Publication database

This essay concerns the design of transformational executive programs. A transformational program presupposes a change in behavior of the attending executive so that the latter becomes more effective in personal or organizational change. To understand what influences the transformational process three triangular conceptual frameworks (building on the short-term dynamic psychotherapy tradition) are presented: the mental life triangle, the conflict triangle, and the relationships triangle. The first shows that cognitive and emotional processes need to be taken into consideration to create changes in behavior. The second describes the sources of thoughts and feelings that may prompt anxiety and cause defensive reactions prohibiting change and productive use of talents. The third relationships triangle explains how an individual's previous experiences create patterns of response that are repeated throughout life and can become dysfunctional. Five major challenges in program design are also examined: selecting participants; identifying the focal issue on which participants need to work; the creation of a safe transitional space that enables the change process; using the group dynamic to foster transformation and to arrive at internalization of the change process; and the educational implications for faculty, facilitators, and coaches.

With permission of the Academy of Management

This paper is concerned with understanding and identifying factors that affect the willingness of business executives to rely on trust as a governance mechanism in the context of partnerships. An instrument was designed (a short business case study followed by a questionnaire) to collect data on how different executives react to the objective conditions of a business deal. Through the questionnaire, individual willingness to rely on trust, individual reaction to traditional types of trust, and sensitivity to other situations that evolve during the deal were measured. It is shown that willingness to rely on trust varies amongst executives and is not fully determined by the conditions of a deal. Furthermore, consistent with a psycho-sociological approach to trust, it is also shown that demographic factors are related to propensity to rely on trust, and that across nationalities, the sensitivity to factors affecting trust such as partner interaction and external information differ.

© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

© 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 London Business School

The objective of this paper is to investigate the determinants of European Union (EU) merger control decisions.We consider a sample of 167 EU mergers between 1990 and 2002 and evaluate their competitive consequences by the reaction of the stock market price of competitors to he merging firms. We then account for the discrepancies between the actual and optimal decisions as indicated by the stock market in terms of the political economy surrounding the cases. Our results suggest that the commission's decisions cannot be solely accounted for as protecting consumer surplus. The institutional and political environment does matter. As far as influence is concerned, however, our data suggest that the commission's decisions are not sensitive to firms' interests. Instead, the evidence suggests that other factors-such as market definition and procedural aspects, as well as country and industry effects-do play a significant role.

With permission of the University of Chicago Press

In this article, we examine why it is difficult to induce firms to form Research Joint Ventures (RJVs). We examine various incentives and disincentives for RJV formation by estimating an endogeneous switching model using data from the US National Cooperative Research Act. The empirical findings support hypotheses that firms of different sizes have disincentives to form RJVs and that cost-sharing is an important incentive for RJV participation.

© The Author(s). Journal compilation © Royal Economic Society 2007

Superfluous choices are unnecessary choice steps that could be removed without affecting the final choice context and outcome. They are introduced in this article in order to study the mere effects of consumer participation. Superfluous choices have no immediate impact on the chosen option but strongly increase consumers' propensity to persist with the same option on future choice occasions. Four experiments that isolate and investigate this indirect effect and its moderatorshighlight the impact of consumer participation that derives from a perception of greater deliberation and fluency in decision making.

With permission of the University of Chicago Press

Purpose - The purpose of this article is to raise awareness of the dynamic character of career and its key attributes, and the embeddedness of their definitions and meanings in national social, political and economic contexts. Design/methodology/approach - Features of three recent distinct social, political and economic situations in Russia are used to explore the meanings of nine key career attributes introduced by the Western career literature. Findings - It was found that in Russia each of the nine key career attributes accommodates a different meaning compared with their original Western meaning, and that these meanings are continuously changing to reflect the current social, political and economic environment. In sum, this exploration revealed a dynamic character to career attributes, and their content changed depending on the underlying context. Research limitations/implications - Among key research implications are: a possibility of using Western career theories mainly as conceptual frameworks for studying careers in other countries; that current social, political and economic contexts need to be taken into consideration when studying careers in a particular country; and the 'intelligent career' concept can be used to study careers in various cultural contexts, and to examine the interdependence between career and a national culture. Originality/value - This paper examines the extent to which Western career concepts may be used to study careers in various countries around the globe. It notes the dynamic character of career and its related career attitudes. This paper also makes suggestions on how the 'intelligent career' concept can be used for exploring career meanings in a particular national setting. Finally, this paper looks at specifics of careers in Russia, which are still underrepresented in the literature.

With permission of Emerald

Consumers aware of a new benefit will often experience uncertainty about its personal relevance or usage value. This paper shows that the decision to deliberate further to resolve this uncertainty and reach a polarized judgment of personal relevance critically depends on the posted price. In particular, a price above the consumer's initial willingness to pay might be thought provoking and enhance the perception of relevance with a certain probability. This behavioral mechanism is introduced formally and by way of an experiment with reference to the purchase of organic lettuce and fair-trade coffee. Accounting for the effect of price as a stimulus to think, a monopolistic firm should either over price ("transgressive pricing") or under price ("regressive pricing") in comparison to the consumer's willingness to pay. Under certain circumstances, the firm should also empower consumers with means that reduce the effort of deliberation.

© 2007 INFORMS