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Poor diet, lack of exercise and higher levels of cholesterol can put anyone to the risk of an unhealthy liver which is responsible for a wide number of functions in our body. Liver is responsible to digest the fat and filter the poisonous elements and when you are not taking care of your liver it can wreak havoc on your digestive system. Don't wait till you suffer from irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, vomiting, gallstones or indigestion. Try Livoplus capsules which are the widely trusted herbal remedies to cleanse liver naturally.
Too many pollutants, alcohol consumption, and bad living habits damage our liver, and its performance degrades over time. But there is a simple remedy for a timely cleansing of liver. Ayurveda has some powerful herbs that are fortified with liver cleansing properties and Livoplus capsules comprise of all such carefully selected ingredients to help us improve overall health.
Signs of an unhealthy liver:
Though liver is capable of natural regeneration but it's not immune to diseases. Therefore, we should definitely take care of the most versatile organ in our body that is responsible for metabolism, blood clotting, eliminating the waste and filtration of the blood. Take a look at the below mentioned symptoms that are a clear sign that you should try herbal remedies to cleanse liver naturally.
1. Jaundice
2. Itchy skin
3. Abdominal swelling and pain
4. Excess weight loss
5. Nausea and fatigue.
Healthy liver is essential for a wide number of functions in the body, and if you encounter any of these warning signs then it's high time that you should cleanse your liver. Livoplus capsules are one of the most trusted herbal remedies to cleanse liver naturally that help to detox liver and maintain overall health.
An effective liver cleanse with Livoplus capsules:
After too much calorie intake, alcohol, chemical-based medicine, junk foods and oily foods we should detoxify the liver to enhance its performance. Some life threatening situations can occur if your liver is not cleansed regularly. If you don't have time to follow a strict detoxifying diet regimen then take Livoplus capsules twice a day to see the results.
The unhealthy liver is accompanied by loss of appetite, fatigue and variety of allergies and infections. Therefore, experts have presented the well-balanced formula of Livoplus capsules that contain Kantkari, Makoy, Kasni, Arjun, Mandur Bhasam, Kasmard, Palihari, Amrta, Daru Hald, Santhi, Bhangra Bhui Aamla, Aamla, Chitrak, Haritaki and Vaivading to improve overall health.
Key Features of Livoplus capsules:
As we all know liver is the most versatile organ responsible for a lot of functions in our body. Thus, it's essential to cleanse it regularly by taking natural supplements like Livoplus capsules. You can try these capsules for a prolonged duration because:
1. These capsules are 100% natural and free from side effects.
2. Kantkari is the main herb in these capsules that is useful in detoxifying the liver.
3. The liver cleansing properties of Chitrak help to maintain overall health.
4. Liver's ability to resist diseases can be regained.
5. Immune system and digestive systems can be enhanced.
6. All sorts of damages caused by jaundice and fatty liver can be treated.
All the herbs and ingredients in Livoplus capsules are formulated as per ayurvedic procedure to present one of the most effective herbal remedies to cleanse liver naturally. So don't wait anymore and order the best liver detox pills today.
Keywords: Herbal Liver Detox Cleanse Supplements Pills, Herbal Liver Detox Pills Supplement, Herbal Liver Cleanse Formula
By: James Nicolas
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Geraldine Brooks
Geraldine Brooks is an Australian author and journalist and attended Bethlehem College Ashfield and the University of Sydney. She worked as a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald for three years as a feature writer with a special interest in environmental issues. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2006 for her novel March. Her first novel, Year of Wonders, is an international bestseller, and People of the Book is a New York Times bestseller.
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* Economist and lawyer who has worked in government and academia
* Would take on tough job of reviewing proposed rules
* Praised for his analysis, pragmatism and affability
By Roberta Rampton and Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON, April 25 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday he would pick Howard Shelanski, an antitrust expert, as his new regulatory czar, a powerful White House position charged with reviewing regulations proposed by government departments.
Shelanski, who is both an economist and a lawyer, is currently in charge of a team of economists that reviews competition and consumer protection issues at the Federal Trade Commission.
He was described by lawyers who know him as a sophisticated analyst who has a pragmatic approach gained from spending time in the trenches of a government agency.
"In my opinion, he's a home run," said William Eskridge, law professor at Yale University, who praised Shelanski for his intellect.
The regulatory czar is formally called the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, or OIRA - a body within the White House budget office.
Shelanski would replace Cass Sunstein, a well known and often controversial author who left the White House in August to return to teach at Harvard Law School.
During Sunstein's tenure, the White House came under fire from environmental groups for thwarting regulations that were deemed to cost too much, including killing a smog rule proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency.
"I think its mission was to stop rules," said Rena Steinzor, a law professor at University of Maryland, and president of the Center for Progressive Reform, a group that pushes for tougher environmental and health regulations.
Meanwhile, business lobby groups and Republicans have accused OIRA of not doing enough to slow regulations they view as burdensome and overreaching.
"It's a kind of a thankless job," said Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law.
"You're almost guaranteed to have a lot of forces aligned against you and unhappy with you," said Livermore, who called Shelanski a "balanced thinker" who understands the complex regulatory process.
Shelanski is an affable person who is skilful at persuasion, said David Balto, a public-interest antitrust lawyer who said he has frequently found himself on the losing end of the argument.
"He has never agreed with anything I have ever proposed!" said Balto, policy director at the Federal Trade Commission during the Clinton administration.
"He's the kind of person who knows how to work well with people of very different perspectives and reach agreement," said Balto.
Shelanski was a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He spent a decade on the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley. He also worked as the chief economist at the Federal Communications Commission and was a White House economist during the Clinton administration.
"He has a reputation as a straight shooter with no obvious ax to grind," said Bruce Kraus, partner with Kelley Drye & Warren LLP in New York City.
The job requires Senate confirmation, which was difficult for his predecessor Sunstein. But Shelanski's lower public profile and impressive experience could make the confirmation process easier.
"I don't know his politics, but anyone with both the Berkeley faculty and a Scalia clerkship on his resume, without knowing more, looks like a good bet for confirmation," Kraus said. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Jeff Mason; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)


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Mike Davis blends surrealism, religious iconography, Dutch portraiture, and a touch of fairy tale magic to create narrative paintings that seem to tell fantastical stories while stretching beyond the confines of a simple "Once upon a time."
In addition to creating these colorful works of surrealism, Davis is also the owner of Everlasting Tattoo in San Francisco. Some of the same themes turn up in both of his media—the raven-headed people, the mythical creatures, and the brilliant colors against earthy tones.
[Mike Davis via Neatorama]


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Fall Clinics: Grades 4-8
Matrix Training Day
Note: Check Status for Your Age Group Before Registering
Only 8th Grade is Still Open; See Below
- Focus: All-around skill development, led by Mandy Ronay of Evolution Basketball
- Dates: Saturday, September 10
- Location: Kenmore MS in Arlington
- Cost: FREE (donations will be accepted to cover the cost of gym space)
- Times:
Each age group will have a two-hour block where they will focus on a variety of fundamental basketball skills. Mandy will lead this training with support from other Evolution trainers and Matrix AAU coaches to ensure a low player-to-coach ratio. This will be a great opportunity for players to get some focused, no-cost skills training early this fall to shake off any August rust.
Enrollment is limited to 30 players per age group, and players must register online, so we strongly encourage you to sign up as soon as possible to reserve your daughter's spot! Click here to go to Matrix Online Registration. NOTE: Even though there is no cost, you must complete all steps of the registration process to be registered.
Time conflict? Request alternative time slot. If you have a conflict with time slot assigned for your daughter's grade, but would still like to attend, register online and then send an e-mail to
In the e-mail, be sure to include your daughter's name, grade and the request for an alternative session. Coach Butler will then respond and let you know if a slot in the requested time frame is workable.
Last Update: Friday, September 9, 2011 at 2:30 pm.
Last Update: Friday, September 9, 2011 at 2:30 pm.
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nerdgasm wrote:Megacon is, as far as I know, the biggest convention that happens in the central Florida area... comics, sci-fi, anime, fantasy... little bit of everything. ( http://www.megaconvention.com/ ) IIRC, last year they had some webcomics panels/guests. People come from pretty far away, so I thought it might be a neat time for a CG gathering.
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The Bryson Charitable Group is Northern Ireland's leading social enterprise and a leader in the delivery of sustainable responses to existing and emerging social need.
Through our six group companies, we provide a range of services tasked with 'Building Better Futures' for the people and families we help
Social impact is at the heart of everything we do. Each group company contributes to the six pillars of our social value framework: stakeholder involvement, social inclusion, wellbeing, sustainability, social innovation / entrepreneurship and reinvestment.
