New business development in mature firms

New business development (NBD) is one of the main strategic options for the ‘mature’ company. The authors discuss the reasons why NBD should be considered and suggest a framework for developing new businesses. The results of a two year investigation of a sample of 14 UK companies' NBD initiatives are presented. Half of the sample have either abandoned or are reducing their new business activities. The reasons are manifold and relate to a failure to define specifically the role of the NBD initiatives; a lack of appreciation of the risks, long time spans for development and the high financial commitment associated with NBD; a weakening of the mainstream business (this in itself suggesting that companies often leave NBD ‘too late’); and a naive approach toward marketing. Some lessons for mature companies' future involvement in NBD are drawn.     

The contribution of mother-father-child interactions to children's emotion narratives

Parents' sensitivity during interactions with their children has been associated with children's emotion narratives elicited using story completion tasks, but almost all of this research focused on mothers and was based on a dyadic, parent-child focus. The goal of the present study was to expand this research by studying triadic, mother-father-child interactions and their associations with children's narratives. Seventy-one families with their 4.5-year-old children were observed in the Lausanne Trilogue Play (LTP) procedure to assess Family Cooperation, and children were administered the MacArthur Story-Stem Battery (MSSB) to assess Coherence, Parental Representations, and Engagement with the task. Regression analyses indicated that controlling for children's Narrative Competence and Effortful Control, children who were part of more cooperative family interactions produced narratives that were more coherent, and they were more engaged during the task. No associations were found with children's representations of parents. Directions for future studies as well as clinical implications are discussed.