Prof. Cristian Dezsõ (University of Maryland)
Programm
- Datum: 28.05.2008
Zeit: 13-15 Uhr
Ort: Seminarraum 406, Schackstraße 4, 4. Etage
Technology Adoption with Multiple Alternative Designs and the Option to Wait (mit Luis Cabral, NYU)
Technology adoption is one the most important elements of a firm’s strategy. In this paper, we address an essential, yet largely overlooked, question in the literature: What should a firm do when faced withseveral alternative proprietary designs of a new technology? In our base case we assume there are two technology designs, each described by an independent stochastic process of technology evolution. We show that, in equilibrium, the buyer chooses the leading technology design as soon as the discounted payoff from doing so is positive. Early adoption occurs despite the fact there is an option value of waiting (and thus obtaining better information about the evolution of each technology design). In fact, any potential benefits from waiting and observing which technology design evolves faster would be taken away in the form of higher licensing fees. We consider a variety of extensions that allows us to evaluate the robustness of our “early adoption” result.
- Datum: 29.05.2008
Zeit: 17-19 Uhr
Ort: Seminarraum 307, Schackstraße 4, 3. Etage
Girl Power: Female Participation in Top Management and Firm Performance
We study female participation in top management. Female participation below the CEO level has a positive association with several measures of firm performance but having a female CEO has either a neutral or negative association. The positive associations below the CEO level are entirely driven by firms pursuing an “innovation intensive” strategy, where collaboration among colleagues may be especially important. Our results are thus consistent with the notion of a “female management style” that enhances the performance of senior management by facilitating collegiality but is rendered less effective by the leadership attributes of the CEO position.