Granularity of Services

Service-oriented architectures are widely discussed as a design principle for application and enterprise architectures. Nevertheless, an adequate granularity of services has not yet been researched sufficiently from an economic perspective. The finer the granularity to realize the functions of a process, the higher the number of services is, and the more effort has to be directed towards composing them. In contrast, very coarse-grained services bear the disadvantages of higher implementation costs and lower reuse potential (e.g., in different processes). The aim of the decision model proposed in this paper is to determine an adequate granularity of services from an economical perspective. Thus, degrees of freedom, which often exist for the choice of granularity after a domain analysis, can be leveraged to realize a cost-efficient solution. We illustrate the applicability and practical benefits of the decision model with an example from the context of a financial services provider.     

Post‐Cameralist Governance: Towards a Robust Political Economy of Bureaucracy

I develop a robust political economy of bureaucracy by highlighting the conditions necessary for hierarchical administrative bodies to govern protectively and productively, but not predatorily. These conditions are residual claimancy and jurisdictional competition. I make this argument by exploring a post‐cameralist interpretation of governance. Cameralism arose as a governance philosophy in the fractured principalities of seventeenth‐century Germany following the Thirty Years' War. Post‐cameralism focuses not on particular cameralist governance strategies but on a paradigm which sees governance as an activity provided within a larger exchange order, rather than imposing itself on that order as in more conventional treatments of public economics. While a post‐cameralist conception of governance comes with its own challenges, such as tensions with normative visions that promote self‐governance, it nonetheless presents an intriguing synthesis of monocentric and polycentric insights.     

Start-ups by the unemployed: characteristics,survival and direct employment effects

Fostering and supporting start-up businesses by unemployed persons has become an increasingly important issue in many European countries. These new ventures are being subsidized by various governmental programs. Empirical evidence on skill-composition, direct job creation and other key variables is rather scarce, largely because of inadequate data availability. We base our analysis on unique survey data containing a representative sample of over 3,100 start-ups founded by unemployed persons in Germany and subsidized under two different schemes: the bridging allowance (BA) and the start-up-subsidy (SUS). We are able to draw on extensive pre- and post-founding information concerning the characteristics of the business (start-up capital, industry, etc.) and of the business founders (education, motivation, preparation, etc.). Our main results are: (1) The two programs attracted very different business founders (higher skilled for the BA, more female persons for the SUS), and different businesses were created (less capital intensive for the SUS). (2) We find that formerly unemployed founders are motivated by push and pull factors. (3) Survival rates 2.5 years after business founding are quite high (around 70%) and similar for both programs and across gender. (4) However, the newly developed businesses differ significantly in terms of direct employment effects. While around 30% of the founders with the BA already have at least one employee, this is true for roughly 12% of the founders with the SUS.     

Emerging economies' attraction of foreign direct investment

This paper uses a composite measure to examine why some countries attract more foreign direct investment (FDI) than others. The measure considers all identified, measurable, and comparable socioeconomic aspects that affect FDI decisions on an aggregated country level. As a result, we can rank 127 countries with respect to their FDI attraction. The measure allows detailed strength and weakness analyses and enhances the discussion of why FDI flows are concentrated in advanced economies. Additionally, the findings reveal the areas in which emerging countries should improve in order to narrow existing gaps. Our robustness checks indicate that the composite measure accurately tracks real FDI activity.     

Common good leadership in business management: an ethical model from the Indian tradition

While dominant management thinking is steered by profit maximisation, this paper proposes that sustained organisational growth can best be stimulated by attention to the common good and the capacity of corporate leaders to create commitment to the common good. The leadership thinking of Kautilya and Ashoka embodies this principle. Both offer a common good approach, emphasising the leader's moral and legal responsibility for people's welfare, the robust interaction between the business community and the state, and the importance of moral training of leaders in identifying and promoting the common good. We argue that the complex process of re‐orientating corporate priorities towards the common good requires alertness and concerted effort if both business and society are to truly benefit. As Ashoka said: ‘A good deed is a difficult thing’.     

Angst vor der Angst

Den Teufelskreis durchbrechen — Angst zu haben ist normal. Was aber, wenn in allt?glichen Situationen ?ngste und Panikattacken auftreten oder gar allein der Gedanke an erlebte ?ngste ?ngstigt? Wenn die „Alarmanlage“ Angst gest?rt ist und st?ndig „Fehlalarme“ auftreten? Wie k?nnen Angsterkrankte den Teufelskreis durchbrechen und wie k?nnen Pflegende dabei entscheidend weiterhelfen?     

Supply Chain Management Competency and Firm Financial Success

Supply chain management (SCM) plays a major role in creating (or destroying) shareholder value by influencing the three major drivers of firm financial performance: revenue, operating costs, and working capital. Yet, the relationship between SCM competency and firm financial performance is not well‐established. Drawing on the resource‐based view of the firm, this study assesses this relationship using Delphi‐style opinion data from AMR Research’s Supply Chain Top 25 rankings to assess SCM competency and Altman’s (1968) Z‐score statistic as the measure of financial success. The study findings show that firms recognized by industry experts for SCM competency have significantly higher Z‐scores than their close competitors and industry averages.     

The transfer of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) as an urban policy for spatially targeted economic development

Urban policy transfer between the US and UK has long been of interest to researchers and practitioners. Given the recent wider context of reduced direct funding and the absence of a coherent regeneration policy, this paper considers the introduction of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to the UK as a method of stimulating spatially targeted economic development initiatives. The paper explores whether TIF could be considered a form of policy transfer, and in doing so uncovers whether the transfer of TIF could – (a) be successful and unsuccessful under certain circumstances; (b) require the actions of certain stakeholders; and (c) be enabled via prescribed frameworks and negotiation. The results are evidenced using qualitative approaches and find that TIF is more of a modified policy ‘idea’ rather than transfer. Further discussion argues that TIF can be successful, if it considers flexible but local elements and has the capacity to balance stakeholders for development brokerage.