The Halo effect

I just finished the Chinese version of “The Half Effect”. written by Dr. Phil Rosenzweig.

It’s a great book that pointed out the halo effects from those bestseller business books, such as Search for Excellecnt,  Good to Great, and A to A+, and identified research limits behind those business books.

This book reminds managers not only to read and use those fashion terms, but face the reality of doing business.

It not only showed the halo effects from using case studies,  interview, but also emphasized the importance of using pubic and longitudinal data in studying different companies and industries.  To this aspect, I am far more interesting that how could we do to have a more reliable case study, in spite of using those methods that have higher half effects?

Obviously, I highly recommend this books for those who  want to pursue research work in the fields of management and business studies, this book can show them the research boundary they may encounter and remind them the truth of business world. On the other hand, people interested in exploring the truth behind those business bestsellers should also have fun via reading this book.

Research with relevance to practice

In the latest AMJ(2007, 50(4): 745-782), there is a Editors’ Forum focus on research with relevance to practice.

In this Forum, many scholars propose different ideas to stimulate the balance between rigor and relevance in management research, for example, use executive education as a platform to exchange your research ideas with those experienced participants.

Even senior faculty could bring junior colleagues or doctoral students to the executive education classroom for helping them establish interaction and connection (Tushman & O’ Reilly, 2007),  The suggestion is good and appropriate, but it might be too idealism about people/senior scholars, what if those senior faculty doesn’t will to do that? In that case, doctoral students and junior faculty actually remain on their own to set up such a connection for developing research both with academic rigor and relevance to the field.

Reference

Tushman, M. & O’ Reilly, C. III., 2007. Research and relevance: Implications for Pasteur’s quadrant for doctoral programs  and faculty development, Academy of Management Journal, 50(4): 769-774.

 

Architecture based view

The so called “architecture based view” has mentioned in many Japanese business books. This idea was proposed and developed by Japanese business scholars, mainly those in MMRC, Univ. of Tokyo, but it mainly come from the idea of product architecture discussed in previous Western works.

Except using cases of automobile, software, beverage, and functional chemical and across different countries, new directions of this view could expand into different industries, especially those service oriented ones, and cover new comparison among different countries.

References

青木昌彥，2002，産業アーキテクチャのモジュール化，載於青木昌彥、安藤晴彥 編，2002，モジュール化-新しい産業アーキテクチャの本質，東京: 東洋經濟新報社，頁3-31。

青木昌彥、安藤晴彥 編，2002，モジュール化-新しい産業アーキテクチャの本質，東京: 東洋經濟新報社。

延岡健太郎，2006，MOT “技術経営”入門，東京：日本經濟新聞社。

新宅純二郎，2007，アーキテクチャのポジショニング戦略，載於藤本隆宏、東京大学21世紀COEものづくり経営研究センタ編，ものづくり経営学― 製造業を超える生産思想，東京：光文社，頁35-50。

藤本隆宏，2003，能力構築競争-日本の自動車産業はなぜ強いのか，東京：中央公論新社 。

藤本隆宏，2004，日本のもの造り哲学，東京：日本經濟新聞社。

藤本隆宏，2005，組織能力と製品アーキテクチャ，載於伊丹敬之，藤本隆宏，岡崎哲二，伊藤秀史，沼上幹編，戦略とイノベーション　リーディングス日本の企業システム 第2期第3巻，東京：有斐閣，頁303-331。

藤本隆宏，新宅純二郎 編，2005，中国製造業のアーキテクチャ分析，東京：東洋經濟新報社。

藤本隆宏、東京大学21世紀COEものづくり経営研究センタ 編，2007，ものづくり経営学― 製造業を超える生産思想，東京：光文社。

藤本隆宏、青島矢一、武石彰 編，2001，ビジネス・アーキテクチャ―製品・組織・プロセスの戦略的設計，東京：有斐 閣。

Baldwin, C. Y. & Clark, K. B. 1999. Design rules. MA: MIT Press.

Fine, C. H. 1998. Clockspeed. MA: Perseus Press.

Pil, F. K. & Cohen, S. K. 2006. Modularity: Implications for imitation, innovation, and sustained advantage. Academy of Management Review, 31(4): 995-1011.

Ulrich, K. 1995. The role of product architecture in the manufacturing firm. Research Policy, 24: 419-440.

Yassine, A. A. & Wissmann, L. A. 2007. The implications of product architecture to the firm. System Engineering, 10(2), 118-137.

