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We argue that the stakeholder and CSR literature can benefit from more systematic thinking about ownership. We discuss general notions of ownership in the economics and legal literature and the entrepreneurial notion of ownership we have developed in prior work. On this basis, we argue that stakeholder theory needs to deal more systematically with ownership as an economic function that can be exercised with greater or lesser ability, may be complementary to other economic functions, and works better when assigned to homogeneous groups. Some stakeholder groups are likely to lack what we call “ownership competence,” even if they have made relationship-specific investments, in part because of a diversity of interests. We also discuss CSR from the perspective of ownership and support Friedman’s original position, but with a twist. The point of Friedman’s paper is not that firms “should” maximize profits, but that managerial pursuit of “socially responsible” activities in a discretionary way imposes costs on owners. We suggest this problem is exacerbated with entrepreneurial managers who can devise new ways to prop up their self-interested actions with new creative CSR initiatives.

In both Britain and the USA, the majority of the shares in quoted companies are owned by institutional shareholders such as pension funds and insurance companies. But, in most cases these major shareholders are “passive”, that is they prefer not to become involved in the management of the companies in which they invest – unless there is a crisis. By this time unfortunately it is often too late to prevent their shareholders or pensioners from losing money. In this article Rolf Carlsson describes how the Wallenberg family through their holding company Investor AB have helped a number of Swedish companies to become world leaders by working with their managers as active investors. He tells the story of ABB and L.M. Ericsson but the Wallenberg sphere of influence has also included Atlas Copco, SAAB Scania, SKF, Swedish Match, Alfa Laval, Stora and Electrolux. Also he explains how the Wallenberg family evolved the competencies and structures which they needed to fulfil their role as an active investor. These competencies included: choosing the right businesses in which to invest; “meta‐management” – recruiting and appointing the right chief executives; “legitimization” – building the Wallenberg reputation and good name in Swedish society and internationally by pursuing socially responsible and ethical policies; and nurturing corporations so they can become global leaders. The family works through two key structures: Investor AB – an investment company which has a board of non‐executive directors and two executive vice chairmen most of whom are experienced CEO’s from industry and commerce; and independent company boards, with strong CEO’s – which they change as necessary to ensure that they have the competencies required to deliver the agreed strategies. The Wallenberg’s approach to active ownership is entrepreneurial: “the need for incessant renewal”.

The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of the relationship between firm-level governance mechanisms and firm performance using a contingency framework. The contingency framework is based on an integration of agency theory, stewardship theory, resource dependence theory and stakeholder theory of firm governance.

The authors test the arguments on a sample of all the listed firms on the New Zealand Stock Exchange between 2004 and 2007. Given the longitudinal nature of the data, the authors employ random effects, generalized least square estimation to run the regression models.

The authors find that the presence of internal directors, CEO duality, board size and presence of professional directors leads to superior firm performance. A lack of ownership concentration leads to agency problems resulting in inferior performance. However, the positive effect of board independence on firm performance reduces in firms that have a high-ownership concentration. Additionally, a high-ownership concentration attenuates the positive effects of board size and board competence.

This study helps reconcile some of the conflicting findings on firm governance-performance relationship. As the findings suggest, the effectiveness of a particular governance mechanism (such as board members) may depend on the presence or absence of another governance mechanism (such as ownership concentration). The integrative, multi-theoretic model that the authors propose in this paper is a unique contribution to the governance literature.

The advent of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communities and review sites has strongly affected the tourism industry, changing the way hotels and accommodations build credibility and a good image. Few studies have tested, among eWOM communities, the predictors and factors that directly affect positive eWOM reviews. Using a directory of Spanish hotels in TripAdvisor, the purpose of this paper is to critically discuss and examine the predictors of positive eWOM, from the hoteliers’ perspective.

After the literature review on eWOM, hypotheses regarding predictors of positive eWOM were developed. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted to empirically validate the relation between hotel and personal characteristics and positive eWOM among a population of 335 hotels.

Results suggest that commitment and competence are factors affecting positive eWOM. The study found that hoteliers do not perceive hotel characteristics (category, size, and type of ownership) or the use of the review site as predictors of positive valence. Instead, they perceive commitment and competence as the main predictors.

The identification of the predictors of positive valence is important to get better eWOM valence. It would allow hotels to improve some factors that affect positive eWOM. In this way, the hotel resources and efforts would be better targeted.

The identification of the predictors of positive valence is important to get better eWOM valence. It would enable hotels to improve some factors and characteristics that affect positive eWOM. In this way, the hotel resources and efforts would be better targeted.

