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Mergers & acquisitions
(1998)
SDC Platinum user's handbook
(1999)
Asian financial markets
(1999)
Corporate risk management may employ financial or operative means to reduce the exposure to unexpected currency fluctuations. This paper utilizes a real options framework to establish that operative hedging through the creation of operational flexibility represents a strategic complement to any variance-minimizing financial hedge. In addition, operational flexibility creates an asymmetric exposure profile and, as a result, alters the composition of the financial hedge portfolio. It alters the number of symmetric hedge contracts employed as well as their contractual rate and provides an economic argument for the use of (exotic) currency options. Operational flexibility acts as a value driver through the option value and may therefore be utilized, independent of its usefulness for risk management. The analysis further shows that operative hedging entails an implicit opportunity cost in the form of foregone option value.
Business angels in Germany
(2000)
This paper looks at the value-relevance of accounting data and measures of web-traffic for Internet firms listed on the Neuer Markt. In particular, the objective is to identify value drivers during the period from October 1999 to May 2000. In doing so, the study attempts to contribute to the understanding of the investment behaviour of market participants during that time, in a market environment characterised by rapid technological change and growth. The study subdivides Internet companies into Ecommerce and Enabler firms and analyses the value-relevance accordingly. It emerged that, across both samples, no significant value-relevance of traditionally applied financial valuation metrics such as earnings and cashflow could be evidenced. However, a positive association of total sales with market capitalisation can be shown for both samples, and in addition, sales and marketing expenses (Ecommerce) as well as research and development costs (Enabler) can also be identified as value drivers. Furthermore, the paper finds a number of webmetrics to be highly value-relevant and positively associated with market capitalisation, viz. customer loyalty, reach, page impressions and unique visitors. Combining and comparing the information content and value-relevance supports the notion that webmetrics, which are not part of standardised reporting regulations, did provide at least as much explanatory power for variations in market value as standardised accounting data.
The aim of this study is to measure total transaction costs as well as the cost components for six German investment management firms from August 1st until October 31st 2001. The investigation is based on a unique order-level data set that includes all relevant information (e.g. time of investment decision, order-release to the broker and trade execution). For computing transaction costs we use tick by tick price data for the 75 stocks of the Euro Stoxx 50- and Stoxx 50-universe.
Volume weighted, i.e. effectively paid, one way transaction costs sum up to 66.76 bp. Market pact is the highest cost component and amounts to 27.93 bp for volume weighted averages. According to a regression analysis market impact is driven by high volatilities and bid ask spreads; market momentum induces market impact to fall, indicating mean reversion of stock prices. High free float and market activity do not influence the market impact, but lead – just as high volatilities and bid ask spreads - to a reduction in trading aggressiveness. Trading duration decreases with high volatility and diminishing bid ask spreads. Overall, the results illustrate that to some extent German investment management firms trade strategically. Nevertheless, a further reduction in market impact, and therefore an increase in investment performance, seems to be possible, if traders pay greater attention on the liquidity indicators known already at order release.
The purpose of this paper is to determine whether and how e-leaming technologies and e-leaming programs should be used in order to support knowledge management in multinational companies. These questions are important for two reasons. Firstly, so far only a few papers discuss the relationship between knowledge management and e-learning. Secondly, e-leaming initiatives in multinational companies are of limited success. The paper relates requirements of different types of knowledge with the characteristics of e-leaming technologies and e-leaming programs. Based on this, the paper shows how multinational companies should use e-leaming technologies and e-leaming programs. Different roles of corporate headquarters are discussed in this context.
Within the e-leaming industry, demand and supply factors jointly determine a need for mass customization of e-leaming products. This paper asks whether e-leaming products can be mass-customized, and if so, how this can be done. Firstly, the paper characterizes e-leaming and e-leaming technologies. Secondly, a learning model is developed in order to enhance the understanding of how learning processes differ across individuals. Based on this, the paper argues that e-leaming products in general can be mass-customized. However, mass customization is only possible for some e-leaming technologies and some types of communication, namely instruction and supplementary interaction, while it cannot support collaboration. In this context, solutions for the most common problems of mass customization are discussed. The results are then applied to the market for higher management education. It is shown that mass customization has a limited relevance for degree programs that are demanded by individuals, while it is crucial for programs that are either demanded by organizations or offered in specialized modules.
