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Conventional Wisdom (conventional + wisdom)
Selected AbstractsStrategy Research in Emerging Economies: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom*JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 1 2005Mike Wright ABSTRACT This review and introduction to the Special Issue on ,Strategy Research in Emerging Economies' considers the nature of theoretical contributions thus far on strategy in emerging economies. We classify the research through four strategic options: (1) firms from developed economies entering emerging economies; (2) domestic firms competing within emerging economies; (3) firms from emerging economies entering other emerging economies; and (4) firms from emerging economies entering developed economies. Among the four perspectives examined (institutional theory, transaction cost theory, resource-based theory, and agency theory), the most dominant seems to be institutional theory. Most existing studies that make a contribution blend institutional theory with one of the other three perspectives, including seven out of the eight papers included in this Special Issue. We suggest a future research agenda based around the four strategies and four theoretical perspectives. Given the relative emphasis of research so far on the first and second strategic options, we believe that there is growing scope for research that addresses the third and fourth. [source] The Reagan Democrat Phenomenon: How Wise Was the Conventional Wisdom?POLITICS & POLICY, Issue 4 2005Julio Borquez This article examines vote defection by white Democrats in the presidential elections of 1980,1988 and reconsiders the foundations of the "Reagan Democrat" phenomenon. The conventional wisdom has been that the defection of Reagan Democrats was motivated by conservative policy preferences, especially on race and redistribution. National Election Study data from 1980,1988 are used to test a multivariate model of vote choice. In 1980 and 1984, Democratic defectors were much more influenced by performance assessments than by policy preferences. Contrary to the prevailing storyline, Reagan Democrats were not voting to endorse a conservative policy agenda, but were more generally punishing Jimmy Carter in 1980 for poor performance in office and rewarding Ronald Reagan in 1984 for a job well done. Racial policy was a more potent influence on defection in 1988. [source] An adipocentric view of signaling and intracellular traffickingDIABETES/METABOLISM: RESEARCH AND REVIEWS, Issue 5 2002Silvia Mora Abstract Adipocytes have traditionally been considered to be the primary site for whole body energy storage mainly in the form of triglycerides and fatty acids. This occurs through the ability of insulin to markedly stimulate both glucose uptake and lipogenesis. Conventional wisdom held that defects in fuel partitioning into adipocytes either because of increased adipose tissue mass and/or increased lipolysis and circulating free fatty acids resulted in dyslipidemia, obesity, insulin resistance and perhaps diabetes. However, it has become increasingly apparent that loss of adipose tissue (lipodystrophies) in both animal models and humans also leads to metabolic disorders that result in severe states of insulin resistance and potential diabetes. These apparently opposite functions can be resolved by the establishment of adipocytes not only as a fuel storage depot but also as a critical endocrine organ that secretes a variety of signaling molecules into the circulation. Although the molecular function of these adipocyte-derived signals are poorly understood, they play a central role in the maintenance of energy homeostasis by regulating insulin secretion, insulin action, glucose and lipid metabolism, energy balance, host defense and reproduction. The diversity of these secretory factors include enzymes (lipoprotein lipase (LPL) and adipsin), growth factors [vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)], cytokines (tumor necrosis factor-,, interleukin 6) and several other hormones involved in fatty acid and glucose metabolism (leptin, Acrp30, resistin and acylation stimulation protein). Despite the large number of molecules secreted by adipocytes, our understanding of the pathways and mechanisms controlling intracellular trafficking and exocytosis in adipocytes is poorly understood. In this article, we will review the current knowledge of the trafficking and secretion processes that take place in adipocytes, focusing our attention on two of the best characterized adipokine molecules (leptin and adiponectin) and on one of the most intensively studied regulated membrane proteins, the GLUT4 glucose transporter. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL MOBILITY AND TRADE POLITICS: CAPITAL FLOWS, POLITICAL COALITIONS, AND LOBBYINGECONOMICS & POLITICS, Issue 3 2004Michael J. Hiscox Conventional wisdom holds that increasing international capital mobility reduces incentives for firms to lobby for trade protection. This paper argues that the effects of increased international capital mobility on the lobbying incentives of firms depend critically upon levels of inter-industry mobility. General-equilibrium analysis reveals that if capital is highly industry-specific, greater international mobility among some types of specific capital may increase lobbying incentives for owners of other specific factors and thereby intensify industry-based rent-seeking in trade politics. Evidence on levels of inward and outward investment in US manufacturing industries between 1982 and 1996, and on industry lobbying activities, indicate that these effects may be quite strong. [source] Social costs of robbery and the cost-effectiveness of substance abuse treatmentHEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 8 2008Anirban Basu Abstract Reduced crime provides a key benefit associated with substance abuse treatment (SAT). Armed robbery is an especially costly and frequent crime committed by some drug-involved offenders. Many studies employ valuation methods that understate the true costs of robbery, and thus the true social benefits of SAT-related robbery reduction. At the same time, regression to the mean and self-report bias may lead pre,post comparisons to overstate crime reductions associated with SAT. Using 1992,1997 data from the National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study (NTIES), we examined pre,post differences in self-reported robbery among clients in five residential and outpatient SAT modalities. Fixed-effect negative binomial regression was used to examine incidence rate reductions (IRR) in armed robbery. Published data on willingness to pay to avoid robbery were used to determine the social valuation of these effects. Differences in IRR across SAT modalities were explored to bound potential biases. All SAT modalities were associated with large and statistically significant reductions in robbery. The average number of self-reported robberies declined from 0.83/client/year pre-entry to 0.12/client/year following SAT (p<0.001). Under worst-case assumptions, monetized valuations of reductions in armed robbery associated with outpatient methadone and residential SAT exceeded economic costs of these interventions. Conventional wisdom posits the economic benefits of SAT. We find that SAT is even more beneficial than is commonly assumed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The Islamic View and the Christian View of the Crusades: A New SynthesisHISTORY, Issue 310 2008PAUL E. CHEVEDDEN Conventional wisdom maintains that the Islamic world and western Christendom held two very different views of the crusades. The image of warfare between Islam and Christendom has promoted the idea that the combative instincts aroused by this conflict somehow produced discordant views of the crusades. Yet the direct evidence from Islamic and Christian sources indicates otherwise. The self-view of the crusades presented by contemporary Muslim authors and the self-view of the crusades presented by crusading popes are not in opposition to each other but are in agreement with each other. Both interpretations place the onset of the crusades ahead of their accepted historical debut in 1095. Both interpretations point to the Norman conquest of Islamic Sicily (1060,91) as the start of the crusades. And both interpretations contend that by the end of the eleventh century the crusading enterprise was Mediterranean-wide in its scope. The Islamic view of the crusades is in fact the enantiomorph (mirror-image) of the Christian view of the crusades. This article makes a radical departure from contemporary scholarship on the early crusading enterprise because it is based on the direct evidence from Islamic and Christian sources. The direct evidence offers a way out of the impasse into which crusade history has fallen, and any attempt at determining the origin and nature of crusading without the support of the direct evidence is doomed to failure. [source] DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, EMPLOYMENT, AND DIVORCE,INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2006Audra J. Bowlus Conventional wisdom suggests abused women get caught in a cycle of violence and are unable or unwilling to leave their spouses. We estimate a model of domestic violence to determine who abuses, who is abused, and how women respond to abuse via employment and divorce. In contrast to conventional wisdom, abused women are 1.7,5.7 times more likely to divorce. Employment before abuse occurs is found to be a significant deterrent. For men, witnessing violence as a child is a strong predictor of abusive behavior: re-socializing men from violent homes lowers abuse rates by 26%,48%. [source] Chipping Away at the Fortress: Unions, Immigration and the Transnational Labour MarketINTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 2 2000Gamze Avci Conventional wisdom holds that in liberal industrialized countries, times of economic recession and high unemployment create pressures for restrictive immigration legislation, proposals which will be supported by trade unions as a means of safeguarding their interests. Drawing on a case study of British trade union opposition to the 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act, this article argues that trade unions, which traditional interpretation suggests support such protectionist measures, are actually at the forefront of opposition to them. We suggest that the increased transnationalization of labour markets, combined with the particular nature of the legislative response, had led unions to adopt this apparently paradoxical position. [source] Going in When it Counts: Military Intervention and the Outcome of Civil Conflicts,INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2008Stephen E. Gent