Nachoem M. Wijnberg

Why Some Awards Are More Effective Signals of Quality Than Others: A Study of Movie Awards†

In this article, the authors develop and empirically test a conceptual framework that predicts which types of awards have the biggest impact on the competitive performance of the award winners. The empirical setting is an industry where awards proliferate, namely, the U.S. motion picture industry. Overall, their results suggest that awards granted by a jury composed primarily of end consumers, peers, or experts each have a different effect on consumer behavior, which can be explained in terms of differences in source credibility and award salience.

Innovation and Organization: Value and Competition in Selection Systems

New definitions are proposed for the concepts ‘innovation’ and ‘organization’ by looking at the concepts in terms of value and competition and using the framework of the selection system. Also, new definitions are proposed for ‘importance of an innovation’ and ‘stylistic innovation’. Some results can be directly derived from the definitions, such as that economic entities can exist that are organizations in the perception of the individual members and groups of competing actors in the perception of others. Together the new definitions provide a foundation for a better understanding of not just the concepts themselves but also of the relationships between the type and importance of innovations and the most likely characteristics of successful innovators.

Selection Processes and Appropriability in Art, Science and Technology

Recently, there has been a mutually beneficial interchange of models and ideas between the sociology of science and the economics of technological innovation. Concepts such as the “paradigm” and the “network” seem to lend themselves to useful application in both fields. To these is added the concept of the “selection system”. The major aim of this paper is to show that the development of the arts can be described using the same conceptual framework. This allows the development of hypotheses concerning the relationship between art, science and technology, and also about the effect of appropriability conditions.

Effects of Reputational Sanctions on the Competitive Imitation of Design Innovations

This study examines whether and under what conditions reputational sanctions are a strong deterrent to imitative firm behaviour. Results indicate that reputational sanctions can be an effective barrier to imitation, in particular when firms perceive a reputation for innovation to be a factor in their competitive success. Linkages between firms foster the effectiveness of this barrier to imitation, as such linkages make it relatively easy to detect imitative behaviour and to impose reputational sanctions.

Disentangling the effects of reputation and network position on the evolution of alliance networks

This study uses the panel data social network analysis program SIENA to estimate the effect of actor reputation derived from past performance on alliance formation, while controlling for other constant actor attributes and network position. The authors distinguish between individual reputation based on the past performance of the organizations the individual actor has been involved in, and composite reputation that takes into account reputation spillover effects from the similarly constituted reputations of past alliance partners. The empirical setting is the project-based film industry, which can be regarded as a constantly changing network of alliances. The study focuses on artistic reputation, based on the reviews of earlier films, and finds that the strength of that reputation and closeness in the network of past alliances are strong predictors of alliance formation. The study finds weak evidence of actors with similar reputations being more likely to form alliances with each other.

Organizational memory: from expectations memory to procedural memory

Organizational memory is not just the stock of knowledge about how to do things, but also of expectations of organizational members vis-a-vis each other and the organization as a whole. The central argument of this paper is that this second type of organizational memory –organizational expectations memory– is a necessary precondition for successfully creating and maintaining organizational procedural memory, which is at the basis of organizational performance. If members of organizations have fewer expectations of being rewarded beyond what is stipulated in formal contracts, these individuals are less likely to risk investing in collective tacit and firm-specific knowledge resources and more likely to focus on building individual and mobile knowledge resources that have value outside the boundaries of the organization. A case study of latent organizations in the Dutch film industry is presented to support the central argument and suggests further avenues of research, in particular concerning the effects of labour mobility on organizational expectations memory.

The organization of innovation and market dynamics: managing increasing returns in software firms

Many contemporary markets, particularly markets of information technology products and information services, are characterized by increasing returns, including those resulting from bandwagon and network effects. At the same time, in larger firms, innovation often takes place in distinct units that are semi-autonomous and that have the responsibility for more than one phase in the product development process. In the most extreme case, a separate profit center is created within which research and development (R&D), production, marketing, and related activities are fully integrated and that has its own responsibility for external relations: an internal innovative venture. The central issue in this paper is the relation between the way firms organize their innovative activities and the market dynamics caused by bandwagon and network effects. We focus on the decision-making actors and we propose a categorization of causes of increasing returns and definitions of bandwagon and network effects that are consistent with this aim. We investigate the extent of internal autonomy of the unit, the extent of the integration of R&D, marketing and other activities in the product development process, and the extent of external autonomy. Three cases of projects creating software products, two of them in the same firm, demonstrate that the organization of innovation and the dynamics of the market are mutually dependent. More in particular, we hold that higher autonomy of teams, particularly in managing external relations, is important to cope with and manage bandwagon and network effects.

From Resources to Value and Back: Competition Between and Within Organizations

Examining the relationship between the competitive processes between and within organizations, we use selection system theory to link resource value to product value. We identify three dimensions (in-selection, before-selection and after-selection) that facilitate determining the value of resources based on the functions they serve in the competitive process between organizations in the product market, i.e. the external selection system. Subsequently, we use these dimensions to explore the competitive process among resource providers within organizations, i.e. the internal selection system. This leads us to formulate three propositions that link the competitive process within organizations to the competitive process between organizations. First, we posit that if resources that individually score highly along only one of the three dimensions are bundled, it is more likely that organizational performance can be sustained. Second, we argue that providers of resources scoring highly along multiple dimensions will enjoy stronger means of appropriation in comparison with providers of resources scoring highly along only one of the three dimensions. Third, we contend that the extent to which an organization endeavours to remunerate its resource providers based on their perceived contribution to the organizations competitive position has a curvilinear (inverted U-shaped) relationship with organizational performance.

Decision Making at Different Levels of the Organization and the Impact of New Information Technology Two Cases from the Financial Sector

This article focuses on the impact of information technologies on the upstream and downstream flows of information. The authors distinguish between two types of decisions and two types of decision-making criteria and propose a four-part framework in which the essential messages of systematic management and scientific management are depicted. Two cases, concerning the introduction of a new information technology (punched-card machines) in two Dutch banks, are analyzed within the framework. It is demonstrated how the chances of success are increased by employing the new technology to enable employees at lower levels of the organization to be more, instead of less, concerned with and aware of the performance objectives of the firm as a whole.

Organizational Output Innovativeness: A Theoretical Exploration, Illustrated by a Case of a Popular Music Festival

Different interpretations of innovation and innovativeness lead to different approaches and different methods to measure organizational output innovativeness. Two indicators of innovativeness are derived from two divergent approaches: the Referent Innovativeness Index and the Classification Innovativeness Index. The article uses the case of the popular music festival to discuss how these indexes can be operationalized and calculated, as well as to outline the implications of the differences between the methods.