Find out about career and volunteering opportunities within Bryson Charitable Group
Please contact us with your enquiry or to find out more about our work.


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Richard Rakes, Autoliv
Siddharth D'Silva, Autoliv
Autoliv is an industry leader in the development and manufacture of automotive safety systems with an enterprise-wide mission of saving lives. For this reason, safety is viewed as a unified domain and not just a collection of individual applications. While production groups work on next-generation environmental sensor technologies like radar and vision, development teams are focused on integrating these functions for enhanced vehicle state estimation and coordinated motion control. The long-term vision is a safety-domain controller for enhanced motion control that is capable of interpreting driver intention and, in conjunction with inertial (e.g., yaw, lat, roll, pitch), environmental (e.g., radar, camera), and peripheral (e.g. high-g impact) sensing, coordinating the control of restraints and vehicle motion through brakes, steering, suspension, and powertrain.
Model-Based Design ensures a disciplined approach to integration from routine tasks such as sensor signal processing and reference model tuning/calibration to more advanced concepts such as sensor fusion, vehicle state estimation, and the generation, arbitration, and distribution of vehicle or specific actuator control. For example, Autoliv's enhanced Restraints Control Module combines inertial sensing capabilities for stability control with traditional airbag control in a single integrated controller. The improved vehicle state estimates provide invaluable information to the airbag controller, enhancing passenger safety while also enabling auxiliary features such as vehicle stabilization in response to light to moderate impact crash forces.
MATLAB® and Simulink® provided a starting point for concept evaluation. Those concepts were extended and improved through cosimulation with CarSim®, an advanced vehicle dynamics simulation tool. The algorithms were then evaluated in-vehicle using a dSPACE® rapid prototyping ECU. Finally, code was automatically generated from Real-Time Workshop Embedded Coder™ and implemented on a production enhanced Restraints Control Module. Additionally, the production code was subjected to and passed the standard automotive verification and validation procedures before customer release.
Recorded: 4 May 2011


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RENO, NV - Living in a city with 24-hour entertainment, addicts say it's a struggle to recover.
"You have to really want to stop to live in a city like this because it's so readily available," Cindy Will, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict said.
Will says with no good role models in her life, she started smoking marijuana at the age of 13. It wasn't until she was 53 that she could find the strength to stop.
But addiction doesn't discriminate.
"An addiction hits all people," Kelli Davis, a recovering heroin addict said. "You can grow up in a home like I did with very strong morals and very good parents, or you can grow up homeless in the gutter. I know people who have had a very rough life who don't have the need to do drugs."
Kelli says she counts herself among the lucky ones because her family stood by her side through everything.
Denise Quirk, clinical director at the Reno Problem Gambling Center says the hardest part for addicts is admitting they can't recover on their own.
"We're standard American people, we want to do it our way, she said. "We want to solve our own problems. This is something that's bigger than one person."
The Reno Problem Gambling Center has helped hundreds of Nevadans, like Mark Johnson, recover from gambling addictions. Johnson says he only went there at first because his wife asked him too; not because he thought he had a problem.
"I remember Denise asking me if I thought I had a problem," he said. "I remember telling her, 'Lady they only problem I have is I'm on a bad losing streak."
Johnson had racked up thousands of dollars in debt, all because of gambling. He said it took a while for him to admit he had a problem because he didn't want to feel the shame of being labeled an addict.
But he says there was one thing he learned at the Reno Problem Gambling Center that helped him accept what he had done.
"The biggest thing that got me over the hurdle was, Denise told me, 'We can hate the addiction, we don't hate the addict.'"
Once they accept they are powerless on their own, each addict has his or her own way of working towards recovery.
Will says she turned to religion.
"You have to believe in a higher power," she said. "I say have to because without that higher power, success of living a clean sober life is very slim."
Davis says every morning she wakes up and prays she will stay clean.
"I do a lot of work on the underlying issues," she said. "You take drugs and alcohol out of the picture, and I'm still here. The issues that originally caused me to want to do drugs, they're still there."
Davis, Will, and Johnson all agree each addicts story is different but the one thing that worked for all of them was a 12 step program.
Addictions can put a lot of strain of family relationships, but it can often be overlooked how someone's addiction can affect his or her siblings.
Grant Davis says, looking back on his childhood, he can't remember a time when he wasn't watching his sister and their parents battle over her heroin addiction.
He says as a young boy, he didn't understand the full scope of the problem, but he knew he needed to love her unconditionally.
"I felt like I needed to give her everything that I could," he said. "I had to give her my love. I had to give her my trust. I had to give her my honesty because there were certain places my parents couldn't give her that.
Now that he's grown, there is an inner battle of loving his sister unconditionally, and fear that he might one day follow in her footsteps.
"At 11 years old, I never would have thought that I'd be doing the things that my sister was doing," he said. "But now at 17, with peer pressure and the situations at school the reality of addiction is so much more there."
He says just like his sister, Kelli, makes a decision every day to stay clean, he also makes the daily decision to not live his life in the same manner.
Every addiction story is different, but Grant's hope for all kids watching their sibling deal with an addiction is to know it's out of your control.
"There will be tears, and there will be screaming," he said. "There will be emotional and physical fights, and there will be moments when you just don't want to do it anymore. But it is the reality of your life and learn to just give up control."
He says when things became too much, he found refuge in music. He encourages other kids to find something they love and take refuge in it.
"Separate yourself from the negative environment so you don't follow the footsteps of the addicts in your family."
If a child is struggling with addiction, it can be tempting for parents to focus solely on that child's recovery. But it's also important to spend time with other children to talk to them about what is happening in the home and get a sense of what they feel about the situation. Talking with them can be the first defense in keeping them free from addiction.
One of the biggest struggles for parents trying to help a child fight an addiction is knowing when their child is ready to accept help. For 10 years, Angela Davis tried desperately to help her daughter, Kelli, fight her heroin addiction. But Kelli says it didn't matter how hard her parents tried, if she wasn't ready for help, nothing would have worked.
"I think it's important for families to know, there's only so much you can do for an active addict until they're ready, until that person is ready to make a change.'
But for a parent, Angela says the hardest part is standing on the sidelines watching as a child spins out of control.
"When do we know when it's going to work," she asked. "When is she really ready? The hard part is as a parent, you can't really control that."
Angela says during the ten years they have been fighting the addiction, she has learned if your child is refusing to get help, get help for yourself by finding a support group.
"That way when they're ready, you are ready, emotionally, physically, spiritually," she said.
Angela says she joined a parent's group with Join Together Northern Nevada. There she found the strength to be okay with not trusting her child.
"Trust and love are two separate things," she said. "I think teenagers want to tie those together. Separate those two. Love is over here, trust is over there. It's okay to love and not trust,"
Kelli has been clean for four months, and Angela says right now her daughter is earning her trust, but with 10 years of back and forth, her trust doesn't go far.
"Kelli is doing things now that make it very evident that she's clean," Angela said. "Then I can trust her. For a day, or two. But I don't put myself very far out there."
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, you can find a list of treatment centers here: www.recovery.org/browse/nevada
Phone:(775) 525-9052
Meeting schedules for pre-teen (8-12) and teen (13-20) support groups
Support groups for individuals with alcohol abuse issues 355-1151
Support groups for individuals with drug abuse issues 322-4811
http://www.jtnn.org/ Phone: (775) 324-7557


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I often have a large function to which I add inline comments, but then I can't see the forest for the trees. How can I make a tool that extracts the comments and tokens within them to generate an overview or structured outline of the large complex function? For instance:
BigNastyFunction[input_List, xSpecArg_, ySpecArg_, OptionsPattern[]] :=
(*1:1 Local variables*)
data, ySpecContinousQ, xSpecContinousQ, groupsQ, joinedCounts, colors, ymin, ymax, xmin,
(*1:2 Option variables*)
axesLabelsQ, barOrigin, background, diskSizeScaling, displayFunction, frameQ
(*2:1 Check for null Input*)
If[times === {}, Return[$Failed]];
(*2:2:1 Check for groups *)
check1 = Depth[input] === 4;
(*2:2:2 Check for nongroups *)
check2 = Depth[input] === 3;
Would be transformed into something like:
Outline of BigNastyFunction
Part 1.
.....Step 1. Local variables
.....Step 2. Option variables
Part 2.
.....Step 1. Check for null Input
.....Step 2.
..........a) Check for groups
..........b) Check for nongroups


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Once again, the GameDev Club is teaming up with the IEEE club to hold a game night! There will be food, and everyone is encouraged to bring their own games, snacks, TVs, computers, etc.
- When: Friday, April 12th, starting at 5:30pm until midnight.
