Universal Rights and Wrongs

This paper argues for the important role of customers as a source of competitive advantage and firm growth, an issue which has been largely neglected in the resource-based view of the firm. It conceptualizes Penrose’s (1959) notion of an ‘inside track’ and illustrates how in-depth knowledge about established customers combines with joint problem-solving activities and the rapid assimilation of new and previously unexploited skills and resources. It is suggested that the inside track represents a distinct and perhaps underestimated way of generating rents and securing long-term growth. This also implies that the sources of sustainable competitive advantage in important respects can be sought in idiosyncratic interfirm relationships rather than within the firm itself

Rocket-Borne Radiometric Measurements of OH in the Auroral Zone

An Astrobee D rocket carrying a dual-channel radiometer (1.40- to .1.65-gm and 1.85- to 2.12-gm spectral band passes) was launched on March 6, 1972, at 0200 LT from Poker Flat, Alaska.T he spectrabl and passews ere chosens o that the lower (v -- 2, 3, 4, 5) and upper (v -- 7, 8, 9) vibrational levels of OH in the .Av -- 2 sequence could be monitored simultaneously. Launch criteria were established from groundsbased radiometric observations that indicated a steady.night airglow of 240 kR• in the 1.40- to 1.65-gm band pass 2 hours prior to and throughou•tt he flight. Altitude profiles of OH emissionw ere derived from data •from both channelasn d showO H to be layered,p ea\u27l•v olumee missionosc curringa t 83.5k m. Under the asSUmptionth at H + O• ,--) OH* + •02is the principal productionm echanism, synthetics pectraw ere integratedo ver the instruments pectralr esponsec haracteristicos f th.e two radiometer channels. At altitudes above 83 km, quenching due to the reaction OH*.+ O --) O2+ H is evident,w hichr equiresa n atomico xygenc oncentrationo f 10• cm- a at 83\u27k m, increasingto 8 X 10• cm- aa t 88 k

The Role of Market and Technical Information Generation in New Product Development

Firms are investing an increasing amount of time and resources to gather information about market and technology in new product development (NPD). Yet there lacks a consistent understanding of whether such costly information generation activities can improve product outcomes. More importantly, it is unclear how the benefit of market information and technical information generation may differ and how they may jointly impact new product performance. This study examines the role of market and technical information generation in NPD in three ways: (1) It contrasts the effects of market and technical information generation on product outcomes; (2) It identifies conditions that moderate the effects of market and technical information generation and further investigates how the moderating effects differ for these two types of activities; (3) It examines the joint effect of market and technical information generation to understand potential synergies between them. Using survey data at the NPD project level, we find that market information generation has an inverted U-shaped effect on new product advantage, whereas the effect of technical information generation follows a U-shape. Furthermore, these effects are moderated differently by two conditions: a firm’s R&D intensity that influences a NPD project’s need for different types of information, and the use of multi-disciplinary teams that affects the degree to which information can be shared and utilized to improve product design. The findings provide important implications for organizational learning and shed light on how to manage information generation activities to achieve NPD success

On innovation

196 tr. : minh họa màu; 27 cm