DeansTalk - business management education

How technology is changing the way we teach - University World News - Best of 2012

Best of 2012: How technology is changing the way we teach tinyurl.com/d87flly #highered #Web2.0 #OA #citizenscience #research

— UniversityWorldNews (@uniworldnews) January 3, 2013

13 May 2012, University World News

While much about being a university professor has remained unchanged for centuries, the way today’s academics research, teach and fulfil administrative duties has changed dramatically, as a result of technological change and a cultural shift in what the public expects of academia.

In the United Kingdom, these changes are about to hit home for academics as the government’s Research Excellence Framework for assessing the value of research will now include a new component called ‘impact’, which requires professors to show how their research makes a direct contribution to society beyond academia...

Why should academics get involved in outreach?

Guardian Science, January 2, 2012

More and more researchers are involving themselves in outreach work and scientific communication projects. Here are some reasons the rest might want to consider getting involved

...There are other personal benefits to be had. I think my ability as a lecturer and my ability to write scientific papers has improved in part because of the outreach work I do. Lecturing, writing for different audiences, constructing arguments and sequences of events for people to follow takes craft, and the experiences of producing blog posts, magazine articles, public talks, podcasts, doing radio interviews and the rest really help firm up these skills...

"Corporate Greening Through ISO 14001: A Rational Myth?" Boiral, O. (2007). Organization Science 18: 127

doi:10.1287/orsc.1060.0224.

Abstract

The process used by organizations to integrate the ISO 14001 standard has not yet been the subject of extensive research in environmental management despite the rapid development of this standard, particularly in industrial companies. The results of a case study conducted among nine ISO 14001 certified Canadian organizations showed that adopting this standard tends to lead to a ceremonial behaviour intended to superficially show that the certified organizations conformed to the standard. Although rigorous compliance with the standard often resulted in real improvements, these improvements were primarily technical and administrative in nature. However, in most of the cases studied, daily practices remained somewhat decoupled from the prescriptions of the ISO 14001 system, of which employees generally had only a vague understanding...This research also illustrates how adopting the ISO 14001 system can have an ambiguous effect on environmental management practices and performances.

The Whitehall II Study - "importance of social class for health"

www.ucl.ac.uk/whitehallII (ongoing since 1985)

Whitehall_Study (Wikipedia)

examined the health of 10,308 (British) civil servants aged 35 to 55, of whom two thirds were men and one third women.

According to Whitehall study researchers, "a steep inverse association between social class, as assessed by grade of employment, and mortality from a wide range of diseases" has been demonstrated. Summing up the moral of the Whitehall studies, the researchers concluded that "more attention should be paid to the social environments, job design, and the consequences of income inequality."

...

This seems counter-intuitive: one usually thinks of those with the most decision-making responsibility as the ones with the most stressful lives.

Top-Ranked Journals Are Losing Their Share of Top-Cited Articles - main value remains the peer-review process.

November 8, 2012, The Chronicle of Higher Education blog.

PERCOLATOR, Research that matters.

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A study published by three Canadian researchers has identified a two-decade-long trend in which the world’s top-ranked scientific journals are slowly losing their share of the most-cited articles.

The study, published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, found that in 1990, 45 percent of the top 5 percent of the most cited articles were published in journals whose impact factor was in the top 5 percent—publications like Cell, Nature, Science, and the Journal of the American Medical Association. By 2009, that rate had fallen to 36 percent, the authors found.

“We’re still using the high-impact journals, but we are using them less and less,” said Vincent Larivière, an assistant professor of library and information sciences at the University of Montreal, who did the research with two colleagues at the University of Quebec at Montreal.

The team based its findings on an analysis of more than 820 million citations involving 25 million articles published from 1902 to 2009.

The findings, Larivière said, suggest that the main value of scientific journals remains the peer-review process.

Professor Brian Uzzi, PhD (Kellog bschool)- "Teaming Up to Drive Scientific Discovery"

The Complex World of Fertility Webcast, TEDxNorthwesternU

"Teams dominate"

Published on 12 Jul 2012

What does the world's largest repository (Thomson Web of Science) of more than 26 million scientific papers tell us about trends in the production of scientific knowledge? There appears to be a nearly universal end to the era of the solo scientist and a rise in the supremacy of teams. The advantage of teams is growing and frontier of knowledge is reached through the invisible but complex networks through which scientists assemble teams.

Brian Uzzi, PhD is the Richard L. Thomas Distinguished chair in leadership at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

Professor Uzzi speaks on the topics of leadership with a focus creating and developing networks that enhance executive creativity, R&D innovation, and the implementation of new products and ideas...

For Power and Status, Dominance and Skill Trump Likability

Dec 19, 2012, Science Daily

....

"Our findings suggest there are really two ways to top the social ladder and gain leadership -- impressing people with your skills or powering your way through old-fashioned dominance"

okfn.org (Open Knowledge Foundation) projects. e.g. Openspending.org + 1st Open Economics Int'l Workshop

Open Knowledge Foundation (Wikipedia)

The Open Knowledge Foundation (okfn.org) is dedicated to promoting the creation, sharing and application of Open Knowledge in the Digital Age.

Openspending.org  (already being implemented by www.gov.uk, data.gov.uk/about-us)

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The Open Economics Workshop is happening today openeconomics.net/2012/12/17/ope… @okfnecon #openecon

— OKFN Open Economics (@okfnecon) December 17, 2012

blog.okfn.org, December 17, 2012, First Open Economics International Workshop

On 17-18 December, economics and law professors, data publishers, practitioners and representatives from international institutions will gather at Emmanuel College, Cambridge for the First Open Economics International Workshop. From showcasing the examples of successes in collaborative economic research and open data to reviewing the legal cultural and other barriers to information sharing, this event aims to build an understanding of the value of open data and open tools for the economics profession and the obstacles to opening up information in economics. The workshop will also explore the role of greater openness in broadening understanding of and engagement with economics among the wider community including policy-makers and society.

This event is part of the Open Economics project, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and is a key step in identifying best practice as well as legal, regulatory and technical barriers and opportunities for open economic data. A statement on the Open Economics Principles will be produced as a result of the workshop...

