Knowledge is central to managing an organization, but its presence in employees is difficult to measure directly. We hypothesize that external communication patterns reveal the location of knowledge within the management team. Using a large database of firm conference call transcripts, we find...

Return on Investment (ROI) is widely regarded as a key measure of firm profitability. The accounting literature has long recognized that ROI will generally not reflect economic profitability, as determined by the internal rate of return (IRR) of a firm's investment projects. In particular, it...

Many companies operate units which are dispersed across different types of markets, and thus serve significantly diverging customer bases. Such market-type dispersion is likely to compromise the headquarters' ability to control its local managers' behavior and satisfy the divergent needs of...

The cost of maintaining application software has been rapidly escalating, and is currently estimated to comprise from 50--80% of corporate information systems department budgets. In this research we develop an estimable production frontier model of software maintenance, using a new methodology...

Most research into cost systems has focused on their motivational implications. This paper takes a different approach, by developing a model where two oligopolistic firms strategically select their cost-based transfer prices. Duopoly models frequently assume that firms game on their choice of...

This paper provides an economic rationale for modern manufacturing control practices such as the minimal inventories in Just in Time (JIT)systems, zero-defect policies, and continuous improvement. The popular and academic literature contains descriptive studies on the mechanics of these systems...

In fast-cycle, high technology industries, the speed and rate at which companies can introduce products into the market are critical for sustaining competitive advantage and market share. The authors analyze new product development by three international manufacturers that dominate a segment of...

We examine the effects of adverse selection and agency costs on the structure of the consideration offered in an acquisition. Specifically we investigate factors affecting the benefits arising from use of earnouts. We find that when targets have greater private information, consideration is more...