THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF REGULATION IN MARKETS WITH NAÏVE CONSUMERS

In a model of a competitive industry selling base goods and add‐ons, we investigate the conditions under which citizen‐consumers will support policies that eliminate behavioral inefficiencies induced by naïve consumers. Unregulated competitive markets have two effects: they produce deadweight losses, and they redistribute income away from biased consumers. Both unbiased and naïve consumers believe that they benefit from this redistribution (the naïve consumers are wrong), so support for efficiency‐improving regulation is limited. Extending our model to consumers with partial sophistication about their naïveté, we predict patterns of regulation consistent with the form and timing of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009.     

Innovation by Teams in Shanghai,China: Cooperative Goals for Group Confidence and Persistence*

Organizations increasingly ask teams to stimulate innovation but research is needed to identify the conditions when teams have the confidence and persistence to innovate successfully. Using the concepts of cooperation, competition, group potency and initiative, this study proposes that relationships where team members believe that their goals are cooperative in that one person's goal attainment helps others reach their goals lay the foundation for innovation. Specifically, cooperative goals convince team members that they have the group potency to complete a range of tasks and the initiative to persist to overcome obstacles and innovate. In contrast, competitive, negatively related goals and independent, unrelated goals are hypothesized to undermine confidence, persistence and innovation. Group members from 101 teams from various organizations in Shanghai, China, completed a survey with measures of cooperative, competitive and independent goals, group potency, and initiative; their project leader completed the measure of innovation. Structural equation analysis supports the theoretical framework that cooperative goals help group members develop the confidence of group potency and the initiative to persist to accomplish tasks and innovate. These results suggest that cooperative goals and group potency and initiative are important conditions that help teams innovate for organizations and thereby specify conditions that can help groups realize their potential to achieve innovation for organizations.     

Perceived competitive influences and innovative behaviour

The article looks at how firms' perceptions of competitive influences shape their innovative behaviour as they search for strategic advantage. In this exploratory piece of research, the author shows that firms take notice of a small number of competitors only, their perceived competitive position is very different from that measured “objectively”, and that firms have programs which direct resources into innovative behaviour to meet competitive threats.¹     

Competitive Capabilities among Manufacturing Plants in Developing,Emerging, and Industrialized Countries: A Comparative Analysis

Competitive capabilities have been defined as a plant's actual performance relative to its competitors, with the most commonly investigated capabilities being quality, delivery, flexibility, and cost. However, most research in this realm has investigated capabilities within developed countries, and neglected the context of developing and emerging nations, which are increasingly becoming viable economic entities in global supply chains in their own right. The present study fills this gap and carries out a comparative analysis of competitive capabilities among plants in developing, emerging, and industrialized countries. Basing our arguments on the resource‐based view of the firm, we suggest that the influence of competitive capabilities on each other varies among plants in differentially industrialized regions. Specifically, we suggest that, on average, competitive capabilities tend to influence each other to a greater degree in plants in emerging and developing countries compared to industrialized countries. Along similar lines, we suggest that the influence of the four competitive capabilities on performance improvement is manifested more strongly among plants in emerging and developing countries than among plants in industrialized nations. We investigate these contentions with data from 1,211 plants in 21 countries. The results are particularly important for decision makers as they decide on the increasingly global location of their manufacturing operations or the configuration of their global supply chains.     

A Design Theory Approach to Building Strategic Network‐Based Customer Service Systems*

Customer service is a key component of a firm's value proposition and a fundamental driver of differentiation and competitive advantage in nearly every industry. Moreover, the relentless coevolution of service opportunities with novel and more powerful information technologies has made this area exciting for academic researchers who can contribute to shaping the design and management of future customer service systems. We engage in interdisciplinary research—across information systems, marketing, and computer science—in order to contribute to the service design and service management literature. Grounded in the design‐science perspective, our study leverages marketing theory on the service‐dominant logic and recent findings pertaining to the evolution of customer service systems. Our theorizing culminates with the articulation of four design principles. These design principles underlie the emerging class of customer service systems that, we believe, will enable firms to better compete in an environment characterized by an increase in customer centricity and in customers' ability to self‐serve and dynamically assemble the components of solutions that fit their needs. In this environment, customers retain control over their transactional data, as well as the timing and mode of their interactions with firms, as they increasingly gravitate toward integrated complete customer solutions rather than single products or services. Guided by these design principles, we iterated through, and evaluated, two instantiations of the class of systems we propose, before outlining implications and directions for further cross‐disciplinary scholarly research.     

