Agency theory embeds the influential relationship that exist between managers and shareholders of firms. This relationship has the potential to influence decision-making in the firm which in turn has potential impacts on firm characteristics such as firm value. Prior evidence has demonstrated an association between ownership structure and firm value. This paper extends the literature by proposing a further link between ownership structure and capital structure. Using an agency framework we argue that the distribution of equity ownership among corporate managers and external blockholders has a significant relationship with leverage. The paper tests four hypotheses that explore various aspects of this relationship. The empirical results provide support for a positive relationship between external blockholders and leverage, a curvilinear relationship between the level of managerial share ownership and leverage and finally, the results suggest that the relationship between external block ownership and leverage varies across the level of managerial share ownership. These results parallel and are consistent with the active monitoring hypothesis, convergence-of-interests and the entrenchment hypotheses which have been proposed in a different context.

Over the last years the resource-based view (RBV) of strategic management has attracted wide academic and managerial attention. Drawing on RBV literature, this paper analyses the interrelationships between RBV and organizational innovation. The authors examine those aspects of RBV that critically determine the firms capacity to innovate by integrating the relevant theoretical and empirical evidence. A number of contributions setting the ground for future empirical research are provided.

Project management has been practiced for thousands of years, but only recently have organizations begun to apply systematic management tools and techniques to manage complex projects. Today's approaches to project management can be traced directly to methodologies designed by the U.S. military and Department of Defense in the years after World War II. Subsequent advances in management information systems have helped to codify project management practices; most recently, the Internet has dramatically enhanced the ability of individuals, teams, and organizations to manage projects across continents and cultures in real time. The Story of Managing Projects showcases cutting-edge research conducted around the world on emerging practices in project management. Covering an enormous spectrum of subjects and industries--from an upgrade of the Greek railway system to infrastructure reconstruction in Kuwait-the authors explore the full range of inter-personal, technical, and organizational dynamics of project management, contributing new insights to its theory and application

With new material on crafting mission, vision and value, The Strategic Planning Workbook enables the reader to do the thinking, gather the necessary information, make a decision and translate conclusions into action plans. It covers the strategic planning process step by step. In a clear, pragmatic style, Neville Lake draws on a mixture of his own diagnostic tools, analytical techniques and decision-making processes, along with many strategic planning standards and favorites. Whether you are a manager in a large organization with responsibility for revitalizing your division or an owner / manager of a small business looking to take your business to a new level, The Strategic Planning Workbook will become your indispensable guide and reference tool. Following it you will get the job done. The accompanying CD-ROM includes a 40-minute video presentation by the author that takes you through the eight decision-making techniques as they are used in a strategic planning sess

This paper tries to show the relationship between strategic process and process performance, considering the influence of a contextual dimension of organisational complexity. The authors introduce the term vertical complexity, which as considered more related to process. Correlation analysis show the influence of both intention and rationality in the process performance with low levels of vertical complexity in the firm. For high levels of vertical complexity, process and performance are not so strongly related, confirming only partially some of our hypotheses. The final sample were 112 big Spanish firms corresponding to very different industries.

In this paper we draw on Niklas Luhmanns social systems theory, and in particular his concept of an episode, to guide research into strategic practice and its relationship to the operating routines of an organization. Episodes, in Luhmanns theory, provide a mechanism by which a system can suspend its routine structures and so initiate a reflection on and change of these structures. Applying this theory to the organisational process of strategic change, the authors draw attention to the routine nature of strategic episodes and to their organisational role as the effective locus of strategic practice and the interaction between strategic and operating routines.

Empirical studies of strategising face contradictory pressures. Ethnographic approaches are attractive, and typically expected. We argue, however, that todays large, multinational, and highly diversified organisational settings require supplementary methods providing more breadth and flexibility. This paper discusses three particularly promising approaches (interactive discussion groups, self-reports, and practitioner-led research) that fit the increasingly disparate research paradigms now being used to understand strategising and other management issues. Each of these approaches is based on the idea that strategising research cannot advance significantly without reconceptualising frequently taken-for-granted assumptions. The paper focuses in particular on the importance of working with organisational members as research partners rather than passive informants.

The coopetition is a different way to behave in businesses affected by emerging technologies. To explain why coopetition is frequent in these businesses, the paper suggests the idea that competitors decide to cooperate because in emerging technologies there is a competition among network of innovators focused on the technology development and the access to the marketplace. Based on the level of cooperation (high or low) among competitors on technology development and market creation, the paper organizes in a framework the following types of coopetition: a) exchanges of existing knowledge; b) collaborative research & development activities; c) market alliances either for setting new standards or integrating existing business. Each type of coopetition can depict either a specific choice of a firm to effectively compete in the marketplace or a portfolio of firms coopetitive activities that evolves over time.