Publications

A dependent variable which is a discrete response causes the estimated coefficients to be inconsistent in a probit or logit model when misclassification is present. By ‘misclassification’ we mean that the response is reported or recorded in the…

Using an option pricing approach, this paper develops a model of a firm’s optimal investment strategy when confronted with a sequence of technological innovations. There are several key features of the model. First, successive innovations of…

Organizational change can be usefully conceptualized in terms of both its process and its content. Process refers to how change occurs. Content describes what actually changes in the organization. Theories and analyzes of organizational change…

We consider a wide number of applications of an intrafirm bargaining game within organizations where employees and the owner of a firm’s assets engage in wage negotiations. Under our presumption that contracts cannot serve to bind employees to…

We study why functional departments within companies, such as the marketing and manufacturing departments, have different preferences regarding what their firm should do. We then analyze why these disagreements lead to overt conflict. Finally,…

The process model of strategic business exit (SBE) maps the activities of different levels of management onto the business and corporate levels of strategy making involved in Intel Corporation’s exit from the dynamic random access memory (DRAM)…

The benefits from using a computer software, and hence the willingness of a customer to pay for it, often depends on the number of other customers using the same software. These benefits have been referred to in the literature as “network…

In this paper, we study the interaction between a firm’s internal organizational design, which we treat as an irreversible technology choice, and its external environment. We focus on two internal organizational design variables: product design…

Quality of products and services is a key strategic variable for many organizations. A good understanding of quality improvement drivers enables managers to better allocate resources to those areas most likely to improve quality levels. It can…

A quota plan pays a fixed salary which is supplemented by commission income that is a prespecified fraction of the dollar sales that exceed the quota. For a salesforce comprised of multiple salespersons/territories, the commission rate and salary…

This paper models a dynamic sequence of protest activities as an informational cascade. Such a synthesis of participation and signaling games motivates why large numbers of people may have incentives to engage in costly collective action. The…

We hypothesized that incongruous misfortunes generate stronger affective reactions and perceptions of injustice than do equally severe and equally probable congruous misfortunes. Incongruous misfortunes are defined as ones that bring to mind…

This paper considers a two-period model of investment management. Investors decide how to reallocate their wealth between two mutual funds managed by different investment advisers after observing the performance of each adviser in the first…

We derive a role for inside investors, such as venture capitalists, in resolving various agency problems that arise in a multistage financial contracting problem. Absent an inside investor, the choice of securities is unlikely to reveal all…

This paper analyzes a model of financing for start-up companies, focusing on the investment decisions that are made in later stages of financing and on the interaction between entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and other capital providers. We…

This paper studies the shelf space allocation decision for a store brand. We argue that since the store brand can play a unique role in the overall strategy of the retailer, traditional arguments for shelf space allocation decisions may not be…

Stock market crashes, defined as precipitous declines in value for securities that represent a large proportion of wealth (Garber 1992), are rare, difficult to explain, and potentially catastrophic. During four trading days in the crash of…

This paper is motivated by an often-observed but under-studied phenomenon of the modern business enterprise, management by exception. The term describes the relative infrequency of management interference in the lower tiers of an organizational…

Firms often concentrate on a narrow range of activities and claim to forgo other, apparently profitable, opportunities. This pursuit of narrow strategies is applauded by some academics who study strategic management. The authors present two…