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This section presents several management education and development conference paper abstracts. They include, "The Effect of Instructional Delivery Method on Student Achievement," regarding the educational value of undergraduate human resource management classes, "A Personal and Experimental Reflection on Teaching and Learning wtih the Consultant Learning Method," about an analysis of undergraduate and graduate management courses, and "What it Means to Supervise: A Phenomenographic Study of Doctorial Student Supervision," discussing what doctoral supervisors look for in their management students.

This section presents several abstracts on issues surrounding critical management, including studies on lip sewing and woomera, messy texts and conceptual activism in organization theory, and factors that influence operating performance through the use of gainsharing plans.

This article presents abstracts of studies on international management. The paper "Regional Strategies for Service Sector Multinationals," examined the intra-regional sales of all 49 multinational enterprises (MNE) in the retail sector. Data is not available for most other service sector MNEs, especially in insurance and banking. Only one of these 49 retail MNEs is global, defined as operating with at least 20 percent of its sales in each part of the triad. The paper "Market Equilibrium, Cartel or Lack of Strategy? Entry Level Compensation in Japanese Firms," examined the determinants of base pay for entry level college graduates in Japanese firms. In a sense, Japanese firms' compensation strategy for college hiring is to behave as a cartel and to minimize wage competition. The paper "A Comparative Analysis of Indian and Chinese Negotiating Behavior," highlighted the similarities and differences between Indian and the Chinese negotiating behavior. While a lot has been written about the Chinese approach to negotiations the literature on Indian negotiating behavior is relatively sparse. This paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature by providing a comparative contrast of the negotiating styles in these countries. The starting premise of the paper is that institutional environments affect the ease with which value is created, sustained or amplified over time.

This article presents several conference paper abstracts on management. In the paper titled 'Interrelatedness and Value Creation in Firm-Stakeholder Networks,' the authors attempt to raise the practical dilemmas of having an agent provocateur or a stakeholder within the firm's network. The paper titled 'Stakeholder Influence Strategies in the Canadian Forest Products Industry' draws upon the stakeholder literature to propose and test hypotheses regarding managerial perceptions about the different types of strategies that organizational stakeholders adopt to influence the sustainability practices of individual firms in the industry. The authors of the paper proposed that resource interdependence and type of stake would determine whether the influence employed by individual stakeholders was direct or indirect via other stakeholders. The paper 'Communication Philanthropy. Multiple Representations to Multiple Stakeholders' examines the accounts given by 100 large firms in the UK for their involvement with the arts. It finds support for strategic philanthropy, but that the strategic intent may be more about meeting a form of social contract or securing a licence to operate. It also adds to the literature by combining the corporate philanthropy and social accounting literatures.

The article presents abstracts of business and management science research pertaining to gender and diversity in organizations. They include "A comparative study of the ethnic differences existing between the antecedents and outcomes of WFC," and "A critical review of Hofstede's MAS/FEM dimension with propositions for further research."

The article presents abstracts pertaining to critical management studies. They include "Ethnostatistics, Sensemaking and Business School Ranking," by Jean Helms Mills, Scott Colwell, and Terrance Weatherbee, "Perspectives on Organizational Learning & Organizational Diversity," by Anne Starks Acosta, and "Political Bottom Line: Emerging Dimension to Corporate Responsibility for Sustainable Development," by Jem Bendell and Kate Kearins.

This section presents conference paper abstracts on management arts. The purpose of a performance on vulnerability is to open a new perceptual and reflective path for members of the audience to experience their own vulnerability. The performance lasts about five minutes, with the performer standing on a stage alone reciting a short narrative. A short poem examines stereotypes often held by blue-collar workers regarding knowledge workers. These beliefs reflect a growing sense of separation within democratic societies between the poor and the rich. A quilt serves three purposes. First, it is a piece of art which may be enjoyed on a purely aesthetic level. Second, it is an example of a personal research process. Third, it acts as an investigation of a well-known company, such as Southwest Airlines. Jewelry as an art form has been part of human culture since man first walked the planet. Evidence of human ornaments occurs from the beginning of the Paleolithic period. Although precious stones were virtually unknown in the Neolithic period, materials included animal bone, shells, clay, stones, bronze, gold and silver. The ideological and symbolic function of jewelry in prehistoric times appears to have been more complex than it is at present.

