Institutional complementarities and gender diversity on boards: a configurational approach

Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: To address the lack of a complementarities-based approach in studies of board diversity, this paper seeks to understandwhether and howcertain country-level factors are causally and jointly related towomen on boards and the nature of their complementarities (are they synergic or substitutes?). Moreover, we intend to learn more about the adoption/diffusion of board gender quotas, by taking into account their role in the existing national configurations (whether they are necessary and/or sufficient conditions). Research Findings/Insights: Using fs/QCA, our findings reveal a particular configuration of country-level conditions that supports the existence of a joint causal relation between given institutional arrangements. Furthermore, we find that board gender quota legislation is not a sufficient condition on its own to achieve a higher number of women on boards. Such evidence suggests that its diffusion across countries could be the result of institutional isomorphismor social legitimacy more than to rational reasons. Theoretical/Academic Implications: For scholars, our paper refines and expands insights from the extant comparative corporate governance literature. By finding support for the “bundled” or jointly causal nature of given institutional factors,we open a window for further research that investigates board-level phenomena in a complementarities-based perspective. Practitioner/Policy Implications: For policymakers, this study provides some insights that could better drive their choice about which mix of policies is necessary to improve female representation on boards, and especially in which institutional areas they should be implemented. It is particularly relevant, because once gender quotas are endorsed at board level, they could have ambiguous effects on firm performance and corporate governance

Modelling secondary production in the Norwegian Sea with a fully coupled physical/primary production/individual-based Calanus finmarchicus model system

The copepod Calanus finmarchicus is the dominant species of the meso-zooplankton in the Norwegian Sea, and constitutes an important link between the phytoplankton and the higher trophic levels in the Norwegian Sea food chain. An individual-based model for C. finmarchicus, based on super-individuals and evolving traits for behaviour, stages, etc., is two-way coupled to the NORWegian ECOlogical Model system (NORWECOM). One year of modelled C. finmarchicus spatial distribution, production and biomass are found to represent observations reasonably well. High C. finmarchicus abundance is found along the Norwegian shelf-break in the early summer, while the overwintering population is found along the slope and in the deeper Norwegian Sea basins. The timing of the spring bloom is generally later than in the observations. Annual Norwegian Sea production is found to be 29 million tonnes of carbon and a production to biomass (P/B) ratio of 4.3 emerges. Sensitivity tests show that the modelling system is robust to initial values of behavioural traits and with regards to the number of super-individuals simulated given that this is above about 50,000 individuals. Experiments with the model system indicate that it provides a valuable tool for studies of ecosystem responses to causative forces such as prey density or overwintering population size. For example, introducing C. finmarchicus food limitations reduces the stock dramatically, but on the other hand, a reduced stock may rebuild in one year under normal conditions

Board leadership and strategy involvement in small firms: a team production approach

"Research Question/Issue: Boards' involvement in strategy is generally seen to be an indicator of board effectiveness but less is known about the relationship between board leadership and strategy involvement, especially in small firms. This study analyses board leadership from a team production perspective as an antecedent to board strategy involvement in small firms. Research Findings/Insights: Using survey data from 140 small firms in Norway collected in two different time periods, we demonstrate that leadership behaviors and processes have a greater impact on boards' strategy involvement than structural leadership characteristics alone. Theoretical/ Academic Implications: The study provides empirical support for a team production perspective on boards. Our data show that: 1) board members' knowledge, board development and board chairperson leadership efficacy positively influence boards' strategy involvement, and 2) chairperson leadership efficacy enhances boards’ strategy involvement under structural conditions of combined CEO/ chairperson leadership and changes in board composition. These findings expand the traditional understanding of structural leadership conditions. Practitioner/ Policy Implications: The study offers insights to small business owners and managers on how to improve the strategy involvement of boards. For policy makers, the study has implications for the content of codes of good governance practice relevant to small firms, specifically in relation to board development initiatives and board evaluations." (author's abstract

TGF-β-induced growth inhibition in B-cell lymphoma correlates with Smad1/5 signalling and constitutively active p38 MAPK

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cytokines of the transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) superfamily exert effects on proliferation, apoptosis and differentiation in various cell types. Cancer cells frequently acquire resistance to the anti-proliferative signals of TGF-β, which can be due to mutations in proteins of the signalling cascade. We compared the TGF-β-related signalling properties in B-cell lymphoma cell lines that were sensitive or resistant to TGF-β-induced anti-proliferative effects.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>TGF-β sensitive cell lines expressed higher cell surface levels of the activin receptor-like kinase 5 (Alk-5), a TGF-β receptor type 1. The expression levels of the other TGF-β and bone morphogenetic protein receptors were comparable in the different cell lines. TGF-β-induced phosphorylation of Smad2 was similar in TGF-β sensitive and resistant cell lines. In contrast, activation of Smad1/5 was restricted to cells that were sensitive to growth inhibition by TGF-β. Moreover, with activin A we detected limited anti-proliferative effects, strong phosphorylation of Smad2, but no Smad1/5 phosphorylation. Up-regulation of the TGF-β target genes Id1 and Pai-1 was identified in the TGF-β sensitive cell lines. Constitutive phosphorylation of MAPK p38 was restricted to the TGF-β sensitive cell lines. Inhibition of p38 MAPK led to reduced sensitivity to TGF-β.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We suggest that phosphorylation of Smad1/5 is important for the anti-proliferative effects of TGF-β in B-cell lymphoma. Alk-5 was highly expressed in the sensitive cell lines, and might be important for signalling through Smad1/5. Our results indicate a role for p38 MAPK in the regulation of TGF-β-induced anti-proliferative effects.</p