Conventional wisdom suggests that biased military interventions in civil conflicts should increase the probability that the supported side will win. However, while this is the case for rebel groups, the same is not true for governments. The explanation for this surprising finding becomes clear once one considers the decision of a third-party intervener. Since interveners want to impact the outcomes of civil conflict, government- and rebel-biased interventions will be more likely when the government is facing a stronger rebel group. Given that government-biased third parties intervene in the ,,toughest'' cases, empirically they appear to be less effective than rebel-biased interveners. [source] Economic Nationalism as a Challenge to Economic Liberalism?INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2002Lessons from the 19th Century What kind of challenge does economic nationalism pose to economic liberalism in today's global political economy? Conventional wisdom holds that economic nationalism is an outdated ideology in this age of globalization and economic liberalization. But this argument rests on understandings of economic nationalism that are increasingly being called into question by recent scholarship. In this article, I show how the history of economic nationalism in the 19th century provides strong support for two important but potentially controversial arguments made in recent literature about the nature of economic nationalism: (1) that this ideology is most properly defined by its nationalist content (rather than as a variant of realism or as an ideology of protectionism), and (2) that it can be associated with a wide range of policy projects, including the endorsement of liberal economic policies. With these two points established through historical analysis, I conclude that economic nationalism should be seen still to be a powerful ideology in the current period, but that its relationship to the policy goals of economic liberals is an ambiguous one, just as it was in the 19th century. [source] A Longitudinal Analysis of the Impact of Liability Pressure on the Supply of Obstetrician-GynecologistsJOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2008Y. Tony Yang Conventional wisdom within the medical community suggests that dramatic increases in professional liability insurance premiums cause physicians to relocate or discontinue their practices in high-cost states. We employed a mixed-effects model to investigate the effect of malpractice risk, as measured by insurance premiums and various tort reforms, on the number of obstetrician-gynecologists (OB/GYNs) in the United States between 1992 and 2002. The longitudinal research design examines state-year-level data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We found that the supply of OB/GYNs had no statistically significant association with premiums or tort reforms. Our results suggest that most OB/GYNs do not respond to liability risk by relocating out of state or discontinuing their practice, and that tort reforms such as caps on noneconomic damages do not help states attract and retain high-risk specialists. [source] Can cointegration-based forecasting outperform univariate models?JOURNAL OF FORECASTING, Issue 5 2002An application to Asian exchange rates Abstract Conventional wisdom holds that restrictions on low-frequency dynamics among cointegrated variables should provide more accurate short- to medium-term forecasts than univariate techniques that contain no such information; even though, on standard accuracy measures, the information may not improve long-term forecasting. But inconclusive empirical evidence is complicated by confusion about an appropriate accuracy criterion and the role of integration and cointegration in forecasting accuracy. We evaluate the short- and medium-term forecasting accuracy of univariate Box,Jenkins type ARIMA techniques that imply only integration against multivariate cointegration models that contain both integration and cointegration for a system of five cointegrated Asian exchange rate time series. We use a rolling-window technique to make multiple out of sample forecasts from one to forty steps ahead. Relative forecasting accuracy for individual exchange rates appears to be sensitive to the behaviour of the exchange rate series and the forecast horizon length. Over short horizons, ARIMA model forecasts are more accurate for series with moving-average terms of order >1. ECMs perform better over medium-term time horizons for series with no moving average terms. The results suggest a need to distinguish between ,sequential' and ,synchronous' forecasting ability in such comparisons. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Downward sloping demand for environmental amenities and international compensation: elephant conservation and strategic cullingAGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2002Erwin Bulte Abstract Conventional wisdom holds that monetary compensation for positive transboundary externalities will promote conservation of resource amenities. We demonstrate that, in the case of elephant conservation, international transfers may also result in strategic behavior by host countries, with adverse implications for global welfare and in situ stocks. [source] High school students' literacy practices and identities, and the figured world of schoolJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN READING, Issue 3 2001Wendy Luttrell Conventional wisdom holds that American teenagers do not read or write , that they are a media-driven group who prefer movies, television and playing video games. Ethnographic data gathered in the High School Literacy Project, a study of four North Carolina high schools, showed a far different picture of teenage literacy. This paper reports on partial findings of the larger study and argues that students use their literacy practices to form their identities within, and sometimes in opposition to, the figured worlds of school, work and family. Many students look to school to provide formal literacy experiences, but find their reading and writing passions at odds with the demands of the school curriculum. [source] Trade Unions, Wage Bargaining Coordination, and Foreign Direct InvestmentLABOUR, Issue 4 2008Roxana Radulescu Conventional wisdom is that a high trade union bargaining strength and a system of coordinated wage bargaining reduce the attractiveness of an economy as a location for foreign direct investment, although there is limited evidence for this. The paper takes panel data for 19 OECD economies to examine the relationship between trade union bargaining strength, bargaining coordi nation, and a range of incentives for inward foreign direct investment. It finds a strong negative effect of trade union density on inward foreign direct investment, which is dependent on the degree of wage bargaining coordination. A high degree of coordination weakens the deterrent effect of high union density, which is consistent with the notion that under certain circumstances a coordinated increase in wages can increase profits of the multinationals by hurting domestic firms. [source] Seamount science scales undersea mountains: new research and outlookMARINE ECOLOGY, Issue 2010Thomas A. Schlacher Abstract Conventional wisdom suggests that seamounts harbour high levels of biodiversity and endemism, play important roles in marine biogeography, are hotspots of biological carbon processing, and support substantial fisheries. However, since fewer than 300 seamounts have been thoroughly sampled, these generalizations remain largely untested. This has provided the motivation for a number of seamount-focused research projects in recent years, including CenSeam, a field project within the Census of Marine Life. This issue presents some of the research output facilitated by CenSeam. Here we summarize the main findings and provide a précis of future research directions highlighted by contributors to the issue. Recent studies show that seamounts can have comparable levels of benthic diversity and endemism to continental margins, but their communities also include a distinct composition of species that can attain higher biomass. Reported geographic differentiation among seamount communities suggests limited larval dispersal, local speciation, geographic isolation, or a combination of these processes. Genetic studies contained in the issue address these themes explicitly, documenting complex patterns of connectivity that depend on spatial scale and life history characteristics. Globally, seamount ecosystems are also under pressure from bottom-contact fishing and ocean acidification. Contributions detailing the footprint of trawling and a risk assessment confirm what has long been suspected: seamount ecosystems are highly vulnerable to disturbance by bottom trawling and recovery from fishing impacts is a lengthy process, likely requiring decades at a minimum. A predicted shallowing of the aragonite saturation horizon caused by ocean acidification is predicted to place deep-water corals at risk, but seamounts may yet provide a spatial/chemical refuge from these impacts. The issue concludes with a ,myth-buster' synthesis that updates the status of the various seamount ecological paradigms. [source] Social distance in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the North Caucasus region of Russia: Inter and intra-ethnic attitudes and identities,NATIONS AND NATIONALISM, Issue 2 2009KRISTIN M. BAKKE ABSTRACT. This article examines attitudinal differences and similarities among ethnic groups in conflict-affected societies. Conventional wisdom tells us that societies that have experienced violent struggles in which individuals of different ethnic groups have (been) mobilized against each other are likely to become polarized along ethnic lines. Indeed, both policy-makers and scholars often assume that such divisions are some of the main challenges that must be overcome to restore peace after war. We comparatively examine this conventional wisdom by mapping dimensions of social distance among 4,000 survey respondents in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the North Caucasus region of Russia. The surveys were carried out in December 2005. Using multidimensional scaling methods, we do not find patterns of clear attitudinal cleavages among members of different ethnic groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Nor do we find patterns of clear ethnic division in the North Caucasus, although our social distance matrices reveal a difference between Russians and ethnic minority groups. [source] Behavioral Medicine Strategies for Heart Disease Prevention: The Example of Smoking CessationPREVENTIVE CARDIOLOGY, Issue 1 2000Barrie J Guise PhD Health related behavior change is one of the most important challenges in the prevention