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The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework for predicting the next period financial behavior of bank mergers within a statistical-oriented setting.

Bank mergers are modeled combining a discrete variant of the Smoluchowski coagulation equation with a reverse engineering method. This new approach allows to compute the correct merging probability values via the construction and solution of a multi-variable matrix equation. The model is tested on real financial data relative to US banks collected from the National Information Centre.

Bank size distributions predicted by the proposed method are much more adherent to real data than those derived from the estimation method. The proposed method provides a valid alternative to estimation approaches while overcoming some of their typical drawbacks.

Bank mergers are interpreted as stochastic processes focusing on two main parameters, that is, number of banks and asset size. Future research could expand the model analyzing the micro-dynamic taking place behind bank mergers. Furthermore, bank demerging and partial bank merging could be considered in order to complete and strengthen the proposed approach.

The implementation of the proposed method assists managers in making informed decisions regarding future merging actions and marketing strategies so as to maximize the benefits of merging actions while reducing the associated potential risks from both a financial and marketing viewpoint.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study where bank merging is analyzed using a dynamic stochastic model and the merging probabilities are determined by a multi-variable matrix equation in place of an estimation procedure.

This chapter applies Axelrod’s (1976) and Huff’s (Huff, A. S. (1990). Mapping strategic thought. In A. S. Huff (Ed.), Mapping strategic thought (pp. 88–115). Chichester: Wiley; Jenkins & Huff, 2002) approach to mapping strategic thought (causal mapping) to (1) categorize how manufacturers of new fast moving consumer goods (FMCGs) may respond to environmental feedback to their decisions and (2) assess the effectiveness of alternative implemented decisions in assisting organizational growth. The manufacturing of new FMCGs requires timely product modifications in the assumptions of entrepreneur thinking in response to environmental responses/non-responses to decisions/actions of the manufacturing enterprise. A detailed example of causal mapping analysis is presented for a manufacturing entrepreneurial case study; the example covers processes linking events, decisions, and activities in business start-up, growth, and failure of the enterprise. The chapter closes by suggesting that causal mapping analysis is a valuable tool for advancing theory construction from case study research. The chapter provides a research plan for future reports applying causal mapping in retailing entrepreneur studies.

This case study research report aims to include collecting additional field interviews with the original and additional executives participating in the original case study (on the Zaplet software applications firm) to enhance the interpretations by the original case study investigators as well as add‐in downstream events occurring after the original report. The focus of the study is to increase descriptive knowledge and understanding of innovation and diffusion processes in developing high‐tech disruptive software technologies.

The study includes an application of the long‐interview method and reinterpretation of original case data along with preparing and interpreting decision system analysis and chronological maps.

The reinterpretation and expansion of the original case study illustrate dramatic revisions in plans and implementing new applications following positive and negative responses by third‐parties and lead‐user customers to alpha and beta designs. Concrete field trials occur frequently in shaping where and how the firm goes about changing its direction. Third‐parties play critical roles in multiple time periods in shaping the firm's new product development direction.

The case study reanalysis and expansion are generalizable to innovation and diffusion theory and not to a specific population of firms.

The paper illustrates the wisdom of Tom Peter's dictum, “Put it to tin quickly” and Dwight Eisenhower's focus on improvising, “The plan is nothing, planning is everything.”

Formal sensemaking of what happened helps to destroy the myth that executives must have the resources before innovating. Resources follow vision and action (implementing) is the hidden and great lesson of this paper – what Tom Peters means when he writes about the value in creating a “skunk works” – using “borrowed” time, material, places, and creative juices to make things happen.

The most significant event for the School has been the announcement of the creation of the National Centre for Management Research and Development. The Centre is due to open in 1986 and will provide research facilities for up to 20 major projects designed to improve the competitiveness of Canadian business practices.

The psychological analysis of strategic management issues has gained a great deal of momentum in recent years. Much can be learned by entering the black box of strategic thinking of senior executives and bring new insights on how they see, make sense of, and interpret their everyday strategic experiences. This chapter will focus on a powerful cognitive mapping tool called the Repertory Grid Technique and demonstrate how it has been used in the strategy literature along with how a new and more refined application of the technique can enhance the elicitation of complex strategic cognitions for strategy and Board of Directors research.