Web-based interaction between customers and producers offer new promising ways of bringing customers into the company right to where the value creation begins - in new product development (NPD). Despite the high potential of virtual customer integration (VCI), practical application is limited. The decision of initial utilization of VCI depends on the manager’s predisposition - favorable or unfavorable -towards VCI; usually, it is the responsibility of managers and executives belonging to the development, marketing or innovation departments to sanction such a decision. To get a deeper understanding of antecedents leading to the application of VCI, further information is needed. In this paper, the authors shed light on the various factors affecting managerial intention to apply virtual customer integration. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) provides a basis for developing a research model explaining the relation between managers’ cognition, attitude, social norms, perceived behavioral control and their intention to adopt VCI. The initial results of our empirical study, wherein we interviewed 94 managers within the consumer goods and services field, show that the TPB accounts for 66 percent of the variance in the managers’ intention to apply VCI. Furthermore, the study reveals that social norms and perceived behavioral control are the main factors which influence managerial decision to apply VCI. This contrasts with the widely-held theory that an individual's attitude is the most significant factor of influence.
Highly recognized case studies and the intuitive notion that a heroic champion is required to help innovations overcome the indifference or even resistance that they face in many organizations explain that there has been a positive bias among academics and managers toward the role of champions in innovation processes. A look into the previous empirical literature on champions reveals, however, that a rigorous empirical investigation into organizational factors causing the emergence of executive champions and their impact on innovation performance is lacking. In addition, previous empirical research on champions is plagued with methodological problems such as measurement issues and single informant bias. This study uses multiple informant data from 258 respondents from 43 firms to examine various hypotheses. The findings reveal that executive champions are likely to emerge in organizational cultures that are conducive to innovation and they are less likely to emerge in organizational cultures that are unfavorable for innovation. We further find a non-linear, inverted u-shaped relationship between the level of executive championing activity and innovation performance. We find, in contrast with the commonly held belief, that executive champions have a strong negative impact on innovation performance particularly in cultures that make it difficult to innovate. Among the tested moderators, only the implementation of incentives for executive champions based on innovation performance offsets the negative impact of these champions on innovation performance. The findings lead us to substantially rethink the commonly believed role champions play in innovation processes.
This article analyses the scope and impact of patent management in high technology companies. The exploratory empirical study is based on a conceptual framework, which relates patent management to firm performance by taking various contingent factors into account. The empirical analyses give a detailed descriptive overview about patent management in high technology firms. Further, differences in patent management between young and established high technology companies and special characteristics of biotechnology firms are examined. Finally, preliminary insights regarding the impact of patent management on firm performance are gained. The empirical findings have implications for improving patent management in high technology firms.
Empirical organizational research has serious methodological limitations if it is based on the perceptions of single informants. Single informant studies are likely to suffer from a systematic measurement error, a so-called method error or informant bias which negatively impacts the validity of their empirical findings. Previous empirical innovation research is based on single informants. This causes substantial doubts regarding the validity of findings in past empirical innovation research based on perceptual, self-reported measures and their managerial implications. This study undertakes a comprehensive theoretical and empirical investigation into the causes and the effects of a single informant bias in empirical innovation research. Based on multiple informant data on various aspects of innovation management in a company, multitrait-multimethod analyses are applied in order to quantify the extent of the informant bias. The results show that the informant bias is substantial and that construct validity cannot be achieved based on the assessments of a single informant only. Only multiple informant data allows the selection of an appropriate informant depending on the organizational trait to be measured based on formal statistical criteria. The higher the level of interfunctional integration and the higher the intensity of vertical communication inside the organization, the lower is the informant bias. This information can be used by researchers to assess whether an informant bias is likely to occur prior to conducting empirical surveys. The findings of this study substantiate the presumed doubts about the validity of past single informant studies in innovation research and demand the use of multiple informants in future empirical studies.
