Danny Miller

Bio: Danny Miller is an academic researcher from HEC Montréal. The author has contributed to research in topics: Consumption (economics) & Agency (sociology). The author has an hindex of 133, co-authored 512 publications receiving 71238 citations. Previous affiliations of Danny Miller include University of New Mexico & McGill University.

Priorities, practices and strategies in successful and failing family businesses: an elaboration and test of the configuration perspective

Abstract: Scholars from the configuration school have suggested that businesses do well only when they are well-configured. Specifically, they have argued that businesses must first, match organizational pri...

Place for Us: Essay on the Broadway Musical

Abstract: It used to be a secret that, in its post-war heyday, the Broadway musical recruited a massive underground following of gay men. But though this once silent social fact currently spawns jokes that every sitcom viewer is presumed to be in on, it has not necessarily become better understood. In this text, D.A. Miller probes what all the jokes about the post-war Broadway musical laugh off: the embarrassingly mutual affinity between a "general" cultural form and the despised "minority" that was in fact that form's implicit audience. D.A. Miller restores to their historical density the main modes of reception that so many gay men developed to answer the musical's call: the early private communion with the original cast albums; the later camping of show tunes in piano bars; and the still later reformatting of these same songs at the post-Stonewall disco. In addition, through an extended reading of "Gypsy", Miller specifies the nature of the call itself, which he locates in the post-war musical's most basic conventions: the contradictory relation between the show and the book; the mimetic tendency of the musical number; and the centrality of the female star. If the post-war musical may be called a "gay" genre, Miller demonstrates, this is because its regular but unpublicized work has been to indulge men in the thrills of a femininity become their own.

The paradox of resource vulnerability: Considerations for organizational curatorship

Abstract: Resource-based scholars have focused on the properties of resources and the isolating mechanisms that sustain their rents in the face of competition. Unfortunately, they have devoted far less attention to the sources of vulnerability of many of these resources. We argue that, paradoxically, sources of rent such as isolating mechanisms often have a dark side that renders resources more vulnerable. We highlight three categories of challenges to managing resource vulnerability�protecting them from erosion, coping with their ambiguity, and preserving their required alignment�and identify sources of vulnerability within each. We address these via three primary functions of curatorship: preservation, connoisseurship, and orchestration, respectively.

Competitive advantage: creating and sustaining superior performance

Abstract: COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE introduces a whole new way of understanding what a firm does. Porter's groundbreaking concept of the value chain disaggregates a company into 'activities', or the discrete functions or processes that represent the elemental building blocks of competitive advantage. Now an essential part of international business thinking, COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE takes strategy from broad vision to an internally consistent configuration of activities. Its powerful framework provides the tools to understand the drivers of cost and a company's relative cost position. Porter's value chain enables managers to isolate the underlying sources of buyer value that will command a premium price, and the reasons why one product or service substitutes for another. He shows how competitive advantage lies not only in activities themselves but in the way activities relate to each other, to supplier activities, and to customer activities. That the phrases 'competitive advantage' and 'sustainable competitive advantage' have become commonplace is testimony to the power of Porter's ideas. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE has guided countless companies, business school students, and scholars in understanding the roots of competition. Porter's work captures the extraordinary complexity of competition in a way that makes strategy both concrete and actionable.

Upper Echelons: The Organization as a Reflection of Its Top Managers

Abstract: Theorists in various fields have discussed characteristics of top managers. This paper attempts to synthesize these previously fragmented literatures around a more general “upper echelons perspective.” The theory states that organizational outcomes—strategic choices and performance levels—are partially predicted by managerial background characteristics. Propositions and methodological suggestions are included.

Clarifying the Entrepreneurial Orientation Construct and Linking It To Performance

Abstract: The primary purpose of this article is to clarify the nature of the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) construct and to propose a contingency framework for investigating the relationship between EO and firm performance. We first explore and refine the dimensions of EO and discuss the usefulness of viewing a firm's EO as a multidimensional construct. Then, drawing on examples from the EO-related contingencies literature, we suggest alternative models (moderating effects, mediating effects, independent effects, interaction effects) for testing the EO-performance relationship.

Social Identity Theory and the Organization

Abstract: It is argued that (a) social identification is a perception of oneness with a group of persons; (b) social identification stems from the categorization of individuals, the distinctiveness and prestige of the group, the salience of outgroups, and the factors that traditionally are associated with group formation; and (c) social identification leads to activities that are congruent with the identity, support for institutions that embody the identity, stereotypical perceptions of self and others, and outcomes that traditionally are associated with group formation, and it reinforces the antecedents of identification. This perspective is applied to organizational socialization, role conflict, and intergroup relations.