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The origin and nature of meaningful, persistent firm-specific differences is a central issue in the study of business strategy. I investigate in this paper the role of characteristics physically external to firms, but embodied in their local geographic areas, in driving differences in firms’ organizing strategies. Specifically, I examine the extent to which location-specific characteristics affect the organization of pharmaceutical firms’ research laboratories bringing both qualitative and quantitative evidence to bear on this issue. Analyses of the histories of several late 19th century drug makers suggest that differences in local institutions, labor markets, and demand structures played important roles in affecting case firms’ strategic evolution. For example, while Mulford (Philadelphia PA) exploited the strength of nearby universities and the city’s public health system in organizing around leading-edge capabilities in bacteriology, Sterling (Wheeling WV) found that its local environment rewarded investments in marketing and distribution. Panel data analysis on a sample of firms from the late 20th century provides complementary evidence, demonstrating that the scientific orientation of modern drug discovery laboratories is positively and significantly correlated with measures of the strength of the local scientific and technical base. Together, these analyses suggest that location-specific characteristics may be important in driving firm heterogeneity and, ultimately, competitive advantage.

This chapter highlights the creation of a STEM Center of Excellence for Active Learning (SCEAL) at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. The overarching goal of the STEM Center is to transform pedagogy and institutional teaching and learning in order to significantly increase the production of high-achieving students who will pursue careers and increase diversity in the STEM workforce. Some of the STEM Center’s efforts to reach its goals included supporting active learning classroom and course redesign efforts along with providing professional development workshops and opportunities to garner funding to cultivate student success projects through the development of an Innovation Ventures Fund. Outcomes from this Center have led to several publications and external grant funding awards to continue implementation, assessment, and refinement of active learning innovations and interventions for STEM student success for years to come.

The Center for Academic Success (CAS) at Louisiana State University (LSU), certified as a Center of Excellence by the National College Learning Center Association, has utilized Supplemental Instruction^© (SI) for the past 20 years to provide student support for historically difficult courses – those courses with D, F, or withdrawal rates of greater than 30%. In this model, peers called “SI leaders” facilitate study sessions outside of class time to help the enrolled students develop effective learning strategies and better understand and master course concepts. SI relies upon collaboration with faculty and is supported by cognitivism and social constructivism learning theories.

Benefits of the successful model include supporting students to become self-directed independent learners, reducing the stigma associated with using academic support and reducing the demands for tutoring. Outcomes observed at LSU include positive correlations between the course-passing rates and six-year graduation rates of women, underrepresented minorities and first-generation college students who participated in SI compared to the peers who participate less frequently and those who do not participate.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc. is a challenge to conventional antitrust analysis. Conventional civil antitrust cases are decided by a preponderance of the evidence. This means that conduct challenged under the rule of reason is only condemned if the conduct resulted in more competitive harm in the actual world than a world without the alleged violation. Under conventional analysis, the intent of the parties also plays only a supporting role in determining whether the conduct was anticompetitive. A holder of a valid patent has a right to exclude others practicing the patented technology. And, the patent holder is not assumed to have market power because it expended resources in maintaining exclusionary rights. Actavis creates doubts about these propositions in circumstances beyond the “reverse” payment settlement of a patent suit that may have delayed an alleged infringer market entry. This chapter explores whether applying Actavis logic to antitrust litigation can result in condemnation of practices where there is little chance of an anticompetitive effect, where the patent holder likely has a valid and infringed patent, where there is little reason to believe that the patent holder has market power, and where only one party, or no parties, to an agreement have an anticompetitive intent. This chapter also investigates whether Actavis creates new problems with standing analysis, damages calculations, and the balancing of efficiencies against anticompetitive effects. Nevertheless, the lower courts have begun to extend the logic of Actavis. This is apparent in the condemnation of no-Authorized-generic settlements.

Inquiry-based learning is a fruitful way to create “effective, independent learners” (Baird, 1988, p. 142) and set up the pattern for lifelong learning, but inquiry skills demand significant practice to master and incorporate in both academic and personal dimensions. The Bachelor of Health Sciences Honours program at McMaster University provides a model of an undergraduate program that balances knowledge and the complex transferrable skills associated with inquiry. By devoting considerable resources to the first year experience and integrating the curriculum so that meaningful use is made of the inquiry skills developed there, the program fosters the curiosity, confidence, and capability of students. The curriculum demonstrably meets or exceeds the standards for quality set out by governing bodies within and outside of the university known as the degree level expectations. The current chapter provides an overview of the program, including lessons for anyone engaged in curriculum design that builds undergraduate research capability.

In this chapter, the authors describe and explain how executive management enacts strategizing routines to strengthen their entrepreneurial agility, as a precondition to make new strategic moves possible. The authors contribute to the routine dynamics research program, by showing how the dynamics of routines, in a strategy context, shape strategic outcomes: the authors describe four strategizing routines – distancing, evaluating, experimenting, and re-assembling – as a particular promising focus for routine and strategy research. The authors discuss executive management’s enactment of such routines as part of their strategy work. The authors show how routine enactment makes entrepreneurial agility and new strategic moves possible. By exploring the dynamics of strategizing routines and their impact on strategic outcomes, the authors at the same time benefit from and contribute to the strategy-as-practice research program. Empirically, the authors study how the executive management of Hoechst AG successfully made unthinkable new strategic moves possible, discussable, and realizable in the context of the corporation’s strategic transformation between 1994 and 1996.

This chapter provides a review of the Chinese government policies that promote the internationalization of the Chinese currency, the renminbi or RMB, which include the RMB swap arrangements between the central banks, trading of the RMB across different markets, and establishment of the dim sum bond market. In particular, we update the development of the dim sum bond market in terms of the size, amount of the issues, coupon and tenor characteristics, issuers, and investment bankers of dim sum bond issues. The dim sum bond market appears to be a promising global asset class for investors.