When it comes to launching new products, major firms such as Philips and Microsoft have adopted seeding strategies that target influential customers in social networks so they can spread the word to their friends, colleagues and acquaintances. The difficulty, of course, is how to identify such people and assess their reach. Traditionally, researchers have ... Read More

Shareholder litigation is important to investor protection and stock market development because it encourages managers to be more transparent. But it also represents a risk to firms and their leaders, who may face allegations of wrongdoings such as breaching their fiduciary duties and violating securities law. Directors’ and officers’ (D&O) liability ... Read More

Agriculture long ago declined in importance in developed economies, but in the developing world it remains the dominant sector. However, its development is hindered by low productivity. To overcome this, non-governmental organizations and for-profit social enterprises provide learning opportunities for farmers. The recent voice-based information service ... Read More

Employee creativity is an obvious and essential ingredient for firm innovation, but it has usually been framed as a product of an employee’s intrinsic (internal) motivation. Now, new research has revealed that something else matters, too: the human resources systems, and the ownership of the firms in which these systems are implemented. Dong Liu, Yaping ... Read More

On the phone trying to get through to a call center, queuing at an ATM… it’s all a part of daily life. But how do potential customers deal with this? Do they decide to join the queue? Do they switch to an alternative service provider that offers a shorter waiting time? On what do they base their decision? Uncertainty and information scarcity typically make ... Read More

An increase in corporate taxes leads to drops in patents, research and development (R&D) expenditure and new product introductions, but a decrease in taxes does not appear to boost such innovation-linked activity, according to a study that looked at corporate income tax changes across American states from 1990-2006. Researchers Abhiroop Mukherjee, Manpreet ... Read More

Cybercrime costs firms and organisations money – equivalent to 1.5 per cent of a country’s GDP according to one estimate, and up to $100,000 per hour for retailers under attack according to another. The Convention on Cybercrime (COC) was unveiled in 2001 as the first international legislation to address the problem. But a new study shows that while it helps ... Read More

Mutual funds are important investment vehicles for many households. When these households invest in a fund, their capital is pooled and entrusted to a professional fund manager; this manager is responsible for growing his clients’ money by investing in stocks, bonds and other assets. Understandably, therefore, the choice of fund manager is crucial. There are ... Read More

Price is usually the main objective of search for homogenous products such as books. However, considerably less is known about the more complex process of searching for differentiated products such as consumer durables goods. Bart J. Bronnenberg, Jun B. Kim and Carl F. Mela set out to close this gap by studying online consumers’ search behavior for digital ... Read More

You are an auditor, consultant or lawyer, and you have just been promoted to a management role. Congratulations! But, wait, don’t get too carried away – what will this new and more responsible role mean in terms of your relationships within the workplace? Who comes into focus and who fades out, and how do you identify high-quality new contacts? Role ... Read More