The article presents abstracts on topics related to business policy and strategy including the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate political activity, the firm's geographic scope of business operation, and the behavioral theory of operational priorities.

The article presents abstracts pertaining to business policy and strategy research. They include "A complexity approach to performance differentials between diversifying entrants and start-ups," "A conceptual model of firm knowledge base dynamics," and "A fit group or a messy crowd? A dynamic evaluation of group fitness in the airline industry."

The article presents a section of abstracts related to management, corporate strategy, business and corporations. They include "The relationship of grand corporate strategy to the strategic significance of major organizational functions: moderating effects of production system and perceived environmental uncertainty," "Some fundamental attitudes of American business managers: with implications for strategic management," and "Externally derived vs. internally derived sources of influence on strategic decision making."

The article presents abstracts of articles appearing in the issue, including "The Professor of Management (A Fringe Cafe Performance)," by Kerr Inkson, "Worshipping a Strange God," by John Andrew Morris, and "Theory in Use," by Steven S. Taylor.

This paper argues that it is no longer very helpful to explain firm existence by differentiating firms from markets. This is because firms predominantly exist to satisfy the payment demands of their owners. The paper concludes by describing how this approach can explain why firms' resource investments drive the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the need to dynamize the existing conceptualization of business models, and proposes a new typology. One important conclusion is that a business model can be flexible only up to a point, beyond which it would have to be revised or terminated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patent trolls are often characterized as relying on low-quality patents, an assessment that, if correct, would imply that eradicating such patents would effectively terminate the troll business. In this paper, we shed light on this issue by empirically analyzing trolls' patent acquisitions. Surprisingly, and contrary to common belief, we find that troll patents are of significantly higher quality than those in the control group. Furthermore, we posit that transactions involving patent trolls may only be the tip of the iceberg of "patent-only" transactions, a conjecture with strong implications for the efficiency of markets for technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops and tests a model of community success which takes into account the competition from other communities that share content or members. Analysis of a longitudinal sample of 100 Usenet newsgroups over 57 months suggests that both internal characteristics and external context affect communities' capability to retain members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of articles presented at a business symposium, including the article "Organizational Mentoring Relationships: Multiple Perspectives on the Role of Time," "Personal and Organizational Transformation and the Search for Meaning at Work in Turbulent Times," and "Women, Dual Careerists, Copreneurs and Entrepreneurs: Careers, Transitions, Negotiating Strategies and Growth."

This paper analyzes the patterns of knowledge sharing among organizational units. It proposes a model of strategic linking capability to investigate a unit's ability to leverage individual knowledge that is embedded in intra-organizational networks. Using sociometric techniques and multivariate analysis, this study shows that strategic linking capability affects product innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a research study done to explain whether organizations introduce cutting-edge products when timing depends solely on their competitors. The two-part hypothesis states that moving early is based on searching technical knowledge earlier than competitors while the second part mentions moving later than opponents. An advantage to searching for knowledge earlier is exclusive product retainment. Moving late can be advantageous since firms can analyze their competitor's behavior in the event that any errors are made. The study sampled industrial automation companies during 1984-1998 in Japan, Europe, and the United States. The study found that firms that move early tend to be more innovative.

While scholars have examined the direct effects of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on new venture performance, we propose that ventures¿ network strategies intervene in the EO performance relationship. Our findings suggest that founding teams of entrepreneurial and conservative ventures build distinctively different social networks that in turn, both enable and constrain performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the impact of internationalization on the prospects of young companies for survival and growth. The process theory of internationalization explains why firms delay entry into foreign markets and proceed slowly after entry. Knowledge is important in both the process and the new venture theories of internationalization. Research on the liabilities of newness suggests that a firm goes out of existence when it runs out of the resources necessary to meet the demands of its environment. New firms are at a disadvantage because their lower stock of resources exacerbates the dangers of having to create new systems, solutions and relationships. Entrepreneurial orientation involves more risk-taking, competitive aggression and proactivity. It implies a higher value for achieving growth than for avoiding failure. Entrepreneurial orientation is likely to affect the distribution of payoffs. Critical environmental variables that might influence the effects of internationalization on survival and growth include country and industry conditions. Organization-specific factors such as the level of slack resources and the match between venture and target country may also influence outcomes.

