Thèses (D.B.A.)--Université de Sherbrooke and Université du Quebec a Trois-Rivieres (Canada), 2006. / Titre de l'écran-titre (visionné le 1 février 2007). In ProQuest dissertations and theses. Publié aussi en version papier.

To understand what the future requirements of education are to be, one must examine education from a new perspective. One of the keys in understanding that the challenge facing education is recognizing that it is, in fact, a tool of the industrial world and is therefore tied to its capitalistic economic vision. The vision for the future is one in which the new world order is based on an age of ideas and information. Institutions of education have, over the years, evolved and emerged as the primary force in the transmittal of ideas. In this process of transmittal, it assigns value to those ideas which further the interest, goals, and means of western economics (capitalism). Future policy issues should address global economic concerns. Education must take into consideration the role that economics plays in the development of its curriculum. Furthermore, it must assume a position of leadership in the information age, where the validity of ideas will drive economy.

By most conventional measures of corporate success (revenue, market capitalization, global brand growth, etc.) businesses operating as multi-sided platforms (MSPs) and their associated ecosystems constitute the majority of the fastest growing organizations in the global economy. In the strategy and economics fields there is a burgeoning literature related to MSP-governed businesses and their ecosystems primarily focused on pricing, growth, governance, and competitive considerations. Yet, in organizational studies and innovation there is a dearth of research analyzing characteristics of these businesses and their complementors and the managerial challenges they present. More specifically, an increasing number of mature incumbent organizations in a variety of industries are starting to operate in environments in which they either need to operate as MSP-based businesses, or join ecosystems governed by them to compete successfully and grow. This dissertation consists of two book chapters and one empirical project aligned with one overarching question: As information constraints approach zero and MSP-governed businesses and their complementors become increasingly more prevalent in the global economy, what are the strategic and organizational issues affecting incumbent organizations that choose to become MSPs or compete as complementors to them? The first chapter, incorporating a forthcoming book chapter (see Altman, Nagle, & Tushman, 2015) is a theoretical study exploring the effects on management research and organizations when the costs of information processing, storage, and communication approach zero and organizations engage with a wide range of communities. As these information constraints are reduced, one effect is that MSP-based businesses and ecosystems thrive and impact large sectors of the economy. Thus, this chapter sets the context for the dissertation as it outlines the environment in which MSP-governed businesses and their complementors operate and introduces theoretical challenges posed by the growth of these networks. The second chapter, an empirical paper, focuses on challenges encountered by incumbent organizations joining MSP-governed ecosystems as complementors. This project is a multi-year qualitative inductive field-based research study analyzing the transition of a well-known consumer technology product provider as it joins a powerful MSP-based ecosystem. The accessory organization enters an asymmetric power relationship encountering, and responding to, multiple types of dependencies. I identify three types of dependencies faced by the organization: technological, information, and values-based, and three response strategies the organization deploys: compliance, influence, and innovation. I suggest that these dependencies and responses are related to, but distinct from, extant work on power and dependencies. I also classify three phases of complementor maturity through which the organization passes. I induce a grounded theory model identifying relationships between the concepts and discuss theoretical implications. The final chapter, also a forthcoming book chapter (see Altman & Tripsas, 2015), addresses organizational identity implications of transitions mature organizations undergo as they shift from product to MSP-based business models in which business considerations include network effects and interdependence. This chapter explains that organizational identity may affect, and may be affected by, product-to-platform transitions. It suggests that an organization must question its identity and modify it to be consistent with its re-defined business model.

