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Many Firms (many + firm)
Selected AbstractsTakeover Defenses of IPO FirmsTHE JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Issue 5 2002Laura Casares Field Many firms deploy takeover defenses when they go public. IPO managers tend to deploy defenses when their compensation is high, shareholdings are small, and oversight from nonmanagerial shareholders is weak. The presence of a defense is negatively related to subsequent acquisition likelihood, yet has no impact on takeover premiums for firms that are acquired. These results do not support arguments that takeover defenses facilitate the eventual sale of IPO firms at high takeover premiums. Rather, they suggest that managers shift the cost of takeover protection onto nonmanagerial shareholders. Thus, agency problems are important even for firms at the IPO stage. [source] Factors influencing the quality of corporate environmental disclosureBUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Issue 2 2008Stephen Brammer Abstract Many firms choose to communicate their environmental strategies through voluntary environmental disclosures. This paper examines patterns in the quality of voluntary environmental disclosures made by a sample of around 450 large UK companies drawn from a diverse range of industrial sectors. The analysis distinguishes between five facets of quality, including the disclosure of group-wide environmental policies, environmental impact targets and an environmental audit. We examine how the decisions firms face regarding each facet of quality are determined by firm and industry characteristics, and find the quality of disclosure to be determined by a firm's size and the nature of its business activities. Specifically, we find high quality disclosure to be primarily associated with larger firms and those in sectors most closely related to environmental concerns. In contrast to several recent contributions, we find that the media exposure of companies plays no role in stimulating voluntary disclosures. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] Capability, Quality, and Performance of Offshore IS Vendors: A Theoretical Framework and Empirical InvestigationDECISION SCIENCES, Issue 2 2010Prashant C. Palvia ABSTRACT Information systems (IS) offshoring has become a widespread practice and a strategic sourcing choice for many firms. While much has been written by researchers about the factors that lead to successful offshoring arrangements from the client's viewpoint, the vendor's perspective has been largely scarce. The vendor perspective is equally important as offshore IS vendors need to make important decisions in terms of delivering operational and strategic performance and aligning their resources and processes in order to meet or exceed targeted outcomes. In this article, we propose and test a three-level capability,quality,performance (CQP) theoretical framework to understand vendor outcomes and their antecedents. The first level of the framework represents three vendor capabilities: relationship management, contract management, and information technology management. The second level has three mediating variables representing process quality: partnership, service, and deliverable quality. The third level has three dependent variables representing vendor outcomes: operational performance, strategic performance, and satisfaction. The model was tested with 188 vendor firms from India and China, the two most popular destinations for IS offshoring. Results support the CQP framework; vendor capabilities are significant predictors of intermediate quality measures, which in turn affect vendor outcomes. Implications of the study findings to both theory development and IS offshore vendor strategic decision making are discussed. [source] Innovation Policy and Nanotechnology EntrepreneurshipENTREPRENEURSHIP THEORY AND PRACTICE, Issue 5 2008Jennifer L. Woolley In this article, we explore the relationship between innovation policy and new venture creation in the United States. Specifically, we examine two components of innovation policy in nanotechnology,science and technology (S&T) initiatives and economic initiatives,and their relationship with the founding of nanotechnology firms. We find strong support relating new firm formation to S&T and economic initiatives. States with both S&T and economic initiatives had six times as many firms founded than those states without such initiatives. We also find evidence of a first-mover advantage as states with the earliest innovation policies had higher rates of related firm foundings over time. These findings suggest that states that are most attractive to entrepreneurs not only pursue technological innovation and provide resources, but also encourage and legitimize commercial development. Implications for public policy makers and scholars are provided. [source] Delivering customer services online: identifying best practices of medium-sized enterprisesINFORMATION SYSTEMS JOURNAL, Issue 2 2006Nancy M. Levenburg Abstract. The importance of using the internet to achieve competitive advantage has been well documented. Many companies have benefited from capturing customers' interest in buying via the web. Additionally, an ever-expanding of technologies exist that enable firms to provide additional customer services online. Yet for many firms, determining which customer service applications to use can be perplexing. This study examines the practices of small- and medium-sized enterprises and analyses performance results of adopting selected customer service applications on the internet. [source] The Seasoned-Equity Issues of UK Firms: Market Reaction and Issuance Method ChoiceJOURNAL OF BUSINESS FINANCE & ACCOUNTING, Issue 1-2 2006Edel Barnes Abstract: This study examines the seasoned equity issues of companies traded on the London Stock Exchange. Recent regulatory changes have allowed UK firms more discretion in choice of issue approach, and this has led many firms to issue through placing in preference to a rights issue. Having first documented the trend towards increasing use of placings, we go on to identify an interesting subset of placings that are less likely to be anticipated by the market, and find a significant positive market reaction to such placings, which contrasts with the significant negative reaction we find for issues by rights. We also examine the choice of seasoned equity issuance method, focusing on the choice between placings versus rights issues. We develop a model to explain the choice of equity issue method that achieves a high level of predictive accuracy. [source] Net Present Value-Consistent Investment Criteria Based on Accruals: A Generalisation of the Residual Income-IdentityJOURNAL OF BUSINESS FINANCE & ACCOUNTING, Issue 7-8 2004Thomas Pfeiffer Abstract: In recent years, many firms have favoured residual income for value based management. One main argument for this measure is its identity with the net present value rule and that this compatibility with the net present value rule holds true for all possible depreciation schedules selected. In this article, we analyse whether there are other, undiscussed, accrual accounting numbers that enable net present value-consistent investment decisions for all possible depreciation schedules. Our analysis provides an if-and-only-if characterisation of the entire class of net present value-consistent investment criteria, based on accounting information. This provides new insights into the residual income concept, hurdle rates, opening and closing error conditions achieved by applying more common performance measure structures, and allocation rules. Moreover, our analysis shows the limits of constructing such investment criteria. [source] Price Dispersion and Consumer Reservation PricesJOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, Issue 1 2005Simon P. Anderson We describe firm pricing when consumers follow simple reservation price rules. In stark contrast to other models in the literature, this approach yields price dispersion in pure strategies even when firms have the same marginal costs. At the equilibrium, lower price firms earn higher profits. The range of price dispersion increases with the number of firms: the highest price is the monopoly price, while the lowest price tends to marginal cost. The average transaction price remains substantially above marginal cost even with many firms. The equilibrium pricing pattern is the same when prices are chosen sequentially. [source] Using Interorganizational Information Systems to Support Environmental Management Efforts at ASGJOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY, Issue 4 2001Teresa M. Shaft Summary We examine use of environmental information systems by ASG AB (hereafter ASG), an international logistics and transport firm headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, as a case study to illustrate the role of information systems in life-cycle-oriented environmental management. This case provides an example of how a firm can use interorganizational information systems (IOISs) to move toward environmentally sustainable business practices. Through the use of IOISs, ASG has been able to improve its environmental performance and that of its suppliers. Further, this improved environmental performance has been a competitive advantage for ASG and enabled it to attract new business. As such, ASG's experiences illustrate how aggressive practices move environmental management beyond compliance and cost control, at which many firms have been successful, to revenue generation. The case also shows how environmentally sustainable business practices can be integrated into a firm's strategy. In addition to illustrating how ASG has used IOISs to improve environmental performance, we compare their use of environmental ISs with the expected evolution of environmental ISs presented in the Shaft and colleagues (1997) framework. Although some of ASG's experiences verify the expected progression of these types of systems, some developments are not as expected. These differences have implications for the framework. [source] A Holistic Approach to New Product Development: New InsightsJOURNAL OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2004Michael Tracey SUMMARY The literature for some time has endorsed a participative approach to new product development. Nonetheless, practice still seldom follows theory. The production, purchasing and logistics areas, as well as suppliers and customers, continue to be underrepresented at many manufacturing firms. This research provides empirical support for including these parties early in new product development. It demonstrates the positive impact their participation can have on manufacturing efficiency and agility, delivery service and organizational performance. It also reveals that there is ample room to increase their participation at many firms. [source] The Role of Family Ties in the Labour Market.LABOUR, Issue 4 2001An Interpretation Based on Efficiency Wage Theory By casual empiricism, it seems that many firms take explicit account of the family ties connecting workers, often hiring individuals belonging to the same family or passing jobs on from parents to their children. This paper makes an attempt to explain this behaviour by introducing the assumption of altruism within the family and supposing that agents maximize a family utility function rather than an individual one. This hypothesis