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What drove business profitability during the 1980s and early 1990s? Management consultants, business academics, investment analysts, and the business press have all offered managers a range of theories. However, managers have not had access to much data about aggregate trends and broad influences on business profitability over time. With new reporting requirements in place in the United States around 1980, the problem was partly solved. This article uses the new data to categorize the performance of U.S. businesses over the past two decades. The study begins by grouping businesses based on the trajectory in their accounting profitability. If offers information on the average size, growth, financial-market premium, and sectoral affiliation of businesses within each of the groups. Finally, this article describes the broad strategic issues that arise for a subset of the businesses within each group. The result is a series of suggestions about shifts in the strategic issues that face businesses across the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I was the President of the Academy of Management (AOM) in 2016-2017 when U.S. President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order banning immigration and travel to the United States by citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries (EO13769). While I immediately sought to condemn EO13769 as immoral and as a threat to the AOM, I was only able to issue a condemnation in my own name and not in the name of the AOM because the Board's Executive Committee correctly determined that a condemnation would have violated the AOM Constitution. This put me in the untenable position of leading an organization operating under principles that conflicted with my personal beliefs about an immoral act of government. The article is a case study on this situation. In it, I explain how EO13769 and other attacks on science threaten the purpose and functioning of the AOM. The case explores a relatively understudied aspect of leadership: the identity of an organization as distinct from the identity of its leader. It also underscores the importance of strengthening democratic institutions of science. I argue that the issuance of statements of condemnation—while important—does not exhaust our responsibilities in society as scholars for investigating, reporting, defending, and protecting the truth about what is going on in the world around us. I conclude by calling us to redouble our commitment to a defining purpose of the AOM, which is to support the scholarship necessary to overcome polarizing politicization of complex social issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates the usefulness of game theory for strategic management through theoretical and empirical analysis of price competition in the presence of production backlogs. Game-theoretic analysis predicts a different relationship between relative prices and backlog levels than does analysis that ignores the sorts of interactive considerations emphasized by game theory. Empirical analysis based on data for the U.S. market for large turbine generators between 1951 and 1963 corroborates the game-theoretic prediction. The paper concludes with a discussion of the sorts of situations in which game-theoretic reasoning is particularly likely to prove useful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the importance of year, industry, corporate-parent, and business-specific effects on the profitability of U.S. public corporations within specific 4-digit SIC categories. Our results indicate that year, industry, corporate-parent, and business-specific effects account for 2 percent, 19 percent, 4 percent, and 32 percent, respectively, of the aggregate variance in profitability. We also find that the importance of the effects differs substantially across broad economic sectors. Industry effects account for a smaller portion of profit variance in manufacturing but a larger portion in lodging/entertainment, services, wholesale/retail trade, and transportation. Across all sectors we find a negative covariance between corporate-parent and industry effects. A detailed analysis suggests that industry, corporate-parent, and business-specific effects are related in complex ways. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex trafficking, trafficking for the purpose of forced sexual exploitation, is a widespread form of human trafficking that occurs in all regions of the world, affects mostly women and girls, and has far-reaching health implications. Studies suggest that up to 50 % of sex trafficking victims in the USA seek medical attention while in their trafficking situation, yet it is unclear how the healthcare system responds to the needs of victims of sex trafficking. To understand the intersection of sex trafficking and public health, we performed in-depth qualitative interviews among 277 antitrafficking stakeholders across eight metropolitan areas in five countries to examine the local context of sex trafficking. We sought to gain a new perspective on this form of gender-based violence from those who have a unique vantage point and intimate knowledge of push-and-pull factors, victim health needs, current available resources and practices in the health system, and barriers to care. Through comparative analysis across these contexts, we found that multiple sociocultural and economic factors facilitate sex trafficking, including child sexual abuse, the objectification of women and girls, and lack of income. Although there are numerous physical and psychological health problems associated with sex trafficking, health services for victims are patchy and poorly coordinated, particularly in the realm of mental health. Various factors function as barriers to a greater health response, including low awareness of sex trafficking and attitudinal biases among health workers. A more comprehensive and coordinated health system response to sex trafficking may help alleviate its devastating effects on vulnerable women and girls. There are numerous opportunities for local health systems to engage in antitrafficking efforts while partnering across sectors with relevant stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores evidence of corporate capabilities for conducting acquisition and alliance deals in young firms. We hypothesize that investors conjecture about the future based on information about a firm's capabilities. Each successive deal carries intrinsic value, creates experience, generates feedback, and yields information about the firm's underlying capabilities. We evaluate whether stock prices impute expectations that firms will capably pursue particular programs of acquisitions and alliances. The analysis covers how investor responses change across successive deals on the theory that firms with a concentrated program of deals may develop capabilities more intensively than those with programs that involve both acquisitions and alliances. The dataset covers the population of firms that went through an initial public offering (IPO) in the United States between 1988 and 1999. It contains information on all of their post-IPO acquisitions and alliances, and on how their stock prices changed in response to the announcement of each deal. The results suggest that within the first year after IPO, investors expect firms to execute particular streams of alliances and acquisitions that reflect their unique histories of demonstrated capabilities. We also find evidence that investors cannot fully anticipate deal programs. The findings support a capabilities-based view of the firm and also show that accurate inference using event-study methods may require digging deep into the early histories of firms. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the emergence and the sustainability of abnormal profits among businesses that were part of US public corporations between 1981 and 1994 and that reported financial results for at least six years. Our results reveal strong asymmetries between high and low performers. Overall, high performance is more stable than low performance. High performers show profits above the average a decade earlier. In contrast, low performers show profits that are slightly above average a decade earlier. Industry and corporate-parent effects influence high performance to a far greater degree than low performance. Low performance is dominated by business-specific effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the business turnarounds in economics in the U.S. Fascination of scholars and executives on business turnarounds phenomena; Definition of financial market premium; Assessment of business turnarounds in the business sector.

