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Secrecy in Open Innovation and Open Innovation in Secrecy
No full textPrevious research have opposed secrecy and openness as mutually exclusive processes. In this paper, we suggest a more nuanced approach to secrecy in open innovation, drawing from Philosophy and Sociology. We have conducted a two-year research program in the defense industry, collecting data on the practices of concealment in open innovation activities. We found that focal actors utilize distinct cognitive techniques to decontextualize knowledge in the course of open innovation projects in order to safeguard secrecy while preserving mutual learning. Further, focal actors design contrasted relational approaches to secrecy with their open innovation partners. Such approaches are based on the positions of secrecy boundaries, which are internal or external to the relationship. In fact, actors intentionally make use of the reversible nature of secrecy, balancing inclusion and exclusion of knowledge in partnerships, to meet objectives that sometimes go beyond knowledge protection. Finally, we build on our findings to introduce a capability-based framework of secrecy management in openness processes. This framework, which we call Knowledge Discretion, suggests that actors overcome tensions stemming from secrecy and openness playing on the contextual depth and relational breadth of external knowledge sharing
Grammatical Gender and Anthropomorphism: “It” Depends on the Language
No full textConsumers often anthropomorphize non-human entities. In this research, we investigate a novel antecedent of anthropomorphism: language. Some languages (e.g., English) make a grammatical distinction between humans (he, she) and non-humans (it), whereas other languages (e.g., French) do not (all objects are gender-marked). We propose that such grammatical structures of languages influence the way individuals mentally represent non-human entities, and as a result, their generalized tendencies to anthropomorphize such entities. Across 10 studies, we provide evidence that speakers of languages that do not grammatically distinguish between humans and non-humans (it-less languages) anthropomorphize more than do speakers of languages that do make this distinction (non-it-less languages). We demonstrate the effects across natural languages (French, Turkish, English) and by manipulating grammatical gender. We show that the effects are observable in naturally occurring consumer contexts (e.g., secondary sales data), and that gender-marking in it-less languages influences consumers’ interactions with brands, even though the gender-markings are semantically arbitrary, and that these effects occur nonconsciously. Our findings have implications for the broader debate on the extent to which language influences thought, and also suggest ways in which managers can leverage nonconscious grammatical anthropomorphism to influence consumer perceptions, attitudes, and behavior
'Small Data': Efficient Inference with Occasionally Observed States
No full textWe study the estimation of controlled Markov processes if the states are only occasionally observed by the econometrician. We propose an extension to the recursive likelihood integration method of Reich (2018), to which we incorporate such occasional state observations in a numerically efficient and accurate way. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, we assess the computational feasibility as well as the statistical efficiency by applying it to a counter-factual scenario of the widely known bus engine replacement model of Rust (1987): We assume that the mileage state is observed only at replacement, but unobserved in between. We demonstrate that - despite reducing the amount of mileage observations to about only 2% of the original data set - the distribution of the cost parameter estimator under the occasional observation regime is almost indistinguishable from its distribution using all mileage observations; hence there is no (additional) bias and comparable variance
A Tale of Two Fathers
No full textThis article comments on the judgment no 12193 rendered by the Sezioni Unite of the Corte di Cassazione on 8 May 2019, where the recognition and registration, in Italy, of a foreign parental order inscribing the nonbiological parent as the children’s legal father were denied on the ground that they violated the prohibition of surrogacy under Italian law, which was considered to be of public policy. It scrutinises this judgment in two steps. First, it criticises the court’s methodology in the construction of the notion of public policy both in general and with particular regard to the surrogacy ban. Second, it examines whether the best interests of the children involved were sufficiently taken account of, and it finds that they were not. It concludes that, contrary to what the law prescribes, this judgment failed to give voice to the children born via surrogacy abroad and living with parents of the same sex
Between Regulatory Field Structuring and Organizational Roles: Intermediation in the Field of Sustainable Urban Development
No full textRecent contributions in the domains of governance and regulation elucidate the importance of rule-intermediation (RI), the role that organizations adopt to bridge actors playing regulatory or “rule-making” (RM) roles, and those adopting target or “rule-taking” (RT) roles. Intermediation not only enables diffusion and translation of regulatory norms, but also allows for the representation of different actors in policy-making arenas. While prior studies have explored the roles that such RIs adopt to facilitate their intermediation functions, we have yet to consider how field-level structuring processes influence (and are influenced by) the various and changing roles adopted by RIs. In this study, we focus on the mutually constitutive relations between field-level change processes and the evolving roles of RIs by studying the rise of ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives/Local Governments for Sustainability), an RI serving as a bridge for sustainable urban development policies between the United Nations and urban authorities. Using ICLEI as an illustrate case, we theorize four different processes of regulatory field consolidation and fragmentation including: problematization, role specialization, marketization and orchestrated decentralization. We discuss their implications for the RI roles in the field and further theorize the changing dynamics of trickle-up intermediation processes as an RI gains power and influence.This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Bothello, J. and Mehrpouya, A. (2018), Between regulatory field structuring and organizational roles: Intermediation in the field of sustainable urban development. Regulation & Governance, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12215. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions
