Do disruptive visions pay off?

Entrepreneurs often articulate a vision for their venture that purports to fundamentally change, disturb, or re-order the ways in which organizations, markets, and ecosystems operate. We call these visions disruptive visions. Neglected in both the disruption and the impression management literature, disruptive visions are widespread in business practice. We integrate real options and impression management theories to hypothesize that articulating a disruptive vision raises expectations of extraordinary returns, which in turn increases the likelihood of receiving funding, but reduces the amount of funding obtained. A novel dataset of Israeli start-ups shows that a standard deviation increase in disruptive vision communication increases the odds of receiving a first round of funding by 22 percent, but reduces amounts of funds received by 24 percent. A randomized online experiment corroborates these findings and further shows expectation of extraordinary returns as the key mechanism driving investors’ sensemaking

How Europe can deliver: Optimising the division of competences among the EU and its member states

This study aims to give guidance for a better-performing EU through an improved allocation of competences between the European Union and its member states. The study analyses eight specific policies from a wide range of fields with respect to their preferable assignment. The analysis applies a unified quantified approach and is precise in its definition of ‘counterfactuals’. These counterfactuals are understood as conceptual alternatives to the allocation of competences under the status quo. As such, they either relate to a new European competence (if the policy is currently a national responsibility) or a new national competence (if the policy is currently assigned to the EU). The comprehensive, quantification-based assessments indicate that it would be preferable to have responsibility for higher education and providing farmers with income support at the national level. Conversely, a shift of competences to the EU level would be advantageous when it comes to asylum policies, defence, corporate taxation, development aid and a (complementary) unemployment insurance scheme in the euro area. For one policy – railway freight transport – the findings are indeterminate. Overall, the study recommends a differentiated integration strategy comprising both new European policies and a roll-back of EU competences in other fields

Advances in Evolutionary Algorithms

With the recent trends towards massive data sets and significant computational power, combined with evolutionary algorithmic advances evolutionary computation is becoming much more relevant to practice. Aim of the book is to present recent improvements, innovative ideas and concepts in a part of a huge EA field

Monitoring Managers: Does it Matter?

We test under what circumstances boards discipline managers and whether such interventions improve performance. We exploit exogenous variation due to the staggered adoption of corporate governance laws in formerly Communist countries coupled with detailed ‘hard’ information about the board’s performance expectations and ‘soft’ information about board and CEO actions and the board’s beliefs about CEO competence in 473 mostly private-sector companies backed by private equity funds between 1993 and 2008. We find that CEOs are fired when the company underperforms relative to the board’s expectations, suggesting that boards use performance to update their beliefs. CEOs are especially likely to be fired when evidence has mounted that they are incompetent and when board power has increased following corporate governance reforms. In contrast, CEOs are not fired when performance deteriorates due to factors deemed explicitly to be beyond their control, nor are they fired for making ‘honest mistakes.’ Following forced CEO turnover, companies see performance improvements and their investors are considerably more likely to eventually sell them at a profit.Corporate Governance, Large Shareholders, Boards of Directors, CEO Turnover, Legal Reforms, Transition Economies, Private Equity

Managerial effectiveness in the implementation of quick response manufacturing (QRM) to increase business agility

PURPOSE: The competitive and variable business environment forces organizations not only to flexibly adapt to changes, but also to predict them. A desirable capability of an organization is agility, understood as the ease and speed with which companies can reconfigure, redesign and adapt their processes in order to respond to the needs, threats and opportunities. QRM is a management concept that focuses on time as the key factor in competitive manufacturing. The objective of this article is to analyze the effect of QRM implementation on key business agility characteristics.DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The research methods used to accomplish this goal are literature studies and questionnaire surveys using the agility attributes matrix. Based on literature studies as well as the conducted interviews, a model of the effect of QRM implementation has been developed.FINDINGS: The results obtained show that QRM implementation definitely has an impact on all areas of the company's agility.PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The article brings several valuable pieces of information and provides practical tips. The results may be taken advantage of by entrepreneurs. They constitute indications for selecting competition instruments during the crises.ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The previous studies on Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) were conducted in various dimensions, while there is no research linking this method to business agility. It is the first such research.The publication was financed by a subsidy for the Faculty of Management of AGH University for the maintenance and development of research potential.peer-reviewe

Open Innovation and Knowledge Sharing - Towards a sustainable offshore aquaculture

This thesis explores knowledge sharing, open innovation, and skilled relatedness between two industries, the emerging offshore aquaculture industry, and the oil and gas industry. This research placed a significant emphasis on comparing these two industries using the theories presented in chapter two. To gather data for this thesis, a qualitative research method was utilized, which includes semi-structured interviews, a questionnaire, and a literature study. The desire for sustainable development is a powerful motivator for consumer and company behavior, not to mention government mandates. According to the UN, the world ́s food output must quadruple by 2050 to feed a rising population. The sea must provide a significant portion of the increasing food output. Aquaculture has been singled out as essential to enhancing the world ́s food output. Offshore aquaculture is an innovative method of fish production. Although this method has been researched for a while, we have never been as close to a functioning aquaculture operation at sea as we are now. Compared to the initial fish farming on land or near the shore, offshore aquaculture has presented additional difficulties. The physical environment will be different for offshore aquaculture compared to inshore aquaculture. Despite the distinct physical and climatic circumstances, many of the biological obstacles of offshore aquaculture will still be similar to those of traditional coastal fish farming, including today’s well-known problems like lice, illness, and fish welfare. Offshore aquaculture developers were obliged to change their approach due to these challenges. Knowledge sharing, skilled relatedness, open innovation and spillovers from the oil and gas industry might all be advantageous for the growing offshore aquaculture industry

Open Innovation and Knowledge Sharing - Towards a sustainable offshore aquaculture

This thesis explores knowledge sharing, open innovation, and skilled relatedness between two industries, the emerging offshore aquaculture industry, and the oil and gas industry. This research placed a significant emphasis on comparing these two industries using the theories presented in chapter two. To gather data for this thesis, a qualitative research method was utilized, which includes semi-structured interviews, a questionnaire, and a literature study. The desire for sustainable development is a powerful motivator for consumer and company behavior, not to mention government mandates. According to the UN, the world´s food output must quadruple by 2050 to feed a rising population. The sea must provide a significant portion of the increasing food output. Aquaculture has been singled out as essential to enhancing the world´s food output. Offshore aquaculture is an innovative method of fish production. Although this method has been researched for a while, we have never been as close to a functioning aquaculture operation at sea as we are now. Compared to the initial fish farming on land or near the shore, offshore aquaculture has presented additional difficulties. The physical environment will be different for offshore aquaculture compared to inshore aquaculture. Despite the distinct physical and climatic circumstances, many of the biological obstacles of offshore aquaculture will still be similar to those of traditional coastal fish farming, including today’s well-known problems like lice, illness, and fish welfare. Offshore aquaculture developers were obliged to change their approach due to these challenges. Knowledge sharing, skilled relatedness, open innovation and spillovers from the oil and gas industry might all be advantageous for the growing offshore aquaculture industry