The event is being organized by the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL) at the University of Cambridge and Open Economics Working Group of the Open Knowledge Foundation and is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. More information about the Working Group can be found online.

New high-speed Internet connects African research to world

University World News, 09 December 2012

An African-led high-speed internet network has been launched to connect academics and researchers throughout Southern and East Africa to peers across the two regions and in Europe. The network will promote African collaboration in research globally.

Called UbuntuNet, the network is financed under the AfricaConnect project, which receives funding from the European Commission (80%) and African beneficiaries (20%).

The European launch of UbuntuNet took place at the 2012 Africa-EU Cooperation Forum on ICT, held in Lisbon, Portugal, from 28-29 November, according to a press report.

The European event followed a similar launch held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, at the UbuntuNet-Connect 2012 annual conference from 15-16 November.

UbuntuNet is a collaboration between the UbuntuNet Alliance, the regional research and education network for Southern and East Africa, and DANTE – Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe – which operates the pan-European research and education network, GÉANT...

Climate change: the ultimate 'tragedy of the commons'?

www.cccep.ac.uk/Publications/Working-papers/Abstracts/50-59/climate-change-tragedy-commons.aspx

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The Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP) was established by the University of Leeds and the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2008 to advance public and private action on climate change through innovative, rigorous research. The Centre is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council...

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Jouni Paavola
March 2011

Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds.
Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy

"Tragedy of the commons" (Wikipedia)

Abstract

The dominant view among scholars and policy makers has been that climate change governance should be based on international agreements which involve most nations. Yet progress in international negotiations has been slow and the effectiveness of governance based on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol (KP) has been modest.

Recent debates have focused on regional, sectoral, building blocks, and other less comprehensive climate change governance strategies. But the wider rationale of moving away from a comprehensive solution to a mosaic of specific ones has received little attention.

This paper examines the rationale and potential of institutional diversity and polycentric governance in the area of climate change. The paper argues that polycentric governance of climate change is already a reality, and that voluntary, bottom-up solutions can be comparable in terms of significance and performance with major emitting states.

However, voluntary initiatives are likely to be at their best in realising cost-saving mitigation opportunities and thus polycentric climate change governance will also need to involve hybrid and state-based solutions. A key research need is to understand the dynamics of these different kinds of governance solutions.

• Download PDF of Working Paper 53 (309KB, 32 pages)

academic.research.microsoft.com

Academic.research.microsoft.com

Overview

Climate Change Strategies (Including Mangroves) - Conversable Economist

Climate Change Strategies (Including Mangroves), December 4, 2012

A UK organization called the Global Climate Project has put out its annual estimates of annual carbon emissions, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the world economy is on track to set a new record in 2012 of 38.2 billion tons, up a few percentage points from 2011.

Here's one figure from the report showing trendlines for the four largest emitters: China, the U.S., the EU, and India. Notice in particular that China is not only by far the largest carbon emitter, but is a spike-like upward trend in emissions. Emissions in the U.S. are fairly flat since the late 1990s. Emissions from India are on a path to soon surpass emissions from the EU.

This next figure shows carbon emissions on a per capita basis. The U.S. economy is by far the...
.. The study ("Global economic potential for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from mangrove loss") by Siikamäki, Sanchirico, and Jardine appeared in the September 2, 2012, issue of Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences: a pre-print version is available here (PDF 6 pages).

IE Research: "Corporate Governance and the Environment: What Type of Governance Creates Greener Companies?"

Authors:     Kock, Carl J.     Santaló, Juan    Diestre, Luis

Journal of Management Studies; May2012, Vol. 49 Issue 3, p492-514, 23p, 2 Charts

Abstract:

We build on a stakeholder-agency theoretical perspective to explore the impact of particular corporate governance mechanisms on firm environmental performance. Our empirical evidence shows that several important corporate governance mechanisms such as the board of directors, managerial incentives, the market for corporate control, and the legal and regulatory system determine firms' environmental performance levels. These results suggest that these different governance mechanisms resolve, to some extent, the existing divergence of interests between stakeholders and managers with respect to environmental activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LSE - Maximizing the impacts of your research : A handbook for social scientists

Download the Handbook in PDF format, 298 pages

blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/the-handbook

twitter.com/LSEImpactBlog/business-tweeters

Consultation Draft 3:
Please give us your feedback and comments to email on cover.

About this Handbook

There are few academics who are interested in doing research that simply has no influence on anyone else in academia or outside. Some perhaps will be content to produce ‘shelf-bending’ work that goes into a library (included in a published journal or book), and then over the next decades ever-so-slightly bends the shelf it sits on. But we believe that they are in a small minority. The whole point of social science research is to achieve academic impact by advancing your discipline, and (where possible) by having some positive influence also on external audiences – in business, government, the media or civil society.

For the past year a team of academics based at the London School of Economics, the University of Leeds and Imperial College have been working on a ‘Research Impacts’ project aimed at developing precise methods for measuring and evaluating the impact of research in the public sphere. We believe the our data will be of interest to all UK universities how to better capture and track the impacts of their social science research and applications work.

Part of our task is to develop guidance for colleagues interested in this field. In the past, there has been no one source of systematic advice on how to maximize the academic impacts of your research in terms of citations and other measures of influence. And almost no sources at all have helped researchers to achieve greater visibility and impacts with audiences outside the university. Instead researchers have had to rely on informal knowledge and picking up random hints and tips here and there from colleagues, and from their own personal experience.

This Handbook remedies this key gap...

"Publish or Perish" - Anne-Wil Harzing + Scirus - scientific research tool

www.Harzing.com

Publish or Perish is designed to empower individual academics to present their case for research impact to its best advantage. We would be concerned if it would be used for academic staff evaluation purposes in a mechanistic way...

...it uses Google Scholar to obtain the raw citations...

Times Higher Education (June 2011) where LSE Professor Patrick Dunleavy favours it over peer review for the British Research Assessment.

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www.Scirus.com

is the most comprehensive scientific research tool on the web. With over 545 million scientific items indexed at last count, it allows researchers to search for not only journal content but also scientists' homepages, courseware, pre-print server material, patents and institutional repository and website information.

