Friday

Jennifer Kunz, Goether University Frankfurt, Main

26.03.2010

Long-term performance of individual- and group-level exploration and exploitation

Abstract: Organisational research has studied the tension between exploration and exploitation for years. In essence, this body of research agrees on the necessity of a balance between explorative and exploitative processes to prevent an organisation from falling into a learning trap. Thus, to enhance the active management of this balance in organisations, a deeper theoretical understanding of the factors that influence the development of exploration and exploitation has to be gained. One of the recently discussed factors is the interplay between individual and group-level exploration and exploitation. This paper picks up this discussion. It provides an in-depth analysis of the different impacts of groups characterised by an interpersonal learning dimension in contrast to isolated individuals on long-term development and performance outcomes of exploration and exploitation under contingent aspects.

Friday

Claus Rerup, Richard Ivey School of Business

16.04.2010

Title: TBA

Friday

Ognjenka Zrilic, Politecnico di Milano

23.04.2010

Implementation Strategies of High-Tech Acquisitions

Abstract: Acquisitions of entrepreneurial firms by established firms have become important means for technology transfer through which incumbents accumulate upstream capabilities to enter new product domains. This paper focuses on high-technology acquisitions with an aim to develop a better understanding of how incumbents can realize technology acquisition potentials by accounting for acquisition implementation process, deal and firm specific attributes. We consider two dimensions of acquisition reorganization; acquired firm integration as structural aspect and non-structural aspect of acquired top manager retention. Empirical literature shows that acquirers who buy small technology firms for their innovative potential often discover that the postacquisition integration can diminish the acquired firm’s innovative potential that was the crucial motive behind the acquisition. On the other hand, structural integration is claimed to be important
since it serves as a mechanism of coordination between acquirer and acquired firm, what is particularly significant when high interdependence exists between the two firms. Another important
aspect of acquisition implementation is the extent to which the target resources are replaced with acquirer’s resources. In the context of high technology acquisitions, the important resource is the human capital of acquired firm top manager. Starting from the resource and competence based perspectives, the likelihood of structural integration and retention of acquired firm’s top manager is predicted. Specifically, we consider the following factors: i) the motives of acquisition (explorative vs. other motivation), ii) the product relatedness between the acquiring and acquired firms, iii) the existence of prior alliance with target, iv) whether the target’s technology was a component toacquirer’s system.

Friday

Wilfred Dolfsma, University of Groningen School of Economics and Business

21.05.2010

Knowledge Transfer within firms: Informal, Formal and Multiplex ('rich') ties

Abstract: The informal contacts in organizations are often emphasized as the main or even only conduit for knowledge transfer within firms. We find, however, that formal networks also contribute substantially to knowledge transfer. Additionally we find that the multiplex combination of a formal tie and an informal tie contributes to knowledge transfer beyond the effect of either in isolation. Such multiplex, or, as we coin them, /rich/ ties we find to have a strong effect on knowledge transfer in an organization. In addition to informal networks, formal networks and in particular ties between employees that combine informal as well as formal contacts (‘rich’ ties) thus help constitute the dynamic capabilities that firms in turbulent economic circumstances require, to be competitive on the global market. Knowledge transfer previously attributed to informal (or formal) networks only, may in fact be due to multiplex, or rich, ties.

Friday

Devi R. Gnyawali, Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech

28.05.2010

Title: TBA

Friday

Tobias Kretschmer, University of Munich

04.06.2010

Title: TBA

Friday

Claudio Panico, Bocconi University

19.03.10

Joint seminar between Center for Strategic Management and Globalization (SMG) and Department of Economics (ECON)

On the Management of Research Collaborations: Which Form of Governance?

Abstract: The management of research collaborations is challenging in many respects. It is hard to specify in advance the research output to be obtained and how to share the resulting gains. The research efforts of one party are hard to monitor for the other party and the collaboration may fail to deliver any gain. The parties may also decide to interrupt the collaboration at a later stage and proceed separately. All these aspects pose big governance challenges. On the other hand, it is increasingly more common to observe contractual forms of collaborations. Formal contracts give birth to a large variety of forms of governance by specifying a configuration of control and an allocation of ownership. We build a simple model to develop a normative analysis of the contractual governance of a research collaboration between a customer firm and a research unit. We set up a principal-agent model that integrates agency theory and the property-rights approach to endogenize the form of governance, that is to say an allocation of control and ownership rights.
The customer initially has all the bargaining power and designs the governance. The initial governance shapes the parties' relative bargaining position in the ex post negotiation and affects the unit's ex-ante incentives. Following property-rights economics, we first address the case when the parties always agree to stay together when negotiating over the allocation of the quasi-rents. We say that the collaboration in this case is stable. But we also address the case when the collaboration is unstable as the parties might prefer instead to break it up and proceed separately. We identify trade-offs in the initial choice of the form of governance that have gone unnoticed in the literature and provide new insights into the functioning of research collaborations.

Friday

Peter Abell, London School of Economics and Copenhagen Business School

12.03.10

History, Statistics and Case Studies

http://smr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/38/1/38

Abstract: When case studies are constructed as narratives, then causal explanation can be achieved without either comparison or generalization. Narratives provide paths of causal links on a chronology of actions or events. The links, in turn, can be studied as Bayesian inferences generating Bayesian narratives. The causal paths in a narrative have a Boolean structure.

Friday

Sjoerd Beugelsdijk, University of Groningen

05.03.10

When in Rome, do as the Romans do”, but what if they all do different things? Host-Country Value Heterogeneity and U.S. Outward MNE Activity

Abstract: A key assumption in international business and management theory concerns the notion of adaptation to foreign host country environments. This is reflected in the importance attached to the construct of cultural distance, and the associated underlying assumption that host countries are culturally homogeneous. This study examines the role of host country cultural diversity. Following the liability of foreignness argumentation, we argue that once allowing for heterogenous foreign cultures, the typical negative effect of cultural distance on MNE activity can be hypothesized to be smaller. Using the full sample of aggregate US MNE activity between 1983-2004 in a sample of 31 countries, our results suggest that within-(host) country cultural diversity, as determined by the newly developed
cultural diversity index, has a significantly positive and moderating effect on cultural distance. Extensive robustness tests confirm that the negative effect of cultural distance is significantly smaller when moving to host countries that are culturally diverse. We extrapolate this finding on within-country diversity to the role of cultural diversity in general and discuss implication for international business and management theory, concluding we need a paradigm shift from cultural distance to cultural diversity.

Friday

Simon Torp, Handels- og Ingeniørhøjskolen and Center for Strategic Management and Globalization, Copenhagen Business School

26.02.2010

The Antecedents of Employee Stock Ownership

Abstract: Based on a survey among the 500 biggest companies in Denmark the author tests the prevalence and antecedents of Employee stock ownership (ESO). While earlier studies has shown a 5 % prevalence in 1991 and 21 % in 2000, this study document that 33 % of Danish companies employee ESO. 11 % employee broad-based schemes and 22 % a narrow-based scheme, indicating a decliner in the use of broad-based schemes and an increase in the use of narrow-based schemes. The study reveals that the definition of ESO has a significant impact on the antecedents of ESO companies. While the construction sector is an antecedent of all three definitions of ESO, stock listing, dynamism, sector-dummies, different bonus systems, formal planning and size all are antecedents of only one or two of the definitions.

Friday

Alessandra Perri, Luiss University

12.02.2010

Subsidiary heterogeneity and FDI-mediated knowledge spillovers:
Some insights on the role of technological capabilities and knowledge strategies

Abstract: Along the last decades, foreign direct investment has become a pervasive phenomenon in the global economy. Indeed, in 2007, global FDI inflows reached $1,833 billion, overcoming the peak level of $1,411 billion realized in 2000 (UNCTAD, 2008). The activity of multinational corporations investing abroad is especially relevant for the knowledge flows that take place between the MNCs and their host countries, as a consequence of the set-up of their foreign subsidiaries. While there is plenty of analyses regarding the country-level and sector-level factors affecting this phenomenon, scarce attention has been paid to the firm-specific profile of foreign investors, which may influence the knowledge diffusion due to their localization. Moreover, on a more theoretical level, the knowledge spillover effect has been traditionally assumed to happen through the so-called “pipeline-model” (Marin and Bell, 2006), as an automatic outcome of the international transfer of the superior knowledge developed by the parent companies, with no role for the subsidiaries in the dynamics of this phenomenon. Only very recently, scholars have begun to recognize that also subsidiaries may influence the patterns of knowledge flows within their host country (Branstetter, 2006; Marin and Sasidharan, 2008). Building on these insights, and combining IB literature and recent findings on agglomeration dynamics, I explore the subsidiary technological capabilities and knowledge strategies that affect the extent of knowledge spillovers to host-country organizations.

Friday

Ingmar Björkman, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki

05.02.2010

The Determinants of Top Management Internalisation of HRM Practices in MNC Subsidiaries

Abstract: In spite of the importance attached to the roles played by line managers in the HRM literature, little theoretical and empirical research exists on factors influencing how line managers perceive HRM. In this study we investigated factors that influence the extent to which subsidiary top managers internalise HRM practices. Based on data collected from top managers and HR managers in 117 subsidiaries within 12 Nordic multinational corporations, we tested whether the level of internalisation was influenced by two sets of factors, the first related to the professional credibility of the subsidiary HR managers and the HR function, and the second set dealing with the interpersonal similarity (homophily) between the subsidiary top manager and the HR manager. The findings support most of the hypotheses relating to credibility since the work experience of subsidiary HR managers both within and outside of HR, as well as the perceived strategic HRM capabilities of the subsidiary HR department, were related to higher levels of general manager internalisation. The hypotheses relating to homophily were not supported, the data instead showing a negative relationship between gender-based homophily and internalisation.

Friday

Marcel Bogers, University of Southern Denmark

29.01.2010

Exploring the Drivers of Learning-by-Doing and Process Innovation: Evidence from Swiss Manufacturing Firms

Abstract: This paper explores the drivers of learning-by-doing and process innovation to better understand the origins of innovative capabilities and thus firm heterogeneity. Using survey data on Swiss manufacturing firms, we conduct a factor analysis to explore which systems of complementary (individual, collective, capability- and incentive-based) human resource and organizational practices firms implement to promote production floor workers’ contribution to process innovation. We subsequently use these factors in a system of simultaneous regressions to show how they drive learning-by-doing for major and minor process innovation. In line with our theoretical framework, we find that autonomy and decentralization as well as collective rewards have the broadest impact on both major and minor process innovation. While active support and monitoring as well as relationships particularly foster major process innovation, individual and monetary rewards only enhance minor process innovation. We also find that too much monitoring and support is detrimental for process innovation.

