Government's impact on the business environment and strategic management

Should 'government' be a fifth force in Michael Porter's model of the Competitive Advantage of Nations and, if so, what should be the appropriate level of analysis? In the strategic management literature, frameworks explaining the impact of the national environment, and more particularly of government, on firms and industries are still in their infancy. Michael Porter's 'The Competitive Advantage of Nations' proposes a new integrative framework consisting of four determinants (the so-called diamond) and aimed at a comprehensive analysis of the above-mentioned impact. After a short overview of the diamond model and a general critique, this paper will deal with the important question of whether government is adequately integrated into Porter's framework. Stated more precisely: whether government can be considered as a fifth determinant. Porter has already recognized the indirect role of government in creating competitive advantage, but denies a direct role. To demonstrate whether government does have a direct role and, if so, how large its influence is, is both a theoretical and empirical question. Although a definite answer upon this question is beyond the scope of this paper, we will contribute to this challenging question by focusing on two aspects

Mass growth and mergers: direct observations of the luminosity function of LRG satellite galaxies out to z=0.7 from SDSS and BOSS images

We present a statistical study of the luminosity functions of galaxies surrounding luminous red galaxies (LRGs) at average redshifts =0.34 and =0.65. The luminosity functions are derived by extracting source photometry around more than 40,000 LRGs and subtracting foreground and background contamination using randomly selected control fields. We show that at both studied redshifts the average luminosity functions of the LRGs and their satellite galaxies are poorly fitted by a Schechter function due to a luminosity gap between the centrals and their most luminous satellites. We utilize a two-component fit of a Schechter function plus a log-normal distribution to demonstrate that LRGs are typically brighter than their most luminous satellite by roughly 1.3 magnitudes. This luminosity gap implies that interactions within LRG environments are typically restricted to minor mergers with mass ratios of 1:4 or lower. The luminosity functions further imply that roughly 35% of the mass in the environment is locked in the LRG itself, supporting the idea that mass growth through major mergers within the environment is unlikely. Lastly, we show that the luminosity gap may be at least partially explained by the selection of LRGs as the gap can be reproduced by sparsely sampling a Schechter function. In that case LRGs may represent only a small fraction of central galaxies in similar mass halos.Comment: ApJ accepted versio

De adviserende rol van commissarissen in het licht van de code Tabaksblat: Minder overlappende commissariaten meer interne verantwoordelijkheden

Van oudsher bestaan de hoofdverantwoordelijkheden van de raad van commissarissen uit het houden van toezicht op het beleid van de raad van bestuur en het bijstaan van de raad van bestuur door het geven van advies en het dienen als klankbord. Op het eerste gezicht lijken deze beide hoofdverantwoordelijkhedenmet elkaar te conflicteren: voor toezicht is namelijk onafhankelijkheid noodzakelijk, terwijl voor advisering een zekere mate van betrokkenheid noodzakelijk is (VanManen enVan der Reijden, 2005;Huse, 2007). In de praktijk worstelen commissarissen dan ookmet dit vraagstuk. Temeer doordat het wettelijk raamwerk in Nederland geen duidelijke oplossing aandraagt

Strategische vernieuwing in Nederlandse non-profit organisaties

Strategische vernieuwing in ondernemingen staat hoog op de agenda van managers en onderzoekers. De aandacht voor nonprofit-organisaties in dit verband is echter beperkt. Zo is er weinig bekend over de mate, de oorzaken en de implicaties van strategische vernieuwing. Dit artikel gaat in op dit thema. Met behulp van een enquête en twee casestudies wordt voor het eerst de vernieuwingsdynamiek van Nederlandse nonprofit-organisaties in kaart gebracht. De resultaten laten zien dat strategische vernieuwing door nonprofit-organisaties leidt tot een hoger prestatieniveau. Druk vanuit het management en/ of bestuur en druk vanuit de sociale omgeving blijken belangrijke determinanten voor de mate van strategische vernieuwin