of cardiovascular disease. Lifestyle patterns, such as high fat diet, lack of exercise, persistent smoking, and poor compliance with prescribed medications present the core of this challenge. Conventional wisdom and considerable scientific evidence establish that the barriers to health related behavior change are many and varied. However, much is also known about methods of improving behavioral outcomes. Behavioral medicine strategies incorporate fundamental principles of behavior change together with biomedical and interpersonal approaches to facilitate successful cardiac risk factor modification. Physicians have the most potent opportunity to assist patients with health behavior change. Unfortunately, physicians are least familiar with behavior change technology and the contemporary physician-patient relationship lacks the partnership needed to succeed in these difficult areas. The good news is that medical education has begun to incorporate training in behavior change and interpersonal effectiveness. A description of the behavioral medicine approach to smoking cessation provides an excellent model for a thoughtful and practical approach to heart disease prevention in every day practice. [source] Foreign currency for long-term investors*THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 486 2003John Y. Campbell Conventional wisdom holds that conservative investors should avoid exposure to foreign currency risk. Even if they hold foreign equities, they should hedge the currency exposure of these positions and hold only domestic Treasury bills. This paper argues that the conventional wisdom may be wrong for long-term investors. Domestic bills are risky for long-term investors, because real interest rates vary over time and bills must be rolled over at uncertain future interest rates. This risk can be hedged by holding foreign currency if the domestic currency tends to depreciate when the domestic real interest rate falls. Empirically this effect is important. [source] Educational inputs and outcomes before the transition from communism,THE ECONOMICS OF TRANSITION, Issue 1 2007John Beirne O11; J24; P27; P39 Abstract Conventional wisdom suggests that the stocks of human capital were one of the few positive legacies from communism. However, if factories under communism were so inefficient, why would the education system not have been? Using the education production function approach and new data on educational inputs and outcomes from 1960 to 1989, we find evidence suggesting that the official human capital stocks figures were ,overestimated' during the communist period. In other words, we find that the official human capital stock numbers are significantly higher than those predicted not only in relation to countries at similar levels of development, but also on the basis of educational systems with comparable features and efficiency levels. [source] Organizing for Radical Innovation: An Exploratory Study of the Structural Aspects of RI Management Systems in Large Established FirmsTHE JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 6 2006Gina Colarelli O'Connor To escape the intense competition of today's global economy, large established organizations seek growth options beyond conventional new product development that leads to incremental changes in current product lines. Radical innovation (RI) is one such pathway, which results in organically driven growth through the creation of whole new lines of business that bring new to the world performance features to the market and may result in the creation of entirely new markets. Yet success is elusive, as many have experienced and scholars have documented. This article reports results of a three-year, longitudinal study of 12 large established firms that have declared a strategic intent to evolve their RI capabilities. In contrast to other academic research that has analyzed specific projects to understand management practices appropriate for RI, the present research reported explores the evolution of management systems for enabling radical innovation to occur repeatedly in large firms and reports on one aspect of this management system: organizational structures for enabling and nurturing RI. To consider organizational structure as a venue for capability development is new in the management of innovation and dynamic capabilities literatures. Conventional wisdom holds that RIs should be incubated outside the company and assimilated once they have gained traction in the marketplace. Numerous experiments with organizational structures were observed that instead work to manage the interfaces between the RI management system and the mother organization. These structures are described here, and insights are drawn out regarding radical innovation competency requirements, transition challenges, senior leadership mandates, and business-unit ambidexterity. The centerpiece of this research is the explication of the Discovery,Incubation,Acceleration framework, which details three sets of necessary, though not sufficient competencies, for building an RI capability. [source] TO SAMPLE OR NOT TO SAMPLETHE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 1 2006HANS HALLER Suppose a prospective oil field is partitioned into a finite number of lots. Conventional wisdom suggests that failing to find oil on one lot is bad news regarding subsequent exploration of other lots, due to a ,common