Friday

Dr. Amanda Goodall, Warwick Business School

22.01.2010

Socrates in the Boardroom: Why Research Universities Should be Led by Top Scholars'
Highly Cited Leaders and the Performance of Research Universities

Abstract: There is a large literature on the productivity of universities. Little is known, however, about how different types of leader affect a university’s later performance. To address this, I blend quantitative and qualitative evidence. First, I show that the most outstanding research universities in the world are led, overwhelmingly, by top scholars. Second, by constructing a new longitudinal dataset, I demonstrate that the research quality of a university improves some years after it appoints a president (vice chancellor or rector) who is an accomplished scholar. To try to explain why scholar-leaders might improve the research performance of their institutions, I draw from interview data with twenty-six heads in universities in the United States and United Kingdom. The findings have policy implications for governments, universities, and a range of research and knowledge-intensive organizations.

Amanda’s main work is on leadership and productivity. She focuses on knowledge-based organizations -- such as research universities and hospitals -- where the core business is reliant on expert knowledge. She uses a mixture of quantitative and qualitative evidence to try to identify what kinds of leaders improve organizational performance. She has a book on the topic, ‘Socrates in the Boardroom: Why Research Universities Should be Led by Top Scholars’ (Princeton University Press, October 2009). During the first half of 2008 Amanda was a Research Fellow at Cornell University, and she spent the latter part of the year as a Visiting Fellow at the University of Zurich. She gained her PhD in 2007 at Warwick Business School.

Amanda’s journal publications and CV are available at www.amandagoodall.com .

Tuesday

Gianmario Verona, Bocconi University

12.01.2010

(De-)Institutionalizing Organizational Competence. Olivetti's Transition from Mechanical to Electronic Technology

Abstract: This article analyzes the competence-destroying transition from mechanical to electronic technology at Olivetti, a leading Italian office machines firm. It develops a unifying framework of the organizational process by which a new technological competence displaces an existing technological competence. It shows how a technological competence becomes institutionalized through the increasing convergence of its cognitive, moral, and pragmatic legitimacy, the power of organizational agents, and attainment and allocation of organizational resources. However, the reinforcing relationships between legitimacy, power, and resources may also be broken to aid in the deinstitutionalization of an incumbent technology while placing the building blocks of its alternate. The study identifies four levers of technological transition: organizational separation, cooptation, exploiting contradictions and dissensus, and resource diversion.

Friday

Taco H. Reus, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University

11.12.2009

Transfer Effects in Large Acquisitions: How Size-Specific Experience Matters

Abstract: Building upon transfer theory of learning, we examine whether size-specific experience influences performance following large, related acquisitions. Our results suggest that while prior experience in making large, related acquisitions transfers positively to this focal situation, experience in small, related acquisitions hurts firm performance. Further, we find that dissimilarity in product offerings and geographic reach, and similarity in organizational cultures, exacerbates the negative effects of having experience in small, related acquisitions. Finally, we find that retaining acquired top managers and engaging in lower levels of integration in large, related acquisitions aids acquirers in better drawing on experiences from smaller related acquisitions.

Friday

Davies, A., Frederiksen, L., Hartmann, A.; the presenter will be Lars Frederiksen.

27.11.2009

The Road to Replication: A case study of highways agencies in England and the Netherlands

Abstract: Replication is a process of leveraging new knowledge to reproduce an organizational practice across a large number of units across time and space. As such reuse process of knowledge, replication is frequently a mitigating factor for the cost of innovation (Langlois, 1999). We extend research on strategic replication by examining the life cycle of activities involved in generating a practice in preparation for replication and transferring that practice across multiple outlets. Building on Winter & Szulanski’s (2001) observation that replication is a process involving a life cycle of activities, we explore the dynamics of knowledge generation and transfer along two dimensions: (1) the exploration of new a “working example” or template and exploitation of this template across many simultaneous examples; and (2) the interaction between dynamic and operational capabilities as the template is created, refined and prepared for rollout. The research setting is a qualitative comparative study of two large public sector highways agencies: the RWS in the Netherlands and Highways Agency in England. A conceptual framework is developed inductively based on our analysis and interpretation of the case study material. We demonstrate how the two organizations followed different roads to replication. Our replication lifecycle framework is useful for identifying problems that occur when an organization involved in transitioning from idea generation to replication tries to accelerate too quickly (little time for reflection), misses out a stage in the process, or moves too slowly.

Friday

Sathyajit Gubbi (Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta)

20.11.2009

Do Business Groups Facilitate or Constrain Affiliates' Adaption to Institutional Transitions in Developing Economies?

Abstract: Drawing from organizational ecology and institutional theories, we examine whether business groups facilitate or constrain affiliate firms’ adaptation to institutional transitions emanating from economic and market reforms. Empirical results from a panel of firms from the Indian pharmaceutical industry during the period 1992-2007 support the inertia arguments proposed by these theories. That is, we find that given their embeddedness in past institutional contexts, business group affiliated firms are less likely than independent firms to adapt through exploration of new markets. However, we also uncover important contingencies related to the scope of institutional transitions and within-group dynamics that temper inertial forces prevalent in business groups. In particular, we find that business group affiliation militates against firms’ adaptation only when institutional changes are specific to the affiliates’ industry, but not when changes are broad-based and impacting the business group as a whole. We also find that amongst affiliated firms, those occupying a prominent position within the group or externally in the industry are able to bargain for and get the necessary business group attention and support for new strategic initiatives.

Friday

S. Morris (The Ohio State University); Scott A. Snell (University of Virginia); Ryan Hammon (MIT). Shad Morris will present the paper.

06.11.2009

Meeting Transnational Objectives through Individual Knowledge Search

Abstract: We develop a micro-foundations learning approach to the transnational framework. In a study of 105 globally dispersed projects in a multinational enterprise (MNE), we examine the internal, external, and codified knowledge search of project leaders and link these activities to the transnational objectives of responsiveness, learning, and efficiency. Consistent with learning and MNE literatures, we find that searching outside the organization for help with specific tasks of a project increases learning. Codified search helps ensure that the project is done efficiently and that learning occurs as well. Finally, we find that when project leaders search inside the organization for help in completing a project that the project is much more responsive and impactful to the client. These findings show how different transnational objectives require different knowledge search activities, as well as provide a task level understanding of how individuals might facilitate the achievement of these seemingly paradoxical organizational objectives.

Wednesday

Jochen Schweitzer, University of Technology, Sydney

21.10.2009

The Role of Governance and Leadership for Capability Development in Strategic Alliances

Abstract: "This study aims to verify whether heterogeneity in alliance capability development and performance can be attributed to the use of certain intra-firm governance practices and associated leadership behaviors. We suggest that transformational leadership behavior has a significant influence on the development of dynamic capabilities and subsequent alliance performance when it co-occurs with stewardship governance, whereas transactional leadership behavior has a significant influence on the alliance when partnering firms choose principal-agent type governance. Data from 369 alliances show that the positive relationship between transformational leadership and the development of dynamic capabilities is stronger with stewardship governance, and weaker with agency governance. In the case of stewardship governance, transactional leadership behavior too is significantly associated with dynamic and operational capability development."

Jochen is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Business at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and a Researcher at CMOS, the Centre for Management & Organisation Studies. Before joining UTS he worked as a strategist and management consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers and IBM where he gained extensive experience in strategy development and implementation, process improvement, and change management. At UTS Jochen teaches Marketing Strategy in the MBA program. His research focuses on questions of strategic management and marketing; it concentrates on understanding the role and importance of governance, managerial behaviour and capability development in enhancing strategic organisational performance. This work is applied, for example, to the context of strategic alliances, the management of creative organisations and service businesses. Jochen's work has been published in academic journals and books and has been presented and recognised at a number of international conferences. In 2008 he won the Strategic Management Societies' Best PhD Paper Award and an Honorable Mention as Best Conference paper, and in 2009 he was awarded an Honorable Mention as finalist for the Academy of Management Dissertation Award of the Business Policy and Strategy Division.

Friday

Oliver Baumann (Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich) and Nils Stieglitz (University of Southern Denmark)

18.09.2009

"How do incentives influence organizational search?"

Prior research suggests that organizational capabilities emerge from processes of variation, selection, and retention within firms. In this context, internal variation is of particular importance, as it provides the grist for selection and retention. At its core, variation stems from the members of an organization that engage in (boundedly rational) search for novel decision alternatives. Little is known, however, about how organizational search and, in turn, the generation of variation, are affected by organizational incentives.
Drawing on insight from organizational economics, we develop a simulation model to address this issue. In our model, incentives serve to induce search for “projects” (and for their refinement) among the members of an organization that compete for selection by upper management. Our modeling structure rests on two opposing effects of organizational incentives. On the one hand, higher-powered incentives stimulate more intensive search; on the other, they increase the competition for limited resources and managerial attention among the new alternatives. In this paper, we thus ask: What are the trade-offs between these effects, and how can they be effectively balanced?
Our preliminary results suggest that for most organizations, higher-powered incentives may not be the panacea to increase innovativeness. While they do increase internal variation, they come at a hefty price, as the organization not only shares a substantial part of the created value with the inventor, but also creates excessive internal variation. Here, superior projects crowd out many good projects. Small firms, in contrast, are different, as they face the problem of sustaining internal variation and thus benefit from higher-powered incentives. Furthermore, if strong persistence is required for developing a new idea, only higher-powered incentives provide the long-term motivation for slow learning and sustained determination in large organizations.

Tuesday

T.L. Hill (Temple University) and Ram Mudambi (Temple University)

23.06.2009

Longing To Belong and The Governance Of Knowledge-Intensive Organizations

We develop theory to account for innovations in organizational form – such as network organizations, research alliances and open-source communities – in knowledge-intensive settings. Drawing on transaction cost economics, knowledge, evolutionary psychology, social identity and embeddedness theories, we propose a parallel relational dimension of governance, fueled on the existential search for belonging, to complement the transactional dimension of governance. This leads us to suggest a novel form – democracy – to round out the market, hierarchy, clan array. The resulting taxonomy offers insight into the fit between organizational forms and the task and motivation environments and into the evolution of organizational forms.