This article discusses the antecedents, elements, and consequences of corporate entrepreneurship. Corporate entrepreneurship strategy is increasingly recognized as a strategic option firms choose to pursue once triggers from the external environment denote the need for change and strategic adaptation. An entrepreneurial strategic vision represents a commitment to innovation and entrepreneurial behavior that is expressed in general terms. A pro-entrepreneurship organizational architecture is an organizational context that exhibits certain attributes that individually and collectively encourage entrepreneurial behavior. Entrepreneurial behavior is any newly fashioned set of actions through which companies seek to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities rivals have not noticed or exploited. Entrepreneurial outcomes at the individual and organizational levels result from using entrepreneurial behavior as the foundation for implementing a corporate entrepreneurship strategy. The existence of an entrepreneurial strategic vision promotes awareness throughout the firm of the general direction in which entrepreneurial initiatives and their associated behaviors should take shape. The outcomes of corporate entrepreneurship strategies have consequences for firms as well as for the future of corporate entrepreneurship strategy.

Recent research has examined how a delay in the realization of the outcome of a negotiation can lead to more efficient agreements (Uptigrove & Okhuysen, 2001). However, most negotiations involve multiple issues, and the impact of delays on individual issues has not been examined. In this paper we explore the impact of outcome delays for specific issues on the overall efficiency of negotiation agreements. In addition, we examine the interaction between issue delays (delays that affect individual issues) and outcome delays (delays that affect the overall negotiation). We present evidence from an experiment which suggests that outcome delays for individual issues can influence negotiators to help them achieve more efficient agreements. In addition, we find an interaction between issue delays and outcome delays, such that the presence of both type of delays help negotiators achieve better agreements than if only one type or none of these delays are present. Finally, we present a discussion of theory and results in addition to suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents various abstracts related to business policy and strategy including "Strategic Planning and its Contribution to the Organization: A Co-alignment Perspective," by Mark B. Milstein and Albert H. Segars, "Imperfect Learning: What Does an Organization Learn From its Mistake?," by Katsuhiko Shimizu and "Differential Firm Performance in a Behavioral Model of Organizational Change," by Christoph Zott.

Donaldson Brown was the originator of ROI, an architect of General Motor's management structure and one of the conceptualizers of the decentralization with coordinated control concept. He was one of the most influential management and organization theorists in GM. This paper discusses some of his management contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This model describes the logical steps in the development of social need from its idea inception to its full implementation within the individual business sector, total private business sector, and to the legal and societal consequences if the social need is not fulfilled. To verify the validity and logic of the model, three examples - one historical, one technological, and one natural resource conservation are presented in a later part of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship plays an important role in the economy, yet little is known concerning the events which lead to entrepreneurial firm development. This paper reports the results of an empirical test of a theoretically derived stages of development model for entrepreneurial ventures. Results generally supported the a priori theoretical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business organizations are open systems. A company's operations can be understood only if its relations with the environment are taken into account, because they involve flows between the system and the environment as well as within the system itself. To live, a company must take in resources from the environment, convert them into goods and/or services, and dispose of the latter on favorable terms in the environment. All business organizations, being dependent upon their environments, face the same fundamental systems problem: how to match up the organization's capabilities with the demands made upon it by environmental forces. This is also the focus of business policy. Therefore, an understanding of how companies organize and function to cope with systems problems gives us insight into the nature of business policy and has implications for research in the field. This paper suggests three hypotheses for empirical research: 1. The boundaries of corporate strategy -- to be acceptable a strategy must simultaneously satisfy at least minimal requirements of organizational rationality and institutional survival. 2. The mix of policy approaches -- there are both bureaucratic and systems elements in policy formation; the mix in each company depends on its degree of bureaucratization, but over time there is a tendency to shift towards the systems approach. 3. Managerial Roles in policy formation -- where the systems approach to policy formation prevails middle managers initiate and promote policy recommendations thru help achieve their subsystem goals, and executives develop corporate sir y that balance these policies with each other and with considerations of institutional survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on topics about social issues in management which include the impact of social context by employees' negative interpersonal relations, the importance for organizations of understanding why people engage in ethical and unethical behavior, and the effects of collaborative work on individuals' dishonesty.

The article presents abstracts on entrepreneurship topics which include community involvement of businesses, conducting business under adverse conditions in developing countries, and international strategies for examining new-venture partnerships.