- Where: Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) building, room 105 (map below)
Important Info
- Please RSVP using this form: http://bit.ly/IEEEGameNight.
- You can park for free in the parking lot by the ECE building (lot #3039) after 5:00pm.
- The doors for the building, as well as the elevator, close at around 6pm, so call the IEEE room at 520-626-7324 if you're locked out. It's best to add that number to your contacts, just in case.
- In order to get to the bottom floor of the ECE building, please only use the South stairwell door, which will be left open.
- While we've never had any incidents before, the clubs are not responsible for damaged, lost, or stolen valuables. It's generally good practice to label your things to make sure they don't get mixed up.
- In accordance to university policy, no alcohol, firearms, or weapons will be allowed.
University MapBelow is a map of where the ECE building is. To view the map in another window, click here.
View Larger Map


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|What is the rule relating to the letter thaal which carries kasrahtain and is followed by laam saakin?
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|I would like to know if there exists an English translation of one of the Sharh (explanation) of the Poem written by Imam Jazari?
|What is the letter in surah al fathiha that the prophet peace be upon him used to recite with blowing out two cheeks and us muslims can say it with blowing out one cheek?
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|I need the rules of meem sakinah please.
|I want to know that while pronouncing this letter dhaad, does the tip of the tongue play any role or not?
|I have always been taught to pronounce the letter "zaa" as "zaa" never as "zay" or "zayn". Are these all correct forms of how to pronounce this letter?
|I wanted to know what the rules are for the Qira'ah of Hamzah for the basmalah as it mentions that there is Wasl (joining) of the 2 Suwar together without a basmalah.
|I was told I am able to find in this website the poem of Jazariyyah and tatemat with the voice of Dr. Ayman Sowyaid.Could you please help me to get them?
|Are you sure about the examples you have for the istifhaam in the chapter on the two hamzahs in one word for warsh?
|I have now become more or less familiar with the tariq of Shatibiyyah (Hafs an Asim)... but I am somewhat still confused about the turuq in general.
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|What is the ruling behind using the letter Sa'd when there is a little 'seen' on top of it?
|In last word of Suratul Kafirun, ayah/verse 4, how should this word be sounded- Abadhtum or Abattum?
|Can you tell me a example of a madda laazim kilmee mukhaffaf
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Quality prefinished hardwood flooring and wood paneling evolution
Located in the rural hills of Geauga County, Ohio, in the heart of a large Amish community, Sheoga employs a team of local craftsmen who are united in producing the best quality solid hardwood flooring available anywhere. Sheoga's established reputation of more than 30 years has gained recognition among the hardwood flooring industry for our unparalleled manufacturing of hardwood floors that meet and exceed our customer's expectations. We guarantee unequal value for an affordable price.
Attention to detail
Unlike the industry standard of using lower-grade lumber to manufacture hardwood flooring, Sheoga's unique formula of components includes premium, furniture-grade lumber in the mix of raw materials to manufacture our high-end hardwood floors. As experience has taught us, it is best to naturally air-dry our lumber for several months prior to kiln-drying. Once the natural seasoning process is complete, we kiln-dry, equalize and condition all lumber to a final moisture content of 6% – 8%, which is ideal for hardwood flooring and wood paneling manufacturing. Under our careful watch, the lumber is guaranteed to be properly kiln-dried for flooring and paneling applications. From the dry kilns, the lumber is moved into our temperature-controlled warehouse, where it remains until it is precisely milled to produce high-quality prefinished hardwood flooring or wood paneling.
Stability and Growth
Sheoga has been producing hardwood flooring and wood paneling since 1982. Our management and quality control teams have changed very little since we began production. Our office and plant facilities include more than 117,000 square feet of space. Our kilns are capable of drying up to 308,000 board feet of lumber at one time. We are confident you will be pleased with your choice of Sheoga hardwood flooring and wood paneling products. Hardwood floors from Sheoga are your best choice.


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Really good (and long) article here, from ESPN's Outside The Lines, that helps you understand the man better, imo:
As part of his mission, Goodell often tells audiences a favorite story: More than a century ago, before there was an NFL, President Theodore Roosevelt saved football with the blunt force of his visionary leadership. In 1904, 18 student-athletes died playing the game, mostly from skull fractures. A devout fan, Roosevelt convened the coaches from Harvard, Yale and Princeton to a White House meeting. The innovations that were adopted -- the forward pass, the founding of the NCAA -- helped propel an endangered game into the modern era.
The history lesson not only places Goodell in Roosevelt's shoes and the current worries about player safety into a historical context, it also portends one of his greatest fears: An NFL player is going to die on the field.
http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/page/Ro ... game-rules


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Bucs and Bears to battle for a spot in the final
FT. MYERS, Fla. (Nov. 8, 2012) – For the fourth consecutive year, the ETSU men's soccer team will step foot into the Atlantic Sun Tournament Championship Semifinals, where it will meet second-seeded Mercer at the FGCU Soccer Complex on Friday at 4 p.m.
ETSU (10-6-3, 5-2-1 A-Sun) earned its place in the semifinals on Wednesday by advancing past the tournament's bottom seed, Jacksonville, 1-0. Mercer (11-6-1, 6-2-0 A-Sun) earned a bye into the semis by finishing second in the regular-season standings.
Part of how Mercer earned the automatic bid into the second round was defeating ETSU, 2-1, in the 2012 conference opener. The Buccaneers outshot Mercer by a large margin, 19-4, but All-Atlantic Sun First Team pick Ehjayson Henry scored twice to begin ETSU's A-Sun season at 0-1. The second of Henry's goals came five minutes into the second half, giving Mercer the lead for good on its only shot of the period. ETSU redshirt junior Luis Calzadilla (Caracas, Venezuela) had leveled the game just two minutes into the half.
In A-Sun semifinals, ETSU is 1-1-1 with advancements in both 2010 and '11. Two years ago, ETSU snuck by Lipscomb when Theo Yang (Lilburn, Ga.) scored the game-winner with seven seconds remaining in double-overtime. Last year, the Bucs played Stetson to an epic 3-3 draw, moving on to the final after winning an eight-round penalty kick shootout, 5-4. The only loss came in ETSU's first-ever semifinal, falling to Stetson, 3-2.
ETSU's Last Outing
No. 3 ETSU took on No. 6 Jacksonville in the first game of the 2012 Atlantic Sun Tournament Championship on Wednesday, and was victorious, 1-0, thanks in large part to a goal from first team all-conference junior Itode Fubara (Ogbema, Nigeria). Five minutes into the game, A-Sun Player of the Year David Geno (Kingsport, Tenn.) fought for a ball down the right side of the field sent in by senior all-conference midfielder Alesi Osorio (Austin, Texas). Geno won the battle as the Dolphin defender slipped to the ground, and sent a cross through the box from near the end line that Fubara slammed home from point-blank range.
When it was all said and done, Fubara's goal proved to be the only score of the game and ETSU eliminated JU in the quarterfinals for the second straight year. Last November, the Buccaneers defeated Jacksonville at Summers-Taylor Stadium, 2-0.
Scouting the Bears
After leading the Atlantic Sun standings for most of the year, Mercer took the No. 2 seed as the result of a loss to Florida Gulf Coast, 1-0, in the regular season finale. A Mercer win or tie would have placed the conference tournament in Macon, Ga., but a 52nd-minute goal from Santiago Echeverri was all FGCU needed to relocate the postseason to Ft. Myers. The loss was the only shutout Mercer was dealt during the conference season.
A big part of Mercer's success comes from its defense. The Bears earned eight all-conference selections – one behind ETSU's nine – including A-Sun Defensive Player of the Year Josh Shutter and first team all-conference defender Ashani Samuels. Goalkeeper Greg Ranjitsingh completed the regular season with the A-Sun's best overall GAA (0.88) and the most shutouts (7).
Offensively, Henry leads the team with five goals and four assists for 14 points. Two of those goals came in the win against ETSU. Forward Richie Edmonson had four goals and four assists to earn second-team honors, joined on that squad by midfielder Ryan King and Carl-Oscar Andersson. King had two goals and a conference-leading eight assists, while Andersson had three goals and five assists.
Series History
ETSU and Mercer have met five previous times, with the Bears holding a decisive 3-1-1 series lead. Mercer rides a two-game winning streak against ETSU, defeating them in late September and during the 2011 season. The Bucs' last series win came during the 2010 championship season, downing the Bears, 2-1, at Summers-Taylor Stadium.
Live stats for Friday evening's semifinal will be provided through Stat Broadcast on AtlanticSun.org. Free live video will be available on ASun.TV.
