Publications

A hotly debated question of organizational theory—especially evolutionary theories of organization—asks how inert are organizational structures. Answering the question requires analysis of not only organizational change but also of the…

Abstract not available.

“Defensive medicine” is a potentially serious social problem: if fear of liability drives health care providers to administer treatments that do not have worthwhile medical benefits, then the current liability system may generate inefficiencies…

This paper we examine theoretically the use of benchmark portfolios in the compensation of privately informed portfolio managers. We find that the use of a benchmark, and particularly the types of benchmarks often used benchmark-adjusted…

This paper develops a model in which managers voluntarily choose debt to credibly constrain their own future empire-building. Dynamically consistent capital structure is derived as the optimal response in each period of partially entrenched…

I examine the outcomes of cases of entry by merchant shipping lines into established markets around the turn of the century. These established markets are completely dominated by an incumbent cartel composed of several member shipping lines.…

In this paper we study the effects of transaction costs on asset prices. We assume an overlapping generations economy with two riskless assets. The first asset is liquid while the second asset carries proportional transaction costs. We show that…

We advocate studying strategic management from an evolutionary perspective: using dynamic, path-dependent models that allow for possibly random variation and selection within and among organizations. We argue that this perspective directs our…

The meaning of an experimental result depends on the experiment’s conceptual backdrop, particularly its null hypothesis. This observation provides the basis for a functional interpretation of belief in the base rate fallacy. On this…

This paper examines factors related to environmental liability disclosure decisions for firms in industries with substantial Superfund site involvement. We hypothesize that the extent of disclosure about environmental liabilities is associated…

A significant strand of research on the job-person matching process has focused on the role of social networks in the hiring process. Past empirical studies of the comparative effectiveness of recruiting sources for getting jobs have started with…

This paper investigates the fit between strategy and structure for a decentralized global firm that may organize along product and geography dimensions. Organization serves two purposes. First, it provides for the management of spillovers across…

We construct a rational expectations model in which aggregate growth alternates between a low growth and a high growth state. When all agents expect growth to be slow, the returns on investment are low and little investment take place. This slows…

Social costs created by delay in the resolution of legal disputes have motivated an extensive theoretical literature studying the causes of delay. However, much less work has investigated a related, more policy-relevant question: how do legal…

We synthesize and extend research exploring differences between U.S. and other countries’ Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) by investigating whether differences between domestic and U.S. GAAP for U.S.-listed U.K., Australian, and…

In this study, we explore the issue of how and when firms respond to other firms’ experience with a given practice or structure. Existing theory has emphasized two ways this occurs: (1) firms tend to adopt practices that most other firms have…