SBANC
Newsletter
April
18, 2006
Issue 417-2006
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QUOTE
"Suppliers
and especially manufacturers have market power because they
have information about a product or a service that the customer
does not and cannot have, and does not need if he can trust
the brand. This explains the profitability of brands."
-- Peter
Drucker
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FEATURE
PAPER
Problem
Solving and the Entrepreneurial Theory of the Firm
The
following paper was presented at the 2006 USASBE/SBI Joint Conference
Proceedings held in Tucson, Arizona. It was written by Chihmao
Hsieh, Jack A. Nickerson, and Todd R. Zenger, all of which are
from Washington University in St. Louis.
Abstract
Should
attempts at opportunity discovery be governed through markets
or firms? We argue that
many opportunities boil down to valuable problem-solution pairings,
and that opportunity
discovery relates to deliberate search or indeliberate recognition
over this solution space. As
problem complexity increases, directional search via trial-and-error
provides fewer benefits, and
heuristic search via theorizing becomes more useful. Heuristic
search, however, requires
knowledge sharing that is plagued by a knowledge appropriation
hazard and a strategic
knowledge accumulation hazard. Given the complexity of the associated
problem, markets,
authority-based hierarchy, and consensus-based hierarchy have differential
effects on the
efficiency of opportunity discovery.
Introduction
The
purpose of entrepreneurial activity is to discover and exploit
opportunities, defined most
simply as those situations in which goods, services, or raw materials
can be sold at greater than
their cost of production (e.g. Casson, 1982). Scholars have analyzed
entrepreneurial discovery
particular at various levels (e.g. McClelland, 1961; Begley and
Boyd, 1987). Absent from
discussion is whether some governance forms are more efficient
than others in discovering
specific types of opportunities (see Nickerson and Zenger, 2004).
Specifically, when should an
entrepreneur employ a market (i.e., contract out) to help discover
and exploit opportunities, and
when should the entrepreneur create a firm to help discover them?
If the firm is created, how
should it be organized?
Read
the Entire Paper...
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CONFERENCES
UTEP
|
| Who: |
University
of Texas-El Paso Franchise Center
|
| What: |
Franchise
Management Certificate Program
|
| Where: |
Camino
Real Hotel, El Paso, Texas, USA |
| When: |
April
20-22, 2006
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ISM
|
| Who: |
Institute
for Supply Management
|
| What: |
91st
Annual International Supply Conference and Educational
Exhibit
|
| Where: |
Minneapolis,
Minnesota, USA |
| When: |
May
7-10, 2006 |
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|
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SGPB
|
| Who: |
Southern
Growth Policies Board
|
| What: |
Southern
Innovation Summit
|
| Where: |
New
Orleans, Louisiana, USA |
| When: |
June
4-6, 2006 |
|
|
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SMU
|
| Who: |
Singapore
Management University
|
| What: |
2006
EDGE Conference--Bridging the Gap: Entrepreneurship
in Theory and Practice
|
| Where: |
Singapore
Management University, City Campus |
| When: |
July
3-5, 2006 |
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|
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BAMDE
|
| Who: |
Bulgarian
Association for Management Development and Entrepreneurship
|
| What: |
Entrepreneurship
in United Europe – Challenges and Opportunities
International Conference
|
| Where: |
Sunny
Beach, Black Sea, Bulgaria |
| When: |
September
13-17, 2006 |
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CALLS FOR PAPERS
AMA
|
| Who: |
Atlantic
Marketing Association
|
| What: |
Annual
Meeting
|
| Where: |
Francis
Marion Hotel in Charelston, South Carolina, USA |
| When: |
September
27-30, 2006 |
Submission
Deadline:
April 18, 2006
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|
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IABE
|
| Who: |
International
Academy of Business and Economics
|
| What: |
IABE-2006
Annual Conference
|
| Where: |
Las
Vegas, Nevada, USA |
| When: |
October
15-18, 2006 |
Submission
Deadline:
May 31, 2006
|
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ASC
|
| Who: |
American
Society for Competitiveness
|
| What: |
17th
Annual Conference
|
| Where: |
Washington,
D.C., USA |
| When: |
November
9-11, 2006 |
Submission
Deadline:
June 5, 2006
|
|
|
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AGB
|
| Who: |
Association
for Global Business |
| What: |
18th
International Conference
|
| Where: |
Hyatt
Regency, Newport Beach, California, USA |
| When: |
November
16 - 19, 2006 |
Submission
Deadline:
June 30, 2006
|
|
|
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ASBE
|
| Who: |
Association
for Small Business and Entrpreneurship |
| What: |
Fall
Conference
|
| Where: |
Best
Western in Corpus Christi, Texas |
| When: |
November
1-3, 2006 |
Submission
Deadline:
August 1, 2006
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TIP
OF THE WEEK
Ehrenberg's
Theories
Dr.