Changes in the regulatory framework allow German business schools to select an important part of their students by themselves for the first time through entrance exams. We analyze if the students participating in these entrance exams differ from average first-year business students and which factors influence their choice of a business school. A separate analysis for a cluster of very highly motivated students reveals that for these students a short study time and a practical Orientation are of utmost importance as decision criteria. We derive suggestions for German business schools that want to target this specific segment of students.
Companies increasingly make use of the external knowledge exploitation, i.e. the commercialization of disembodied knowledge, although they often perceive considerable difficulties in managing the external commercialization tasks. These difficulties are partly due to the imperfections of the markets for knowledge, which, however, may be mastered by an adequate management as the examples of various well-known companies show. In combination, these facts point to the need of research into the external exploitation of knowledge. A thorough analysis of past research confirms this need and shows that the existing literature is highly fragmented. By integrating the main findings of the different research streams, we establish a detailed overview on the literature on external knowledge exploitation. The key characteristics and the main forms of externally commercializing knowledge are presented. Then, major imperfections in the markets for knowledge are examined, and the increasing importance of the topic in practice as well as primary reasons for this trend are described. Afterwards, major strategic and monetary objectives and the risks of commercializing disembodied knowledge are identified before turning to the management of the external knowledge exploitation, particularly regarding strategies, processes and structures. Apart from reviewing the literature, a research agenda, which describes promising paths for future research, is set up based on past research results and findings from other fields, particularly the internal knowledge exploitation and the external knowledge acquisition.
Companies may realise all major knowledge management tasks, i.e. knowledge acquisition, accumulation and exploitation, not only internally but also externally. Therefore, we propose the integrate-or-relate decision in knowledge accumulation as a complement to the well-known make-or-buy and keep-or-sell decisions in knowledge acquisition and exploitation. A key factor for taking adequate decisions, for building up appropriate organisational capabilities and for realising a firm’s knowledge potentials are unbiased attitudes to the knowledge management tasks. While past research has focused on the NIH syndrome as a negative attitude to external knowledge acquisition, a more holistic view is adopted in this article by extending prior research on two dimensions. Firstly, we consider all major knowledge management tasks and do not limit our analysis to knowledge acquisition; secondly, we take into account that apart from too negative attitudes also overly positive attitudes to the external realisation of knowledge management tasks may exist. Building on prior research, we identify the following six syndromes: ‘not-invented-here’ vs. ‘buy-in’ in knowledge acquisition, ‘all-stored-here’ vs. ‘relate-out’ in knowledge accumulation and ‘only-use-here’ vs. ‘sell-out’ in knowledge exploitation. After briefly reviewing research into NIH and developing a knowledge management framework, the syndromes are defined, and possible antecedents, consequences and managerial actions are described.
Companies may not only apply their knowiedge assets intemally, i.e. in own products and/or Services, they may also exploit the knowiedge assets extemally, i.e. commercialize them in disembodied form. While the extemal acquisition of knowiedge in general and the concept of absorptive capacity in particular have received great attention by researchers, the extemal exploitation of knowiedge has long been neglected despite its increasing importance in practice. To bridge the resulting gaps in prior research, the concept of desorptive capacity as a complement to absorptive capacity is proposed by taking a capability-based approach to the extemal knowiedge exploitation. Building on this theoretical concept, measures are developed, and data from a questionnaire-based study in 136 European Companies across industries is used to examine various hypotheses relating potential sources of desorptive capacity to the success of firms in extemally commercializing disembodied knowiedge. Thus, this work also constitutes the first large-scale study that intends to empirically identify success factors of extemally leveraging knowiedge assets. The findings of the study provide strong Support for the desorptive capacity concept, which helps to explain the discrepancies between the very positive view on the extemal knowiedge commercialization in most works in the literature and the considerable difficulties with managing these activities that are often perceived in practice.
