competition and social influence the diffusion of the sixth generation processor in the global computer industry1 when is a social actor most strongly influenced by its peers this article addresses this question by clarifying when computer firms were most strongly affected by the choices of their structurally equivalent rivals to adopt a well known technology intel s sixth generation processor the core hypothesis is that the effect of adoptions by structurally equivalent firms increases with the competitive pressure that a focal firm faces in its market position the results show that a chosen firm is most strongly influenced by comparable others when it faces scale based competition and is diversified the implications of this study are twofold a social actor s sensitivity to the conduct of others may depend not only on its place in a hierarchy but also on the nature of its ties to an external audience and a contingent theory of social influence may be necessary to characterize diffusion processes correctly particularly when external and time varying nonnetwork factors have significant effects

kinship in the shadow of the corporation the interbuilder network in clyde river shipbuilding 1711 1990 the authors identify a system of intercompetitor affiliation that helped clyde river shipbuilding companies to thrive but was ultimately undermined by the rise of corporate capitalism they find that connections between companies through their leaders family ties or friendships were common and beneficial as every such tie maintained by a company reduced its annual risk of failure by 10 percent this average effect however masks an important contingency the direct benefits of interbuilder ties accrued only to family firms which enjoyed a reduced risk of failure of 34 percent with each tie and not at all to corporations the authors maintain that the shift to the corporate form inhibited the operation of the interbuilder network by reducing the autonomy of leaders to work through personal relations with their competitors the results encourage heightened attention both to the idea that horizontal ties within an industry may be a key determinant of organizational success and to the idea that some m

causes for changing performance of the business groups in a transition economy market level versus firm level factors in china this article investigates longitudinal changes in the relative performance of business groups utilizing data on listed companies in china over a 10 year period 1994 2003 using a measure of firm value in the stock market and panel regression methods this article finds the initially superior and eventually worsening performance of group affiliated firms compared with stand alone firms to explain the downward performance this article considers several alternative hypotheses namely institutional development increasing competition diversification discount agency costs from state ownership and agents asset diversion behavior this article has found certain differences in the explanatory power of each hypothesis while the institutional development hypothesis is somewhat weak the increasing discount for unrelated diversification as well as serious agency costs revealed in asset diversion in the business groups can better explain the longitudinal decrease in the performance of business groups we find that while diversification still creates values its marginal contribution has decreased over time and that while the state ownership variable negatively affects the values of firms in general it is not the cause of the worsening valuation of business groups copyright 2010 the author 2010 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

business group affiliation and firm search behavior in india responsiveness and focus of attention this paper investigates the effects of organizational form on problemistic search we contrast how indian firms affiliated with business groups and unaffiliated firms evaluate performance and react by adjusting their internal technology search and external market search we propose that compared with unaffiliated firms business group affiliated bg affiliated firms are more externally oriented in setting aspiration levels and more likely to respond to low performance in the market domain we find support for an external orientation of bg affiliated firms and find that group affiliation determines the responsiveness to performance feedback in different search domains the findings suggest a need to add considerations of organizational form and governance to the theory of organizational search

international search behavior of business group affiliated firms scope of institutional changes and intragroup heterogeneity this paper investigates whether and when affiliation to business groups enables or constrains firms international search behavior during institutional transitions we theorize that given the unique structure and complex form of business group organizations the search behavior of affiliated firms is influenced by the degree of misalignment in outlook at the group and affiliate levels of management we identify the scope of institutional changes business group attributes and affiliate characteristics as sources of such misalignment the results from panel data on 298 firms from the indian pharmaceutical industry for the 1992 2007 period show that the constraining effects of business group affiliation are observed only when institutional changes are specific to the affiliates industry and not when broad institutional changes affect the business group as a whole moreover we observe heterogeneity in the search behavior of group affiliated firms first the degree of misalignment is greater in the case of affiliates belonging to older business groups and those that are more distant in terms of age and industry since the group s founding second by contrast and suggesting an alignment in outlook we find that affiliated firms that occupy a prominent position within a group or industry are able to bargain for and receive attention and support from the business group to undertake international search our findings have implications for research on the role of business groups in a changing institutional context and for the strategic adaptation of firms embedded in complex organizational and institutional settings