Monday

Cristina Rossi Lamastra (Politecnico di Milano)

22.06.2009

"Does Firms' Involvement in The Open Source Movement Ask For New Organisational Forms? The Case Of Employees' Empowerment” (co-authored with M.G. Colombo and E. Piva)

12:30-

The Open Source (OS) phenomenon has evolved from an ideological-oriented movement to a well grounded economic reality, involving more and more firms in the software sector. Software companies are getting increasingly aware that OS communities constitute an important source of new ideas and knowledge, as their permeable boundaries and self-organisation behaviours make them a powerful locus of collective innovation. Given the peculiar structure of OS communities, firms aiming at proficiently interacting with them have to design governing mechanisms allowing overcome the paradoxical tension between control and cooperation. In this framework, the paper explores which firm-specific characteristics and features of firm-community interaction shape the adoption of new organisational forms, leading companies to delegate to their employees discretionary control over the relationships with OS communities. A set of hypotheses, grounded in the wide literature on Organisational Design, is developed and tested on a dataset drawn from a survey taken in 2004 on 290 European software firms doing business out of OS. The estimates of a two-steps Heckman Probit model reveal that the likelihood of empowerment increases with firms’ size, number of OS product categories offered, and radical innovation outcomes. Conversely, the number of OS projects the firm participates in negatively affects the delegation of decision authority to employees.

will be held at INO (Kilen, Kilevej 14A); Room: K.3.41

Wednesday

Niklas L. Hallberg (Lund University)

20.05.2009

Towards a Resource-based Theory of Value Appropriation: An Appropriation Factor Framework

13:30-14:30

This paper highlights the problem the resource-based view faces in explaining value appropriation and proposes a framework that addresses how resources affect bargaining power and value appropriation. The appropriation factor framework presented in this paper states that particular resources, termed appropriation factors, affect bargaining power, and thus the possibility for economic agents of appropriating a larger share of rents. Based on this framework, it is argued that investments in heterogeneous and immobile appropriation factors that facilitate value appropriation through elevated bargaining power can constitute an alternative avenue to sustained competitive advantage.

Friday

Philip C. Nell

15.05.2009

The Evolution of Regional Management Centres over Time - An Information Processing Perspective

Early work on regional structures in multinational corporations (MNCs) focused on explaining why such "area divisions" are adopted instead of product or matrix structures. These early contributions by Stopford and Wells (1972) and Egelhoff (1982) drew on contingency theory and its application entitled the information processing approach. While this stream of research produced important insights into the motives of adopting regional structures, it disregarded the types of regional management centers available for MNCs. Furthermore, these investigations did not capture differing information processing requirements or structural responses between MNC regions - a claim frequently made by scholars advancing the idea of semi-globalisation (e.g. Rugman 2005). Due to cross-sectional data, early work also suffered from a survival bias and did not explain how MNCs achieve organisational fit, that is the process of matching information-processing requirements with respective information-processing capacities. Therefore, the present study details a process of structural adaptation over four decades by examining the evolution of regional management in one European MNC. We develop a systemic model of regional information processing capacity and discuss its theoretical implications for the role of corporate headquarters, the survival of individual regional management centres, and the challenges of organisational misfit and structural adaptation.

Monday

Oliver Gottschalg

04.05.2009

Motivation and the Determinants of Firm Boundaries

This paper offers novel insights into the determinants of firm boundaries. Drawing on motivation theory as the primary analytical tool, we identify several sources of diseconomies of scale and scope that decrease the likelihood of task integration. The underlying model points to the role of (a) motivional preferences of employees, (b) motivational requirements of different sub-tasks, (c) employees’ tolerance for inequality and (d) motivational capablities of the organization as factors that influence the choice of firm boundaries. The corresponding arguments are complementary to the insights offered by transaction-cost based and competence-based approaches to the question of firm boundaries. Their joint consideration enables us to increase the accuracy and explanatory power of our predictions regarding make-or-buy decisions.

Friday

Peter Ø. Jensen

This paper addresses a recent strand of offshoring research that concerns the processes of evolution and change that appear in offshoring partnerships after the launch of offshoring operations. Based on longitudinal case studies of offshoring of advanced IT and engineering services from Danish firms to Indian firms, I identify a process model with three stages that captures the evolution of the initial 1-2 years of the offshoring partnership. Overall, the data portray a rapid development of the Danish-Indian offshoring partnerships which show that once trust is established and offshoring firms gain experience, the offshoring firms will increase the sophistication as well as expand the range and volume of advanced work done offshore. The dynamics of the process therefore suggest that at a broader scale, advanced services offshoring will increase in the coming years.

Friday

Stephanie Schleimer (Griffith Business School)

17.04.2009

The value-adding nature of collaborative workflows and collaborative ownership: A test of intra-firm and inter-firm collaboration in new product development

Friday

Larissa Rabbiosi

03.04.2009

Friday

Henrik Dellestrand

20.03.2009

Friday

Lydia Bals

13.03.2009

Offshore outsourcing is gaining increasing importance and attention in both theory and practice. The purpose of this research is to use nine in-depth case studies to analyze the evolution of offshore services outsourcing with regard to how expectations and governance structures change over time. Five testable propositions are presented, building on institutional theory, transaction cost, and resource-based perspectives. The cases demonstrate that offshore outsourcing is initiated because of increasing internal and external pressure to conform and reduce costs. Moreover, companies “chase” efficiency improvements in other geographic locations. But after reducing costs, companies discover more strategic benefits such as the potential to increase quality and market share. Importantly, as buyer-supplier relationships move from tactical to more strategic, expectations and governance structures change.

Friday

Jasper Hotho (University of Groningen)

06.03.2009

Three varieties of institutionalism currently dominate international business studies: new institutional economics, new organizational institutionalism, and comparative historical institutionalism. Yet corresponding measures of institutional country distance are only available for the first two strands of institutionalism. This paper addresses the under-representation of comparative historical institutional thought in currently available measures of institutional distance. Building on Whitley’s business systems framework, a measure of institutional distance is developed and validated which captures intrinsic, substantive institutional differences in economic organization, rather than differences in institutional effectiveness. The results of the two-stage cluster analysis used to validate the selected indicators closely approximate the business systems typology, which is both indicative of the validity of this measure and of the distinctiveness of the business system types that make up the business system framework

Friday

Alexander Stremitzer (University of Bonn)

27.02.2009

Standard Breach Remedies, Quality Thresholds, and Cooperative Investments

14:00-15:30

When investments are non-verifiable, inducing cooperative investments with simple contracts may not be as difficult as previously thought. Indeed, modeling “expectation damages” close to legal practice, we show that the default remedy of contract law induces the first best. Yet, in order to lower informational requirements of courts, parties may opt for a "specific performance" regime which grants the breached-against buyer an option to choose "restitution" if the tender’s value falls below some (arbitrarily chosen) quality threshold. In order to implement this regime, no more information needs to be verifiable than is implicitly assumed in Che and Hausch (1999).

Keywords: breach remedies, incomplete contracts, cooperative investments.

held in room: k.3.41, CBS Kilen, Kilevej 14A, 2000 Frederiksberg

Friday

Riccardo Fini (University of Bologna)

27.02.2009

Individual intentions influence human behaviors and, as a consequence, organizational outcomes. Therefore, the ability to understand and to predict intentions becomes a central issue in the managerial literature. In this contribution we study the formulation of entrepreneurial intentions. Drawing on a widely used intentional paradigm, the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), we model the influence of individual characteristics and contextual variables on the intention formation process.

Relying on a sample of 200 entrepreneurs, founders of 133 new-technology-based firms, we test a theoretical model of the micro-foundation of entrepreneurial intention. Our results show that entrepreneurial intention is influenced by psychological characteristics, by individual skills and by environmental influences. Managerial implications related to the creation of the conditions fostering entrepreneurial intentions within companies are discussed.

Wednesday

Robert Kaše

04.02.2009

Practical Issues of Adopting Social Network Perspectives and Methodologies in HRM Research

In the seminar the research project »Effects of HR Practices on Knowledge Transfer in Knowledge-Intensive Firms: The Mediating Role of Social Network Dimensions« will be used as an example of how social network perspectives and methodology can be used in human resource management research. Decisions that a researcher has to make when adopting social network perspectives and the tools that are available will be presented and discussed. The emphasis will be on developing appropriate research designs, gathering actor-based and relational data, selecting appropriate methods for data analysis, and performing confirmative social network analyses (MRQAP, p*). The seminar will conclude with a discussion about opportunities and limitations of social network perspectives and methodology for management research in the near future.

Paper is not currently available

Friday

Simon Torp (AU-HIH/CBS)

30.01.2009

Friday

James Hayton (Bocconi University)

23.01.2009

HRM and Corporate Entrepreneurial Capabilities: The role of people management in building strategic entrepreneurship in SMEs around the world

This seminar will describe results from an ongoing research program that examines how Human Resource Management (HRM) practices influence the entrepreneurial capabilities of small and medium sized enterprises. To illustrate the progress and current status of the program, two studies will be presented: one from China, and one from Italy. In the China study (n=142 firms) we examine how HRM practices at two levels (management level and employee level) can exert different influence on entrepreneurial performance. We find evidence of two faces of HRM: HR practices that stimulate organizational managers to engage in internal and external network building interact positively with an innovation strategy to produce higher levels of entrepreneurial performance; However, at the employee level, a strict adherence to formalized and individualized HR practices acts to constrain entrepreneurial performance under an innovation strategy.

In our second study, we present a model and data that illustrates how individualist and collectivist cultural characteristics are related to three corporate entrepreneurial capabilities: opportunity identification, knowledge integration and opportunity exploitation. Drawing on the ability, motivation, opportunity framework, we argue that culture influences these capabilities indirectly through HRM policy choices. We adopt a two dimensional view of individualism and collectivism which allows these dimensions to vary independently of each other, and creates the possibility for a firm to exhibit high or low levels of each. We hypothesize that firms high in both individualism and collectivism will create compatible HRM systems which together influence opportunity identification and knowledge integration. Thus HRM is a mediator of the effect of culture on corporate entrepreneurial capabilities. Our empirical study involves data from multiple respondents in 81 Italian SMEs. Hypotheses are tested using hierarchical regression and path analysis. The evidence strongly supports the hypothesized influence of both culture and HRM on these entrepreneurial capabilities.

Currently, no paper is available

Wednesday

Guido Bünstorf (Max Planck Institute of Economics)

21.01.2009

This paper conceptualizes the process of spin-off entrepreneurship out of incumbent firms. It proposes a distinction between opportunity and necessity spin-offs, which is based on the events triggering spin-off formation. Differences and commonalities between the two spin-off types are explored for the German laser industry. Necessity spin-offs play an important role in competitive market dynamics, as they limit the devaluation of human capital brought about by adverse shocks to individual firms. This role of spin-offs in reusing employee competences appears most relevant in situations where it is particularly hard for the respective individuals to find new employment in existing firms.

These situations include growth crises of innovative firms, but also more macroeconomic crises such as the liberalization of formerly protected industries and the transition from centrally planned economies to capitalist systems.

