Algorithms are becoming prevalent but are often opaque and need external validation to assess whether or not they meet their purported objectives. The purpose of this study is to validate, using the limited information available, the algorithm used by the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) whose intention is to match applicants to medical residencies based on applicants’ prioritized preferences. The methodology involved first using randomized computer-generated data to overcome the inaccessible proprietary data on applicant and program rankings. Simulations using these data were run through the compiled algorithm’s procedures to obtain match outcomes. The study’s findings are that the current algorithm’s matches are related to program input but not to applicant input, the applicant’s prioritized ranking of programs. A modified algorithm with student input as the primary factor is then developed and run using the same data, resulting in match outcomes that are related to both applicant and program inputs, improving equity.

Key Points Question How does the current program-centric algorithm for the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) compare with a student-centric algorithm? Findings In this cross-sectional study of randomized computer-generated data corresponding to the NRMP match for 2018, 2019, and 2020 among more than 50 000 student applicants and 4000 programs in 23 specialties, the 2 algorithms did not differ in percentage of students matched. The student-centric algorithm, relative to the program-centric algorithm, matched a significantly higher percentage of students to their first-ranked program and to their top-5–ranked programs; however, the last position was filled with students who had lower program rankings in the student-centric algorithm vs the program-centric algorithm. Meaning These findings suggest that research is needed on these 2 algorithms’ resource demands as well as ensuing resident and program performance.

A unifying probabilistic framework is developed to analyze and compare the impact of the psychological biases of overconfidence and underconfidence on managerial perceptions about the expected value, overall risk, downside risk, value-at-risk and expected shortfall of decision-making economic variables. The results depict that overconfident managers overestimate their expected values and underestimate downside risk, VaR and ES of decision-making variables. Underconfident managers, on the other hand, underestimate their expected values and overestimate downside risk, value-at-risk, and expected shortfall.

The 20th century is known as the management century because of its many recent management initiatives. These touted management initiatives include scientific management, quantitative models, the application of information technology, decentralisation, multi divisional structure, teams, open innovation, and corporate initiatives. Certainly, these management developments have improved the economic productivity of firms. However, the effectiveness and originality of these modern management techniques have been overstated. Because of their narrow, short-term, and material focus, recent management techniques have often resulted in dysfunctional side effects - inequity, mistrust, and unsustainability. In order to prevent and resolve these growing problems, managers must relearn the broader principles - long-term, spiritual, and societal - underlying historic management innovations from long ago, but largely forgotten.

Abstract A strategic group is defined as a set of firms within an industry pursuing a similar strategy. The strategic group concept emerged with much promise over 40 years ago. Research on strategic groups over time in a broad variety of settings has sought to clarify their theoretical and empirical properties. These research findings are gradually being translated into practical managerial guidance, so that the strategic group concept can be understood, operationalized, and used productively by managers. Two main approaches exist for identifying strategic groups—a ground-up approach, using disaggregated data, and a top-down, using cognition. Once identified, managerial insights can be derived from clarifying a strategic group’s profile. Firm membership in a group helps to uncover immediate and more distant types of competitors. Group profitability differences reveal the more rewarding and less attractive areas within an industry, as well as identify the lower-return groups from where firm exits are likely to occur. Group dynamics reflect competitive and cooperative behavior within and between groups. Several promising areas for future research on strategic groups to improve understanding and practice of strategy.

Renewable energy can potentially be a source of competitive advantage, reduce greenhouse gases, and counter climate change. This study utilizes Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis to systematically assess the relative attractiveness of multiple renewable energy forms based on three factors: 1. business (economic), 2. technical (environmental), and 3. social (regulatory). It uncovers the relative attractiveness of various renewable energy forms and suggests strategies for their development for providers and customers. After considering multiple factors, the study found hydro, geothermal, and wind power to be relatively attractive renewable energy sources.

Many firms facing global competition are seeking to become specialists. This study examines international specialists, defined as companies that produce, sell, and expand internationally within one industry. This study examines their capital sourcng and deployment. Analysis of a knowledge-intensive industry, pharmaceuticals, suggests that firms which pursue this focused strategy match their funding and deployment of financial resources. They use equity funding and invest it heavily in research in order to develop international proprietary niches.

Many firms facing low-cost international competition can reposition into niches. This study examines one such niche: industry-focused international firms, defined as companies that produce, sell, and expand internationally within one industry. Analysis of the global pharmaceutical industry finds a group comprising of about 20 % of the firms that pursue this strategy. This strategy is distributed internationally, but not uniformly. It is relatively more prevalent among firms based in emerging countries compared to industrialized nations. These firms invest in R&D in order to create deep specialized expertise that they exploit internationally.

