Publication database

Empirical scholarship on the standards-trade relationship has been held up due to methodological challenges: measurement, varied effects, and endogeneity. Considering the trade-effects of one particular standard (ISO 9000), we surmount methodological challenges by measuring standardization via national penetration of ISO 9000, allowing standardization to manifest via multiple (quality-signaling, information/compliance-cost, and common-language) channels, and using instrumental variable, multilateral resistance and panel data techniques to overcome endogeneity. We find evidence of common-language and quality-signaling augmenting country-pair trade. Yet, ISO-rich nations (most notably European) benefit the most from standardization, while ISO-poor nations find ISO 9000 to represent a trade barrier due to compliance-cost effects.

With permission of Elsevier

This paper uses a rich survey of 6446 households in Slovakia to estimate price elasticities of demand for Internet access, and draw implications for market definition. We estimate a mixed logit model, in which households choose between different broadband technologies: DSL, cable modem, fibre, WiFi and mobile. We find that a number of household characteristics influence the technology choices, and there is also significant unobserved heterogeneity. Demand for Internet access is highly price sensitive. The price elasticity of demand for DSL is −3.02, which falls in the middle of the range of elasticities for the other technologies. Furthermore, the price elasticity of demand at the level of all fixed broadband technologies (DSL + cable modem + fibre + WiFi) is equal to −1.98. For a reasonable range of profit margins, this estimate implies that mobile broadband should be included in the relevant antitrust market of fixed broadband. Our findings have implications for competition policy in Central and Eastern European countries where due to poor copper networks mobile broadband is an important alternative to fixed broadband.

This paper draws attention to a new dimension of organization, the semiformal organization, and it reveals how the allocation of different membership forms can render knowledge-intensive organizations more flexible and exploratory in their knowledge creation efforts without sacrificing the functions stably enacted via the formal organization. Most knowledge-intensive organizations seek to create new spaces for collaborations through formally prescribed departments and divisions or through serendipitous, emergent, informal associations (i.e., the formal and informal organization). However, organizations also strategically manage what we call the “semiformal organization” to guide the creation of new work relations and encourage innovation. These secondary memberships are organizationally sponsored and directly related to the organizations’ core research functions, but they are voluntarily joined. As such, they are distinct from formal and informal memberships. On the basis of extensive longitudinal analyses of research initiatives at Stanford University, we find that the semiformal organization provides a compelling channel through which organizations can shape employees’ collaborations and overall productivity.

© 2014 INFORMS

Crisis management teams occupy central roles in many normative models of crisis management; however, management education generally address neither the nature of such teams nor the capabilities necessary for these teams to be effective. To help address this situation, in this paper we integrate information from phase-based crisis management models with team dynamics theories, and suggest which team capabilities play key roles for crisis management teams as they face emergent crises. Using this integration, we then explore simulation-based training as a means to teach and assess crisis management team capabilities. We describe the design, development and implementation of a simulation for crisis teams, and discuss future applications of simulation-based training for crisis management education.

With permission of the Academy of Management

This paper analyzes organizations’ attempts to entice external contributors to submit suggestions for future organizational action. While earlier work has elaborated on the advantages of leveraging the knowledge of external contributors, our findings show that organizational attempts to attract such involvement are more likely to wither or die. We develop arguments about what increases the likelihood of getting suggestions from externals in the future, namely through (1) proactive attention (submitting internally developed suggestions to externals to stimulate debate); and (2) reactive attention (paying attention to suggestions from externals to signal they are being listened to), particularly when those suggestions are submitted by newcomers. Findings from an analysis of about 24,000 initiatives by organizations to involve external contributors suggest these actions are crucial for receiving suggestions from external contributors. Our results are contingent upon the stage of the initiative because organizations’ actions exert more influence in initiatives that lack a history of prior suggestions. Our work has implications for scholars of open innovation because it highlights the importance of considering failures as well successes: focusing exclusively on initiatives that reach a certain stage can lead to partial or erroneous conclusions about why some organizations engage external contributors while others fail.

With permission of Elsevier