Using cross-functional, cross-firm teams to co-create value: The role of financial measures

Increasingly, the involvement of representatives from all major business functions in cross-functional, crossfirmteams is being viewed as a means to develop and maintain profitable business-to-business relationships.However, if the measurements of the value co-created in these relationships with customers and suppliers donot incorporate the financial outcomes of joint cross-functional initiatives, managers can be led to makedecisions that jeopardize the long-term profitability of the two firms. In this paper, the authors explore thedifferences in value co-creation when a company is linked to key customers and key suppliers through crossfunctionalteams and when it is not. Using a case study approach, the authors measured value co-creation infinancial terms and describe how managers changed their behaviors toward customers and suppliers whenthey were able to compare the value that was being co-created in each relationship. In each pair ofrelationships, one involved cross-functional teams and the other did not. The results indicate that crossfunctional,cross-firm involvement leads to increased value co-creation. The research suggests that marketingscholars and managers should emphasize the use of cross-functional teams that involve all major functions tomanage relationships with key customers, and should incorporate financial measures in the evaluation ofrelationship performance

Tunneling Rate for Superparamagnetic Particles by the Instanton Method

We derive the tunneling rate for paramagnetic molecules in the context of a collective spin model. By means of path integral methods an analytical expression is derived. Given the very large spins in question (s ~ 3000 hbar), the observation of magnetization changes due to pure unitary tunnel effects is unlikely.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure

Has Dark Energy really been discovered in the Lab?

We show that Dark Energy contributions can not be determined from noise measurements of Josephson junctions, as was recently suggested in a paper by C. Beck and M.C. Mackey.Comment: The paper is accepted for publication in Physics Letters B; added equation

Structure of metabotropic glutamate receptor C-terminal domains in contact with interacting proteins

Metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) regulate intracellular signal pathways that control several physiological tasks, including neuronal excitability, learning, and memory. This is achieved by the formation of synaptic signal complexes, in which mGluRs assemble with functionally related proteins such as enzymes, scaffolds, and cytoskeletal anchor proteins. Thus, mGluR associated proteins actively participate in the regulation of glutamatergic neurotransmission. Importantly, dysfunction of mGluRs and interacting proteins may lead to impaired signal transduction and finally result in neurological disorders, e.g., night blindness, addiction, epilepsy, schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders and Parkinson's disease. In contrast to solved crystal structures of extracellular N-terminal domains of some mGluR types, only a few studies analyzed the conformation of intracellular receptor domains. Intracellular C-termini of most mGluR types are subject to alternative splicing and can be further modified by phosphorylation and SUMOylation. In this way, diverse interaction sites for intracellular proteins that bind to and regulate the glutamate receptors are generated. Indeed, most of the known mGluR binding partners interact with the receptors' C-terminal domains. Within the last years, different laboratories analyzed the structure of these domains and described the geometry of the contact surface between mGluR C-termini and interacting proteins. Here, I will review recent progress in the structure characterization of mGluR C-termini and provide an up-to-date summary of the geometry of these domains in contact with binding partners

The Culture of Social Science Research

[Excerpt] This paper is valuable to any social scientist, whether he or she studies culture or not, because it empirically investigates the extremely important question of the linkage of theory and practice. Barley, Meyer, and Gash are deserving of considerable praise for their effort to take the question beyond the realm of ideological positions, into the domain of testing patterns of change and influence. They employed an innovative methodology to compare the pragmatics (connotative meanings) of language usage in academics\u27 and practitioners\u27 articles. However valuable this methodology might be for subsequent research, I will concentrate on the results themselves, and use them as an opportunity to reflect on how organizational researchers do social science

Measuring the external risk in the United Kingdom

This paper aims to describe the evolution of the external risk in the United Kingdom between 1961 and 2008. We first present a theoretical description of the risk indicator. Then, we calculate this measure for the British economy in the period of study. In general, the results reveal a very small increase of external risk. Finally, the relationship between the two dimensions of external risk: trade openness and external volatility is analysed.trade openness, terms of trade volatility, external risk, United Kingdom

Student-Based Examples: Do They Help or Hinder Instruction?

[Excerpt] Many professors, myself included, have for years operated under the impression that examples from the current experiences of students’ lives are helpful, useful and relevant for illustrating complex ideas or theories. We seek to use examples from the students’ realm of experience. We discuss conflict and perceptions in the context of roommate interactions. The university’s procedures and goals are presented as a foil for discussions of organizational designs, bureaucracy, and goal setting. We rely on the football and basketball teams for discussions of leadership and cooperation. The experiences of job interviews are used to discuss corporate culture and socialization. Finally, we bring home the nuances of performance appraisal, feedback and reward structures by discussing the operation of the very class we teach

The Commoditization of Starbucks

[Excerpt] Is the coffee empire that Starbucks built beginning to fall? In a memo sent to the senior management of the company in February 2007, Howard Schultz warned that Starbucks was in danger of losing its romance and theater, which he believes are fundamental to the Starbucks experience. He noted, “Over the past ten years in order to achieve the growth, development, and scale necessary to go from less than 1,000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond, we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have led to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand.” Calling the memo subject “The Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience,” Schultz questioned corporate decisions to use automatic espresso machines and eliminate some in-store coffee grinding. He worried that store design decisions to gain scale efficiencies and higher sales-to-investment ratios had turned stores into sterile cookie-cutter properties, without the warmth of a neighborhood cafe. Streamlining store design was a financial decision, but the result was that stores no longer have the soul of the past. Schultz envisioned the cafes as a “third place” where people gather between home and work and feel some of the romance of the European cafe, but this feature may have disappeared, to be replaced by a chain store feel versus a neighborhood store

Issues of Concern for Restaurant Owners and Managers

Human resources continues to be the most troubling issue for U.S. restaurant owners and operators. When448 restaurateurs were given the chance to state their top concerns, they chose finding and keeping competent employees, closely followed by a constellation of concerns relating to government regulation, taxation, and legal liability. Other issues that respondents cited were ensuring safe food handling, finding effective marketing strategies, and staying ahead of competitors in a tight economic environment