Offshoring and firm innovation

Offshoring has been one of the most enduring themes in the corporate world in recent times. It still splits the opinion of fans and opponents in a manner that is usually the preserve of obscure religious disputes

Effects of measurement strategy and statistical analysis on dose-response relations between physical workload and low back pain

BACKGROUND: In epidemiological studies on physical workloads and back complaints, among the important features in modelling dose-response relations are the measurement strategy of the exposure and the nature of the dose-response relation that is assumed. AIM: To evaluate the effect of these two features on the strength of the dose-response relation between physical load and severe low back pain. METHODS: The study population consisted of 769 workers in nursing homes and homes for the elderly. Observations at the workplace were made of 212 subjects. These observations were analysed to determine exposure to physical load according to two measurement strategies: the individual approach and the group approach. The nature of the dose-response relation was evaluated with nested logistic regression models. RESULTS: The group approach resulted in higher odds ratios for the associations between physical load and low back pain than the individual approach. Spline logistic regression models appeared to describe the dose-response relation between physical load and low back pain best. The corresponding curve showed small changes in risk for small changes in exposure, whereas the categorical model only showed sudden large changes in risk at predefined exposure values. CONCLUSION: The choice for a particular measurement strategy of physical load influences the strength of the associations between physical load and severe low back pain. Spline models allow changes in risk over the whole exposure range and are therefore a promising approach to identify quantitative dose-response patterns between physical load and low back pain

Bringing focus to entrepreneurship

Fostering entrepreneurship has long been a core part of the RSM ethos. But a new centre bringing together some key players promises to take this philosophy to a new and even more successful level

Institutional reforms and entrepreneurial growth ambitions

Institutional reforms have resulted in deep transformations of the global economy. Yet, the theoretical development and accumulating insights about the effects of institutional reforms on entrepreneurial outcomes have been inconclusive. Our study applies categorisation theory to argue that flexibility- and stability-enhancing reforms may affect entrepreneurial growth ambitions in distinct ways, depending on whether more innovative versus less innovative entrepreneurs perceive specific reforms as an opportunity or a threat. Our study employs a multi-source, repeated cross-sectional dataset of approximately 150,000 entrepreneurs from 65 countries, covering the period from 2002 to 2016. Our findings indicate that flexibility-enhancing reforms lead to higher growth ambitions. They are particularly favoured by less innovative entrepreneurs. On the contrary, stability-enhancing reforms do not affect growth ambitions of entrepreneurs in general but rather increase growth ambitions of more innovative entrepreneurs. Our study provides important theoretical and practical implications about the consequences of institutional reforms on growth ambitions of entrepreneurs with different levels of innovation.</p

Gauge Invariant Treatment of the Electroweak Phase Transition

We evaluate the gauge invariant effective potential for the composite field $\sigma=2\Phi^{\dagger}\Phi$ in the SU(2)-Higgs model at finite temperature. Symmetric and broken phases correspond to the domains $\sigma\leq T^2/3$ and $\sigma > T^2/3$, respectively. The effective potential increases very steeply at small values of $\sigma$. Predictions for several observables, derived from the ordinary and the gauge invariant effective potential, are compared. Good agreement is found for the critical temperature and the jump in the order parameter. The results for the latent heat differ significantly for large Higgs masses.Comment: 8 pages latex, DESY-94-043, 4 figures can be obtained via e-mail from [email protected]

The phase structure of a chirally invariant lattice Higgs-Yukawa model for small and for large values of the Yukawa coupling constant

We consider a chirally invariant lattice Higgs-Yukawa model based on the Neuberger overlap operator. As a first step towards the eventual determination of Higgs mass bounds we study the phase diagram of the model analytically in the large Nf-limit. We present an expression for the effective potential at tree-level in the regime of small Yukawa and quartic coupling constants and determine the order of the phase transitions. In the case of strong Yukawa couplings the model effectively becomes an O(4)-symmetric non-linear sigma-model for all values of the quartic coupling constant. This leads to the existence of a symmetric phase also in the regime of large values of the Yukawa coupling constant. On finite and small lattices, however, strong finite volume effects prevent the expectation value of the Higgs field from vanishing thus obscuring the existence of the symmetric phase at strong Yukawa couplings.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, added reference

Corporate Entrepreneurship: Sensing and Seizing Opportunities for a Prosperous Research Agenda

Strategic and corporate entrepreneurship have been widely acknowledged by scholars and executives alike as an effective means of revitalizing organizations to improve performance. Spurring entrepreneurial behavior and exploration within established organizations, however, remains a big challenge facing today’s businesses. As organizations grow and age over time, like people in general, they tend to become set in their ways of thinking, learning, managing and acting – they become less flexible and less willing to sense and seize new opportunities. There is little doubt that the mindsets and organizational attributes needed for exploring and leveraging new opportunities are radically different from those needed for smoothening ongoing operations, making it difficult to pursue both sets of activities at the same time within an organization. Given the importance for future sustainable growth, scholars have yet to uncover how organizations may reconcile conflicting demands and resolve the challenges associated with corporate entrepreneurship’s emphasis on leveraging existing opportunities as well as new ones ‘out there’. The aim of this inaugural address is to draw the foundations and to identify emergent opportunities for moving forward research on strategic entrepreneur - ship in general and on corporate entrepreneurship in particular. It considers the challenges associated with corporate entrepreneurship and details important organizational and managerial features of successful organizations that span different levels of analysis. The inaugural address concludes that the integration of theory and research in strategic management and entrepreneurship using such a multilevel approach generates valuable new research avenues underlying a prosperous research agenda

Who violates expectations when? How firms' growth and dividend reputations affect investors' reactions to acquisitions

Research summary: We investigate the role of a firm's dividend and growth reputations in shaping investors' interpretations of acquisitions as a negative or positive expectation violation. While our findings reveal that both an acquiring firm's dividend and growth reputations trigger positive investor reactions, they also show that investors react negatively to an acquisition of a target firm with a strong growth reputation when the acquiring firm has a strong dividend reputation. We also find that investors are inclined to give managers “the benefit of the doubt” to the extent that an acquiring firm strategically frames an acquisition announcement in such a way that it provides assurance to investors that the acquisition is meant to exceed investors' expectations about shareholder value creation. Managerial summary: We study why investors respond to some acquisitions positively and others negatively. We find that the way acquiring and target firms have created shareholder value in the past, and the information conveyed in the acquisition announcements are important determinants of investors' differential reactions to acquisitions. Our findings show that while investors generally react positively to acquisitions by firms known for creating value either through dividends or growth, their reactions become negative when a firm known for value creation through dividends acquires a target known for value creation through growth. We further find that managers can favorably influence investor reactions by making it salient in the acquisition announcement how the acquisition is intended to exceed investors' value creation expectations from the acquiring firm