Does Quality Still Pay? A Reexamination of the Relationship Between Effective Quality Management and Firm Performance

Because of the changing competitive environment, quality might have lost some of its luster and emphasis in business. The research question we aim to address in this paper is: Does quality still pay in the new competitive environment? Using replication research, we re‐examine the impact of an effective total quality management (TQM) program on a firm's operating performance in the new competitive environment. We use publicly available data for award‐winning firms and adopt several control‐firm‐selection approaches in our event study. Based on data from more than 500 firms, we find that over a 10‐year period—6 years before to 3 years after winning their first quality award—firms in our sample perform significantly better than control groups in various operating performance measures. Not only do award‐winning firms have better results after receiving awards, they also have superior performance records before the award. Our results suggest that quality is still critical to achieving long‐term competitive advantages, and firms who continuously improve their quality continue to reap rewards by way of sales and financial performances exceeding those of their competitors.     

The competitive advantage and strategic configuration of knowledge-intensive, small- and medium-sized multinationals: a modified resource-based view

This study employs a modified resource-based approach to examine the competitive advantage enjoyed by knowledge-intensive, small- and medium-sized multinationals (KI-SMMs). While the resource-based view addresses superior capabilities only, this paper examines both superior and inferior capabilities and their resulting sustainable competitive advantage.Compared to larger knowledge-intensive multinationals, KI-SMMs possess more inferior than superior core capabilities. Despite this handicap, the paper demonstrates how KI-SMMs compete globally by leveraging their relatively superior R&D capabilities and by choosing a strategic configuration that allows them to compete internationally despite their relatively inferior capabilities in marketing and production activities.Our results show that KI-SMMs internalize R&D activities, which are their core capabilities, externalize production activities, in this case noncore capabilities, and internalize marketing activities, for which they have an inferior capacity, but which are, arguably, core capabilities. KI-SMMs compensate for their inferior capabilities in marketing activities through the use of a unique business model which focuses repeat sales to customers with whom a low number of high-value transactions can be maintained.     

具有概率分布在线租赁问题策略研究

在经济系统中,决策越来越呈现出在线性特征,传统优化方法在解决这类在线问题时,通常假设未来输入是一随机变量从而寻求概率意义上的最优决策。近年来,在优化领域兴起了一种新的研究方法——在线算法与竞争分析,为解决这类在线问题提供了新的视角,但传统的竞争分析方法有意规避概率分布假设。对于在线租赁决策问题,由于其输入结构简单且具有良好的统计性质,似乎忽略这些有用的信息而只运用标准的竞争比方法分析显然具有不足之处。在本文中,我们将其输入结构的概率分布引入纯竞争分析方法中,从而建立了具有概率情形的最优在线租赁模型,并得到了最优竞争策略及其竞争比。     

带有马尔可夫竞争因子的多产品报童模型

在竞争的环境下考虑多产品报童问题。为了刻画多产品间的竞争关系，本文利用马尔可夫链构建多产品的需求转移模型，并根据模型的转移概率矩阵提出马氏竞争因子和综合竞争力等核心概念，进而结合卷积公式和雅可比行列式，将竞争因子的概念纳入经典报童模型的框架，构建了带有马氏竞争因子的多产品报童模型，同时在该模型的理论基础上给出了新的决策机制。模型的数据实验表明：竞争因子对多产品库存系统的最优订购策略具有重要的影响，关于产品的综合竞争力为单调递增函数；将竞争因子纳入多产品库存系统的决策机制，可进一步拓展报童模型在实际应用领域中的适应性以及提高库存系统的优化与控制的效用。     