Andrew Ehrenberg's theories of brand equity and the effect of
brand size on purchase loyalty are well researched and considered
to be robust and well proven. Perhaps his most profound conclusion
is that loyalty varies little between competing brands. When
there is a small variation, it is due to the respective sizes
of the brands.
This theory was behind his famous 'double jeopardy law', which
predicts that small brands not only have fewer buyers but these
buyers are less loyal. Few marketers will not have heard the saying
'your customers are really other people's customers who occasionally
buy from you'.
Strangely, Ehrenberg's theories about brand loyalty make no mention
of the age of customers. The NBD-Dirichlet theory, which predicts
the patterns of brand competition, also makes no reference to the
customer's age as one of its variables. The only relationship between
age and purchasing that Ehrenberg's research discovered related
to pricing elasticity. He found that the young (under 45) were
consistently more sensitive to price changes than the over-45s.
These results held true in the UK, Germany and the US. You would
have thought that this result would have encouraged more targeting
of the old.
If the argument that the over-35s have a fixed brand repertoire
was a minor element of branding theory, then it would not matter
if it contained some inconsistencies and contradictions. It is
not a minor part of branding or marketing theory, though - it is
crucial to most of the big decisions that marketers make. This
is despite the fact that even this cursory and somewhat tongue-in-cheek
inspection of the theory, shows it to be highly suspect.
| Dick
Stroud. The
50-Plus Market. Great Britain and the United States:
Kogan Page Limited, 2005. 86-87. |
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Small Business
Institute
SBI will be
holding a mid-year meeting from October 12-15, 2006 in Louisville,
Kentucky. The submission deadline for calls for papers is May
15, 2006. For more information on the SBI Conference please click
here.
Institute for
Small Business & Entrepreneursip
The ISBE will
be holding their 29th Annual Conference at the University of
Glamorgan in Wales, UK from October 31- November 2, 2006. The
submission deadline for calls for papers is May 31, 2006. For more
information on the ISBE conference please click
here.
USASBE
The United
States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship will
have a conference at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort in
Orlando, Florida from January 11-14, 2007. The submission deadline is August
15, 2006 for the calls for papers. For more information about the
USASBE conference please click here.
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The
SBANC Newsletter is provided as a service to the members of our
affiliates: Academy of Collegiate Marketing Educators (ACME), Association
for Small Business & Entrepreneurship (ASBE), Federation of
Business Disciplines (FBD), International Council for Small Business
(ICSB), Institute for Supply Management (ISM), The International
Small Business Congress (ISBC), Marketing Management Association
(MMA), Small Business Administration (SBA), Service Corps of Retired
Executives (SCORE), Small Business Institute (SBI), Society for
Marketing Advances (SMA), United States Association for Small Business & Entrepreneurship
(USASBE), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).. If you are
interested in membership or would like further information on one
of our affiliates, please see our web site at http://www.sbaer.uca.edu
SBANC STAFF
Main Office Phone: (501) 450-5300
Dr.
Don B. Bradley III, Executive Director of SBANC & Professor
of Marketing;
Direct Phone: (501) 450-5345
Brandon
Tabor, Development Intern
Tyler
Farrar, Development Intern
Garion
McCoy, Development Intern
To subscribe or unsubscribe to the
SBANC Newsletter, please E-mail SBANC at sbanc@uca.edu
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