Strategic toolkits: seniority, usage and performance in the German SME machinery and equipment sector

This paper examines the strategic tool kit, from a human resource management (HRM) perspective, in terms of usage and impact. Research to date has tended to consider usage, assuming to a certain extent that knowledge and understanding of particular tools suggest that practitioners value them. The research on which this paper is based builds upon the idea that usage indicates satisfaction, but develops the usage theme to investigate which decision-makers are actually engaged in both tool appliance and the strategic process. Of particular interest to the researchers are the educational background, age and seniority of the decision-makers. In addition, potential links with HRM and organizational performance are also explored. The context of the research, the German machinery and equipment sector, provides an insight into the industry's ability to sustain growth in face of increasing international competition. The paper calls for a greater awareness, from a human resource perspective, and utilization of strategic management practice and associated decision-making aids

Social Cohesion, Structural Holes, and a Tale of Two Measures

EMBARGOED - author can archive pre-print or post-print on any open access repository after 12 months from publication. Publication date is May 2013 so embargoed until May 2014.This is an author’s accepted manuscript (deposited at arXiv arXiv:1211.0719v2 [physics.soc-ph] ), which was subsequently published in Journal of Statistical Physics May 2013, Volume 151, Issue 3-4, pp 745-764. The final publication is available at link.springer.com http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10955-013-0722-

The competitive dynamics of status and niche width: US investment banking, 1920-1949

By integrating the status-based model of market competition and the resource partitioning model, this paper develops the resource-status space imagery of markets and two propositions. First, the paper argues that the benefit than an organization derives from an increment in status is not independent of the organization's niche width. Second, the paper considers the implications of status-based stratification for the resource partitioning model's specification of the effects of increasing market concentration. Using the resource-status space imagery, this paper posits that if expanding generalists are reluctant to lower their status or are unable to increase their status, they will expand within their current status level. The expanding generalists will thus encroach on the niches of similar status generalists and specialists, rather than expand into the niches of generalists across the whole status spectrum. We discuss implications for the sociology of markets

Choosing Ties from the Inside of a Prism: Egocentric Uncertainty and Status in Venture Capital Markets

This chapter draws an analytical distinction between altercentric and egocentric uncertainty. Altercentric uncertainty refers to the uncertainty that buyers face about the product quality of a focal producer (ego). Egocentric uncertainty refers the uncertainty that the producer itself faces about the resource allocation decisions that will result in a product that is regarded as high quality by buyers. This chapter than argues that the value that a firm derives from its own status is positively related to altercentric uncertainty and negatively related to egocentric uncertainty. That is, status is valuable when buyers can use it as a signal of quality, but status is not valuable when a producer does not know how to ‘spend’ its status to produce quality. As a consequence, high status producers should seek out markets or market segments where egocentric uncertainty is low. This argument and hypothesis are tested in an examination of the venture capital markets

Unique resources of corporate venture capitalists as a key to entry into rigid venture capital syndication networks

We investigate how corporate venture capitalists (CVCs) can rapidly attain central positions in venture capital syndication networks. Using data of CVC investments by U.S. corporations between 1996 and 2005, we complement prior research, which suggests that centrally positioned VCs predominantly invest together with other centrally positioned VCs. While we find clear support for the social network theory arguments that prior central positions in syndication networks significantly explain future network positions of CVCs, we also find a negative interaction effect between past centrality and corporate resources. This finding implies that resources of CVCs can substitute for their lack of prior centrality and allow them to gain rapidly central positions in rigid VC syndication networks

Academic Hiring Networks and Institutional Prestige: A Case Study of Canadian Sociology

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Nevin, Andrew D. "Academic hiring networks and institutional prestige: A case study of Canadian sociology." Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue Canadienne de Sociologie 56, no. 3 (2019): 389-420, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/cars.12252. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.This article examines the academic job market for Canadian sociology through its PhD exchange network. Using an original data set of employed faculty members in 2015 (N = 1,157), I map the hiring relationships between institutions and analyze the observed network structure. My findings show that institutional prestige is a likely organizing force within this network, reflective of a disproportionate number of faculty coming from a few centralized high-status institutions, as well as predominantly downward flows in hiring patterns. However, further investigation is needed to understand the role of prestige in Canadian higher education, which has been previously characterized as having a flat social structure. This requires attention toward the interrelationships between institutional prestige, scholarly competence, and department size situated within a segmented academic field in Canada. Overall, this study aims to encourage collective self-reflection and motivate discourse about status-based inequalities in our own discipline.This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)

Role of photoadduct of K4 Fe(CN)6 and C3 H4 N2 in improving thermal stability of polyaniline composite

This paper involves the synthesis of polyaniline composite with photoadduct of potassium hexacyanoferrate and imidazole via photochemical route by oxidative polymerization technique by ammonium persulphate. The photoadduct has been synthesized by photoirradiation followed by substitution with imidazole ligand. The photoaquation, substitution and successful synthesis has been proved by recording pH, UV visible spectra before and after irradiation and XRD of photoadduct. The as synthesized composite has been subjected to various characterizations like elemental analysis, UV–Visible spectra, FTIR, XRD, SEM, and TG/DTG. XRD of photoadduct shows crystalline structure which has been retained in the composite, changing the amorphous structure of polyaniline into the crystalline one, hence proving the insertion of photoadduct in the polymer chain. Various parameters like crystallite size (L), interplanar distance (d), micro strain (ε), dislocation density (δ) and distortion parameters (g) were calculated from XRD data. Thermal analysis shows the high thermal stability of composite which can be due to strong interaction between polymer chain and the photoadduct which restricts the thermal motion of polyaniline and thus enhances the thermal stability of composite