Economists have long puzzled over the astounding differences in productivity between firms and countries. In this paper, we present evidence on a possible explanation for persistent differences in productivity at the firm and the national level -- namely, that such differences largely reflect...

Increasing product-market competition is believed to be a driving force behind higher productivity. However, even those critics of globalization who accept this argument claim that there is a hard trade-off because tougher competition comes at the price of reducing work—life balance (WLB)....

We find that institutional ownership in publicly traded companies is associated with more innovation (measured by cite-weighted patents). To explore the mechanism through which this link arises, we build a model that nests the lazy-manager hypothesis with career-concerns, where institutional...

We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from over 4,000 medium sized manufacturing firms across Asia, Europe and the US. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with firm-level performance (e.g. productivity, profitability and stock market...

We explore work identity amongst managers, a key group in the 'new' capitalism. Some existing accounts of such workplace identities emphasize new 'cultures of control', others focus on new requirements and possibilities of individual autonomy through reflective identity formation, while others...

Planning under Pressure offers managers, planners, consultants and students a comprehensive and authoritative guide to the Strategic Choice Approach, which has gradually been attracting worldwide recognition as a fresh, versatile and practical approach to collaborative decision-making under...

Through a qualitative case study of the organising/strategising practices of a small British e-commerce retailer, this paper examines the relationship between routine and organisational change. The study takes as its starting point Josef Schumpeter’s notion of creative destruction that...

How malleable are preferences? This paper provides experimental evidence on the extent to which insurance sellers can influence buyers and whether mandatory information disclosure offsets these effects. The experiment involves 214 subjects seeking or recently obtaining unsecured loans and 25...

Locating logistic facilities, such as plants and distribution centres, in an optimal way, is a crucial decision for manufacturers, particularly those that are operating in large developing countries which are experiencing a process of fast economic change. Traditionally, such decisions have been...

This paper explores problems and challenges in the management of expatriate staff in Northern NGOs. It finds that very little research has so far been carried out on this issue despite its importance in international NGO development work. Drawing on a recent case study of a NNGO working in...