Who Decides about Change and Restructuring in Organizations?

We model the determinants of who makes decisions, the principal or an agent, when there are multiple decisions. Decision making takes effort and time; and, once implemented, the expected loss from a particular decision (or project) increases with the length of time since the last decision was made. The model shows delegation is more likely as: (i) controllable uncertainty increases; (ii) uncontrollable uncertainty decreases; (iii) the number of plants in the firm decreases; (iv) the complexity of the decision increases; and (v) the importance of the decision increases. The theoretical predictions are consistent with our novel empirical results on the delegation of major organizational change decisions using workplace data. Our unique data allows us to identify who made a decision to implement a significant change, as well as key internal and external factors highlighted as potentially important in our theory. Empirically, delegation is more likely in organizations that: face a competitive product market; export; have predictable product demand; have a larger workplace; and that have fewer other workplaces in the same organization producing a similar output. We find business strategy is not related to the allocation of decision making authority; delegation, however, is associated with the use of human resource techniques such as the provision of bonuses to employees.decision making authority, decentralization, delegation, competition, exports, uncertainty, principal and agent

Coordination games and the option to wait

We take a coordination game and add the option to wait each player can opt to take an action in the standard game or they can decide to wait. If one player has taken a standard option, the waiting player can adopt their best response to this action. Interpreting the payoff in the final period (when there is no waiting possible) as a outside option or default, we show that a party's equilibrium payoff can be decreasing in their default. Further, a player''s role of leader or follower alternates as the number of waiting periods changes.

Ownership, access and sequential investment

We extend the property-rights framework to allow for: a separation of the ownership rights of access and veto; and sequential investment. Parties investing first (ex ante) do so before contracting is possible. Parties that invest second (ex post) can contract on (at least some) of their investment costs. Along with this cost-sharing effect, the incentive to invest is affected by a strategic effect generated by sequential investment. Together these effects can overturn some of the predictions of the property-rights literature. For example, the most inclusive ownership structure might not be optimal, even if all investments are complementary.property rights; access; veto; firm organization; sequential investment; holdup

Industry sunk costs and entry dynamics

We explore an investment game where industry sunk costs provide anincentive for a firm to be a follower into the market as opposedto a leader. For some parameter values, every firm could have adominant strategy to wait, even though immediate entry is sociallyoptimal - this is a like prisoners' dilemma. In equilibrium, afirm is more likely to have a dominant strategy to wait with anincrease in the number of potential entrants. Finally, theequilibrium can display an entry cascade.coordination game

Visualization and Correction of Automated Segmentation, Tracking and Lineaging from 5-D Stem Cell Image Sequences

Results: We present an application that enables the quantitative analysis of multichannel 5-D (x, y, z, t, channel) and large montage confocal fluorescence microscopy images. The image sequences show stem cells together with blood vessels, enabling quantification of the dynamic behaviors of stem cells in relation to their vascular niche, with applications in developmental and cancer biology. Our application automatically segments, tracks, and lineages the image sequence data and then allows the user to view and edit the results of automated algorithms in a stereoscopic 3-D window while simultaneously viewing the stem cell lineage tree in a 2-D window. Using the GPU to store and render the image sequence data enables a hybrid computational approach. An inference-based approach utilizing user-provided edits to automatically correct related mistakes executes interactively on the system CPU while the GPU handles 3-D visualization tasks. Conclusions: By exploiting commodity computer gaming hardware, we have developed an application that can be run in the laboratory to facilitate rapid iteration through biological experiments. There is a pressing need for visualization and analysis tools for 5-D live cell image data. We combine accurate unsupervised processes with an intuitive visualization of the results. Our validation interface allows for each data set to be corrected to 100% accuracy, ensuring that downstream data analysis is accurate and verifiable. Our tool is the first to combine all of these aspects, leveraging the synergies obtained by utilizing validation information from stereo visualization to improve the low level image processing tasks.Comment: BioVis 2014 conferenc

Who decides about change and restructuring in organizations?

The authors of this paper model the determinants of who makes decisions, the principal or an agent, when there are multiple decisions. Decision making takes effort and time; and, once implemented, the expected loss from a particular decision (or project) increases with the length of time since the last decision was made. The model shows delegation is more likely as: (i) controllable uncertainty increases; (ii) uncontrollable uncertainty decreases; (iii) the number of plants in the firm decreases; (iv) the complexity of the decision increases; and (v) the importance of the decision increases. The theoretical predictions are consistent with the authors\u27 novel empirical results on the delegation of major organizational change decisions using workplace data. Their unique data allows them to identify who made a decision to implement a significant change, as well as key internal and external factors highlighted as potentially important in their theory. Empirically, delegation is more likely in organizations that: face a competitive product market; export; have predictable product demand; have a larger workplace; and that have fewer other workplaces in the same organization producing a similar output. The authors find business strategy is not related to the allocation of decision making authority; delegation, however, is associated with the use of human resource techniques such as the provision of bonuses to employees

A neuronal network of mitochondrial dynamics regulates metastasis.

The role of mitochondria in cancer is controversial. Using a genome-wide shRNA screen, we now show that tumours reprogram a network of mitochondrial dynamics operative in neurons, including syntaphilin (SNPH), kinesin KIF5B and GTPase Miro1/2 to localize mitochondria to the cortical cytoskeleton and power the membrane machinery of cell movements. When expressed in tumours, SNPH inhibits the speed and distance travelled by individual mitochondria, suppresses organelle dynamics, and blocks chemotaxis and metastasis, in vivo. Tumour progression in humans is associated with downregulation or loss of SNPH, which correlates with shortened patient survival, increased mitochondrial trafficking to the cortical cytoskeleton, greater membrane dynamics and heightened cell invasion. Therefore, a SNPH network regulates metastatic competence and may provide a therapeutic target in cancer

Innovation in a generalized timing game

We examine innovation as a timing game with complete information and observable actions in which firms decide when to enter a market. We characterize all pure strategy subgame perfect equilibria for the two-player symmetric game. In particular, we describe all subgame perfect equilibria when both the leader’s and the followers’ payoff functions are multi-peaked, non-monotonic and discontinuous. We find that there are potentially multiple equilibria, which could involve: joint adoption by both firms, with and without rent equalization; and, alternatively, single-firm adoption with a second-mover advantage. Economic applications are discussed including process and product innovation and the timing of the sale of an asset

Ownership, access and sequential investment

We extend the property-rights framework to allow for: a separation of the ownership rights of access and veto; and sequential investment. Parties investing first (ex ante) do so before contracting is possible. Parties that invest second (ex post) can contract on (at least some) of their investment costs. Along with this cost-sharing effect, the incentive to invest is affected by a strategic effect generated by sequential investment. Together these effects can overturn some of the predictions of the property-rights literature. For example, the most inclusive ownership structure might not be optimal, even if all investments are complementary