Friday

Stefan Linder (Copenhagen Business School - SMG)

14.11.2008

Strategy Processes from the Perspective of First-line- and Middle-Managers

Wednesday

Philip Nell (WU - Wien)

12.11.2008

MNC relationships to the local context - exploring the phenomenon of embeddedness overlap

Friday

Yang Fan (London Business School)

07.11.2008

The impact of inter-firm relationships on the allocation of control rights in bio-pharmaceutical alliances

Thursday

Saras Sarasvathy (The Darden School - University of Virginia)

06.11.2008 at 15.00

Effectuation: Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise

Marketing Under Uncertainty - The Logic of an Effectual Approach

Effectuation - Elements of Intrepreneurial Expertise

Monday

Grazia Santangelo (University of Catania)

27.10.2008

The Restructuring of Dynamic Capabilities through Corporate Expansion (with John Cantwell)

Friday

Deepak Somaya (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

17.10.2008
at 10.00

The Outsourcing of Knowledge-Based Services: Professional, Domain, and Firm-Specific Knowledge (Over Time)

We seek to advance our understanding of outsourcing decisions in knowledge-based activities by examining the relative advantages in three types of knowledge – professional, domain, and firm-specific – between external suppliers and internal functions within the firm. By drawing on mutually reinforcing advantages in the client and labor markets, suppliers may develop systematic advantages in expert professional knowledge relative to clients. Prior outsourcing decisions in turn influence the relative domain and firm-specific knowledge held by supplier versus client firms, leading to path dependent patterns in outsourcing. We leverage a unique dataset on outsourcing in the patent legal industry to test our propositions; however, our work has implications for outsourcing decisions and knowledge-based services more broadly.

Friday

Tomas Hult (Michigan State University)

10.10.2008

Knowledge and Supply Chain Competitiveness

Friday

Lydia Bals (European Business School)

26.09.2008

What is a “Born Global” Firm?

Thursday

Wolfgang Sofka (University of Hamburg)

11.09.2008

Knowledge Protection Strategies of MNC Subsidiaries

Formal and Strategic Knowledge Protection Strategies of Multinational Firms – A Cross Country Comparison

Friday

Torben Juul Andersen (Copenhagen Business School - SMG)

05.09.2008

Effective Strategy Making and Risk-Return Relationships

Friday

Monica Masucci (Copenhagen Business School - SMG)

29.08.2008

Demystifying the impact of management control systems on MNC subsidiary entrepreneurship

Monday

Dana Minbaeva (Copenhagen Business School - SMG)

04.08 2008

The FSE application for "Global HRM" Project

Wednesday

Steven Globerman (Western Washington University)

16.07.2008

Location Attributes of International Strategic Alliance Partners and the Performance of International Strategic Alliances: A Critical evaluation of Theory and Evidence

Virtually all theoretical discussions of ISAs highlight the important role that location attributes of ISA partners play in influencing the performance outcomes of ISAs. Despite the prominence given to location attributes in the literature, especially through concepts such as “culture distance”, the empirical evidence regarding their statistical importance in models of ISA performance is, at best, mixed and inconclusive. This paper reviews the conceptual arguments that have been made for the importance of location attributes, as well as the results of around 30 empirical studies. It identifies and evaluates arguments that have been made to explain the inconsistent empirical findings with regard to location attributes. It also suggests an approach to modeling location attributes as mediating variables in models of ISA performance.

Note: As this is very preliminary research, only Power Point slides will be available at the presentation.

Friday

Christian Geisler Asmussen (Copenhagen Business School - SMG)

27.06.2008

Building Knowledge Assets in the Multinational Corporation: the Roles of Organization, Knowledge Sources, and Absorptive Capacity

The literature on “Differentiated Multinational Corporations” proposes that such firms can be seen as networks of units that each control heterogeneous and potentially complementary knowledge assets, and that they may derive advantages relative to national firms to the extent that they can build complementarities between such knowledge assets. We develop a simple formal model of these ideas, and test hypotheses derived from the model against a unique dataset on subsidiary knowledge development which includes information on organizational instruments, sources of subsidiary knowledge, and the extent of knowledge transfer to other MNC units. We find that externally acquired knowledge has a negative effect on subsidiary knowledge transfer if the subsidiary possesses low levels of internally generated knowledge, but a positive effect if it possesses high levels of internally generated knowledge. We estimate the threshold that determines whether external knowledge becomes an asset or a liability to the MNC.

The paper is available from the authors upon request: ( cga.smg@cbs.dk)

Discussants: Stephen Tallman and Ram Mudambi

Friday

Ram Mudambi (Temple University)

20.06.2008

Longing to Belong: The Governance of Knowledge-Intensive Organizations

We extend the transaction cost economics framework to account for organizational forms including network organizations, research alliances and open-source communities. Drawing on social identity and embeddedness theories, we propose a social structure dimension to complement the transaction specification dimension and a novel form – democracy – to round out the market, (hybrid), hierarchy, clan array. The resulting taxonomy offers insight into the fit between forms and environmental conditions and into the evolution of organizational forms.

Friday

Nicolai Juul Foss (Copenhagen Business School - SMG)

13.06.2008

Social Reality, the Boundaries of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, and Economics: the Other Side of the Argument

Organizational scholars have recently argued that economic theories and assumptions have adversely shaped management practice and human behavior, leading not only to the incorporation of trust-eroding market-mechanisms into organizations but also unnecessarily creating self-interested behavior. A number of highly influential papers have argued that the /self-fulfilling nature/ of (even false) theories provides the underlying mechanism through which economics has adversely shaped management practice and individual behavior. We question these arguments, and argue that there are important boundary conditions to theories falsely fulfilling themselves, boundary conditions that have hitherto been unexplored in organizational research, and boundary conditions which question the underlying premises used by organizational scholars to attack economics. We specifically build on highly relevant findings from social psychology, philosophy and organizational economics to show how (1) objective reality and (2) human nature provide two important boundary conditions for theories (falsely or otherwise) fulfilling themselves. We also defend organizational economics, specifically the use of high-powered incentives in organizations, and argue that self-interest (rightly understood) facilitates in creating beneficial individual and collective and societal outcomes.

Friday

Teppo Felin (Brigham Young University)

06.06.2008

Social and Organization Theory: States of Nature and First Principles

Theories of organization start with some taken-for-granted assumptions that deserve further consideration and theoretical development. The purpose of this presentation is to unpack these implicit assumptions in organization theory and to highlight the first principles of organization theory and associated states of nature. I point to important (information-related) changes in the organizational landscape that warrant a re-visitation of organizational first principles, with important normative prescriptions. I also offer a comparative framework for deriving organizational first principles, by discussing how such first principles and associated progress has been made in the sciences. Finally, I suggest key directions for future research based on a first principles program of research and discuss implications for the future of organization theory and theories of the firm.

Friday

Mia Reinholt (Copenhagen Business School - SMG)

23.05.2008

Knowledge Sharing among Employees: Different Knowledge Sharing Behaviors, Different Motivational Foundations

Three types of employee behavior are important for effective knowledge sharing in organizations: knowledge inflow, knowledge outflow, and knowledge application. Drawing on extant knowledge sharing and motivational research, it is argued that these different behaviors have different motivational foundations. It is hypothesized that intrinsic motivation and in particular reciprocity-based motivation underlie employees’ inflow of knowledge; reciprocity-based and in particular external motivation underlie employees’ outflow of knowledge; and intrinsic motivation underlies employees’ creative application of knowledge. Apart from main effects, the hypotheses include predictions on the interaction between each of the three motivation types and external rewards for knowledge sharing. It is argued that such rewards in some cases combine positively, and in other cases negatively, with knowledge sharing motivation. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 359 employees from two consulting firms. While the findings support that different motivational foundations underlie the three behaviors, no undermining effects of external rewards are found.

Wednesday

Mie Harder (Copenhagen Business School - SMG)

30.04.2008

What are the Internal Determinants and the Performance Consequences of Management Innovation?

Management innovation refers to the introduction of new managerial practices or organizational structures. Although management innovations are often more systemic and difficult to imitate than technological innovations, and therefore may be especially important in building and sustaining competitive advantage, the phenomenon remains relatively understudied. Therefore, this research project aims at furthering the knowledge about management innovation in two ways. First, the project will attempt to develop a theoretical framework and terminology for studying management innovation. Second, the project will include an empirical study of the internal antecedents of management innovations and the effects of management innovation on firm performance. At the seminar, a preliminary typology and model of management innovation will be presented. Furthermore, a proposed research design will be discussed.

Friday

Dana Minbaeva (Copenhagen Business School - SMG)

25.04.2008

Organizational Values and Knowledge Sharing Behavior in MNCs

We examine how organizational values affect knowledge sharing among individuals in multinational corporations (MNCs). Through content analysis and participant observation in a MNC we identify dialogue and collective efficacy as core values influencing knowledge sharing. We then hypothesize a positive relationship between the internalization of these core values and intra-organizational knowledge sharing. We test the hypothesized relationships on a sample of 219 responses from the employee survey we conducted with multiple respondents from geographically dispersed business units of Dansico. We find a positive relationship between the level of internalization of dialogue and collective efficacy and the degree of individual knowledge-sharing behavior. We also find that, when enacted, the value of dialogue leads to higher knowledge inflows by the individual while the value of collective efficacy leads to higher individual knowledge outflows.

Tuesday

Siegwart M. Lindenberg (University of Groningen)

22.04.2008

HRM Instruments: Culture or Best Practice -Theory and Comparison of Two Countries

Friday

Center for Strategic Management and Globalization

11.04.2008

Paper Development Workshop

Monday

Yvonne Borkelmann (Copenhagen Business School - SMG)

14.04.2008
at 14.00

Power in the Multinational Corporation

The understanding of the organization of modern Multinational Corporations (MNCs) has shifted from a hierarchical view to that of a heterarchy or an interorganizational network.
Headquarters are no longer portrayed and understood as holding formal authority over subsidiaries, because the tradeoff MNCs face between local responsiveness and integration forces on the other hand causes some subsidiaries that are locally adapted to create own resources and capabilities. These subsidiaries’ objective thereby shifts from exploitation to exploration and from competence exploiting to competence creating.
Acknowledging this evolution of subsidiary roles, this seminar will discuss how our understanding of the MNC can be enhanced when integrating the literature on power relationships in organizations more closely with International Business literature. When resources are no longer merely loaned but owned by the respective subsidiary, subsidiaries’ bargaining power is considerably increased.
Agency theory that is helpful in understanding the hierarchical HQ-subsidiary relationship alone cannot capture the more complex power relations that arise with resource creating subsidiaries. It will be shown how agency theory however is complimentary to resource dependence theory in understanding the differentiated MNC

Friday

Jay B. Barney (Ohio State University)

04.04.2008

So, Why Do Some Firm Outperform Others?