The constant introduction of new products is of great importance for the long-term financial success of companies. Newly launched products in consumer goods and services markets show high failure rates, often reaching 50%. In order to reduce flop rates, companies can integrate innovative and knowledgeable customers, so called 'lead users', into the new product development process. However, the detection of such lead users is difficult, especially in consumer goods markets with very large customer bases. A new and potentially valuable approach for the identification of lead users are virtual stock markets, which have been proposed and applied for political and business forecasting, but not for expert identification yet. The goal of this paper is to analyze theoretically and empirically the feasibility of virtual stock markets for lead user identification. We find in our empirical study that virtual stock markets are an effective instrument to identify lead users in consumer goods markets. Using the proposed method, companies operating in these markets can identify lead users more easily and integrate them into new product development projects. Thus, they can improve the innovation processes and reduce new product flop rates.
Desorptive capacity
(2004)
As competition is becoming increasingly knowledge-based, companies do not only have to develop the competence of managing knowledge internally but also need the competence of managing the acquisition and emission of knowledge in order to appropriately leverage its value. Regarding the external acquisition of knowledge, a consistent theoretical framework has been developed with the concept of absorptive capacity probably being the most important construct. In research into absorptive capacity, it is assumed either explicitly or by implication that the knowledge is applied internally. However, companies may also directly commercialize disembodied knowledge which is a growing phenomenon in practice. This trend is especially remarkable against the background of the imperfections of the markets for knowledge, which make such external commercialization of knowledge a difficult task. Accordingly, a company should build up an organizational capability to adequately manage the external knowledge commercialization process. Therefore, we develop the construct of desorptive capacity as a complementary concept to absorptive capacity in the area of external knowledge exploitation. The construct is defined, and it is shown that desorptive capacity is path-dependent. Moreover, it is highlighted how a firm may actively manage its desorptive capacity. Finally, the issue of operationalizing desorptive capacity is addressed, and implications of the theoretical analysis for research and practice are presented.
Diversification research
(2006)
The paper analyzes firms' expansion paths within and across industries and specifically different patterns along these paths. Using a procedure previously applied in statistical process control and employing longitudinal data on the expansion of 91 German firms, we analyzed firms' clustering behavior regarding different characteristics. Results reveal that expansion is a heterogeneous process: the clustering behavior along the expansion path does not only differ between firms, but also within one firm regarding different characteristics of its expansion path.
Value based management
(2008)
Research Report 2008
(2008)
It is a well known result in the literature of principal-agent relationships that if the principal has the possibility to monitor the agent’s action at some cost, his monitoring probability is a decreasing function in the level of outcome. Moreover, the principal will reward the agent, if he is found to have complied with his interests. The purpose of this article is to show that these results depend crucially on the assumption that the principal can commit to his monitoring device at the time of contracting. In fact, we show that in a situation in which the principal is not able to commit to his investment in his monitoring technology, (1) the principal’s investigation intensity is increasing in the level of outcome and, (2) the agent’s reward is lower in the case investigation reveals the agent’s action than it is in the case in which investigation is uninformative.
Research on strategic agenda building has traditionally emphasized individual agency, thereby neglecting organizational context. Developing a contextual model of strategic agenda building, we address this limitation. Based on the evolutionary framework we show that an organization’s core elements, that is, strategy, culture, structure and top management team, heavily influence what issues are considered in organizational agenda building processes. Moreover, the strategic agenda building process, apart from the role of capabilities and cognition, provides an alternative explanation for path dependency.
Linear demand formulations for price competition in horizontally differentiated products are sometimes used to compare situations where additional varieties become available, e.g. due to market entry of new firms. We derive a consistent demand system to analyze such situations and highlight potential problems that can arise from an inconsistent approach.
Inflation targeting matters!
(2008)
Proponents of inflation targeting argue that such a strategy directly influences expectation formation processes in financial markets. This paper provides a novel test for the evidence that financial market expectations are formed differently under inflation targeting regimes. Using forecasts for the short-term interest rate, the inflation rate, and output growth for ten emerging markets in Latin-America, central and eastern Europe out of which six economies are inflation targeting economies we estimate expected Taylor-type rules. We find evidence for differences in the expectation formation process in the sense that the well-known Taylor principle fairly holds for countries which adopt an inflation targeting system, while for the other countries it does not.
