Rethinking Strategy

Business Administratio

Due diligence, research joint ventures, and incentives to innovate

The decision to cooperate within R&D joint ventures is often based on `expert advice.' Such advice typically originates in a due diligence process, which assesses the R&D joint venture's profitability, for example, by appraising the achievability of synergies. We show that if the experts who advise the owners considering forming an R&D joint venture are also responsible for R&D efforts, they can have incentives to withhold information about the extent of those synergies. Owners optimally react by reducing the incentives to innovate in low-value projects developed within R&D joint ventures and in high-value projects developed within competing research organizations

The effects of prey availability on pup mortality and the timing of birth of South American sea lions (Otaria flavescens) in Peru

Pup mortality and the timing of birth of South American sea lions Otaria flavescens were investigated to determine the possible relationship between fluctuations in prey availability in the Peruvian upwelling ecosystem and current and future reproductive success of sea lions during six consecutive breeding seasons. Our study from 1997 to 2002 encompassed the strongest El Niño on record and one La Niña event. Pup mortality ranged from 13 % before El Niño to 100 % during El Niño, and was negatively correlated with prey availability. Abortions were also more frequent when prey availability was low. However, pup mortality remained high following El Niño due to the punctuated short-term effects it had on population dynamics and subsequent maternal behaviour. Births occurred later in the season after years of low food availability and earlier following years of high food availability. The peak of pupping occurred around the peak of mortality in all years, and may have been the product of intensive competition between bulls at the peak of the breeding season. The stronger and more frequent El Niños that appear to be occurring along the Peruvian coast may produce significant stochastic changes in future births and pup mortality, which may place the vulnerable South American sea lion population in Peru at greater risk

Theory and research in strategic management: Swings of a pendulum

The development of the field of strategic management within the last two decades has been dramatic. While its roots have been in a more applied area, often referred to as business policy, the current field of strategic management is strongly theory based, with substantial empirical research, and is eclectic in nature. This review of the development of the field and its current position examines the field’s early development and the primary theoretical and methodological bases through its history. Early developments include Chandler’s (1962) Strategy and Structure and Ansoff’s (1965) Corporate Strategy. These early works took on a contingency perspective (fit between strategy and structure) and a resource-based framework emphasizing internal strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps, one of the more significant contributions to the development of strategic management came from industrial organization (IO) economics, specifically the work of Michael Porter. The structure-conduct-performance framework and the notion of strategic groups, as well as providing a foundation for research on competitive dynamics, are flourishing currently. The IO paradigm also brought econometric tools to the research on strategic management. Building on the IO economics framework, the organizational economics perspective contributed transaction costs economics and agency theory to strategic management. More recent theoretical contributions focus on the resource-based view of the firm. While it has its roots in Edith Penrose’s work in the late 1950s, the resource-based view was largely introduced to the field of strategic management in the 1980s and became a dominant framework in the 1990s. Based on the resource-based view or developing concurrently were research on strategic leadership, strategic decision theory (process research) and knowledge-based view of the firm. The research methodologies are becoming increasingly sophisticated and now frequently combine both quantitative and qualitative approaches and unique and new statistical tools. Finally, this review examines the future directions, both in terms of theory and methodologies, as the study of strategic management evolves.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline