Managing the Performance Trade‐Offs from Partner Integration: Implications of Contract Choice in R&D Projects

Formal contracts represent an important governance instrument with which firms exercise control of and compensate partners in R&D projects. The specific type of contract used, however, can vary significantly across projects. In some, firms' govern partnering relationships through fixed‐price contracts, whereas in others, firms' use more flexible time and materials or performance‐based contracts. How do these choices affect the costs and benefits that arise from greater levels of partner integration? Furthermore, how are these relationships affected when the choice of contract is misaligned with the scope and objectives of the partnering relationship? Our study addresses these questions using data from 172 R&D projects that involve partners. We find that, (i) greater partner integration is associated with higher project costs for all contract types; (ii) greater partner integration is associated with higher product quality only in projects that adopt more flexible time and materials or performance‐based contracts; and (iii) in projects where the choice of contract is misaligned with the scope and objectives of the partnering relationship, greater partner integration is associated with higher project costs, but not with higher product quality. Our results shed light on the subtle interplay between formal and relational contracting. They have important implications for practice, with respect to designing optimal governance structures in partnered R&D projects.     

Modelling the factors that influence the acceptance of digital technologies in e-government services in the UAE: a PLS-SEM Approach

Abstract

The digital technologies such as Internet play a crucial role in the management of operations of organisations in both public and private sectors. Such technologies support the implementation of effective digital business strategies. By reviewing the extant literature, this paper aims to identify factors that influence the intention to use digital technologies in order to develop a theoretical model which is then tested empirically using the PLS-SEM approach. While many studies have focused solely on the importance of social influence, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, awareness, perceived trust in technology, perceived trust in government, perceived cost and perceived risk, this article brings them together to explain their linkage, and quantifies the relationship. This study is the first empirical attempt to explore the factors influence e-government services adoption in the UAE. Most specifically, this article emphasises the role of social influence, perceived ease to use and perceived trust in technology as the important determinants of the intention to digital technology adoption. The paper expands the traditional discussion by incorporating six variables in a model that acts as facilitator or barrier in the intention to use digital technologies. This article helps practitioners to understand of which factors should be given emphasis in enhancing the intention to use digital technologies. The model developed in this paper is not only a response to the need to understand what causes the variation in the intention to use digital technologies from the operation management perspective, it is also a response to practitioner needs to use an appropriate construct to ensure the effective operation and use of the digital technologies in e-government services. The paper will help to identify the key issues surrounding the digital technologies adoption that may lead the successful operations of e-government.     

Shannon Entropy for Quantifying Uncertainty and Risk in Economic Disparity

The rise in economic disparity presents significant risks to global social order and the resilience of local communities. However, existing measurement science for economic disparity (e.g., the Gini coefficient) does not explicitly consider a probability distribution with information, deficiencies, and uncertainties associated with the underlying income distribution. This article introduces the quantification of Shannon entropy for income inequality across scales, including national‐, subnational‐, and city‐level data. The probabilistic principles of Shannon entropy provide a new interpretation for uncertainty and risk related to economic disparity. Entropy and information‐based conflict rise as world incomes converge. High‐entropy instances can resemble both happy and prosperous societies as well as a socialist–communist social structure. Low entropy signals high‐risk tipping points for anomaly and conflict detection with higher confidence. Finally, spatial–temporal entropy maps for U.S. cities offer a city risk profiling framework. The results show polarization of household incomes within and across Baltimore, Washington, DC, and San Francisco. Entropy produces reliable results at significantly reduced computational costs than Gini coefficients.     

The Effect of Antenatal Care on Professional Assistance at Delivery in Rural India

Delivering births in a medical institution or at home with professional medical assistance has been shown to promote safe motherhood and child survival. Yet three-quarters of births in rural India continue to take place at home, most of them without the assistance of any trained health worker. This study examines the role of antenatal care (ANC) in promoting professional assistance at delivery, using data from India’s 1992–93 and 1998–99 National Family Health Surveys (NFHS-1 and NFHS-2). We estimate the effect of number of antenatal care visits (0, 1–2, 3+) on professional assistance at delivery (no assistance, professional assistance at home, delivery in a medical institution), using multinomial logistic regression, controlling for demographic, geographic, and socioeconomic factors, pregnancy complications, and two measures of access to health facilities. The results indicate that, after controlling for other variables (including ANC), pregnancy complications and access to health facilities do not have much effect on assistance at delivery. By contrast, ANC has a large effect, even after all other variables are controlled. The effect of ANC on professional assistance at delivery is larger in South India than in North India, and predicted percentages receiving professional assistance are higher in South India than in North India. A policy implication is that increased antenatal care coverage can be an effective means of increasing professional assistance at delivery, especially delivery in a medical institution.