"Ex-ante" Taylor rules
(2008)
This paper addresses the question whether financial market participants apply the framework of Taylor-type rules in their forecasts for the G7 countries. Therefore, we use the Consensus Economic Forecast poll providing us a unique data set of inflation, interest and growth rate forecasts for the time period 1989 - 2007. We provide evidence that Taylor-type rules frameworks are present in forecasts of financial markets. Thus, the paper, uses ex-ante data for the estimation of Taylor rules. This is novel, since so far only ex-post (revised) or real-time data have been applied.
The economic analysis of trade-secret protection has traditionally focused on the interests of companies to conceal information from competitors in order to gain a competitive advantage through trade-secret law. This has neglected cases in which the interest is not in concealing information from competitors, but from trading partners. We investigate the social efficiency effects of trade-secret protection in such cases. Many results from economic theory state that asymmetric information (and therefore also its legal protection) is socially undesirable since it leads to inefficient trade. At the same time, protecting private information might create incentives for socially desirable investments. We model this trade-off in a simple buyer-seller model and
nd that, indeed, trade-secret protection has ambiguous welfare effects. However, a simple, informationally undemanding rule, conditioning the applicability of legal protection on a minimum investment by the informed party to conceal the information, helps to apply trade-secret protection only when it increases welfare. This rationalizes important features of current legal practice.
Airlines frequently use code-share agreements allowing each other to market seats on flights operated by partner airlines. Regulation may allow code-share agreements with antitrust immunity (cooperative price setting), or without antitrust immunity, or not at all. I compare relative welfare effects of these regulation regimes for complementary airline networks. A crucial point is that such agreements are used to identify and price discriminate interline passengers. I find that interline passengers always benefit from code-share agreements while non-interline passengers are worse off. Furthermore, I show that the second effect questions the overall usefulness of code-share agreements from a welfare perspective.
Distance in work teams has become a cornerstone of today’s business world as well as a fundamental research area. It has also become a prevalent team design factor that enables managers to combine the knowledge and skills of far-flung employees together in one team and, thus, to leverage their performance. However, it is not yet clear whether and how distance affects intra-team dynamics and performance. This dissertation addresses this fundamental research gap and explores the consequences of distance in teams and how virtual teams can overcome the bur-dens of virtual collaboration. More precisely, there are three burning issues addressed with regard to dispersed team dynamics: the perception of distance versus proximity, virtual teamwork processes, and the impact of the team context. In practice, it has been shown that the inadequate management of these issues plays a crucial role when virtual teams fall behind managers’ expectations. However, practitioners to date have only limited knowledge how to handle these factors of virtual team performance effectively, due to the severe research gaps associated with these issues. Accordingly, this study’s approach to explaining virtual team performance is built on these three focused elements of virtual collaboration.
Adopting this research focus, the empirical part of this work is structured into four research papers that empirically investigate whether and how perceived distance, team processes, and the team context may become critical for virtual team performance and the extent to which practitioners can build on these three success factors to optimize distributed work. The empirical analyses to these questions are based on a sample consisting of 161 software development teams with varying degrees of geographic dispersion.
The results presented in this dissertation clearly show that team processes, the perception of distance, and the team context matter for virtual team effectiveness. The research results of this study revealed team processes to be the key drivers of virtual team performance. In fact, virtual teams with high-level collaborative team processes are able to outperform their co-located counterparts, even those with the same quality of team processes. Teams with poor team processes, in contrast, suffer heavily from dispersion and underperform co-located teams with the same (low) levels of these processes. Thus, the effect of dispersion is not necessarily detrimental to team performance but rather depends on the quality of task-related team processes.