the response of firms to eligibility thresholds evidence from the japanese value added tax abstract it is common to define benefit eligibility for small business policies by restrictions on the firm size this paper documents the effects of the value added tax vat threshold in japan focusing on the incentives for a large firm to masquerade as many small firms by separately incorporating business segments a comparison of the corporate size distributions before and after the vat introduction of 1989 shows a clustering of corporations just below the threshold a pattern that is attributable to the behavioral responses to rule out the confounding influences of the changes in the company attributes over the years we applied a semiparametric density decomposition technique developed by dinardo fortin and lemieux dinardo j fortin n m lemieux t labor market institutions and the distribution of wages 1973 1992 a semiparametric approach econometrica 1996 64 1001 1044 this study suggests that the masquerading behavior by firms may be commonplace in other settings

the effects of firm specific taxes and government mandates with an application to the u s unemployment insurance program abstract we examine the common but unexamined case of a tax or government mandate whose cost differs across firms within the same labor market our theoretical model shows that this variation can lead to employment reallocation across firms and dead weight losses even if there is no aggregate employment effect using firm level unemployment insurance tax data we find that while the market level tax is mostly born by the worker individual firms can only pass on a small share of the within market differences thus in some cases differences in taxes across firms can lead to large dead weight losses

care regimes and national employment models rapid population ageing has dramatically increased the social and economic cost of elderly care demand for care labour is increasing rapidly and all countries are experiencing problems in recruiting enough workers to meet demand in some countries the shortage of care workers has been met by a large inflow of immigrant mostly female workers the paper s aim is twofold to argue that the way in which care is provided and financed may entail large differences in the creation of a formal care market provision in kind and tied monetary transfers that is cash benefits that are somehow regulated may prevent the formation of a large informal care market national employment models in turn shape the features of the care labour market in fact they affect the quantity and the quality of the care labour supply the size of the care labour shortage and the degree of dependence on migrant carers we show how these two factors combine to shape the characteristics of care regimes and their long term sustainability

bargain hunting or star gazing investors preferences for stock mutual funds investors who wish to purchase shares in mutual funds balance many types of information from a variety of sources when making their fund selection this research examines how investors choose a mutual fund within a given class of funds among the major findings are that investors pay a great deal of attention to past performance and vastly overweight loads relative to expense ratios when evaluating a fund s overall fee structure i also find that investors with a greater knowledge of basic finance are less likely not more likely to make reasonable fund choices

capital markets and firm organization how financial development shapes european corporate groups we investigate the effect of financial development on the formation of european corporate groups because cross country regressions are hard to interpret in a causal sense we exploit exogenous industry measures to investigate a specific channel through which financial development may affect group affiliation internal capital markets using a comprehensive firm level data set on european corporate groups in 15 countries we find that countries with less developed financial markets have a higher percentage of group affiliates in more capital intensive industries this relationship is more pronounced for young and small firms and for affiliates of large and diversified groups our findings are consistent with the view that internal capital markets may under some conditions be more efficient than prevailing external markets and that this may drive group affiliation even in developed economies this paper was accepted by bruno cassiman business strategy

identity claims and diffusion of sustainability report evidence from korean listed companies 2003 2010 this study integrates theories of diffusion and social identity to conceptualize the diffusion of sustainability report sr as a result of a firm s identification with its reference groups specifically we first hypothesize four different sources of external stakeholder pressures driving the diffusion next we argue that the source of external stakeholder pressures has a differential effect on the adoption of sr for firms that claim their identity on sustainability management for firms with organizational identity claims in group stakeholder pressure will amplify whereas out group stakeholder pressure will dampen the adoption we test our theory using an event history analysis of 675 publicly traded firms in korea during the period of 2003 2010 the results show that all four sources of external pressure serve as mechanisms through which sr spread in korea more importantly we find support for the moderating role of organizational identity claims in the effect of external pressures we discuss how organizational identity matters in the diffusion of corporate social initiatives along with implications for policy makers

