The impact of culture and ecology on cooperation in a common-pool resource experiment

Context affects decision-making in many ways. In this paper we explore differences in cooperation behaviour between communal farmers in Namibia and South Africa, who share the same ethnic origin but have had different historical and ecological constraints. We report on a series of field experiments based on a common-pool resource model. Our experimental design is framed according to the grazing situation in semi-arid rangelands. Dependent on the behaviour in previous rounds, participants are facing different states of resource availability with varying need to cooperate, coordinate and to be patient. While only 4% of the grazing areas in South Africa remain in good quality, Namibians achieve a level of 42%. We analyse the different experimental states and find that Namibians behave in all states more cooperatively. We argue that the large difference between the two regions is due to a combination of different historical developments and ecological preconditions: Namibian resource users have a longer experience in cooperative resource management and intact traditional norms. Moreover, the real-life payoffs to cooperation are higher in Namibia stemming from ecological factors.     

Natural Environment,Market Orientation,and Firm Innovativeness: An Organizational Life Cycle Perspective

Drawing upon the corporate social responsibility literature, we investigate the moderating effects of the natural environment and the stage of an organization's life cycle on the market orientation to firm innovativeness relationship. Through 229 owners or chief executive officer respondents, our results establish evidence of (1) a positive linkage between market orientation and firm innovativeness; (2) natural environmental policy positively moderating the market orientation to firm innovativeness relationship; and (3) organizational life cycle negatively moderating market orientation to innovativeness. Our findings suggest ventures characterized as being early in the organizational life cycle are more likely to have a positive environmental policy toward the natural environment leading to a competitive advantage through firm innovativeness.     

Defragmenting Definitions of Entrepreneurial Opportunity*

We examined 19 years worth of definitions of entrepreneurial opportunity and opportunity‐related processes. We found 56 articles in six entrepreneurship‐focused publications, with a total of 49 conceptual definitions and 32 operational definitions. Among those definitions, we identified 25 distinct conceptual and 12 operational elements of opportunity plus 48 conceptual and 39 operational elements of opportunity‐related processes. We found considerable fragmentation across conceptual and operational elements. However, based on commonalities among conceptual definitions, we developed six composite conceptual definitions of opportunity and eight composite conceptual definitions of opportunity‐related processes, which we hope will help reduce the fragmentation of the entrepreneurial opportunity literature.     

On structural inelasticity of modal substitution in freight transport

At the European level there is an increasing focus on how freight transport can be moved from trucks on roads to more environmentally friendly modes such as rail and ship. A large proportion of the transport services between OD pairs, however, cannot be substituted since there is only one alternative available. The paper investigates the magnitude of this “structural inelasticity” of modal substitution in freight transport due to a sparser layout of rail and ship-based freight networks compared to road. In the analysis we use a recent Scandinavian freight demand model covering more than 800 zones. We find that the structural inelasticity is very significant - in particular for transportation over less than 500 km. Moreover, the inelasticity varies greatly with commodity groups and between OD pairs, and it depends strongly on the port and rail infrastructure. The results suggest that pure charging instruments (road pricing for trucks) in many regions will have limited mode substitution impacts. However, if combined with structural changes in terms of improved infrastructure for rail and ship, impacts may be greater.     

Prune or cut down: salience and Sugden’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Economics of Rights</Emphasis>, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Co</Emphasis>-<Emphasis Type="Italic">operation and Welfare</Emphasis>

In The Economics of Rights, Co-operation and Welfare (1986), Robert Sugden follows the tradition from Thomas Schelling and David Lewis in ascribing a central role to the notion of salience within his theory of convention. However, against this, Bruno Verbeek (Instrumental rationality and moral philosophy, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2002) has argued that an empirically adequate notion of salience may not be incorporated into a generic account of convention without circularity obtains. This paper examines Verbeek’s argument against a background of experimental as well as theoretical work on coordination problems. It finds that the argument fails to consider at least two candidate theories of salience that may be incorporated into the theory of convention without circularity: cognitive hierarchy theory that iterates Sugden’s notion of psychological salience and Schelling salience. Thus, in the end Verbeek’s criticism of the role ascribed to salience in theories of convention may be dismissed, though its discussion draws a fruitful perspective.     

The International Reserves Issue in the EMU

This paper examines the effects of the Economic and Monetary Union on demand for foreign reserves. The traditional theory on demand for international reserves assigns a pivotal role to imports. However, in a currency union part of imports are settled in the common currency, leaving no incentive for keeping foreign reserves. Moreover, the pooling of the demand for reserves in the currency union and an increasing role of a currency as an international reserve currency may also influence, among other things, the union demand for reserves. Based on estimated demand functions for reserves it is shown that the Economic and Monetary Union has reduced the demand for reserves substantially. It is argued that an enlargement with new member countries of the European Union will result in further savings of reserves. A simple calculation at the end of the paper illustrates the welfare gain associated with the reduced need of reserves in the Economic and Monetary Union.     

Ist mehr Innovativität im Marketing besser? Achtung,nicht-lineare Effekte!

Wie innovativ sollten Unternehmen ihr Marketing gestalten? Ist mehr Innovativit?t immer sinnvoll? Antworten auf diese Fragen gibt dieser Beitrag. Ausgew?hlte Fallstudien und eine empirische Studie belegen, dass zus?tzliche Innovationsanstrengungen ab einem bestimmten Ma? negativ wirken k?nnen.     

An empirical analysis of green supply chain management in the German automotive industry

The purpose of this paper is the empirical investigation of the status quo of green supply chain management in the German automotive industry from a practitioner's point of view. Several aspects of green supply chain management, such as the point of time of implementation, the driving forces, the relevance of intended goals and their particular realization and the adoption of eco‐programs with suppliers and customers as well as internal and external barriers are analyzed. Furthermore, the link to different performance criteria is tested by inductive statistics in order to show the potential of green supply chain management for competitiveness. For this study, managers from the automotive supply industry in Germany were asked about their estimations in this regard. The main conclusion is that managers express the need for green supply chain management on the one hand but also see corresponding problems in terms of required resources on the other hand. Furthermore, the analyses show that green supply chain management leads to higher performance in terms of several performance criteria. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The role of the entrepreneurial team and the board of directors in the internationalization of academic spin-offs

This study addresses the roles of the entrepreneurial team and the board of directors in the internationalization of academic spin-off companies. The study is based on a quantitative analysis of 109 spin-offs from Norwegian academic institutions. The findings suggest that academic spin-offs are more likely to achieve both international strategic alliances and international sales with entrepreneurial teams having industrial experience that is both highly homogeneous (where each member has work experience in the same industry) and highly diverse (where each member has work experience in different industries) and board members that have diverse functional backgrounds. Firms that are less dependent on networking by board members to increase legitimacy and build relationships with potential foreign customers are more likely to achieve international sales.