How Can We Better Understand Current and Future Workforce Values in the Global Business Environment?

Our study tested the predictive power of socioeconomic development theory and age differences theory to explain work values across cultures and across age groups. We compared the values orientations of future managers, business students under the age of 25, with those of current managers and professionals, who we split into three decade groups (30 to 39, 40 to 49, and 50 to 59). Our respondents (n = 1,518) come from six diverse societies: Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, Russia, the United States, and Vietnam. Our findings indicate that both theories contribute to our understanding of work values and behaviors. One implication is that while socioeconomic development theory makes an important contribution, it is clearly not sufficient by itself to explain work values/behavior differences in the global context. The study findings and the discussion of them will hopefully provide multinational managers with a clearer assessment of current and future workforce values/behavior. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Perils of Managing the Service Profit Chain: The Role of Time Lags and Feedback Loops

The tendency of managers to focus on short-term results rather than on sustained company success is of particular importance to retail marketing managers, because marketing activities involve expenditures which may only pay off in the longer term. To address the issue of myopic management, our study shows how the complexity of the service profit chain (SPC) can cause managers to make suboptimal decisions. Hence, our paper departs from past research by recognizing that understanding the temporal interplay between operational investments, employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and operating profit is essential to achieving sustained success. In particular, we intend to improve understanding of the functioning of the SPC with respect to time lags and feedback loops. Results of our large-scale longitudinal study set in a multi-outlet retail chain reveal time-lag effects between operational investments and employee satisfaction, as well as between customer satisfaction and performance. These findings, along with evidence of a negative interaction effect of employee satisfaction on the relationship between current performance and future investments, show the substantial risk of mismanaging the SPC. We identify specific situations in which the dynamic approach leads to superior marketing investment decisions, when compared to the conventional static view of the SCP. These insights provide valuable managerial guidance for effectively managing the SPC over time.     

Konjunktur- und Strukturkomponenten der Länderhaushalte

Deutschland hat im August 2009 eine Schuldenregel im Grundgesetz verankert. Die Bundesl?nder müssen bis 2020 ihre Ausgaben grunds?tzlich ohne Kredite fi nanzieren. Konjunkturbedingte Defi zite sind weiterhin m?glich, die in konjunkturell guten Zeiten ausgeglichen werden müssen. Das RWI hat ein Verfahren entwickelt, wie die Konjunktur- und Strukturkomponenten der Landeshaushalte berechnet werden sollten.     

Empirical bias in intraday volatility measures

Intraday volatility measures have recently become the norm in risk measurement and forecasting. This article empirically investigates the unbiasedness of three of these measures over four different datasets. We find that the three measures are significantly biased and that the bias can have either sign.     

NAIRU Estimates for Germany: New Evidence on the Inflation–Unemployment Tradeoff

Meaningful estimates of the non‐accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) within a Phillips curve framework require an identified tradeoff between inflation and unemployment. However, observations of inflation and unemployment are equilibrium points giving rise to a simultaneity problem. We assess conventional identifying assumptions in the literature on the German NAIRU in a general bi‐variate equations system of inflation and unemplyoment. We use a data‐driven method for identification based on shifts in the relative volatility of shocks to unemployment and inflation to identify the tradeoff for Germany. Our results support models which estimate a contemporaneous effect of unemployment on inflation and those which model inflation and unemployment jointly.     

The role of coalitions at international tariff negotiations: a CGE perspective

Review of World Economics - Developing countries coalitions form an integral part of tariff negotiations that take place under the aegis of the World Trade Organization. While there was only a...     

Why some are more equal: Family firm heterogeneity and the effect on management’s attention to CSR

Research at the family firm–Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) nexus lacks agreement about whether family firms are more or less socially responsible than their non‐family counterparts, which leads discussion relating to the bright and dark side of socioemotional wealth (SEW). We add to this ongoing debate in two different ways. First, we build on family firm heterogeneity and argue for a gray side to SEW, located between the bright and dark sides that is dependent upon the kind of family firm ownership. Second, we assume that prior research on a diverse set of CSR behaviors may, to some extent, explain the contradicting results; thus, we propose going back a step and focusing on management’s attention to CSR as an important antecedent of CSR behavior. By analyzing the letters to the shareholders of German HDAX firms from 2003 to 2012, this study finds that family ownership positively affects management’s attention to CSR, mainly driven by founders and family foundations. The research adds to our understanding of the family firm–CSR nexus by scrutinizing the role SEW plays in management’s attention to CSR when it comes to family firm heterogeneity.     

On the power of indicators: how the choice of fuel poverty indicator affects the identification of the target population

In light of the creation of the EU Energy Poverty Observatory (EPOV) in January 2018 and the increase in debates on how fuel poverty is measured, we propose a critical analysis of fuel poverty indicators and demonstrate that choosing a given indicator is central to the identification of the fuel-poorpopulation.

First, we conducted an inter-indicator analysis to show how profiles of fuel-poor households vary depending on the indicator selected. We designed a multidimensional approach based on a multiple correspondence analysis and a hierarchical and partitioning clustering analysis to study characteristics of fuel-poor households. We highlight the difficulty of identifying a fuel-poor ‘typical profile’ and show that the composition of the population depends on the choice of the indicator.

Second, we applied an intra-indicator analysis using two objective expenditure-based indicators with thresholds. In particular, we conducted a sensitivity analysis based on a logit model including variables describing household and dwelling characteristics. We show that the profiles of fuel-poor households as well as the drivers of fuel poverty vary considerably with the chosen threshold level.Given these findings, we stress the need to review how we currently rely on conventional fuel poverty indicators to identify target groups and give some recommendations.     

Repeated interaction in standard setting

Standardization may allow the owners of standard‐essential patents to charge higher royalties than would have been negotiated ex ante. In practice, however, standard‐setting efforts are often characterized by repeated interaction and complementarities among technologies. These features give firms that contribute technology to standards both the ability and the incentive to avoid excessive royalties by threatening to exclude other technology contributors from future rounds of standardization if they charge royalties exceeding ‘fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory’ (FRAND) levels. We show that such an outcome can be sustained as a subgame‐perfect equilibrium of a repeated standard‐setting game and examine how the decision‐making rules of standard‐setting organizations (SSOs) affect the sustainability of FRAND royalties. Our analysis provides a novel justification for super‐majority requirements and other rules frequently adopted by SSOs.