Walking a Fine Line: Firm Reputation for Innovation, Optimal Strategic Distinctiveness, and Performance

Organizational reputation has been shown to influence important organizational outcomes. As a result, a large body of literature has devoted significant attention to organizational reputation. Findings have shown organizational reputation influences a wide range of outcomes such as IPO pricing, firm performance, stakeholder support, and organizational misconduct. One area extant organizational reputation work has not examined is the influence of organizational reputation on strategic decision making. In this dissertation, I propose organizational reputation is an important factor influencing strategic decision making. I draw on recent refinements of the known for something dimension of organizational reputation and focus on firms with a high firm innovation capability reputation. Firms with a high innovation capability reputation are known for generating innovation. Innovation is expected from firms with a high innovation capability reputation, but less attention is given to the behaviors or actions these firms engage in to generate innovation. Recognizing stakeholders largely focus on the firm’s innovation leads CEOs to perceive discretion exists in the behaviors the firm can use to generate innovation. I examine how having a high innovation capability reputation and the areas of discretion CEOs perceive attached to the reputation influence strategic distinctiveness. Why some firms increase distinctiveness while others reduce distinctiveness is a central question for organizational scholars. I develop competing hypotheses suggesting an upside and downside to strategic distinctiveness exists influencing the likelihood of engaging in strategic distinctiveness. On the upside, strategic distinctiveness offers firms a mechanism to help achieve aspirations. One the downside, strategic distinctiveness offers a mechanism that could result in the firm losing the benefits its reputation offers. To examine boundary conditions, I draw on the upper echelons literature and argue organizational, environmental, and leadership contexts can create contingencies exacerbating aspirations or loss aversion that will either amplify or attenuate my main relationships. Finally, literature suggests firms walk a fine line between too much distinctiveness and not enough distinctiveness. Thus, I examine whether an optimal level of strategic distinctiveness is best for firm performance. I test my arguments using a sample of S&P 1500 firms between 2007-2015

Walking a Fine Line: Firm Reputation for Innovation, Optimal Strategic Distinctiveness, and Performance

Organizational reputation has been shown to influence important organizational outcomes. As a result, a large body of literature has devoted significant attention to organizational reputation. Findings have shown organizational reputation influences a wide range of outcomes such as IPO pricing, firm performance, stakeholder support, and organizational misconduct. One area extant organizational reputation work has not examined is the influence of organizational reputation on strategic decision making. In this dissertation, I propose organizational reputation is an important factor influencing strategic decision making. I draw on recent refinements of the known for something dimension of organizational reputation and focus on firms with a high firm innovation capability reputation. Firms with a high innovation capability reputation are known for generating innovation. Innovation is expected from firms with a high innovation capability reputation, but less attention is given to the behaviors or actions these firms engage in to generate innovation. Recognizing stakeholders largely focus on the firm’s innovation leads CEOs to perceive discretion exists in the behaviors the firm can use to generate innovation. I examine how having a high innovation capability reputation and the areas of discretion CEOs perceive attached to the reputation influence strategic distinctiveness. Why some firms increase distinctiveness while others reduce distinctiveness is a central question for organizational scholars. I develop competing hypotheses suggesting an upside and downside to strategic distinctiveness exists influencing the likelihood of engaging in strategic distinctiveness. On the upside, strategic distinctiveness offers firms a mechanism to help achieve aspirations. One the downside, strategic distinctiveness offers a mechanism that could result in the firm losing the benefits its reputation offers. To examine boundary conditions, I draw on the upper echelons literature and argue organizational, environmental, and leadership contexts can create contingencies exacerbating aspirations or loss aversion that will either amplify or attenuate my main relationships. Finally, literature suggests firms walk a fine line between too much distinctiveness and not enough distinctiveness. Thus, I examine whether an optimal level of strategic distinctiveness is best for firm performance. I test my arguments using a sample of S&P 1500 firms between 2007-2015

Walking a Fine Line: Firm Reputation for Innovation, Optimal Strategic Distinctiveness, and Performance