30 tips for successful academic research and writing - LSE

London School of Economics blog, November 28, 2012

Choosing something that you are passionately interested in to research is a great first step on the road to successful academic writing but it can be difficult to keep the momentum going. Deborah Lupton explains how old-fashioned whiteboards and online networking go hand-in-hand, and advices when it is time to just ‘make a start’ or go for a bike ride.

As part of preparing for a workshop on academic publishing for early career academics, I jotted down some ideas and tips to share with the group which I thought I would post here. In the process of writing 12 books and over 110 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters over a career which has mostly been part-time because of juggling the demands of motherhood with academic work, I have developed some approaches that seem to work well for me.

These tips are in no particular order, apart from number 1, which I consider to be the most important of all.
(sections)
Planning your research schedule
Making a start
Getting the most out of your writing
Connect for inspiration

...

Deborah Lupton is a sociologist in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney. She is the author of 12 books and many research articles and chapters...

This blog was originally published on Deborah’s blog, ‘This Sociological Life’ 

“The Current Health and Future Well-Being of the American University” - Research Universities Futures Consortium

Download the report, June 2012, (PDF, 65 pages) of ResearchUniversitiesFutures.org

From AACSB's Biz Ed magazine Nov/Dec 2012 issue "Where Technology meets Business":

Earlier this year, Research Universities Futures Consortium, a group of 25 U.S. public and private research universities, released “The Current Health and Future Well-Being of the American University.” Funded by Elsevier, a global provider of science and health information, the report argues that U.S. research universities must adopt greater collaboration, communication, and productivity if they are to remain globally competitive...

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From the report (Page 11, Executive Summary) 

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The unique process by which this study was conducted provides a rich collection of challenges and barriers to success, some that are institution specific and some that are cross cutting and more foundational. What is clear is that many of these are closely connected and co-dependent. At the highest level, the current fragmented approach and the absence of a coherent national plan or rational strategy to support university-based research creates uncertainty that casts a long and darkening shadow over the future of the American research university.

The key findings of this collective effort can be reduced to six overarching themes that provide a framework of understanding and appreciation of the current conditions and an outlook on the future. These also serve to focus our future efforts toward finding sustainable solutions.

1. Scarcity of resources (relative to the demand for them) has engendered a hypercompetitive “winner take all” environment and increased the difficulty of managing academic research activities. Growing regulatory requirements have increased the challenge. To enable impact-oriented research that addresses significant social challenges, universities and research sponsors must work together in providing flexible and adaptive strategies, tactics, and operational structures.
2. The gradual, ever-increasing growth of government regulation and reporting requirements have exacerbated institutional financial stress and diverted faculty time from research. At the same time, the cost of doing research is not fully recoverable from sponsors.
3. Innovation requires diversity of high quality research and development of standardized performance metrics that reliably reflect the complexity and societal expectations of today’s research. This should be initiated by the academic research community, in partnership with key stakeholders.
4. Enabling the highest impact research requires current and predictive data to assess programs and evaluate key opportunities in a resource- constrained environment. Strategic decision-making at local, state, and national levels requires data that reflects a local, national and international scope.
5. Translating the value of the research university in serving society, contributing to local and regional economies as well as promoting national innovation and security, needs to be a story well told. University faculty, students, staff, and administrators as well as external supporters need to provide clear, consistent, and focused messages to local and national opinion leaders and decision makers. Highly credible accountability and performance-based data from neutral sources need to drive the conversations.
6. The fragility of research administration and leadership is not fully understood nor appreciated within the university community or by sponsors and stakeholders. The staffing requirements, competencies, and professionalization of research administrative and program support staff to reliably enable the efficient and effective conduct of research needs to be understood. 

Studs Terkel - one of the finest qualitative researchers: "The Good War", "Hard Times, "Division Street"

www.StudsTerkel.org

www.socialresearchmethods.net

Copyright ©2006, William M.K. Trochim (Cornell U.): In fact, some of the best "qualitative" research is often published in book form, often in a style that almost approaches a narrative story. One of my favorite writers (and, I daresay, one of the finest qualitative researchers) is Studs Terkel. He has written intriguing accounts of the Great Depression (Hard Times), World War II (The Good War) and socioeconomic divisions in America (The Great Divide), among others. In each book he follows a similar qualitative methodology, identifying informants who directly experienced the phenomenon in question, interviewing them at length, and then editing the interviews heavily so that they "tell a story" that is different from what any individual interviewee might tell but addresses the question of interest. If you haven't read one of Studs' works yet, I highly recommend them. 

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Louis "Studs" Terkel (Wikipedia) (May 16, 1912 – October 31, 2008)^[1] was an American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for “The Good War”, and is best remembered for his oral histories of common Americans, and for hosting a long-running radio show in Chicago...

In 2006, Terkel received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award. (USA Today)

Are all ‘sharks’ dangerous? new biotechnology ventures and partner selection in R&D alliances - Strategic Management Journal - Professors Diestre (IE)/ Rajogopalan (USC Marshall)

Strategic Management Journal research article

Issue Volume 33, Issue 10, pages 1115–1134, October 2012 

Luis Diestre (IE Business School)  Nandini Rajagopalan (USC Marshall press release)

Abstract

We examine how new biotechnology firms (NBFs) select pharmaceutical firms as R&D allies as a function of value creation and value appropriation considerations. We develop a theoretical framework to understand partnering decisions accounting for both, a potential partner's ability as well as incentives to appropriate and create value within an R&D alliance. Our empirical findings show that NBFs are more likely to ally with pharmaceutical firms with the ability to create value, as long as these firms have the incentives to use their skills to create rather than appropriate value. Our study highlights the double-edged sword nature of value creation skills and provides a deeper understanding into the contextual factors that determine when potential R&D partners will perceive such skills as increasing appropriation risks.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

China Stock Market Research - An Informed Public Can Prevent Crashes (also in other assets like real-estate))

Taken in its entirety from AACSB's Biz Ed magazine Nov/Dec 2012 issue "Where Technology meets Business", www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/90487/51

(Research paper, "Analyst Coverage, Information, and Bubbles", on SSRN, June 2012)

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Market bubbles like the one that preceded the recent housing collapse could be mitigated or even prevented if governments and regulatory bodies shared information with the public about factors that determine an asset’s value. This is the finding of research by Timothy Burch and Sandro Andrade of the University of Miami School of Business Administration in Florida, and Jiangze Bian of the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing (Wikipedia), China.