An executive's firm-specific human capital is argued to be a critical resource to the executive's current organization, but because of its lack of transferability, is of little value outside the firm. We argue that there exists a form of firm-based knowledge, which we term firm-explicit human capital, that is, in fact, transferable to competing firms, and that these firms will be willing to pay a premium to obtain it. Using a sample of over 9,000 executives, we show that executives switching to competing firms received increases to base pay greater than non-movers and those moving within or between industries. We suggest these increases are reflective of the differential value associated with various forms of executive-level human capital and we discuss the implications of our findings for future human capital research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we have examined the linkage of equifinality to corporate entrepreneurship by analyzing strategy, structure, and performance relationships. Our results indicate that both entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial organizations with an optimum strategy-structure match tend to have a higher performance than those entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial organizations without an optimum strategy-structure match. Implications for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several conference symposia abstracts on management education and development, including a discussion of important similarities and differences in the implicit and explicit models of leadership in the spiritual traditions underlying Judaism, Christianity and Islam, a study of symposium the role and use of the arts and liberal arts in management education, and an exploration of the historical contexts of teaching paradigms and a comparison of their objectives and outcomes on course design.

This article discusses the frontiers of entrepreneurship research. Creating intensity is not only a matter of connecting into focused and dialogical communities working around specific themes but also of enacting research of entrepreneurship in entrepreneurial ways. Rather than limiting, it means to create bolder approaches. Studying cities is a very different object for entrepreneurial scholars than the traditional entrepreneurial company. It is the creative swarm where innovation can emerge everywhere. From the country painters of Renaissance Florence, or the Jewish intellectuals of Vienna in 1900 to the garage technicians of Detroit, urban creativity has come from the outsiders. Entrepreneurship becomes a study of alternative geographies of how cities, regions and everyday life become sited and spatialized. Intervening is oriented upon research activities that make a difference in one or several communities and that is oriented on how the concept of entrepreneurship is used. Pausing is an activity of the middle par excellence, a paradoxical way to create new lines of flight. One should not underestimate how the establishment of communication channels influences the specific way in which a field by delineating itself acts as a border controlling mechanism.

Resent research suggests that improvisation is a prevalent and important form of action that takes place throughout the entrepreneurial process (Baker, Miner, & Eesley, 2003). Despite the central role that improvisation appears to play in the daily decisions of entrepreneurs, there is a lack of theoretical work on the topic within the entrepreneurship literature. In response, the current article outlines factors that are likely to influence the incidence and effectiveness of entrepreneurial improvisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a collection of symposium abstracts about management history, including a study of the criticisms of management consulting, research on the development of information systems before 1950, and a discussion of Alfred Chandler's influence on management history and strategy.

Tradeoffs faced by negotiators who can choose to negotiate face-to-face or conduct negotiations between computer programs are examined. The ways in which using automated negotiation changes the balance of negotiating power are explored. Participation constraints on automated negotiations are developed; when these constraints are likely to be met is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can educators, by adapting a work-based management learning process enhance the current educational experience of business school students and help prepare them to learn how to learn throughout their careers? This guiding question shaped a practical inquiry into the value of using Self-Managed Learning (Cunningham, 2000) as an overarching pedagogical approach in the design and delivery of a new first year undergraduate module. The educational rationale for focussing on a management learning process alongside undergraduate content is discussed and the implementation experienced described. Initial student reaction to the first iteration of the module has been both very positive and negative. Positive feedback focusses on the excitement some students experience when shaping their individual learning programme. Negative comments tend to orientate around the desire for greater teacher direction with regard to content and process. Faculty themselves have learned a great deal about how changes in pedagogy significantly impact on their own role and identity in the classroom. This can be uncomfortable and challenge previously held assumptions about power, control and responsibility. A key conclusion of this is paper is that more attention needs to be paid to supporting the professional development of faculty as they make the move from teachers to facilitators of learning. The jury is out on the long term benefits for students but the experience has opened up a long overdue conversation in the business school about pedagogy and the potential for students and staff to work together to create new learning experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building upon an original survey of about 200 UK companies, this paper aims to investigate what are the firm and industry-level practices that support successful knowledge exchange between university and industry. In particular, it explores what practices companies engage in and how different practices influence the probability to successfully achieve different knowledge exchange objectives of businesses when interacting with universities, focus in particular on two types of objectives: those linked to accessing university knowledge, and those linked to co-creating knowledge together with universities in order to address complex business challenges. We find that while most businesses are generally able to successfully access university knowledge, knowledge co-creation is difficult for a significant proportion of companies. The adoption of good practices enables firms to successfully engage in knowledge exchange. However, the suitability of practices varies depending on the nature of knowledge exchange. The adoption of linkage good practices - such as using institutions that link academics and companies, search engines to find academics/ institutions and innovation voucher scheme- is the key to successfully accessing university knowledge. On the other hand, the adoption of behaviour and negotiation practices - such as openness, trust, transparency, team level communications, shared understanding and negotiations - enables universities and businesses to closely work together to successfully co-create knowledge [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the digital accommodation during corporate acquisitions and consolidation of U.S. hospital industry through hospital acquisitions and the expansion of multi-hospital chains. Topics discussed include that firms can gain information technology (IT)-induced competitive advantage when capable of digitizing their processes more effectively than their competitors, implementation of study in the U.S. hospital industry where healthcare industry consolidation are discussed as remedy for low efficiency, and need to improve the performance of subsidiary business units.

