Innovation-focused co-creation between companies and individual external contributors is accompanied by the challenge of managing intellectual property (IP). The existing literature presents scattered evidence of various elements of the arrangements adopted by companies to manage their IP (such as a high or low degree of IP control, monetary or non-monetary compensation, non-disclosure agreements, additional agreements and the waiver option) in different co-creation settings (including crowdsourcing contests, virtual communities, single expert sessions and lead user workshops). However, the existing literature exhibits little understanding of how particular IP arrangements influence co-creation project performance in specific settings. Drawing upon contingency theory and configurational theory, we provide a framework that explains both the effectiveness of different IP configurations and the moderating role that co-creation settings may have on the relationship between IP arrangements and project performance. By the means of fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) on a sample of 116 co-creation projects, we determine the impact of various IP arrangements on project performance in different co-creation settings, and we show how this effect differs across those settings. Our study also demonstrates that IP matters for success in co-creation, while highlighting the interdependence of multiple elements of IP arrangements and their joint influence on co-creation project performance. Our study thus fills the gap in the literature where previous research failed to embrace the context-dependent and multidimensional effect of IP arrangements on co-creation project performance. Additionally, this study offers best-practice guidelines for managers for designing IP arrangements to meet the specific characteristics of their co-creation projects and to ensure their success.

A single machine scheduling problem with assignable job due dates to minimize total late work has recently been introduced by Mosheiov, Oron, and Shabtay (2021). The problem was proved NP-hard in the ordinary sense, and no solution algorithm was proposed. In this note, we present two pseudo-polynomial dynamic programming algorithms and an FPTAS for this problem. Besides, we introduce a new single machine scheduling problem to minimize maximum late work of jobs with assignable due dates. We develop an O(n log n) time algorithm for it, where is the number of jobs. An optimal solution value of this new problem is a lower bound for the optimal value of the total late work minimization problem, and it is used in the FPTAS.

We investigate the pricing and value creation in private equity-backed buy-and-build (B&B) strategies using a sample of 3399 buyouts between 1997 and 2020 as well as proprietary performance data. We find that private equity firms pay sizable premiums for B&B platforms. The transaction multiples are similar to those paid by strategic acquirers for matched targets. Despite paying high premiums, private equity firms generate above-average equity returns in B&B strategies. This is because of both higher top-line growth and multiple expansion. To back up our empirical results and shed light on decision-making in B&B strategies, we present evidence from the field. Survey results from 32 interviews with private equity managers provide novel insights into B&B rationale, valuation practices, pricing, value creation, acquisition processes and execution.

One of the most known results in the machine scheduling is Lawler’s algorithm to minimize the maximum cost of jobs processed by a single machine subject to precedence constraints. We consider an uncertain version of the same min-max cost scheduling problem. The cost function of each job depends on the job completion time and on an additional generalized numerical parameter, which may be a tuple of parameters. For each job, both, its processing time and the additional parameter are uncertain, only intervals of possible values of these parameters are known. We analyse certain classes of cost functions and develop polynomial algorithms which construct min-max regret solutions. The considered problems cover the most general range of studied cases of interval uncertainty. In the only two papers that present algorithms for minimizing the maximum regret for the problem with uncertain job processing times, the algorithms are based on extremal scenarios, where some uncertain parameters take their maximum values, while all others take their minimum possible values. We show that it is impossible to always limit the search to extremal scenarios. Our approach is based on new ideas different from those underlying previous work. Finally, we show that our approach outperforms all known results for constructing min-max regret solutions for the min-max cost scheduling problem under uncertainty of job processing times.

