The Batten Institute is committed the broad dissemination of new knowledge about the transformative power of entrepreneurship and innovation. We seek to influence scholars, students, practitioners, and policymakers through the publication of research papers, books, journals, case studies, multimedia, and many other forms of content. We place a high value on the ability of our scholarly output to have immediate and practical impact. (Names in bold indicate a Darden/UVa faculty member or a Batten Fellow.)
Values-based leadership is based upon honesty, respect, trust and dignity, and it regards every employee within a company as a valued human being. This book describes the characteristics of leaders who focus on positivity and virtues to create and sustain highly successful organizations such as Synovus Financial Corporation, HomeBanc Mortgage Company, and the United States Marine Corps. It also addresses leader mistakes and forgiveness, and how difficulties and challenges can be overcome to achieve spectacular results. This inspiring book offers practical advice that can be applied to individual leadership styles and roles. As society tries to rebound from the recent scandals involving fraud, financial improprieties, and unethical behavior among its leadership, the fundamental message of Leading with Values is clear: acting ethically and virtuously, and treating all stakeholders with respect and dignity, can create extraordinary outcomes without sacrificing performance and profits.
The U.S. health care system is in crisis. At stake are the quality of care for millions of Americans and the financial well-being of individuals and employers squeezed by skyrocketing premiums-not to mention the stability of state and federal government budgets. In Redefining Health Care, internationally renowned strategy expert Michael Porter and innovation expert Elizabeth Teisberg reveal the underlying-and largely overlooked-causes of the problem, and provide a powerful prescription for change. The authors argue that participants in the health care system have competed to shift costs, accumulate bargaining power, and restrict services, rather than create value for patients. This zero-sum competition takes place at the wrong level-among health plans, networks, and hospitals-rather than where it matters most, in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of specific health conditions. Redefining Health Care lays out a breakthrough framework for redefining health care competition based on patient value. With specific recommendations for hospitals, doctors, health plans, employers, and policy makers, this book shows how to move to a positive-sum competition that will unleash stunning improvements in quality and efficiency.
Over the past decade, billions of dollars have been invested by established companies in entrepreneurial ventures-what is often referred to as corporate venture capital. Yet, there is little systematic evidence that corporate venture capital investment creates value to investing firms. Scholars have suggested that established firms face underlying challenges when investing corporate venture capital. Namely, structural deficiencies inherent in corporate venture capital may inhibit financial gains. However, firm value may still be created as a result of other benefits from investing-primarily providing a window onto novel technology. In this paper, we propose that corporate venture capital investment will create greater firm value when firms explicitly pursue corporate venture capital to harness novel technology. Using a panel of CVC investments, we present evidence consistent with our proposition. The findings are robust to various specifications and remain unchanged even after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity in investing firms. Our results have important implications for corporate venture capital in particular, and technology strategy in general.
The orthodox justification for intellectual property is utilitarian. Advocates for strong IP rights argue that absent such rights copyists will free-ride on the efforts of creators and stifle innovation. This orthodox justification is logically straightforward and well reflected in the law. Yet a significant empirical anomaly exists: the global fashion industry, which produces a huge variety of creative goods without strong IP protection. Copying is rampant as the orthodox account would predict. Yet innovation and investment remain vibrant. Few commentators have considered the status of fashion design in IP law. Those who have almost uniformly criticize the current legal regime for failing to protect apparel designs. But the fashion industry itself is surprisingly quiescent about copying. Firms take steps to protect the value of trademarks, but appear to accept appropriation of designs as a fact of life. This diffidence about copying stands in striking contrast to the heated condemnation of piracy and associated legislative and litigation campaigns in other creative industries.
The purpose of any product or service is to create value for people. In the health sector, value is created by enabling health or improving healthcare. Patients experience value when their medical conditions are resolved safely, effectively and efficiently, as well as when disease or disease progression is prevented. Improving value-the quality received per dollar spent-should be the clear goal of health sector competition. Unfortunately, today, that is often not the case.
