This paper seeks first to build up a game‐theoretic model of the interactions of two agents ‐ a husband and a wife ‐ in a short story about sincere selection of a strategy of…
Abstract
This paper seeks first to build up a game‐theoretic model of the interactions of two agents ‐ a husband and a wife ‐ in a short story about sincere selection of a strategy of self‐sacrifice, and then to find out a solution of the model. This formal model as well as informal analysis is employed to argue that the conventional virtue of everybody's choice of a strategy of sacrifice for others in a group, especially when these strategies are uncoordinated, may ultimately lead to social vice, i.e. irrational behaviour and attempts at rationalization of it by all.
Greg Filbeck, Raymond Gorman, Diane Parente and Xin Zhao
Jim Collins' Good to Great is but one of many popular press books on management. In his book, Collins discusses the keys to success for today's corporations. Many managers flocked…
Abstract
Purpose
Jim Collins' Good to Great is but one of many popular press books on management. In his book, Collins discusses the keys to success for today's corporations. Many managers flocked to bookstores to discover what they might be missing in making their organization great. This paper aims to use methodologies more commonly found in the finance literature to validate the results of Collins' study.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses methodologies more commonly found in finance literature (e.g. event study methodology, Fama‐French three‐factor model with momentum, buy‐and‐hold abnormal returns) to validate the results of Collins' study.
Findings
The results show that the Good to Great firms had unexceptional performance when compared to other benchmark lists of firms, on an ex‐ante or ex‐post basis.
Practical implications
From a management perspective, the advice that one might obtain from Good to Great should be carefully examined by managers before they implement it, only to find that great is not really so great.
Originality/value
The paper is original in its methodological design and is valuable to managers who are seeking advice for opportunities that enhance shareholder wealth.
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Josemon George, Amol S. Dhaigude and Sidhartha S. Padhi
The case depicts an opportunity for students to be exposed to the decision theory concept. The study aims to encourage them to use the data given in the case and exhibits to…
Abstract
Learning outcomes
The case depicts an opportunity for students to be exposed to the decision theory concept. The study aims to encourage them to use the data given in the case and exhibits to explore as follows: decision-making under uncertainty; decision-making under risk; compare and contrast uncertainty and risk; and evaluate the value of perfect information EVPI and understand its application in decision-making.
Case overview/synopsis
Vikas Teerth, a budding entrepreneur, wanted to venture out into the pineapple business. He had three land plots available, but he would like to take up a single plot after analyzing the possible returns factoring the volatile prices and other impending constraints. He wanted to use the decision-making approaches with the aid of probability to arrive at the best decision. This case helps the instructors to introduce the concept of decision-making under risk and under uncertainty which comes under the preview of decision theory. Students can use the data given in the case and exhibits to do the necessary calculations required and thereby get an insight into the process of calculated decision-making.
Complexity academic level
This case can teach decision theory in undergraduate-level and graduate-level courses in operations research, decision-making and industrial engineering. It can also be used to discuss issues and challenges faced in start-ups or SME entrepreneurship.
Supplementary materials
Teaching notes are available for educators only.
Subject code
CSS 7: Management Science.
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George Foster, Norm O'Reilly, Jim Best Devereux and Matias Shundi
This article seeks to enhance the understanding as to why head coaches and general managers (GMs) in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Football League…
Abstract
Purpose
This article seeks to enhance the understanding as to why head coaches and general managers (GMs) in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Football League (NFL) exit from their positions.
Design/methodology/approach
Three hypotheses were investigated using a series of quantitative and qualitative data from the past 30 years. The samples analyzed are comprised of 891 GM and coach annual observations for the NBA clubs and 949 GM and coach observations for the NFL clubs. Analyses include a logit analysis for coach exit/retention, a logit analysis for GM exit/retention and textual analysis via topic modeling via latent Dirichlet allocation.
Findings
Results show a correlation between a coach exiting and a GM exiting simultaneously, thus amplifying the importance of these two roles in enhancing or destroying the success of a club and supporting the need for a deeper understanding of both roles, particularly the GM. The results further highlight cultural differences across clubs in terms of GM and coach turnover, a factor that often is heavily influenced by club ownership.
Originality/value
The results support the role of owners in exits, confirm the importance of winning in avoiding an exit, find a high level of interrelationship between GM and coach exits and show that past culture of firings influences future exit decisions.
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The impact of the COVID-19 (corona virus disease) pandemic across the global workforce has been nothing short of dramatic. Many organisations globally have had to adjust to…
Abstract
The impact of the COVID-19 (corona virus disease) pandemic across the global workforce has been nothing short of dramatic. Many organisations globally have had to adjust to massive shifts associated with the pandemic. Typically, most employees would work in proximity with themselves and their business leaders in an open plan office, most business issues will be quickly solved in a board room with big rotational chairs, a screen and huge table, feedback will be presented to employees over coffee, lunch or in the bosses office, employee engagement activities will be held in the open office or in a fun site or location, lunch hour will be filled with men and women in suits and ties looking for the best spot or spaces to take a breather. Very quickly, all these realities have been replaced with most teams working remotely or leveraging some sort of hybrid working system. Words like zoom and teams (a video conferencing app) meetings, has fast become workplace lingo, terms like social distancing, mental health, virtual teams, virtual meetings, new normal have been introduced to the work environment. This ‘new normal’ requires a huge dose of adaptation, flexibility and intentionality for organisations to survive, hence this chapter intends to make sense as well as attempt to address the implication of this work changes on the employer, employee, company culture, values and so on. As well as provide insights for possible solutions.