ETSU Notes
- ETSU is playing in its fourth straight semifinal, where it holds an all-time record of 2-1-1, advancing to the final three times.
- An advancement would put ETSU in its fourth consecutive final.
- Mercer defeated the Bucs in this year's regular season meeting, 2-1, at Summers-Taylor Stadium. Ehjayson Henry scored both Mercer goals.
- Friday's meeting will be the first between ETSU and Mercer in the A-Sun Tournament Championship.
ETSU fans wanting to receive Buccaneer news, score updates, in-game promotions and much more sent to their mobile device can do so by signing up for "Buc Updates." Click here to sign up today!
For more information on ETSU men's soccer, please visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the men's soccer links.


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Listings in Collaboration, Content Integration and Migration and Content Services in Belgium
Moonoia - Document Artificial Intelligence
in Document Management, Data Recognition and Extraction, Process Automation, Content Services, Artificial Intelligence
Creator of docBrain, the AI platform for handwriting recognition and data extraction, Moonoia offers deep neural network technologies to organisations looking to optimise their business processes.
Chaussée de Gand 1434
Brussels, Brussels 1082
Xenit | Partner and System Integrator of Alfresco Digital Business Platform
in eSignatures, Records Management, Process Services, Information Governance, Document Management, Data Recognition and Extraction, Content Services, Content Integration and Migration, Collaboration, Case Management, Archiving/Preservation
Xenit Solutions (Xenit) is a Belgium-based IT company, and an official system integrator partner of Alfresco, the Digital Business Platform. Xenit focuses on content services solutions, covering all document-related business processes.
Diestsevest, 32 Floor 4
Leuven, Flanders 3000
Ex Arte Raptor - Cloud Information Management platform
in Taxonomy and Metadata, Process Automation, Multi-channel Capture, Information Governance, Document Management, Data Recognition and Extraction, Content Services
Ex Arte Raptor is the cloud-native Intelligent Information Management platform, perfectly integrated with your Microsoft LoB applications and easily integrated with any other of your core systems.
Leuven, Flanders


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Heart of the City by Mark Tatulli
Type: Comic Strip
Frequency: Daily
Categories: .
Follow the antics of Heart, the precocious yet endearing young star of Mark Tatulli's Heart of the City. Growing up in Philly with her single mom, Heart encounters endless challenges, from homework avoidance to adventures with her best friend Dean, not to mention the lectures she gets from Mrs. Angelini! Heart's a little girl with a big imagination, and she's sure to warm your heart and make you laugh.
Mark Tatulli
In 1988, Mark Tatulli drew his first published newspaper comic strip, for the Burlington County Times in New Jersey. His next strip, Bent Halos, a comic about a couple of rambunctious angels, was nationally syndicated. Mark eventually put the strip into hiatus to pursue other strip concepts with broader appeal, and to this day he still receives fan mail from Bent Halos readers.
In July 1997, Heart of the City first found her way onto Mark's drawing board, and she hasn't left since. Heart quickly caught the eyes of senior editors at Andrews McMeel Syndication. The strip debuted in newspapers in November 1998 and has garnered rave reviews from fans the world over.
In addition to his cartooning experience, Tatulli is also an accomplished filmmaker and animator, and is the recipient of three Emmy awards for his television work. His experience includes graphics and animation for such shows as "A Wedding Story," "Trading Spaces: Boys vs. Girls," "Epicurious," and children's DVDs.
Mark currently resides in New Jersey with his wife, son and two daughters. His children are the true joy of his life and the inspiration for much of his comic artwork.
Meet the Cast of Heart of the City
Heart A little girl with a huge imagination and an active inner life. She doesn't like school, but she loves adventure.
Dean Heart's partner in crime, Dean's a unabashed geek with a love for science fiction and a fearless outlook on life.
Kat Heart's best friend. Kat provides a slightly more realistic counterpoint to Heart's big dreams, but she's a supportive and delightful playmate.
Heart of the City is a delightful strip that showcases the lighthearted exuberance of childhood. The characters inhabit a world that will be familiar to readers, but they often go beyond this world and into the imagination of Heart and her friend Dean. At the heart (sorry) of the strip are the strong relationships between Heart and her friends, and Heart and her mother. This is a strip for everyone who has ever been a child.


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Back in July in this space I recommended Susan's Cain's "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking." Hearing clips of the author's TED Talk on NPR this weekend has me now doubling down on that recommendation and underscoring some themes I didn't call out in my brief mention of the book.
The core idea in "Quiet" is that our culture – especially in education and business – incubates and celebrates extroverts, while giving short shrift to the potentially powerful contributions of the introvert. We organise our classrooms into "discussion pods," and reward students for vocal participation and visible group "leadership." Our business culture revolves around committees, task forces and work groups, all so we can collaborate our way to success. Along the way, we've come to the conclusion that the loudest voice belongs to he (and it's very often 'he') who is the most confident, and therefore the leader. If forced to conform to today's cultural and business climate, introverts like Gandhi, Warren Buffet, Eleanor Roosevelt, Larry Page, Bill Gates and (!) Dale Carnegie would never have emerged as leaders. The logic is inescapable, and there's plenty of advice on how companies can better leverage the deep insights and massive potential of the introverted third of the world.
But the thing that really grabbed my attention in the TED Talk was this: Our celebration of extroversion has brought about the near death of our ability to work alone; to puzzle over a problem or incubate the germ of an idea. Our individual inability to stay with a problem causes us to lunge at simple solutions. In sales, this promotes a "grab and go" culture in which the seller over-relies on marketing services to "come up with ideas." Often it ends up a shallow, frustrating exercise for all involved.
In the workshops I conduct with sales teams I have started to look for the introverts and carefully draw out their ideas and solutions. Having spent a little more time in their own heads, their thinking is almost always more complete. And I'm encouraging all sellers – introverts and extroverts alike – to schedule 30 minutes of unplugged 'quiet time' during each business day (and 60-90 minutes on the weekend) to consider problems and ideas on behalf of your customers. Call it your daily "time in the wilderness." You'll be amazed at what it does for your confidence and effectiveness.
As Susan Cain says, "Solitude is a catalyst for innovation." Try some today.
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What is shmu?
Station House Media Unit (shmu), established as a charity in 2003, is one of the core cultural organisations in Aberdeen, and is at the forefront of Community Media development in Scotland, supporting residents in the seven regeneration areas of the city in radio and video production, traditional and on-line publications, music production and digital inclusion. The organisation also supports other disadvantaged communities, both geographic and communities of interest, with an employability and training arm and a programme for offenders, both pre and post release.
Latest news
Support shmu
There are many opportunities for individuals, organisations and other partners to support our work. Whether you are interested in sponsoring an individual to undertake a life changing course or you want to invest in our broader community based development we are always delighted to talk through the many options available at shmu. shmuTRADE is the commercial arm of shmu, offering 'ethical' services with a tiered pricing structure. Services include video production, graphic design, sound recording and Internet based services.
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People are at the heart of everything we do. Meet our people.


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On A Positive Note: 'Looper' win has a Denver tie, and other good news
Today we bring you one good thing after another:
* The Golden Globes were great, but for Cherry Hills Village residents Craig Johnson and his wife, Lisa Daniel-Johnson, the Critics' Choice Movie Awards on Jan. 10 had considerably more appeal. "Looper," a film written and directed by Craig's son, Rian Johnson, was picked as Best Sci-Fi/Horror Movie. "Looper," starring Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, also had been the opening feature for the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.
* Lead Alliance Media Group has changed its name to Five Hype, and is hard at work promoting the Jan. 21 Mile High Dreams Gala, presented by Kroenke Sports Charities and held at the Pepsi Center. Five Hype's clients also include rapper Kid Ink and Denver Broncos Wesley Woodyard and Knowshon Moreno.
* Freelance photographer Patricia Duncan, whose book, "A Defining Moment: Barack Obama, The Historical Journey to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.," was nominated for an NAACP Image Award in 2012, has begun a new job: receptionist for Colorado's 69th General Assembly. Her sister, the late Vikki Buckley, was Colorado Secretary of State from 1994-98.


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Abington Township, PAHome Menu
Bids and RFPs
Here the Township will post all bids and RFP's for those interested in doing business with the township. Check back regularly to find details and download Bid documents. All "due by" dates are non-negotiable. Any questions for a particular Bid/RFP can be submitted to the contacts on the bid documents. All bid documents contain directions for submission. Further questions can be sent to the Office of the Township Manager by clicking here.
