Mission-Market Tensions and Nonprofit Pricing

Private not-for-profit organizations combine characteristics of a public sector agency with those of a private, proprietary firm. In particular, nonprofits are required to address designated social missions while breaking even financially. This structure underlies the difficulty that nonprofit organizations face in making decisions with important resource implications. Specifically, choices that would achieve maximal mission impact may differ from choices that reward the organization in purely financial terms. As a result, nonprofit managers face a variety of trade-offs between mission responsive and financially rewarding actions. This paper considers some of these tradeoffs in the context of pricing decisions by nonprofit organizations. In particular, the paper draws on alternative theories of nonprofit pricing from the literature. In one theory, nonprofits are viewed as revenue maximizers, pricing their services to garner as much net revenue as possible to support their organizations. In an alternative theory, nonprofits are conceived as mission maximizers, pricing their services to achieve maximum mission impact within the constraint of financial solvency. The efficacy of these theories is explored through five case studies of organizations offering a variety of services within the context of a local social services federation. Evidence from these cases suggests that the forgoing theories apply in some combination for any given nonprofit organization. Several different behavioral patterns are found, including nonprofits seeking to balance financial and mission impacts in the pricing policies for each of their service offerings and others pursuing a strategic mix of pricing policies for profitable and mission-impacting services. It is clear from all cases observed that nonprofit managers struggle with mission-market tensions as they relate to pricing and that they can benefit from metrics to help them sort through these decisions in ways that resolve these tensions. Working Paper 08-0

Organizational paths of commercializing patented inventions: The effects of transaction costs, firm capabilities, and collaborative ties

This study examines the factors affecting modes of commercializing patented inventions using a novel dataset based on a survey of U.S. inventors. We find that technological uncertainty and possessing complementary assets raise the propensity for internal commercialization. We find that R&D collaboration with firms in a horizontal relationship is likely to increase the propensity to license the invention. In addition, the paper shows that macro-level environment conditions that affect exchange conditions, such as technology familiarity, influence the effects of capabilities on governance choice.transaction cost economics; knowledge-based view; collaboration ties; commercialization; innovation; patent

The KaVA and KVN Pulsar Project

We present our work towards using the Korean VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometer) Network (KVN) and VLBI Exploration of Radio Astronomy (VERA) arrays combined into the KVN and VERA Array (KaVA) for observations of radio pulsars at high frequencies ($\simeq$22-GHz). Pulsar astronomy is generally focused at frequencies approximately 0.3 to several GHz and pulsars are usually discovered and monitored with large, single-dish, radio telescopes. For most pulsars, reduced radio flux is expected at high frequencies due to their steep spectrum, but there are exceptions where high frequency observations can be useful. Moreover, some pulsars are observable at high frequencies only, such as those close to the Galactic Center. The discoveries of a radio-bright magnetar and a few dozen extended Chandra sources within 15 arc-minute of the Galactic Center provide strong motivations to make use of the KaVA frequency band for searching pulsars in this region. Here, we describe the science targets and report progresses made from the KVN test observations for known pulsars. We then discuss why KaVA pulsar observations are compelling.Comment: To appear in PASJ KaVA Special Issu

Organizational paths of commercializing patented inventions: The effects of transaction costs, firm capabilities, and collaborative ties

This study examines the factors affecting modes of commercializing patented inventions using a novel dataset based on a survey of U.S. inventors. We find that technological uncertainty and possessing complementary assets raise the propensity for internal commercialization. We find that R&D collaboration with firms in a horizontal relationship is likely to increase the propensity to license the invention. In addition, the paper shows that macro-level environment conditions that affect exchange conditions, such as technology familiarity, influence the effects of capabilities on governance choice