Resource Reconfiguration During Technological Change

A central strategic imperative for surviving technological change requires firms to attenuate the inertia and rigidity imposed by its legacy technology orientation (defined as the relative emphasis placed on technological knowledge and products aligned to an incumbent technology) and successfully transition to a new technology. We theorize that resource reconfiguration through corporate scope decisions—alliances, acquisitions, divestitures, and different postacquisition integration approaches—enables firms to achieve the twin requirements of attenuation and transition. Initially, a legacy technology orientation exerts inertia due to legacy reinforcement—decreasing the likelihood of firms making new technology acquisitions and legacy technology divestitures. New technology alliances mitigate this inertia via legacy attenuation—increasing the likelihood of acquisitions and legacy divestitures. Finally, when firms make new technology acquisitions, we theorize that acquirers choosing partial acquisition integration approaches (partial integration and partial autonomy) are more likely to achieve a successful transition to the new technology-legacy transition and, thus, more likely to survive technological change relative to firms choosing full integration or full autonomy. Using a sample of firms from the digital camera product market over 1991–2006, we found strong empirical support for our predictions. We contribute to research on technological change by demonstrating that firms may overcome the inertia of a legacy technology orientation and adapt to an emerging new technology by employing corporate scope decisions and postacquisition integration as resource reconfiguration mechanisms. Specifically, we advance the novel finding that postacquisition integration is an important survival-enhancing mechanism that facilitates adaptation to technological change.

Testosterone induces plumage ornamentation followed by enhanced territoriality in a female songbird

We know little of the proximate mechanisms underlying the expression of signaling traits in female vertebrates. Across males, the expression of sexual and competitive traits, including ornamentation and aggressive behavior, is often mediated by testosterone. In the white-shouldered fairywren (Malurus alboscapulatus) of New Guinea, females of different subspecies differ in the presence or absence of white shoulder patches and melanic plumage, whereas males are uniformly ornamented. Previous work has shown that ornamented females circulate more testosterone and exhibit more territorial aggression than do unornamented females. We investigated the degree to which testosterone regulates the expression of ornamental plumage and territorial behavior by implanting free-living unornamented females with testosterone. Every testosterone-treated female produced a male-like cloacal protuberance, and 15 of 20 replaced experimentally plucked brown with white shoulder patch feathers but did not typically produce melanic plumage characteristic of ornamented females. Testosterone treatment did not elevate territorial behavior prior to the production of the plumage ornament or during the active life of the implant. However, females with experimentally induced ornamentation, but exhausted implants, increased the vocal components of territory defense relative to the pretreatment period and also to testosterone-implanted females that did not produce ornamentation. Our results suggest that testosterone induces partial acquisition of the ornamental female plumage phenotype and that ornament expression, rather than testosterone alone, results in elevations of some territorial behaviors.

Testosterone induces a female ornament followed by enhanced territoriality in a tropical songbird

ABSTRACTWe know little of the proximate mechanisms underlying expression of signaling traits in female vertebrates. Across males the expression of sexual and competitive traits, including ornamentation and aggressive behavior, is often mediated by testosterone. In the White-shouldered Fairywren (Malurus alboscapulatus) of New Guinea, females of different subspecies differ in presence or absence of white shoulder patches and melanic plumage, while males are uniformly ornamented. Previous work has shown that ornamented females circulate more testosterone and exhibit more territorial aggression than do unornamented females. We investigated the degree to which testosterone regulates expression of ornamental plumage and territorial behavior by implanting free-living unornamented females with testosterone. Every testosterone-treated female produced a male-like cloacal protuberance, and 15 of 20 replaced plucked brown feathers with white shoulder patch feathers, but did not produce melanic plumage characteristic of ornamented females. Testosterone treatment did not elevate territorial behavior prior to production of the plumage ornament and exhaustion of the implant. However, females with experimentally induced ornamentation, but exhausted implants, increased the vocal components of territory defense relative to fully unornamented control and also to testosterone-implanted females. Our results suggest that testosterone induces partial acquisition of the ornamental plumage phenotype, and that ornament expression, rather than testosterone alone, results in elevated territorial behavior.Lay SummaryTestosterone regulates expression of a suite of competitive traits in male organisms and could have similar function in females. Empirical tests are needed to determine the extent to which testosterone promotes production of ornamentation and competitive behaviors in female animals. We supplemented testosterone in unornamented females of a species where naturally occurring ornamented females circulate higher testosterone and are more territorially aggressive. Implanted females produced partial ornamentation, which was followed by increased territoriality that was apparently unrelated to testosterone circulation itself.

A PARTIAL ACQUISITION TECHNIQUE OF SAR SYSTEM USING COMPRESSIVE SAMPLING METHOD

In line with the development of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technology, there is a serious problem when the SAR signal is acquired using high rate analog digital converter (ADC), that require large volumes data storage. The other problem on compressive sensing method,which frequently occurs, is a large measurement matrix that may cause intensive calculation. In this paper, a new approach was proposed, particularly on the partial acquisition technique of SAR system using compressive sampling method in both the azimuth and range direction. The main objectives of the study are to reduce the radar raw data by decreasing the sampling rate of ADC and to reduce the computational load by decreasing the dimension of the measurement matrix. The simulation results found that the reconstruction of SAR image using partial acquisition model has better resolution compared to the conventional method (Range Doppler Algorithm/RDA). On a target of a ship, that represents a low-level sparsity, a good reconstruction image could be achieved from a fewer number measurement. The study concludes that the method may speed up the computation time by a factor 4.49 times faster than with a full acquisition matrix.

Upward Pricing Pressure in Partial Acquisitions: Application to the Essilor Case

The price effects of a partial acquisition may be far more complex than those of a full merger. The discussion on this issue, however, has not been well developed in Asian countries, including Korea. However, a partial acquisition case occurred in Korea in which Essilor intended to acquire fifty-percent shares of its competitor, DM Optical. In this paper, we modify and reorganize theories of upward pricing pressure (UPP) in partial acquisitions and apply them to this case. This paper, therefore, intends not only to initiate a discussion, but also to suggest an exemplary method to conduct UPP analysis in partial acquisition environments. Specifically, it will contribute to methodological advances by analyzing the case in a fashion that circumvents limitations of time and data, the main obstacles merger reviewers often face, in practice.