Buildings’ Energy Efficiency and the Probability of Mortgage Default: The Dutch Case

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - We investigate the relationship between building energy efficiency and the probability of mortgage default. To this end, we construct a novel...     

Some properties of pseudo P-convex functions

In this note we study some properties of pseudo P-convex functions a class of generalized convex functions, recently introduced by Hackman and Passy, defined in product spaces of finite dimension. In particular we introduce some generalized monotone maps studying their relationships with the gradient of differentiable pseudo P-convex functions and a class of continuous P-connected functions that in a differentiable setting belongs to the class of pseudo P-convex functions.

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Sommario In questa nota si studiano alcune proprietà delle funzioni pseudo P-convesse, una classe di funzioni convesse generalizzate, recentemente introdotte da Hackman e Passy, definite nel prodotto cartesiano di spazi euclidei. In particolare si studiano alcune proprietà di monotonia del gradiente di funzioni pseudo P-convesse differenziabili e si evidenziano alcuni collegamenti con le funzioni P-connesse continue.

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This research is partially supported by the Italian Ministery of University and Scientific Research.     

Provoking identities: entrepreneurship and emerging identity positions in rural development

This article discusses entrepreneurship in a depleted community in transition. The purpose is to develop knowledge about how discourses are used in the positioning of identity in regional development. The concept positioning illustrates how identities are provoked, challenged, negotiated and moved into identity positions that break away from the idea of imitating successful and wealthy regions; instead, locality, place and history emerge as important resources from where local actors obtain agency and recognize new opportunities. Ethnographic data of a single case were collected over a six-year period between 2005 and 2010. The longitudinal nature of the study made it possible to incorporate how local stakeholders took on new identity positions, while handling their inspiration as well as their frustration. Results show how rural change was conditioned by discourses and how entrepreneurship challenged and reframed dominating structures through interaction between entrepreneurship and community. Four discourses, expressed as dichotomies available to people in this depleted community, illustrate the interactive process of positioning: change vs. traditions, rational vs. irrational, spectacular vs. mundane and individual vs. collective. The results support research emphasizing perspectives that acknowledge interaction between entrepreneurship and context as well as discursive aspects of regional development.     

Supporting retailers to exploit online settings for internationalization: The different role of trust and compensation

The development of virtual technologies discloses two main opportunities for retailers, namely the possibility of complementing their offer through a multi-channel strategy in the marketplace they operate, and of extending their business in foreign countries. The online internationalization strategy requires retailers to overcome customers' privacy concern facilitating their information sharing with the firm so as to conclude the online transaction.This paper aims at helping retailers in reaching this goal by investigating the effect on behavioural information sharing in online settings of two variables emerged as relevant in literature: trust and compensation (as a form of incentive). The results of an experimental study show the key role of trust on increasing online information sharing.     

Envisioning a future purchase: The effects of consumption imagery perspective and identity on consumer motivation

When people visualize a potential purchase, they can adopt either a first‐person or a third‐person perspective. The present research examines whether the perspective adopted would affect consumer motivation, and whether this effect would depend on the extent to which the imagined purchase is connected to identity. In four studies, third‐person imagery resulted in stronger consumer motivation than first‐person imagery, but only for purchases that were tied closely to identity. Furthermore, the results suggest that the motivational effect of third‐person imagery is not based on concerns about others’ views of the self, but rather on the extent to which one feels that the imagined behavior is tied closely to identity.     

Approved routes and alternative paths: The construction of women's careers in large accounting firms. Evidence from the French Big Four

Despite decades of gender-balanced recruitment and clear-cut criteria for promotion based on meritocracy, women in public accounting firms remain proportionally fewer in number in the highest levels of the hierarchy than men. This paper aims to explore the mechanisms fostering women's rarity in top positions within French accounting firms in terms of organizationally constructed approved paths. Drawing on 23 semi-structured interviews with both male and female accountants, the specificities of these approved paths, alongside the construction of alternative, feminized routes, lacking the legitimacy of the former and often implying a derailment of women's careers from a very early stage, will be explored. It is suggested that more than a matter of only lifestyle preferences or practical constraints, this rarity is constructed by the interplay between the two, often resulting in “unintended and unwanted consequences, which retroactively may become unacknowledged conditions of future actions” (Giddens, 1984: 76). The focus of this study is to understand how the discursive and practical components of daily routines contribute to the reproduction of Big Four's gendered culture. Furthermore, this paper challenges the concept of the glass ceiling and instead conceives of the construction of women's careers in the accounting profession in terms of a labyrinth.     

Developing a core competency model of innovative culinary development

This research investigates core competencies of innovative culinary development (ICD) by deep interviews, Delphi and Analytic Network Process (ANP). Stage I of this research employs a Delphi study that involves 16 participants to provide initial innovative culinary competencies based on 20 interviews of executive chefs, R&D managers and culinary artists. After gaining the consensus from the experts, dimensions and items of competencies are identified during Stage II. Also, ANP is adopted to determine the relative weights among the competency criteria and emphasize the interdependent relationships, thus increasing the accuracy of the results.