The group examined China’s stock market during a six-month period in 2007 when stock prices nearly tripled and trading activity nearly quadrupled. They found that stocks with the most analyst coverage had significantly smaller bubbles than those with no analyst coverage. For example, stocks with 20 analysts reporting on them had bubbles that were more than 60 percent smaller than stocks with no analyst coverage. “Our research shows that making relevant information about an asset readily available reduces disagreement, which in turn makes bubbles less severe,” says Burch.

The researchers suggest that to limit bubbles in the stock market, government agencies could collect and disseminate information and even subsidize analyst research where needed. To reduce the odds and severity of real estate market bubbles, governments and regulatory agencies could disseminate information about transactions, appraisals, rental yields, vacancies, demographic/migration trends, prospective changes in zoning laws, and real-property borrowing statistics.

“This could be achieved by creating a ‘Kelley Blue Book’ for real estate—a centralized, well-promoted Web site where everyone could go before making real estate decisions,” says Andrade. “Analyst Coverage, Information, and Bubbles” is forthcoming in the Journal of Financial and Qualitative Analysis.

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Abstract:

This paper uses the unique setting of the 2007 stock market bubble in China to examine whether information dissemination mitigates bubbles. Using multiple measures of bubble intensity for each stock, we find significantly smaller bubbles in stocks with greater analyst coverage. The abating effect of analyst coverage on bubble intensity is weaker when there is greater disagreement among analysts. This suggests that, in line with resale option theories of bubbles, one channel through which analyst coverage mitigates bubbles is by coordinating investors' beliefs. Consistent with this particular information mechanism, stock turnover is negatively correlated with analyst coverage, and the abating effect of analyst coverage on stock turnover is weaker when there is more disagreement among analysts.

"Women Create A Sustainable Future" on boards - Haas research

responsiblebusiness.haas.berkeley.edu/Women_Create_Sustainable_Value_10_2012.pdf (9 pages)

October 2012

A growing body of research suggests that adding more women to the upper echelons of the corporate world—and particularly to directorial boards of publicly held companies—may help better balance business’ current emphasis on short-term profit maximization towards a broader focus on longerterm goals, including positive environmental, social, and governance impact.

"Labour Markets in the Euro Crisis" - CESifo Group Munich (links with Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU)

Time: "Europe Faces a Multi-National General Strike Against Austerity" Nov 13, 2012

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Labour Markets in the Euro Crisis, September 2012

The latest CESifo DICE Report (2/2012) focuses on how the European labour markets in Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain have fared in the euro crisis. While Germany and the Netherlands have come through the crisis relatively well, the labour market situation in Estonia, Ireland and Spain has deteriorated considerably. France and Italy fall between these two poles.

1. "CESifo DICE Report 2/2012 (Summer)", Ifo Institute, Munich, 2012, 1-77 | Details | Download (PDF 81 pages)

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Askenazy, Philippe and Christine Erhel, "The French Labour Market and the (Not So) Great Recession",CESifo DICE Report 10 (2), 2012, 08-13 | Details | Download (PDF 6 pages)

....

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Mr. Philippe Askenazy, new member (announced 13 Nov, 2012) of French Prime Minister's economic advisory team (Employment specialist in Conseil d'analyse économique (CAE)), www.jourdan.ens.fr/~askenazy/

Prof Kathleen M. Eisenhardt (Stanford), 2012 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research

www.e-award.org/web/2012_Kathleen_M_Eisenhardt

 Presentation Article.pdf(134 kB)

 Biography.pdf (36 kB)

 Prize lecture ppt.pdf (50 kB)

For her work on strategy, strategic decision making, and innovation in rapidly changing and highly competitive markets.

Motivation

Kathleen Eisenhardt is widely known for her work on strategy, strategic decision making, and innovation in rapidly changing and highly competitive markets. She has also pioneered in building theories from case study research. Even though only a portion of Eisenhardt’s work can be directly and explicitly labeled as ‘entrepreneurship’ research, she has made significant contributions to this relatively new and rapidly evolving field. Her main contribution to the entrepreneurship field is her work on ‘corporate entrepreneurship’ – how existing organizations can remain innovative, including through new venture creation.

Eisenhardt’s work links the domain of entrepreneurship research to the fields of dynamic capabilities, strategy and decision making processes, and organization theory and design. She has examined how established organizations can introduce a continuous stream of novel products and services through better new product development processes as well as more efficient ways of organizing their activities. She has also looked at how ‘strategic decisions’ are taken, especially with respect to how new ventures are formed and how they forge linkages with competitors, how they grow and survive through innovation as well as by shaping the rules of competition.

In sum, Kathleen Eisenhardt has made substantial, original and influential contributions both theoretically and empirically that establish entrepreneurship research more solidly in both the management and the economics literature.

See a short summary from the 2012 Award Ceremony.

 

PWC Study: We’re Headed To 11°F Warming And Even 7°F Requires ‘Nearly Quadrupling The Current Rate Of Decarbonisation’

www.pwc.com/gx/en/sustainability/publications/low-carbon-economy-index

Think Progress, November 6, 2012

Either way, business-as-usual is not an option.

Leo Johnson, PWC’s Partner for Sustainability and Climate Change, rather dryly concludes his letter introducing the report:

Business leaders have been asking for clarity in political ambition on climate change. Now one thing is clear: businesses, governments and communities across the world need to plan for a warming world – not just 2ºC, but 4ºC and, at our current rates, 6ºC.