Big Data Analytics Capabilities and Innovation: The Mediating Role of Dynamic Capabilities and Moderating Effect of the Environment

With big data analytics growing rapidly in popularity, academics and practitioners have been considering the means through which they can incorporate the shifts these technologies bring into their competitive strategies. Drawing on the resource‐based view, the dynamic capabilities view, and on recent literature on big data analytics, this study examines the indirect relationship between a big data analytics capability (BDAC) and two types of innovation capabilities: incremental and radical. The study extends existing research by proposing that BDACs enable firms to generate insight that can help strengthen their dynamic capabilities, which in turn positively impact incremental and radical innovation capabilities. To test their proposed research model, the authors used survey data from 175 chief information officers and IT managers working in Greek firms. By means of partial least squares structural equation modelling, the results confirm the authors’ assumptions regarding the indirect effect that BDACs have on innovation capabilities. Specifically, they find that dynamic capabilities fully mediate the effect on both incremental and radical innovation capabilities. In addition, under conditions of high environmental heterogeneity, the impact of BDACs on dynamic capabilities and, in sequence, incremental innovation capability is enhanced, while under conditions of high environmental dynamism the effect of dynamic capabilities on incremental innovation capabilities is amplified.     

企业持续竞争优势的资源观阐释

资源、能力、知识是三个内涵不完全相同的概念,但它们是紧密相连的,在企业价值(租金)创造的过程中它们同时起了决定性的作用。企业竞争优势的获取依赖于资源、能力和知识,但它们并不必然地促使竞争优势持续下去。为此,本文归纳了与持续竞争优势相关的若干资源特性及条件。文章最后指出资源观正将资源的内涵外延扩大化,这从一定程度上进一步丰富和完善了持续竞争优势模型。     

From Resources to Value and Back: Competition Between and Within Organizations

Examining the relationship between the competitive processes between and within organizations, we use selection system theory to link resource value to product value. We identify three dimensions (in‐selection, before‐selection and after‐selection) that facilitate determining the value of resources based on the functions they serve in the competitive process between organizations in the product market, i.e. the external selection system. Subsequently, we use these dimensions to explore the competitive process among resource providers within organizations, i.e. the internal selection system. This leads us to formulate three propositions that link the competitive process within organizations to the competitive process between organizations. First, we posit that if resources that individually score highly along only one of the three dimensions are bundled, it is more likely that organizational performance can be sustained. Second, we argue that providers of resources scoring highly along multiple dimensions will enjoy stronger means of appropriation in comparison with providers of resources scoring highly along only one of the three dimensions. Third, we contend that the extent to which an organization endeavours to remunerate its resource providers based on their perceived contribution to the organization's competitive position has a curvilinear (inverted U‐shaped) relationship with organizational performance.     

Embeddedness of Organizational Capabilities*

Managers must regularly make decisions on how to access and deploy their limited resources in order to build organizational capabilities for a sustainable competitive advantage. However, failure to recognize that organizational capabilities involve complex and intricately woven underlying processes may lead to an incomplete understanding of how capabilities affect competitive advantage. As a means of understanding this underlying complexity, we discuss how managerial decisions on resource acquisition and deployment influence capability embeddedness and argue that capability embeddedness has an incremental effect on firm performance beyond the effects from organizational resources and capabilities. To investigate these issues, we present a hierarchical composed error structure framework that relies on cross‐sectional data (and allows for generalizations to panel data). We demonstrate the framework in the context of retailing, where we show that the embeddedness of organizational capabilities influences retailer performance above and beyond the tangible and intangible resources and capabilities that a retailer possesses. Our results illustrate that understanding how resources and capabilities influence performance at different hierarchical levels within a firm can aid managers to make better decisions on how they can embed certain capabilities within the structural and social relationships within the firm. Moreover, understanding whether the underlying objectives of the capabilities that are being built and cultivated have convergent or divergent goals is critical, as it can influence the extent to which the embedded capabilities enhance firm performance.     