This dissertation is comprised of three studies investigating sources of variation in firm practices. Firm practices may differ both due to differences in the practices firms choose to implement – different types of firms may make different selections – and due to differences in implementation success of similar practices – variation in internal firm conditions may result in differences in otherwise similar practices. The first essay examines a difference in firm practice selection whereas the second and third essays examine differences in firm practice implementation. Essay one considers how ownership impacts the management practices implemented by firms, specifically considering the founder CEO firm’s adoption of management practices as compared to firms with other owner-manager types. Founder CEO firms adopt fewer management practices than firms under other ownership structures, both due to a lack of awareness about the lower quality of their practices and due to greater value placed on the nonpecuniary benefit provided by potentially less efficient but power-preserving practices. Essays two and three use data from a Fortune 100 retail chain that implemented a new restocking practice across a subset of its retail stores. Essay two examines how prior experience with the old restocking practice impacts a team’s ability to perform and learn the new restocking practice. Teams with greater exposure to the old practice perform worse at first – due to experiencing a competency trap – but then improve more rapidly – due to greater efficiency of communication and coordination. Essay three focuses on the impact of pilot use when rolling out the new practice, proposing that a main function of pilot implementations is to allow for vicarious learning opportunities for stores subsequently implementing the practice. The relative performance of the pilot stores as well as the contextual similarity of these stores to the stores learning from them matters a great deal. Nonpilot stores increasingly rely only on their own experiences rather than the pilots’ experiences in instances where the learning opportunities become less obvious.

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Size premium puzzle, also known as the size effect, is one of the most studied anomalies in asset pricing literature. It refers to the observation that, on average, smaller firms have higher risk-adjusted returns than larger firms over a long period of time. While many studies have debated the existence of the size effect, the question of why it exists has become a subject of heated debate. Thus, this dissertation aims to examine if previously overlooked factors can, at least partially, explain the size effect. Essay 1 examines if merger and acquisition activity can explain a part of the size effect. I find that merger and acquisition activity explain a part of the size effect. The size effect is found to be stronger during merger waves but is not consistent across industries. Further, the size effect tends to be stronger when acquisition activity is concentrated among smaller firms. Essay 2 investigates if expectational errors explain the higher return of small firms. Several empirical studies show that stocks that investors underestimate yield higher returns. However, I do not find support for the underestimation explanation in explaining the higher returns of small firms. Instead, I find that investors are overly optimistic about the growth of small firms. In essay 3, I examine if the size effect can be explained by perceived risk. Using the implied cost of capital (ICC) as a measure of perceived risk, I find that small firms are perceived to be riskier by the market, and the perceived risk explains the size effect.

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My dissertation consists of three essays. The first paper explores the determinants of the share of workers' compensation benefits provided by self-insured employers over the period 1983-2000. We examine hypotheses that the self-insurers' share is determined by industry affiliation, price level, firm size, along with statewide levels of loss severity and frequency. Prior studies have produced mixed results concerning whether self-insurers are primarily high-risk or low-risk. Our panel regression analysis indicates that a positive and statistically reliable relationship exists between self-insurance and the health services sector which is characterized by high nonfatal incidence rates. Our findings put forth evidence that employers in the high-risk health industry are very likely to self-insure. The second article explores the determinants of self-insurance for workers' compensation liability by hospitals. Using cross-sectional hospital data in Pennsylvania, this study examines firm-specific characteristics of self-insurers. The logistic regressions suggest a link between the control type of a hospital and self-insurance. Nonprofit hospitals are more likely to self-insure, while for-profit hospitals prefer market insurance. Aside from large size, self-insured hospitals are associated with concentration of businesses within a state and the self-insurance pattern of their competitors. The prevalence of self-insurance among hospitals provides evidence that high-risk employers tend to choose alternative risk transfer. The decision to self-insure can be isolated from residual market arguments. The third investigates whether insurance activities (underwriting and agency) enhance the financial performance of financial holding companies (FHCs). Stiroh and Rumble (2006) and Yeager et al. (2007) have argued that extension of banking to non-banking activities provides no diversification benefits for FHCs eligible to consolidate banking and insurance services. Using quarterly panel observations of 510 FHCs over the period 2003-2005, we obtain two main results: First, when we employ the aggregate non-interest income as a measure of expansion, risk-adjusted return of FHCs is positively associated with a shift toward non-interest activities. Second, when we disaggregate the sample by FHC size, risk-adjusted return is positively associated with insurance agency activities in small-sized FHCs and positively associated with insurance underwriting activities in large-sized FHCs. An implication of our finding is that both small and large FHCs can reap diversification benefits as long as they choose the right niche. / Business Administration