How do corporate political connections influence financial reporting? A synthesis of the literature

A large stream of research has analyzed the effects of corporate political connections (CPCs) on firms, including first evidence on their effects on financial reporting behavior. However, the evidence so far is inconclusive, and attempts to explain the causality of effects on reporting are limited. In this article, we present the results of a systematic review of the literature on CPCs. We draw on findings in the accounting, finance, and economics literature and derive a framework that identifies four channels through which CPCs affect financial reporting. Our review of the literature suggests that effects of political connections tend to be more ambiguous than suggested by individual studies that often offer directional hypotheses. We also identify eight distinct types of political connectedness and discuss their interrelations and the proxies used in the literature to measure them.     

Sustainability-oriented Service Innovation: fourteen-year longitudinal case study of a tourist accommodation provider

Abstract

Progressing sustainable tourism requires both an innovative transition from “unsustainable” tourism and innovative research methods to develop theory and concepts for a sustainable tourism. While there are many ad hoc examples of initiatives, there are very few examples of firms systematically recording their medium-term evolutionary progress. This case study of an accommodation provider uses longitudinal data over 14 years, deductive and inductive methods, and comparison with other similar eco-friendly providers, to provide the first exploration of sustainability-oriented innovation by a firm attempting to make transitions. Findings show how important hindsight and insight are for continuous learning, and how broader community sustainability issues influence the owners’ worldviews. Both learning and changing views are required to support innovation. A Sustainability-oriented Service Innovation model is recommended, recognising the characteristics of a service industry where innovation can be an organic process led by humans for humans and consequently more fuzzy in its progress than the clearly defined steps that are suggested by previous research. This model seeks to assist researchers and practitioners to better measure innovative progress of service firms, and develop more relevant strategies to ease transitions towards sustainable business practices.     

Advertising Repetition: A Meta-Analysis on Effective Frequency in Advertising

This study uses meta-analytic techniques to examine the number of exposures that maximize consumer response to an ad. The results show that in an experimental setting maximum attitude is reached at approximately ten exposures, while recall increases linearly and does not level off before the eighth exposure. The findings are of interest for two opposing schools of thought in the advertising literature on effective frequency. They support the repetitionists’ beliefs over the minimalists’ beliefs on the number of ad exposures needed for maximum consumer response. The study further investigates whether the repetition effects depend on contingent factors. Low involvement and spaced exposures enhance repetition effects on attitude toward the brand. Embedded advertising and massed exposures enhance the repetition effects on recall. Repetition effects decay over time for both attitude toward the brand and recall. The study provides important implications for researchers by contributing to the discussion on effective frequency and providing support for the repetitionists’ view. This view has implications for practitioners who try to optimize advertising frequency.     

范畴帝国主义:置知识于全球化的世界中

范畴帝国主义描述的是在主导性社会文化环境中形成的范畴被输出到从属性社会文化环境中的情形。洛克式的普世主义是范畴帝国主义的形而上基础,而现代化理论、理性选择理论和全球化理论则是其具体的表现。区域研究和后殖民理论都对普世主义的理论进行了反思和批评。替代普世性知识的,应当是情境性知识,这是一种源自柏克的研究取向。对情境性知识的强调意味着美国的那种将洛克强加到世界各处的绝对主义必将遭遇尴尬。     

Is there a trade-off between procyclicality and revisions in EC trend TFP estimations?

Potential output constitutes a central measure to determine compliance of the member states with the EU fiscal rules. The EU uses a production function approach to estimate potential output. In a Kalman filter model together with a Bayesian approach TFP is decomposed into a trend and a cycle. The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between two widely discussed issues of the EC estimate of potential output, procyclicality and the extent of revisions. Procyclicality of the TFP trend depends on the prior assumptions for the residual variance of the TFP cycle equation. Exploiting this, simulations over increasing values of the priors of the residual variance of the TFP cycle equation are run for eight EU countries, leading to decreasing procyclicality of TFP trend estimates. Procyclicality of the estimated TFP trend reduces the standard error of revisions for half of the countries considered, while it implies an increase for the other countries or has no effect. Thus there is a trade-off between procyclicality of the TFP trend and the revision error, but it is not so clear cut. The standard errors of revisions of real-time estimates of the TFP trend as a criterion of model selection could improve forecasts additionally to the marginal likelihood value employed by the EC.     

Demand elasticity estimates for New Zealand tourism

Demand elasticities for New Zealand tourism are estimated for 16 different international visitor segments. Segments are differentiated by origin, purpose of visit, and travel style. Elasticities for both international visitor arrivals and on-the-ground expenditure per arrival are estimated for each segment using time-series data. In general, on-the-ground consumption per arrival is more price sensitive than number of arrivals, and Asian market segments are found to be more price sensitive, both in terms of arrivals and on-the-ground expenditure, compared to international visitors from other regions. An application of the results is presented giving the total effect of exchange rate changes on expenditure by international visitors in New Zealand, and management implications are discussed.     

Arbeiten 4.0 — Folgen der Digitalisierung für die Arbeitswelt

Digitalisation will not only lead to the disappearance of jobs, the creation of new jobs and changing skill requirements in many existing jobs. It also leads to fundamental challenges for existing qualification systems as well as labour law and labour relations. New digital technologies pervasively change the content and organisation of work. They may have an impact on the actual weekly working time hours and the adoption of self-managed working time systems. The consequences, however, may differ for each worker. Accordingly, economic and policy conclusions cannot be derived for the labour market as a whole. Workers‘qualifications need not only to be adapted to changing occupational tasks. Work intensification and increasing communication flows have to be addressed as well. Furthermore, adequate human resources policies can foster the proper use of new flexible work arrangements. Crowdworking as a specific form of flexible work, however, has to be primarily integrated in existing labour legislation. That is one opinion, another author considers the forecasts doomsday prophecies that call for political action or amending the regulative framework. And he suggests that the characteristics of the digital transformation of work may mainly be firm-specific. In a social-scientific perspective there is no deterministic relationship between technology and work but the development of work has to be regarded as a strategic and political design project.     

Governing stigmatised space: the case of the ‘slums’ of Berlin-Neukölln

Spatial stigmatisation – naming spaces with high concentration of poverty as a slum or ghetto – has been well covered in the critical urban geography and sociological debates. Yet, these discussions have neglected to theorise the intersection between the production of stigmatised space and the governance of its inhabitants within the context of one of Germany’s most stigmatised boroughs. By situating Berlin-Neukölln within historical processes of capital accumulation, I show how the discursive, institutional and material practices of neoliberal social policies have played a central, albeit contradictory, role in (re-)producing stigmatise spaces and subjects along racialised, gendered and class lines. This is particularly evident with regard to neoliberal governance strategies that employ and apply the power of public money to repress and integrate impoverished workers into contemporary capitalist society, or what I refer to as the ‘monetisation of socio-spatial reproduction’.