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Appropriation of Value from Competitive Advantages
Summary and Keywords
Many discussions of the creation and appropriation of value stop at the firm level. Imperfections in the market allow for a firm to gain competitive advantage, thereby appropriating rents from the market. What has often been overlooked is the continued process of appropriation within firms by parties ranging from shareholders to managers to employees. Porter's "five forces" model and the resource-based view of the firm laid out the determinants of value creation at the firm level, but it was left to others to explore the onward distribution of that value. Many strategic management and strategic human capital scholars have explored the manner in which employees and managers use their bargaining power vis-à-vis the firm to appropriate value—sometimes in a manner that may not align with the interests of shareholders. In addition, cooperative game theorists provided unique insights into the way in which parties divide firm surplus among each other. Ultimately, the creation of value is merely the beginning of a complex, multiparty process of bargaining and competition for the rights to claim rents.
Keywords: value, appropriation, resource, RBV, game theory, human capital, bargaining power
Overview of Determinants of Value Creation
Value must be created in markets order to be appropriated by firms and, ultimately, individuals. The study of how firms are able to exploit markets to appropriate rents has been viewed through many lenses.
A key theory in the strategic management literature, the resource-based view (RBV), assumes that heterogeneity between firms in an industry exists due to strategic sources of competitive advantage and that these may be sustainable to a degree due to imperfections in their mobility (Barney, 1991). This influential view of the firm, exemplified in the work of Barney, Peteraf, Helfat, and others propose that firms draw upon particular resources in order to create value, and that competitive advantage is a result of, at least partially, interfirm heterogeneity in access to those resources.
According to the RBV, firms with differing resources compete in the same market, with some breaking even and others appropriating rent. The latter are presumably the firms with greater or higher-quality resources and abilities. In the Ricardian model, superior resources are in limited supply, which allows certain firms to earn rents from the market. If the resources from which these "Ricardian rents" are extracted may be expanded or imitated by others, competitive advantage (a.k.a. heterogeneity in performance in the market) will no longer be possible (Peteraf, 1993). Peteraf posits that for competitive advantage to be sustainable, heterogeneity must not simply exist but must also be maintained, primarily through ex-post limits to competition, which may take the form of lack of imitability or substitutability of resources. Imperfect mobility is also a prerequisite of competitive advantage in the resource-based view. When resources are either not valuable or less valuable outside the confines of the firm in question, their mobility is imperfect. The fact that these resources are in some way at least semi-permanently tied to the firm allows them to be a potential source of sustained competitive advantage. The final condition for competitive advantage is the existence of ex ante limits to competition. In essence, there must be a limit to the entrance of parties to a competitive arena, or else all potential market rents will be, as mentioned above, "competed away" (Peteraf, 1993).
Firms draw upon various classes of resources to create value. While an exhaustive categorization of such resources is beyond the scope of this discussion, three broad classes that have been touched upon throughout the literature are physical capital resources, human capital resources, and organizational capital resources (Barney, 1991). While physical capital resources are fairly self-explanatory, the other two classes warrant discussion. Human capital resources are intangible assets, the value of which is crystallized in relationships, tacit knowledge and experience, and other forms skill or experience accumulation (i.e., training, etc.). This differs from organizational capital resources in the sense that although these are also intangible in many ways, they are not accumulated on an individual level but rather on a macro-organizational level. These may include organizational structure, systems (whether formal or otherwise), and relationships among groups or firms. The capital resources of a company are valuable insofar as they may be leveraged for competitive advantage and, more importantly, sustained competitive advantage. In line with the above discussion of imperfect imitability being a prerequisite for a resource to be a source of competitive advantage, human capital resources are perhaps the most likely class of resources to fulfill these requirements (Barney, 1991).
The RBV provides an initial building block in the understanding of the flow of value from markets to individuals within firms. In order to meaningfully discuss the latter (micro) stages of value/rent appropriation, we must first briefly touch upon the competitive forces which allow for the competitive imperfections necessary for resources to become a source of competitive advantage.
Value Capture at the Firm Level—A Porterian Viewpoint
Porter's seminal "five forces" model of competition and competitive advantage provides a basis for discussion as we move further along the value-appropriation process. As the name suggests, Porter's model proposed that five forces interacted in order to create (or deny) opportunities for competitive advantage in a market setting. He defined these forces in five categories: the threat of new entrants, the bargaining power of suppliers, the threat of substitute products or services, the bargaining power of consumers, and jockeying for position among current competitors (Porter, 1979). The ability to attain an advantage in a market depends on the considerations that in a truly free market, what you can and cannot do depends on whether it can be emulated, supplied by others, rejected or accepted by end-users, or prevented in the first place by the existing members of the market you wish to enter. A market open to all potential players precludes the possibility of competitive advantage based solely on participation in the market itself. The actions taken in a basic market transaction should in most cases be replicable, allowing new entrants to challenge and equalize any short-term advantage gained.
Thus, as discussed in the RBV, the ability to generate rent in a market via resources is contingent on their having traits that could produce imperfections in competition and, accordingly, competitive advantage. Prior to the advent of the RBV, Barney touched upon the overlap of resource acquisition and competitive advantage in a manner that elucidates Porter's points on suppliers. Barney (1986) introduced the concept of strategic factor markets—or those markets created by the need for specific resources in order to implement a strategy. This can range from more traditional resources to fulfill a strategic market need to larger scale resources, such as the purchase of other firms to carry out a diversification strategy. In the aforementioned perfectly competitive strategic factor market with perfect information, strategic factors would sell for their exact implementation value. However, differing expectations between the controllers and purchasers of factors would alter this idealistic outcome (Barney, 1986). This provides a corollary to two of the most relevant (for our current purposes) forces proposed by Porter: bargaining power of suppliers and bargaining power of buyers. Where expectations about the value of a resource/strategic factor differ, the bargaining power balance tips in the favor of one party over the other, essentially allowing a resource to be exchanged with a margin of rent. Imagine, for example, a firm intending to acquire a smaller competitor. The buyer may have an internal valuation of the target firm that takes into account information unavailable to the target. Accordingly, the target firm may accept an offer below the buyer's willingness to pay. Accordingly, value has been created for the buyer.
Many discussions of value would end at this stage, with value having been created and having exited the market. However, value appropriated by a firm in the market has not reached its final destination. Coff defines the firm as a "nexus of contracts," in line with Jensen and Meckling's (1976) definition of the firm as a "legal fiction with which factors form contracts," and extending from this, it is not tenable to treat it as the final destination for generated rent. The following sections will explore the manner in which value is appropriated by individuals within a firm.
Value Capture Among Stakeholders of the Firm
As discussed above, Barney's work describes the firm as a heterogeneous collection of assets or resources, and in line with this, reiterates the concept explored previously in this paper that any rarity or heterogeneity in resources allows an opportunity for competitive advantage (given that they are valuable, rare, hard to imitate, etc.) (Barney, 1991). However, even if competitive advantage is achieved, the resource-based view and other traditional views assume firm performance and rent generation/appropriation are neatly related. Even the resource-based view assumes that rent is largely generated by knowledge embedded in individuals and networks of individuals. This leads to the understanding that it is unreasonable to assume that these same individuals and networks of individuals cannot leverage their rent-generating capability into rent-appropriating capability and that knowledge resources/assets do not neatly or exclusively generate rent for the "firm," insofar as they generate a pool of rent appropriable by many parties—including those traditionally associated with "the firm" (Coff, 1999). Milgrom and Roberts defined rent appropriation by employees as when their wage is greater than what is necessary to keep them within the firm (Milgrom & Roberts, 1992). The "firm," in the traditional sense, only generates rent when all of the involved stakeholders have received their compensation up to the level described by Milgrom and Roberts, that is, to the point where they would not exit the "nexus" in search of some equilibrium level of compensation (Coff, 1999). The tension between firm and individual in rent-seeking behavior lays the groundwork for a discussion of bargaining, one of the most heavily explored topics in the value appropriation literature.
Value Capture: The Bargaining Power Perspective
Bargaining power helps to determine who will be able to appropriate rent up to and beyond their equilibrium point within the nexus. Bargaining power is highest when a group of stakeholders can act in a unified manner, have exclusive or strategically important information, are difficult to replace, and can easily transfer to other firms/nexuses (Coff, 1999).