Research "Building Small: In Many Industries, Economies of Size Is Shifting to Economies of Numbers"

Columbia Business School, November 2, 2012

NEW YORK—November 2, 2012—For decades, “bigger is better” has been the conventional path to efficiency in industries ranging from transportation to power generation. Food once grown on small family plots now comes overwhelmingly from factory farms. Vessels that carried 2,000 tons of cargo have been replaced by modern container ships that routinely move 150,000 tons. But now, new research shows, we are on the cusp of a radical shift from building big to building small—a change that has profound implications for both established and emerging industries.

Many industry sectors are nearing or have reached a tipping point in which efficiency of unit size is being replaced by efficiency of numbers, according to a recent study by Garrett van Ryzin, the Paul M. Montrone Professor of Private Enterprise at Columbia Business School, Caner Göçmen, Ph.D. candidate at Columbia Business School, and Eric Dahlgren and Klaus S. Lackner of Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. Rather than relying on custom–built, large–scale units of production — e.g. massive thermal power plants — industries can benefit from a shift to small, modular, mass–produced units that can be deployed in a single location or distributed across many locations — e.g. photovoltaic (PV) panels mounted on utility poles.

Conventional wisdom holds that capital cost per unit of capacity decline with increasing unit size. Other efficiencies of unit size arise from manufacturers’ ability to spread out the fixed–costs components of production, as well as factors such as operator labor and design costs. This alternative approach to infrastructure design offers new possibilities for reducing costs and improving service, the researchers found...

The Consequences of Mandatory Corporate Sustainability Reporting - Ioannou (LBS) & Serafeim (HBS) - data on 58 countries

papers.ssrn.com..March 30, 2011 

Ioannis Ioannou London Business School,  George Serafeim Harvard University - Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School Research Working Paper No. 11-100 

Abstract:      

We examine the effect of mandatory corporate sustainability reporting (MCSR) on several measures of social responsibility using both country and firm-level data. Using data for 58 countries, we show that after the adoption of MCSR laws and regulations, the social responsibility of business leaders increases and both sustainable development and employee training become a higher priority for companies. Moreover, for companies in countries with MCSR, corporate governance improves and on average, companies implement more ethical practices, bribery and corruption decrease, and managerial credibility increases. These effects are larger for countries with stronger law enforcement and more widespread assurance of sustainability reports. We complement the country-level analysis using environmental, social and governance metrics at the firm-level in conjunction with a differences-in-differences research design and we find that for the treatment group, energy as well as waste and water consumption significantly decline, while investments in employee training significantly increase after the adoption of MCSR laws and regulations.

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (Singapore) - "Measuring Corruption: Exploring the Iceberg"

Wikipedia "Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy" (National University of Singapore)

On 19 September 2012, Dr. Karin Lasthuizen, Associate Professor in Leadership and Governance Studies, VU University Amsterdam (The Netherlands) gave a talk at the Lee Kuan Yew School on research techniques to measure 'sensitive' issues such as corruption. 

Dr. Lasthuizen began by identifying the problems associated with measuring corruption, including its causes, visibility, awareness of corrupt practices, and problems regarding the reporting, investigating and sanctioning of it. She then spoke on the types of data sources, and research strategies available. Some data is visible and investigated, while others remain hidden because of confidential internal investigations, or the reporting behaviour of victims and perpetrators. 

One way to measure corruption is through reputational data. Surveys, such as those collected by Transparency International, an non-governmental organisation that publishes the widely cited Corruption Perception Index, ask respondents to estimate the amount of corruption in their society. However, reputational data tends to be concerned with opinion, rather than evidence. While it can be reliable and useful, especially in comparative studies, generalised perceptions and preconceived opinions mean it suffers from bias. This may explain why some countries remain at the same level for years. The terms of definitions in the perceptions index also tend to have a Western bias...

'A Diverse Network is More Valuable Than A Large One' - Tuck Prof Adam Kleinbaum

Businessworld, 16 October, 2012

Adam Kleinbaum of Tuck School Of Business talks about how advantageous employee networks define career growth

Adam M. Kleinbaum, Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Tuck School of Business at (Dartmouth) has recently conducted a study on how such networks can be made more effective for an organisation's and individual's benefit. In an email interview with BW Online's Alokita Datta, Kleinbaum elaborates on how advantageous employee networks define career growth, the benefits of atypical career paths (and how to achieve them) as well as the relationship between company policies and stronger networks...

"institute for small business and entrepreneurship" Conference, Dublin 7-8 November

institute for small business and entrepreneurship

putting research into policy and practice

isbe.org.uk/ISBE2012  (35th conference)

ISBE2011, Sheffield

isbe.org.uk/BestPapers

ISBE 2010, London, Award winning papers

ISBE 2009, Liverpool: Award winning papers

ISBE 2008, Belfast: Award winning papers  

ISBE 2007, Glasgow: Award winning papers

ISBE 2006, Cardiff: Award winning papers

US Immigrant Entrepreneurship Has Stalled for the First Time in Decades, Kauffman Foundation Study Shows - Vivek Wadhwa

New book based on findings warns of potential dire consequences for U.S. economy and urges swift action to reverse the trend

(KANSAS CITY, Mo.), Oct. 2, 2012 — A new Kauffman Foundation study finds that high-tech, immigrant-founded startups — a critical source of fuel for the U.S. economy — has stagnated and is on the verge of decline.

"America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Then and Now" shows that the proportion of immigrant-founded companies nationwide has slipped from 25.3 percent to 24.3 percent since 2005. The drop is even more pronounced in Silicon Valley, where the percentage of immigrant-founded startups declined from 52.4 percent to 43.9 percent...

The implications of the research findings, conducted by Vivek Wadhwa, director of research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at the Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University; AnnaLee Saxenian, dean and professor at the Berkeley School of Information; and F. Daniel Siciliano, professor of the Practice of Law and faculty director, Rock Center for Corporate Governance; are the subject of a bookbeing released today by Wadhwa.

The Immigrant Exodus: Why America Is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent, (Amazon) draws on the research to show that the United States is in the midst of a historically unprecedented halt in high-growth, immigrant-founded startups.