pool' effect. Here we identify situations where failing to find oil on a lot may be good news. Similar considerations may be relevant in the testing of chemical substances for a specific pharmaceutical use. [source] RETURNS TO EQUITY, INVESTMENT AND Q: EVIDENCE FROM THE UKTHE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 2005SIMON PRICE Conventional wisdom has it that Tobin's Q cannot help explain aggregate investment. However, the standard linearized present-value asset price decomposition suggests that it should be able to predict other variables, such as stock returns. Using a new data set for the UK, we find that Q has strong predictive power for debt accumulation, stock returns and UK business investment. The correctly signed results on both returns and investment appear to be robust, and are supported by the commonly used and bootstrapped standard error corrections, as well as recently developed asymptotic corrections. [source] Employee Stock Option Fair-Value Estimates: Do Managerial Discretion and Incentives Explain Accuracy?,CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 4 2006Leslie Hodder Abstract We examine the determinants of managers' use of discretion over employee stock option (ESO) valuation-model inputs that determine ESO fair values. We also explore the consequences of such discretion. Firms exercise considerable discretion over all model inputs, and this discretion results in material differences in ESO fair-value estimates. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that a large proportion of firms exercise value-increasing discretion. Importantly, we find that using discretion improves predictive accuracy for about half of our sample firms. Moreover, we find that both opportunistic and informational managerial incentives together explain the accuracy of firms' ESO fair-value estimates. Partitioning on the direction of discretion improves our understanding of managerial incentives. Our analysis confirms that financial statement readers can use mandated contextual disclosures to construct powerful ex ante predictions of ex post accuracy. [source] Labor productivity of small and large manufacturing firms: the case of TaiwanCONTEMPORARY ECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 3 2000M. Hsu This work studies the factors influencing the labor productivity of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large firms using Taiwan as a case study. A special emphasis is placed on two possible international channels: exports and foreign direct investment (FDI). Different from conventional studies, we employ the two-stage switching regressions to correct the firm-size effect on labor productivity and estimate labor productivity for SMEs and large firms. The main findings are as follows. First, the estimates of the selectivity variable are statistically significant for both SMEs and large firms, supporting the hypothesis of correcting the effect of firm-size truncation. Second, while a larger trade intensity significantly increases the labor productivity of SMEs, it deteriorates significantly that of large firms. Third, FDI enhances the labor productivity of SMEs internally, whereas it has a negative spillover on that of other small and large firms in the industry. While the first outcome lends supports to the role of self-selection, the remaining stands in sharp contrast to conventional wisdom. [source] Business Group Affiliation, Firm Governance, and Firm Performance: Evidence from China and IndiaCORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 4 2009Deeksha A. Singh ABSTRACT Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: This study seeks to understand how business group affiliation, within firm governance and external governance environment affect firm performance in emerging economies. We examine two aspects of within firm governance , ownership concentration and board independence. Research Findings/Insights: Using archival data on the top 500 Indian and Chinese firms from multiple data sources for 2007, we found that group affiliated firms performed worse than unaffiliated firms, and the negative relationship was stronger in the case of Indian firms than for Chinese firms. We also found that ownership concentration had a positive effect on firm performance, while board independence had a negative effect on firm performance. Further, we found that group affiliation , firm performance relationship in a given country context was moderated by ownership concentration. Theoretical/Academic Implications: This study utilizes an integration of agency theory with an institutional perspective, providing a more comprehensive framework to analyze the CG problems, particularly in the emerging economy firms. Empirically, our findings support, as well as contradict, some of the conventional wisdom, and suggest useful avenues for future research. Practitioner/Policy Implications: This study shows that reforms in general and CG reforms in particular are effective in emerging economies, which is an encouraging sign for policy makers. However, our research also suggests that it may be time for India and China to stop the encouragement for the empire building through group formation in the corporate world. For practioners, our findings suggest that firms need to balance the need for oversight with the need for advice, while selecting independent directors. [source] Strategic Decisions of New Technology