Brown and colleagues studied the case of physicians, whose accumulated human capital grants them significant bargaining power in health-care organizations. The authors found that physicians in a particular hospital were able to influence the organizational structure of the hospital over time, pushing it toward a series of changes designed to protect their own income from regulatory and environmental changes that could have harmed them. Physicians used structural changes (joint ventures with the hospital, increased contact with external patients) to increase their bargaining power further. Through unified action, specialized knowledge, high replacement costs and ease of mobility, the physicians became uniquely capable of influencing the organization in a way that benefited them (Brown, Gianiodis, & Santoro, 2015). Similarly, Datta and Iskandar-Datta have explored the impact of general and specific human capital on top management compensation, specifically that of CFOs. Due to the strategic nature of the CFO's role, the authors hypothesized that a "general" suite of skills, as represented by an MBA degree from an elite university, would increase their bargaining value within the firm. They found that indeed such CFOs consistently received greater rents than their specialist (accounting or non- MBA/master's degree holding) CFO colleagues, in the form of both salary and equity-based forms of compensation, supporting the concept that their unique resources allowed them to bargain more effectively with the firm (Datta & Iskandar-Datta, 2014).
Much of the early value appropriation literature did not provide an in-depth exploration of the bargaining process necessary for parties to take their share of rents. Coff's (2010) work on bargaining power begins with a discussion of stakeholder knowledge and capabilities as a basis for bargaining power. Stakeholders in this model are those who seek to develop or be involved in a firm's ability to leverage its resources to particular outcomes—that is, to make use of its capabilities. The value generated by a capability is appropriated by stakeholders in many forms (Coff, 2010).
Just as capabilities evolve throughout their life cycle, so too do the opportunities for various stakeholders to benefit from knowledge asymmetries about said capabilities. Those stakeholders who have greater knowledge earlier in the life cycle of a capability are therefore in a better position to appropriate the value created by the capability. With each distinct stage of capability development come unique bargaining opportunities for players within the firm seeking value.
In the founding stage, the core team pushing for the creation of a new capability has unique leverage to create a rent appropriation regime which favors them. This leads to what Coff refers to as ex ante negotiation over rents, a negotiation stage between parties working together to develop the capability, in which individuals may wish to position themselves to appropriate expected future rents through various forward-looking mechanisms (i.e., stock options or other forms of direct compensation regimes). In the development stage, the search for opportunities for development, recruitment of new talent, or new strategic partners will introduce new parties into a position to appropriate value from the capability. Thus, development is a process that may increase value generation at the cost of creating new (and potentially powerful) players at the bargaining table for said value. This is an ideal example of the dilemma faced by firms (or rather, firm decision makers) with regard to value appropriation. At maturity, attempts to fend off the erosion of advantage by competitors may lead the firm to share strategic capability information via commercialization or efforts to expand end-user understanding. Key individuals may be in greater demand across firms in the maturity stage, allowing them greater negotiating ability within the focal firm and greater opportunities for turnover. In this stage bargaining is volatile, as the value appropriable from the capability may appear to be near depleted in its current form (this is evidenced by opportunity cost decisions which increasingly result in individuals leaving the nexus of the firm). The capability life cycle ends with efforts to extend or reshape the capability. This may take many forms, but in general such strategies will almost always result in the addition of new stakeholders and additional value appropriation negotiation (Coff, 2010).
Throughout the stages explored above, the bargaining power of individuals changes in tandem with capability formation, development, and maturity, as a differing set of circumstances and opportunity costs shapes the boundaries of the negotiations between individuals and their firm for the value generated by capabilities. In each of these stages, the ability of a group within the nexus to gain competitive advantage in its rent appropriation is limited. Stakeholders often cannot always act in a unified manner, they may lack access to the information flows necessary, and individuals may have high costs for exiting the firm, making any such threats unrealistic (Coff, 1999). This is especially likely among professional employees, who are unlikely to be members of a union that would give them the kind of unitary acting power necessary to extract significant rent, and the nature whose work may keep them separate from truly core knowledge. They may, in this case, be unable to generate specific enough human assets to again competitive advantage within the nexus. They also may lack a clear authority structure, which again makes it difficult to pose a united front when bargaining for greater rent. Imagine, for example, a team of employees within a firm. They may, separately and collectively, feel entitled to appropriate a greater portion of the value they create for the firm. However, a number of challenges face any effort to do so. As mentioned above, they may have limited formal opportunities to engage in bargaining, either collective or individual. It may be difficult to clarify the individual contributions of employees, due to problems of collective effort and monitoring (Alchian & Demsetz, 1972). In addition, unless the individual is in a unique position, their skills may not be core enough to the firm to prevent the it from simply looking to the market for a cheaper alternative (Lepak & Snell, 1999).
Management, however, are unique. Managers who oversee the technical core of knowledge within the organization and monitor those employees with access to such knowledge are in a unique position to either successfully plug themselves into the tacit knowledge around which they can build competitive advantage, or effectively lock themselves out by failing to gain sufficient understanding (Coff, 1999). In addition, while employees lack the clear authority to negotiate in an organized manner or from a position of strength, managers are defined by a hierarchical leadership role and are naturally aligned with one another in a managerial class (Coff, 1999). The combination of these traits makes managers a uniquely powerful party in terms of rent appropriation, and a cursory look at discussions of upper management and executive compensation show that this has not remained a scholarly debate. Castanias and Helfat (1991) specifically explored the bargaining power held by members of management and board members as well as the risks (or lack thereof) arising from it. Agency theory (specifically, the seminal works by Jensen and Meckling) has set out a framework in which there is no guarantee of conflict; however, principals and agents, if they behave in a profit-maximizing manner, will eventually have non-aligning best interests. This could produce a case such as that discussed by Coff in the formative stages of a capability; managers may have the ability (and the motivation) to shape firm policy in such a way as to maximize their rent appropriation, even at the expense of the well-being of the firm. Castanias and Helfat argue that this ought not to be the case—that rather than an agentic, self-interested role, managers may act in a manner that produces such "managerial rents" to the benefit of diffuse shareholders (shareholders being in many ways a proxy for the intangible "firm") (Castanias & Helfat, 1991). Specifically, one can imagine a scenario in which managers' interests are closely aligned enough with those of shareholders that their "self-interested" application of their managerial skills would broadly generate rents for the firm, rather than merely for their own benefit (even if, through incentive alignment, they would also directly benefit from their actions). Yet, the bargaining process remains relevant regardless of the outcome.
Shareholders differ from management in that they are characterized by the investment capital contributed and, in some cases, the risk borne. The diffuse nature of shareholders dilutes their bargaining power as well as their rare nature as a resource. Concentration of ownership among a small group of shareholders can severely limit the ability of single shareholders or coalitions of minority shareholders to influence the firm in such a way as to extract additional rents from it. While there are exceptions to the stereotype of the passive shareholder with little influence on managers—the continuing popular discussion regarding the role of activist shareholders being one example (Anabtawi & Stout, 2008)—it remains the norm that managers are closer to decisions of value distribution and appropriation than shareholders. As such, managers, to the extent that they control rents, will provide the minimum possible rent to diffuse investors (the "market cost" of their investment capital). Ultimately in the model suggested by Castanias and Helfat, self-interest still drives individuals' decisions, but a series of incentives prevents significant hold-ups (Castanias & Helfat, 1991). Coff's work supports that of Castanias and Helfat in this regard. He states that investors, despite having a clear right to residuals, have a uniquely weak right to rent generated (Coff, 1999). The assets they are entitled to are often balance sheet assets: while these assets are important, they are often not nearly as important as the knowledge assets that are "owned" by employees and management. They lack the direct link to information flows that within firm parties enjoy, relying on managers (in this context, their direct competitors) for understanding of the rent and its sources, as well as generally lacking unifying characteristics and structures (Coff, 1999).
Value Capture: Strategic Human Capital and Firm Specificity
In the light of the resource-based view and literature on the bargaining power of individuals in organizations, it may be worthwhile to more closely examine the nature of the resources individuals control that give them the ability to appropriate value from the firm. Many organizational sociologists have explored the concept of asset-specificity, arrangements that provide some parties leverage for "hold-ups" due to the rarity or specific nature of the assets they hold (Klein, Crawford, & Alchian, 1978). The issue arises only when "idiosyncratic" items are in question (Williamson, 1981). Literature on the specificity of human capital assets has focused in many instances on either the development or allocation of these assets.
Firm specific human capital has discussed by several scholars as the individual skills, cognitive resources, and other personal abilities the value of which is limited outside of the environment of a particular firm (Coff, 1997; Kor & Leblebici, 2005). This limited external value has been conceptualized as a potential foil to employee's mobility, as the nature of their skills may result in the perception of lower value at other firms in comparison to their current one (Becker, 1993; Hashimoto, 1981). This has been supported by studies indicating that job candidates who exhibited general human capital traits were higher paid than their firm-specific competitors (Bidwell, 2011).
