Academic articles
Practitioner articles
Working papers
Books
Book chapters
Case studies
Other publications
Subject(s)
Economics, politics and business environment
Keyword(s)
Process innovation, managerial incentives, x-efficiency
JEL Code(s)
D22, O31, J33
This paper asks whether firms respond to cost shocks by introducing process innovations and increasing the use of managerial incentives. Using a large panel data set of workplaces in Canada, our identification strategy relies on exogenous variation in costs arising from increased border security along the 49th parallel fol- lowing 9/11. Our longitudinal difference-in-differences estimates indicate that firms responded to the cost shock by introducing new or improved processes, but did not change their use of managerial incentives. These results suggest that the threat of bankruptcy may provide impetus for improving efficiency.
© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Volume
22
Journal Pages
529–550
Subject(s)
Economics, politics and business environment
Keyword(s)
payment card networks, interchange fees, merchant fees
JEL Code(s)
G21, L11, L42, L31, L51, K21
Payment card networks, such as Visa, require merchants' banks to pay substantial "interchange" fees to cardholders' banks, on a per transaction basis. This paper shows that a network's profit-maximizing fee induces an inefficient price structure, over-subsidizing card usage and over-taxing merchants. In contrast to the literature we show that this distortion is systematic and arises from the fact that consumers make two distinct decisions (membership and usage) whereas merchants make only one (membership). These findings are robust to competition for cardholders and/or for merchants, network competition, and strategic card acceptance to attract consumers.
Copyright © 2013 by the American Economic Association.
Volume
5
Journal Pages
206–231
Subject(s)
Entrepreneurship
Keyword(s)
scientific teams, collaboration, university, invention, knowledge
We examine the effects of team structure and experience on the impact of inventions produced by scientific teams. Whereas multidisciplinary, collaborative teams have become the norm in scientific production, there are coordination costs commensurate with managing such teams. We use patent citation analysis to examine the effect of prior collaboration and patenting experience on invention impact of 282 patents granted in Human Embryonic Stem Cell (hESC) research between 1998 and 2010. Our results reveal that team experience outside the domain may be detrimental to project performance in a setting where the underlying knowledge changes. In stem cell science, we show that interdepartmental collaboration has a negative effect on invention impact. Scientific proximity between members of the team has a curvilinear relationship, suggesting that teams consisting of members with moderate proximity get the highest impact. We elaborate on these findings for theories of collaboration and coordination, and its implications for radical scientific discoveries.
© 2013 Strategic Management Society
Volume
7
Journal Pages
122–137
Subject(s)
Finance, accounting and corporate governance
Keyword(s)
syndicated loans, hold-up, lending relationships, business cycle
JEL Code(s)
G14, G21, G22, G23, G24
Volume
43
Journal Pages
175–195
Subject(s)
Marketing
Keyword(s)
loyalty programs, multi-vendor loyalty program, stand-alone programs, customer retention, relationship marketing, switching barriers, transaction cost economics
Volume
23
Journal Pages
305–323
Subject(s)
Economics, politics and business environment; Technology, R&D management
Keyword(s)
patent system, patent examination, State Intellectual Property Office China, duration analysis
The number of patent applications filed at the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office SIPO grew tremendously over the last decades and the SIPO has become the world's third largest patent office by 2009. In this paper, we provide an overview of the institutional background of patent examination in China. Moreover, we empirically analyze the determinants of the grant lags applicants have to expect at the SIPO. The multivariate duration analysis is based on the population of 443,533 patent applications filed at the SIPO between 1990 and 2002. The average grant lag is 4.71 years with considerable variation across 30 different technology areas. Interestingly, we find that Chinese applicants are able to achieve faster patent grants than their non-Chinese counterparts (even after controlling for various other determinants of grant lags). This might be an indication of a differential treatment of Chinese applicants which would be in violation of Art. 3 (National Treatment) and Art. 4 (Most-favored Nation Treatment) of TRIPS that has been signed by China in 2001.
With permission of Elsevier
Volume
42
Journal Pages
552–563
Subject(s)
Ethics and social responsibility; Human resources management/organizational behavior; Management sciences, decision sciences and quantitative methods
Keyword(s)
inter-temporal choice, pre-commitment, temptation, self-control
JEL Code(s)
D01, D03, D69, D90
We model self-control conflict as a stochastic struggle of an agent against a visceral influence, which impels the agent to act sub-optimally. The agent holds costly pre-commitment technology to avoid the conflict altogether and may decide whether to procure pre-commitment or to confront the visceral influence. We examine naïve expectations for the strength of the visceral influence; underestimating the visceral influence may lead the agent to exaggerate the expected utility of resisting temptation, and so mistakenly forego pre-commitment. Our analysis reveals conditions under which higher willpower – and lower visceral influence – reduces welfare. We further demonstrate that lowering risk aversion could reduce welfare. The aforementioned results call into question certain policy measures aimed at helping people improve their own behavior.
With permission of Elsevier
Volume
34
Journal Pages
8–19
Subject(s)
Technology, R&D management
Keyword(s)
research collaborations, network ties, tie formation, tie persistence, long-term ties, task relationships
Using a longitudinal dataset of research collaborations over 15 years at Stanford University, we build a theory of intraorganizational task relationships that distinguishes the different factors associated with the formation and persistence of network ties. We highlight six factors: shared organizational foci, shared traits and interests, tie advantages from popularity, tie reinforcement from third parties, tie strength and multiplexity, and the instrumental returns from the products of ties. Findings suggest that ties form when unfamiliar people identify desirable and matching traits in potential partners. By contrast, ties persist when familiar people reflect on the quality of their relationship and shared experiences. The former calls for shallow, short-term strategies for assessing a broad array of potential ties; the latter calls for long-term strategies and substantive assessments of a relationship’s worth so as to draw extended rewards from the association. This suggests that organizational activities geared toward sustaining persistent intraorganizational task relationships need to be different from activities aimed at forging new ones.
With permission of Sage
Volume
58
Journal Pages
69–110
Subject(s)
Human resources management/organizational behavior
Keyword(s)
competencies, personality traits, organizational rewards, motives, socioanalytic theory, middle managers
Volume
26
Journal Pages
66–92