has been almost ignored in the analysis of the relationship between employers and employees. The implications of this assumption in the efficiency wage models are explored: by employing members of the same family, firms can use a (credible) harsher threat , involving a sanction for all the family's members in case of one member's shirking , that allows them to pay a lower efficiency wage. On the other hand, workers who accept this agreement exchange a reduction in wage with an increase in their probability of being employed: this can be optimal in a situation of high unemployment. Moreover, the link between parents and children allows the firm to follow a strategy that solves the problem of an individual's finite time horizon by its making use of the family's reputation. [source] Product design rivalry: multiple-attributes approach to differentiationMANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS, Issue 7 2008Nobuo Matsubayashi This paper studies product design competition between potentially symmetric firms. We specifically employ the multiple-attributes approach as the method of product design. While various product-specific attributes contribute to firms' differentiation, they may cause confusion resulting in consumer dissatisfaction. We show that in the presence of these opposite effects and any setup costs for attributes, the differentiation by multiple attributes is beneficial for firms if, and only if they are moderately competitive. We furthermore show that the socially efficient number of attributes can only be sustained when there are not very many firms and the setup cost is low. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] PRODUCT OFFERING, PRICING, AND MAKE-TO-STOCK/MAKE-TO-ORDER DECISIONS WITH SHARED CAPACITYPRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2002GREGORY DOBSON In an era of mass customization, many firms continue to expand their product lines to remain competitive. These broader product lines may help to increase market share and may allow higher prices to be charged, but they also cause challenges associated with diseconomies of scope. To investigate this tradeoff, we considered a monopolist who faces demand curves, which for each of its potential products, decline with both price and response time (time to deliver the product). The firm must decide which products to offer, how to price them, whether each should be make-to-stock (mts) or make-to-order (mto), and how often to produce them. The offered products share a single manufacturing facility. Setup times introduce disceonomies of scope and setup costs introduce economies of scale. We provide motivating problem scenarios, model the monopolist's problem as a non-linear, integer programming problem, characterize of the optimal policy, develop near-optimal procedures, and discuss managerial insights. [source] MATERIAL PLANNING FOR A REMANUFACTURING FACILITYPRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2001GERALDO FERRER This article describes the first fully integrated material planning system to facilitate the management of a remanufacturing facility. A number of firms are already engaged in this activity. They remanufacture automobile, truck, and other vehicle components, like starters, alternators, transmissions, and so forth. These firms take in used components, disassemble them, and assemble saleable products from the good parts they find. There is considerable uncertainty in the supply of used components, the good parts in those components, and the demand for remanufactured products. Our system is based on material requirements planning logic, something that many firms in the industry are already familiar with. Meetings with experts in the industry were used to set the parameters of the system and evaluate its approach. [source] Opening up the innovation process: the role of technology aggressivenessR & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2009Ulrich Lichtenthaler Besides acquiring external knowledge, many firms have begun to actively commercialize technology, for example, by means of out-licensing. This increase in inward and outward technology transactions reflects the new paradigm of open innovation. Most prior research into open innovation is limited to theoretical considerations and case studies, whereas other lines of research have focused either on external technology acquisition or exploitation. In an integrative view, we consider inward and outward technology transactions as the main directions of open innovation. Moreover, technology aggressiveness, which constitutes an important dimension of technology strategy, is identified as a major determinant of open innovation. Data from a survey of 154 industrial firms are used to test three hypotheses relating technology aggressiveness, external technology acquisition, and external technology exploitation. In addition, clusters of firms with homogeneous strategies regarding technology aggressiveness and open innovation are identified. [source] Reputation for Product Innovation: Its Impact on Consumers,THE JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2010David H. Henard Just as firms compete for customers, they also vie for reputational status across their relevant constituent groups. To many firms, a reputation as an innovative company is something that is both prized and actively sought after. Despite an abundance of anecdotal evidence pointing to several firms' active pursuit of an innovative reputation, there is little empirical evidence to evaluate the soundness of this pursuit. On a general level, this research recognizes that firms compete for competitive advantage via their tangible and intangible resources. Much of the innovation literature centers on the tangible