the employment effects of low wage subsidies abstract low wage subsidies are often proposed as a solution to the unemployment problem among the low skilled but the empirical evidence on their effects is still scarce this paper examines the employment effects of a finnish payroll tax subsidy scheme which is targeted at the employers of older full time low wage workers the system s clear eligibility criteria open up an opportunity for a reliable estimation of the causal impacts of the subsidy scheme our results indicate that the subsidy system had no effect on the employment rate or wages of the eligible groups but it increased slightly working hours among those already at work

tax cuts or social investment evaluating the opportunity cost of french employment strategy tax expenditures are widely used by french governments as em ployment and social policies such programmes together amounted to more than 1 3 points of gdp in 2011 thanks to a systematic review of academic policy evaluations we assess the efficiency of the different parts of such policies showing that at least 6 billion is used for policies whose cost is greater than 62 500 per year and job created and 0 5 billion for policies whose cost is greater than 160 000 per year and job created we examine the replacement of these tax expenditures by direct public funding for publicly or pri vately delivered quality jobs addressing specific social needs we discuss the conditions under which at least comparable employment performances could be achieved factoring in the crowding out of privately funded jobs and the properties of created jobs in terms of the service provided or the characteristics of suppliers and consum ers as well as any positive economic and social externalities

corporate social responsibility theories mapping the territory the corporate social responsibility csr field presents not only a landscape of theories but also a proliferation of approaches which are controversial complex and unclear this article tries to clarify the sit uation mapping the territory by classifying the main csr theories and related approaches in four groups 1 instrumental theories in which the corporation is seen as only an instrument for wealth creation and its social activities are only a means to achieve economic results 2 political theories which concern themselves with the power of corporations in society and a responsible use of this power in the political arena 3 integrative theories in which the corporation is focused on the satisfaction of social demands and 4 ethical theories based on ethical responsibilities of corporations to society in practice each csr theory presents four dimensions related to profits political performance social demands and ethical values the findings suggest the necessity to develop a new theory on the business and society relationship which should integrate these four dimensions

media legitimation effects in the market for initial public offerings in this study we argue that media provided information affects investors impressions of newly public firms in 225 initial public offerings ipos the volume of mediaprovided information had a negative diminishing relationship with underpricing and a positive diminishing relationship with stock turnover on the first day of trading the relationship between the tenor of media provided information and underpricing increases at a nonlinear rate and decreases similarly for turnover findings provide important evidence that publicly available information not only reflects ipos legitimacy but also adds to their legitimacy and influences investor behavior in the last 20 years an increasing amount of research on markets has been conducted from a social constructionist perspective emphasizing how social structures enhance the flow of useful and credible information that market participants use to reduce the uncertainty of market exchanges e g aldrich fiol 1994 zuckerman 1999 further recent organizational research has begun to stress the influence of information intermediaries such as financial analysts and the media on mar

on the determinants of corporate social responsibility international evidence on the financial industry this article sets out to undertake a thorough point by point examination of the theory postulated by campbell 2007 in which an attempt is made to specify the conditions under which corporations may or may not act in socially responsible ways in order to ensure the overall reliability of our study and to attempt to provide a new understanding of and greater insights into whether corporate social responsibility csr is affected by financial and institutional variables we empirically investigate a total of 520 financial firms in 34 countries between the years 2003 and 2005 our empirical findings are i firms with larger size are more csr minded and the financial performance and csr are not related ii firms would actually act in more socially responsible ways to enhance their competitive advantages when the market competitiveness is more intense iii financial firms in countries with stronger levels of legal enforcement tend to engage in more csr activities however interestingly and rather strikingly those firms in countries with stronger shareholder rights tend to engage in less csr activities and iv self regulation within the financial industry has a significantly positive effect on csr with firms being found to act in more socially responsible ways in those countries which have more cooperative employer employee relations higher quality management schools and a better macroeconomic environment

