This thesis explores different aspects of the effect the organization and the level of vertical integration of an organization have on the investment decisions the firm takes and subsequently the effect of such decisions on the performance of the firm. This thesis uses the biopharmaceutical...

The environment surrounding companies is constantly changing. and that change forces companies into paradigm shifts. If a company cannot cope with change, it faces the distinct possibility of being be weeded out of the industry. Today, Japanese companies are facing dramatic environmental change....

My employer, Kirin Holding Company (Kirin), turned 100 years old in 2007. At the same year, Kirin changed its company structure into a holding company from Kirin Brewery Company Limited. As the former company name indicates, the beer business is Kirin's core business, generating over 70% of...

Firm boundaries have been the subject of much scholarly interest in recent years, as firms increasingly hire external, "contingent" workers and outsource previously core activities. However, little empirical research has directly studied what happens differently inside the firm's boundaries,...

Over the last few decades, we have seen an enormous evolution in the financial services industry driven by technology innovations. Indeed, we cannot imagine the current financial system without electronic fund transfers, ATMs, and Internet banking among many other innovative implementations. In...

As corporate and government organizations move into the 21st Century, they face an environment of growing complexity. However, despite a number of recent and highly visible scandals, the moral and ethical culture associated with contemporary organizational life is not often discussed in either...

The primary goal of this research effort was to integrate several pieces of relatively simple dynamics simulations into a full blown system dynamics simulation of the telecom industry. The economic simulation model was used to analyze potential dynamics, reaching basic qualitative insights on...

The decline of innovation has hampered the growth of many large corporations as they seek to remain competitive in increasingly challenging conditions. To complement, and at times, replace their internal Research and Development activities, corporations have attempted to seek innovation...

The pharmaceutical industry is an $837 billion a year industry that is being plagued by low R&D productivity. This decline in productivity has resulted in significant erosion of value. From December 2000 to February 2008, the top 15 pharmaceutical companies lost about $850 billion in shareholder...

This dissertation is composed of three essays. I look at the role of two different but critical factors in shaping entrepreneurial outcomes: individual level career history and the institutional context. My work spans two outcomes in particular: individual decisions to choose high-tech...