Search results

The innovative process of new product development remains unique within most organizations. This uniqueness stems from the requirements of the new product development manager to grapple with both the universe of emerging technologies from which a new feature or improvement must be found and to simultaneously maintain a constant awareness of the requirements of an ever-changing customer base. Amongst all of this uncertainty, there is still a time when new product development managers choose to ignore the warning signals that a project is failing and continue to commit resources. This paper refers to this as irrational commitment. This paper aims to examine the uncertainty of new product development and the reasons for this irrational commitment to failed projects.

The paper used a structured systematic review of literature to identify the most common types of irrational commitment in new product development and their impact on the corporation.

The paper provides insights into the causes and effects of management irrationally committing to new product development projects that are doomed to failure. It suggests that the three major areas of knowledge that need to be better integrated into the decision-making process are technology trends, marketing knowledge and the capabilities of the company itself.

Because of the chosen research approach of using a systematic review of literature, primary research needs to be conducted in the future to validate and refine the findings of the paper.

The paper provides leadership with guidelines to avoid irrationally committing to failed new product development efforts.

This paper adds to the literature on innovation systems.

Few countries have sufficiently long and detailed returns data for real estate to permit sophisticated analysis. This paper aims to examine the potential diversification of private real estate investments using returns data for major regional centres in Ireland and the UK.

Optimal real estate‐only portfolios are constructed using total returns, income returns and appreciation returns for office and retail real estate in ten cities within Ireland and the UK. The analysis uses IPD data for the period 1984 to 2002. Total return, income return and appreciation returns are treated as separate asset streams in the modelling of portfolios.

The results show different risk levels; in particular the income stream carries low risk, whereas the capital appreciation element is much more volatile and risky. Optimal portfolios, office or retail, whether income, appreciation or total returns, indicate that provincial markets perform well and are capable of pushing London out of the optimised portfolios.

Limitations stem from the optimal portfolios being based on return series without a consideration of market depth. Future research will seek to construct weighted portfolios.

The paper constructs optimal portfolios for three scenarios: low return; medium return; and high return across sectors, return streams and major regional centres in Ireland and the UK. The results show that regional centres perform well and can exclude London real estate from optimal portfolios.

This study reviews the teaching of real estate in the USA for the first 100 years after the foundational curriculum was laid down in 1923 by three key institutions: the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB), the Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities (The Institute) and the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). Its line of investigative pursuit is the persistent lamentation by American real estate scholars that real estate is not getting the respect it deserves as an academic discipline compared to its peers in the school of business such as accounting, finance and marketing. The study addresses a fundamental question: What is the cause of this endless “search for a discipline”? This is motivated by the belief that identification of the root cause of this “search for a discipline” will lead to the requisite solution: the intellectual foundation of the real estate discipline.

The study used qualitative document analysis to review two primary documents published in 1959 as reports on business education in the USA: (1) Higher Education for Business, financed and sponsored by the Ford Foundation, and (2) The Education of American Businessmen – financed and sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The impacts of the publications on the teaching of real estate to date have been reviewed in the context of scholarly actions and literature that has been generated in relation to the two documents.

The two primary documents impacted negatively on the teaching of real estate. The committee members who produced the two reports had indicated that real estate did not fit into the business curriculum hence should not be taught in business school. This conclusion led to unintended negative outcomes for real estate education. The negative impact of the reports arose principally because the teachers of real estate misinterpreted the outcome to mean that they should tweak the real estate curriculum to fit in the pedagogical framework of the business school. This reaction is responsible for perpetuating the identity crisis that has plagued real estate as an academic discipline since its inception as a subject of study in 1923. Secondly, at the inception of the real estate education in 1923, while the AACSB accepted real estate as a discipline in the school of business, Richard T. Ely wrote the curriculum under land economics which has led to the persistent collegiate dilemma regarding the teaching of the discipline.

The study sheds light on the situation of business education in the USA and AACSB-accredited colleges internationally. It draws attention to the incoherent body of knowledge of business education and will help schools of business to redesign their curricula to include course contents that rightly reflects the business oriented academic disciplines.

The study is timely as it has been done 100 years since the development of the first standard collegiate real estate curriculum following the 1923 conference at Madison. The study has reviewed the first 100 years in terms of the persistent quest: “in search of a discipline”. In so doing, it has uncovered the root cause of this search during the first centennium; and to end the search, it proposes that real estate should not be taught as a business discipline.