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

The High Tech, Human Touch Magazine:2014 Edition

For the course Technolab in the master program Philosophy of Science, Technology, and Society, supervised by prof.dr.ir. M. Boon, we were assigned to write a magazine that covers three different research projects within the University of Twente. In the magazine, we examined the technological, social, and philosophical aspects of the research projects. Going through the magazine, we will take you along different technologies from outside the human body until cellular level. We can enhance the human body, enhance the way to detect illnesses in the human body, and enhance the human lifestyle. Do we really want to enhance the human being in all thinkable ways, or only enhance some aspects

Transcriptomic properties of her2+ ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast associate with absence of immune cells

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) are likely to play a role in the biological behavior of HER2+ ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). To prevent invasiveness, the potential of targeted immune-modulating treatment of HER2+ DCIS has been explored. We identified a 29-gene expression profile that was associated with the density of TILs. These genes included CCND3, DUSP10 and RAP1GAP, which may guide towards more rationalized choices with respect to immune-mediated therapy in HER2+ DCIS, such as targeted vaccine therapy. ABSTRACT: The identification of transcriptomic alterations of HER2+ ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) that are associated with the density of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) could contribute to optimizing choices regarding the potential benefit of immune therapy. We compared the gene expression profile of TIL-poor HER2+ DCIS to that of TIL-rich HER2+ DCIS. Tumor cells from 11 TIL-rich and 12 TIL-poor DCIS cases were micro-dissected for RNA isolation. The Ion AmpliSeq Transcriptome Human Gene Expression Kit was used for RNA sequencing. After normalization, a Mann–Whitney rank sum test was used to analyze differentially expressed genes between TIL-poor and TIL-rich HER2+ DCIS. Whole tissue sections were immunostained for validation of protein expression. We identified a 29-gene expression profile that differentiated TIL-rich from TIL-poor HER2+ DCIS. These genes included CCND3, DUSP10 and RAP1GAP, which were previously described in breast cancer and cancer immunity and were more highly expressed in TIL-rich DCIS. Using immunohistochemistry, we found lower protein expression in TIL-rich DCIS. This suggests regulation of protein expression at the posttranslational level. We identified a gene expression profile of HER2+ DCIS cells that was associated with the density of TILs. This classifier may guide towards more rationalized choices regarding immune-mediated therapy in HER2+ DCIS, such as targeted vaccine therapy

Long-term surgical outcomes of congenital supravalvular aortic stenosis:a systematic review, meta-analysis and microsimulation study

OBJECTIVES: Congenital supravalvular aortic stenosis (SVAS) is a rare form of congenital outflow tract obstruction and long-term outcomes are scarcely reported. This study aims to provide an overview of outcomes after surgical repair for congenital SVAS. METHODS: A systematic review of published literature was conducted, including observational studies reporting long-term clinical outcome (&gt;2 years) after SVAS repair in children or adults considering &gt;20 patients. Early risks, late event rates and time-to-event data were pooled and entered into a microsimulation model to estimate 30-year outcomes. Life expectancy was compared to the age-, sex- and origin-matched general population. RESULTS: Twenty-three publications were included, encompassing a total of 1472 patients (13 125 patient-years; pooled mean follow-up: 9.0 (6.2) years; median follow-up: 6.3 years). Pooled mean age at surgical repair was 4.7 (5.8) years and the most commonly used surgical technique was the single-patch repair (43.6%). Pooled early mortality was 4.2% (95% confidence interval: 3.2-5.5%) and late mortality was 0.61% (95% CI: 0.45-0.83) per patient-year. Based on microsimulation, over a 30-year time horizon, it was estimated that an average patient with SVAS repair (mean age: 4.7 years) had an observed life expectancy that was 90.7% (95% credible interval: 90.0-91.6%) of expected life expectancy in the matched general population. The microsimulation-based 30-year risk of myocardial infarction was 8.1% (95% credible interval: 7.3-9.9%) and reintervention 31.3% (95% credible interval: 29.6-33.4%), of which 27.2% (95% credible interval: 25.8-29.1) due to repair dysfunction. CONCLUSIONS: After surgical repair for SVAS, 30-year survival is lower than the matched-general-population survival and the lifetime risk of reintervention is considerable. Therefore, lifelong monitoring of the cardiovascular system and in particular residual stenosis and coronary obstruction is recommended.</p