impact that new product development initiatives have on outcomes of innovation. Yet research investigations of the less tangible facets of innovation, such as a reputation, remain relatively uninvestigated despite their promise as a source of sustainable competitive advantage. This study investigates the effects of a corporate reputation for product innovation (RPI) and its impact on consumers. Consumer involvement levels are proposed to mediate the relationship between RPI and consumer outcomes. Empirical results indicate that a high consumer perceived RPI, via the involvement construct, leads to excitement toward and heightened loyalty to the innovative firm. A more positive overall corporate image and tolerance for occasional product failures are also positive outcomes noted in the results. Contrary to expectations, a high perceived RPI does not lead to a consumer propensity to pay price premiums. [source] Modified Stage-Gate® Regimes in New Product Development,THE JOURNAL OF PRODUCT INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2007John E. Ettlie The purpose of this research was to explore the nature of the Stage-Gate®process in the context of innovative projects that not only vary in new product technology (i.e., radical versus incremental technology) but that also involve significant new product development technology (i.e., new virtual teaming hardware-software systems). Results indicate that firms modify their formal development regimes to improve the efficiency of this process while not significantly sacrificing product novelty (i.e., the degree to which new technology is incorporated in the new offering). Four hypotheses were developed and probed using 72 automotive engineering managers involved in supervision of the new product development process. There was substantial evidence to creatively replicate results from previous benchmarking studies; for example, 48.6% of respondents say their companies used a traditional Stage-Gate®process, and 60% of these new products were considered to be a commercial success. About a third of respondents said their companies are now using a modified Stage-Gate®process for new product development. Auto companies that have modified their Stage-Gate®procedures are also significantly more likely to report (1) use of virtual teams; (2) adoption of collaborative and virtual new product development software supporting tools; (3) having formalized strategies in place specifically to guide the new product development process; and (4) having adopted structured processes used to guide the new product development process. It was found that the most significant difference in use of phases or gates in the new product development process with radical new technology occurs when informal and formal phasing processes are compared, with normal Stage-Gate®usage scoring highest for technology departures in new products. Modified Stage-Gate®had a significant, indirect impact on organizational effectiveness. These findings, taken together, suggest companies optimize trade-offs between cost and quality after they graduate from more typical stage-process management to modified regimes. Implications for future research and management of this challenging process are discussed. In general, it was found that the long-standing goal of 50% reduction in product development time without sacrificing other development goals (e.g., quality, novelty) is finally within practical reach of many firms. Innovative firms are not just those with new products but also those that can modify their formal development process to accelerate change. [source] The implementation challenge of pricing decision support systems for retail managersAPPLIED STOCHASTIC MODELS IN BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY, Issue 4-5 2005Alan L. Montgomery Abstract There has been an explosion in the availability of data and computing ability in retail management that has led to a new desire on the part of managers to implement demand based management. Demand based management uses statistical models to predict consumer price response using historical information. These models can be used to construct pricing decision support systems for retail managers. Currently, many firms have begun offering software to perform price optimization. This article considers how recent advances in academic research can contribute to the implementation of these systems, and in turn consider the new questions likely to be posed by the developers and users of these new systems. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Discount Rates in Disarray: Evidence on Flawed Goodwill Impairment TestingAUSTRALIAN ACCOUNTING REVIEW, Issue 4 2009Gerry Gallery Carlin and Finch, this issue, compare goodwill impairment discount rates used by a sample of large Australian firms with ,independently' generated discount rates. Their objective is to empirically determine whether managers opportunistically select goodwill discount rates subsequent to the 2005 introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Australia. This is a worthwhile objective given that IFRS introduced an impairment regime, and within this regime, discount rate selection plays a key role in goodwill valuation decisions. It is also timely to consider the goodwill valuation issue. Following the recent downturn in the economy, there is a high probability that many firms will be forced to write down impaired goodwill arising from boom period acquisitions. Hence, evidence of bias in rate selection is likely to be of major concern to investors, policymakers and corporate regulators. Carlin and Finch claim their findings provide evidence of such bias. In this commentary I review the validity of their claims. [source] | ||||||||||