Becton Dickinson (BD) is a $2.5 billion medical technology company. Our primary product lines are disposable medical devices such as syringes, needles and scalpels. The other half…
Abstract
Becton Dickinson (BD) is a $2.5 billion medical technology company. Our primary product lines are disposable medical devices such as syringes, needles and scalpels. The other half of the business is diagnostic instruments and systems, ranging from one‐step pregnancy tests to large instrument systems. Fifty‐five percent of our sales are in the U.S., although our international segment is growing much faster than our domestic operations.
There were a lot of eager customers at the Conference Board's annual strategic planning conference in March. Many of us had just read Walter Kiechel's Fortune article about “Smart…
Abstract
There were a lot of eager customers at the Conference Board's annual strategic planning conference in March. Many of us had just read Walter Kiechel's Fortune article about “Smart Corporate Strategy for the 1990s” (February 29, 1988), which presents a remarkable reversal of the publication's skeptical attitude toward strategic management thinking. As a result, I felt the conference theme, selected by its organizer, Walter Schaffir, was made to order for our turbulent times. If my colleagues and I are to keep our jobs in the next decade, we really need to learn all we can about “Getting Value from Strategic Planning!”
The process described in Russell Eisenstat's presentation was developed by Eisenstat and Michael Beer in partnership with Becton Dickinson, a $2.5 billion medical technology…
Abstract
The process described in Russell Eisenstat's presentation was developed by Eisenstat and Michael Beer in partnership with Becton Dickinson, a $2.5 billion medical technology company. The presentation by James Wessel of Becton Dickinson, which follows Mr. Eisenstat's overview, outlines some of the implementation barriers encountered.
Matthew Hanchard, Peter Merrington, Bridgette Wessels, Kathy Rogers, Michael Pidd, Simeon Yates, David Forrest, Andrew Higson, Nathan Townsend and Roderik Smits
In this article, we discuss an innovative audience research methodology developed for the AHRC-funded “Beyond the Multiplex: Audiences for Specialised Film in English Regions”…
Abstract
In this article, we discuss an innovative audience research methodology developed for the AHRC-funded “Beyond the Multiplex: Audiences for Specialised Film in English Regions” project (BtM). The project combines a computational ontology with a mixed-methods approach drawn from both the social sciences and the humanities, enabling research to be conducted both at scale and in depth, producing complex relational analyses of audiences. BtM aims to understand how we might enable a wide range of audiences to participate in a more diverse film culture, and embrace the wealth of films beyond the mainstream in order to optimise the cultural value of engaging with less familiar films. BtM collects data through a three-wave survey of film audience members’ practices, semi-structured interviews and film-elicitation groups with audience members alongside interviews with policy and industry experts, and analyses of key policy and industry documents. Bringing each of these datasets together within our ontology enables us to map relationships between them across a variety of different concerns. For instance, how cultural engagement in general relates to engagement with specialised films; how different audiences access and/or share films across different platforms and venues; how their engagement with those films enables them to make meaning and generate value; and how all of this is shaped by national and regional policy, film industry practices, and the decisions of cultural intermediaries across the fields of film production, distribution and exhibition. Alongside our analyses, the ontology enables us to produce data visualisations and a suite of analytical tools for audience development studies that stakeholders can use, ensuring the research has impact beyond the academy. This paper sets out our methodology for developing the BtM ontology, so that others may adapt it and develop their own ontologies from mixed-methods empirical data in their studies of other knowledge domains.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to examine the macro-, meso- and micro-level approaches to building sustainability in Ghana's timber, cocoa and goldmining industries s Ghana works to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the macro-, meso- and micro-level approaches to building sustainability in Ghana's timber, cocoa and goldmining industries s Ghana works to align sustainability efforts with the sustainable development goals proposed by the United Nations.
Design/methodology/approach
Using qualitative content analysis, a synthesis of contemporary literature on Ghana's timber, cocoa and gold mining industries was conducted to provide a descriptive evaluation of sustainability efforts in those industries.