This research examines the shift from pay secrecy to transparency and seeks to improve the understanding of previously unrecognized negative consequences on job satisfaction. Drawing on undermet expectations research, we propose that shifting toward pay transparency decreases job satisfaction among employees who encounter negative discrepancies between expected and revealed pay standing (undermet pay standing expectations). Using data from field and experimental studies, we tested our hypotheses that episodic envy mediates the effect of undermet pay standing expectations on job satisfaction and that this indirect effect is moderated by victim sensitivity. Study 1 results suggest that undermet pay standing expectations lead to the predicted decrease in job satisfaction through episodic envy. In Study 2, we surveyed employees of a technology company before and after their shift to pay transparency and found partial support for our hypotheses, suggesting that episodic envy mediates the negative effects of undermet pay standing expectations on job satisfaction only for those low in victim sensitivity. Study 3 supported our overall model by illustrating that low victim sensitivity strengthened the negative indirect effects of undermet pay standing expectations on job satisfaction via episodic envy in an experimental study. We then discuss the implications for theory and practice.

Online retailers are increasingly using third-party online marketplaces (e.g., Amazon, Taobao) as an alternative sales channel to their website. While cross-channel sales elasticities have been established for many sales channel combinations (e.g., adding bricks to clicks), we lack an understanding of whether the use of third-party marketplaces grows or cannibalizes a retailer's sales. Practitioners argue that firms can build their e-commerce business through acquiring customers by selling on the marketplace. Indeed, a marketplace could complement a retailer's offering (e.g., acquiring new customer segments), although inventory effects might mitigate this complementarity. Alternatively, cannibalization might occur from losing customers from one's website to the online marketplace. The present research investigates which of the two opposing forces prevails using a time series of category sales data from one of the largest global marketplace sellers. The authors use vector autoregressive modeling to show that marketplace sales increase sales on a retailer's website (0.014% for every 1% in marketplace sales). This effect is strongest for categories with large choice and low product prices. Acquiring customers through the marketplace might be cheaper than through other sources (estimated at 24% of initial sales). However, online retailers should be aware that this strategy strengthens the marketplace and may have potential negative long-term consequences (e.g., through marketplace control of the customer relationship).

We address an optimization problem that arises at seaports where containers are transported between stacking areas and small buffer areas of restricted capacity that are located within the reach of quay cranes. The containers are transported by straddle carriers that have to be routed such that given unloading and loading sequences of the containers at the quay cranes are respected. The objective is to minimize the turnaround times of the vessels. We analyze the problem’s computational complexity, present an integer program, and propose a heuristic framework that is based on decomposing the problem into its routing component and a component that handles the time variables and buffer capacities. The framework is analyzed in computational tests that are based on real-world data. Based on these tests, we analyze the question of whether or not it pays off to deviate from the approach of permanently assigning a fixed number of straddle carriers to each quay crane, which is the strategy that is currently implemented at the port.

This paper examines the relationship between Americanization and CEO pay levels in Europe and how this relationship is moderated by CEO power. Based on neo-institutional theory, our study provides empirical support for a link between Americanization and CEO pay levels. Drawing on a sample of large listed European firms, our results suggest that various dimensions of Americanization, i.e., Americanization of the CEO, of the firm and of the industry, can be associated with higher CEO pay. Combining neo-institutional approaches with managerial power perspectives, we show that Americanization can have an even stronger effect on pay when the CEO is powerful.

We pinpoint the position of the (symmetric) Shapley value within the class of positively weighted Shapley values to their treatment of symmetric versus mutually dependent players. While symmetric players are equally productive, mutually dependent players are only jointly (hence, equally) productive. In particular, we provide a characterization of the whole class of positively weighted Shapley values that uses two standard properties, efficiency and the null player out property, and a new property called superweak differential marginality. Superweak differential marginality is a relaxation of weak differential marginality (Casajus and Yokote, J Econ Theory 167, 2017, 274-284). It requires two players' payoff for two games to change in the same direction whenever only their joint productivity changes, i.e., their individual productivities stay the same. In contrast, weak differential marginality already requires this when their individual productivities change by the same amount. The Shapley value is the unique positively weighted Shapley value that satisfies weak differential marginality.