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In early 2014, the family leadership of Bush Brothers & Company, a leading player in canned vegetables (its Bush's Best line dominated the canned-beans market), faced questions…
Abstract
In early 2014, the family leadership of Bush Brothers & Company, a leading player in canned vegetables (its Bush's Best line dominated the canned-beans market), faced questions about the family's vision for the future in light of an imminent leadership transition: third-generation member, longtime board chair, and, until recently, CEO Jim Ethier planned to leave his role as early as 2015. The family was into its sixth generation, with nearly sixty family shareholders spread across four branches. On the business side, the first non-family CEO was overseeing development of a growth strategy, including ongoing ventures into competitive new markets such as Hispanic foods. Its fourth-generation leaders including Drew Everett (vice president of human resources and shareholder relations, and likely board chair successor), Sarah (chair of the family senate), and Tony (chair of the family's private trust company) faced questions about whom to involve in developing a future vision, how to formulate the vision effectively, and what vision would best serve business and family interests. These questions represented underlying strategic dilemmas, such as whether to have a select group of leaders craft the vision or to solicit input from a wider range of shareholders, and how much to allow the business vision to drive the ‘people’ vision all framed by recent unsuccessful attempts to develop a shared vision. Resolving these dilemmas successfully would help the family frame and advance its established traditions of leadership, governance, and culture within a truly shared vision that boosted unity and long-term commitment. Students working on the case will gain insights into the framework, process, and challenges associated with developing a shared vision for a complex, multigeneration family enterprise.
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In Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith reasons about how a change in one thing, A, is attended by a change in another thing, B. In expounding on such bivariate relationships…
Abstract
In Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith reasons about how a change in one thing, A, is attended by a change in another thing, B. In expounding on such bivariate relationships, Smith sometimes seems to go out of his way to posit a state of the world in which the relationship would break down. That feature suggests an irony about knowing how a change in B attends a change in A. We might think we understand the bivariate relationship, but it holds only for certain states of the world. The relationship is circumstanced. The more one studies the Moral Sentiments, the more one realizes that circumstantiality suffuses its teachings. My discussion arrives at a place of doubt about the most important bivariate relationship – that between approval from our conscience and doing good. Smith seems to suggest, particularly at the end of his life, that a person can best know the relationship between his conscience’s approval and his doing good under circumstances of his having frank and open friendships. The implication for politics is that we want that kind of government that best conduces to frank and open friendships.
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Chengwei Liu and Chia-Jung Tsay
Chance models – mechanisms that explain empirical regularities through unsystematic variance – have a long tradition in the sciences but have been historically marginalized in…
Abstract
Chance models – mechanisms that explain empirical regularities through unsystematic variance – have a long tradition in the sciences but have been historically marginalized in management scholarship, relative to an agentic worldview about the role of managers and organizations. An exception is the work of James G. March and his coauthors, who proposed a variety of chance models that explain important management phenomena, including the careers of top executives, managerial risk taking, and organizational anarchy, learning, and adaptation. This paper serves as a tribute to the beauty of these “little ideas” and demonstrates how they can be recombined to generate novel implications. In particular, we focus on the example of an inverted V-shaped performance association centering around the year when executives were featured in a prominent listing, Barron’s annual list of Top 30 chief executive officers. Our recombination of several chance models developed by March and his coauthors provides a novel explanation for why many of the executives’ exceptional performances did not persist. In contrast to the common accounts of complacency, hubris, and statistical regression, the results show that declines from high performance may result from the way luck interacts with these executives’ slow adaptation, incompetence, and self-reinforced risk taking. We conclude by elaborating on the normative implications of chance models, which address many current management and societal challenges. We further encourage the continued development of chance models to help explain performance differences, shifting from accounts that favor heroic stories of corporate leaders toward accounts that favor their changing fortunes.
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Surveys have demonstrated that men and women are the victims and perpetrators of workplace bullying. Consequently, most researchers have failed to explore the gender dynamics of…
Abstract
Surveys have demonstrated that men and women are the victims and perpetrators of workplace bullying. Consequently, most researchers have failed to explore the gender dynamics of this phenomenon. Draws upon qualitative interviews, which highlight the ways in which workplace bullying has developed in the context of new organisational arrangements and management techniques in the UK Civil Service, to show how the workplace bullying of women and men is informed by judgements of “appropriate” gender conduct and pressure to conform with such norms. As such, seeks to claim workplace bullying as a subject worthy of sustained feminist research.
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Lynda L. Moore and Bonita L. Betters-Reed
This case is about Kija Kim, a Korean born founder and CEO of Harvard Design and Mapping Inc. (HDM). Founded in 1988, HDM is a cutting-edge GIS firm with $5 million in revenue and…
Abstract
This case is about Kija Kim, a Korean born founder and CEO of Harvard Design and Mapping Inc. (HDM). Founded in 1988, HDM is a cutting-edge GIS firm with $5 million in revenue and 35 employees in their Cambridge, MA and Washington D.C. offices. Through Kija Kim's leadership, HDM has become a significant niche player in homeland security and disaster relief. The case ends in fall 2005 just after HDM provided Hurricane Katrina mapping support, and Kija is nominated for the SBA Small Business Person of the Year. This case explores the intersection between cultural heritage, leadership effectiveness and organizational behavior. It particularly notes Kija's ability to turn her immigrant female minority status into a business advantage. This strength coupled with her ethos of care and ability to network in all walks of her life contributes to her distinctive and integrated leadership style. Definitions of leadership success and implications for decision making are also highlighted.