managerial cognition and the mimetic adoption of market positions what you see is what you do managers planning to abandon a market position need to find a promising alternative and face a choice of inventing a new market position or entering an existing one the great uncertainty on the consequences of different actions leads them to rely on other organizations for information on how to compete making adoption of existing market positions likely their wish to avoid direct rivalry and maximize growth leads them to seek out information on new market positions with few incumbents as a result recently innovated market positions are mimetically adopted by organizations that can easily observe previous adoptions and see them as relevant to their market situations increasing the market differentiation this theory is tested and supported by analysis of the spread of new radio formats in the united states 1998 john wiley sons ltd

the effects of the unemployment insurance payroll tax on wages employment claims and denials abstract following a 13 year period when all employers in washington paid the same unemployment insurance ui tax rate washington was forced to adopt an experience rated tax system in 1985 we use this natural experiment to explore both tax incidence and the effects of experience rating we find that industry average tax rates are largely passed on to workers through lower earnings however our estimates imply that a firm can shift much less of the difference between its tax rate and the industry average rate our results also indicate that experience rating reduces turnover and ui claims and increases claim denials

in search of excellence fads success stories and adaptive emulation1 the faddishness of the business community is often noted and lamented but not well understood by standard models of innovation and diffusion we combine arguments about organizational cognition and institutional mimicry to develop a model of adaptive emulation where firms respond to perceived failure by imitating their most successful peers computational experiments show that this process generates empirically plausible cascades of adoption even if innovations are entirely worthless faddish cycles are most robust across alternative treatments of managerial decision making where innovations have modest positive effects on outcomes these results have broad implications for the faddishness of a business community increasingly marked by media driven accounts of success and for the properties of organizational practices that are hot one day and cold the next

economic behavior in institutional environments the corporate merger wave of the 1980s over the last 100 years the united states has experienced four waves of corporate merger activity the first occurred at the turn of the century then again in the 1920s the 1960s and the 1980s most research on merger waves has focused on individual mergers within a wave our research focuses on the wave itself we develop a theoretical model that centers on the actors who promote the mergers and on those changes in the political and economic environments that provide the resources these actors need to act specifically we argue that a permissive state combined with increased access to capital market funds encourages fringe players to initiate the innovations that enable them to execute mergers merger waves occur when these actors become increasingly successful and their innovations are imitated throughout the business community we provide empirical support for the model using data from the 1980 s merger wave

refraining from imitation professional resistance and limited diffusion in a financial market why do some practices not spread although this is an important question for both diffusion theorists and those interested in institutional change we know surprisingly little about the limitations on diffusion because most diffusion studies sample on successful diffusion i address the question of why some practices fail to spread by introducing the concept of a deviance discount a deviance discount is a systematic downgrading of the observed adoption performance of controversial practices which limits the contagion of such practices i test and find qualitative and quantitative support for my thesis in the product introduction behavior of swedish mutual fund firms my findings hold implications for diffusion theory and theories of endogenous institutional change

cross border relocations of headquarters in europe this paper analyzes the relocations of both corporate and regional headquarters hq in a multi country setting on the basis of a dataset of 52 cross border hq relocations in europe during 1996 2006 we document an increasing trend toward relocation push and pull factors affecting hq location choice and catalyzing factors that affect the relocation decision high taxes and a high employment rate represent push factors that we find to increase the likelihood of hq relocation in particular at the mean rate of corporate tax a one percentage point increase in tax translates into a 6 8 increase in hq relocation likelihood in contrast central location and low taxes represent pull factors that increase the attractiveness of the hq location in terms of catalyzing factors we find that export oriented companies and regional hq have a higher tendency to relocate as a whole we extend the existing research by putting forward a conceptual framework of hq relocation decisions and by providing novel empirical evidence on the hq relocation phenomenon our findings contribute to an improved understanding of the determinants of corporate hq relocation decisions and provide important tax policy considerations for public policy decision makers in individual european countries and in the european commission