The analyses further show that it seems not (only) to be the actual degree of geographic dispersion that affects virtual team dynamics but rather the perceived level of distance between the members of a team. By exploring its antecedents, distance perceptions turned out to be mental states that emanate from complex and more socially-based constructions of the reality and are significantly affected by team members’ national heterogeneity. This finding illustrates the need to include the social aspects of dispersion in future research on dispersed team functioning. For executives, this finding offers new opportunities how to reap the benefits of virtual collaboration without efforts of bringing team members together face-to-face.
A third antecedent of virtual team dynamics turned out to be the organizational context. The organizational context has been shown to affect virtual team performance more indirectly by changing the conditions in which team members collaborate. In this dissertation, two paths have been identified of how the organizational context impacts virtual team functioning. First, organ-izational context variables such as the degree of formalization facilitate the perception of proximity even for team members being geographically strongly dispersed. Second, the organizational context can facilitate virtual team performance by creating an environment for superior dispersed collaboration quality. These context-related findings show that the larger organizational environment can help distributed teams to cope with the liabilities of distance more effectively. In particular, there are distinct and manageable attributes of the organizational context that can be addressed to help team members developing perceptions of interpersonal closeness as well as to perform high-level dispersed teamwork.
The results of this dissertation offer both considerable contributions to the extant literature on virtual team dynamics and guidance for the formulation of best-practices in virtual team management. In the end, all presented theoretical models and corresponding research results help to learn more about virtual teams – especially about their dynamics and the antecedents of their performance.
Supply chain fit
(2009)
Innovations have become essential drivers of success for companies in most industries. However, innovative efforts often fail due to a lack of internal support. Past research has shown that internal resistance arises when employees perceive innovations as threatening the core of the organization, its identity. How employees can be led to identify with much innovations has remained largely unsolved. Drawing on organizational psychology, this study proposes a new conceptual framework which includes an in-depth understanding of employee identification with innovations, its identity-related antecedents and its consequences. The framework is tested by means of large-scale empirical studies among more than 150 members of a leading healthcare organization. Results indicate that the proposed framework has high explanatory power for employee identification with innovations, employee behaviours and the innovations’ success in the market. Based on these results, an innovation-identity toolkit is derived which enables executives to systematically pursue identification management and integrate it into their innovation management practice. Accordingly, the present book is relevant for both academics and managers in the fields of organizational behaviour and innovation management.
Activity report
(2009)
This paper analyzes the expectation formation process in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. We use the Consensus Economic Forecast poll and show that the forecasts are consistent with Taylor-type rules for three countries but not for Norway. This can be attributed to Norway's long period of an exchange rate targetor. Additionally, we provide evidence that the expected long-term inflation rate is consistent with both the actual average in ation rate and the inflation target for all countries. This implies that the professional forecasters understand the different monetary policy strategies among the four countries indicating that all central banks can be regarded as highly credible.
We use the ECB's Survey of Professional Forecaster to show that euro area expectations are consistent with standard macroeconomic building blocks such as the Phillips curve, Okun's law, and the Taylor rule. Moreover, the paper finds that the financial and economic crisis of 2007-2009 did not change the expectation formation process as professional forecasters still adopt macroeconomic building blocks for their forecast. The scepticism that has recently been raised concerning macroeconomic building blocks has apparently not yet affected professional forecasts. On the contrary, we conclude that professional forecasters still have faith in macroeconomic building blocks.
We use oil price forecasts from the Consensus Economic Forecast poll to analyze how forecaster build their expectations. Our findings point into the direction that the extrapolative as well as the regressive expectation formation hypothesis play a role. Standard measures of forecast accuracy reveal forecasters' underperformance relative to the random-walk benchmark. However, it seems that this result might be biased due to peso problems.
This paper considers a congested airport that provides aeronautical services to airlines and concessions to retailers or, respectively, car rental companies. It is shown that airport retailers exert downward pressure on the private aeronautical charge. On the other hand, the effect of car rentals on the private aeronautical charge is ambiguous. By contrast, the first-best airfare and aeronautical charge are independent of retail profits, while they are positively related to car rentals. Finally, the comparison of private and welfare-oriented airport behavior shows that private behavior can lead to the welfare-optimal outcome when commercial services exist.