Organizational reputation has been shown to influence important organizational outcomes. As a result, a large body of literature has devoted significant attention to organizational reputation. Findings have shown organizational reputation influences a wide range of outcomes such as IPO pricing, firm performance, stakeholder support, and organizational misconduct. One area extant organizational reputation work has not examined is the influence of organizational reputation on strategic decision making. In this dissertation, I propose organizational reputation is an important factor influencing strategic decision making. I draw on recent refinements of the known for something dimension of organizational reputation and focus on firms with a high firm innovation capability reputation. Firms with a high innovation capability reputation are known for generating innovation. Innovation is expected from firms with a high innovation capability reputation, but less attention is given to the behaviors or actions these firms engage in to generate innovation. Recognizing stakeholders largely focus on the firm’s innovation leads CEOs to perceive discretion exists in the behaviors the firm can use to generate innovation. I examine how having a high innovation capability reputation and the areas of discretion CEOs perceive attached to the reputation influence strategic distinctiveness. Why some firms increase distinctiveness while others reduce distinctiveness is a central question for organizational scholars. I develop competing hypotheses suggesting an upside and downside to strategic distinctiveness exists influencing the likelihood of engaging in strategic distinctiveness. On the upside, strategic distinctiveness offers firms a mechanism to help achieve aspirations. One the downside, strategic distinctiveness offers a mechanism that could result in the firm losing the benefits its reputation offers. To examine boundary conditions, I draw on the upper echelons literature and argue organizational, environmental, and leadership contexts can create contingencies exacerbating aspirations or loss aversion that will either amplify or attenuate my main relationships. Finally, literature suggests firms walk a fine line between too much distinctiveness and not enough distinctiveness. Thus, I examine whether an optimal level of strategic distinctiveness is best for firm performance. I test my arguments using a sample of S&P 1500 firms between 2007-2015

Walking a Fine Line: Firm Reputation for Innovation, Optimal Strategic Distinctiveness, and Performance

Organizational reputation has been shown to influence important organizational outcomes. As a result, a large body of literature has devoted significant attention to organizational reputation. Findings have shown organizational reputation influences a wide range of outcomes such as IPO pricing, firm performance, stakeholder support, and organizational misconduct. One area extant organizational reputation work has not examined is the influence of organizational reputation on strategic decision making. In this dissertation, I propose organizational reputation is an important factor influencing strategic decision making. I draw on recent refinements of the known for something dimension of organizational reputation and focus on firms with a high firm innovation capability reputation. Firms with a high innovation capability reputation are known for generating innovation. Innovation is expected from firms with a high innovation capability reputation, but less attention is given to the behaviors or actions these firms engage in to generate innovation. Recognizing stakeholders largely focus on the firm’s innovation leads CEOs to perceive discretion exists in the behaviors the firm can use to generate innovation. I examine how having a high innovation capability reputation and the areas of discretion CEOs perceive attached to the reputation influence strategic distinctiveness. Why some firms increase distinctiveness while others reduce distinctiveness is a central question for organizational scholars. I develop competing hypotheses suggesting an upside and downside to strategic distinctiveness exists influencing the likelihood of engaging in strategic distinctiveness. On the upside, strategic distinctiveness offers firms a mechanism to help achieve aspirations. One the downside, strategic distinctiveness offers a mechanism that could result in the firm losing the benefits its reputation offers. To examine boundary conditions, I draw on the upper echelons literature and argue organizational, environmental, and leadership contexts can create contingencies exacerbating aspirations or loss aversion that will either amplify or attenuate my main relationships. Finally, literature suggests firms walk a fine line between too much distinctiveness and not enough distinctiveness. Thus, I examine whether an optimal level of strategic distinctiveness is best for firm performance. I test my arguments using a sample of S&P 1500 firms between 2007-2015

Long-term variations in the net inflow record for Lake Malawi

Lake Malawi is the third largest lake in Africa and plays an important role in water supply, hydropower generation, agriculture and fisheries in the region. Lake level observations started in the 1890s and anecdotal evidence of variations dates back to the early 1800s. A chronology of lake level and outflow variations is presented together with updated estimates for the net inflow to the lake. The inflow series and selected rainfall records were also analysed using an unobserved component approach and, although there was little evidence of long-term trends, there was some indication of increasing interannual variability in recent decades. A weak quasi-periodic behaviour was also noted with a period of approximately 4–8 years. The results provide useful insights into the severity of drought and flood events in the region since the 1890s and the potential for seasonal forecasting of lake levels and outflows

Long-term variations in the net inflow record for Lake Malawi

Lake Malawi is the third largest lake in Africa and plays an important role in water supply, hydropower generation, agriculture and fisheries in the region. Lake level observations started in the 1890s and anecdotal evidence of variations dates back to the early 1800s. A chronology of lake level and outflow variations is presented together with updated estimates for the net inflow to the lake. The inflow series and selected rainfall records were also analysed using an unobserved component approach and, although there was little evidence of long-term trends, there was some indication of increasing interannual variability in recent decades. A weak quasi-periodic behaviour was also noted with a period of approximately 4–8 years. The results provide useful insights into the severity of drought and flood events in the region since the 1890s and the potential for seasonal forecasting of lake levels and outflows