The article presents a study conducted to explore the relationship between friendship and competition in business and examines the implication of perceiving a friend as a competitor. Topics discussed include factors indicating demographic similarity between two individuals which include race and sex, role equivalence of friends if they work in the same business unit, and definition of structural equivalence. It discusses performance advantages of seeing friends as competitors and examines if people's subjective perception of competition affects performance. Chi-square test was used which showed that participants were significantly more likely to see competitors as friends than otherwise.

The article presents a study on the factors that influence the intention of an actor to engage in institutional entrepreneurship. The researchers used an intentions-based model to reincorporate intentional action as a component of institutional entrepreneurship. They also considered a proposed model of the institutional entrepreneurship process that tries to present an embedded actor who recognized field conditions and responds automatically. They found that incorporating an intentions-based perspective into the process of institutional entrepreneurship accounts for an actor's intentions as well as the pressures and influences implied by institutional embeddedness.

The article presents a study on the implications of organizational founding within business incubators as a way of curbing environmental selection pressures. The researchers merged three datasets including a panel of the majority of business incubators operating in the U.S. from 1990 to 2008. They also used a couple of parametric models that estimate the instantaneous failure rate to test the hypotheses. They found that business incubators are an important organizational classification from the policymaking and theoretical standpoint.

The article presents abstracts on topics about organizations and the natural environment which include the diffusion of environmental standards, sustainable certification of agricultural commodities, and contested logics about climate change.

Whereas ambidexterity is frequently associated with simultaneous exploration and exploitation, others concluded that exploration and exploitation can also be achieved by a punctuated equilibrium. Drawing on longitudinal data of 532 firms, we show that ambidexterity and punctuated equilibrium have a positive effect on firm performance in manufacturing and service firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article defines and describes a maturity model of organizational future orientation (OFO), which allows to measure the ability of an organization to ensure long-term success and survival. Building on 19 case studies and more than 100 interviews, we identify five dimensions and 20 elements that combined capture OFO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors argue that the university setting can directly influence the likelihood that students identify and exploit opportunities as well as their entrepreneurial intentions. It examines the influence of the organizational context on individual behavior with the goal of understanding how effective initiatives to encourage academic entrepreneurship are. The impact of entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurship support programs and industry connections on students' entrepreneurial intentions are expanded. Findings suggest that academic entrepreneurs are more likely to come from universities having intensive industry ties than from other institutions.

The article discusses a research program that is designed to better understand the self-justification perspective on escalation of commitment. The article explains that self-justification occurs when one being faced with negative feedback concerning a previously chosen action will continue to allocate even greater funds to the initial decision. The logic of self-justification in escalation of commitment centers around the notion that one is driven by an aversion to admit the failure of past decision(s), to oneself and others. One who is driven by this logic also believes that a costly error is the correct decision over a longer-term perspective.

Drawing on neoinstitutional research in organizational sociology, we show that corporations have been aggressive in adopting CSR practices when they are (1) publicly traded, (2) in areas that are high in union density, and (3) located in federal appellate jurisdictions that are aggressive in their standards for protecting workers' rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents conference symposia abstracts on critical management studies, including discussions about space as a social product that is experienced in three ways: through practice, through planning, and through imagining, the role and use of liberal arts in management education, and institutional structures that set limits on full and free academic knowledge production in management and organization studies.