Building the digital branch
(2009)
Bank earnings management
(2010)
Dispersed innovation teams rely upon team members who share leadership responsibilities to attain high levels of team performance. Although this concept of team shared leadership is receiving increasing attention, this dissertation shows that especially research on team-level antecedents of shared leadership has major deficits regarding a basic framework for analyzing antecedents, depth of theory, context-specific arguments, and empirical validation. This dissertation tries to fill these research gaps, thus shedding light on the question: How can we foster the important process of shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams?
This dissertation introduces a theoretical framework into shared leadership literature to structure the antecedents of shared leadership according to their mode of functioning. As such, this dissertation argues for the first time that to establish high levels of team shared leadership the basic dimensions of motivation, opportunity, and ability for shared leadership should be addressed (motivation-opportunity-ability framework or MOA framework). Based on this notion team-level antecedents providing motivation, opportunity, and ability for shared leadership are operationalized and hypothesized as antecedents of shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams using acknowledged theories. Moreover, all discussed hypotheses are verified in a sample of 96 dispersed real work teams with innovative software tasks. Thereby, empirical results are drawn from 96 team leader responses (used to assess team-level antecedents of team shared leadership) and 337 team member responses (used to assess team shared leadership).
Motivation for Team Shared Leadership. Based on the perspective of shared leadership as a risk-taking behavior for team members in dispersed innovation teams, trustworthiness is argued as a facilitator of the willingness, thus motivation to engage in risky shared leadership actions with others. This argumentation based on trust theory was supported by empirical results showing that team member trustworthiness in terms of benevolence and integrity was positively related to team shared leadership. Surprisingly, the proposed positive relationship between ability-based trustworthiness and shared leadership could not be confirmed, thus ability-based trustworthiness could not be validated as a facilitator of shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams.
Opportunity for Team Shared Leadership. Opportunity for team shared leadership is addressed by discussing team reflexivity as an antecedent of shared leadership in dispersed
innovation teams. Team reflexivity is argued as opportunity providing antecedent of shared leadership as it gives team members a clear information basis in the complex and constantly changing environment of dispersed innovation teams, thus making leadership needs identifiable. In support of this argumentation based on goal setting theory and shared mental model theory team reflexivity was positively related to team shared leadership. Thereby, the relationship between team reflexivity and shared leadership could be shown as even stronger under conditions of high team role breadth self-efficacy and high team empowerment.
Ability for Team Shared Leadership. Ability for shared leadership is addressed in terms of social and project management skills. These two skills are argued as basic and
complementary skills needed for shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams based on socio-technical systems theory. Underscoring the importance of interpersonal competence
the empirical analysis showed that social skills were strongly positively related to team shared leadership. Contrary to the hypothesis of this study project management skills were not related to team shared leadership.
Structural Team Properties and Team Shared Leadership. Moreover, several structural team properties are discussed as team-level antecedents of shared leadership, namely female ratio, mean age, age diversity, and national diversity. Thereby, structural team properties are argued as potentially affecting team shared leadership through several
MOA dimensions. In the empirical analyses female ratio was positively related to shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams, while mean age was negatively related. Age
diversity showed no significant relationship and national diversity was marginally positively related to shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams. Based on these findings, important implications for practice, related to the three stages of a project team (establishment, forming, and performing stage), are provided. As such, team leaders of dispersed innovation teams is given a check-list of how to foster shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams based on the results of this dissertation. Future research is especially suggested regarding the “non-findings” of this dissertation, interaction effects, additional team-level antecedents, the vertical team leader’s role within shared leadership evolvement, antecedents of shared leadership in other contexts, and other levels of antecedents (e.g., organizational-level antecedents).