"The U.S. risks losing a key growth engine just when the economy needs job creators more than ever," said Wadhwa. "The U.S. can reverse these trends with changes in policies and opportunities, if it acts swiftly. It is imperative that we create a startup visa for these entrepreneurs and expand the number of green cards for skilled foreigners to work in these startups. Many immigrants would gladly remain in the United States to start and grow companies that will lead to jobs."

With funding from the Kauffman Foundation, Wadhwa has launched a website — ImmigrantExodus.com — as a resource for journalists and a voice for immigrant entrepreneurs.

From the 107,819 engineering and technology companies founded in the last six years, the study examined a random sample of 1,882 companies in a nationwide survey. Of those companies, 458 had at least one foreign-born founder.

Startling Start-Up Stats - HBS Prof Shikhar Ghosh explains the finding of an ongoing study that shows 3 out of 4 tech start-ups fail

video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000117724

The Transparency Paradox, A Role for Privacy in Organizational Learning and Operational Control - Administrative Science Quarterly

asq.sagepub.com/content/57/2/181.abstract

June 21, 2012, Administrative Science Quarterly

Using data from embedded participant-observers and a field experiment at the second largest mobile phone factory in the world, located in China, I theorize and test the implications of transparent organizational design on workers’ productivity and organizational performance. Drawing from theory and research on learning and control, I introduce the notion of a transparency paradox, whereby maintaining observability of workers may counterintuitively reduce their performance by inducing those being observed to conceal their activities through codes and other costly means; conversely, creating zones of privacy may, under certain conditions, increase performance. Empirical evidence from the field shows that even a modest increase in group-level privacy sustainably and significantly improves line performance, while qualitative evidence suggests that privacy is important in supporting productive deviance, localized experimentation, distraction avoidance, and continuous improvement. I discuss implications of these results for theory on learning and control and suggest directions for future research.

www.RunMyCode.org for researchers (featured on BizEd)

www.RunMyCode.org via BizEd ("Tools of the Trade", p59)

The concept

As simple as 1,2,3
1. A researcher has an idea.
2. The researcher writes a paper based on this idea.
3. Using RunMyCode, the researcher creates a companion website associated with this paper. The companion website allows people to implement the methodology presented in the paper...

Dean Roger Martin (Rotman bschool) on Research - The Price of Actionability. AOM Learning & Education Journal

© Academy of Management Learning & Education, June 1, 2012

by Dean Roger Martin of the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

Abstract

Pearce and Huang have written an article that chronicles the low and declining incidence of actionable research in two of the top managerial journals. In this paper, I quantify the cost of production of not-actionable articles, explain why I think that their production has flourished, discuss the difficulty of individual scholars speaking to both business and academic audiences, and provide a thought on how to stimulate production of actionable business research output.

I estimate that the cost of producing not-actionable “A-journal” articles is on the order of US$600 million per year. It is not surprising to me that not-actionable article production has increased in that the “customers” for these articles are primarily other academics and not business people. I demonstrate that for this reason, it proves very difficult for a given scholar to simultaneously speak authoritatively to both fellow academics and business people. Finally, I suggest that to stimulate production of actionable business research output, the Academy needs to harness the power of case-based research methods to identify important actionable business issues and the meticulousness of scientific methodologies to generate rigorous actionable prescriptions for business people...

"That's Interesting!: Towards a Phenomenology of Sociology and a Sociology of Phenomenology", Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Davis, Murray S. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 1:4 (1971:Dec.) p.309

"That's Interesting!: Towards a Phenomenology of Sociology and a Sociology of Phenomenology"

Summary
Question: How do theories that are generally considered interesting differ from theories that are generally considered non-interesting?

Answer: Interesting theories deny certain assumptions of their audience, while non-interesting theories affirm certain assumptions of their audience. This answer was arrived at through the examination of a number of famous social, and especially sociological, theories. That examination also generated a systematic index of the variety of propositional forms that interesting and non-interesting theories may take. The fertility of this approach suggested a new field be established called the Sociology of the Interesting, which is intended to supplement the Sociology of Knowledge. This new field will be phenomenologically oriented in so far as it will focus on the movement of the audience's mind from one accepted theory to another. It will be sociologically oriented in so far as it will focus on the dissimilar base-line theories of the various sociological categories that compose the audience. In addition to its value in interpreting the social impact of theories, the Sociology of the Interesting can contribute to our understanding of both the common sense and scientific perspectives on reality.

Prof Ioannis Ioannou (LBS et al.): NEW paper:Which incentives are most effective for reducing #carbon emissions?

Ioannis Ioannou ‏@iioannoulbs

NEW paper:Which incentives are most effective for reducing #carbon emissions?Read & find out! http://bit.ly/Pu3feF  #csr #esg #susty #green

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August 20, 2012

SSRN - "Pay for Environmental Performance: The Effect of Incentive Provision on Carbon Emissions"

Robert G. Eccles, Harvard Business School
Ioannis Ioannou , London Business School
Shelley Xin Li, Harvard Business School
George Serafeim, Harvard University - Harvard Business School

Abstract:     
Corporations are increasingly under pressure to improve their environmental performance and to account for potential risks and opportunities associated with climate change. In this paper, we examine the effectiveness of monetary and nonmonetary incentives provided by companies to their employees in order to reduce carbon emissions. Specifically, we find evidence that the use of monetary incentives is associated with higher carbon emissions. This result holds both in cross-sectional and time-series analysis. Moreover, we find that the use of nonmonetary incentives is associated with lower carbon emissions. Consistent with monetary incentives crowding out motivation for pro-social behavior, we find that the effect of monetary incentives on carbon emissions is mitigated when these incentives are provided to employees with formally assigned responsibility for environmental performance. Furthermore, by employing a two-stage multinomial logistic model, we provide insights into factors affecting companies’ decisions on incentive provision, as well as showing that the impact of monetary incentives on carbon emissions remains significant even when we control for potential selection bias in our sample.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 37

Energy Efficiency and Commercial-Mortgage Valuation - Research Berkeley/Haas Professors

faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/jaffee/Papers/DOE2913.pdf  (58 pages)

Dwight Jaee, Richard Stanton and Nancy Wallace

September 13, 2011

Abstract

Energy efficiency is key to the future of the U.S. economy, and commercial buildings are among the largest users of energy. However, existing loan underwriting practices provide no incentive for building owners to make their buildings more energy efficient. In this paper, we develop a commercial-mortgage valuation, or underwriting, strategy that accounts for the energy risk of individual office buildings, this energy risk being a function of both the relative energy efficiency of the building and the characteristics of its location. Our method extends standard underwriting practices, which account for the expected dynamics of interest rates and office building prices over time, by including the expected dynamics of the electricity and gas prices as well as quantity dynamics appropriate to the location of the building. This allows lenders to explicitly take into account the effect of energy use and various alternative efficiency measures when underwriting commercial mortgages.