The development of human capital assets is a path-dependent process, with skills taking on the idiosyncratic nature of the firm environment in which they are developed (see also Grant, 1996; Penrose 1959). The acquisition and development of specific human capital is often seen as a potential significant source of competitive advantage for a firm. Hatch and Dyer (2004) point out that "firms that are superior at acquiring, developing, and deploying human capital enjoy sustained advantages in learning and ultimately cost." The greater the specificity of an individuals' skills, the more unique their contribution to the firm becomes. While firm specific human capital is often viewed positively, stakeholders with significant influence may extract additional rents from a firm (above and beyond the market price for their services) (Crook, Ketchen, Combs, & Todd, 2008). Although firms may seek efficiency when allocating human capital to productive endeavors, the owners of human capital may influence this allocation based on their own perceived needs. The ability to do so may be elevated in those individuals with firm-specific human capital, and the firms reliance on such human assets will to some extent determine its vulnerability to the detrimental effects of such actions (Chatain & Meyer-Doyle, 2017). The owners of firm-specific human capital are less likely to be able to negotiate outside of the firm due to the very nature of their skills and investments and are therefore more likely to seek additional value by appropriating it internally.
On the other hand, employees who make firm specific skill or knowledge investments open themselves up to the threat of opportunistic behaviors on the part of the firm. This necessitates efforts on the part of employees to protect themselves from the risk of having rent extracted from them by the organization, and efforts on the part of employers to provide sufficient comfort to employees so that they will be willing to make firm specific investments (Wang & Barney, 2006). The employee is faced with a risk-reward dilemma, weighing the payoff of firm specific and general investments against the risks of each in order to achieve what they view to be their ideal maximum utility. Wang and Barney propose a model in which an increase in firm specific investments by employers increases the rent-generating capability of the underlying firm resource, and a decrease in the value of the resource decreases value appropriative capacity of the employee via firm specific investments, driving both parties to negotiate.
Given the difficulties inherent in developing and allocating firm specific human capital, several studies have focused on the ways in which to manage and understand the impacts of this sometimes volatile resource. It may be presumed that incentivization of certain actions within an organization, as Castanias and Helfat proposed, may effectively manage human behavior when the individuals in question have highly specific or high-quality human capital. However, Frank and Obloj argue that incentivization may in fact create avenues for or encouragement to behave in a self-interested manner for individuals in control of important human capital assets. The greater the human capital embodied in an individual or team, the more potential they have to generate rents; however, at the same time, this same human capital increases their ability to take advantage of incentive systems that would allow them to appropriate that rent (Frank & Obloj, 2013). Therefore a scenario may arise where greater general outcomes are achieved by highly skilled managers/employees, but their ability to siphon off the fruits of their labor in various forms ultimately decreases the firm level rent (Frank & Obloj, 2013). Those employees with a greater capacity for learning this "game," as Frank and Obloj refer to it, are capable of quickly increasing their appropriated rent.
Other early-21st-century works have questioned the actual awareness of firm specific human capital exhibited by market players and hence called into question its impact on bargaining for rent. Individuals and firms may not even consider firm specificity as much as theory implies, as evidenced by studies showing that individuals who suffer the greatest drops in performance after moving from one firm to another are those who were most willing to move in the first place. The literature on star employees has consistently illustrated that high performers suffer a dip in performance (sometimes long term) when they change firms (Groysberg, Lee, & Nanda, 2008; Groysberg, Nanda, & Nohria, 2004). Although there are many potential explanations for the performance drop-off, it may be that hiring firms are, by definition, unaware of the firm-specific complementary assets that stars took advantage of in their previous employment. This would allow the stars to be more mobile than their "mobile value" would otherwise allow. Hindrance of mobility tends to occur only when employees are aware of the specificity of their skills and are less likely to search for other opportunities, the employer rewards specific skills, and competitors only offer compensation for general human capital (Coff & Raffiee, 2015). Thus, there are some boundary conditions on the impact of asset specificity, driven by balances between opportunity cost and the bargaining power. Firm specific human capital isolates employees, making them less likely to leave the firm. However, when employees have significant general human capital and competitors have complementary assets to their skills, the limiting power of firm specific human capital may be minor (Campbell, Coff, & Kryscynski, 2012).
The bargaining power perspective has been in some respect the dominant one in the strategic management literature. Exploring concepts of negotiation and opportunity cost, often in light of the precepts of the borderline paradigmatic resource based view, it has provided significant amounts of meaningful insights into the complex patterns of value appropriation within firms. With that said, other viewpoints and literatures provide additional and unique input into this discussion. In discussing the traditional economic viewpoints surrounding value, Lippman and Rumelt (2003) stated that "cooperative game theory (CGT) provides a valuable alternative perspective . . .[it] separates the issues of opportunity cost, value, and the distribution of rents [and] replaces the conceptual looseness surrounding the economic profit concept with a formal system in which surplus is known, but its division is subject to negotiation."
Value Capture: Cooperative Game Theory Perspective
The CGT Framework
Cooperative game theory provides a different, if not wholly dissimilar, theoretical lens through which to view the value appropriation problem. Cooperative game theory views the firm as an environment in which the bargaining power of an individual in a particular network depends on the value of their resources to other individuals or "players" (a group of which is a "coalition"). The "value function" of a network or firm in a cooperative game is the optimal use of the resources and access of each coalition (Roson & Hubert, 2015). An individual or coalition's bargaining power relies on what value other players may be able to appropriate in their absence. If the absence of the player will decrease the rent available for appropriation to other players, the original player will have leverage in bargaining (Roson & Hubert, 2015). Although this framework uses some unique terminology, it is apparent almost immediately that the main concepts—bargaining power, the opportunity cost of various players, and the acquisition of value from a closed environment (the firm)—are shared with the literature discussed above.
Lippman and Rumelt have also proposed the "payments perspective," which holds that all revenues a firm collects are payments to specific resources, whether tangible or intangible. Using CGT, they view the firm as a "bundle of resources," with resources being "co-specialized" and existing within the legal fiction of the firm rather than being "firm-specific" per se. A resource may be a traditional resource or the skills and know-how of an employee. The payments received are then the rent appropriated by that resource. Again, the parallels with the resource-based view are apparent. In this context, CGT provides a framework in which one may understand what payments can be commanded by each resource, what the addition of new resources may do the structure and volume of such payments (or possible payments), and how a restructuring of the resources into (different or additional) coalitions might generate additional rent. The basis of an individual's bargaining power is that their "price," or rent appropriated, will be somewhere in the interval between the minimum amount to keep them from leaving the firm and the maximum amount that the firm can afford to pay. CGT essentially provides a framework in which all surplus generated by a firm or a market is claimed by one player or another, making the question not how much surplus remains but rather how much surplus is taken by each player en route to zero (Lippman & Rumelt, 2003).
This is not to say that there are not significant departures from the assumptions of the resource-based view, or ignorance of that literature. MacDonald and Ryall (2004) argued that the determinants of competitive advantage commonly set out in the strategy literature by influential authors such as Porter and Barney (rarity, inimitability, value of resources), while potentially useful, are not necessary nor sufficient for the achievement of competitive advantage. They propose that in a market with one buyer, a firm with theoretically valuable resources is still valueless without the actions of the buyer. Any value the firm appropriates will be a result of bargaining between the two parties and not due to the nature of their resources alone. Their model introduces both explicit questions about other value appropriation models and the elsewhere unexplored concept of perceived value. Where a player can receive some level of rent greater than zero in all of their potential feasible and stable distributions (appropriations) from the game, they are said to have competitive advantage. This necessarily depends on the appropriative options of other players in the market—more succinctly, it depends on the opportunity costs of other players (MacDonald & Ryall, 2004). The competitive advantage picture becomes even murkier when the pool of competitors under discussion is brought into question. Chatain (2011) claimed that firms may engage in "client-specific value creation," in which custom services or products are directed at a particular client that would not be equally valuable to other clients. When the opportunities to create client-specific value are high, competition is necessarily curtailed, and relevant competitors limited to potential suppliers of a certain buyer's specific needs. Heterogeneity in firm performance then may not be, as the resource-based view suggests, entirely a question of capability differences but a more nuanced question of relevant competition across markets.
Change in Appropriation Patterns Over Time
Regardless of the theoretical lens through which it is viewed, value appropriation by stakeholders (whether shareholders, managers, or employees) is not a static event, in direction or in magnitude. Other stakeholders, such as customers in a competitive, high-tech industry, may be absorbing most of the value created. Thus, a dynamic situation where value creation is growing may appear to be a stagnant one under traditional measures as the firm's share of value (traditional measures such as net profit, for example) may not be significantly changed. In addition, more delicate appropriation questions go unanswered using measures such as profit or returns to stockholders (including dividends and capital gains). Discussions of rent appropriation have often been static, failing to recognize the dynamic processes of bargaining and shifting informational asymmetries within a firm. Patterns of rent appropriation evolve alongside firm capabilities, which are informed by stakeholders changing roles in the process of capability development across the life cycle (Coff, 2010). Insofar as bargaining power is derived from position and knowledge, and these things are constantly shifting, it is apparent then that bargaining power (and the ensuing structure of rent appropriation) must also shift. Several forces may alter existing knowledge asymmetries; internal competition, the codification of tacit knowledge, or learning curve effects (Coff, 2010). All of these forces are notable for being dynamic, and their absence at any particular stage in the process of capability development does not preclude the emergence.