Inter-firm collaborations and supply chain coordination: review of key elements and case study

Considering the effects of globalisation, the increase of production and energy costs, and the introduction of advanced technologies, companies need to change their way of doing business if they want to stay competitive. One way of doing this is to establish collaborations with suppliers, distributors and retailers, in order to exchange products efficiently and create value for customers. Nevertheless, the structure of the collaboration must be designed carefully and some coordination mechanisms must be implemented to support this way of doing business. In this article, we first analyse: why companies work together, how they should build their partnership, and which strategies they can implement to facilitate coordination of supply chain activities. We then report a case study of collaboration in the forest industry that shows the benefits of implementing coordination mechanisms as well as the necessity of using incentives to better share these benefits.     

How are Methodologies and Tools Framing Managers' Strategizing Practice in Competitive Strategy Development?

Criticisms have been levelled at the use of traditional strategic tools such as SWOT, PEST and BCG in contemporary business environments. In light of these criticisms, the objective of this research is to understand how senior executives engage with methodologies and tools as they develop competitive strategy. Within a broader strategy‐as‐practice approach, we use an activity theory framework to capture strategizing insights of senior executives in the UK responsible for competitive strategy. Our sample includes executives leading manufacturing organizations embedded in networks and CEOs reported in the financial press as adopting innovative business models. Our data suggest there is no one preferred practice approach by these highly regarded executives. Rather, methods and tools are adapted as they are contextualized in alternative practices. Three dominant strategizing practice models emerged from the data reflecting alternative applications of methodologies and tools. The first model captures routinized behaviour adopted by those who view their future as predictable, and an extension of the current environment. The second model posits reflective interaction between the strategist, organizational processes, culture, relationships and practice, and the final model shows an imposed engagement with strategizing methodologies and tools that bypass the organization's collective structures. These practice models suggest strategy leaders' activities depend upon their interpretation of the operating environment.     

The Current State of Women Print Journalists: An Analysis of the Status and Careers of Females in Newspapers Sports Departments

The purpose of this study was to provide an analysis of the current state of women journalists within the sports departments at newspapers across the United States. This investigation involved a determination of their demographic make-up, job status within the sports department, rationale for entering the field, and advice for younger women preparing to follow in their footsteps. The findings suggest that although the large majority of women have faced discrimination in the sport media, they believe improvements have been made towards equity. The majority of respondents noted that they were happy with the assignments they had been given. Subjects did, however, feel that they were assigned to cover females more than their male counterparts, and some responses regarding dissatisfaction with their positions was also noted.     

How Believing in Ourselves Increases Risk Taking: Perceived Self-Efficacy and Opportunity Recognition

What effect does positive and negative feedback about past risk taking have on the future risk taking of decision makers? The results of an experimental study show that subjects who are led to believe they are very competent at decision making see more opportunities in a risky choice and take more risks. Those who are led to believe they are not very competent see more threats and take fewer risks. The feelings of self-competence and self-confidence on one task did not generalize to a similar task. Perception of opportunities was unexpectedly not related to the perception of threats. As executives bring their personal perceptual biases to firm decision making, our results identify a serious built-in bias in SWOT analysis (the analysis of firms' strengths and weaknesses as related to potential opportunities and threats). Executives who believe that they and their firm are very competent will take more risks and vice versa. Our results also provide evidence that the perceived likelihood of an event depends on whether the event is a loss or a gain. Human decision making is subject to the general bias that outcome expectations are not independent of outcome valuations.     

Tools and techniques of long-range planners

Long-range planning is concerned with the integration of predictions with corporate strategies. Both practitioners and scholars of management have frequently proposed approaches to planning that they believe to be helpful. The purpose of this paper is to report which techniques and tools and what approaches to planning are actually being used. It is hoped that this information will provide the executive or practitioner with a framework for evaluating his planning practices relative to other planners.This paper is divided into four parts. Part l provides information concerning the survey and data on which this article is based. Part ll deals with the planning process in approximately 400 business firms. Part lll examines the use of two planning tools—outside consultants and computers/mathematical models. The last section presents a summary and some general conclusions drawn from the analysis.