Economic growth and foreign aid

Japan’s metamorphosis from a less developed country to one of the world’s most Important industrial nations was closely connected with increasing foreign pressures. Where did they result from and what will be their consequences for the country’s economic policy?     

Prospects for external sources of vehicle propulsion: Results of a Delphi study

This article presents the outcome of a Delphi study carried out between October 1995 and February 1996. The subject of the study is external sources of vehicle propulsion, and its possible role in achieving more sustainable modes of transportation. The Delphi study concludes that external propulsion technologies are unlikely to be the substitute for internal combustion engines. External sources of power or energy are potentially a means of saving energy, because the weight of vehicles can be reduced and energy can be produced on a large scale thus boosting efficiency. However, there is no practical system by which these advantages can be realized without putting an unacceptable strain on the quality of the transport system. The costs would be huge; there would be considerable energy losses; safety problems could arise; and the flexibility of the users is limited. Electric vehicles could, however, become important. Pantographs and quick charging techniques could become important technologies if battery technology will not improve considerably.     

From ‘Golden Age’ to ‘Golden Age.’ An Introduction to the Role of the Netherlands in Economic Science and Economic History

This article introduces the special issue of De Economist on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Royal Netherlands Association of Economists.     

Estimation of a proportion in survey sampling using the logratio approach

The estimation of a mean of a proportion is a frequent task in statistical survey analysis, and often such ratios are estimated from compositions such as income components, wage components, tax components, etc. In practice, the weighted arithmetic mean is regularly used to estimate the center of the data. However, this estimator is not appropriate if the ratios are estimated from compositions, because the sample space of compositional data is the simplex and not the usual Euclidean space. We demonstrate that the weighted geometric mean is useful for this purpose. Even for different sampling designs, the weighted geometric mean shows excellent behavior.     

Consumer decision-making of slow moving consumer goods in the age of multi-channels

Currently, consumer decision-making is influenced by the spread of technology that has made multi-channel retailing possible. Multi-channel retailing can be defined as a retailer using a combination of separate and independent channels without any overlap for promoting and selling products and services. This study contributes to three research streams: consumer decision-making, multi-channel retailing and slow-moving consumer goods (SMCG). A theoretical framework is developed to examine the decision-making processes of two groups of consumers, Millennials and Mothers. As the aim of the study was to gain insight into consumer decision-making in the context of multi-channels it was designed to be exploratory and used an abductive approach. The empirical material was mainly collected via interviews in store and consumers’ homes. The interview data are complemented by in-store observations. Our findings show that multi-channels influence consumers’ decision-making and that there are differences between Millennials and Mothers. Different devices and channels are used at different stages of the decision-making process and we claim that they complement, rather than conflict with each other. Retailers need to understand that customers expect omni-channelling, which has a positive impact on brand and sales. We argue that retailers who want to remain competitive will need to move toward omni-channelling.     

CEO personality and language use in CSR reporting

We explore the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) personality traits and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting. Upper echelons theory indicates that the values, experiences, and personalities of top organizational managers influence their organization's strategic decisions and effectiveness. We utilize IBM Watson Personality Insights software to infer CEOs’ personality traits based on their responses to questions raised by analysts during year-end conference calls; we obtain CEOs’ Big Five personality traits—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism—from which we compute a measure of their risk tolerance. Using a longitudinal dataset of Standard and Poor's 500 firms for 2008–2015, we document that high CEO risk tolerance is related to lower CSR report readability and smaller CSR disclosure volume. This finding indicates that executives who are comfortable with greater risk are more willing to supply stakeholders with reports that are shorter and require greater effort to understand. Exploration of the association between CEO Big Five personality traits and CSR report readability and disclosure volume allows key stakeholders to better comprehend CSR disclosures and connotations thereof. Overall, our results contribute to the debate on how CEO personality traits affect organizations’ CSR disclosure reporting strategies, and support upper echelons theory in the CSR setting.     

Strategic management in a new framework

The present article is concerned with strategic management as a specific field of general management. The authors analyse the nature of strategy formation in complex organizations and present some tools for improving this critical activity. Section 2 sets out with a simple terminology and framework for the analysis of strategic management. Next, an open-systems view is presented for analysing the strategic activity and a brief literature survey is added to support the concepts presented (Section 3). After discussing their own model of strategic management in complex organizations, the authors proceed to investigate the task of top managers in this specific field (Section 4). Finally, the concepts presented are confronted with specific management modes, drawn from literature reporting on German and Japanese business practice (Section 5).     

Success Factors for Mass Customization: A Conceptual Model

Mass customization entails the ability to provide customized products and services to individual customers using technology (information) at optimal production efficiency and cost levels. The concept is gaining prominence because the marketing literature is increasingly focused on delivering superior customer value. Although the mass-customization literature provides many insights into its origins, formats and approaches, it does not provide a coherent framework to assess the viability of a successful mass-customization strategy. Based on the premise of customer perceived value, we have developed a conceptual framework to address this need. We present a series of hypotheses that serve to encourage other authors and direct future research.     

How (not) to talk about the uncertain: siting geological disposal for highly radioactive waste in the Czech Republic

There is an ongoing controversy in the Czech Republic over where to site a deep geological repository for the country’s radioactive waste. Recently, the negotiations between municipalities and state authorities responsible for radioactive waste management experienced a sharp turn: after several years of dialogue guaranteed by the promise of the state authorities not to start site investigations at preselected sites without the consent of affected municipalities, the state authorities suddenly decided not to keep this promise, and to start site investigations without the municipalities’ consent, saying that time for dialogue will come after the site investigations will have been completed. This article explores the period of the failed dialogue with respect to how risks and uncertainties were treated in the negotiations. Drawing on two strands of scholarship on risk and uncertainty, the risk governance school and the STS perspectives on sociotechnical controversies, two paradigms for dealing with risk and uncertainty are outlined. These are used as a framework to analyse how implementers and local stakeholders articulated possible risk or uncertainty issues in negotiations about the Czech geological disposal between 2009 and 2013. The analysis shows that whereas the implementers adopt (sometimes even an extreme version of) the risk-based paradigm, the positions of the local stakeholders seem to be mixed. These observations lead to two conclusions: first, at the theoretical level, perhaps some of the STS literature was too quick to assume that people ‘want’ uncertainty. Second, at the practical level, it is suggested that in the light of the failed dialogue, it might be worth for the implementers to take a lesson from the uncertainty-based paradigm, and consider the possibility that perhaps still more work needs to be done in order to turn uncertainty into risk.     

L'utilisation des forces au travail et les comportements proactifs et de citoyenneté organisationnelle: examen du rôle médiateur du bien-être

Positive psychology suggests relying on workers' strengths to maintain balance between personal fulfillment and organizational goals. This article assesses whether the use of strengths in the workplace are associated with proactive behaviours and organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB) through the mediating role of well-being. Data were collected from 142 French-speaking Canadian professionals working in various non-profit organizations. Results show that the use of strengths can predict some OCBs (notably mutual aid and civic virtue) as well as proactivity. Only the affective dimension of well-being shows a mediation effect for mutual aid and proactivity. Theoretical contributions, implications for practitioners, limitations, and future research directions are also discussed.