Governing Project-based Firms: Promoting Market-like Processes within Hierarchies

This article takes an empirical point of departure in an in-depth study of an R&D organization that was transformed into a strongly project-based organization. As demonstrated in the analysis, its mode of governance differed radically from traditional bureaucratic and cultural conceptions of governance. Instead the new “rules-of-the-game” introduced amounted to creating an institutional framework, promoting new individual responsibilities and enabling lower level market-like processes of self-organizing discovery. The specific set-up used, included anew organization structure, new responsibilities, etc and the use of “prices”, playing a role both in shaping incentives and guiding knowledge work. The interpretation put forward relies on combining economic theories of governance with more “fine-grained” organization theories, and suggests that there is some discretion for top managers to engage in the design of a market-promoting mode of governance for their project-based firms. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Intervention Project on Absence and Well-being (IPAW): Design and results from the baseline of a 5-year study

This paper presents the background, design and baseline results of the Intervention Project on Absence and Well-being (IPAW). IPAW is a 5-year psychosocial work environment intervention study including 22 intervention and 30 control work-sites from three different types of work-site (a large pharmaceutical company, municipal technical services, and municipal nursing homes) in Copenhagen, Denmark. The baseline survey reported in this paper was conducted in 1996-97, and the cohort was followed until 2002. Interventions took place during 1996-98 at the organizational and interpersonal level and focused on psychological demands, social support, control, meaning of work, and predictability. The main end-points are self-rated health, perceived stress, absence from work, job satisfaction, and labour turnover. Analyses of the baseline data show good reliability of the psychosocial scales and a number of clear associations between psychosocial work environment factors and health indicators. The baseline data also demonstrate several discrepancies between the planned design of the study and the actual implementation of the project in practice.     

A spatial analysis of indigenous cover patterns and implications for ecological restoration in urban centres,New Zealand

High levels of endemism, the sensitivity of species that have evolved without humans, and the invasion of exotic species have all contributed to severe depletion of indigenous biodiversity in New Zealand. We considered the contribution that urban restoration can make to maximising biodiversity by analysing landcover patterns from two national databases along an urban–rural gradient. Thirteen of 20 land environments in New Zealand are represented in cities, and nearly three-quarters of all acutely threatened land environments are represented within 20 km of city cores nationally. Despite this, remaining indigenous landcover is low within urban cores, with less than 2% on average, but increasing to more than 10% on average in the periurban zone. Threatened lowland environments are most commonly represented within cities, and least represented within protected natural areas. Restoration of existing urban habitat is insufficient to halt biodiversity loss. Ecosystem reconstruction is required to achieve a target of 10% indigenous cover within cities. A co-ordinated national urban biodiversity plan to address issues beyond a local and regional focus is needed. Analysis of national patterns of urban land environments, indigenous cover and remnant ecosystems will support action at a regional and local level while enhancing national and global biodiversity goals.     

Shareholder activism among portfolio managers: rational decisions or 15 minutes of fame?

This paper investigates shareholder activism by observing Swedish portfolio managers’ behavior at firms’ annual general meetings. Institutional shareholders’ voting behavior and tendencies for raising opinions at the general meetings are related to firm characteristics, suggested by both agency theory and institutional perspectives. The results show that institutional shareholders are more likely to be active in large firms, which appear a lot in media, and have a large proportion of institutional ownership. Portfolio managers appear not to consider bad firm performance as a reason for targeting firms. Instead, managers’ behavior is consistent with the institutional notion that they benefit from the activism themselves, without trying to improve target firms’ performance. In view of this notion, it is rational for managers to be active in large firms, with large media coverage, achieving their 15 minutes of fame at the general meetings.     

Mixing of MCMC algorithms

We analyse MCMC chains focusing on how to find simulation parameters that give good mixing for discrete time, Harris ergodic Markov chains on a general state space X having invariant distribution π. The analysis uses an upper bound for the variance of the probability estimate. For each simulation parameter set, the bound is estimated from an MCMC chain using recurrence intervals. Recurrence intervals are a generalization of recurrence periods for discrete Markov chains. It is easy to compare the mixing properties for different simulation parameters. The paper gives general advice on how to improve the mixing of the MCMC chains and a new methodology for how to find an optimal acceptance rate for the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. Several examples, both toy examples and large complex ones, illustrate how to apply the methodology in practice. We find that the optimal acceptance rate is smaller than the general recommendation in the literature in some of these examples.     

Dread and Risk Elimination Premium for the Value of a Statistical Life

The value of a statistical life (VSL) is a widely used measure for the value of mortality risk reduction. As VSL should reflect preferences and attitudes to risk, there are reasons to believe that it varies depending on the type of risk involved. It has been argued that cancer should be considered a “dread disease,” which supports the use of a “cancer premium.” The objective of this study is to investigate the existence of a cancer premium (for pancreatic cancer and multiple myeloma) in relation to road traffic accidents, sudden cardiac arrest, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Data were collected from 500 individuals in the Swedish general population of 50–74‐year olds using a web‐based questionnaire. Preferences were elicited using the contingent valuation method, and a split‐sample design was applied to test scale sensitivity. VSL differs significantly between contexts, being highest for ALS and lowest for road traffic accidents. A premium (92–113%) for cancer was found in relation to road traffic accidents. The premium was higher for cancer with a shorter time from diagnosis to death. A premium was also found for sudden cardiac arrest (73%) and ALS (118%) in relation to road traffic accidents. Eliminating risk was associated with a premium of around 20%. This study provides additional evidence that there exist a dread premium and risk elimination premium. These factors should be considered when searching for an appropriate value for economic evaluation and health technology assessment.     

RANDOM PATHS ORIGINATING WITHIN A CONVEX REGION AND TERMINATING ON ITS SURFACE

A ray is defined as a straight line originating within an arbitrary convex body K in n -dimensional Euclidean space and terminating on the surface of K. The distributions of ray length are derived for three types of randomness. The results are expressed as functions of the overlap volume and overlap surface content of K with its translated self.     

To bid or not to bid

This paper discusses the importance of permanent customer relations for firms in an environment where bidding takes place. The analysis is first directed toward the bidding resources per order with special reference to the differences in order rate between permanent and non-permanent customers. The importance for bidding firms to keep close track of order rates for different customer groups is stressed here. In the succeeding analysis the bidding on requests from non-permanent customers is treated as investments in future orders. Here we note the dilemma of firms with low or zero profit margins, which are likely to bid on too many bids, thus incurring higher bidding costs than their more profitable competitors.