Strategy implementation for the 2030 agenda: Insights from Brazilian companies

While firms' engagement with Corporate Social Responsibility has been associated with positive performance impacts, little is known about the incorporation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda into business practices. Precisely, although the literature suggests that firms are pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there are limited insights on their strategy to implement them in the context of developing countries. To address this gap, we conducted a comprehensive large-scale investigation of 2030 Agenda adoption by Brazilian companies. Accordingly, the analysis of our multicase study reveals (1) variations on the business opportunities brought by the SDGs depending on the firm position in the value chain, (2) which SDGs and target stakeholders are addressed through corporate policies and practices, (3) the different ways firms embrace the SDGs to pursue ambidexterity. Our findings clarify how firms in the developing countries interpret the institutional pressures and assemble their internal resources to respond to the SDGs challenges. Boundary conditions and policy implications are further discussed.     

PROPERTY-LED INFORMALITY: Shifting Informal Land Development from Popular Housing to Middle-Class and Elite Speculation in Belo Horizonte

Recent decades have seen a rising interest in the peripheral nature of urbanization processes. While research has put the spotlight on large-scale, transnational and financialized real estate actors, less attention has been paid to informal land developers. Addressing that knowledge gap, this article underscores the key role of land developers in informal urbanization through a case study of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. A mixed-methods approach provides new evidence of the widespread, variegated and spatially uneven development of irregular and clandestine subdivisions over the last two decades, revealing a heterogeneous landscape of informal developers. The study shows that informal development has been shifting from the typical popular and peripheral subdivision, which provided precarious yet affordable housing for working-class families, to new forms of speculative investment for the middle and upper classes, such as country homes and gated communities in peri-urban and rural areas. I argue that this shift is explained by both national and local changing regulatory frameworks and processes of economic restructuring, urban neoliberalism and housing financialization in the periphery. In light of this, I propose the notion of ‘property-led informality’ to refer to a regime of informal urbanization increasingly dominated by commodified, rentiership and speculative land dynamics in the sprawling metropolises of the global South.     

Are electronic government innovations helpful to deter corruption? Evidence from across the world

Electronic government innovations have been a critical development in public administration in recent years. Many countries have implemented e-government policies to enhance efficiency and transparency and combat corruption. This paper examines the impact of e-government on corruption using longitudinal data for more than 170 countries from 2002 to 2020. The empirical results suggest that e-government serves as a deterrent to corrupt activities. We analyse which e-government domains affect corruption, which types of corruption are more affected by e-government and the circumstances under which e-government is more effective in reducing corruption. The empirical results suggest that online service completion and e-participation are important features of e-government as an anticorruption tool. Evidence suggests that e-participation reduces corrupt legislature activities, public sector theft, executive bribery, and corrupt exchanges. The potential of e-government to deter corruption is higher in countries where corruption is moderate or high and economic development is lower. Higher levels of GDP per capita, foreign direct investment, and political rights are also associated with lower levels of corruption.     

Informational roles of pre-election polls

This paper introduces a pre-election polling stage to Feddersen and Pesendorfer's two-candidate election model in which some voters are uncertain about the state of the world. While Feddersen and Pesendorfer find that less informed, indifferent voters strictly prefer abstention, which they refer to as the swing voter's curse, I show that there exists an equilibrium in which everyone truthfully reveals his or her preference in the pre-election poll and participates in voting. Moreover, even in the truth-telling equilibrium, the candidate who leads in the poll may lose the election. However, polls can help elections aggregate information more successfully.     

SPOUSES,CHILDREN, AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

We study the relationship between family and entrepreneurship decisions. Family influences entrepreneurship decisions via two channels: (i) Spouses work more in case of business failure and (ii) children increase the cost of failure. We use administrative matched owner–employer–employee–spouse data to estimate the predictions derived from our model. We find evidence that marriage decreases entry into entrepreneurship and increases average firm size, consistent with mechanism (ii) dominating the (i). Using direct information on children, we find that more children decrease entry into entrepreneurship and increase average firm size.     

Are covered bonds different from securitization bonds? A comparative analysis of credit spreads

This study compares credit spreads and pricing determinants of securitization vis-à-vis covered bonds. Our analysis reveals that although ratings are the most important pricing determinant for asset-backed securities (ABS) and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) investors place relatively more importance on contractual, macroeconomic and banks' characteristics rather than ratings in pricing covered bonds. We find evidence of a mispricing effect in structured finance markets: ABS and MBS have higher credit spreads than similarly rated public-covered bonds and mortgage-covered bonds and security prices reflect information beyond credit ratings. We find no evidence of borrowing costs affecting banks' choice between securitization and covered bonds.     

A story to sell: The influence of storytelling on consumers' purchasing behavior

Storytelling can arouse consumers' emotions and affect purchasing behavior through desires and attitudes. While the marketing literature discusses storytelling, there is a lack of consensus because of the diverse conceptual and operational definitions used. To untangle the complexities and consolidate the fragmented knowledge about storytelling in marketing, this research examines how the marketing literature has addressed the influence of storytelling on consumers' purchasing behavior. The findings aid in understanding how the topic has been discussed from a marketing perspective in consumer behavior studies. Through a systematic literature review using a bibliometric analysis, we demonstrate that the marketing literature features four strands about the uses of storytelling to influence consumers' purchasing behavior. First, storytelling stimulates the consumer's identification with the brand. Second, storytelling allows consumers to experience emotional value. Third, storytelling supports engagement behaviors. Finally, storytelling has a downside in that it also propagates harmful speech. This study concludes with a roadmap for future research about how storytelling impacts consumers' purchasing behavior.     

Profitability and size of newly established firms

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - Does size matter for new firms and do they need to be large to be profitable? From small to large firms, a wide range of arguments have...     

The Pricing Structure of Legal Services: Do Lawyers Offer What Clients Want?

Review of Industrial Organization - We analyze clients’ contract choices in auctions where Dutch law firms compete for standard cases such as labor disputes for individuals and collecting...