Professor Jay B. Barney is one of the most prolific and cited contributors to strategic management theory. He is generally regarded as the main originator of, and driver behind, the resource-based view, the dominant perspective in strategic management since the beginning of the 1990s. In this talk, Professor Barney discusses the past, present, and future of the RBV, particularly how it addresses the key issue in the strategic management field, that is, explaining long-lived performance differences between firms.

Thursday

Dana Minbaeva (Copenhagen Business School - SMG)- in cooperation with Asia Research Center, CBS

28.02.2008

Conquering KazOil: the experience of Canadian and Chinese acquisitions

Using "national culture perspective" and "MNC as a cultural system perspective" we analyze how cultural differences affect the degree of capability transfer to the acquired unit. We followed one company located in Kazakhstan over 10 years and during two acquisitions by very culturally different MNCs from two different national cultures - one more culturally distant than another (Canada and China respectively). Results of our investigation allow us further elaborate on the model of capability transfer in cross-border acquisitions developed by Bjorkman, Stahl and Vaara (2007). In particular, we specify their propositions with regards to the types of integration mechanisms used, elaborate on the role of operational integration and stressed the importance of the realized absorptive capacity.

Monday

Michael Jacobides (London Business School)

17.12.2007

Industry Architectures and Global Dynamics

The seminar will introduce the drivers and, most important, the implications of different ways to organize and divide labour along the value chain. Drawing on Michael Jacobides' work on "industry architectures" and his previous publications on what drives a sectors' vertical structure, he will consider how these patterns differ between countries. He will look at how comparative value chain structure / industry architecture mediates the ability to expand globally, on the basis of a recently accepted conceptual paper (download below). He will then present data on success in global expansion in Eastern Europe that provide empirical support for the main thesis. Finally, he will present, by way of extension, his other ongoing empirical project with Carliss Baldwin on the evolution of profit along an industry's architecture.

Industry Architectures
Playing Football in a Soccer Field_Value Chain Structures, Institutional Modularity, and Success in Foreign Expansion

Friday

Gianmario Verona (Bocconi University)- in cooperation with Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics, CBS

30.11.2007 13:00 at INO

Market Orientation and R&D Effectiveness in High-technology Firm: an Empirical Investigation in the Biotechnology Industry

There seems to be lack of consensus among informed scholars about the importance a of market orientation for high-technology firms. This controversy may be alimented to two limitations of existing research on market orientation and innovation performance. First, extant research often overlooked key innovation outcomes for high-technology firms, such as those related to Research and Development (R&D) performance. Second, it proposed little about organizational conditions which can ensure an optimal integration of market knowledge in the high-technology firms’ innovation process. The present study addresses these problems by providing a test of the effect of market orientation on R&D effectiveness and the moderating role of knowledge integration, using a sample of biotechnology firms. Results show that the different dimensions of a market orientation have diverse effects on R&D effectiveness of high-technology firms: while interfunctional coordination is inherently valuable, customer orientation needs to be complemented by knowledge integration, and competitor orientation does not seem to be influential. The authors discuss how these findings contribute to understanding the role of market orientation in high-technology industries, and conclude by providing directions for future research.

Notice!

The seminar will take place at the Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics, Kilevej 13a, 2000 Frederiksberg, Room 3.41.

Friday

Bo Nielsen (Copenhagen Business School - SMG)

09.11.2007

New Insight on Firm Internationalization: A Growth Mixture Modeling with Latent Trajectory Classes Approach

While the literature has recognized that companies follow different internationalization patterns, rarely have international growth trajectories been studied systematically on a large sample in a longitudinal setting. Based on multiple internationalization measures, we use latent class analysis to identify clusters of firms among the world’s largest MNCs. We further investigate internationalization patterns over time (1990-2005) by estimating growth trajectory shapes for each of these clusters. Next, we analyze the factors (antecedents) that determine (1) a firm’s membership to a certain latent class, (2) the growth trajectory (internationalization pattern) of the classes,
and (3) the within class variation among firms. Finally, we aim to explore the consequences of the different internationalization patterns on performance. This is work-in-progress and we look forward to discuss our preliminary findings with you.

Friday

Karl-Heinz Leitner (Austrian Research Centers)

02.11.2007

The dynamics of intended, emergent and realized strategies in SMEs: A longitudinal study

The paper studies the nature of strategy process and its impact on firm performance using a longitudinal study of SMEs in Austria. In two surveys in 1995 and 2003 data on the strategic behavior and performance of the same group of 91 firms was gathered. In contrast to other studies the strategy-making mode was not only assessed by a self-assessment of the managers but by the analysis of strategy content. In
the product-market domain emergent and deliberate strategies were identified using criteria for intention and actions at two points of time. The aim is to identify the nature of strategy formation in SMEs considering strategy process as well as industry factors.

Monday

Henry Sauermann (Duke University)

29.10.2007

What makes them trick? Employee Motives and Industrial Innovation

With few exceptions, empirical innovation research has focused on firm-level pecuniary incentives. Innovation at the firm-level, however, should also depend heavily on the level and quality of individual effort in response to individuals’ pecuniary as well as non-pecuniary incentives. In this paper, we examine the impact of individual-level motives and incentives upon innovative effort and performance. Based on research in economics and social psychology, we first develop a basic model of the impact of extrinsic, intrinsic, and social incentives on individuals' innovative effort and performance. Using a survey-based data set (SESTAT 2003), we then present descriptive data on the motives salient to personnel in industrial R&D and test predictions derived from our model. In doing so, we control for a wide range of other variables at the individual, firm, and industry level that have been considered in prior innovation research. We find that individuals engaged in industrial R&D have strong extrinsic, intrinsic, and social motives and that there are systematic differences in these motives across types of individuals and work settings. Motives have significant effects upon innovative effort and performance. These effects vary significantly, however, depending on the particular kind of motive (e.g., intellectual challenge vs. pay). We also find that intrinsic and extrinsic motives affect innovative performance even when controlling for effort, suggesting that motives affect not only the quantity of effort individuals exert, but also the innovative productivity of that effort. Overall, intrinsic motives (in particular, intellectual challenge) appear to be at least as beneficial for innovation as extrinsic motives (e.g., pay). Our results suggest important implications for management and public policy, as well as interesting avenues for future research on innovative activity and performance in organizations.

Friday

Lars Bo Jeppesen (Copenhagen Business School-IVS)

26.10.2007

Attracting Needles from the Haystack: The Importance of Marginality in a Broadcast Search and Solution Attraction Problem Solving Context

We examine who the winning solvers are in science innovation prize contests characterized by open broadcast of problem information and self-selection of solvers to previously unsolved R&D problems from the laboratories of science-based firms. We find that technical and social marginality play an important role in explaining success in problem solving. The provision of a winning solution was positively correlated with increasing distance between the solver’s field of expertise and the focal field of the problem. Our findings contribute to theory on problem solving search, and highlight the potential of a problem solving process where marginal individuals effectively match their solutions to intractable problems inside the firm.

Friday

Marco Weiss (Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University) - in cooperation with Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics, CBS

12.10.2007

Efficient Organizational Design

Good Organizational design provides incentives for value generation and determines an efficient power distribution in organizations. This book investigates both theoretically and practically how organizations can be designed for efficiency.
In the first part of this book the theory of organizational design is described. Using the method of system theory the different building blocks of Good organizational design - the strategy, the structure, the boundaries, and the governance of organizations- are analyzed by highlighting the latest thinking on organizations from different academic disciplines. The interdependencies between these building blocks are emphasised, and a blueprint for an efficient organizational design is sketched. Some remarks on how necessary adjustments in organizational theory can be made complete the theory. Three case studies in the second part of the book apply the theory of organizational design.
This book allows academic researchers and professional managers alike to concentrate their mind on achieving efficiency in organizational design and helps them to design their own organizations more efficiently by applying the ideas and examples portrayed herein.

Additional information about Marco Weiss’ book can be found here .

Friday

Andre Sammartino (University of Melbourne)

05.10.2007

Subsidiaries in Motion: Assessing the impact of sunk vs. flexible assets

This paper addresses an unresolved theoretical issue in international business: the impact of existing, committed assets on parent and subsidiary decisions on future configurations of value-adding activities in host locations. We develop a measure of investment committedness, or the degree of flexibility versus specificity of existing assets in a location, to explore this issue. The measure assesses the extent to which assets, such as brands, human capital, process technologies and supplier relations, retain only scrap value outside their current application, or whether they can be re-deployed to alternative value-adding activities in the host location, or shifted offshore, either within the multinational enterprise (MNE) or to another user. The measure is a key step in developing a model of strategic choice for the future configuration of value-adding activities by MNEs in host locations. Drawing on firm-specific data from 237 MNE subsidiaries operating in Australia, we first present a traditional integration-responsiveness classification of subsidiary activities. This static snapshot of the subsidiaries’ current profiles is then compared and contrasted with the measure’s preliminary findings on the levels of investment committedness and strategic flexibility available to the sample MNEs and how this may shape strategic allocation decisions, including divestment and withdrawal.

24.09.2007

Female Immigrant Entrepreneurship

NB: Room 3.135 Porcelænshaven 18A

There is increasing recognition that female immigrants can play an essential role in the efforts to create higher integration among indigenous populations and newcomers trying to establish a foothold in a new economic and cultural setting. While the concern for integration constitutes an ongoing topic in the Danish political debate, the underlying issue is shared across Europe. In this context, we are pleased to invite you to attend this seminar, where the two senior researchers will introduce this Europe-wide research program aimed at uncovering the potential role of female immigrant entrepreneurs in inducing social integration, self-sufficiency, and economic growth. The Øresund Entrepreneurship Academy, counting Copenhagen Business School as one of its academic partners, is the Danish representative in the research project.

The Case of Albanian Immigrant Businesses in Greece

Proposal for Immigration Research Project

Friday

Michael Mol (University of Reading)

21.09.2007

Management Innovation

The Sources of Management Innovation

The seminar will be two-part. First there will be a presentation of a conceptual paper on management innovation. Here management innovation is defined as the invention and implementation of a management practice, process, structure or technique that is new to the state of the art and is intended to further organizational goals. Adopting an intra-organizational evolutionary perspective, an examination is made of the roles of key change agents inside and outside the organization in driving and shaping four processes -motivation, invention, implementation, and theorization and labeling - that collectively define a model of how management innovation comes about. Michael Mol will proceed with an empirical illustration. He replicates existing literature by showing that internal factors like size, employee education level and market scope impact positively on management innovations, and extends it by showing how external knowledge sources produce a similar effect, consistent with the external search literature in technological innovation. Furthermore he demonstrates a trade-off between internal factors and external sources, in that their joint application produces a negative effect. He also shows that management innovation is positively associated with firm performance in the form of future productivity growth.

