international” subtopics are crucial to business education?: A survey of management school professors

The question addressed by this survey is, “What ‘international’ topics are crucial to the practice of management?” The objective of the study was to identify “international” curricular subtopics, tools, and concepts that faculty respondents deemed absolutely crucial to business pedagogy and to the practice of management, and would therefore require in every business program. This survey is one of the few that addresses the international pedagogy issue from the micro-, or subtopic, end of the spectrum. A list of the topics identified should be of considerable value to curriculum committees in charge of business school programs. The selections ranged not only over the six major departments found in most business schools, but beyond. Respondents as a whole were willing to step outside their narrow departmental boundaries when thinking about the question of internationalization of pedagogy. The results also seem to confirm that the bulk of the burden of the internationalization of the curriculum will continue to rest, principally but by no means exclusively, on two departments, Management and Marketing.     

Emotional labor and leadership: A threat to authenticity?

Building on the emotional labor and authentic leadership literatures, we advance a conceptual model of leader emotional displays. Three categories of leader emotional displays are identified: surface acting, deep acting and genuine emotions. The consistency of expressed leader emotions with affective display rules, together with the type of display chosen, combines to impact the leader's felt authenticity, the favorability of follower impressions, and the perceived authenticity of the leader by the followers. Emotional intelligence, self-monitoring ability, and political skill are proposed as individual differences that moderate leader emotional display responses to affective events. We also look at followers' trust in the leader and leader well-being as key outcomes. Finally, we explore the influence on leader emotional labor of contextual dimensions of the environment, including the omnibus (national and organizational culture, industry and occupation, organizational structure, time) and discrete (situational) context. Directions for future research are discussed.     

Incomplete Contracts: Where do We Stand?

The paper takes stock of the advances and directions for research on the incomplete contracting front. It first illustrates some of the main ideas of the incomplete contract literature through an example. It then offers methodological insights on the standard approach to modeling incomplete contracts; in particular it discusses a tension between two assumptions made in the literature, namely rationality and the existence of transaction costs. Last, it argues that, contrary to what is commonly argued, the complete contract methodology need not be unable to account for standard institutions such as authority and ownership; and it concludes with a discussion of the research agenda.     

A model for regulatory reform in Canada: From “command-and-control” to “assured compliance”

Due, in part, to severe budget constraints, the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) moved from a traditional command-and-control regulatory system to a system that incorporates several characteristics of self-regulation. The EUB, the regulatory body for the energy industry in Alberta, Canada, refers to the new system as “compliance assured by audit and penalty”. This new system, which may have relevance to other nations struggling with similar developments, utilizes a classification scheme based on a company's past performance. This allows the EUB to target resources toward companies identified as having the greatest need for regulatory performance improvement. This case study discusses the drivers for change, the process of change and the lessons learned, and raises several questions relating to the business implications.     

Where does informatics fit in health care organizations?

Why is medical informatics important to health care leaders? As an emerging science, informatics focuses on applying computing and communication technology to decision making for clinicians and managers. It enhances the understanding of how information and communication systems can impact the work health care managers must accomplish. As the cost of technology for digital information management continues to decline, organizations and individuals will look for ways to offset the human costs of managing and conveying information. The way of the paper medical record is being replaced by the less expensive and more efficient digital information systems. Leaders of health care organizations need to look for every opportunity to deploy networks and computers to reduce the labor costs of data collection, storage, retrieval, and analysis.     

Does a firm’s exposure to ethical failures matter to financial markets? A governance perspective

This paper investigates if a firm’s ethical reputation, in conjunction with its governance, affects its standing within financial markets. A firm`s ethical reputation, as measured by ethical failures, arises from its involvement in ethical violations and incidents while a comprehensive index proxies for governance. We assess a firm’s standing within financial markets through two complementary perspectives, i.e., the level of information asymmetry between managers and investors, as inferred from analyst forecast dispersion and analyst forecast error, and the relation between a firm’s earnings and its stock market valuation or return (value relevance). Our results suggest that a firm`s ethical reputation affects financial analysts’ forecasts as well as the stock market value assigned to its reported earnings. Moreover, it appears that corporate governance moderates such relations, with strong (weak) governance compensating for a weak (strong) ethical reputation. Overall, our evidence shows that ethical failures do not seem to pay.     

Which Fire to Extinguish First? A Risk‐Informed Approach to Emergency Response in Oil Terminals

The performance of fire protection measures plays a key role in the prevention and mitigation of fire escalation (fire domino effect) in process plants. In addition to passive and active safety measures, the intervention of firefighting teams can have a great impact on fire propagation. In the present study, we have demonstrated an application of dynamic Bayesian network to modeling and safety assessment of fire domino effect in oil terminals while considering the effect of safety measures in place. The results of the developed dynamic Bayesian network—prior and posterior probabilities—have been combined with information theory, in the form of mutual information, to identify optimal firefighting strategies, especially when the number of fire trucks is not sufficient to handle all the vessels in danger.     

