Is Genericness Still Adequately Defined? Internet Search Firms and the Economic Rationale for Trademarks

Landes and Posner’s highly cited economics of trademark law based on search cost reduction has influenced economists, legislators, and courts for decades. Their account, however, predates consumer use of the Internet for search and did not anticipate the rise of firms such as Google to economy-wide power in search. Consequently, trademark law intended to help consumers find a preferred brand now also protects the means they typically use. An outdated view of trademarks as a natural and equitable right––very scrutable to STS––has led to Internet search firms owning reflexive “marks for finding other marks,” a structural advantage they have exploited through new dynamic and microtargeted forms of advertising into technoscientific rentiership. This paper revises Landes and Posner’s model to fit the case of an economy containing dominant firms with significant economy-wide search cost reduction power, adding (1) differentiation of technological elements of the original formal model and (2) analysis of the distribution and function of marks such as GOOGLE in consumer decision-making. The updated theory shows that marks granted to search firms are equivalent to generic marks in economic effect and constitute a new but unrecognized class that are functionally “super-generic.”

Inside the Push for Good Governance: Institutional Predictors of Administrative Transparency in Public Organizations

Policy actors around the world perceive transparency as a means to achieve good governance. Research often focuses on the determinants of fiscal and economic transparency and gives less attention to administrative transparency. This study examines whether multiple types of institutional factors influence administrative transparency in the context of the hiring of college and university presidents in U.S. postsecondary education. Across 54 contracts obtained between institutions of higher education and third-party search firms, no contract explicitly referred to the term transparency, but contracts varied in attention given to issues of confidentiality. Using data for 157 presidential searches between 2010 and 2018, we find that few structural components predict indicators of transparency, though the presence of state sunshine laws and whether a governing board oversees multiple institutions can influence specific portions of the executive search process.

Increasing Gender Diversity in Higher Education Leadership: The Role of Executive Search Firms

Women are under-represented in leadership roles in United Kingdom Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Existing scholarship focuses on institutional barriers, which include cognitive bias and entrenched homosocial cultures, rather than external factors such as the use of executive search firms (ESFs) in recruitment and selection. Recent research indicates that the use of ESFs is increasing for senior HEI appointments. This analysis offers insights on these firms’ involvement from a gender equality perspective, based on the results from a study that used a ‘virtuous circle’ approach to research and knowledge exchange. The requirement for HEIs to pay ‘due regard’ to equality considerations under the Public Sector Equality Duty provides a framework for analysis. This paper provides new insights on the dynamics within recruitment processes when ESFs are involved and on how a legislative approach can leverage better equality outcomes.

Talent Intermediaries in Talent Acquisition

Talent intermediaries are entities that stand between the individual worker and the organization that needs work done. They include online intermediaries such as job boards or social networking sites, and search and placement firms such as executive search firms and temporary-help service firms. Talent intermediaries have an increasingly important role in the contemporary employment landscape: they influence not only how and which individuals are matched to organizations but also how tasks are performed or conflicts are resolved once talent is hired by the organization. This chapter reviews the already extensive literature on talent intermediaries, focusing on their role in the identification, assessment, and hiring of talent. The chapter shows the advantages that talent intermediaries present to the talent-acquisition process compared with hiring organizations and the ways in which their intermediation changes traditional talent-acquisition processes that involved only two parties: the job seeker and the hiring organization.

Career Central Corp.: Building Critical Mass

Jacob Matthews, chief strategy officer for Career Central Corp. (CEC), was faced with the challenge of growing the client base for CEC's database of job seekers. While CEC had gained traction in signing up potential recruits, the number of employers using the site was still low, and if the trend continued, the recruits might soon start leaving the site. To grow dramatically, Matthews was exploring the possibility of partnering with executive recruiters, search firms, and other online search firms. But how could he structure such partnerships without compromising the confidentiality of his candidates? How could he minimize the risk involved in trusting a third party with the company's valuable database of employees? What was the value proposition that CEC offered its clients who currently used its competitors both online and offline? Refining the marketing message, structuring strategic partnerships, and consistently delivering on its promise were the issues that CEC had to address to grow its business.