This case describes the extraordinary growth story of LanzaTech, a New Zealand (NZ)-based company cofounded in 2005 by scientists Sean Simpson and Richard Forster. LanzaTech developed a microbe which fermented the waste gases generated from steel manufacturing to produce ethanol and other chemicals. This case builds on effectuation logic and entrepreneurial discovery to highlight the challenges and opportunities of research commercialization. The case is structured chronologically and outlines the steps that the entrepreneur has taken to build the technology from scratch. It covers the early phases of the company, focussing particularly on how LanzaTech developed, refined, patented and began to commercialize its research. A key strength of the case is its multidisciplinary focus. The case describes some of the crucial aspects of research commercialization including capital raising, developing a business model, forming partnerships and expanding internationally. The case also describes a company committed to retaining its research base in NZ, and some of the opportunities and drawbacks of operating in a small economy at a distance from key market players.

This paper focuses on agency workers in China's auto industry. Some scholars foresee that this new category of workers, particularly in the auto industry, will play a leading role in global labour resistance. In this context, we conducted a questionnaire survey of 483 regular and agency workers at five major auto joint ventures in China and compared their work conditions, job satisfaction and willingness to take collective actions. Based on these findings, we argue that these companies have good reasons to keep the gap in wages and in work conditions small. This, along with management practices inherited from the Maoist system, can mitigate workers' dissatisfaction and reduce their tendency to take militant actions.

This study investigates the effect of outside director experience on the performance of a firm's joint venture (JV) engagements, a type of strategic move where the influence of board remains under-investigated despite directors’ active participation in the decision-making process. By examining the direct linkage between director experience and strategic performance, our research presents the first direct evidence of the value outside director experience has for a firm's strategic engagements; this has previously been exclusively assessed by indirect indicators. We address this important issue in the following three ways. First, we explore what type of director experience contributes most to JV outcomes. Second, we investigate what circumstantial factors significantly influence the value of director experience. Lastly, we analyze whether incentive mechanisms moderate the relationship between director experience and firm performance. The results confirm the value of director experience gained from JV engagements but not from relevant industries. In addition, executive experience and the industry affiliation of the JV significantly moderate the value of director experience. Finally, experienced directors with large shareholdings outperform those with experience but limited stakes in the firms’ equity, justifying the necessity to motivate directors’ governance efforts despite their existing fiduciary obligation to shareholders. Our study contributes to agency theory by indicating that director experience holds a significant influence on a firm's strategic performance, an issue which has long been neglected in agency-based governance research. It also contributes to resource-dependence theory by providing a direct measurement of directors’ experiential assets, which have so far been exclusively assessed by indirect indicators. Finally, findings from this study can elucidate the long-standing question of how a firm can realize the purported benefits JVs provide by introducing a vital yet rarely explored factor: board experience.