Friday

Paul Vlaar (Rotterdam School of Management)

14.9.2007

Revisiting the Debate: Assessing the Impact of Trust, Control and Understanding on Interorganizational Performance

ABSTRACT: Literature on interorganizational collaboration emphasizes trust and control as important determinants of collaborative performance. Although authors joining the ensuing debate have recurrently touched upon understanding as a precursor and consequence of both constructs, this construct has received little explicit attention in literature on interorganizational relationships. We therefore investigate how focal organizations’ understandings of their partners and the alliances in which they are engaged influence interorganizational performance. Our analysis of unique survey data on 76 international joint ventures, indicates that the influence of trust and control on interorganizational performance becomes insignificant when the construct of understanding – deriving from compatibility between partners, negotiation processes and information processing – is introduced in the analysis. At the same time, incorporating understanding in the equation more than doubles the model’s explanatory power. These findings provide preliminary empirical support for the significance of understanding in interorganizational collaboration. They urge researchers and practitioners to pay more attention to processes by which managers in interorganizational relationships advance their understandings, such as partner selection, negotiation and continuous information processing, urging them to revisit the debate on trust and control in interorganizational relationships.

Friday

Stefan Linder (CTCon and WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management)

7.9.2007

Influence of Managerial Controls on Human Needs, Expectations, Attitudes, and Abilities

Even though managerial controls are present almost everywhere in today’s organizations, their behavioral implications are still under-researched. In order to derive a set of propositions about the influence of managerial controls on the needs, expectations, attitudes, and abilities of the individuals involved, a social-cognitive perspective is adopted and psychological theories as well as experimental studies are considered. In fact, the results conclude that the influence of managerial controls on these four factors and in turn on the individual’s behaviour is much more manifold than earlier research has recognized and largely dependant on the respective design of controls.

Friday

Larissa Rabbiosi (Politecnico di Milano)

22.6.2007

Mandates and Mechanisms - Reverse Knowledge Transfer in MNEs

The mandates of multinational enterprise (MNE) subsidiaries vary widely ranging from low level assembly to global responsibilities for entire aspects of the parent firm's business, but can be broadly grouped into 'competence-exploiting' and 'competence-creating' mandates. Competence-creating subsidiaries are increasingly being used as sources of knowledge, generating reverse knowledge transfers.
Using data from 301 Italian MNE subsidiaries, we find that mandates are crucial in pinpointing the determinants of as well as the mechanisms used in reverse knowledge transfer. The effects of subsidiary-specific characteristics like age and entry mode differ significantly across the two types of subsidiaries. Low cost communication media explain knowledge transfer in competence-exploiting subsidiaries, while partnership mechanisms explain transfer in competence-creating subsidiaries.

Friday

Richard Whittington (Saïd Business School) - in cooperation with Center for Business History, CBS

8.6.2007

10:00

Strategy Practice and Strategy Process Research: Family Differences and the Sociological Eye

Completing the Practice Turn in Strategy Research

This paper identifies a practice turn in current strategy research, treating strategy as something people do. However, it argues that this turn is incomplete in that researchers currently concentrate either on strategy activity at the intra-organizational level or on the aggregate effects of this activity at the extra-organizational level. The paper proposes a framework for strategy research that integrates these two levels based on the three concepts of strategy praxis, strategy practices and strategy practitioners. The
paper develops implications of this framework for research, particularly with regard to the impact of strategy practices on strategy praxis, the creation and transfer of strategy practices and the making of strategy practitioners. The paper concludes by outlining the distinctive emphases of the practice perspective within the strategy discipline.

Friday

Paola Gritti (Università degli studi di Bergamo)

25.5.2007

Customer Satisfaction and Competences: An Econometric Study of an Italian Bank

In the context of an empirical examination, we address how customer satisfaction and loyalty in the banking sector impact the branch customer profitability. This helps to identify the strategy and the competences necessary to benefit from customers’ relationships that are seen as prominent means able to built dynamic capabilities and therefore as a potential source of improved performance. We do that analyzing data collected on 2105 customers belonging to 118 branches of one of the biggest banks of an Italian group. We find that customer satisfaction impacts loyalty and that the latter has a direct effect on the customer profitability. Moreover, loyalty is a mediator between customer profitability and two types of customer satisfaction: the first one concerns the relationships with the front office employees and with the branch; and the second one concerns the products offered.

Monday

Tyler Cowen (George Mason University)- in cooperation with imagine.., CBS

21.5.2007 Kilen Ks.48

The Creative Destruction of Cultures at 11.00

Subsidizing the Film Industry: Pros and Cons at 13.30

Friday

Sjoerd Beugelsdijk (Nijmegen School of Management)

11.5.2007

(Mis-) measuring MNE activity by using FDI data: The size and nature of the mismatch between FDI data and operational data

To measure MNE activity at the macro level, many scholars use FDI data. As FDI data are based on capital flows between home and host countries, a mismatch may exist between financial and operational activity. Comparing operational sales data and FDI data of US MNEs, we find that the FDI data bias is a) country-specific, and b) related to the type, quality and structure of the host country’s financial market. The implication of this finding is that sample, research question and the FDI measure are interrelated, potentially leading to over- or under- estimations of the statistical results of FDI data-based studies.

Friday

Rodolphe Durand (HEC)- CANCELLED

27.4.2007

Why do firms reinforce or challenge institutional orders?

In this paper, we argue that firms perform an instrumental role in epitomizing and reshuffling the theories of actions available in their field through their strategic choices. We investigate what are the antecedents of two broad categories of strategic choices: choices that reinforce the existing institutional order and choices that weaken it. We found that four determinants explain whether firms engage into order-reinforcing and order-weakening choices: their professional recognition, their professional embeddedness, the variety of their client portfolio, and their practice diversification. We derive consequences for the sociological analysis of market, the institutional theory, and the routine-based perspective of firms.

Friday

Javier Gimeno (INSEAD)

13.4.2007

Does Earning Pressure Increase or Reduce Competitiveness? Evidence from the U.S. Airline Industry

This paper studies the impact of capital market pressure on the firm's strategic behavior and the competitive interaction with its rivals in product-market competition. Using data from the US airline industry, we examine whether pressures to meet analysts' earnings forecasts, and existing financial constraints, influence the airlines competitive behavior in terms of capacity expansion and price changes, and how these effects influence competitive response. We find that firms reduce the aggressiveness of their strategic behavior (by reducing capacity investments and increasing pricing) if they confront earnings pressure or face financial constraints. These effects lead to systematic competitive responses. Firms increase their capacity and reduce their price when their rivals' earnings pressure is high. The effect of earnings ressure is partially moderated by the financial constraints binding the firms.

The paper is co-authored with Yu Zhang, doctoral student at INSEAD

Friday

Giovanni Gavetti (Harvard Business School)

22.12.2006

On the Origin of Strategy - Action and Cognition over Time

We develop a perspective on how managers search for a strategy. In the spirit of Cyert and March (1963), we aim for a perspective that reflects the reality of managerial behavior; that respects both the
reasoning power of managers and the bounds on their rationality; and that permits organizations to change, but within realistic limits. Our perspective employs the variable time to frame the question of strategy’s origins in a distinctive way. Over time, the cognitive and physical elements that make up a strategy become less plastic, while mechanisms to search rationally for a strategy become more available. This generates a fundamental tension in the origin of strategy: managers struggle to understand their environment well enough to search rationally for an effective strategy before their firms lose the plasticity necessary to exploit that understanding. A focus on time allows us to synthesize and extend the evolutionary and positioning models of strategic search. Toward this end, we couple induction and deduction. The inductive part of the paper uses detailed observation of the search for a strategy at one firm in order to identify constructs that play a crucial role in strategic search. The deductive part steps beyond our focal firm and uses these constructs to derive theoretical propositions about the typical path of strategic search and the mortality associated with different approaches to search.

Friday

Eva Boxenbaum, Adjunkt at IOA (CBS)

24.11.2006

Institutional entrepreneurship: is there a place for strategy
in organizational institutionalism?

My presentation examines the notion of institutional entrepreneurship (IE), which is an object of much controversy within organizational
institutionalism. The notion of IE challenges the assumption that
human agency is institutionally embedded and suggests
that deliberate strategizing may lead to institutional change in an
industry or society. Part of the controversy revolves around the
question of whether strategy and methodological individualism can
contribute to understanding causes and processes of institutional
change. I draw the contours of this controversy based on a descriptive
review of the IE literature (see attached paper). I also present key
features of my own empirical research findings and take a stance on
the place for strategy in organizational institutionalism.

Download paper here

Friday

Harry G. Barkema

3.11.2006

Does Top Management Team Diversity Promote or Hamper Foreign Expansion?

ABSTRACT: Prior research suggests that Top Management Team (TMT) diversity increases strategic innovation. We extended this argument to the case of entering new geographic areas. In addition to exploring the cognitive implications of TMT diversity, as done in prior research, we explored when diversity may lead to the formation of subgroups within TMTs hampering communication and the propensity to enter new geographic areas. We also examined how these positive cognitive and negative social implications change over time as TMT members interact over the years. The hypotheses were tested using ordinal probit analysis and data on 2,159 expansions of twenty-five companies over a period of more than three decades.

Friday

Finn Østrup (Copenhagen Business School, Department of Finance)

29.09.2006

A New View of the Nation-State

It is the theory of the nation-state that the state should cover individuals who belong to the same national community, usually being defined as a group of individuals who share a common culture and who are tied together by bonds of solidarity and attachment. Based on this definition, the nation-state has in the political literature been seen as a means (i) to maintain a national culture, (ii) to achieve liberal and social goals, (iii) to raise economic efficiency, and (iv) to bring about security from internal and external threats. In a new book project with the working title “A New View of the Nation-State”, a critical assessment is given of these various views of the nation-state. It is suggested, as a new interpretation, that the national community should be seen primarily not as a community which links individuals through bonds of attachment, but rather as a framework for social comparison. Based on this interpretation of the nation-state, a number of new arguments concerning the nation-state are derived.

Friday

Serden Özcan (Copenhagen Business School - IVS)

15.9.2006

Exploration in Board Networks: A Study of US Commercial Bank Interlocks

ABSTRACT: This paper proposes an organizational adaptation account of interlock formation where each incoming outside director is conceived of as either an exploration tie or an exploitation tie. By distinguishing between search across space and across industry, I formulate predictions explaining exploration decisions. A study of US commercial bank interlocks shows that banks whose performance exceeds both the sample-based aspirations and the geographic marketbased aspirations are more likely to induce exploration ties than those who do not meet performance aspirations on either dimension or both. Results also show that market concentration has a negative effect whereas market deterioration has a positive effect on the propensity to appoint a non-local director. In addition, banks facing unique uncertainty or decreasing proportion of industrial and commercial loans to total outstanding loans refrain from non-local search along industry networks.

