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Purpose: The purpose of the paper is twofold: first, to examine whether the progress of strategic management research has been damaged by an excessive focus on statistical significance to the exclusion of substantive significance and second, to provide recommendations for improving research practice toward establishing the substantive significance of empirical findings.

Methodology/Approach: We conduct the same survey described in McCloskey and Ziliak (1996) on a sample of all 41 papers published in Strategic Management Journal during 2007 that use regression methodology. We use the criteria for good science represented by these survey questions as the foundation for our discussion. We present our arguments for the relevance of each of these criteria in strategy research with examples of best practice and provide a detailed analysis of areas of research practice that can be improved with associated recommendations.

Findings: Our survey suggests that there is indeed cause for concern, since 90% of our surveyed papers make no distinction between statistical and economic/substantive significance of their results. At the same time, many of the surveyed papers make some attempt to interpret their results in a substantively meaningful fashion.

Originality/Value of Paper: Our paper addresses a critical set of issues that influence progress in strategic management research. We provide a roadmap for how we can address these issues for progress in our field.

In this paper, we propose a new conceptualization of the purpose of the corporation in relation to its activities. This conceptualization builds upon the existing distinction between the corporation as a legal vehicle and the enterprise as an economic organization, but renews the approach of the enterprise. We argue that the enterprise is a peculiar historical form of economic organization that emerged in the late nineteenth century to not only produce but also create new goods and technologies. This creative purpose involved a new type of managerial authority, not grounded in corporate law, but institutionalized in other branches of law, such as labor law. The legitimacy of the managers relied on the premise that the enterprise’s creative power would be harnessed for collective progress. However, this new view of the enterprise was insufficiently conceptualized in the twentieth century and continued to be governed by standard corporate law. This allowed managers to be seen as agents of shareholders, and the purpose of collective progress to be replaced by the interests of shareholders. Our analysis has important implications for the purpose of the corporation. As enterprises become more innovative and impactful, we argue that they can no longer be governed by traditional corporate law. If the corporation remains the legal cloth for business activities, then its purpose must consider the nature and impacts of these activities. We therefore interpret the new legal forms of purpose-driven corporation as an appropriate framework to restore the enterprise and a collective purpose within corporate law.

Network disaster recovery plans (DRPs) are just emerging as a business issue. The need to make contingency plans in case of a computer disaster, or major disruptions to the network, is a vital part of corporate strategy. Discusses the roles that users, IT management and staff must play. Identifies users as responsible directly for the problem of security and for establishing the levels of security; whereas IT management staff must be responsible for the availability of IT. Highlights what measures can be taken to set up network DRPs, although advises against too complex strategies and plans, and emphasizes easy‐to‐maintain strategies. Concludes that a corporate policy must be developed to accommodate all the changes needed in selecting an appropriate DRP.

Brand equity (BE) can be strengthened by the strategic association of brand heritage (BH) with social media (SM) in business-to-business (B2B) markets.

Qualitative research using cognitive maps.

BH empowers BE and should be explored within B2B communications.

Brand image and other BH dimensions should be measured in next studies.

BH strongly influences SM, especially the fan loyalty, and impacts BE in all dimensions.

Research shows marketing mix impacted, BE reinforcement and willingness to pay a premium price.

Interaction between BH, SM and BE in B2B has not been evaluated yet.

Examines the issue of how variations in language used in advertising affect advertising preference with a sample of bilingual, Korean Americans. Uses past literature to hypothesise that the level of acculturation would moderate ethnic consumers’ preference for advertisements in English versus their native language. Extends previous research in the field of ethnic advertising by considering whether findings from studies conducted with Hispanic American consumers are applicable to Asian Americans. Shows that no significant differences were detected in bilingual Korean American preferences for advertisements in which the message was presented in English as compared with those that used Humgul (Korean language) to communicate with the audience. Concludes with suggestions for further research.

In this paper we present a corporate information system for untrained users to search gigabytes of unformatted data using quasi‐natural language and relevance feedback queries. The data can reside on distributed servers anywhere on a wide area network, giving the users access to personal, corporate, and published information from a single interface. Effective queries can be turned into profiles, allowing the system to automatically alert the user when new data are available. The system was tested by twenty executive users located in six cities. Our primary goal in building the system was to determine if the technology and infrastructure existed to make end‐user searching of unstructured information profitable. We found that effective search and user interface technologies for end‐users are available, but network technologies are still a limiting cost factor. As a result of the experiment, we are continuing the development of the system. This article will describe the overall system architecture, the implemented subset, and the lessons learned.

Three years ago, in VINE 54, there was a review of the trends in library automation over the three years prior to that. Now with our grant renewed for a further three years, it seems appropriate to repeat the exercise and to look in brief at the turnkey systems market place and at how that has changed over the three years. One major difference is that now there are additional sources where some of the information is contained at least in part. These are the directory “Library systems: a buyer's guide” by Juliet Leeves, the State of the art report into the applications of new information technologies, and surveys such as those conducted by Chris Batt for public libraries and by Kevin Ellard for COPOL on polytechnics in England and Wales. I have concentrated on the turnkey market for stand‐alone integrated library systems since these have been the dominant factor. Whether they will remain so is open to debate: other factors such as new developments in inhouse systems, as interfacing systems from different vendors, not to mention the crucial area of networks, are bound to be influential in the future.

The Tacoma Public Library is developing a CD‐ROM Public Access Catalog that interfaces to another computer system which supports a circulation system. The concept of a CD‐PAC‐to‐circulation system linkage is simple: off‐load the searching to the PC to minimize the load on the circulation system, and limit the circulation system searching for status information on demand. Related searches should be extremely fast and efficient. Since the CD‐PAC is an intelligent device, it can act as a front‐end processor to the circulation system for database searching. The initial index search, record display, and retrieval are done on the PC, and add no load to the circulation system. Once a specific record has been selected, the CD‐PAC sends to the circulation system the minimal unique key that will facilitate the fastest retrieval of circulation data, or that demands the least system overhead. Sidebars discuss the stand‐alone CD‐ROM and the library marketplace, and future technologies.

Establishing information security in a downsized multi‐platform, multi‐vendor, enterprise‐wide information technology environment is emerging as the greatest challenge yet to confront the information security industry. Outlines the problems, describes the ideal solution and suggests some currently possible solutions.

In this study we confirm the often assumed but largely untested belief that entrepreneurs think and behave differently than others. We examine a group of more than 700 nascent entrepreneurs and 400 nonentrepreneurs. We determine the entrepreneurs’ cognitive style propensity for problem solving (Innovator versus Adaptor); we compare their expectations; and, we examine the outcomes (performance and start-up) of their ventures. We find that nascent entrepreneurs are more likely to be overly optimistic Innovators, most people are Adaptors, and oneʼs cognitive style can indeed play a role in the initial development and outcome for the venture, but not always as expected.