Working Papers

This paper presents an intraorganizational ecological perspective on strategy-making and examines how internal selection may combine with external selection to explain organizational change and survival. The perspective saves to illuminate data…

We study the relationship between a firm’s environment and its optimal leadership style. We show that leadership style is a function of the CEO’s personality and affects the firm’s profitability. We use a model in which contracts between the firm…

This paper reformulates the continuous-time principal-agent model of Holmstrom and Milgrom by adding a dynamic incentive compatibility constraint. The original Holmstrom-Milgrom solution applies under this dynamic constraint, but not generally…

The effects of asset liquidity on expected returns, shown by Amihud and Mendelson (1986, 1989) for assets with infinite maturities (stocks), are examined for bonds - Treasury notes and bills with matched maturities of less than 6 months. The…

In an increasingly global business environment, the idea of strategic alliances has captured the imagination of marketing strategists. Yet, while much anecdotal wisdom exists on what makes a good or bad alliance, there are no broad-sample studies…

Marital status appears to have made significant differences in the careers of Stanford MBAs. Marriage helps the careers of men and hurts the careers of women. This is a study of how women MBAs have done in comparison to their male classmates.

This paper studies the relationship between information-processing, marketing decisions and performance in turbulent markets — i.e., markets in which the time-value of information is a major factor in decision-making. Drawing on both…

We propose a family of topologies on the space of consumption patterns in continuous time under uncertainty. Preferences continuous in any of the proposed topologies treat consumptions at nearby dates as almost perfect substitutes except possibly…

This paper examines the optimal design of a central banking institution which lends credibility to a low inflation monetary policy while allowing for a flexible response to unforeseen contingencies. A policy-maker appoints a conservative central…

We study the problem of optimal consumption and portfolio choice for a class of utility functions that capture the notion that consumptions at nearby dates are almost perfect substitutes. The class we consider excludes all time additive and…

We obtain the optimal pricing policy of a monopolist marketing successive generations of product advances. We characterize the impact of managerial foresight regarding entry of the second generation product and technological substitution created…

We study the problem of optimal taxation in horizon representative agent models of endogenous growth. The first model is a convex model with no externalities in which physical and human capital are perfectly symmetric in use and accumulation. We…

To him who devotes his life to science, nothing can give more happiness than increasing the number of discoveries. But his cup of joy is full when the results of his studies immediately find practical application. There are not two sciences.…

Emergence of the symbolic management perspective in the organizational studies literature has turned attention to the use of impression management strategies by leaders. When events occur that have potential to either detract from or contribute…

We augment efficiency-based theories of ownership by including influence costs. Our principal conclusion is that the prospect of organizational decline and layoffs creates additional influence costs in multi-unit organizations that would be…

This article presents a framework for setting organizational vision. “Vision” is a term frequently tossed about by academics and practicing managers, but there’s been a scarcity of clear concepts and useful tools — in short, the absence of a…

This paper analyzes the combination of ownership and signal-based bonus offered by investors to the firm’s manager. As an incentive, stock ownership differs from signal-based bonuses. The risk inherent in ownership is unavoidable, while the risk…

Institutional theory argues that organizational actions are often motivated by a desire to increase the organization’s legitimacy. We assess whether organizational actors’ perceptions of legitimacy (or the lack thereof) appear to impact a major…

This paper examines the effect of periodic stock market closure on transactions demand and volume of trade, and consequently bid and ask prices. We extend Merton (1971) to show that transactions demand at open and close is greater and less…

Customer input via conjoint analysis is used to assess relative importances for the multiple attributes that characterize the marketing image of a company. Management input is used to determine how expensive it would be (in terms of financial and…