Lieberman and Balasubramanian (2005) gave the example of General Motors' 10% returns to stockholders in a period when relevant stock indices grew by 14%. The question of the loss of 4% in comparison to the index could be answered by different distributions of rent generated (i.e., stakeholders other than stock owners appropriated the value) or by a simple failure to generate enough value. Accordingly, understanding appropriation patterns may influence policy and strategy in a significant way. Lieberman and Balasubramanian propose that value generated is equal to the marginal increase in a firm's efficiency of using resources: in their 2005 study, they attempted to empirically measure "value appropriation" as a construct by exploiting the accounting concept of revenue being equivalent to all payments made to stakeholders. In traditional (neo-classical) economic thought, value creation is either a supplier or consumer side surplus, and as circumstances change (such as firm size, technology, or customer willingness to pay) value creation shifts. Thus, value appropriation, as a function of value creation, is a dynamic construct that changes with developments in industry and in the economy at large. Such changes as increased consumer demand, requirements for increased wages to employees or greater executive compensation might drastically alter the value appropriation pattern within a firm (Lieberman & Balasubramanian, 2005).
In a similar growth from neo-classical thought, Garcia-Castro and Aguilera (2015) reconsidered the viewpoint that the only relevant stakeholders were the "firm" (i.e., the investors or shareholders) and the end consumer. This view presumed that the generated rent was the surplus in this simple equation. Garcia-Castro and Aguilera introduced in their 2015 taxonomy of rent generation and appropriation a concept of "value creation elasticity of stakeholder appropriation," which was meant to indicate a difference between the value appropriated by stakeholders and that which is generated over time—thereby inserting the necessary "gap" to account for appropriation in general. Garcia-Castro and Aguilar's model redefines "firm appropriated value" as the value appropriated by those who have provided capital to the firm, and it includes information about employee/manager numbers and wages, opening a much-needed space to account for a dynamic view of value appropriation patterns over time.
Directions for Research
This chapter has explored much of the past and current discussion surrounding value appropriation. This is by no means exhaustive, nor is it representative of the end point of this particular stream of research. Below we explore only a few of the potential future directions for research on this topic.
Extending Bargaining Power Frameworks—Porter and Beyond
We have explored here the Porterian "five forces" framework, one of the cornerstones of discussions of value appropriation and of the strategy literature in general. In this framework, competitive advantage may be achieved by various parties based on their power—the power of suppliers, the power of buyers, etc. Much of the discussion extending from this framework has addressed this leveraging of bargaining power of other parties at a macro level (in keeping with the spirit of Porter's original framing of these forces). However, little has been said with regard to the micro level. One may explore the mechanisms and interactions within firms where such bargaining power–based interactions are taking place rather than focusing on the broader "overall market," firm-based approach.
Similarly, later studies that have explicitly discussed bargaining power (such as Coff's, 1999 and 2010 works, and Castanias & Helfat, 1991 discussed above in the section "Value Capture: The Bargaining Power Perspective") could be developed to further understand the ambiguity underlying causal mechanisms of individual bargaining power within firms. Brown et al. (2015) and Datta and Datta (2014) are examples of a potential trend of empirical studies attempting to disambiguate these mechanisms. Further work may involve laboratory experiments, which may allow us to control for some of the confounding variables which have complicated efforts to determine causality in this field, such as the difficulties of parsing individual effort and bargaining power from the effects of team productivity. The question of individual versus team value creation (and value appropriation) is one which also makes the use of sports datasets attractive, due to the relative ease with which individual players' achievements and negotiation can be differentiated from those of their peers. Some studies such as Moliterno and Wiersema (2007) have put such data sets to good use.
Firm Specificity, Perception, and Information Asymmetries
The concept of firm specificity of human capital is core to many discussions of bargaining for value within firms. However, firm-specific human capital is often conflated with tacit knowledge and skill, resulting in objective measures such as tenure being used as a proxy in order to study the effects (constraints on mobility, etc.), which are theorized to go along with the development of such assets. This stream of research, while valuable, ignores a potentially significant error in logic: if firm specific human capital is tacit and unobservable, how do "information asymmetries" arise between employees and firms (both the current employer and other potential employers) when firms also cannot observe and assess tacit traits? What force then causes the constraints proposed in the literature? Perhaps a more consistent viewpoint would be one which treats perceptions as the key to these behavioral implications. This would lead to valuable discussions about how both individuals and firms manipulate perceptions in order to increase bargaining power and alter mobility, as well as the ways in which firms may achieve (or lose) competitive advantage based on their management of employee perceptions of specificity.
Synthesizing Cooperative Game Theory and Bargaining Power Discussions
CGT literature has provided a number of valuable insights into the process of value appropriation via the rigor of formal modeling. As in any literature with a significant amount of formal modeling underlying its theory, there remains space for new insights via the relaxing of certain restrictive assumptions built into these models. For example, many models in the CGT literature limit the number of employees and firms in a market to a token amount for simplicity, or presume perfect information among a certain class of market players. The altering or elimination of these limitations may provide further insights into the functioning of actual "cooperative games."
The intersection between CGT and more traditionally strategy-centered discussions of bargaining power is an area with significant potential for further research. As above, certain assumptions are made in the CGT literature—a model may indicate a bargaining range, whether formed by perfect or asymmetric information, and the final outcome of appropriation falls within it. This literature does not, however, in many instances, explore the mechanism of the bargaining process or the details of individual players' opportunity cost. Bringing these concepts into the CGT literature, either in a purely theoretical manner or as a set of assumptions in an empirical model, would provide valuable insights into the complex bargaining process.
Changes in Appropriation Patterns—Shocks, Competitive Dynamics, and Intersections with Other Theories
The literature on changes in appropriation patterns is a fairly new direction for research. Building upon some of the time-elements mentioned by Coff (2010) and Garcia-Castro and Aguilar (2015), valuable research remains to be done with regard to the effect of various exogenous shocks on appropriate models over time. Although some attention has been paid to the path-dependent progression of appropriation patterns in line with various changes within the firm and with regard to related sources of value, unique exogenous shocks such as changes in the market, new competitors, and other such events may provide further insight into the dynamic nature of appropriation patterns.
The nature of these patterns and their impact on firm performance also remains to be studied. Few scholars have theorized on the effect of various patterns of appropriation, with only a basic economic assumption that appropriation by employees is a form of firm inefficiency. Empirical studies of different types of appropriation patterns (those which heavily favor employees, managers, or shareholders, respectively) would help to provide clarity with regard to causal mechanisms driving increases or decreases in firm performance. Heavily regulated industries such as the airline industry are fertile ground for such studies, specifically explorations of the secondary effects of employee appropriation such as signaling and motivation.
Again, the intersections between these schools of thoughts also provide space for meaningful discussion. Given observable changes in appropriation patterns, literature on the subject has not deeply explored the microfoundations of these changes. As appropriation shifts, is it driven by employee bargaining? Is the story linked to questions about perceptions of specific and general human capital? What role do members of upper management play in strategic decisions about rent allocation? Each of these questions opens up a rich path of investigation.
Demand-based Strategy
Demand-based strategy is a field that has not been touched upon in depth here but that stands as a potentially fruitful direction for further value appropriation research. Adner (2002) discussed disruptive technology and was an early work in demand-based strategy: in this theoretical framework, rather than focusing solely on the interplay between competing firms and employees, the focus shifts to consumers and whether they are end users or other corporate entities. Customer satisfaction and purchase is, essentially, a value proposition. Consumers will not purchase a good or service unless they consider the transaction to be one in which they gain value. Aside from Adner, Priem and Butler (2001), which criticized what they viewed as the one-sided focus of the RBV, led to a more fully formed discussion of consumer focused value creation some years later (Priem, 2007).
What does this mean for the literature on value appropriation? For one, the pool of parties under discussion expands in a meaningful way. Similar to the comments on changes in appropriation patterns above, different directions of appropriation may also result in different effects on firm performance. Traditionally ignored measures of performance in strategy such as reputation could be used in order to gain a broader understanding of the role of consumers in the value appropriation equation. The RBV and Porterian conceptualizations of the manner in which value is created and divided may, in light of such studies, be incomplete.
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