Heterogeneous Submission Behavior and its Implications for Success in Innovation Contests with Public Submissions

Innovation contests are increasingly adopting a format where submissions are viewable by all contestants and the information structure changes during the contest. In such an “unblind” format, contestants must weigh the costs of revealing their submissions against the benefits of improving their submissions through emerging information. We take a closer look at how contestants solve problems in innovation contests with public submission of solutions—that is, unblind contests, by examining the implications of their submission behavior for contest outcomes. We analyze the submission behavior in terms of three dimensions: the position of first submission by the contestant, the number of submissions the contestant makes, and the length of active participation by the contestant. The econometric analysis of a large dataset of unblind innovation contests and participating contestants indicates that, despite the potential for free riding and intellectual property loss from disclosure of submissions, contestants who have a lower position of first submission are more likely to succeed in the contest. Further, we find some evidence of a curvilinear relationship between a contestant's number of submissions and her likelihood of success, indicating a potential “quality–quantity” trade‐off in unblind innovation contests. Finally, our findings indicate that increasing the length of participation in a contest has a positive effect on a contestant's likelihood of success. Departing from prior studies on innovation contests, where a contestant's success is assumed to be a function of her prior experience and problem‐solving skills, our study provides new empirical evidence that, in innovation contests with public submissions, the submission behavior of a contestant also plays an explanatory role in a contestant's success.     

Multi-Dimensional Deprivation in India During and After the Reforms: Do the Household Expenditure and the Family Health Surveys Present Consistent Evidence?

This paper uses the recent approach of multidimensional deprivation measures to provide a comprehensive and wide ranging assessment of changes to living standards in India during the period, 1992/93–2004/5. This covers the reforms and the immediate post reforms time periods. The study is the first to be based on the simultaneous use of two parallel data sets, namely the National Sample Survey (NSS) and National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data sets, covering proximate rounds and near identical time periods. The results allow a check of consistency on the picture of deprivation in India between these two data sets. The study is conducted both at regionally disaggregated levels and by socio economic groups. The deprivation dimensions range widely from the conventional expenditure dimensions to non-expenditure dimensions such as access to drinking water and clean fuel, to health dimensions such as child stunting and the mother’s BMI. The use of decomposable deprivation measures allows the identification of regions, socio economic groups and deprivation dimensions that are contributing more than others to total deprivation.     

Are Targeted Unconditional Cash Transfers Effective? Evidence from a Poor Region in India

The paper is based on a well-focused and purposive field survey of 200 randomly selected sample households (HHs) from 20 villages of Odisha (the poorest state) in India, provides a critique of present institutional arrangements for delivery of social security measures-in terms of outreach and effectiveness. The exercise shows, on the one hand, the dissonance between below poverty line households and asset/wealth position of households and thus there is strong evidence of inclusion and exclusion errors and on the other, weak targeting efficiency and an important determinant of which seems to be what is called HH social/structural capital.     

Knowing One’s Lot in Life Versus Climbing the Social Ladder: The Formation of Redistributive Preferences in Urban China

This paper examines, how individual preferences for redistribution in general and redistribution to improve access to education, improve social protection for the poor, reduce income inequality and reduce unemployment depend on beliefs about what determines one’s lot in life and self-assessed prospects for climbing the social ladder in urban China. We find that beliefs about what determine one’s lot in life and subjective perceptions of future mobility are correlated with preferences for redistribution. We find that those who believe one’s lot in life is outside their control are generally more likely to favour redistribution. We show that this result is consistent with the existence of an altruism effect among the rich and entitlement effect among the poor. These findings are robust to the inclusion of control variables for the respondent’s personal characteristics and the location in which he or she lives.     

Husband,sons and the fertility gap: evidence from India

Journal of Population Research - A fertility gap—the difference between a woman’s ideal number of children and her actual number of children—is prevalent in both directions. We...