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Sound real estate decisions are both financially and strategically essential to corporate success. Given their importance, this paper aims to illustrate how the actor network theory (ANT) can be a valuable alternate lens to bounded rational and political perspectives in providing insights into corporate real estate decision‐making processes.

This exploratory investigation uses a case study approach to retroactively examine the real estate decision‐making process over five to seven years in four organizations ranging in size from four to 125 employees. The study uses multiple data sources including 25 in‐depth interviews, site visits, archival data, websites, documents, and email correspondence.

Using the constructs of ANT, the findings reveal how real estate decision making involves iterative but identifiable phases through which heterogeneous actors seek to converge diverse interests and where artifacts affect behaviors and outcomes as much as or sometimes more than their human creators.

Given the case study method, this research lacks generalizability. Researchers are encouraged to test the findings in different contexts.

The ANT perspective helps managers faced with real estate decisions to appreciate the relevant matrix of need, power, and interests; recognize and seek to control the power of artifacts; and, view real estate decision making not as simply making a choice among logical alternatives, but as orchestrating a long, complex process.

This investigation compares the perspectives of ANT to the classical bounded rational and political lenses in examining corporate real estate decision making; demonstrates ANT's value in providing additional insights; and, discusses its implications for understanding and managing these complex processes.

This paper aims to investigate why brand-name drugs are priced higher than their generic equivalents in the US market. The authors hypothesize that some consumers have a preference for brand names, which outweighs the cost savings realized by switching to generics. Consumers may prefer a brand drug because the brand may have a higher perceived quality due to advertising and other promotional activities. Additionally, individuals are habitual in their consumption of prescription drugs, which leads to continued use of the brand in the face of generic competition.

The authors develop a structural demand model and proceed to estimate it using wholesale price and demand data from the years 2000 through 2004.

The results of our analysis reveal that customers have a strong preference for brand drugs. In addition, consumers exhibit high switching costs for prescription drugs.

Considering the price and quantity of prescriptions filled each day, determining why brand drugs do not lower their prices to compete with their generic equivalents is an important question. Unfortunately, the existing literature only acknowledges this counter-intuitive business practice, but does not mathematically explain it. The authors address this knowledge gap in literature and provide important insight for all players in this industry including consumers, pharmaceutical manufacturers and health insurance companies.

Unions and worker cooperatives have long represented distinct approaches to building worker voice. This paper draws from observations of the work of the “Co-op Exploratory Committee” of 1199SEIU, the nation’s largest union local, which is seeking to expand the development of unionized worker cooperatives. Described by Martin Luther King, Jr, as his “favorite” union, 1199SEIU has a storied history of organizing frontline healthcare workers and includes large numbers of women of color and immigrant workers among its membership. Since 2003, it has also represented workers at Cooperative Home Care Associates, the nation’s largest worker cooperative. Drawing from discussions among union officials, co-op leaders, and rank-and-file union members about the potential role of unionized worker cooperatives within the labor movement, the paper examines the creative tension between stakeholder and democratic logics in efforts to expand this model. It argues that continued union decline, heightened interest in economic alternatives, and systemic frailties exposed by Covid-19 may create new opportunities for building unionized worker co-ops at scale.

The focus of this chapter is the role of technology in diverse students’ active learning and interconnectedness in inclusive classrooms. The discussion is guided by the inclusive pedagogical approach in action (IPAA) framework, which is used as a tool for planning teaching and critical reflection. Inclusive education has previously considered the role of technology through the lens of Universal Design for Learning to inform how teachers plan instruction for students’ maximal accessibility, participation and engagement. We use the IPAA framework to build on and extend this by challenging teachers to also consider and incorporate technologies in innovative ways for students to collaborate with each other and build classroom relationships, as well as engaging with the curriculum on their own terms to make learning more meaningful.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

The paper introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

Information is provided about each source, and the paper discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

Real options theory has been used to examine how manufacturing firms make incremental investments under conditions of uncertainty. However, it has not been extensively applied to service firms. Using real options theory, the purpose of this article is to explore how service firms make platform investments.

Data come from a survey of Florida nursing homes. Several hypotheses examine the extent to which organizational characteristics, environmental scanning, internal and external slack, and entrepreneurial orientation impact the degree of investment in a portfolio of services to community based clients. Data were analyzed via ordinary least squares regression.

Results indicate a positive relationship between platform investments and customer preferences and nursing home innovativeness. Risk‐taking behavior and internal slack received mixed support.

The study did not include measures of economic performance; therefore, it is unclear if differences in market strategies yield better financial outcomes for the nursing homes. The study was set in the nursing home industry that is a highly regulated service industry. It is possible that specific attributes of this industry impacted our results.

In deciding whether an options approach to managing customer value is appropriate for any individual service firms, managers should consider that a firm's strategic posture and the availability of slack resources.

There has been relatively little research in the management literature that examines how firms in a service context employ strategies and tactics consistent with options theory to reduce uncertainty. This lack of research is problematic given that service firms compromise an increasing percentage of the GDP of many developed countries.

The purpose of this paper is to take a close look at competition among the generic entrants during the first three years after patent expiration and examine whether there is a first mover advantage. Pharmaceutical markets experience the entry of numerous generic firms upon expiration of the brand firm’s patent.

A random effect nested logit model of competition that allows for competition between the brand drug and generics, and among multiple generic drugs is specified. The model accommodates the effects of prices, detailing, sampling, journal advertising, time-in-market and molecule-specific characteristics. The model is estimated on cross-section time-series data for 49 molecules in which the brand drug lost patent exclusivity between 1992 and 2000.

Strong evidence that the early generic entrant enjoys a substantial market share and profit advantage over the second and the third entrants, after controlling for differences in marketing activities was found. In addition, evidence suggesting that the advantage is due to the response of the retail pharmacy channel and due to differential effectiveness of advertising and pricing between earlier versus later entrants was found.

This paper is the first to empirically model first mover advantage among undifferentiated products. The findings are useful for regulators in pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. They can also shed light on other industries where there is little or no quality differentiation, such as commodity trading, open-source software distribution and online banking.