Abstract: We analyze the influence of different incentive systems within corporate governance on the development of dynamic capabilities and the concomitant association with process innovation. Comparative case evidence of ‘American’ versus ‘German’ firm level institutions within the pharmaceutical industry suggests that higher-order resource reconfiguration routines are established idiosyncratically and on different organizational levels. Based on 62 face-to-face interviews we argue that more ‘American’ firm-level institutions and the 'uncertainty' associated with them drive, rather than hinder, the emergence of simple, loosely coupled, higher-order routines underlying a radical approach to process innovation. Also, we find that within the same industrial setting these routines co-exist with more perception-based, simple decision routines.

Abstract: This paper extends the existing research on the antecedents and consequences of organizational scope setting decisions. We examine why some firms choose focus strategies while others choose to diversify. Furthermore, we investigate the consequences of these decisions. Based on an analysis covering all the over 850 public U.S. biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms and their over 60,000 patent applications from 1980 to 2005, we find that these biopharmaceutical firms have a tendency to gravitate to the mean in their business scopes. This mean reverting tendency of the most focused and the most diversified firms would seem to imply that there is an optimal technological scope that the firms are targeting at. Our finding contributes to an improved understanding of the dynamics of diversification patterns.

Abstract: Manufacturing firms often diversify into related service activities due to expected leverage effects of existing technological expertise, customer relationships and brand identity. At the same time, based on arguments forwarded by economical theories on multiproduct firms, advantages related to the presence of both products and services within one and the same firm could be conceived as mutual rather than merely unidirectional (from products to services). Within this contribution we examine empirically whether and to what extent the deployment of product and service activities influence each other. When examining product and service sales of 48 national subsidiaries of a large international equipment manufacturing company by means of fixed effect panel data models, the presence of mutually beneficial influences becomes apparent. Moreover, adopting more sophisticated service models generates additional beneficial effects. Managerial implications and implementation as well as directions for further research will be discussed.

Abstract: What makes organizations adopt new practice or resist against change? Previous studies on institutionalization or deinstitutionalization reported economic pressures, social pressures, and institutional pressures as drivers to new practice. With 744 listed firms in Korea, we test the effect of economic performance, firm heterogeneity, and population-level adoption on downsizing. In particular, since the interaction between important stakeholders varies according to the context, the role of firm heterogeneity on downsizing is expected to vary across time. Specifically, we will show the different diffusion process of downsizing in the IMF period and in the post-IMF period. Comparison with previous results from other country setting and discussion about the role of stakeholders will be followed.