In this paper we focus on two core questions: 1) Why do some people seek entrepreneurial opportunities? 2) Under what conditions is the pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunity most likely? We attempt to answer these questions by creating a theoretical framework that considers the interaction between an individual's level of aspiration and their appraised value in the labor market. We propose that when there is disequilibrium between the aspiration vector (AV) of an individual and the perceived valuation of the market offering vector (P-MOV), an individual tends to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities. In addition, when hiring officers, HR directors, or other relevant parties involved in the hiring decision are biased or when existing organizations have limitations in reflecting an individual's AV, prospective entrepreneurs begin searching for new opportunities in society. Finally and in our view most crucially, we consider the interaction between an individual's subjective consideration and his perceived assessment by the labor market, a novel approach, which we hope takes into account the complexity and richness of entrepreneurship. We offer seven specific propositions that derive from the disequilibrium predicted by our framework.
Two prescriptions dominate the topic of what firms should do next in uncertain situations: planning approaches and adaptive approaches. These differ primarily on the appropriate role of prediction in the decision process. Prediction is a central issue in strategy making owing to the presumption that what can be predicted can be controlled. In this paper we argue for the independence of prediction and control. This implies that the pursuit of successful outcomes can occur through control-oriented approaches that may essentially be non-predictive. We further develop and highlight control-oriented approaches with particular emphasis on the question of what organizations should do next. We also explore how these approaches may impact the costs and risks of firm strategies as well as the firm's continual efforts to innovate.
Edward Hess, who has researched and served as a consultant to family businesses for over 20 years, argues that the business and the family are distinct overlapping living organisms, constantly changing and influencing each other. In order for both to thrive, each family business must establish a proactive process for defining roles, articulating goals, and communicating them constantly. Drawing from numerous in-depth examples (both positive and negative) and presenting templates and other practical resources, Hess offers a fascinating glimpse into the dynamics of family business management and specific strategies to promote the health of the enterprise--involving family business leaders and members, non-family employees, board members, and shareholders. Hess concludes with a series of operating rules that apply to every family business and a listing of practical references and resources. The result is a book that will help anyone involved in a family business to develop successful practices that both maximize the value of the business and enhance family relationships.
We investigate the motivations and the returns to the firms and investors using Private Investments in Public Equities (PIPE) financing, an increasingly common form of equity-based financing. From 1995-2000, 1,466 firms raised more than $29 billion through 2,626 PIPE issues. We find that PIPE issuers are poorly performing firms, urgently in need of cash that, as a consequence, are without access to traditional forms of financing. The contract terms and embedded options in PIPEs allow investors to alter their exposure to post-issue movements in the value of the issuer's equity. As a result, the returns earned by investors substantially exceed those of shareholders. Hence PIPEs provide incentives for investors to make investments in firms with substantial operating uncertainties, enabling companies barred from traditional capital markets to obtain much needed financing.
Investment flows into emerging markets are material: According to the World Bank, during 2000, portfolio and foreign direct investment flows into the approximately 30 markets classified as ''emerging'' topped $250 billion. This monograph, published by the Research Foundation of AIMR (CFA Institute), offers a concise explanation of characteristics of emerging markets; diversification, return, and volatility in these 30 or so markets; efficiency in emerging markets; market integration and country versus sector factors to consider; and valuation. The work concludes with appendices outlining a mechanism for measuring total risk attributed to the overall market movements, as well as a country-versus-industry regression model.
The Innovation Journey presents the results of a major longitudinal study that examined the process of innovation from concept to implementation of new technologies, products, processes, and administrative arrangements. Its findings call into question most of the explanations of the innovation process that have been proposed in the past. The Minnesota Innovation Research Program, on which this book is based, involved over 30 researchers who undertook longitudinal studies that tracked the development of 14 diverse innovations in real time and in their natural field settings. Studying its results, the authors find that the innovation journey is neither sequential and orderly, nor is it a matter of random trial and error; rather it is best characterized as a nonlinear dynamic system.