Are institutions important for #sustainability? Critical! top-tier published research bit.ly/N9TxPT Ioannis Ioannou

 Via @iioannoulbs

Are institutions important for #sustainability? Critical! top-tier published research http://bit.ly/N9TxPT  #susty #esg #csr #socinn #green

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SSRN: What Drives Corporate Social Performance? The Role of Nation-level Institutions

August 27, 2010, Journal of International Business Studies (Forthcoming)

Ioannis Ioannou - London Business School

George Serafeim, Harvard University - Harvard Business School

Impact factor: researchers should define the metrics that matter to them

The Guardian, higher education network

The impact factor assumes that the most cited articles are the most influential, but influence is only one aspect of importance

...With research workflows moving online, shouldn't we be able to follow what's going on in academia better than we did 50 years ago?...

IE's Monika Hamori on the T50 radar. Probably the best b school researcher in the HR field. read her latest HBR article

Thinkers50 ‏@thinkers50

IE's Monika Hamori on the T50 radar. Probably the best b school researcher in the HR field. read her latest HBR article:

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"Why Top Young Managers Are in a Nonstop Job Hunt", Harvard Business Review, July/August, by Monika Hamori, Jie Cao, and Burak Koyuncu.

You might suspect that your best young managers are looking for a better gig—and you’re probably right. Research shows that today’s most-sought-after early-career professionals are constantly networking and thinking about the next step, even if they seem fully engaged. And employee-development programs aren’t making them happy enough to stay.

We reached these conclusions after conducting face-to-face interviews and analyzing two large international databases created from online surveys of more than 1,200 employees. We found that young high achievers—30 years old, on average, and with strong academic records, degrees from elite institutions, and international internship experience—are antsy. Three-quarters sent out résumés, contacted search firms, and interviewed for jobs at least once a year during their first employment stint. Nearly 95% regularly engaged in related activities such as updating résumés and seeking information on prospective employers. They left their companies, on average, after 28 months.

And who can blame them? Comparing the peripatetic managers’ salary histories with those of peers who stayed put, we found that each change of employer created a measurable advantage in pay; in fact, a job change was the biggest single determinant of a pay increase...

 

Blue Planet Prize - The Laureates. "A Better Future for the Planet Earth"

Blue_Planet_Prize_Wikipedia

The Blue Planet Prize recognises outstanding efforts in scientific research or applications of science that contribute to solving global environmental problems. The prize was created by the Asahi Glass Foundation in 1992, the year of the Rio Earth Summit, and since then the foundation has awarded the prize to two winners every year. In 2012, twenty of the Blue Planet Prize winners collaborated on a joint paper that was launched at the UN Environment Programme's Governing Council meeting in Nairobi on 20 February

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Blue Planet Prize - The Laureates

2012 (20th)

	Professor William E. Rees (Canada) Professor, University of British Columbia, FRSC (Royal Society of Canada) Dr. Mathis Wackernagel (Switzerland) (right) President, Global Footprint Network
	Developing and advancing the Ecological Footprint, a comprehensive accounting system for comparing human demand on ecosystems to ecosystems' capacity to self-renew. Their approach measures human carrying capacity and helps assess the risks of overconsumption to planetary stability. > For More Details (440KB)
	Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy (USA) Professor, Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University
	Becoming the first person to clarify human caused habitat fragmentation damaged biodiversity and gave rise to environmental crisis. Since then, he has been influencing the world for environmental conservation. > For More Details (440KB)

 

Social Media's Productivity Payoff - HBR blogs

Post of August 21, 2012, by James Manyika, Michael Chui, and Hugo Sarrazin

James Manyika is the San Francisco based director of the McKinsey Global Institute, where Michael Chui is a principal and senior fellow. Hugo Sarrazin, Director in McKinsey's Business Technology and Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Practice, also co-authored this blog post.

The Employee Owned Business Model During Growth and Adversity: How Well Does it Hold Up? - EuropeanBusinessReview.com - Research

The European Business Review

Criticism of modern corporate capitalism in the wake of the current economic crisis is reawakening interest in alternative ownership and governance models such as employee owned businesses (EOBs). EOBs are well suited for knowledge intensive firms where their combination of ownership and employee participation in decision-making fosters initiative and commitment. However, the relationship between ownership and employee participation that is central to the EOB advantage is potentially undermined by growth and complexity. This article reports on the results of a survey and archival study on UK-based EOBs that examines this issue. Taking advantage of the economic crisis, the study also examines EOB performance under adverse business conditions. Analysis of the archival data shows that EOBs lose their performance advantage over non-EOBs as they grow larger. EOBs, however, performed better over the entire business cycle, including the onset of the current economic crisis, demonstrating resilience and business sustainability relative to non-EOBs.

1.Introduction 
A stream of corporate scandals followed by a financial crisis has ignited a debate on the potential pitfalls of modern corporate capitalism.^1,2 In wake of this debate, increasing attention is being paid to ownership and governance models that represent an alternative to the publicly listed corporation. One model in particular is attracting renewed interest: Employee Owned Businesses (EOBs). EOBs have been part of the economic landscape since the industrial revolution. Until recently, however, they were viewed as an interesting governance model with certain advantages, but also with intrinsic limitations when compared to the growth and dynamism of publicly listed corporations...

