Strategy
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- 08 Jan 2018
- Working Paper Summaries
Come Together: Firm Boundaries and Delegation
The study develops a simple model and provides new data to examine the relationship between vertical integration and delegation of decision-making, two critical aspects of a firm organizational design that are typically studied in isolation. The results show that delegation and vertical integration are positively correlated.
- 06 Dec 2017
- What Do You Think?
Is It Time To Break Up Amazon, Apple, Facebook, or Google?
SUMMING UP Would breaking up tech giants like Facebook and Google be good antitrust policy or bad for capitalism? James Heskett's readers join the conversation. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 06 Dec 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Trials and Terminations: Learning from Competitors' R&D Failures
When companies terminate R&D projects, it has ripple effects on the project selection decisions of rival firms and the broader competitive environment. Examining firm responses to others’ failures, this paper introduces a new model of R&D investment decisions, and empirically investigates when knowledge generated by rivals directly enters specific project investment decisions.
- 20 Nov 2017
- Research & Ideas
How Independent Bookstores Have Thrived in Spite of Amazon.com
Ryan Raffaelli set out to discover how independent bookstores managed to survive and even thrive in spite of competition from Amazon and other online retailers. His initial findings reveal how much consumers still value community and personal contact. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 25 Sep 2017
- Research & Ideas
Why Politics is Failing America, and What Business Can Do To Help
How could a country that epitomized the success of modern democracy have fallen into such a state of failure? Michael Porter and Katherine Gehl find a rigged American political system that limits competition and works against the public interest. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 05 Sep 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Structural Transformation: A Competitiveness-based View
A critical challenge for many economies is how to accelerate structural change when market forces alone seem insufficient. This paper explores the relationship between two approaches. The Structural Transformation framework argues for identifying and supporting target sectors in line with ‘latent’ competitive advantages. The competitiveness framework emphasizes the need to systematically strengthen competitive advantages, with new sectors the outcome rather than the driver of competitiveness upgrading.
- 28 Aug 2017
- Research & Ideas
Should Industry Competitors Cooperate More to Solve World Problems?
George Serafeim has a theory that if industry competitors collaborated more, big world problems could start to be addressed. Is that even possible in a market economy? Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 13 Jun 2017
- Research & Ideas
Why Global Investments Are Still a Good Bet
International markets often move together, so does a global investment portfolio even make sense anymore? Luis Viceira still sees plenty of advantages in looking beyond home markets. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 31 May 2017
- What Do You Think?
Can Amazon Do What Walmart Couldn’t, Stop the 'Wheel of Retailing'?
SUMMING UP Is Amazon's growing retail power capable of breaking the "wheel of retailing" theory? James Heskett's readers weigh in. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 17 May 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Turbulence, Firm Decentralization and Growth in Bad Times
What makes some firms more resilient than others to large negative macro shocks? This paper finds that the internal organization of firms—specifically, the extent to which decision-making is decentralized from headquarters to plant managers—is an important mediating factor through which macroeconomic shocks affect firm performance and, ultimately, growth.
- 04 May 2017
- Cold Call Podcast
Leading a Team to the Top of Mount Everest
In a podcast, Amy Edmondson describes how students learn about team communication and decision making by making a simulated climb up Mount Everest. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 07 Apr 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Explaining the Vertical-to-Horizontal Transition in the Computer Industry
This paper shows how the vertical-to-horizontal transition in the computer industry was an organizational response to a change in economic rewards brought by the competing technologies of rationalized step processes and open platform systems. The spread of modular architectures—and the rapid pace of change in semiconductor technology—shifted the balance of rewards away from predictability toward flexibility.
- 23 Mar 2017
- Cold Call Podcast
Cost-cutting Leads to Turbulence in the Airline Industry
When a business known for delivering an exemplary customer experience faces cutbacks, what services get chopped? Assistant Professor Susanna Gallani discusses a recent case study about an airline that looks not just to survive a downturn but emerge stronger. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 03 Mar 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Cooperative Strategic Games
The authors examine a solution concept for strategic games. In applications, this concept provides an a-priori assessment of the monetary worth of each player’s position; the assessment reflects the player’s contribution to the total payoff as well as the player’s ability to inflict losses on other players.
- 18 Jan 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
The Ties that Bind: Railroad Gauge Standards, Collusion, and Internal Trade in the 19th Century US
The author studies the conversion of 13,000 miles of railroad track to standard gauge in the southern United States in 1886 as a large-scale natural experiment in technology standards adoption that instantly integrated the South into the national transportation network.
- 04 Jan 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Historical Change and the Competitive Advantage of Firms: Explicating the 'Dynamics' in the Dynamic Capabilities Framework
This study contributes to the re-emerging dialogue between business history and strategy by examining how historical reasoning can contribute to the dynamic capabilities framework currently employed by strategy scholars. It explores how three distinct models of historical change—evolutionary, dialectical, and constitutive—were incorporated into the theoretical tenets of the origins, context, and micro-foundations of the dynamic capabilities framework. In each case, recognizing these historical models of change provides opportunities for sharpening the conceptualization of strategy-making processes and designing research to examine them more deeply. The paper argues that given the need for more extensive empirical research on dynamic capabilities, the methodological value of history for dynamic capabilities scholarship is significant.
- 06 Dec 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
Assortment Rotation and the Value of Concealment
Assortment rotation is the retailing practice of changing the assortment of products offered to customers throughout a selling season. It is used by both brick-and-mortar and online retailers as a strategy for gaining competitive advantage. This paper studies assortment rotation in product categories such as apparel, accessories, and toys, where consumers typically make multiple purchases during a season. The authors identify and explain a new reason for retailers to frequently rotate their assortment: Consumers may purchase more products throughout the selling season if a retailer conceals a portion of its full product catalog from consumers by rotating its assortment. Aside from its scholarly contributions, the paper provides practical insights to retailers to guide their assortment rotation strategy decisions.
- 23 Nov 2016
- Cold Call Podcast
Digital Change: Lessons from the Newspaper Industry
In a podcast, Professor Bharat Anand discusses Norwegian media giant Schibsted’s resounding success in the newspaper business through modernization of classified ads, bringing users together, and adopting a digital-first approach. Open for comment; Comment(s) posted.
- 15 Nov 2016
- Working Paper Summaries
Algorithmic Foundations for Business Strategy
This paper uses tools and models from computational complexity theory and the algorithmics of hard problems that are new to the strategy field in order to address how strategic process and structure adapt to the complex strategic scenarios and predicaments. The paper’s model of strategic problem-solving allows researchers and strategists to distinguish between different levels and kinds of adaptations to complexity of the problem solving scenario. It also allows them to explore and optimize the fit between the canonical strategy problems a firm faces, its stock of problem solving procedures, and its architectural and procedural adaptations to complexity.
Subjectivity in Tournaments: Implicit Rewards and Penalties and Subsequent Performance
Analyzing data from a Chinese manufacturing company, this study explores side effects of subjective performance evaluations in a setting where workers are rewarded based on performance rankings and subject to both rewards and penalties. Among other contributions the paper highlights factors that could impact the overall effectiveness of incentive systems.