The problem of designing, coordinating, and managing complex systems has been central to the management and organizations literature. Recent writings have tended to offer modularity as, at least, a partial solution to this design problem. Two unifying themes characterize the extant literature on...

We explore the joint determination of product differentiation strategy and corporate leverage in a setting where (i) product differentiation is valued by customers; (ii) debt is necessary to discipline managers; and (iii) liquidation is costly for customers, in particular, when products are...

The co-existence of franchised and company-owned stores influences the dynamic of innovation in franchise systems as well as the balance of power between franchisees and their chain. We report on case studies of five franchise system. We focus on how innovation and authority are interrelated in...

Innovating firms face the dilemma of knowing when they will be able to appropriate the rents accruing from their innovations. Only the future value of the rents creates an incentive to innovate, and all innovations that are either imitated or improved upon by competitors preempt the innovator...

The ability to generate innovations and capture the rents from innovation are important for firms’ competitive advantage. Increasingly firms seek knowledge abundant locations, or industry clusters, to access novel knowledge and generate innovations through knowledge recombinations...

Es este un breve recorrido por la vida de Juan Gonzalo Restrepo Londoño,quien además de tener la fortuna de crecer en el seno de una familia tradicional antioqueña, fue haciéndose portador de invaluables conocimientos que le permitirían engranarse exitosa mente en la maquinaria empresarial...

How do technology innovators, business executives, and venture capitalists manage the technical elements of business risk when developing and launching new products? Overcoming technical risks requires crossing the so-called valley of death—the gap between demonstrating the soundness of a...

Extant explanations of the nature and scope of firms, such as transaction costs, property rights, metering and “resources” can be integrated into a more general (capability based) theory of the nature and essence of the firm that recognizes the importance to the firm of creating (and...

This paper investigates the influence of technological, geographic, and ethnic communities on the innovativeness of Indian inventors. We study Indian inventors in the semiconductor industry in the US and examine their patenting profiles between 1975 and 1999 to identify the influences on the...

Even though the characteristic of distribution channels once established generally hardly to change (Ramaseshan et al, 1994), they become essential for SMEs export oriented to grow. It has been believed SMEs play crucial parts for generating employment, reducing poverty, adding value and...