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· Chapter 2 introduces the concept of big data/data analytics—a technology that affects multiple segments of the general environment. A highly visible component of the digital economy, such technologies are altering the way business is conducted in a wide variety of sectors—government, industry, and commerce. We provide a detailed example of how it has been used to monitor the expenditures of federal, state, and local governments.

· Chapter 3 includes a discussion on program hiring to build human capital. With program hiring, firms offer employment to promising graduates without knowing which specific job the employee will fill. Firms employing this tactic believe it allows them to meet changing market conditions by hiring flexible employees who desire a dynamic setting. We also include a discussion of how Coca Cola is leveraging data analytics to produce orange juice that is consistent over time and can be tailored to meet local market tastes.

· Chapter 4 discusses research that has found that millennials have a different definition of diversity and inclusion than prior generations. That is, millennials look upon diversity as the blending of different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives within a team, i.e., cognitive diversity. Earlier generations—the X-Generation and the Boomer Generation— tended to view diversity as a representation of fairness and protection for all regardless of gender, race, religion, etc. An important implication is that while many millennials believe that differences of opinion enable teams to excel, relatively few of them feel that their leaders share this perspective. The chapter also provides a detailed example of how data analytics can increase employee retention.

· Chapter 5 examines how firms can create strong competitive positions in platform markets. In platform markets, firms act as intermediaries between buyers and sellers. Success is largely based on the ability of the firm to be the de facto provider of this matching process. We discuss several actions firms can take to stake out a leadership position in these markets. In addition, we include a discussion of research outlining how firms can develop organizational structures and policies to draw on customer interactions to improve their innovativeness. The key finding from this research is that it is critical for firms to empower and incent front line employees to look for and share innovative insights they take away from customer interactions.

· Chapter 6 includes a section on different forms of strategic alliances and when they are most appropriate. In discussing the differences between contractual alliances, equity alliances, and joint ventures, students can better understand the range of options they

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have to build cooperative arrangements with other firms and the factors that influence the choice among these options.

· Chapter 7 explains two important areas in which culture can play a key role in managing organizations across national boundaries. First, we discuss situations in which it is best to not adapt one’s company culture—even if it conflicts with the culture country in which the firm operates. We provide the example of Google’s human resource policy of providing employees with lots of positive feedback during performance reviews. Why? Google feels that this is a key reason for its outstanding success in product innovation. Second, we address some of the challenges that managers encounter when they negotiate contracts across national boundaries. We discuss research that identifies several elements of negotiating behaviors that help to identify cultural differences.

· Chapter 8 identifies factors investors can examine when evaluating the risk of crowdfunded ventures. When firms raise funds through crowdfunding, they often have limited business and financial histories and haven’t yet built up a clear reputation. This raises the risks investors face. We identify some factors investors can look into to clarify the worthiness and risk of firms who are raising financial resources through crowdfunding.

· Chapter 9 discusses the increasingly important role that activist investors have in the corporate governance of publicly-traded firms. Activist investors are investors who take small but significant ownership stakes in large firms, typically 5 to 10 percent ownership, and push for major strategic changes in the firm. These activist investors are often successful, winning 70 percent of the shareholder votes they champion and have forced the exit of leaders of several large firms. Additionally, we discuss a corner of Wall Street where women dominate, as corporate governance heads at major institutional investors. These institutional investors hold large blocks of stock in all major corporations. As a result, these female leaders are in a position to push for governance changes in these corporations to make them more responsive to the concerns of investors, such as increasing opportunities for female corporate leaders.

· Chapter 10 discusses how firms can organize to improve their innovativeness. Often managers look to outside partners to learn new skills and access new knowledge to improve their innovative performance. We discuss research that suggests that efforts to look to create novel combinations of knowledge within the firm offer greater potential to generate stronger innovation performance. The key advantage of internal knowledge is that it is proprietary and potentially more applicable to the firm’s innovation efforts.

· Chapter 11 includes discussions of multiple firms that have changed their leadership and control systems to respond to challenges they’ve faced. This includes Marvin Ellison’s efforts to revive JC Penney after prior bad leadership, Target’s efforts to change its supply chain system to meet changing customer demands, and the decision procedures JC Johnson Inc. has put in place to improve its ability to lead its industry in sustainability efforts.

· Chapter 12 highlights the potential to learn from innovation failures. Too often, firms become risk averse in their behavior in order to avoid failure. We discuss how this can result in missing truly innovative opportunities. Drawing off research by Julian Birkinshaw, we discuss the need for firms to get their employees to take bold innovation actions and steps firms can take to learn from failed innovation efforts to be more effective in future innovation efforts. We also discuss research on the consequences of losing star innovation employees. Firms worry about the loss of key innovation personnel, but research shows that while there are costs associated with the loss of star

PREFACE

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des13959_fm_i-xliv.indd xi 01/04/18 10:01 AM