Adoption under Asymmetric Information: A Game-Theoretic Model*DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 4 2003Kevin Zhu ABSTRACT In this paper we explore strategic decision making in new technology adoption by using economic analysis. We show how asymmetric information affects firms' decisions to adopt the technology. We do so in a two-stage game-theoretic model where the first-stage investment results in the acquisition of a new technology that, in the second stage, may give the firm a competitive advantage in the product market. We compare two information structures under which two competing firms have asymmetric information about the future performance (i.e., postadoption costs) of the new technology. We find that equilibrium strategies under asymmetric information are quite different from those under symmetric information. Information asymmetry leads to different incentives and strategic behaviors in the technology adoption game. In contrast to conventional wisdom, our model shows that market uncertainty may actually induce firms to act more aggressively under certain conditions. We also show that having better information is not always a good thing. These results illustrate a key departure from established decision theory. [source] Channel Strategies and Stocking Policies in Uncapacitated and Capacitated Supply Chains,DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 2 2002Jayashree Mahajan ABSTRACT A supply chain consisting of a single supplier distributing two independent products through multiple retailers is analyzed in this paper. The supplier needs to incentivize its retailers to adopt stocking policies that are mutually advantageous and that result in the optimal level of market coverage. The focus is on determining the optimal stocking policies for retailers and the resulting distribution strategy given that the supplier has either unlimited or limited capacity. The results provide insights on the optimal distribution strategy and stocking policies for the supply chain. In general, the paper shows that it is optimal for the supplier to use an intensive distribution strategy (i.e., the products are stocked by all retailers). Selective or exclusive strategies are optimal only when retailers are risk averse, stocking synergies exist, and there are differences in demand or supply uncertainties across products. The analysis also shows that retailers hold larger stocks of a product which generates higher supplier margins but only when the supplier has unlimited capacity. If the supplier has limited capacity, then their margins have no effect on retailers' stocking decisions. Contrary to conventional wisdom, retailers hold larger stocks of a product that has less demand uncertainty as compared to one that has more demand uncertainty. [source] A Dynamic Theory of HoldupECONOMETRICA, Issue 4 2004Yeon-Koo Che The holdup problem arises when parties negotiate to divide the surplus generated by their relationship specific investments. We study this problem in a dynamic model of bargaining and investment which, unlike the stylized static model, allows the parties to continue to invest until they agree on the terms of trade. The investment dynamics overturns the conventional wisdom dramatically. First, the holdup problem need not entail underinvestment when the parties are sufficiently patient. Second, inefficiencies can arise unambiguously in some cases, but they are not caused by the sharing of surplus per se but rather by a failure of an individual rationality constraint. [source] From ,welfare without work' to ,buttressed liberalization': The shifting dynamics of labor market adjustment in France and GermanyEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2008MARK I. VAIL Scholars blame this disease on dysfunctional political arrangements, deep insider-outsider cleavages and failed systems of social partnership. As a result, the two countries are said to be more or less permanently mired in a context of high unemployment that is highly resistant to remediation. This article departs from this conventional wisdom in two important respects. First, it argues that France and Germany have undertaken major reforms of their labor market policies and institutions during the past decade and remediated many of their longstanding employment traps. Second, it shows that the political arrangements that adherents of the ,welfare without work' thesis identify as reasons for sclerosis have evolved quite dramatically. The article supports these arguments by exploring some of the most significant recent labor market reforms in the two countries, as well as the shifting political relationships that have driven these changes. In both countries, recent labor market reforms have followed a trajectory of ,buttressed liberalization'. This has involved, on the one hand, significant liberalization of labor market regulations such as limits on overtime and worker protections such as unemployment insurance. On the other hand, it has entailed a set of supportive, ,buttressing' reforms involving an expansion of active labor market policies and support for workers' efforts to find jobs. The article concludes that these developments provide reasons for optimism about the countries' economic futures and offer important lessons about how public policy can confront problems of labor market stagnation. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||