Performance measurement remains a vexing problem for business firms and other kinds of organisations. This book explains why: the performance we want to measure (long-term cash flows, long-term ...viability) and the performance we can measure (current cash flows, customer satisfaction, etc.) are not the same. The 'balanced scorecard', which has been widely adopted by US firms, does not solve these underlying problems of performance measurement and may exacerbate them because it provides no guidance on how to combine dissimilar measures into an overall appraisal of performance. A measurement technique called activity-based profitability analysis (ABPA) is suggested as a partial solution, especially to the problem of combining dissimilar measures. ABPA estimates the revenue consequences of each activity performed for the customer, allowing firms to compare revenues with costs for these activities and hence to discriminate between activities that are ultimately profitable and those that are not.
Received internationalization theory argues that firms occupy domestic space before going abroad; in other words, large, oligopolistic firms are most likely to internationalize. The experience of ...China, whose economy is fragmented and whose firms are small by global standards, suggests otherwise. We construct a model of small firm internationalization driven by the relative transaction costs of crossing domestic (in the case of China, provincial) and international borders. When the costs of crossing domestic borders exceed the costs of crossing international borders, firms will internationalize at a relatively early stage of development. In the case of China, local protectionism and inefficient domestic logistics increase the costs of doing business domestically; moreover, protection of property rights in the West and the advantages afforded Chinese owned firms reconstituted as foreign entities operating in China decrease the costs of ‘going out’. We coin the term ‘institutional arbitrage’ to capture Chinese firms' pursuit of efficient institutions outside of China. We argue that strategic exit from the home country rather than strategic entry into foreign markets may explain the internationalization of many Chinese firms.
This study examines how different types of performance measures were weighted in a subjective balanced scorecard bonus plan adopted by a major financial services firm. Drawing upon economic and ...psychological studies on performance evaluation and compensation criteria, we develop hypotheses regarding the weights placed on different types of measures. We find that the subjectivity in the scorecard plan allowed superiors to reduce the "balance" in bonus awards by placing most of the weight on financial measures, to incorporate factors other than the scorecard measures in performance evaluations, to change evaluation criteria from quarter to quarter, to ignore measures that were predictive of future financial performance, and to weight measures that were not predictive of desired results. This evidence suggests that psychology-based explanations may be equally or more relevant than economics-based explanations in explaining the firm's measurement practices. The high level of subjectivity in the balanced scorecard plan led many branch managers to complain about favoritism in bonus awards and uncertainty in the criteria being used to determine rewards. The system ultimately was abandoned in favor of a formulaic bonus plan based solely on revenues.
Fabry disease, a lysosomal storage disorder resulting from the deficient activity of α-galactosidase A (α-Gal A), is characterized by cardiac, renal, and/or cerebrovascular disease due to progressive ...accumulation of the enzyme’s substrates, globotriaosylceramide (Gb3) and globotriaosylsphingosine (Lyso-Gb3). We report here the preclinical evaluation of liver-targeted in vivo genome editing using zinc-finger nuclease (ZFN) technology to insert the human α-galactosidase A (hGLA) cDNA into the albumin “safe harbor” locus of Fabry mice, thereby generating an albumin-α-Gal A fusion protein. The mature α-Gal A protein is secreted into the circulation for subsequent mannose-6-phosphate receptor-mediated tissue uptake. Donor vector optimization studies showed that replacing the hGLA cDNA signal peptide sequence with that of human iduronate 2-sulfatase (IDS) achieved higher transgene expression. Intravenous adeno-associated virus (AAV) 2/8-mediated co-delivery of the IDS-hGLA donor and ZFNs targeting the albumin locus resulted in continuous, supraphysiological plasma and tissue α-Gal A activities, which essentially normalized Gb3 and Lyso-Gb3 levels in key tissues of pathology. Notably, this was achieved with <10% of hepatocytes being edited to express hGLA, occurring mostly via non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) rather than homology-directed repair (HDR). These studies indicate that ZFN-mediated in vivo genome editing has the potential to be an effective one-time therapy for Fabry disease.
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There is an unmet need for effective, long-lasting therapy for Fabry disease. Pagant and Huston et al. demonstrate in a Fabry mouse model that liver-targeted zinc-finger nuclease-mediated genome editing produces supraphysiological enzyme levels and effectively clears substrates. This approach may have the potential to be an efficacious one-time therapy.
Fabry disease is an X-linked lysosomal storage disorder caused by mutations in the alpha-galactosidase A (GLA) gene, which encodes the exogalactosyl hydrolase, alpha-galactosidase A (α-Gal A). ...Deficient α-Gal A activity results in the progressive, systemic accumulation of its substrates, globotriaosylceramide (Gb3) and globotriaosylsphingosine (Lyso-Gb3), leading to renal, cardiac, and/or cerebrovascular disease and early demise. The current standard treatment for Fabry disease is enzyme replacement therapy, which necessitates lifelong biweekly infusions of recombinant enzyme. A more long-lasting treatment would benefit Fabry patients. Here, a gene therapy approach using an episomal adeno-associated viral 2/6 (AAV2/6) vector that encodes the human GLA cDNA driven by a liver-specific expression cassette was evaluated in a Fabry mouse model that lacks α-Gal A activity and progressively accumulates Gb3 and Lyso-Gb3 in plasma and tissues. A detailed 3-month pharmacology and toxicology study showed that administration of a clinical-scale-manufactured AAV2/6 vector resulted in markedly increased plasma and tissue α-Gal A activities, and essentially normalized Gb3 and Lyso-Gb3 at key sites of pathology. Further optimization of vector design identified the clinical lead vector, ST-920, which produced several-fold higher plasma and tissue α-Gal A activity levels with a good safety profile. Together, these studies provide the basis for the clinical development of ST-920.
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Is It Capitalism? Meyer, Marshall W.
Management and organization review,
March 2011, Volume:
7, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
I introduce the three articles in the MOR Editor's Forum on Chinese Capitalism. I then ask whether China's recent economic growth has been driven by a vibrant capitalism or instead has become an end ...in itself, supported by government policies promoting high rates of fixed asset investment. There are two key observations. First, gross domestic product (GDP), measured and reported at four levels of government, has much greater salience than corporate profits, often undisclosed. Second, fixed asset investment accounted for more than 60 percent of China's 2009 GDP and nearly two-thirds of 2008-2009 GDP growth, levels unprecedented for a major economy. Rather than capitalism, I argue that institutionalized GDP growth today accounts for China's rapid economic development.
Twenty-five years of economic reform has propelled China to the center of the world's economic stage. Based on current trends, in the foreseeable future China is likely to become the largest economy ...in the world. China's dramatic growth may be envied by other developing economies, but for management scholars it presents an exciting intellectual puzzle. In this paper we describe the empirical context of China today, review contemporary research on Chinese management and organizations, and describe the nine papers in this special issue of Organization Science . The papers provide a close examination of how massive corporate transformation in China has influenced interfirm relationships, affected opportunity structures and social processes, and modified individual behaviors within firms. We identify the many paradoxes in this intellectual terrain and present a guide to the challenging research agenda ahead. We recommend that scholars of organizations think deeply about China as a context and consider China as an empirical setting where the boundaries of existing knowledge on organizations can be extended.
This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1, 100 titles from Penn Press's ...distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.
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