How can David orchestrate resources to enhance firm performance? A dynamic approach to coping with resource constraints

Given that the possession of abundant resources does not always guarantee superior firm performance, this study proposes a dynamic approach to enhancing firm value. Building on the resource orchestration thesis, we investigate how firms facing resource constraints enhance their capabilities over time by orchestrating resources and how this resource orchestration can play a role in improving firm performance. Using the dynamic perspective, this study identifies four resource orchestration modes, which are specified based on how a given firm dynamically allocates its resources to technology (enacted by R&D activities) and marketing (enacted by advertising activities). Accordingly, we claim that firms with resource constraints can enhance their performance by escalating or altering their resources over time. To test our hypotheses, we used a sample of 4078 small and medium-sized enterprises in manufacturing industries between 1984 and 2018. We found that focus escalation for technology positively affects firm performance, captured by Tobin's q, and that focus alternation toward either technology or market is positively related to firm performance. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.     

“一家人”还是“两家人”?

正几年前,联想员工的一篇文章"联想不是家",曾经引发了关于企业与员工关系的诸多讨论。现实中,关于这一话题还是常常会引发许许多多的争议。一方面,许多人羡慕Google一类的公司,允许员工带宠物上班、周五可以向老板提出"无理要求";另一方面,许多人又希望保持企业与员工之间的距离、领导与员工之间的"非平等状态"。诸多争     

Decentralizing Wage Bargaining in Germany — A Way to Increase Employment?

Abstract. The area‐wide wage agreement is at the centre of Germany's system of collective bargaining. In recent years, however, there has been a tendency towards the decentralization of collective bargaining. Individual wage agreements have led to more moderate wage developments, whilst collective agreements with individual firms, and agreements at the production unit level, have not had this moderating effect. On the other hand, collective bargaining has become more flexible, leading to greater pay differentiation. The further decentralization of collective bargaining, although desirable, has given rise to objections based in constitutional law and to resistance from employees and employers.     

From Bureaucracy to Debureaucratization?

More than previous mild recessions, the current global crisis calls into question the merits of a model that held sway for almost three decades. Celebrated in the nineties in a “National Bestseller”, which even President Clinton considered to be a “blueprint” “for all officials to read”, the book—Reinventing Government—preached the reform of government in private sector ways. In stark contrast to Bureaucracy, which they considered “Bankrupt”. Authors Osborne and Gaebler (1993) promoted Debureaucratization, which they summed up as decentralization, deregulation, downsizing and outsourcing. It is time to revisit the assumptions of the Osborne-Gaebler model that has demonstrably failed. More than the model, however, the ways of its promotion in the market of ideas invites a word of caution. It prompted simplistic distortions, which typically followed from superficial analyses of Weber’s seminal opus (Timsit 2008:864–875). This paper reconsiders these two contrasting models, though not in “black” and “white”. Rather, the two are explored in dialectical terms, as outcomes of shifting ideologies, often taken to extremes.     

Health care futures. What lies ahead? Where are we going? Panel discussion

Who would have guessed that managed care would dominate the health care industry in the final two decades of the millennium? That physicians would be joining labor unions? Or that they would be going back to school to become Fellows of the American College of Physician Executives? To find out what may be in store for health care in America five to 10 years hence, The Physician Executive asked nine health care experts to participate in a two-part panel discussion. Here's what they see ahead in managed care, information technology, and biotechnology. Part 2 will appear in the July/August Issue of The Physician Executive.     

A股一统江湖?

A 股不是永远的救世主。如果企业仍旧不能盈利,损失的不仅是国内投资者的财富,还有他们纯真的感情。 2000年2000点一语成谶,但市场反应平平,丝毫未见久违的激情。树欲静而风不止,现今的股市消息满天飞,领导遍地走,从另一面透着它的活泼热闹劲儿。中国股市正处于深刻而巨大变化     

“正常误差”?

合肥市一位冯姓女士在一家银行把银行卡上的6.8万元和另一存单上的5000元合并存为定期。当她在存款单上签名时,差点惊出一身冷汗,两笔共有7.3万元,怎么存单上只有1.3万元?一位工作人员解释说,这属正常业务差错范围,在单据上签字就是让客户自己核对把关,账目不对不完全是银行的责任。岂有此理!如今一些所谓的正常误差也太不正常了。医生把没病的人看出了“大病”,左腿骨折,右腿开刀;固定电话没设来电显示,家中也没买电脑,话单上却写着“增值服务费”和“网络服务费”;商家说是买一赠一,可消费者不主动索要就不送赠品。出错可谓五花八门,解释…