By identifying the possibility that technologies with inferior performance can displace established incumbents, the notion of disruptive technologies, pioneered by Christensen (1997), has had a profound effect on the way in which scholars and managers approach technology competition. While the phenomenon of disruptive technologies has been well documented, the underlying theoretical drivers of technology disruption are less well understood. This article identifies the demand conditions that enable disruptive dynamics. By examining how consumers evaluate technology and how this evaluation changes as performance improves, it offers new theoretical insight into the impact of the structure of the demand environment on competitive dynamics. Two new constructs—preference overlap and preference symmetry—are introduced to characterize the relationships among the preferences of different market segments. The article presents a formal model that examines how these relationships lead to the emergence of different competitive regimes. The model is analyzed using computer simulation. The theory and model results hold implications for understanding the dynamics of disruptive technologies and suggest new indicators for assessing disruptive threats. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. From S-curves (Foster, 1986), to technology

How do CEOs exercise control over their organizations? This question is to be answered through a study, which consists of direct observation of eight Swedish CEOs in their everyday work. Of special interest is to investigate whether the primarily role of a CEO is to be a decision-maker or to be a leader. Interpreting the role as a decision-maker or a leader respectively has consequences on how a CEO is expected to behave. The study shows that the leadership perspective is of much greater relevance for interpreting the behavior of the CEOs. The article also discusses potential drawbacks of obtaining effective control by the use of decision-making. The previously dominating view of the CEO as a decision-maker can finally bring about an explanation why earlier research in managerial work has stressed the lack of control. Keywords: Managerial work; Managerial behavior; Control; Decision-making; Leadership; CEO This research project is financed by The Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSFR) Project: 2420-13-031 GRI report 2000:10 The nature of control Stefan Tengblad - 1 - 1.

Despite the importance of investment syndicates for the Venture Capital (VC) industry to function, surprisingly little is known about the motives for syndication. In this study, I build on Entrepreneurial Finance studies that present uncertainty and risk associated with the investment as the main drivers of syndication. I then examine two important but less emphasized factors that affect syndication strategies: characteristics of the social structure and position of the actor in the social structure. I conceptualize the VC industry syndication network as a social exchange network and argue that actors accumulate social debts and assets as they receive syndicate invitations and initiate syndicates. From this, I primarily claim that the syndication history of a VC firm as well as the balance of his accumulated social liabilities and assets affects the likelihood of initiating syndicates. By analyzing syndication patterns in the US VC industry from early 1970s until 2004, I show that VC firms with net social liabilities, that is, VC firms that have received more syndicate invitations than they have initiated, are more likely to initiate a syndicate. 1

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AMERICAN PUBLIC LIBRARIES and labor unions began their institutional development during the nineteenth century as communities developed and prospered across the nation. Both institutions had strong democratic ideals and a firm commitment to free, quality education for all Americans, and so the historical roots of these institutions intertwined. Public libraries strive to serve the special needs of specific populations within their communities by providing the materials and resources they need. In areas of densely populated organized labor communities, special services could include historical and biographical works on the labor movement; literacy materials; and industrial, economic, and political studies. However, according to a national public libraries research study, libraries since the late 1960shave shifted from providing organized labor with special services to treating them as a group of patrons without special needs. This article briefly reviews the evolution of public libraries, the origins of today’s union movement, and the role of the AFL-CIO/ALA Joint Committee on Library Service to Labor Groups. The article further defines a number of misunderstandings and lack of trust between libraries and organized labor. A statement developed by the joint committee is recommended as a guide to future steps for library and organized labor: “There must be continuing effort, inspired by the conviction on both sides that this enterprise can and will benefit both the labor movement and the public

We argue that organizational practices achieve widespread use only when they are consistent with the interests of the most powerful social actors as enshrined in legal rights. Building on a “stakeholder-power ” approach to corporate governance, we examine whether the interests of shareholders, workers and banks are consistent with the practice of hostile corporate takeovers. Regression models using data on 28 countries between 1988 and 1998 lend support to the predictions that hostile takeovers increase in frequency with the extent that shareholder rights are protected, and decrease with the degree to which banking rights are protected. We discuss the implications of these findings for the theory of comparative institutions and for organizational theory. 3

We are grateful to Hugh Patrick for very helpful comments. Corporate Governance Reform in Japan and South Korea:

2003. We are currently working on a revision for resubmission. The results to be presented at the seminar are different from those included in this first submitted version.

Beach, 1997). These reviews have focused primarily on models of individual decision making and the state of the art in that realm. None of these reviews have given much attention to the burgeoning body of literature on group decision making. The group decision making literature has reached a high growth rate in the last decade primarily due to the interest in group process and, especially, to effective teamwork as businesses have organized work structures more and more around teams. Nevertheless, linkages between the vast research in individual decision making and group decision processes are slight. For instance, there is a large body of work on normative decision models in individual decision making (Von Neumann & Morgenstern, 1947; Edwards, 1954), but these models are rarely mentioned in the literature on group decision making. This paper presents a model of group decision making process that partially fills this gap. Individual decision making has its roots in the model of the rational man beginning as far back as Bernouli and the 1740’s. These models of decision making were mathematical, based upon statistical principles. The rational man model assumes that the decision maker is a) completely informed, b) infinitely sensitive, c) rational (Stevenson

A critical research agenda for organisational performance measurement