Background: We aimed to explore the predictive ability of preoperative carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels for assessing tumor resectability (R0 resection) in patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Methods: The present study included 72 patients who had been treated surgically for potentially resectable pancreatic adenocarcinoma and 42 patients who had been treated surgically for palliation (bypass surgery) at our institution. Pancreatic adenocarcinoma was histologically confirmed by pathological examination of the resected specimen or, if unresected, by intraoperative biopsy. Results: For resectable disease, the mean and median values of CA19-9 were significantly lower than for R1/2 or unresectable disease. The best cut-off points for CEA, CA19-9, and tumor size to predict resectability were 2.47 ng/mL, 92.77 U/mL and 11.85 cm

Our study examines the imitation behavior of UK automobile manufacturers from 1894 to 1981 and supports previous studies on interorganizational imitation by showing that manufacturers tend to imitate other manufacturers that are similar. We also find that the degree of confidence manufacturers have in their imitating behavior affects the intensity of that behavior, where an organization's confidence is determined by the variance of the routines used by its reference group and the number of firms in the reference group. Our results show that (1) manufacturers whose reference groups showed large variance in niche-width changes during the previous year are less likely to imitate (the mean of) those changes, (2) manufacturers who have large reference groups are more likely to imitate the changes, and (3) the negative effect of variance on the imitating behavior is strengthened as the number of reference organizations increases.niche-width strategy, interfirm imitation, confidence

This paper extends research on experiential learning of foreign subsidiaries by exploring the temporal conditions under which a foreign subsidiary can benefit from the experience of its sister subsidiaries. Building upon organizational evolution and learning literature, we propose that differences in entry timing among sister subsidiaries provide structural conditions that bound the opportunities for inter-subsidiary learning. We argue that different entry cohorts of sister subsidiaries are beneficial to a focal subsidiary, as they provide nonredundant, complementary experience from their different operational stages, and ignite the motivation to learn. Our empirical analysis of Japanese foreign subsidiaries provides strong evidence that survival is enhanced by the experience of different entry cohorts of sister subsidiaries, but not by that of similar cohorts. Qualitative evidence also shows that multiple channels of experience exchange across sister subsidiaries lead to actual learning. We further show that the survival benefit derived from different cohorts is contingent on the level of environmental change, as well as on the level of experience of the focal subsidiary and its parent firm. Our research highlights the importance of temporal heterogeneity in the internationalization process, and offers implications for the temporal strategy of multinational companies.