The role of corporate lean programmes in crisis response: a multi-case study of hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose This research aims to examine the role of established Corporate Lean Programmes (CLPs) in responding to extreme disruptions. While CLPs are often considered dynamic capabilities, their effectiveness during crises remains unclear. Given substantial investment in CLPs and increasing global uncertainty, evaluating their crisis management potential is crucial. Design/methodology/approach We build on a longitudinal non-participant field study conducted in five English hospitals, which implemented the Virginia Mason Production System, which is a CLP. This research was expanded in March 2020 to examine its application during the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigated how CLPs were utilised and adapted to manage the crisis. Data collection (May–December 2020) included 20 h of non-participant observation at leadership meetings, 39 semi-structured interviews, and extensive document review. Findings To respond to the crisis, activities related to strategy and long-term planning were paused, and the CLP was adapted in three main ways: increased daily management practices for coordination, communication and teamwork; flexible deployment of specialist knowledge resources and simplified CLP routines for widespread, structured problem-solving. We develop a process model of adapting a CLP to respond to a crisis. The increased use and visibility of these practices enhanced the CLP’s perceived legitimacy, overcoming initial resistance to adoption. Originality/value This study offered a unique opportunity to deepen our understanding of how a CLP responded to extreme disruption. It also provides evidence that, despite arguments that lean approaches are only effective in stable environments, they can be adapted to work effectively in dynamic ones. This offers significant insights into the CLP’s sustained utility during extreme disruption

Designing Layouts for Sequential Experiences: Application to Cultural Institutions

A fundamental issue faced by experience providers—ranging from retail to culture—is displaying a collection of items for physical and digital interactions. The arrangement of the exhibits in different locations, which we call the layout, affects the visitors’ choices over time and space, thereby driving their engagement with the offered experience. In a collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum (Netherlands), we develop a predict-then-optimize framework to inform such operational decisions. First, we propose a sequential choice model, called pathway multinomial logit, that represents visitor activity as a sequence of conditional logit outcomes influenced by the layout. Estimation on large-scale visitor activity logs recorded on multimedia guides reveals that increase in spatial distances and search distances on the multimedia guide interface are strongly correlated with a reduction of transition propensity between artworks, while also uncovering relationships with artwork characteristics and contextual features. Counterintuitively, in response to more congestion, visitors may interact with more exhibits, including less prominent artworks. Our model predicts the next visitor transition with an out-of-sample accuracy of 63%. We test the predictive accuracy of our model against several benchmarks and modified layouts. Finally, we formulate the layout optimization problem, where the goal is to assign artworks to different locations to maximize the expected length of visitors’ paths. We establish a strong inapproximability result for this new optimization setting. Our simulations suggest that optimized layouts might lift visitor engagement by improving proximity and retention exerted by the layout

Q: Risk, rents, or growth?

We document that the increasing polarization in Tobin’s Q within industries is closely connected to the growing divergence in rents and the emergence of superstar firms over the past four decades, while discount rates and growth rates did not exhibit the same increasing dispersion. We explain these industry polarization trends in an estimated general equilibrium model where each industry consists of large superstar oligopolists and small monopolistically competitive firms with endogenous transitions between them. Small firms make investments in speculative innovation to increase their probability of becoming superstars. Our model estimation finds that rising entry barriers in both small and superstar firms contribute to rising polarization in markups, but the rising barriers to creating small firms and increasing tastes for goods produced by superstars account for most of the divergence in Q. Stunting the creation of small firms generates greater incentives for speculative innovation, magnifying the impact of market power dispersion on industry polarization in Q

State ownership and corporate leverage around the world

Does state ownership hinder or help firms access credit? We use data on almost 4 million firms in 89 countries to study the relationship between state ownership and corporate leverage. Controlling for country-sector-year fixed effects and conventional firm-level determinants of leverage, we show that state ownership is robustly and negatively related to corporate leverage. This relationship holds across most of the firm-size distribution – with the important exception of the largest companies – and is stronger in countries with weak political and legal institutions. A panel data analysis of privatized firms and a comparison of privatized with matched control firms yield similar qualitative and quantitative effects of state ownership on leverage

Historizing the present: Research agenda and implications for consumer behavior

This paper conceptualizes the phenomenon of historizing the present, defined as emphasizing the historical significance of present events and treating the present from the perspective of history. The authors identify four modes of historizing the present (emphasizing that: (1) the present will shape history; (2) the present is a unique moment in history; (3) the present will be remembered in history; (4) the present echoes history) and demonstrate how historizing can be employed by marketers of for‐profit and nonprofit organizations in a variety of contexts. The paper examines the psychological implications of appreciating the historical significance of the present and outlines a research agenda for studying the downstream behavioral consequences of historizing the present across diverse substantive consumer domains. It concludes with an examination of the broader societal implications of historizing the present as well as its implications for consumer well‐being

Data-Driven Investors

How does the increased use of data technologies, like machine learning, by financial intermediaries affect the allocation of capital towards innovation? I study this question in the context of startup financing by venture capitalists (VCs). While VCs adopting data technologies become better at screening startups similar to those in historical data, they tilt their investments towards this pool and become concurrently less likely to finance innovative startups that achieve rare major success. Plausibly exogenous variations in VCs’ screening automation suggest that these effects are causal. These findings highlight how investors’ adoption of data technologies can have real effects through innovation financing

A Contingency Model of Top Management Teams’ Task Conflict and Organizational-Level Outcomes: Evidence for a Curvilinear Relationship

The relationship between conflict and performance has been studied for decades, but little is known about how and under what conditions task conflict among top managers affects firm-level outcomes. In this study, we examine a curvilinear effect of task conflict in top management teams (TMTs) on both firm performance and TMT resilience efficacy, as moderated by behavioral integration. We argue and find that TMT task conflict can improve firm performance when behavioral integration is high, but the effect is not linear; rather it levels off. In contrast, we maintain and find that TMT task conflict can improve TMT resilience efficacy at an increasing rate when behavioral integration is low. We also find that behavioral integration itself is predicted by Chief Executive Officer relational leadership such that leaders with a more relationship-oriented style encourage more behavioral integration in their teams. Field data from 555 top managers from 111 organizations in South Korea provided support for our hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

The Value of Software

Software is one of the most important assets that needs to be priced in the digital economy. It has emerged as a disruptive technology, with companies primarily valued for their software offerings growing from 2% to 13% of market share between 1996 and 2023. We document persistent anomalies in growth forecasts and stock returns for software companies, indicating significant deviations from rational expectations over multiple decades. Our findings are consistent with Bayesian investors gradually learning about software’s growing importance, highlighting how markets can be very slow to discern fundamental shifts from transient shocks in noisy data

Universal Owners and Climate Change

Universal ownership theory proposes that widely diversified investors have a financial self interest at the portfolio level in reducing market-wide risks relating to environmental or social (ES) issues. This paper sets out a double test for determining when universal owner theory justifies investor action and applies these tests to the case of climate change. When applied to the commonly adopted goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C, universal owner theory runs into problems on both tests. First, it is uncertain whether this goal is financially optimal at the portfolio level. Second, even if it were optimal, investors have limited efficacy to achieve this outcome. We consider goals a climate-concerned investor might set and the actions they could take that would be consistent with our tests. Actions best supported by evidence involves four areas of focus. First, engagement with investee companies based on realistic goals. Second, positive engagement on policy. Third, modest and bounded impact investments that can credibly be considered as reducing climate risk. Fourth, working to ensure that transition and physical risks are fully incorporated into investment models. Through targeting a more modest set of ambitions, climate-concerned investors can be more impactful while avoiding conflicts with fiduciary duties to clients