The impact of visual exposure to a physically attractive other on self-presentation

According to Roney (2003), when exposed to potential mates (young women), men show greater conformity to female mate preferences. This study conceptually replicates and extends this finding to show that women also respond to female physical attractiveness. When exposed to attractive women (potential rivals), women report higher levels of communion and lower levels of agency.     

Decision making for business model development: a process study of effectuation and causation in new technology-based ventures

This study investigates the decision-making logics used by new ventures to develop their business models. In particular, they focussed on the logics of effectuation and causation and how their dynamics shape the development of business models over time. They found that the effectual decision-making logic was used dominantly to generate a viable value proposition for a specific customer segment. Causal logic is then used dominantly to define the other business model components in relation to the value proposition and customer segment. When a shortage of resources emerges, causal logic is replaced by an increase in effectual decision-making again. They concluded that before investing significant resources in a business model it was crucial for firms to reduce, as far as possible, technological and market uncertainty through effectual strategies to avoid high re-configuration costs later.     

Under What Conditions Is an Insurance Guaranty Fund Beneficial for Policyholders?

In this article, we derive conditions in an imperfect market setting, under which the introduction of a self‐supporting insurance guaranty fund improves the position of the policyholders. When a guaranty fund is advantageous given homogeneous firms in the market, all policyholders benefit from it to the same extent, if they have the same underlying risk preferences and are charged identical premiums. In a more realistic heterogeneous setting, the introduction of an insurance guaranty fund is in general no longer beneficial for all policyholders in the same manner. Hence, systematic wealth transfers take place between the policyholders of different insurance companies. As a possible solution, and in order to counteract this effect, we introduce a framework for utility‐based fund charges.     

Momentum strategies in commodity futures markets

The article tests for the presence of short-term continuation and long-term reversal in commodity futures prices. While contrarian strategies do not work, the article identifies 13 profitable momentum strategies that generate 9.38% average return a year. A closer analysis of the constituents of the long–short portfolios reveals that the momentum strategies buy backwardated contracts and sell contangoed contracts. The correlation between the momentum returns and the returns of traditional asset classes is also found to be low, making the commodity-based relative-strength portfolios excellent candidates for inclusion in well-diversified portfolios.     

Delegating effectively across cultures

This article builds on the contingency approach to global leadership to examine empowerment in a cross-cultural context. Drawing upon ethnographic research on employees of a French NGO in Madagascar, our study demonstrates that effective empowerment is not dependent on the amount of delegation, but rather it is dependent on how delegation is performed. Understanding the cultural representations of formalization, skill development, collective work, and decision-making appeared to be crucial to effective delegation in Madagascar. This result suggests that managers should adapt the way that they empower their teams based on the conditions and forms of delegation prevailing in local cultures.     

Globalization,Skill Accumulation and the Skill Premium

We analyze the impact of globalization upon the skill premium (inequality) in advanced countries from a two‐goods North–South model with skill accumulation. Globalization consists of an increase in the size of the South. Its impact on inequality depends on its intensity and on the pre‐globalization proportion of skilled workers. The post‐globalization inequality is a non‐monotonic function of the pre‐globalization proportion of skilled workers and of the globalization intensity. The impact is different for the generation in work and for the following generations. There is a threshold value of the skill endowment under (above) which inequality is lower (higher) after than before globalization.     

Unique but integrated: The role of individuation and assimilation processes in teen opinion leadership

Opinion leaders propel the diffusion of innovation and exert a significant influence on the marketplace. This influence is especially pronounced during adolescence, a period marked by increasing reliance on peers and the emergence of a tension between two countervailing needs: assimilation and individuation. A survey of 1142 adolescents reveals that these developmental needs affect adolescent opinion leadership in the critical clothing market. Adolescent opinion leadership relies on a balance between desires for assimilation (i.e., centrality within the peer network) and individuation (i.e., need for uniqueness); adolescents' susceptibility to peers' normative influence and gender moderate these relationships. Adolescents who occupy central positions within their peer network tend to be opinion leaders, though only if they are not susceptible to normative influence. Position within the peer network is a key for girls, whereas need for uniqueness is a key for boys. These differences implicate different approaches for managers targeting adolescent males and females.     

The kinetic quality of store design: An Exploration of its influence on shopping experience

Kinetic quality of store space is the appreciation of the store with regard to the movements and gestures that can be performed during the shopping trip. Few researches have studied this concept despite its potential influence on shopping outcomes. In this paper, we show that the kinetic quality of the store has an impact on hedonic and utilitarian shopping values and on purchase. The impact on shopping value is similar in magnitude to that of atmospheric quality. Music and visual esthetics positively influence kinetic quality.     

Spatial Evolution of Social Norms in a Common-Pool Resource Game

We study the conditions for the emergence of cooperation in a spatial common-pool resource (CPR) game. We consider three types of agents: cooperators, defectors and enforcers. The role of enforcers is to punish defectors for overharvesting the resource. Agents are located on a circle and they only observe the actions of their two nearest neighbors. Their payoffs are determined by both local and global interactions and they modify their actions by imitating the strategy in their neighborhood with the highest average payoffs on average. Using theoretical and numerical analysis, we find a large diversity of equilibria to be the outcome of the game. In particular, we find conditions for the occurrence of equilibria in which the three strategies coexist. We also derive the stability of these equilibria. Finally, we show that introducing resource dynamics in the system favors the occurrence of cooperative equilibria.