This paper investigates the factors affecting positive reviews on hotels, from the hoteliers’ perception. The study will help researchers to understand positive eWOM formation. Moreover, this study will provide marketers with information on how to improve efforts to obtain positive reviews.

The purpose of this paper is to explore drivers of alliance formation in a specialized supply chain from a manager’s perspective, focussing on firm-specific resources, resources embedded in inter-firm relationships and capabilities under the control of the focal firm.

This paper focusses on the resource-based view to obtain insights from the analysis of a manager survey conducted in Canada’s beef sector, applying a logistic regression approach to study alliance formation.

In identifying significant roles for resource richness and diversification of resource usage, the analysis highlights the importance of resource characteristics underlying factor market imperfections as drivers of alliance formation in a single primary input supply chain. The results suggest that resource heterogeneity is important for alliance formation and organizational success in specialized supply chains.

If previous alliance-related experience of managers, controlled for in the underlying cross-sectional survey, serves as an approximation for persistent unobservables impacting the alliance formation decision, we may face spurious state-dependence.

Managers interested in building compatible alliances in specialized single primary input supply chains may benefit from an improved understanding of the differential role of resource characteristics and resource heterogeneity for alliance formation, as these can function as a source of competitive advantage.

The analysis provides new insights from an individual manager’s perspective on alliance formation drivers in a specialized agri-food supply chain, thereby solidifying extant findings on alliance formation obtained in other sectors. The study contributes to the understanding of the role of resources in alliance formation with regard to prior relationship experience, resource heterogeneity and thus causal ambiguity, thereby also contributing to the debate of the role of relational capabilities vs firm-internal resources for sustained competitive advantage.

Ashworth Hospital has undertaken a management development program for 80 first‐line and middle managers, at the centre of which is the concept of empowerment. To avoid the pitfall, which many other such programs have fallen into, of paying lip‐service to the notion of empowerment, a “Project” has been established entitled “MORALE”. The project begins and ends with an evaluation emphasis on “M” for mentorship and “E” for empowerment. Sandwiched between these interdependent focuses are, “O” for ownership, “R” for responsibility, “A” for accountability, and “L” for learning, these being the accepted prerequisites for the success of empowered managers. Focusses on the delivery team′s belief that the effective development of managers, and their associated organizational benefits, can best be achieved through implementing strategies specifically designed to help empower them. Empowering managers is about helping them to take ownership of their jobs so that they can take personal and collaborative interest in improving the performance of the hospital.

In recent years, it has become more and more important to recognize people’s characteristics which are no longer “immutable”. Hence the path followed with competences, the approach in the organizational world called “the competence based approach”. “Employability” highlights a critical point emerging right at the time when the deterministic and mechanistic approach, typical of the traditional job market’s “demand‐offer” relationship must give way to better differentiated approaches, in which symbolic, cultural, social and value variables are becoming fundamental. The issue of competences, which, with different approaches, has emerged in the organizational world, can be easily related to the problem of employability. It is becoming more and more urgent to be able to identify the ownership of specific competences and their implementation, at a given time. New professionalism makes it necessary for people and organizations to understand what kind of “behavioural language” will have an effective impact on fast changing situations and scenarios.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how Big Data can be used in project evaluations.

The study is based on literature research and interviews with 15 professionals in IT, project and asset management and government agencies. The authors discuss and illustrate what data that can be used for project evaluations and discuss potential obstacles.

New data is creating new opportunities to analyse a phenomenon based on different types of data. Interesting data categories include: internet traffic, movement-related data, physical environment data and data in organisational internal systems. The authors show how these data categories can be applied in project evaluations.

Big Data gives an opportunity to add quantitative data in ex post evaluations. Use of Big Data can serve as a step towards a stronger technology focus in evaluations of projects.

There are major advantages in using Big Data, increasing the opportunities to find indicators that are relevant when a project is evaluated.

Possible problematic issues related to use of Big Data that are addressed in the study include: availability, applicability, relevance, privacy policy, ownership, cost and competence. The study indicates that none of the challenges need to hinder use of Big Data when evaluating projects, provided that the issues are properly managed.

The study illustrates how Big Data can be applied in project management research.

As companies grow and increase the number of products they have on offer, they generally change and adapt their organizational structures, in order to arrange their resources and product mix in ways that will create value. We analyze various corporate structures that have been adopted by U.S., European, and Japanese companies, in the context of the resource‐based view of the firm. These corporate structures include functional, divisional, conglomerate diversification, core competence‐based diversification, and keiretsu. We also identify an emerging structure. This recent development is a network of alliances, aimed at pursuing economies of scale, scope, and speed.