strategy meets institutions the transformation of management labor relations at deutsche telekom and ntt this comparison of labor management relations at deutsche telekom dt and ntt group formerly nippon telephone and telegraph demonstrates the value of considering both institutions and strategic decision making to under stand the interaction between companies and unions as corporations diversify multi divisional or holding company structures emerge but the degree of diversity introduced in employment relations within the corporate group de pends on the interaction between corporate strategy and the strategy of orga nized labor the authors field research based on interviews with managers and labor leaders shows that despite a broadly similar corporate strategy of diversi fication by dt and ntt after the liberalization of telecommunication markets employment relations became more decentralized both for unions and for works councils within the dt group than within the ntt group this differ ence in outcomes is explained by the relative power and strategic choices of labor and management rather than by constraints and opportunities specific to the existing national institutions

coase revisited business groups in the modern economy ronald coase s celebrated query as to why economic actors typically aggregate into entities called firms rather than transacting as individuals in a market has engendered a vigorous stream of research this paper asks a parallel question why is it that in all modern economies firms themselves aggregate into larger entities often more stable than any literature predicts which are here referred to as business groups after establishing some working definitions and discussing the curious conjunction of empirical importance and analytical invisibility of business groups an attempt is made to establish the most significant dimensions along which such groups vary we end with some speculations on the role of these groups in economic development copyright 1995 by oxford university press

when market information constitutes fields sensemaking of markets in the commercial music industry in this paper we outline a key mechanism through which organizational fields are constituted we suggest that in competitive fields the market serves as a magnet around which groups of actors consolidate and that cognition of markets occurs through the creation distribution and interpretation of a web of information about the market to illustrate our theory we present a case study of thebillboard music chart from the commercial music industry to show that changes in either scope methodology or political tone with which market information is presented can provide a major jolt to the participants understanding of their field

can working and employment conditions in the personal services sector be improved personal services have attracted considerable attention from policy makers in france with a view to achieving two objectives creating jobs and reintegrating those individuals furthest removed from the labour market attempts to achieve these objectives have tended to emphasise job quantity at the expense of job quality which despite the avowed efforts of employers and regulators remains poor how can this discrepancy be explained the article analyses the series of mechanisms at work while some of these mechanisms are the same as those at work in all personal services others vary according to the activity in question care activities for example are caught up in a vicious circle while those employed in domestic services are caught in a precarity trap the fact that these two areas of activity belong to different worlds of production means that the prospects for improving job quality are greater in one care activities than in the other copyright oxford university press

ownership and firm innovation in a transition economy evidence from china we examine innovation performance of firms in a transition economy from an ownership perspective we focus specifically on the relationship between ownership structures and firm innovation performance drawing on data from 548 chinese firms we find volume of patent registration to be most strongly influenced by foreign ownership in the firm along with firm affiliation within a business group the influence of state and institutional ownership on innovation performance is positive but lagged contrary to expectations insider ownership leads to lower innovation performance and concentrated ownership has no significant impact our study has two principal contributions firstly we utilize a comprehensive treatment of ownership characteristics overcoming weakness in previous studies that have used a more narrow focus on ownership type secondly we contribute to understanding of how firms in transition economies build indigenous capabilities for innovation by drawing attention to the interplay of foreign and domestic control of agents innovation

the governance of networks and economic power the nature and impact of subcontracting relationships current debate on networking focuses on network structures and firm strategies in this perspective theoretical analysis has been concerned with allocative issues this essay proposes a different interpretation starting from the existing theoretical framework we emphasise the nature and the implications of different types of networks with respect to socio economic development from a distributional point of view within this context we develop the analysis of subcontracting starting from the concept of economic power we then provide an analysis of governance in production by considering the attitudes and the nature of the actors involved the externalisation of activities by large transnationals which characterises current corporate restructuring is often related to the search for greater flexibility but also for greater power over governments labour and subcontractors differently networks based on the mutual dependence of actors which are not necessarily built around a large firm could under particular conditions reach large production scales or more complex scopes without breaking the links with territorial systems thus including local objectives in the strategic decision making process our conclusion is that the impact of subcontracting networks varies enormously this is crucial to an understanding of future trends and possibilities not least firms and public policy agencies need to understand the implications of different forms of subcontracting network and how those forms actually differ in practice