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About the authors
Joseph Lampel is Professor in Strategy and Innovation at Cass Business School. His current research explores (a) impact of ownership structure on strategic decision-making and performance in employee-owned business (b) how organizations boost creativity under constraints, and (c) how organizations learn through rare events. He is the author with Henry Mintzberg and Bruce Ahlstrand of the one of the best selling strategy books: “Strategy Safari“, Free Press, and has published in top journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies and Sloan Management Review.

Ajay Bhalla is Professor of Global Innovation Management at Cass Business School. He has specific research interest in (a) How Ownership & Governance Structure influences strategic decision making, with specific focus on Employee Owned and Family Businesses, and (b) What makes firms innovate better and what are the implications of pursuing innovation across boundaries for firm configuration. He has published in journals such as Academy of Management Perspectives, Journal of Operations Management, and Journal of World Business.

Pushkar P. Jha is a lecturer in strategy at the Newcastle University Business School. He has contributed to leading journals like Academy of Management Perspectives and International Journal of Project Management. He has also published in practitioner-oriented books like the Project Management Handbook of Knowledge and the Evolution of Business Knowledge. He has a keen interest in the areas of project-based learning, innovation and employee ownership models. The interest stems from his work on design and monitoring studies on cooperatives and enterprise development in some major funding initiatives of the World Bank and the UNFPA.

Study: MBA Programs Don't Connect Social Media Dots

July 25, 2012. US News

Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites play limited b-school admissions roles, a UMass survey says.

Business school officials use social networking to promote their MBA programs but fail to track the return on those investments, according to a recent University of Massachusetts—Dartmouth study...

How to Predict the London 2012 Olympic Medal Table - Emily Williams of Tuck School of Business discusses her research

Wall Street Journal Live, 13 July 2012 A new study from the Tuck School of Business suggests that you need no knowledge about sport to predict the Olympic medal table. Emily Williams of Tuck School of Business discusses her research. Photo: Getty Images

New Research Addresses an Elusive Question: What is Quality? - Professors Christine Moorman, Fuqua Bschool & Peter Golder, Tuck Bschool

July 12, 2012, Duke, The Fuqua School of Business.

DURHAM, N.C. - Just as in the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the quest to define quality has led people to either abandon the search or go insane in the process. After years of research, three top academics have finally defined the concept in their paper, What is Quality? An Integrative Framework of Processes and States. Their analysis appears in the July issue of the American Marketing Association's Journal of Marketing. 

Firms define quality differently from their customers, whose judgment may be shaped by perceptions, advertising and even emotions, say the researchers. Christine Moorman of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, Peter Golder from Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business and Debanjan Mitra from the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business Administration have devised a three-part definition of quality, drawing from divergent areas of business research. Their findings may help firms better manage quality and customer satisfaction.
 
Quality doesn't exist in isolation, according to the researchers. Rather, quality is a measure of comparison. For engineers, quality is the gap between what is designed and what is produced. For marketers, quality is the gap between what the customer perceives and what the customer wants. The middle view is a combination of engineers' and marketers' views, drawing elements from both: what the firm produces relative to what the customer wants.
 
The authors' integrated definition may help businesses understand why improving product or service attributes often has little or no effect on customer satisfaction. The researchers' integrative quality framework yields 20 concrete strategies to help firms improve customer satisfaction. In some cases, companies are better off investing in managing their customers' expectations of influencing their emotions rather than making any changes to a product.

The European ban on naked sovereign credit default swaps: A fake good idea - Professor Anne-Laure Delatte Rouen

Anne-Laure Delatte, Associate Professor, Rouen Business School, 23 Jul 2012, VoxEU

Uncovered sovereign credit default swaps will be permanently prohibited in the EU by November 2012. While empirical evidence on their destabilising role is mounting, this column argues that the EU regulation will have only a limited effect, as a number of inconsistencies create regulatory arbitrage and opportunities to circumvent the ban.

...We find that the markets of sovereign and banking CDSs have played a dominant role in driving market sentiment. In fact, we find that for the same level of fundamentals, investors require a higher interest rate when CDSs premia are high. Within a market environment filled with uncertainty and imperfect information, the CDS market transmits a market signal that leads market participants to believe that other participants “know something”...

...Accounting for shifts in market sentiment explains the sudden eruption of the crisis in countries like Portugal or Spain, where the fundamentals have deteriorated only progressively...

Linda Scott, DP World Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation, lecture "The Double X Economy" at Saïd Business School

Beauty retailer triumphs in South Africa, Financial Times, July 18, 2012

In her mission to investigate how the global marketplace can be enhanced to benefit women, Linda Scott, from the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, has recently discovered a sustainable model from an unlikely source: Avon, the global retailer of beauty and related products...

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YouTube, Linda Scott, DP World Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, gave her Inaugural Lecture entitled "The Double X Economy" at the Saïd Business School on 24 April 2012

European Commission - €8.1 billion investment in research and innovation to create growth and jobs

Brussels, 9 July 2012

The European Commission has today announced the final and biggest ever set of calls for proposals for research under its Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). In total, €8.1 billion will support projects and ideas that will boost Europe's competitiveness and tackle issues such as human health, protecting the environment and finding new solutions to growing challenges linked to urbanisation and managing waste. The funding – which is open to organisations and businesses in all EU Member States and partner countries - makes up the lion's share of the EU's proposed €10.8 billion research budget for 2013...

Top 1% of entrepreneurs create 40% of new jobs - World Economic Forum (WEF) Entrepreneurship Report 2011 - 380,000 companies

Via BBC  (May 2, 2011)

... The WEF Entrepreneurship_Report (PDF, 380 pages, 16.8MB), in collaboration with Stanford University and Endeavor Global, said: "After avoiding the collapse of the global financial and economic system, governments around the world are now focused on building a foundation for future growth."

It said the purpose of its report was to provide insight into how to successfully foster entrepreneurship, with "the ultimate goal of improving economic growth, prosperity and quality of life".

The WEF study highlighted eight different key growth strategies for early-stage companies.

It said one key finding was that the similarities in early-stage companies around the globe are far greater than their differences...

Via report

In a matter of only 18 months, this group oversaw 70 executive case studies from 22 countries, 110 surveys from 17 different countries and the analysis of revenue and headcount data for over 380,000 companies.