The parenting styles, or perhaps lack thereof, of Ambridge families is a much-talked about topic among The Archers listeners. This has been brought into keen focus recently with the parental role in, and reaction to, Ed and Emma Grundy's separation, and the intra- and inter-family dynamics of the Archers clans brought about by Peggy Woolley's Ambridge Conservation Trust. This chapter presents an Archers Assembly, based on the Citizens’ Assembly model, to pass judgement on the parenting styles of the matriarchs and family heads of key Ambridge clans. The Archers Assembly crowdsourced (through the Academic Archers Facebook group) considerations on: The Matriarchs, Peggy and Gill Archer; David and Ruth Archer; Pat and Tony Archer; Susan and Neil Carter; Jenny and Brian Aldridge; and Clarrie and Eddy Grundy. The chapter offers the evidence on each set, with a list of ‘for’ and ‘against’ cases, and quotes, from respondents.

In a knowledge-based economy, employees’ perception of psychological safety in their wok unit is critical for group conflict. The purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating role of psychological safety between the predictors (i.e. organizational trust and empowering leadership) and the outcome variable, group conflict.

Data was drawn from 633 employees from a global automobile company headquartered in South Korea. Construct validity of the measurement model was examined using a confirmatory factor analysis. The hypothesized model was tested by a structural equation modeling and the bootstrap analysis.

Organizational trust and empowering leadership accounted for 68% of the variance in employees’ psychological safety. The three antecedents (i.e. organizational trust, empowering leadership and psychological safety) explained 20% of the variance in group conflicts. Psychological safety significantly and fully mediated the relationship between organizational trust and group conflict and the relationship between empowering leadership and group conflict.

Human resources and organization development professionals can help employees feel more psychologically safe in an organization by developing empowering leaders and making more trustworthy organizational culture. When employees perceive a high level of psychological safety, they are likely to feel less conflict in their team.

This study examined the antecedents and consequences of psychological safety of knowledge workers in a non-Western cultural context. Psychological safety played a pivotal role as a mediator. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that empirically found the direct link between organizational trust and psychological safety and the relationship between empowerment leadership and psychological safety.

The purpose of this paper is to use exchange rate theory to compare how white-collar offenders and property offenders rank the severity of various correctional sanctions.

The authors use survey data from 160 inmates incarcerated for white-collar and property crimes in a Midwestern state to compare how white-collar inmates differed from property inmates in ranking the goals of prison and the punitiveness of prison as compared to other alternatives.

White-collar offenders were no different than property offenders in terms of their assessment of the punitiveness of prison compared to the punitiveness of the four sanctions under consideration here. White-collar offenders were significantly more likely than property offenders to believe that the goal of prison is to rehabilitate rather than deter individuals from further crime.

Because the authors defined white-collar offenders by their crime of incarceration, they may have captured offenders who are not truly white-collar offenders. Focusing on offenders who were in prison did not allow them to fully examine whether similarities between white-collar and property offenders can be attributed to adjustment to prison or some other variable.

Alternative sanctions may be useful in punishing white-collar offenders in a less expensive manner than prison. Results suggest white-collar offenders may be more amenable to rehabilitation than property offenders and may not experience prison much differently than other types of offenders.

This research is important because it is the first of its kind to compare white-collar offenders’ views about the punitiveness of prison and the goals of incarceration with those of property offenders.

Discusses ecology and marketing, showing that while ecology may not provide a methodology for marketing, spatial science and systems theory provide findings which may prove to be of importance with regard to marketing. Maintains that ecology is criticised both for its hazy definition and its approach of argument by analogy. Explains that emerging patterns can give clues to the multi‐dimensional environmental processes affecting human decisions. Documents that the relevance of geography to marketing may, therefore, be great even though that of ‘human ecology’ as traditionally defined may be just an illusion.

Aims to map business‐to‐business strategic actions to illustrate how manufacturers and resellers of new fast moving consumer goods interact when responding to environmental feedback to their decisions and to assess the effectiveness of alternative implemented decisions in assisting organizational growth.

This report presents a detailed example of causal mapping analysis for a manufacturing entrepreneurial case study; the example covers processes linking events, decisions, and activities in business start‐up, growth, and failure of the enterprise.

For the case study illustrating the mapping approach, between the start‐up to the demise stages a shift does occur in the number of decision areas judged very good to very bad; for example, product design decisions shift from very good to remarkably good to very bad among the three stages. Pricing strategy was judged very bad consistently across the three stages.

For research on entrepreneur behavior, additional work on inter‐coder reliability is needed to confirm the consistency of both creating concepts and coding linkages in such maps. Detailed causal maps are needed in large samples of entrepreneur case studies to test the propositions. The application presented here is exploratory only. Causal mapping analysis represents a tool useful in case study research and theory construction from such case study data and such analysis deserves wider use among researchers desiring to open up research in decision making.

What really is happening and why? To help in answering, mapping thought‐decisions‐outcome dynamics over several stages of new product innovation and diffusion occurring among manufacturers and resellers provides an explicit sensemaking approach for executives.