Activity report
(2010)
Research Report 2010
(2010)
We consider an R&D contest between n firms in the presence of external spillovers. Our analysis focuses on the effects of these knowledge spillovers on joint venture activities between firms. In particular, we are interested in how different budget responsiblities within the research joint venture (RJV) affect profits of firms taking part in the joint venture and profits of their non-cooperating rival firms. Three arrangements for RJVs are analyzed: First, cooperation, in which the firms participating in the joint venture completely share the knowledge they created in the innovation process and each firm has a sovereign budget responsibility. Second, a collusive arrangement in which the participating firms not only share their knowledge but have joint budget responsibilities in the sense that they make all strategic choices cooperatively and maximize joint profits. Third, a hierarchical form, in which the cooperating firms establish a joint headquarter which has strategic budget responsibility in the sense that can strategically subsidize R&D expenditures of its member firms so as to maximize overall RJV profits. We show that the first two arrangements can be mimiced in the hierarchical structure and that a hierarchical structure is optimal if it completely subsidizes its members’ R&D activities. In this case all rival firms are driven out of the contest.
A fully unbundled, regulated network firm of unknown efficiency level can undertake unobservable effort to increase the likelihood of low downstream prices, e.g., by facilitating downstream competition. To incentivize such effort, the regulator can use an incentive scheme paying transfers to the firm contingent on realized downstream prices. Alternatively, the regulator can force the firm to sell the following forward contracts: the firm pays the downstream price to the owners of a contract, but receives the expected value of the contracts when selling them to a competitive financial market. We compare the two regulatory tools with respect to regulatory capture: if the regulator can be bribed to suppress information on the underlying state of the world (the basic probability of high downstream prices, or the type of the firm), optimal regulation uses forward contracts only.
We consider a public and congested airport served by airlines that may have market power, and two types of travelers with different relative values of time. We find that in the absence of passenger-type-based price discrimination by airlines, it can be useful to increase the airport charge so as to protect passengers with a great relative time value from excessive congestion caused by passengers with a low relative time value. As a result, the socially efficient airport charge can be substantially higher than what we learned from the recent literature on congestion pricing with non-atomistic airlines.
This paper considers a transport network with two firms that operate a parallel service on a hub-to-hub connection and monopoly services on spoke-to-hub connections under increasing returns to scale. We find the following: A symmetric equilibrium cannot occur under independent (non-cooperative) pricing when the number of spoke-to-spoke passengers becomes positive. The effect of cooperative pricing on mark-ups in spoke-to-hub, hub-to-hub and spoke-to-spoke markets (where double marginalization can occur) can be positive or negative. Cooperation can reduce total welfare though hub-to-hub markets are small.
We used the oil-price forecasts of the 'Survey of Professional Forecasters' published by the European Central Bank to analyze whether oil-price forecasters herd or anti-herd. Oil-price forecasts are consistent with herding (anti-herding) of forecasters if forecasts are biased towards (away from) the consensus forecast. Based on a new empirical test developed by Bernhardt et al. (J. Financ. Econ. 80: 657-675, 2006), we found strong evidence of anti-herding among oil-price forecasters.
The regulation of rail network access is a key component of the EU policy that aims to strengthen rail markets. Two specific regulations are proposed: (i) a priority for long-distance (freight) services and (ii) a scarcity premium. Based on a congested network with two rail links, numerical simulations demonstrate that total surplus can be greater under the priority rule, which depends on the network charge per train-kilometer. Consumer surplus, on the other hand, is always greater under the priority rule, while fixed network-cost recovery is easier to achieve if a scarcity premium exists.
The Leading Question:
What Western multinational corporations (MNCs) need to know to successfully reverse their innovation flow i.e. launch new products developed in emerging markets in their domestic markets?
Main Findings:
- Realities in emerging markets are well suited for designing basic products that can be the starting point for product up-contenting.
- Products originally developed for emerging markets can be successfully adapted for sale in developed markets – a “reverse” innovation flow gains momentum.
- This strategy can both help to unlock new customer segments in wealthy markets and to compete against emerging MNCs, private labels, and generics conquering these markets bottom-up.
IMC Report
(2010)
Activity report
(2010)
Activity report
(2010)
Open-ended property funds
(2011)