explaining the membership of voluntary local business associations the example of british chambers of commerce bennett r j 1998 explaining the membership of voluntary local business associations the example of british chambers of commerce reg studies 32 503 514 this paper presents an analytical model which seeks to explain the size of chamber of commerce membership and the depth of market penetration this model is applied to british chambers of commerce which are a largely voluntary system of private law bodies the model demonstrates high explanatory power for the size of chamber membership particularly arising from the service levels and size of potential market number of potential business members the model of market penetration is less satisfactory in terms of variance explained but demonstrates the importance of the same explanatory variables the models also confirm the importance of differentiating two different but overlapping types of chamber in a voluntary system large chambers those approved as quality service providers by the national association of british chambers commerce abcc

the neglect of society in the theory of the firm a systems theory perspective the prevailing theories of the firm acknowledge the importance of trust and loyalty but neglect such behaviour in the substance of their analyses the present paper unravels this paradox by drawing on niklas luhmann s ground breaking insight that the complexity reducing function of social systems leads them to neglect their critical environmental dependencies thereby compromising their own sustainability if the firm is conceived as a social system luhmann s theory implies that the neglect of social behaviour by the predominant theories of the firm can be explained as reflecting the neglect of society by actual firms this argument promises to not only furnish the theory of the firm with a concern for sustainability but also render it more amenable to unconventional institutions such as cooperatives and non profit organisations that help compensate for the damage inflicted by conventional firms on the social environment

are investors rational choices among index funds s p 500 index funds represent one of the simplest vehicles for examining rational behavior they hold virtually the same securities yet their returns differ by more than 2 percent per year although the relative returns of alternative s p 500 funds are easily predictable the relationship between cash flows and performance is weaker than rational behavior would lead us to expect we show that selecting funds based on low expenses or high past returns outperforms the portfolio of index funds selected by investors our results exemplify the fact that in a market where arbitrage is not possible dominated products can prosper

the incidence of mandated maternity benefits i consider the labor market effects of mandates which raise the costs of employing a demographically identifiable group the efficiency of these policies will be largely dependent on the extent to which their costs are shifted to group specific wages i study several state and federal mandates which stipulated that childbirth be covered comprehensively in health insurance plans raising the relative cost of insuring women of childbearing age i find substantial shifting of the costs of these mandates to the wages of the targeted group correspondingly i find little effect on total labor input for that group jel 118 j32 h51 in an era of tight fiscal budget constraints mandating employer provision of workplace benefits to employees is an attractive means for a government to finance its policy agenda consequently in recent years there has been a growth of interest in mandated benefits as a tool of social policy for example the centerpiece of president bill clinton s health care proposal is mandated employer provision of health insurance and more than 20 states have man

owner managers and firm performance during the asian and global financial crises evidence from korea abstractwe examine the performance of the korean owner managers during the 1997 1998 asian financial crisis and the 2008 2009 global financial crisis to establish whether they overcome the unexpected exterior shocks better than employed managers we find that the owner managers record a significantly greater performance during the crises and especially during the latter period moreover our results suggest that such a tendency comes from the owner managers superior investment decisions our paper thus highlights the role of owner managers by studying their performance during the korean economic crisis periods jel g01 g32 g34

making sense of institutions as a factor shaping economic performance abstract there has recently been a resurgence of interest in how institutions affect economic performance a review of this literature reveals that the concept of an institution means different things to different scholars both within economics and across the social sciences we discuss what factors unify the different definitions of institutions and develop a concept of institutions useful for the analysis of economic performance and economic growth in particular specifically we develop the notion of institutions as standard social technologies economic growth results from the co evolution of physical and social technologies

anonymous market and group ties in international trade abstract history provides many examples of cohesive groups dispersed over several countries who exploit the ties between their members to gain entry into foreign markets the phenomenon is well established empirically and noteworthy because it suggests the importance of informational barriers in international transactions we present a simple model where output is produced through a joint venture and agents have complete information domestically but are unable to judge the quality of their match abroad a minority of individuals otherwise identical to all others can exploit complete information in international matches between group members if they so choose group ties increase aggregate trade and income but hurt the anonymous market because they deprive it disproportionately of the group s more productive members