 

Inside careers-II

Some people asked me why I am so interest about the phenomena of inside career?

I guess that because the influence of sociology of science  I learned by the self reading and phenomena I observed.

What really interest me is the reasoning behind the phenomena of inside career. Why one school like to hire their own doctoral graduates, if the effect of inbreeding is already a well known idea in different fields.

I wonder the premise of “inside careers” imply that ” research output of those graduated from schools that hired  them would be better than those graduated from other schools, otherwise there would not have prompt motivation or incentive to hire those insiders”

Apparently, such a premise can be a hypothesis for further empirical work, but I believe only few people would or dare to do this controversy topic.

In this  kind of research , some  constructs need to be operationalized and clarified before doing empirical works, even I could not capable to outline the possible regression or statistical analysis model here.

e. g.

Dependent variable 

research performance: the number of published articles, but following questions arise, such as is there any difference on publications between insider or those hired from outside?

Independent variables

inside career or not,

Control variables

age of those professor, establishment time  of the hiring school,

In memory of Professor Akio Kameoka

Professor Akio Kameoka was the supervisor of my minor theme research in JAIST.

My minor research topic is a preliminary work about using technology roadmap/roadmapping in the product development. And this work become my conference work in PICMET 2005.

Even I didn’t have meet him as frequent as other students in his lab, but still can feel his passion in academic work and elegant style of tutoring toward students. I also appreciated him to introduce his post doctoral scholar to me, that made me established a good friendship  with another friend from China.

It’s surprise that his retirement from JAIST and passed away in such a short time. I ever wonder that I can say good bye to him while I leave JAIST with my degree. Apparently, I  cannot  do that now.

Rather than simply showing out his previous success career in Toshiba, his enthusiastic  passion  and integrity on academic work gave us a good model both in academic career and personal life.

I know I could not meet him  again. But I know I would remember the moment  I had with him and appreciated what he had told me.

MBA/EMBA

Reference

Gropper, D. M. 2007. Does the GMAT matter for executive MBA students? Some empirical evidence. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 6(2): 206-216.

Safón, A. 2007. Factors that influence recruiters’ choice of B-Schools and their MBA graduates: Evidence and implications for B-schools. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 6(2): 217-233

Some articles for people who want to puruse his/her doctoral studying

I think arguments discussed in Mitchell (2007) could further develop as the benchmark criteria for comparing doctoral programs across different context (countries, disciplines, etc.) And those criteria may also help applicants to pick the program they want to enroll, in spite of the concerning of the financial funding.

For those who concern how to be a laureates in their future, please refer Ford, et al (2006).

Reference

Ford, E. W., et al., 2006. People, place, and life transition: Consequential experiences in the live of management laureates. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 5(4), 408-421.

Mitchell, A. 2007. The academic life: Realistic changes needed for business school students and faculty. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 6(2): 236-251.

It’s important to have a written rule in your program of studying

It should be normal for doctoral programs in most universities to have a handbooks to regulate the writing style about writing doctoral dissertation. However, I can’t find similar handbooks in universities in Japan.

So, what’s the matter for a doctoral program without specifying rules for its dissertation writing?

In that case, once a professor may freely claim different rules on different students, and he/she may claim a work using double spaces is not a good style, students may force to revise his/her work. Since there is only no rule but subjective comments from professors in charge.  students will have no idea whether their works really follow by the rules, especially while they can not be informed before starting their writing.

For example, my work has criticized by different reasons, and one of them was because of using the double space.

 

That experience assure me that how important to find a doctoral program which has  a written document or rules. Otherwise, you will never known whether your work may affect by subjective judgment, in spite of some substantial reversions you need on your work.

People, places, and transitions

This content analysis reassured how people and places are important to scholars’ success in management studies.

That may also explain why picking a proper doctoral program, employers, knowing senior guys, and participating to establish the connections are so important for one’s career.

Reference

Ford, E. .W., Duncan, W. J., Bedeian, A. G., & Ginter, P. M. 2006. People, places, and life transitions: Consequential experiences in the lives of management laureates. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 5(4): 408-421.

Bringing history back

References

Fruin, W. M. 2007. Brining the world (back) into international business. Journal of International Business Studies, 38(2): 353-356.

Jones, G. & Khanna, T. 2006. Bringing history (back) into international business. Journal of International Business Studies, 37(4): 453-488.

Morck, R. & Yeung, B. 2007 . History in perspective: comments on Jones and Khanna ‘Bringing history (back) into international business’, Journal of International Business Studies, 38(2): 357-360.