On The Role Of Accountability And Incentives In Obtaining Quality Process Documentation

The importance of managing process knowledge in complex activities such as information product development is well recognized in recent research. However, successful implementation of a traceability scheme(that provides the ability to follow the life of artifacts created during systems development)  to manage process knowledge requires the development of appropriate incentives to knowledge workers. Based on a review of accounting and economic literature on managerial incentives and  accountability as well as empirical studies of nearly thirty organizations, we propose a series of hypotheses that predict the influence of an organizational culture of accountability and presence of financial and other incentives on obtaining quality process documentation in organizations

The Association Between Fundraising Efficiency, Financial Vulnerability, And Subsequent Donations To Not-For-Profits

In this paper, we empirically study the association between past year fundraising efficiency and current year donations to not-for-profit organizations. First, our data show that prior year fundraising inefficiency (fundraising expenses as a proportion of total donations) is negatively associated with current year donations and is robust to an inclusion of prior year financial vulnerability as an explanatory variable. Secondly, we find that prior year levels of fundraising expenses and program expenses are positively associated with current year donations. Finally, prior-year financial vulnerability, which is measured in our paper consistent with Greenlee and Trussel (2000), is negatively associated with current year donations

A Survey Of New Product Development: Can Decentralization Alone Deliver?

Geographic decentralization of the new product development (NPD) process is seen by many as a necessary means to increase innovation and its cost-effectiveness.  Decentralization promotes innovation in many ways, especially by allowing better access to local knowledge pools.  This study's results, based on a survey of top executives in large manufacturing firms around the globe, give only mixed support to this view.  Decentralization is associated with increases in revenues from new product but the performance of firms with geographically decentralized NPD is inferior otherwise.  The key culprits seem to be the decrease in involvement of NPD stakeholders in firms with geographically decentralized NPD and the inability of firms with geographically decentralized NPD to generate a greater level of radical innovations. The study results are broadly consistent with academic research in this area

The Role Of Project Success In The Relationship Between Accountability And IS Process Documentation

We report on an experimental study of the impact of outcome bias and accountability on documentation decisions.  The subjects, working on an information system development project, decided on how much of the process details (both good and bad) known only to the project team, would be made part of an intra-organizational knowledge database. We find that outcome bias has a significant influence on decisions. Managers of “failure” projects were more inclined to report more of the bad process details than managers of “successful” projects, consistent with attribution theory.

Research Note On The Incremental Value Of Knowledge Workers

As firms seek to manage knowledge, they rely increasingly on knowledge workers. The assumption is often that the incremental value from hiring these knowledge workers accrues to firms, but theory indicates that it may not. In this research note, we examine this question.  We perform a cross-sectional study of 30 investment banks in the period 1992-96.  We use gross value of mergers and acquisitions business as a proxy for gross performance, and pre-tax operating income as a proxy for net performance.  The dependent variable and measure of knowledge workers is the number of “star” analysts, as measured by Wall Street Journal/Zacks rankings.  Our results strongly support the hypothesis that the number of star analysts in investment banking is positively associated with gross performance, and weakly support the hypothesis that they are not positively associated with net performance. If future research could generalize these conclusions, they could have implications for design of compensation systems in industries significantly employing knowledge workers