The Insider\u27s Advantage: CEO Experience and The Performance of Large Diversified Firms

Much upper echelons research focuses on the effect of CEO experience on firm performance outcomes. This paper extends this research stream using human and social capital theories as a framework to examine the effect of CEO experience on the performance of large diversified companies. Our analysis of 239 Fortune “500” companies finds that larger companies are more likely to select insiders and individuals who have more firm-specific experience to be their CEO. We also find that the selection of insiders and CEOs with more firm-specific experience is associated with significantly higher firm performance. These findings highlight the importance of the human and social capital possessed by company insiders, and shed additional light on the strategic leadership of large diversified companies and other complex organizations

Helping Leaders Grow Up: Vertical Leadership Development in Practice

This research reinforces arguments for the use of adult vertical development theory to transform traditional leadership development practices to prepare leaders for the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. Vertical leadership development strategies and practices were assessed in fifteen large organizations. Multiple factors impacted implementation of vertical development practices. The primary factor was the overall leadership development mindset (the organization’s learning strategy and its theory of individual change). Secondary factors include senior leader engagement, space for openness and vulnerability, capability and experience of practitioners, alignment in business processes, and expanded understanding of risk-taking. Our results illustrate that accelerating leadership capacity through the implementation of vertical development practices requires significant personal and organizational commitment

Helping Leaders Grow Up: Vertical Leadership Development in Practice

This research reinforces arguments for the use of adult vertical development theory to transform traditional leadership development practices to prepare leaders for the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. Vertical leadership development strategies and practices were assessed in fifteen large organizations. Multiple factors impacted implementation of vertical development practices. The primary factor was the overall leadership development mindset (the organization’s learning strategy and its theory of individual change). Secondary factors include senior leader engagement, space for openness and vulnerability, capability and experience of practitioners, alignment in business processes, and expanded understanding of risk-taking. Our results illustrate that accelerating leadership capacity through the implementation of vertical development practices requires significant personal and organizational commitment

Adaptive latitude: Environment, organization, and individual influences

This study examines a hierarchy of adaptive latitude and the influence them in a progressive hierarchy. A second purpose was to investigate the extent to which environmental and organizaof environmental, organizational and managerial characteristics on firm adaptation across three industries (aerospace, electronic components, and tional factors, along with personal characteristics of managers, limit or favor efforts of policy makers to adapt. Although paper products). Results show that environmental characteristics had the greatest impact on adaptive latitude, followed by organizational characterstrategic choice theorists and population ecologists differ about which is the most important or powerful set, researchers istics

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo

Ephemeris and hazard assessment for near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu based on OSIRIS-REx data

Small bodies such as the near-Earth asteroid Bennu drift in their orbit due to thermal radiation forces (the Yarkovsky effect). Ground-based observations have indicated a nonzero probability of Bennu impacting Earth, depending on how its orbit evolves. Thus, among the goals of the OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) mission to Bennu were to precisely measure the Yarkovsky effect and refine the impact hazard assessment for this body. Here we address these objectives. Using OSIRIS-REx spacecraft tracking data, we derive meter-level constraints on the distance between Earth and Bennu from January 2019 to October 2020. While these data greatly improve the knowledge of the trajectory of Bennu, they also require an unprecedented fidelity for the modeling of an asteroid’s trajectory. In particular, special care is needed to take into account the contribution of 343 small-body perturbers and the uncertainty in their masses. Radiation effects such as the Poynting–Robertson drag, so far only considered for interplanetary dust dynamics, now become a consideration for modeling the trajectory of a 500-m asteroid such as Bennu. By employing a thermophysical model based on OSIRIS-REx’s characterization of Bennu, we estimate a semimajor axis drift of−284.6 ± 0.2m/yr (signal-to-noise ratio∼1400) at epoch 2011 January 1 caused by the Yarkovsky effect. The largest source of modeling error is solar wind drag, which may lower the magnitude of the semimajor axis drift from the Yarkovsky effect by up to 0.16 m/yr. The Yarkovsky-related semimajor axis drift varies by roughly±1m/yr as the orbit of Bennu evolves due to planetary perturbations from 1900 to 2135. The Yarkovsky thermophysical model proves to be extremely accurate by predicting a bulk density estimate within 0.1% of that estimated through gravity science analysis. Compared to the information available before the OSIRIS-REx mission, the knowledge of the circumstances of the scattering Earth encounter that will occur in 2135 improves by a factor of 20, thus allowing us to rule out many previously possible impact trajectories. However, there remain some impact trajectories compatible with the data. Prior to the spacecraft encounter, the overall impact probability through 2200 was 3.7 × 10−4 (1 in 2700). As a result of our analysis, the cumulative impact probability through 2300 becomes 5.7 × 10−4 (1 in 1750) and the most significant individual impact solution is for September 2182, with an impact probability of 3.7 × 10−4 (1 in 2700). Both Bennu and (29075) 1950 DA have a Palermo scale value of −1.42 and share the distinction as the currently most hazardous object in the asteroid catalog

Strategic Thinking: Today’s Business Imperative

There are many strategy books available in the marketplace for today’s student or business professional; most of them view strategy from the 10,000 foot level, while Strategic Thinking looks at this important business topic through a different lens. Written from the perspective of a manager, this book builds on theories of managerial and organizational cognition that have had a powerful influence on many business fields over the last two decades. As other books on business policy and strategy cover a broad range of topics, models, frameworks, and theories, the unique feature of this book is that it covers all this, but also focuses on how managers of business firms understand their business environments, assess and marshal their firms’ resources, and strive for advantage in the competitive marketplace. It examines the economic, structural, and managerial explanations for firm performance.https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/businessbooks/1003/thumbnail.jp

Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor Governs Endothelial Cell Sensitivity to LPS-Induced Apoptosis

Human endothelial cells (EC) are typically resistant to the apoptotic effects of stimuli associated with lung disease. The determinants of this resistance remain incompletely understood. Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a proinflammatory cytokine produced by human pulmonary artery EC (HPAEC). Its expression increases in response to various death-inducing stimuli, including lipopolysaccharide (LPS). We show here that silencing MIF expression by RNA interference (MIF siRNA) dramatically reduces MIF mRNA expression and the LPS-induced increase in MIF protein levels, thereby sensitizing HPAECs to LPS-induced cell death. Addition of recombinant human MIF (rhMIF) protein prevents the death-sensitizing effect of MIF siRNA. A common mediator of apoptosis resistance in ECs is the death effector domain (DED)-containing protein, FLIP (FLICE-like inhibitory protein). We show that LPS induces a transcription-independent increase in the short isoform of FLIP (FLIPs). This increase is blocked by MIF siRNA but restored with the addition of recombinant MIF protein (rHMIF). While FLIPs siRNA also sensitizes HPAECs to LPS-induced death, the addition of rhMIF does not affect this sensitization, placing MIF upstream of FLIPs in preventing HPAEC death. These studies demonstrate that MIF is an endogenous pro-survival factor in HPAECs and identify a novel mechanism for its role in apoptosis resistance through the regulation of FLIPs. These results show that MIF can protect vascular endothelial cells from inflammation-associated cell damage