Findings
At the macro-level, Ghana continues to invest in infrastructure, privatize industries and develop an urban development agenda to encourage foreign direct investment (FDI); improved forest management and green building policies and reduction of galamsey are also implemented. At the meso-level, the timber industry encourages land reclamation and green building technologies; the cocoa industry works to replenish lost trees, develop supply-chain partnerships, and encourage certifications; the goldmining industry works to regulate informal mining and reduce galamsey and the use of toxins in exploration. At the micro-level, alignment has developed between the micro- and meso-levels in the timber and cocoa industries, whereas micro-level players in the timber industry are less successful, given its large, unregulated informal sector.
Originality/value
Existing literature is missing discussion on the alignment of macro-, meso- and micro-level approaches to sustainability in Ghana's timber, cocoa and gold mining industries with attention to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals as the premise for the work.
Details
Keywords
Candace Jones, Ju Young Lee and Taehyun Lee
Microfoundations of institutions are central to constructing place – the interplay of location, meaning, and material form. Since only a few institutional studies bring…
Abstract
Microfoundations of institutions are central to constructing place – the interplay of location, meaning, and material form. Since only a few institutional studies bring materiality to the fore to examine the processes of place-making, how material forms interact with people to institutionalize or de-institutionalize the meaning of place remains a black box. Through an inductive and historical study of Boston’s North End neighborhood, the authors show how material practices shaped place-making and institutionalized, or de-institutionalized, the meaning of the North End. When material practices symbolically encoded meanings of diverse audiences into the church, it created resonance and enabled the building’s meanings to withstand environmental change and become institutionalized as part of the North End’s meaning as a place. In contrast, when the material practices restricted meaning to a specific audience, it limited resonance when the environment changed, was more likely to be demolished and, thus, erased rather than institutionalized into the meaning of the North End as a place.
Details
Keywords
The authors discuss the microfoundations of institutional theory, specifically as microfoundations are manifested in this volume of Research in the Sociology of Organizations. The…
Abstract
The authors discuss the microfoundations of institutional theory, specifically as microfoundations are manifested in this volume of Research in the Sociology of Organizations. The authors argue that the main interest seems to be in better understanding macrofoundations: top-down forces from institutions to actors. Furthermore, throughout the volume institutions themselves are definitionally layered – in problematic ways – with a large array of other macroconstructs, including fields, logics, practices, habitus, situations, routines, and so forth. The authors argue that there is an opportunity to more carefully delineate microfoundations for institutional theory, by focusing on lower-level heterogeneity, agency, as well as the aggregate and emergent social processes that animate microfoundational explanation.
Details
Keywords
Timm Gödecke and Dirk Schiereck
This paper aims to investigate the impact of the largest shareholder's voting stake on the firm's capital structure decision.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the impact of the largest shareholder's voting stake on the firm's capital structure decision.
Design/methodology/approach
To empirically analyze the influence of the voting stake on leverage, a large sample of 814 exchange-listed firms is applied. The baseline regression analysis is complemented by several robustness tests and a difference-in-difference regression analysis to mitigate endogeneity concerns.
Findings
The authors find a negative relationship between the voting stake of the largest shareholder and leverage, consistent with the notion that large, undiversified shareholders have the incentive to reduce risk. Additionally, results reveal that family control has a positive moderating effect, indicating that the negative relationship is less pronounced for family controlled firms.
Research limitations/implications
The authors contribute to the research by suggesting ownership concentration as another determinant of capital structure. Further, the authors add to the literature by showing how the association between ownership concentration and leverage is moderated by family control and that the identity of the largest shareholder is of great importance.
Practical implications
The paper provides important insights to the current debate on the proposal of the European Commission to reintroduce shares with multiple votes as part of the Listing Act. The authors expect the regulation to exacerbate the concentration of voting rights, which results in lower leverage and thus limits corporate growth.
Originality/value
The authors differentiate from previous studies by focusing the largest shareholders' voting stake, instead of using the ownership stake, to assess the impact of ownership concentration on leverage.