The effects of directors' exploratory, transformative and exploitative learning on boards' strategic involvement: An absorptive capacity perspective

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Wiley in European Management Review on 22/05/2018, available online: https://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12186 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.While directors’ knowledge represents a crucial resource for strategizing on boards, little is known how knowledge of individual directors becomes deployed behind the doors of the boardroom. Drawing on the concept of absorptive capacity, we develop a model that explores how directors’ explorative, transformative and exploitative learning affects boards’ strategic involvement. Using large-scale survey data, our findings indicate that learning helps to ex-plain how directors’ knowledge leads to higher levels of strategic involvement. Moreover, we find that learning processes mutually reinforce each other and have complementary effects on boards’ strategic involvement. Our study contributes to the board and absorptive capacity lit-eratures by demonstrating that learning processes are interconnected with each other and rep-resent an intermediate way to put directors’ knowledge into effective use

Evaluating acoustic-trawl survey strategies using an end-to-end ecosystem model

Fisheries independent surveys support science and fisheries assessments but are costly. Evaluating the efficacy of a survey before initiating it could save costs. We used the NORWECOM.E2E model to simulate Northeast Atlantic mackerel and Norwegian spring spawning herring distributions in the Norwegian Sea, and we ran vessel transects in silico to simulate acoustic-trawl surveys. The simulated data were processed using standard survey estimation software and compared to the stock abundances in the ecosystem model. Three existing real surveys were manipulated to demonstrate how the simulation framework can be used to investigate effects of changes in survey timing, direction, and coverage on survey estimates. The method picked up general sources of biases and variance, i.e. that surveys conducted during fish migrations are more vulnerable in terms of bias to timing and changes in survey direction than during more stationary situations and that increased effort reduced the sampling variance.publishedVersio

Boards of Directors’ Contribution to Strategy: A Literature Review and Research Agenda

Manuscript Type: Literature review. Research Question/Issue: Over the last four decades, research on the relationship between boards of directors and strategy has proliferated. Yet to date there is little theoretical and empirical agreement regarding the question of how boards of directors contribute to strategy. This review assesses the extant literature by highlighting emerging trends and identifying several avenues for future research. Research Findings/Insights: Using a content-analysis of 150 articles published in 23 manage-ment journals until 2007, we describe and analyze how research on boards of directors and strategy has evolved over time. We illustrate how topics, theories, settings and sources of data interact and influence insights about board-strategy relationships during three specific periods. Theoretical/Academic Implications: Our study illustrates that research on boards of directors and strategy evolved from normative and structural approaches to behavioral and cognitive approaches. Our results encourage future studies (i) to examine the impact of institutional and context-specific factors on the (expected) contribution of boards to strategy, and (ii) to apply alternative methods to fully capture the impact of board processes and dynamics on strategy-making. Practical/Policy Implications: The increasing interest in boards of directors’ contribution to strategy echoes a movement towards more strategic involvement of boards of directors. However, best governance practices and the emphasis on board independence and control may hinder the board contribution to the strategic decision-making. Our study invites investors and policy-makers to consider the requirements for an effective strategic task when they nominee board members and develop new regulations

An ecosystem modeling approach to predicting cod recruitment

Abstract The NORWECOM ocean model system implemented with the ROMS ocean circulation model has been run to simulate conditions over the last 25 years for the North Atlantic. Modelled time series of volume fluxes, primary production and drift of cod larvae through their modelled ambient temperature have been analysed in conjunction with observational based VPA estimated time series of 3-year old cod recruits in the Barents Sea. Individual time series account for less than 50% of the recruitment variability, however a combination of simulated inflow of Atlantic water and primary production accounts for 70% of the variability with a 3-year lead. The prediction indicates an increased recruitment from 2007 to 2008 from about 450 to 700 million individuals with a standard error of near 150 million. Keywords Ecosystem modelling, volume and larval transport, primary production, cod recruitment and prediction, Barents Se

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts

Styreoppgaver i vekstbedrifter: Sammenlikning på tvers av livssyklusfaser

Nyere forskning på styrer og ledelse viser stadig større interesse for hvordan situasjonsbestemte variabler påvirker styrets sammensetning og atferd. I denne artikkelen ser vi nærmere på styreoppgaver i ulike faser av bedriftens livssyklus. Vi sammenlikner styreoppgaver i vekstbedrifter med styreoppgaver i andre faser av bedriftens livssyklus. Vi har valgt en inndeling i ulike livssyklusfaser basert på dimensjoner av organisasjoners kontekst og struktur, og ikke med utgangspunkt i størrelse og alder. I artikkelen trekker vi frem styrets involvering i oppgaver knyttet til rådgivning, kontroll og nettverksbygging. Resultatet av en undersøkelse blant 467 norske bedrifter viste at styrer er spesielt aktive i vekstbedrifter. I vekstfasen deltar de aktivt i så vel rådgivning og kontroll som nettverksbygging. Vi fant videre at rådgivningsoppgavene er spesielt viktig i etableringsfasen og kontroll i strukturutbyggingsfasen. I nyetablerte virksomheter engasjerer styret seg ofte i internt rettede oppgaver, og styremedlemmene ser behovet for å hjelpe den nyetablerte ledelsen. I senere faser av bedriftens utvikling er det tilsvarende vekt på eksternt rettede oppgaver (så som kontroll og nettverksbygging)