An audit of received international business corruption literature for logic,consistency, completeness of coverage

This analysis of International Business (IB) corruption literature identifies gaps and inconsistencies in how corruption is perceived or deliberated in top academic journals. The reviewed articles tend to focus on one of the three key themes of IB corruption (Contributing factors, Consequences, and Combating) and are categorised into the six sub-domains of the IB framework. The content of the articles is categorised into the respective themes and discussed in relation to underpinning theories and key constructs. The process is intended to be less a synthesis of the literature than an audit revealing that IB corruption research is weakened by tendencies to: 1) Be siloed within its subtheme and to not cross-tie to work in other key themes—this issue is very severe in the Combating theme; 2) Have a short-term focus that disregards the cumulative effects of total graft, and; 3) Asymmetrically focus (predominantly) on the supply side of corruption. These finding suggest several avenues for further research.     

Change Communication in Public Sector Cutback Management

Public Organization Review - Budget cuts in public sector organizations create additional strain for employees, often contributing to uncertainty, rumors, and low morale. This study examines the...     

Beyond products: new strategic imperatives for developing competencies in dynamic environments

Strategy research has often taken a product-centered perspective. When firms compete in environments characterized by accelerating product life cycles, mass customization, and technological discontinuities, a product-centered perspective on strategy may help explain a firm’s current competitive advantage. However, this perspective adds little guidance in making strategies that create competitive advantage in the future. In this paper, we present a perspective in which dynamic environments require firms to focus on (1) building market-driven, technological, and integration competencies, not a stream of product improvements, and (2) decoupling these competencies from current products in order to create and exploit new opportunities. We discuss the perspective of products as a temporary integration of market and technology trajectories. Research propositions are presented and future implications are discussed.     

Critical success factors for cross-functional teamwork in new product development

There is consensus that the effective implementation of cross-functional teams is critical to new product success. However, such teams face particular challenges because of well-documented barriers between functions. Furthermore, there is little evidence-based guidance for practitioners on how to achieve effective cross-functional teamwork. In order to address this gap, the literature on cross-functional teamwork was analysed to identify critical success factors. Using a heuristic team effectiveness model, these were categorized into six groups: task design, group composition, organizational context, internal processes, external processes and group psychosocial traits. Recent theory on group effectiveness has increasingly recognized the significance of a supportive organizational context, and this is particularly pertinent for cross-functional teams. Key success factors include strategic alignment between functions, a climate supportive of teamwork and team-based accountability. The findings are integrated into a diagnostic model which is intended to be of practical benefit to people designing, leading and facilitating cross-functional new product development teams.     

External knowledge search,absorptive capacity and radical innovation in high-technology firms

Open innovation and absorptive capacity are two concepts based on the idea that companies can leverage the knowledge generated externally to improve their innovation performance. The aim of this paper is to analyse the joint effect of open innovation and absorptive capacity on a firm's radical innovation. Open innovation is expressed in terms of external search breadth and depth strategies and absorptive capacity is described by distinguishing between potential and realized absorptive capacity. In order to test our hypotheses, we carried out empirical research in firms operating in high-technology industries. The results indicate that internal routines and processes for absorbing external knowledge help explain radical innovation as they show a significant effect of potential and realized absorptive capacity. Also, there is a moderating effect of absorptive capacity on open innovation. Specifically, potential absorptive capacity exerts a positive effect on the relationship between external search breadth and depth and radical innovation. Realized absorptive capacity moderates the influence of external search breadth. These findings confirm the complementary nature of absorptive capacity and open innovation search strategies on radical innovation.     

Optimal Price and Quantity of Refurbished Products

Many retail product returns can be refurbished and resold, typically at a reduced price. The price set for the refurbished products affects the demands for both new and refurbished products, while the refurbishment and resale activities incur costs. To maximize profit, a manufacturer in a competitive market must carefully choose the proportion of returned products to refurbish and their sale price. We model the sale, return, refurbishment, and resale processes in an open queueing network and formulate a mathematical program to find the optimal price and proportion to refurbish. Examination of the optimality conditions reveals the different situations in which it is optimal to refurbish none, some, or all of the returned products. Refurbishing operations may increase profit or may be required to relieve a manufacturing capacity bottleneck. A numerical study identifies characteristics of the new product market and refurbished products that encourage refurbishing and some situations in which small changes in the refurbishing cost and quality provoke large changes in the optimal policy.     

Revisiting the model of creative destruction: St. Jacobs,Ontario, a decade later

Ten years ago, the model of creative destruction was developed to predict the fate of communities that base their development on the commodification of rural heritage (Mitchell, C.J.A., 1998. Entrepreneurialism, commodification and creative destruction: a model of post-modern community development. Journal of Rural Studies 14, 273–286). Its application to the village of St. Jacobs, Canada, demonstrated that entrepreneurial investment had fostered the creation of a setting for aestheticized consumption. In this paper we demonstrate that creative destruction has continued to unfold in the village over the course of the past decade. The evolutionary path taken is assessed in light of current literature on rural space. It is concluded that to fully understand the transformative process, one must integrate the demands of myriad sub-cultures, whose social relations, ideologies and actions will contribute to the development of a contested landscape of consumption. This finding necessitates that modifications be made to the model and its various stages. The most significant is recognition that the “heritage-scape” is an interim state of landscape change; one that displaces the productivist landscape of the industrial period, and precedes the creation of the “neo-productivist” leisure-scape of post-industrialism. Whether or not such a “final” state is achieved is dictated by the power struggle that inevitably arises amongst sub-cultures engaged in the transformation of rural space.     

Influences of Infant‐Directed Speech on Early Word Recognition

When addressing infants, many adults adopt a particular type of speech, known as infant‐directed speech (IDS). IDS is characterized by exaggerated intonation, as well as reduced speech rate, shorter utterance duration, and grammatical simplification. It is commonly asserted that IDS serves in part to facilitate language learning. Although intuitively appealing, direct empirical tests of this claim are surprisingly scarce. Additionally, studies that have examined associations between IDS and language learning have measured learning within a single laboratory session rather than the type of long‐term storage of information necessary for word learning. In this study, 7‐ and 8‐month‐old infants' long‐term memory for words was assessed when words were spoken in IDS and adult‐directed speech (ADS). Word recognition over the long term was successful for words introduced in IDS, but not for those introduced in ADS, regardless of the register in which recognition stimuli were produced. Findings are discussed in the context of the influence of particular input styles on emergent word knowledge in prelexical infants.