Refers to previous research on the relationship between returns for different asset classes and on cointegration; and applies Johansen’s (1988) methodology to develop a prediction model. Uses 1978‐1995 data on five US asset classes (treasury bills, long‐term bonds, large capitalization common stocks, unsecuritized real estate and securitized real estate equity) to investigate cointegration between them. Shows that the index of unsecuritized real estate is positively related to treasury bills and negatively related to long‐term bonds and securitized real estate; and that returns for it can be forecast more accurately by using VECM models rather than unrestricted VAR models. Considers the implications for portfolio allocation, compares the results with other research fundings and calls for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to review the content and contributions of the book by Sayles and Chandler entitled Managing Large Systems: Organizations for the Future. The paper seeks to uncover the elements of the nature and elements of project organizing presented in the book.

The paper presents the main ideas in the book, along with a few important issues to organization theory, including interdependence, timing, and the role of project management.

The paper demonstrates that the book by Sayles and Chandler presents an early attempt of formulating a theory of project organization. The embryonic theory is based on insights about the importance of interdependence and time in understanding different forms of project organizing and the role of project management.

The present paper is especially concerned with the ideas presented in the book that relate to time and timing in project organization. Although these issues are well addressed in the book by Sayles and Chandler, they are currently pressing, yet typically ignored in much project management research. Previous research has given limited attention to the insights presented in this book published more than 40 years ago. In that respect, the ideas presented in the book by Sayles and Chandler seems to have had more impact on organization theory than on project management, although, the book as such is undoubtedly a study of project organizing and the management of projects. This observation thus sheds some new light on the conventional thinking, and somewhat simplified idea, about the unidirectional relationship between organization theory and project management.

The purpose of this paper is to compare corporate real estate (CRE) strategies of companies in a mature market, the UK, with companies in an emerging market, Malaysia, and examine whether CRE strategy impacts on financial performance.

The methodology involved the analysis of the reporting of CRE strategies in company reports for two time periods, 1998 and 2003. Multivariate models were used to test the relationship between CRE strategy and financial performance.

The results show that a high percentage of companies have CRE strategies that map to the Nourse and Roulac framework, though some companies had alternative or no CRE strategies. Variations are apparent between the UK and Malaysia and between the time periods with differences in the clarity of reporting. The contribution of CRE strategy to financial performance is more significant in 2003.

The testing of relationships based on another framework, would allow comparisons to be made with the current study in determining the potential of CRE strategy.

This study has been the first attempt to identify relationships between CRE strategy and the financial performance of companies and in doing so has raised other potential questions for further research.

At the height of the recession in the early 1980s, a multitude of state and locally sponsored housing finance agency programs were legislatively introduced in response to populist pressure. Many of these controversial programs utilized lower cost municipal bonds to subsidize private sector housing programs and had remarkable diversity in their stated objectives. This study focuses on one of these programs, the Ohio Housing Finance Program, which purported to address the needs of mainly first‐time home buyers. Housing program evaluations,while rarely done, are very important where publicborrowing is used to support them. Using county‐level demographic data for 1983, the empirical results suggest that the Ohio program’s target clientele, first time homebuyers, were the major beneficiaries of the program.

This paper discusses “The Atlas of Ideas” study.

Provides a viewpoint of “The Atlas of Ideas” study.

“The Atlas of Ideas” study, which includes a comprehensive account of the rising tide of Asian innovation, concludes that the innovation landscape is changing rapidly. In many ways science and innovation are now where manufacturing and finance were 30 years ago: about to go global. Britain and the European Union need to learn the lessons from these industries, and rather than revert to a state of techno‐nationalism, make international collaboration more central to their way of working.

Provides a viewpoint of “The Atlas of Ideas” study.

At a meeting of the Council of the Royal Borough of Kensington on February 29th, ALDERMAN A. G. McARTHUR, Chairman of the Public Health Committee of the Council, brought up a Report as follows— “We have received replies from nineteen City and Borough Councils to the circular letter addressed to them by this Council protesting against the suggestion made by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries that, before proceedings under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts are instituted on analytical evidence in respect of milk there should be a preliminary investigation by an officer of the Local Authority, or that the milk producer should be given an opportunity of offering an explanation.