This article identifies and articulates the major challenges facing CEOs of large multinational firms. Analysis of recent surveys and interviews highlights eight challenges: 1. Developing growth avenues, 2. Raising productivity, 3. Competing for talent, 4. Managing diverse risks, 5. Tightening corporate governance, 6. Incorporating sustainability, 7. Creating new innovation models, and 8. Building out new infrastructures. This large and broad set of issues involves new twists on known challenges and the emergence of new challenges. These challenges are demanding because they require new types of non-business expertise, their rules are not yet clear, and they are interdependent. CEOs need to craft an agenda for dealing individually and collectively with these issues.

Firms increasingly enter into alliances when expanding into international markets and market segments. Unfortunately, many of these alliances fail because managers are overconfident and unprepared for the diverse and complex contingencies they encounter. Growing research suggests that developing an alliance capability function improves alliance performance. We first identify common types of problems and opportunities that arise from alliance design to alliance dissolution. With this understanding, we then specify the alliance capabilities that must be developed to deal with these contingencies. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

With shorter product cycles, firms need to improve their innovation capacity and spread rapidly their innovations abroad before they are imitated or superseded. But when expanding internationally, managers often frame their decisions narrowly, leading to overconfidence and optimism in their market entries. This management bias often leads firms into less attractive markets with large inflexible investments that limit learning and innovation. To overcome this management bias, the article advances a Four-Step Strategy to achieve broad, rapid, deep, and innovative international expansion.

Analysis of 45 rapidly growing, profitable firms reveals five strategies: (1) product proliferation, (2) mass market development, (3) increasing value to select customers, (4) distribution innovation, and (5) acquisition and consolidation. These five strategies are not restricted to high-growth industries and arise when firms exploit market disequilibrium to the their advantage. The profitable growth strategies are based on multiple, reinforcing sources of scale, scope, and time-based advantages. The study details the steps needed to implement each growth strategy and potential pitfalls to avoid. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Falling trade barriers and corporate restructuring are resulting in the creation of international specialists, firms that focus on one line of business but with an international scope. International specialists compose the growing middle ground between diversified multinational companies and local firms. This study of 41 firms identifies two types-large and small international specialists-that differ substantially in their governance structures, resources, functional strategy, and approach to international markers.Large international specialists have abundant resources and high growth expectations, make a concerted push to dominate worldwide markets, and increase their reach over multiple stages of their industry. Small international specialists do not have strong growth motivations. They are upstream players that outsource extensively, serve intermediate users, and enter international markets selectively in ways that conserve their limited resources.Managers should consider the strategic option of becoming an international specialist in addition to the known strategic alternatives of being a domestic or a diversified multinational firm. To become international specialists, strategists need to implement several, consistent actions across functions that reinforce one another.

This article examines the core competencies of twelve leading multinational companies. It explores their competencies, how they were developed, and how they are shifting over time. Successful companies rely on three types of competencies: superior technological know-how, reliable processes, and close external relationships. Different approaches are needed to develop each types of competency. While these firms have historically relied on technological know-how and reliable processes, they are planning more close external relationships for the future. External relationships help these firms strengthen and extend their traditional competencies while responding to the demands of globalization, mass customization, enhanced quality, and rapid technological change.

When entering markets, managers must decide when to enter as well as how many resources to commit to the entry. The study finds that larger initial resource commitments do not result in higher market share and market survival in international markets. Instead, to improve performance in international markets, managers should strive to be first entrants. Further, first entrants typically commit fewer resources, suggesting that this strategy can be pursued by firms with limited resources.

The study examines what drives the founding of specialist firms. Two theoretical explanations are tested for the founding of specialists: density dependence and resource partitioning. The study finds that specialists' foundings are dependent on the population's density at the global level, but not at the United States level. The evidence from a fragmented industry does not support the resource partitioning hypothesis, either at the global level or the United States national level. The study shows how multi-level analyses can suggest if an industry is multi-domestic or globally integrated.

An exploratory analysis of 35 industries suggests that many of them (21 of 35) were restructuring in the 1980s into a group of large, multi-market firms and a group of product/market specialists. This concentration-specialism trend is a response to intensified competition caused by lower demand growth and deregulation. The concentration-specialism trend appears more pronounced in developed market economies and service industries. The study identifies key strategic options as well as impediments to coping with this trend.

Abstract A structured framework is proposed for analysing inventions, focusing on the sources of information utilized in their development These sources involve internal versus external origins, as well as domestic versus international origins Analysis of forty inventions revealed five invention approaches, suggesting that society's inventions emerge through diverse means, with varying motivations, market impacts, and pathologies.