Friday

Toke Reichenstein (Imperial College London)

1.9.2006

Heritage and Survival of Spin-Offs: Quality of Parents and Parent-Tenure of Founders

ABSTRACT: Recent studies have shown that entrepreneurs benefit from previous employment in successful firms. This paper extent this literature by studying in greater detail how founder experiences leads to heterogeneous survival rates of new ventures. We study the survival of spin-offs and develop a measure for parent firm tenure. We argue that the length of employment in the parent organization will influence the degree to which a founder is able to replicate and adapt the blueprints of a parent. Tenure is used as a proxy for the degree of detailed knowledge the founder has acquired from previous employment and hence also how much knowledge a founder is able to transfer to a new start-up. Our results show that longer tenure at a parent firm increase survival chances of spin-offs significantly. In addition, we find that the quality of previous employers has strong effects on the survival chances of start-ups as spin-offs with surviving parent firms are more likely to survive themselves.

Friday

Bo Nielsen (Western Washington University and Center for Strategic Management and Globalization)

25.08.2006

Multilevel research in international business

ABSTRACT: It has been argued by some (e.g., Buckley, 2002) that the international business research agenda is running out of steam. Part of the strength of past IB research can be found in its (seemingly) close engagement with empirical reality. However, it seems that the big questions (such as explaining flows of FDI, the existence and organization of MNCs, and processes of internationalization) have all been (more or less) answered and no new empirical questions have emerged. Yet, when asked in 1979, practitioners said that not many useful ideas were put forward by academics. Rigor had clearly hindered relevance – I suspect this is the same today!

How does one reach a synthesis or balance between relevance and rigor in the dialectical sense? Perhaps the answer lies in shifting the focus away from the firm (MNC) as the unit of analysis. IB research has traditionally been dominated by economic theory, which lacks the ability to incorporate cultural and institutional factors as well as managerial capability. A careful investigation of emerging empirical issues pertaining to international business management might illuminate the need for a more coherent, multi-level theoretical framework to help explain international business phenomena. The key to international business research is that it approaches empirical phenomena at a variety of levels of analysis, using a variety of theoretical frameworks and analytical methods. The most important levels of analysis are the individual manager, the firm (and its subsidiaries), the industry, and the environmental context. At each level there is vast heterogeneity. While all levels have been analyzed in the past in IB research, almost all have been analyzed in isolation without due attention to cross-level effects.

The purpose of this seminar is to initiate discussions about multi-level issues in IB research. By inviting you to rethink your current research in terms of multi-level issues we may start building a more empirically relevant, IB specific theoretical framework.

Friday

Tina C. Ambos (University of Edinburgh)

18.08.2006

Competing for attention in the MNC - A subsidiary perspective

ABSTRACT: Scholars have recently argued that – even compared to information – top management’s attention is the most critical, scarce and sought-after resource in organizations (Haas and Hansen, 2005). However, the effectiveness of supply and demand mechanisms for attention in the differentiated MNC remains largely unexplored. The study aims to investigate this question in the context of subsidiary initiatives. Linking subsidiary entrepreneurship theory (Kanter, 1982; Burgelman, 1983; Birkinshaw, 1997) and the attention-based view of the firm (Ocasio, 1997), we are able to show that subsidiary initiatives combined with headquarters attention positively impact subsidiary performance. Moreover, we explore the effects of subsidiaries’ proactive tactics to manage attention.

Friday

Christian Bjørnskov (Aarhus School of Business)

23.06.2006

Globalization and Economic Freedom: New Evidence using the Dreher Indices

ABSTRACT: This paper employs a panel data set to estimate the effect of globalization on four measures of economic freedom. Contrary to previous studies, the paper distinguishes between three separate types of globalization: economic, social and political. It also separates effects for poor and rich countries, and autocracies and democracies. The results show that economic globalization is negatively associated with government size and positively with regulatory freedom in rich countries; social globalization is positively associated with legal quality in autocracies and with the access to sound money in democracies. Political globalization is not associated with economic freedom.

Friday

Joe Mahoney (University of Illinois)

16.06.2006

Towards a Stakeholder Theory of the Firm in Strategic Management

ABSTRACT: This paper suggests that due to the changing nature of the firm, viewing shareholders as the sole residual claimants is an increasingly tenuous description of the actual relationships among a corporation’s various stakeholders. Thus, a shareholder wealth perspective is increasingly unsatisfactory for accurately answering the two fundamental questions concerning the theory of the firm: that of economic value creation, and the distribution of this economic value. Examining the corporation from a (team production) property rights perspective of incomplete contracting and implicit contracting provides a foundation for the revitalization of a stakeholder theory of the firm in the strategic management discipline.

Friday

Jean-Luc Arregle (EDHEC)

09.06.2006

11:00

Modes of International Entry: The Advantages of Multilevel Methods

ABSTRACT: International strategy empirical research on the mode of entry has typically overlooked the multilevel nature of this question and relied on non-multilevel quantitative methods. This creates important conceptual and statistical limitations. We examine such drawbacks by explaining the multilevel nature of this research question and the necessity to use multilevel methods. As an illustration, we develop a multilevel model and run a multilevel Bernoulli analysis to analyze the determinants of modes of entry, using a dataset on Japanese Foreign Direct Investment. Its results are compared to those of the dominant statistical method used in International Management for this topic: logistic regression.

Friday

Sjoerd Beugelsdijk (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen)

09.06.2006

13:00

The differential Impact of National Culture Distance on Trade and Local Production

ABSTRACT: Trade and local production are two alternative means of serving foreign markets. International economists have studied the relationship between trade and FDI as either being complements or substitutes. IB scholars have shown that firms engaging in international business activity (either through exports or local production) suffer from a liability of foreignness. Moreover, entry mode literature shows that due to increasing cultural distance firms may substitute higher level modes of commitment for lower levels, i.e. local production for exports. In this paper we theorize on the relationship between trade, local production and cultural distance. We hypothesize a negative relationship between local production and cultural distance. Regarding the effect of cultural distance on trade, we hypothesize two possible relationships, depending on which effect dominates; the liability of foreignness effect or the substitution effect. Testing our hypotheses using data from the Bureau of Economic Analaysis on U.S. exports and U.S. MNE activity in a sample of 54 host countries between 1983-2003, we find confirmation for the first hypothesis, and support for a substitution effect regarding the second hypothesis.

Friday

Louise Mors (MIT)

02.06.2006

Innovation in a Global Firm: The Role of Informal Networks when the Problem is too much Diversity

ABSTRACT: This paper explores how managers in multinational firms utilize their informal networks to create new knowledge. Specifically, how network density affects innovation performance. The arguments are developed in the context of partners in a global consulting firm and testing using an empirical network study. I distinguish between internal, external, local, and global ties and find that this separation permits a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between network structure and innovation. Findings show that partners with low densities in their internal or external networks have higher innovation performance. However, when crossing both firm and geographic boundaries, partners with dense networks have higher innovation performance.

Friday

Mark de Rond (University of Cambridge)

05.05.2006

13:00

Strategic Alliances as Social Facts

ABSTRACT: Using Van de Ven and Poole’s (1995) extensive assessment of process theories as an intellectual scaffold, we review theoretical contributions to our understanding of alliance dynamics and process. It appears that of four generic theoretical engines, only three—life cycle, teleology, and evolution—are reasonably well covered in this literature. Process studies informed by a dialectical theory, however, appear to be markedly absent. We explore the characteristics and contributions of a dialectical lens in understanding interorganizational collaborations by invoking a longitudinal case study of a biotechnology-based alliance. The case illustrates the coevolutionary interchange of design and emergence, cooperation and competition, trust and vigilance, expansion and contraction, and control and autonomy. It also emphasizes the importance of treating alliances as heterogeneous phenomena, of alliance performance as subject to social construction, and of unintended consequences as a change agent. The emerging ontological, epistemological, and methodological implications of a dialectical perspective comprise a novel extension to the existing literature.

Friday

Igor O. Kozine (Risø National Laboratory)

28.04.2006

Uncertainty Modelling in Probalistic Risk Assesment

ABSTRACT: One of the gravest errors in any type of risk management process is the presentation of risk estimates which convey a false impression of accuracy and confidence – disregarding the uncertainties inherent in basic understanding, data acquisition, and statistical analysis. The concept of uncertainty as such, its representation, measurement and decision-making process under uncertainty are critical issues on the research agenda of safety analysts.The presentation will touch upon the types of uncertainty addressed in probabilistic risk assessment and the ways uncertainty is measured. The problem of decision-making under uncertainty and the emergence of the Precautionary Principle will be briefly discussed. Novel views challenging Bayesian decision theory will be highlighted. Uncertainty models developed in the framework of imprecise statistical reasoning will become the core of the presentation.

Friday

Waymond Rodgers (University of California)

20.03.2006

A Decision Making Perspective on Line Managers’ Involvement in Cross Unit Activities

ABSTRACT:The efficient use of knowledge and information allows organizations to compete more effectively in the marketplace. The aim of this study is to understand if and how managerial involvement in cross-unit activities influences managerial assessment of information received from a unit where managers were involved. That is, we discuss how the involvement of line managers in auditing influence managerial assessment of the information passed on from corporate auditing. Throughput modeling is used in this research to understand how line managers use information, and to find out whether audits assist them in promoting productivity. Senior line managers in a major organization completed a survey questionnaire addressing their perceptions and judgments regarding the usefulness of auditing services. Our study supports the notion that managers can influence recipient units’ perception of the sending unit by using liaison mechanisms such as managerial cross-unit involvement.

Friday

Christian Geisler Asmussen and Torben Pedersen (CBS)

17.03.2006

Evolution of Subsidiary Competences: Extending the Diamond Network Model

ABSTRACT: Over the past decade, the literature on MNC subsidiary evolution has grown rapidly, enhancing our understanding of the determinants of subsidiary competences. We extend the “center of excellence” concept to address the diversity and the multidimensionality of subsidiary competence and link such diversity to the host country environment. Using Rugman and Verbeke’s (1993) diamond network model of competitive advantage of nations, we hypothesize the contingencies under which host environment heterogeneity leads to a specialized subsidiary competence configuration. We test our theoretical model with data from more than 2000 subsidiaries in seven Western European countries. Our results provide new insights on the evolution of subsidiary competence and how MNCs can overcome ‘unbalanced’ national diamonds by acquiring complementary capabilities across borders.