This study decomposes the performance of US public firms between 1981 and 1994 into year, industry, corporate-focus and firm effects. Performance is measured by Tobin's q, accounting profitability, and a hybrid measure. The results show that firm effects were more important to performance than industry effects, although industry effects had a large permanent component. Corporate focus was not important. The stylized facts suggest that competitive advantages—that is, differences between direct competitors in the same industry—were at least as important as industry influences on performance. Industry influences were more predictable and sustainable than competitive advantages, however. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of a Bayesian analysis on large-scale empirical data to assess the effectiveness of eleven types of COVID-control policies that have been implemented at various levels of intensity in 40 countries and U.S. states since the onset of the pandemic. The analysis estimates the marginal impact of each type and level of policy as implemented in concert with other policies. The purpose is to provide policymakers and the general public with an estimate of the relative effectiveness of various COVID-control strategies. We find that a set of widely implemented core policies reduces the spread of virus but not by enough to contain the pandemic except in a few highly compliant jurisdictions. The core policies include the cancellation of public events, restriction of gatherings to fewer than 100 people, recommendation to stay at home, recommended restrictions on internal movement, implementation of a partial international travel ban, and coordination of information campaigns. For the median jurisdiction, these policies reduce growth rate in new infections from an estimated 270% per week to approximately 49% per week, but this impact is insufficient to prevent eventual transmission throughout the population because containment occurs only when a jurisdiction reduces growth in COVID infection to below zero. Most jurisdictions must also implement additional policies, each of which has the potential to reduce weekly COVID growth rate by 10 percentage points or more. The slate of these additional high-impact policies includes targeted or full workplace closings for all but essential workers, stay-at-home requirements, and targeted school closures., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

On August 9th, 2001, the federal government of the United States announced a policy restricting federal funds available for research on human embryonic stem cell (hESCs) out of concern for the "vast ethical mine fields" associated with the creation of embryos for research purposes. Until the policy was repealed on March 9th, 2009, no U.S. federal funds were available for research on hESCs extracted after August 9, 2001, and only limited federal funds were available for research on a subset of hESC lines that had previously been extracted. This paper analyzes how the 2001 U.S. federal funding restrictions influenced the quantity and geography of peer-reviewed journal publications on hESC. The primary finding is that the 2001 policy did not have a significant aggregate effect on hESC research in the U.S. After a brief lag in early 2000s, U.S. hESC research maintained pace with other areas of stem cell and genetic research. The policy had several other consequences. First, it was tied to increased hESC research funding within the U.S. at the state level, leading to concentration of related activities in a relatively small number of states. Second, it stimulated increased collaborative research between US-based scientists and those in countries with flexible policies toward hESC research (including Canada, the U.K., Israel, China, Spain, and South Korea). Third, it encouraged independent hESC research in countries without restrictions.

It's fairly obvious: To make intelligent investments within your organization, you need to understand how your whole industry is changing. But such knowledge is not always easy to come by. Companies misread clues and arrive at false conclusions all the time. To truly understand where your industry is headed, you have to take a long-term, high-level look at the context in which you do business, says Boston University professor Anita McGahan. She studied a variety of businesses from a cross section of industries over a ten-year period, examining how industry structure affects business profitability and investor returns. Her research suggests that industries evolve along one of four distinct trajectories--radical, progressive, creative, and intermediating--that set boundaries on what will generate profits in a business. These four trajectories are defined by two types of threats. The first is when new, outside alternatives threaten to weaken or make obsolete core activities that have historically generated profits for an industry. The second is when an industry's core assets--its resources, knowledge, and brand capital--fail to generate value as they once did. Industries undergo radical change when core assets and core activities are both threatened with obsolescence; they experience progressive change when neither are jeopardized. Creative change occurs when core assets are under threat but core activities are stable, and intermediating change happens when core activities are threatened while core assets retain their capacity to create value. If your company's innovation strategy is not aligned with your industry's change trajectory, your plan for achieving returns on invested capital cannot succeed, McGahan says. But if you understand which path you're on, you can determine which strategies will succeed and which will backfire.