We explore the transition from paid work to self-employment using three explanatory variables: paid income, predicted income, and income for ability. We find no linear relationship between the three variables and the self-employment transition. We then test for curvilinear relationships. We find...

Much of strategy has been about defense, building the largest castle with the thickest walls to defend position and tying down the customer with switching costs, standards, and transaction costs. The digital age changed that, making ineffective the usual competitive advantages of size and scope,...

Accounts of economic change recognize that markets create selective pressures for the adaptation of technologies in the direction of customer needs and production efficiencies. However, non-adaptational bases for technological change are rarely highlighted, despite their pervasiveness in the...

This field-based case uses Leica Camera, the famed German manufacturer of high-end cameras, to unfold circumstances that allow for an analysis of the firm's competitive position. Having moved the well-loved German company from near bankruptcy during the digital revolution to a digital disrupter,...

The normative foundations of the investor centered model of corporate governance, represented in mainstream economics by the nexus-of-contracts view of the firm, have come under attack, mainly by proponents of normative stakeholder theory. We argue that the nexus-of-contracts view is static and...

In this paper, we propose that we will not be able to develop compelling explanations of entrepreneurial activity until we make a fundamental adjustment to our underlying assumptions of human action, replacing our reliance upon a rational actor model of human behavior with a model that...

This paper provides an explanation for why firms may choose to simultaneously issue multiple debt claims with varying maturities. The optimal mix of short- and long-term debt allows the firm to precommit to a more efficient liquidation policy. Even in risk-neutral settings, the optimal mix...