International coopetition for innovation: Are the benefits worth the challenges?

International coopetition has rarely been studied in relation to innovation. Further exploration of effects of international coopetition, i.e. the pursuit of simultaneous cooperation and competition, on a firm’s innovation performance is especially important as such a relationship is challenging with a high propensity to fail. This observation formed the point of departure for this study, which aims to increase the understanding of the effects of international coopetition on firm innovativeness and how these effects are conditioned on the magnitude of the organizational adjustments a firm introduces. We use an unbalanced panel of 9839 firms that participated in four waves of the Swedish Community Innovation Survey between 2008 and 2014 as our empirical base. We illustrate that firms that cooperate with competitors internationally are more likely to exhibit higher propensity to introduce radical innovations, yet this effect is conditioned upon the magnitude of organizational adjustments. Overall, our study contributes to the understanding of the implications of international coopetition and what a firm needs to benefit from it.     

Private Ownership versus Institutional Ownership: Exclusion Pricing of Initial Public Offerings

The authors examine the literature with respect to the pricing of initial public offerings and focus upon the relationship of pricing to the structure and conduct of the investment banking industry. Using a data base of all share offerings undertaken in the United States over a two and a half year period, the authors find that there is considerable evidence for the proposition that large, prestigious, and well capitalised investment banks tend to price their share offerings at a higher absolute level than those not meeting such characteristics. Using classical statistical methods, the authors find that the pricing strategy of investment banks is connected to their affiliation with investment funds and unit trusts. The motives for such pricing strategies, the authors argue, lie with the affiliation of investment banks with investment funds, suggesting that the pricing of new share offerings may be a means of excluding retail investors from participating in the strong returns such issues exhibit. The authors raise legal and regulatory implications of their findings in the context of the general consolidation observed within the investment banking industry. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Rethinking Marketing Programs for Emerging Markets

This article points to a fundamental inconsistency in the emerging market strategies of multinational firms. On the one hand, they seek billions of new consumers in the emerging markets of China, India, Indonesia, and Latin America—on the other, their marketing programs are scarcely adapted for these markets. The result is low market penetration, disappointing market shares and poor profitability. These multinationals are trapped by their own devices in gilded cages, serving the affluent few but ignoring the potential of the billions of new consumers that attracted them in the first place. In this article we propose that, in order to attract billions of new consumers, the marketing programs of multinationals need to be rethought from the ground up. We identify three key factors that characterize emerging markets: (1) low incomes, (2) variability in consumers and infrastructure, and (3) the relative cheapness of labor, which is often substituted for capital. We draw on numerous case studies from around the world to illustrate how to incorporate these realities into marketing programs. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of such an approach for the multinational’s core strategic assumptions.     

The Job Demands-Job Control Model and absence behaviour: results of a 3-year longitudinal study

Empirical results of earlier studies only marginally supported the relevance of Karasek's Job Demands-Job Control Model for absence behaviour. Since longitudinal studies with respect to these relations were largely lacking, a four-wave panel study was carried out using data from 1755 male employees of a technical maintenance firm in the public sector. Job demands, job control, physical working conditions, and the employee's age, education, and health were measured in one year and absenteeism in the same year and in the next 3 years. Data were analysed with linear regression and Poisson regression techniques. The Poisson regression technique was superior to the linear regression technique in explaining absence. Age, health and prior absence were the best predictors of later absence behaviour. With respect to the Job Demands-Job Control Model, the main findings of the study were (1) that job control was significantly associated with a low number of simultaneous and later absence days, and (2) that, contrary to expectations, job demands were also related to a low number of simultaneous and later absence days. These results hold when age, health, education, prior absence, and working conditions are controlled for. Job control and job demands did not predict later absence frequency. In the discussion it is suggested that a high level of job demands may not only be harmful for the well-being of employees but also work as 'a pressure to attend'.     

Benchmark Dose Analysis via Nonparametric Regression Modeling

Estimation of benchmark doses (BMDs) in quantitative risk assessment traditionally is based upon parametric dose‐response modeling. It is a well‐known concern, however, that if the chosen parametric model is uncertain and/or misspecified, inaccurate and possibly unsafe low‐dose inferences can result. We describe a nonparametric approach for estimating BMDs with quantal‐response data based on an isotonic regression method, and also study use of corresponding, nonparametric, bootstrap‐based confidence limits for the BMD. We explore the confidence limits’ small‐sample properties via a simulation study, and illustrate the calculations with an example from cancer risk assessment. It is seen that this nonparametric approach can provide a useful alternative for BMD estimation when faced with the problem of parametric model uncertainty.     

Determinanten des Informationsgehalts von Managementprognosen – eine empirische Untersuchung anhand der DAX und MDAX-Unternehmen

In this article the characteristics and determinants of the information content of management earnings forecasts of the German DAX and MDAX companies between 2002 and 2005 are analyzed. As proxy for the information content I use the precision of the wording of a forecast. I can show that the forecasts of MDAX companies are more precisely formulated than those of DAX companies. Furthermore forecasts are formulated more precisely, when companies have, (1) a lower percentage of intangible assets, (2) lower market capitalization, (3) lower volatility of earnings and (4) a higher need for external financing.     

Complying with voluntary codes of conduct: Corporate strategies for the Valdez Principles

The Valdez Principles is the latest of a series of voluntary codes of conduct that have been enunciated by various advocacy groups to guide the behavior of business enterprises. These principles provide guidelines on corporate conduct towards the environment and present a corporation with critical choices. This study suggests alternative strategies that firms may adopt to cope with this new code. Experience with the Sullivan and MacBride Principles is analyzed to serve as the basis to predict corporate response to the Valdez Principles.     

Risk return approach to product portfolio strategy

This article describes how a risk-return portfolio analysis, as originally developed in economics and finance, can be applied to product-line decisions. This approach uses direct estimates of return, and explicitly considers risk, or variation in return; most of the product portfolio models in use today forecast return by correlation, and lack explicit treatment of risk. The approach provides guidance for new product development activities as well as for allocating resources among a corporation's existing product lines. The article explains how organizations can apply this approach to their own product portfolio decisions, and includes a detailed example of how one company used this model.     

Information technology in banking

This paper argues that since the use of information is a fundamental part of all forms of activities, both corporate and private, throughout society the introduction of a new technology for using information inevitably has widespread effects. These effects are particularly far reaching in those service industries, such as banking, the very heart and essence of whose business is the handling of information.A review of the developments so far in the use of the new information technology in payment systems brings out the essential nature of its effects and shows the all-pervasive influence of the form and capability of the technology itself. It tries to illustrate where the benefits are derived and the nature of illusory gains and undesirable effects. An attempt is then made to derive an historical perspective.To try to anticipate future events, current trends in the technology and in the ways in which its use might change, are identified. The change in the technical means by which financial and other information-based services are delivered is seen to be salient feature of these developments and the important influence upon institutional relationships is discussed under the heading of the politics of the technology. Parallels in the introduction of other new technologies are drawn by way of illustration.The final part of the paper tries to develop a broader perspective and sketches out a longer scenario of the development of information technology indicating the major influence which this is likely to exert upon the development of society throughout the world.