Pasquale Massimo Picone

Interorganizational network and innovation: a bibliometric study and proposed research agenda

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the latent structure of the literature on interorganizational network and innovation as well as to map the main themes and empirical advances in this research stream. Design/methodology/approach – Using bibliometric coupling, the authors analyze the citation patterns in 67 management studies regarding innovation networks, published in ISI-journals from January 1996 to October 2012. Findings – The authors identify the conceptual orientations that studies share. Bibliometric analysis allows us to draw an overview of how this field of research has developed, recognizing in essence six main clustered research themes: networks as a framework that sustains firm innovativeness in specific contexts; network dimensions and knowledge processes; networks as a means to access and share resources/knowledge; the interplay between firm and network characteristics and its effects on innovative processes; empirical research on networks in highly dynamic industries; and the influence of...

Bringing Strategy Back into Financial Systems of Performance Measurement: Integrating EVA and PBC

This paper proposes a performance and cost measurement system that integrates the Economic Value Added criteria (EVA) with Process Based Costing (PBC). The EVA-PBC methodology allows us to implement the EVA management logic non only at the firm level, but also at lower levels of the organization. We discuss the role of EVA-PBC methodology in bringing strategy back into financial performance measures.

The Hubris Hypothesis of Corporate Social Irresponsibility: Evidence from the Parmalat Case

In the last decade, various accounting scandals have come about (such as Enron, Global Crossing, Tyco, Worldcom and Parmalat), stimulating the burgeoning debate on the drivers and conditions underlying the emergence of financial frauds.

Internationalization of firms: revitalizing the board of directors after a cross-border acquisition

Purpose This paper aims to show the importance of introducing an integration manager (i.e. an executive position used to channel the acquiring firm’s course of action and strengthen the success of a post-acquisition integration process) within the acquiring firm’s board of directors. Design/methodology/approach This is a theoretical paper that introduces the integration manager within the board of privately held firms going internationally via acquisitions and serving as an “out-insider” director able to balance the conflicting demands of the previously separated entities during their integration process. The authors present an explanatory case study that empirically contributes to the board of directors’ design for internationalization. Findings The authors posit that the integration manager serves as an “out-insider” director of the board for privately held firms, possessed by large-block shareholders, going internationally via acquisitions, providing the necessary expertise and knowledge of the target firm’s products and industry. Originality/value The provided study aims to show that international acquisitions, even though apparently less risky than greenfield investments, may require additional neutral information flow – both within the due-diligence process and the post-acquisition integration – that only outsiders possess. Such an outsider has been individuated in the integration manager whose crucial role focuses on smoothing the pre- and post-acquisition integration processes.

Unveiling the Antecedents of International Diversification: An Agency Theory Approach

While various studies have developed hypotheses about the antecedents of international diversification drawing mainly on the resource-based view, the behavioral theory of the firm, and the transaction costs literature, we advance our understanding by investigating the explanatory power of agency costs of free cash flow arguments. Using a sample panel of 167 Italian firms longitudinally evaluated during the 1980-2010 period, this study tests whether the firm’s choice to spread operations in multiple foreign countries is conditioned by excess of free cash flow and debt, especially in firm-contexts where agency problems are exacerbated by managers or large shareholders’ opportunism. We find that debt has a negative effect on international diversification, while, contrary to our expectation, we find that the effect of cash flow is negative. Results also show that both high ownership concentration and low growth opportunities have a significant moderating effect on the debt - and cash flow - international diversification relationships.

Temporary Competitive Advantage: An Investigation into the Core of the Literature

Evidence of over 350 citations recorded by the articles published in the 2010 special issue on “The Age of Temporary Advantage” of the Strategic Management Journal shows that the inquiry on temporary nature of competitive advantage is an emergent research area in strategic management. They also exhibit that, most likely, it is going to be a significant research area for the coming years. To assess the current status of the literature as well as to fathom the directions and challenges of future research on temporary advantage, we review prior empirical research on temporary advantage so as to offer a conceptual map that provides a comprehensive appreciation of antecedents, processes, and consequences of temporary advantage. We then advance a research agenda on temporary competitive advantage.

The Role Of Complex Leadership In Interfirm Strategic Networks: Enabling Effect Versus Emergence

In todays knowledge-based economy, the sources of competitive advantage lie more and more in webs of relationships among a variety of firms that over time originate the emergence of interfirm strategic networks. The paper aims to shed light on the role of complex leadership exerted by network central firms in promoting and supporting network interactions and the ensuing processes of knowledge and resource transfer and diffusion. Processes on which the network-based sources of competitive advantage are rooted. In the attempt to make the proposed contribution, on the one hand, we underscore the emergent nature of network interactions stemming from the self-organizing behaviors that spontaneously arise inside the interfirm strategic network. On the other hand, we show that the leadership action of network central firms sparks off enabling effects that join to self- organizing network behaviors. The result of the two mentioned forces is an expansion of the network interaction potential that permits both the networked actors and the strategic network as a whole to reach level of performance that may not be accomplished otherwise.

A Look Inside the Paradox of Conglomerate Success:Jack Welch’s Effective Strategic Leadership

This paper aims to detect the role that strategic leadership may exert on conglomerate diversification performance. Using an in-depth longitudinal study applied to Jack Welch’s two-decade-long strategic leadership at General Electric, we identify intriguing insights that are shown to be helpful for understanding and assessing the role of strategic leadership on the success of conglomerates. In particular, we illustrate how positive heterogeneity in the performance of conglomerate firms may originate from the role that effective strategic leadership exerts to circumvent the “conglomerate traps” (i.e., managerial complexity, resource misallocation, and structural inertia). By doing so, we tackle the paradox offered by the generalizability of econometric studies applied to diversified firms that are not able to explain why some conglomerate firms create exceptional value while others generally suffer from a diversification discount.