Tullock's Contest with Reimbursements

We consider Tullock’s contests with reimbursements. It turns out that the winner-reimbursed contest maximizes the net total spending while the loser-reimbursed contest minimizes the net total spending. We investigate properties of contests with reimbursements and compare them with the classic Tullock’s contest. Applications for R&D, government contracts, and elections are discussed.

Certification relics: entrepreneurship amidst discontinued certifications

We explore a key tension between certification and entrepreneurial entry. On the one hand, more stringent certifications may provide greater legitimacy. On the other hand, market entry may be facilitated by easing such standards. To reconcile this tension, we examine discontinued certifications. We draw on research into how new ventures use certifications to gain legitimacy, along with quantitative data from new venture credit records. We show that after a certification is discontinued, new ventures in emerging industries continue to conform to these discontinued certified standards. Our study shows that those whose attributes do not provide other sources of legitimacy (e.g., unconventional founders in emerging industries) are more likely than other new ventures to comply with discontinued certification. However, those with other legitimating attributes (e.g., elite institution alumni founders) can overcome such legitimacy deficits and take advantage of new rules easing entry. Overall, our findings show that discontinued certifications can become certification “relics” whose standards continue to linger and influence entry, even after they are no longer formally in effect. Our study and its findings enhance our understanding of institutional support for new ventures, as well as the repertoire of strategic actions available to new ventures to gain legitimacy and acceptance in the face of institutional change

Inappropriateness penalty, desirability premium: what do more certifications actually signal?

Prevailing theory argues that more certifications increase performance. However, emerging empirical evidence implies that obtaining more certifications may actually decrease performance. How do we reconcile this tension? Practically speaking, why would ventures seek additional certifications in light of these recently identified risks? To address this gap between existing theory and recent empirics, we look more closely at ventures’ activities and performance outcomes after they receive their first certification. We posit that different patterns of certification reflect different forms of experimentation. In particular, ventures may be willing to experiment in ways that incur an inappropriateness penalty for the chance to gain a subsequent desirability premium if their experiments succeed. Inappropriateness means that certifications signal divergence from accepted market norms and standards. Desirability means that certifications signal activities that are in the perceived self-interest of the potential audience. We hypothesize that certifications reflecting broad experimentation incur initial inappropriateness penalties, yet when successful, they are more likely to lead to breakthroughs that generate desirability premia. We find support for this idea through an empirical analysis drawing from a sample of 7,440 U.S. ventures that receive one or more Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants to commercialize new technologies. This study advances institutional theory of certification to better account not only for its benefits but also for its costs

Beyond spatial proximity: the impact of enhanced spatial connectedness from new bridges on entrepreneurship

Various strands of work have explored how spatial proximity helps (metaphorically) bridge barriers to resource mobilization and foster knowledge transfer. However, much of that work takes spatial connectedness as a given. We argue that spatial connectedness is a distinct construct that affects the extent to which spaces are not just proximate but are actually able to link people, ideas, resources, and knowledge together. We explore one such source of connectedness—physical (not metaphorical) bridges. We find that the opening of newly built bridges enhances startup founding in the local geographic community. Beyond their impact on startup founding, newly built bridges also influence the organizing process for such ventures. This includes a positive impact on the entry of prospective founders into entrepreneurship and an increase in the number of early-stage investors. The subsequently founded ventures are also more likely to engage in recombination and to cross industry boundaries. We explore scope conditions around industry and connective heterogeneity. We also test for robustness to various modeling approaches. The discussion highlights contributions of these findings to the study of entrepreneurship, as well as of organizations and the institutional fields in which they operate

Authoritarianism, Populism, and the Global Retreat of Democracy: A Curated Discussion

To the surprise of many in the West, the fall of the USSR in 1991 did not lead to the adoption of liberal democratic government around the world and the much anticipated “end of history.” In fact, authoritarianism has made a comeback, and liberal democracy has been on the retreat for at least the last 15 years culminating in the unthinkable: the invasion of a democratic European country by an authoritarian regime. But why does authoritarianism continue to spread, not only as an alternative to liberal democracy, but also within many liberal democracies where authoritarian leaders continue to gain strength and popularity? In this curated piece, contributors discuss some of the potential contributions of management scholarship to understanding authoritarianism, as well as highlight a number of directions for management research in this area.publishedVersio

Regeneration of the Exocrine Pancreas Is Delayed in Telomere-Dysfunctional Mice

INTRODUCTION: Telomere shortening is a cell-intrinsic mechanism that limits cell proliferation by induction of DNA damage responses resulting either in apoptosis or cellular senescence. Shortening of telomeres has been shown to occur during human aging and in chronic diseases that accelerate cell turnover, such as chronic hepatitis. Telomere shortening can limit organ homeostasis and regeneration in response to injury. Whether the same holds true for pancreas regeneration in response to injury is not known. METHODS: In the present study, pancreatic regeneration after acute cerulein-induced pancreatitis was studied in late generation telomerase knockout mice with short telomeres compared to telomerase wild-type mice with long telomeres. RESULTS: Late generation telomerase knockout mice exhibited impaired exocrine pancreatic regeneration after acute pancreatitis as seen by persistence of metaplastic acinar cells and markedly reduced proliferation. The expression levels of p53 and p21 were not significantly increased in regenerating pancreas of late generation telomerase knockout mice compared to wild-type mice. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that pancreatic regeneration is limited in the context of telomere dysfunction without evidence for p53 checkpoint activation

Genetic determinants of telomere length from 109,122 ancestrally diverse whole-genome sequences in TOPMed

Genetic studies on telomere length are important for understanding age-related diseases. Prior GWAS for leukocyte TL have been limited to European and Asian populations. Here, we report the first sequencing-based association study for TL across ancestrally-diverse individuals (European, African, Asian and Hispanic/Latino) from the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) program. We used whole genome sequencing (WGS) of whole blood for variant genotype calling and the bioinformatic estimation of telomere length in n=109,122 individuals. We identified 59 sentinel variants (p-value OBFC1indicated the independent signals colocalized with cell-type specific eQTLs for OBFC1 (STN1). Using a multi-variant gene-based approach, we identified two genes newly implicated in telomere length, DCLRE1B (SNM1B) and PARN. In PheWAS, we demonstrated our TL polygenic trait scores (PTS) were associated with increased risk of cancer-related phenotypes

Tullock’s contest with reimbursements

Contests, Reimbursement, D72, D74,

How do institutional carriers alleviate normative and cognitive barriers to regulatory change?

How do we reconcile misalignments between a system’s existing normative and cognitive elements and novel regulatory change? Prior work either largely focuses only on regulatory change or analyzes normative and cognitive barriers in parallel to rather than in interaction with regulatory change. Moreover, the institutional entrepreneurship literature that focuses on reconciling such misalignments is predominantly centered on the tactics of entrepreneurs rather than the support provided by institutional carriers. We, therefore, use the case of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Knowledge Innovation Program (KIP) to better understand these neglected facets of institutional change. Through a mixed methods approach, we posit and find support for two key mechanisms that support regulatory change. First, institutional carriers (e.g., CAS institutes) clarify the market relevance of technical knowledge, linking cognitive support to regulatory change. Second, institutional carriers (e.g., science parks) create shared standards that could not occur otherwise, linking normative support to regulatory change. Finally, these changes to institutions seem particularly associated with more nascent clusters. Our study contributes to studies at the nexus between institutional change and entrepreneurship by highlighting the role of linking cognitive and normative support to regulatory changes aimed at increasing entrepreneurship