a multilevel analysis of the performance implications of excess control in business groups a central premise of business groups is that controlling shareholders seize disproportionate control in excess of their ownership as a means of becoming and remaining competitive we reexamine this axiom by exploring the relationship between excess control rights and performance outcomes in business groups using a sample of 106 taiwanese business groups we confirm that the effects of excess control in business groups are double edged such that group level excess control exhibits an inverted u shaped relationship with group performance at the same time results show that when group level excess control is high there is a stronger negative relationship between firm level excess control and firm performance moreover the study indicates that the detrimental effect of excess control is less pronounced in business groups that are governed by family members or by professional managers findings offer a far deeper view than previously proposed on the excess control phenomenon in business groups and the ne

design choices in privatized social security systems learning from the swedish experience in the 2000 u s presidential campaign george w bush advocated a partial privatization of the social security system according to his plan a portion of the payroll tax would be designated for individual savings accounts at the same time as this issue was being debated in the united states sweden was in the process of launching a system that is very similar to president bush s proposal although bush s plan did not get much attention in the early years of his administration the proposal may resurface either in the united states or in other countries if so important lessons can be learned from the swedish experience in particular the swedish plan adopted an interesting mix of design choices that can now be evaluated based on three years of post implementation experience although there is a large literature in economics on the design of social security systems most of that literature is concerned with macroeconomic considerations such as funding in contrast there has been much less attention devoted to the details of how plans might be designed in part because these details do not seem important from a standard economic perspective in this paper we reverse this usual pattern and focus our attention on the design aspects of the swedish plan we find that although most of the design choices are those that might be approved by most economists in some cases these choices produced undesirable consequences

social status entry and predation the case of british shipping cartels 1879 1929 the authors incorporate social status and regional affiliation two variables of central sociological interest into an economic analysis of entry and predation they build on scott morton s 1997 examination of entry and predation in the merchant shipping industry and examine whether the social status of an entrant owner impacts on the predation behavior of the incumbent cartels they find that high social status entrants are significantly less likely 40 to be preyed upon than the low social status entrants they discuss several interpretations of this result subsequent analysis supports the hypothesis that cartel members use social status as an indicator of an entrant s propensity to be a cooperative cartel participant

social network effects on the extent of innovation diffusion a computer simulation of innovation diffusion no longer focus exclusively on explaining the rate at which innovations diffuse or the sequence in which they are adopted they also focus on explaining why certain innovations diffuse extensively be coming de facto standards whereas others do so partially or not at all many of these theories specify a bandwagon process a positive feedback loop in which increases in the number of adopters create stronger bandwagon pressures and stronger bandwagon pressures in turn cause increases in the number of adopters factors affecting if and how many times this feedback loop cycles explain if and how many potential adopters jump on a bandwagon we argue that one important factor has not yet been incorporated into theories explaining bandwagons extent the structure of social net works through which potential adopters of innovations find out information about these innovations which can cause them to adopt these innovations we advance a theory of how the structure of social networks affects bandwagons extent we propose that both the number of network links as well as small seemingly insignificant idiosyncracies of their structures can have very large effects on the extent of an innovation s diffusion among members of a social network

engineering growth business group structure and firm performance in china s transition economy business groups have received increasing attention from academics interested in interorganizational relations and their impact on firms as part of industrial reform the chinese government began in the mid 1980s to encourage firms to form business groups with structural characteristics that promised to enhance financial performance and productivity using 1988 90 panel data on china s 40 largest business groups and their 535 member firms the study finds that the presence and predominance of interlocking directorates and finance companies in business groups improved the financial performance and productivity of the groups member firms in addition firms in groups with nonhierarchical organizational structures performed better than firms in hierarchical groups suggesting that complete integration into a hierarchical organization is not an optimal strategy

