Management and consumer transformation in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

This study centers on the transformation of management and the consumer in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. Carried out in collaboration with scholars in these countries, the study outlines the impact of the transformation to a market economy on managers and consumers, and discusses the adjustments which managers and consumers have been making in response to new economic realities. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Self-selection and the power of incentive schemes: an experimental study

We examine how self-selection of workers depends on the power of incentive schemes and how it affects team performance if the power of the incentive schemes is increased. In a laboratory experiment, we let subjects choose between (low-powered) team incentives and (high-powered) individual incentives. We observe that subjects exhibiting high trust or reciprocity in the trust game are more likely to choose team incentives. When exposed to individual incentives, subjects who chose team incentives perform worse if both the unobservable interdependency between their efforts and their incentive to cooperate under team incentives are high.     

Living in the Gray: Lessons on Ethics from Prison

Often overlooked once they are remanded to custody, incarcerated former business executives can provide valuable insight into the inner workings of organizations while also contributing to the dialogue on of business ethics within the undergraduate business curricula. This paper summarizes experiences of white collar offenders obtained through a questionnaire-based research method to elicit lessons on ethics from prisoners and to provide a unique learning experience for undergraduate business students. Data was collected from 12 questionnaire responses (n = 12) which resulted in four major themes involving business ethics: core values, ethical responsibility, ethics training, and ethical culture. Narrative responses, integration of ethical decision-making research and student discoveries are included for each theme.     

Welcome waste – interpreting narratives of radioactive waste disposal in two small towns in Ontario,Canada

After briefly reviewing the production of nuclear energy and waste in Canada, this paper uses two small Ontario towns as case studies to examine the treatment of low-level radioactive waste and the communities’ responses and narratives to it. Both towns, Port Hope and Kincardine, have long histories of dealing with such waste. Using interviews, relevant websites and past accounts, this paper employs a discourse analysis to understand the differences in risk perceptions and living with the presence of these materials. Ideas from landscape narratives are employed to show that responses in Port Hope are dominated by death, elegy and crime, whereas those in Kincardine are predominately linked to progressivism and optimism. We explore the characteristics of each case to highlight the reasons for these differences. We conclude by emphasizing the potential role of narrative analysis in informing policymaking.     

Why does shareholder protection matter for abnormal returns after reported insider purchases and sales?

We use a unique data set of more than 240,000 reported insider transactions across 15 European countries and the USA to analyze the link between country-level shareholder protection and abnormal returns following insider trades. We show that abnormal returns after insider transactions are positively correlated with country-level shareholder protection against expropriation by corporate insiders, which supports the information-content hypothesis. Market reaction to insider purchases increases with shareholder protection because shareholder protection enhances the transparency and trustworthiness of insiders’ actions, and limits possibilities for direct profit diversion, so that more information is eventually reflected in stock prices. For insider sales, shareholder protection decreases their negative information content. We conjecture that this is due to the effect of greater transparency and trustworthiness strengthening the diversification and liquidity reasons for selling in better shareholder protection countries. We find limited support for the rent-extraction hypothesis that conjectures that shareholder protection is associated with insider trading dollar profits.     

Markteintritts- und Marktbearbeitungsstrategien kleiner und mittlerer Personalberatungen im Ausland

This article presents the results of an empirical research concerning the strategies of foreign market entry of small- and medium-sized Executive Search Firms from a resource-based perspective. The results show that they tend to mainly use cooperative forms of market entry, although not exclusively. In addition to this, they also opt for export strategies or the establishment of wholly-owned offices. The choice of a specific strategy is highly dependent on the social and human capital of an Executive Search Firm as well as on the experiences and attitudes of the management. The study is embedded in and broadens the existing knowledge of the internationalization of Professional Business Services as well as the internationalization of both small and medium-sized enterprises.     

International or national implementers—Who is better? Evidence from a framing experiment

Behavioral economics has shown that changing small features in framing a context or action may drastically change behavior. A key factor characterizing most development interventions is the salience of either a local or an international implementer. Using the setup of an intervention conducted in Indonesia, we show that the study population in the Acehnese context exhibits higher levels of support for the project if the participation of international actors is highlighted. We find that previous experience with the respective actor is pivotal. Qualitative evidence suggests that internationals' perceived skills drive results, highlighting the importance of strengthened local capacities for positive experiences with local implementers. Overall, the study underlines the benefits of linking framing experiments to the actual experiences of respondents to generate insights into the real world.     

Is the cryptocurrency market a hedge against stock market risk? A Wavelet and GARCH approach

This study analyses six major cryptocurrencies and four global stock markets to explore the role of cryptocurrencies as a hedge, safe haven, and diversifier in stock markets. The study employs ADCC-GARCH and Wavelet Coherence Technique, using daily data from 4 January 2017 to 28 February 2023. The study has found that stock returns and unstable cryptocurrency returns have high volatility persistence in the long run. Besides, while unstable digital currencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Coin, and Dogecoin) serve as a hedge during stable economic periods, they have not been a hedge during economic turmoil in the stock markets. Conversely, stablecoins (Tether and USD Coin) have been shown to have acted as a hedge during normal economic times and have offered a safe haven during economic downturns. Except for Tether, all cryptocurrencies' diversification capacity is time-varying. In stable economic conditions, they serve as diversifiers, but during turmoil, they do not. However, Tether serves as a diversifier regardless of the financial situation. Finally, the present investigation is expected to offer crucial information on hedge, safe haven and diversification for quasi-investors.     

Target insiders' preferences when trading before takeover announcements: Deal completion probability,premium and deal characteristics

We contribute to the M&A literature by characterizing the information available to target insiders during the pre-public takeover negotiations. We analyze insider trading in target firms in the US between 2005 and 2018. First, we show that signing confidentiality agreements is an important information threshold. Second, insiders have a good grasp of deal success. They increase their net purchases only in deals with higher completion probability. Third, insiders guess the final offer price well, but their trading strategies additionally reflect their knowledge of deal characteristics. They prefer bidder-initiated, cash, privately negotiated, and strategic deals. Insiders combine several sources of information.