Réponses stratégiques de l'entreprise aux évaluations
No full textThe rise of digital media technology over the last decades has transformed the way in which organizations are evaluated. Judgments by experts and critics, recognized for their knowledge of evaluation criteria, appropriate weightings, and appropriate preferences, are losing their appeal to customers in many industries. Every day, on a plurality of platforms and websites, individuals disclose information about their interactions with organizations and their products or services. Compared to traditional media or professional critics, digital users and customers tend to share subjective and partial experiences, have lower concerns for accuracy and balance, and often put emphasis on the emotional content. As more customers rely on this information for their purchasing choices, firms in many industries find themselves in a position where it is hard to ignore the opinions expressed online by customers as inconsequential. In this thesis, I study how the strategies and behaviors of organizations are affected by this “democratization” of evaluation process. The empirical setting for my analyses is the fine-dining industry.In the first chapter, I study online reviews as a source of information for restaurants, which may learn about problems, errors, or improvement opportunities. I examine what features of customer feedback make it more likely to be considered by target restaurants. With an online experiment in the French restaurant industry, I find that decision makers allocate attention to feedback that is expected to have a stronger impact on the reputation and performance of the restaurant. However, I also find evidence of a “disturbance” effect of the emotions evoked by certain feedback features. With this chapter I emphasize the importance of incorporating affective mechanisms in the study of attention, and shed light on how individual-level emotions impact organizational-level outcomes.In the second chapter, I analyze the effects of the interaction between amateur and expert evaluations. In particular, I study the entry of an expert evaluator (i.e., Michelin guide) in a market, and how it pushes some organizations to make strategic choices that signal their aspirations. Drawing on literature on organizational status, I find that restaurants better rated by Michelin make changes to their offer with the aim to self-identify with the élite group. These changes consist in the adoption or removal of certain features displayed in their menus. In addition, by using topic modeling techniques applied to Yelp reviews, I observe that customers’ reactions to the entry of Michelin make restaurants more or less sensitive to the expert’s evaluations.In the third chapter, I focus on how organizations use public responses to customers to address criticism in online settings. Recent studies are not conclusive on the reputational benefits of public responses to reviews. These responses may reduce the likelihood of future negative reviews while, at the same time, draw attention to problems. Building on existing literature on reputation and impression management, I propose that organizations may resolve this trade-off by making a strategic use of different types of verbal accounts (e.g., apology). Although public responses to customers may be counterproductive, adapting the style of public responses to the features of customer reviews might be an optimal strategy for organizations. For this study I analyze restaurant reviews in France and the United States using standard econometric models supported by supervised learning techniques.L’émergence de la technologie des médias digitaux durant les dernières décennies a transformé la manière dont les organisations sont évaluées. Chaque jour, dans de multiples plateformes et sites web, des individus divulguent des informations sur leurs interactions avec des organisations. En comparaison des critiques professionnels traditionnels, les utilisateurs et les consommateurs digitaux tendent à partager des expériences subjectives et partiales, à être moins enclins à être pondérés, et souvent à donner plus d’importance au contenu émotionnel. Alors que davantage de consommateurs s’appuient sur cette information pour leurs choix d’achat, les entreprises dans beaucoup de secteurs se trouvent dans une position où il est difficile d’ignorer les opinions exprimées en ligne par les consommateur. Dans cette thèse, j’étudie la manière dont les stratégies et les comportements des organisations sont influencées par cette «démocratisation» des processus d’évaluation. Le contexte empirique de mes analyses est celui du secteur de la restauration haut-de-gamme.Dans le premier chapitre, j’étudie les commentaires en ligne comme source d’information pour les restaurants, qui peuvent avoir l’opportunité d’apprendre des problèmes et d’améliorations potentielles. J’examine quelles sont les caractéristiques des feedbacks des consommateurs qui ont le plus de chances d’être prises en considération par les restaurants ciblés. A partir d’une expérimentation en ligne dans le secteur de la restauration haut-de-gamme en France, je trouve que les preneurs de décision allouent leur attention aux feedbacks desquels on attend qu’ils aient le plus fort effet sur la réputation et la performance du restaurant. Cependant, je trouve également des éléments corroborant un effet «perturbation» provenant des émotions évoquées par certaines caractéristiques des feedbacks. Dans le deuxième chapitre, j’analyse les