Three essays on problem-solving in collaborative open productions

The term “open production” is frequently used to describe production systems that rely on volunteer participants who are willing to participate, produce, and bear private costs in order to provide a public good. Examples of open production are becoming increasingly common in many industries. What make these productions possible? How may they be sustained in a world of organizations in which the evolutionary products of economic selection are elaborate hierarchical forms of organization? One way to address these questions is to look at how open productions solve problems that are common to all production organizations such as, for example, problems in the division of labor, allocation of tasks, collaboration, coordination, and maintaining balance between inducement and contributions. Under the conditions of extreme decentralization that are the defining feature of open productions, this approach implies a detailed observation of individual problem solving practices. This is the approach I develop in my dissertation. Unlike much of the prior literature on open productions, I deemphasize motivational elements, status-seeking motives, and allocation of property rights issues. I focus instead on actual work practices as revealed by the day-by-day problem solving activities that qualify open productions projects as production organizations despite the absence of formal contractual arrangements to regulate principal-agent relations. What my work adds to the extensive, informative, and well-developed discipline-based explanations that are currently available, is a focus on the emergence of micro-organizational mechanisms through which problem assignment (Chapter 2), problem resolution (Chapter 3), and sustained participation (Chapter 4) are obtained in open productions. In my essays, I draw from organizational sociology and the behavioral theory of the firm to specify models that relate individual problem-solving activities to structured patterns of action through emergent work practices. In the models that I specify and test, I emphasize processes of attention allocation (Chapter 2), repeated collaboration and group diversity (Chapter 3) and identity construction (Chapter 4) as central to our understanding of the dynamics of problem-solving in organizations. One element of novelty in my study is that my research design makes these work practices directly observable at a level of detail, completeness, and precision that was inaccessible in the past. To illustrate the empirical value of the view that I develop I examine problem-solving activities – i.e., bug fixing and code production – within two Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) projects during their entire life span. Readers of my work will know more about how organizational micro-mechanisms emerge in open productions

Gender Differences in Equity Crowdfunding

Online peer-to-peer investment platforms are increasingly popular venues for entrepreneurs and investors to engage in financial transactions without the involvement of banks and loan managers. Despite their purported transparency and lack of bias, it is unclear whether social inequalities present in traditional capital markets transfer to these platforms as well, impeding their hoped revolutionary potential. In this paper we analyze nearly four years' worth of data from one of the leading UK-based equity crowdfunding platforms. Specifically, we investigate gender-related differences in patterns of entrepreneurship, investment, and success. In agreement with offline trends, men have more activity on the platform. Yet, women entrepreneurs benefit of higher success rates in fund-raising, a finding that mimics trends seen on some rewards-based crowdfunding platforms. Surprisingly, we also find that female investors tend to choose campaigns that have lower success rates. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of gender-related discrepancies in success on the online capital market and point to differences in activity that are key factors in the apparent patterns of gender inequality

A Scenario-Based Parametric Analysis of Stable Marriage Approaches to the Army Officer Assignment Problem

This paper compares linear programming and stable marriage approaches to the assignment problem under conditions of uncertainty. Robust solutions should exhibit reduced variability in the presence of one or more additional constraints. Several variations of each approach are compared with respect to solution quality, as measured by the overall social welfare among Officers and Assignments, and robustness as measured by the number of changes after a number of randomized perturbations. We examine the contrasts between these methods in the context of assigning Army Officers among a set of identified assignments. Additional constraints are modeled after realistic scenarios faced by Army assignment managers, with parameters randomized. The Pareto efficient approaches, relative to these measures of quality and robustness, are identified and subjected to a regression analysis. The coefficients of these models provide insight into the impact the different scenarios under study, as well as inform any trade-off decisions between Pareto-optimal approaches

Worldwide Guide to Termination, Employment Discrimination, and Workplace Harassment Laws

This publication has been prepared for clients and professional associates of Baker & McKenzie. It is intended to provide only a summary of selected legal developments. For this reason the information contained in this publication should not form the basis of any decision as to a particular course of action; nor should it be relied on as legal advice or regarded as a substitute for detailed advice in individual cases. The services of a competent professional adviser should be obtained in each instance so that the applicability of the relevant legislation or other legal development to the particular facts can be verified

The Global Employer: Focus on Termination, Employment Discrimination, and Workplace Harassment Laws

The_Global_Employer_Focus_on_Termination_Discriminaton_and_Harassment_Laws___2012.pdf: 3052 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

The Global Employer: Focus on Termination, Employment Discrimination, and Workplace Harassment Laws

The_Global_Employer_Focus_on_Termination.pdf: 527 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020