the gains from pension reform we classify social security pension systems in three dimensions actuarial versus non actuarial funded versus unfunded and defined benefit versus defined contribution systems recent pension reforms are discussed in terms of these dimensions shifting to a more actuarial system reduces labor market distortions although limiting the scope for redistribution shifting to a funded system may increase saving redistribute income to future generations and distort contermporary labor supply a partial shift to a funded system helps individuals diversify their pension assets a shift from a defined benefit to a defined contribution system means that income risk will be shifted from workers to pensioners

industry institutions social capital and firm participation in industrial development industry institutions and trade associations represent the collective interests of an industry s constituent firms and play a prominent role in industrial development yet the strength and efficacy of industry institutions to promote these collective interests depends upon the active support and participation of member firms this is essentially a collective action problem by aligning olson s 1971 logics of collective action framework with nahapiet and ghoshal s 1998 dimensions of social capital this article uses survey data from 381 firms from across five uk manufacturing sectors to explore the factors that affect the propensity for firms to participate in industry institution led initiatives the results suggest the propensity of firms participating in collective activities rises where shared interests emerge although the over riding factor is the extent to which firms perceive their own ability to influence and shape the direction of such activities the logic of influence

institutions economics and the development quest institutions crucial for the analysis of how agents deal with uncertainty have been gaining increasing relevance on the economic research agenda in this paper we analyze the institutional literature aiming to explain why this perspective obtains better results than others in development economics in particular we stress the relevance of new institutional economics as an adequate framework for a broad understanding of development issues

social capital inclusive networks and economic performance abstract empirical studies show that the relationship between social capital and economic performance is ambiguous the paper points to the potential trade off between the sustainability of self enforcement and the magnitude of gains from trade in social networks as an explanation based on an infinitely repeated multi player prisoners dilemma it is shown how self enforcement of cooperation within a network is influenced by its inclusiveness its communication capacity and the complexity of the exchange setting the paper shows that inclusive social capital can combine both low enforcement costs and high gains from trade even in a complex exchange setting

steady change the 200 largest us manufacturing firms throughout the 20th century this paper discusses the existence of structural change in business activity and technological competence among the 200 largest us manufacturing companies throughout the 20th century the data were taken from chandler scale and scope 1990 and fortune magazine the analysis of corporate evolution in used to assess continuity versus turbulence of business organizations in the context of the neo schumpeterian long wave hypothesis the empirical results show that the giants of the late 20th century are not the same as those at the beginning of that period persistence in the sample is very limited moreover turbulence is not smooth but rather occurs by impulses that affect specific industries and it has increased over time overall the pattern of corporate entry and industry development is very indicative of the new opportunities emerging with information and communication technologies this process of open ended continuous transformation supports the case for putting change at the centre of economic analysis

new patterns of governance for industrial change perspectives for brazil brazil is one of many developing countries that are struggling to upgrade their industries to attain international competitiveness sustained industrial competitiveness this article argues rests not only on firms capabilities micro level and a stable economic framework macro level but also and in particular on a tissue of supporting sector specific and specialised institutions and targeted policies meso level and on governance structures that facilitate problem solving between state and societal actors meta level the concept of systemic competitiveness seeks to address the interrelationship between the four levels the article analyses various obstacles to achieving systemic competitiveness in the particular case of brazil

the impact of social structure on economic outcomes s ocial structure especially in the form of social networks affects economic outcomes for three main reasons first social networks affect the flow and the quality of information much information is subtle nuanced and difficult to verify so actors do not believe impersonal sources and instead rely on people they know second social networks are an important source of reward and punishment since these are often magnified in their impact when coming from others personally known third trust by which i mean the confidence that others will do the right thing despite a clear balance of incentives to the contrary emerges if it does in the context of a social network economists have recently devoted considerable attention to the impact of social structure and networks on the economy for example see the economists chapters in rauch and casella 2001 and the illuminating review essay of this volume by zuckerman 2003 as well as dutta and jackson 2003 and calvoarmengol 2004 however i focus here on sociologists contributions sociologists have developed core principles about the interactions of social structure information ability to punish or reward and trust that frequently recur in their analyses of political economic and other institutions i begin by reviewing some of these principles building on these i then discuss how social structures and social networks can affect economic outcomes like hiring price productivity and innovation