effets de l’interaction entre les évaluations des amateurs et des experts. En particulier, j’étude l’entrée d’un évaluateur expert (i.e. le guide Michelin) sur le marché, et la manière dont il pousse certaines organisations à faire des choix stratégiques qui signalent leurs aspirations. En construisant sur la littérature sur le statut organisationnel, je trouve que certains restaurants mieux évalués par le guide Michelin font des changements dans leur offre en visant à s’auto-identifier avec le groupe d’élite. Ces changements consistent à adopter ou à exclure certaines caractéristiques affichées dans les menus. De plus, en utilisant les techniques du «topic modeling» appliquées à des commentaires sur Yelp, j’observe que certaines réactions des consommateurs à propos de l’entrée du guide Michelin font que les restaurants apparaissent plus ou moins sensibles aux évaluations de l’expert. Dans le troisième chapitre, je me concentre sur la manière dont les organisations utilisent des réponses publiques adressées aux consommateurs pour répondre aux critiques en ligne. Les études récentes n’offrent pas de conclusion nette sur les bénéfices en termes de réputation des réponses publics aux commentaires. Ces réponses peuvent réduire la probabilité de recevoir des commentaires négatifs dans le futur mais, dans le même temps, elles attirent l’attention sur les problèmes en question. M’appuyant sur la littérature existante sur la réputation et sur l’«impression management», je propose que les organisations peuvent résoudre cet arbitrage en utilisant stratégiquement les différents types de réponses verbales (ex: l’excuse). Bien que les réponses publiques adressées aux consommateurs puissent être contre-productives, adapter le style des réponses publiques aux caractéristiques des commentaires des consommateurs peut être une stratégie optimale pour les organisations. Dans cette étude, j’analyse les commentaires pour des restaurants situées en France et aux États-Unis en utilisant des modèles économétriques standards appuyés sur des techniques de «supervised learning»
Managerial Discretion to Delay the Recognition of Goodwill Impairment: The Role of Enforcement
No full textUnder IFRS, managers can use two approaches to increase the estimated fair value of goodwill in order to justify not recognizing impairment: (1) make overly optimistic valuation assumptions, and (2) increase future cash flow forecasts by inflating current cash flows. Because enforcement constrains the use of optimistic valuation assumptions, we hypothesize that enforcement influences the relative use of these two choices. We test this hypothesis by comparing a sample of 1,958 firms from 36 countries that are likely to delay recognizing goodwill impairment (suspect firms) to a sample of control firms. First, we find that firms in high enforcement countries use a higher discount rate to test goodwill for impairment than firms in low enforcement countries. We also find a more positive association between discount rate and upward cash flow management for suspect firms than for control firms. This result is consistent with suspect firms substituting optimistic valuation assumptions with inflated current cash flows. Second, we find that, relative to control firms, suspect firms exhibit higher upward cash flow management in high enforcement countries than in low enforcement countries. Third, we show that suspect firms in high enforcement countries are more likely to eventually impair goodwill
Adaptive Grids for the Estimation of Dynamic Models
No full textThis paper develops a method to flexibly adapt interpolation grids of value function approximations in the estimation of dynamic models using either NFXP (Rust, 1987) or MPEC (Su and Judd, 2012). Since MPEC requires the grid structure for the value function approximation to be hard-coded into the constraints, one cannot apply iterative node insertion for grid refinement; for NFXP, grid adaption by (iteratively) inserting new grid nodes will generally lead to discontinuous likelihood functions. Therefore, we show how to continuously adapt the grid by moving the nodes, a technique referred to as r-adaption. We demonstrate how to obtain optimal grids based on the balanced error principle, and implement this approach by including additional constraints to the likelihood maximization problem. The method is applied to two models: (i) the bus engine replacement model (Rust, 1987), modified to feature a continuous mileage state, and (ii) to a dynamic model of content consumption using original data from SoundCloud, the largest user-generated content network in the music domain
Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Mandated Business Closures in a Pandemic
No full textTypical government responses to pandemics involve social distancing measures designed to curb disease propagation. We evaluate the impact of state-mandated business closures in the context of the Covid-19 crisis in the US. Using state-level variations in the set of sectors forced to shut down, and within-state variations in local industry composition, we estimate the effects of business closures on infection and death rates. We find that locking down 10% of the labor force is associated with 0.017 and 0.0015 percentage points lower Covid-19 weekly infection and death rates. Business closures lead to significant declines in hours worked, and to large market value losses for affected firms. The findings translate into 29,000 saved lives for a cost of $169 billion
A New Benchmark for Dynamic Mean-Variance Portfolio Allocations
No full textWe propose a new methodology to implement unconditionally optimal dynamic mean-variance portfolios. We model portfolio allocations using an auto-regressive process in which the shock to the portfolio allocation is the gradient of the investor's realized certainty equivalent with respect to the allocation. Our methodology can accommodate transaction costs, short-selling and leverage constraints, and a large number of assets. In out-of-sample tests using equity portfolios, long-short factors, government bonds, and commodities, we find that its risk-adjusted performance, net of transaction costs, is on average more than double that of other benchmark allocations