Finance

Mergers & Acquisitions Elude European Companies
José Manuel Campa

The European Union is a single market for buying and selling goods and services, with free movement of goods and factors of production; yet it is still far from being a single market for buying and selling companies. In this article, Professor José Manuel Campa of IESE demonstrates that mergers and acquisitions are an issue that Europe has yet to come to grips with. Business remains highly fragmented and constrained within national boundaries, while few companies have achieved truly continental scope.

Economics

Bargaining to Sell
Manel Baucells and Steven A. Lippman

More often than not, when a person decides to sell an asset, he or she already knows a potential or “special” buyer. Of course, the seller can also conduct a search for other buyers. It’s a matter of bargaining and playing offers against one another to obtain the optimal price. In the paper “Bargaining with Search as an Outside Option: The Impact of the Buyer’s Future Availability,” published in the journal Decision Analysis, Professor Baucells and Lippman explain how best to negotiate with that “special” buyer who is willing to wait.

Strategy

Managing and Measuring Innovation
Antonio Dávila, Marc J. Epstein, Sharon Matusik

For years, companies have taken a hands-off approach to innovation by relying heavily on intangible resources like creativity or risk-taking behavior. Now, companies are changing their tune by putting formal systems in place to manage innovation. They are measuring their steps and trying to better understand how innovation unfolds. In the paper "Innovation Strategy and the Use of Performance Measures," Professors Tony Dávila, Marc J. Epstein and Sharon Matusik look at what variables managers are measuring and how they relate to a company's overall innovation strategy.

Business Ethics

Subsidiarity Principle in Business Organizations
Domènec Melé

The principle of subsidiarity holds that a larger and greater body should not exercise functions that can be carried out efficiently by one smaller and lesser. Rather, the former should support the latter and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the whole community. Although this principle should be an ethical premise for designing business organizations, it has rarely been applied to business organizations as yet. The research paper "The Principle of Subsidiarity in Organizations: A Case Study" by Professor Domènec Melé presents the bases and contents of the principle of subsidiarity, and the ethical requirements for the design of business organizations that flow from it.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Quality Time for a Happier and More Effective Life
Steven Poelmans

When we think of time management, we often compare it to the task of fitting the pieces of a puzzle or mosaic into a limited space. And yet, why not imagine a blank canvas on which we draw our life as a work of art? We have complete freedom to sketch out on the canvas the various elements that make up our existence, giving each one the prominence it has in our scale of priorities. Then, we can add color and shading to those fragments, which is to say, we can fill out our hours with specific content, so as to compose a harmonious whole.
In his book "Tiempo de calidad. Calidad de vida" ("Quality Time. Quality of Life."), IESE professor Steven Poelmans reflects on this metaphor and suggests various ways in which we can optimize our time by finding quality spaces that make us more effective and also happier.