Enhanced 'In-situ' catalysis via microwave selective heating: catalytic chain transfer polymerisation

An extremely facile, single stage, ‘in-situ’, Catalytic Chain Transfer Polymerisation (CCTP) process has been identified, where the optimal polymerisation process was shown to depend upon a combination of catalyst characteristics (i.e. solubility, sensitivity, activity) and the method of heating applied. In comparison to the current benchmark catalyst, the preparation of which is only about 40 % efficient, this represents a significant increase in waste prevention/atom efficiency and removes the need for organic solvent. It was also shown possible to significantly reduce the overall ‘in-situ’ reaction cycle time by adopting different processing strategies in order to minimise energy use. The application of microwave heating was demonstrated to overcome system diffusion/dilution issues and result in rapid, ‘in-situ’ catalyst formation. This allowed processing times to be minimised by enabling a critical concentration of the species susceptible to microwave selective heating to dominate the heat and mass transfer involved

Effectively Including Human Factors in the Design of New Facilities

Human error is a major cause of incidents in the offshore industry. For example, in the Gulf of Mexico region in 1998, 38% of all incidents were attributed to human error with an additional 9% of incidents resulting from slips, trips, and falls (MMS 2000-021, OCS Report). Human Factors, when integrated during the design of a new offshore facility, can reduce the potential for human error and the occurrence of unfortunate incidents. Quite often the implementation of Human Factors (HF) during design is disregarded because of the notion that it will add unacceptable costs. Review of the cost/benefit data contained in this paper proves that notion to be untrue. Although cost/benefit is important, it was not the primary focus of this Working Group. This paper’s focus is to develop a means or a strategy to effectively integrate the application of HF design principles into all phases of a new capital design project. This Working Group’s objective during the Second International Workshop on Human Factors in Offshore Operations was to generate discussion concerning HF integration strategies and to focus on specific implementation issues that have been shown to be successful. These include but are not limited to: · The factors critical to the success of HF integration · What HF activities should be conducted · At what stage during the various design phases should HF activities take place · HF strategies, how to decide what level of human factors engineering is required · The qualifications and responsibilities of those executing HF activitie

Effectively Including Human Factors in the Design of New Facilities

Human error is a major cause of incidents in the offshore industry. For example, in the Gulf of Mexico region in 1998, 38% of all incidents were attributed to human error with an additional 9% of incidents resulting from slips, trips, and falls (MMS 2000-021, OCS Report). Human Factors, when integrated during the design of a new offshore facility, can reduce the potential for human error and the occurrence of unfortunate incidents. Quite often the implementation of Human Factors (HF) during design is disregarded because of the notion that it will add unacceptable costs. Review of the cost/benefit data contained in this paper proves that notion to be untrue. Although cost/benefit is important, it was not the primary focus of this Working Group. This paper’s focus is to develop a means or a strategy to effectively integrate the application of HF design principles into all phases of a new capital design project. This Working Group’s objective during the Second International Workshop on Human Factors in Offshore Operations was to generate discussion concerning HF integration strategies and to focus on specific implementation issues that have been shown to be successful. These include but are not limited to: · The factors critical to the success of HF integration · What HF activities should be conducted · At what stage during the various design phases should HF activities take place · HF strategies, how to decide what level of human factors engineering is required · The qualifications and responsibilities of those executing HF activitie

Pure iterative reconstruction improves image quality in computed tomography of the abdomen and pelvis acquired at substantially reduced radiation doses in patients with active Crohn disease

Objective: We assessed diagnostic accuracy and image quality of modified protocol (MP) computed tomography (CT) of the abdomen and pelvis reconstructed using pure iterative reconstruction (IR) in patients with Crohn disease (CD). Methods: Thirty-four consecutive patients with CD were referred with suspected extramural complications. Two contemporaneous CT datasets were acquired in all patients: standard protocol (SP) and MP. The MP and SP protocols were designed to impart radiation exposures of 10% to 20% and 80% to 90% of routine abdominopelvic CT, respectively. The MP images were reconstructed with model-based IR (MBIR) and adaptive statistical IR (ASIR). Results: The MP-CT and SP-CT dose length product were 88 (58) mGy.cm (1.27 [0.87] mSv) and 303 [204] mGy.cm (4.8 [2.99] mSv), respectively (P < 0.001). Median diagnostic acceptability, spatial resolution, and contrast resolution were significantly higher and subjective noise scores were significantly lower on SP-ASIR 40 compared with all MP datasets. There was perfect clinical agreement between MP-MBIR and SP-ASIR 40 images for detection of extramural complications. Conclusions: Modified protocol CT using pure IR is feasible for assessment of active CD