Friday

Sara Melen (Stockholm School of Economics)

10.03.2006

Turning Social Capital into Business: A Study of the Swedish Biotech Industry

ABSTRACT: The effects of using personal networks have in recent years become a topic of interest in the research area that focuses on the internationalization process of the firm. Few studies have, however, used the concept of social capital when studying the internationalization processes of high-tech SMEs. In this explorative case study, ten Swedish SMEs in the biotech business have been examined in order to see how they use social capital for accessing the critical resources that they need in their internationalization process. The results of the study indicate that the usefulness of social capital changes during this process and that the wrong perception of social capital’s usefulness can lead to unsuccessful internationalization.

Friday

Line Gry Knudsen (CBS)

03.03.2006

Determinants of ‘Openness’ in R&D Collaboration: The Roles of Absorptive Capacity and Appropriability

ABSTRACT: An increasing number of knowledge intensive firms rely on knowledge produced in an inter-firm setting as a means to improving innovativeness and thereby competitive advantage Whether the relations take the shape of one-off research relations or long time strategic alliances they bear witness of how firms are opening up to external sources of knowledge. R&D collaborating across organizational borders seems to satisfy both the need for new leading edge knowledge and the demands of the bottom line. However, using external knowledge sources in the innovation process is a complex matter as a number of different factors determine the optimal degree of openness, (i.e. the share of R&D projects being done in collaboration with external partners). The aim of this paper is to identify and analyse the main determinants of ‘openness’ in the R&D process, and thereby contribute to a more complete understanding a firms ability to engage in R&D collaborations.

Friday

Mia Reinholt (CBS)

24.02.2006

No More Polarization please! Towards a more nuanced Perspective on Motivation in Organizations

ABSTRACT: The organizational science literature on motivation has for long been polarized into two main positions; the organizational economic position focusing on extrinsic motivation and the organizational behavior position emphasizing intrinsic motivation. With the rise of the knowledge economy and the increasing levels of demands and complexities it entails, such polarization is not fruitful in the attempt to explain motivation of organizational members. This paper claims that a more nuanced perspective on motivation, acknowledging the co-existence of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, the possible interaction between the two as well as different types of motivations filling in the gap between the two polar types, are urgently needed in the organizational science literature as well as in practice. By drawing on the research on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from the field of psychology and combining this with contributions from organizational science and sociology, this paper attempts to develop an emergent understanding of motivation, which is far more facetted than the one dominating the organizational science literature currently. This paper should be perceived as a call for more research attention to the increasing challenge of today’s motivation management in organizations.

Friday

Sylvia Saes (University of Sao Paulo)

17.02.2006

Relational Contracts and Comparative Efficiency in the Brazilian Speciality Coffee Supply

ABSTRACT: The recent demand trend for specialty coffee has been fostering the organization of new relational contracts that include special attributes of quality. Based on the analysis of two contract models adopted in the coordination of the supply of specialty coffee grains in Brazil, this paper discusses which contract type is more effective for motivating the production of quality attributes. The analysis of two typical contracts (called loose and tight contracts) was based on the Incentive Theory and in the light of the experience of growers in Brazil. Among the results, it was observed that, in the case of the loose contract, despite first-best outcomes, there might be supply scarcity in the recontracting when the bonus decreases, i.e., processors may not find quality products because the decrease in growers’ revenue hinders investments in quality coffee. As for the tight contract, although first-best outcomes are not implemented, growers have more incentive to produce quality coffee and thus the possibility of holdup decreases. These findings suggest that tight contracts are more efficient to impel a continuous production of quality coffee contracts over time, according to the presuppositions of New Institutional Economics.

Friday

Mike Geppert (Queen Mary University of London)

15.02.2006

Micro-political Aspects of Mandate Development in Local Subsidiaries of Multinational Corporations

ABSTRACT: Beyond functional-structuralist approaches this paper sheds some light on micro political aspects of mandate development and learning processes in multinational corporations (MNC). As classical micro-political studies have shown, management behaviour and learning are not only constrained or enabled by certain structural and (national) cultural patterns, but have its own political agendas and are shaped by individual interests which leads to game playing, active or passive resistance and (re)negotiation of the ‘rules of the game’. Based on the assumption that actors are neither the organs of given structures nor acting fully autonomous, the paper focuses on how subsidiary managers interpret and integrate individual, organisational as well as home and host country institutional factors into certain strategies of action. By discussing critical events in mini case studies on mandate development and learning in German subsidiaries in France we will highlight the interactive dynamics between key-actors micro-political strategies and particular institutional settings. Here we, firstly, discuss institutionalist approaches and investigate how different forms of home and host country embeddedness do influence the development of distinct managerial competences and decision making strategies at the subsidiary level. The paper refers then to the question how the overall strategy and multinational organisational design and policies relate to individual interests of key subsidiary actors. These can to higher or lower degrees be influenced by e.g. differences in nationalities, professional backgrounds as well as career stages, orientations and aspirations. By integrating these diverse relational layers, the paper will provide a more dynamic actor centred approach stressing both, the micro-political aspects and interactive construction of intra and intersubsidiary power relations, a key variable to explain mandate development and learning processes in MNCs.

Friday

Stephan Billinger (Syddansk University)

10.02.2006

Changing the Firm’s Digital Backbone: How Information Technology shapes the Boundaries of the Firm

ABSTRACT: How does Information Technology (IT) change firm boundaries? Most of the research to date has considered the impact of technologies linking buyers and suppliers, focusing on electronic markets more than electronic hierarchies. Our paper takes a different view, focusing on overall firm boundaries, as opposed to individual make-or-buy decisions.

Friday

Jeff Reuer (Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina)

20.01.2006

Initial Public Offerings and Organizational Governance: Evidence from Joint Ventures and Acquisitions

ABSTRACT: Drawing upon information economics, we investigate firms’ decisions to form joint ventures with or acquire newly-public firms. The core issue we examine is whether signals sent during IPOs have efficiency implications for organizational governance choices concerning issuing firms. Our focus is on issuers’ associations with reputable investment banks and with venture capitalists, both of which engage in vetting and bonding activities for firms that go public. The results demonstrate that issuers with reputable investment banks are more likely to be acquired by, rather than collaborate with, other firms compared to issuers with less reputable underwriters. Venture capitalist backing appears to be a useful signal in ‘colder’ IPO markets and for potential acquirers with dissimilar knowledge bases vis-à-vis the issuing firm. We find strong evidence that issuers tend to partner with, rather than be acquired by, firms in inter-industry combinations compared to horizontal deals, which is also consistent with the theory that joint ventures mitigate the risk of adverse selection.

Friday

Koen Heimeriks (CBS)

25.11.2005

Managing Portfolios of Strategic Alliances: The Effect of Alliance Mechanisms on Alliance Portfolio Performance

ABSTRACT: This study examines how firms create value in alliance portfolios by using learning mechanisms to leverage experiences from prior alliances. These mechanisms are investigated to explain how firms extract superior rents from their alliance portfolios. First, I examine the use of learning mechanisms by comparing high and low-performing firms. Second, using a factor analytical technique, I derive two factors (i.e. a group and organization level learning dimension) that help understand how firms transfer knowledge to improve their ability to manage alliance portfolios. Third, the decreasing returns on learning are elaborated upon. A detailed survey among 192 alliance managers and Vice-Presidents reporting on over 3400 alliances initiated over the period 1997-2001. The findings reveal what alliance mechanisms contribute to manage alliance portfolios successfully and empirically validate how lessons from prior alliances create learning effects that can be leveraged across a firm’s entire alliance portfolio.

Friday

Thorbjørn Knudsen (Syddansk University)

18.11.2005

10:00

Two Faces of Search: Alternative Generation and Alternative Evaluation

ABSTRACT: At its core, a behavioral theory of choice has two fundamental attributes that distinguish it from traditional economic models of decision-making. One attribute is that choice sets are not available ex-ante to actors but must be constructed. This notion is well established in our models of learning and adaptation. The second fundamental postulate is that the evaluation of alternatives is likely to be imperfect. Despite the enshrinement of the notion of bounded rationality in the organizations literature, this second postulate in fact has been largely ignored in our formal models of learning and adaptation. We develop a structure with which to capture the imperfect evaluation of alternatives at the individual level and then explore the implications of alternative organizational structures, comprising such individual actors, on organizational decision-making.

Friday

Jeffrey Pfeffer (Stanford University)

18.11.2005

13.00

The Dominance of Economic Theory

ABSTRACT: Most science proceeds on the assumption that the theory (or theories) that best explain the data win. However, there are a number of mechanisms that make social theories self-fulfilling, a fact that suggests the theory (or theories) that come to be accepted and therefore best create the data win. These processes are illustrated with examples from economic theory, the dominant social science, and some implications for empirical research are developed and illustrated.

Discussants Nicolai Juul Foss and Kristian Kreiner

Wednesday

Prabir Bagchi (George Washington University)

09.11.2005

14:00

Supply Chain Management Challenges in Relation to Offshore Outsourcing to Low-cost Countries

Professor Bagchi is distinguished Professor in Supply Chain Management and Senior Associate Dean at the George Washington University. He is also a guest professor at CBS, Department of Operations Management, and associated the Indian Institute of Management, Indore

The seminar makes part of the CBDS/SMG Development through Outsourcing seminar series

Friday

Melanie Schreiner (University of Konstanz)

16.09.2005

Collaborative Capability of the Firm: A Conceptualization for Individual Relationships and some Extension towards Alliance Portfolios

ABSTRACT: Strategy scholars have asserted that a firm's alliance or collaborative capability, i.e. its organizational capability to successfully manage interfirm relationships, can provide competitive advantage. Though recent research provides empirical evidence for such a capability, a thorough conceptualization of specific skills and dimensions that constitute collaborative capability is still missing. Based on a process view of inter-firm relationships, in this talk I will present a conceptualization of collaborative capability as a multi-dimensional construct including three sub-capabilities, namely coordination, communicative, and bonding capabilities. The conceptualization was tested within a framework linking collaborative capability to key outcomes of the relationship process and firms’ goal accomplishment. Using survey data, we find support for the proposed multi-dimensional collaborative capability concept. The results also show that collaborative capability plays a significant role in explaining key factors for relationship success; however, they also hint to hidden costs in developing and maintaining such a capability.

While managing individual relationships successfully is without doubt important, recently the topic of managing a whole portfolio of alliances has come into view. Clearly, an organizational capability to manage such a portfolio extends beyond the capabilities needed to manage individual relationships. In the second part of presentation, I will discuss recent developments in this area and point to some research opportunities awaiting further theorizing and empirical investigation.