Trade union democracy and individualisation: the cases of Denmark and Sweden

Combining central concepts of individualisation and trade union democracy with empirical results from Swedish and mainly Danish surveys, this article analyses how the tendencies towards individualisation in the membership affects union democracy. The analysis indicates that the individualisation affects union democracy negatively. However individualisation is a relative concept.     

A fractionally cointegrated VAR analysis of economic voting and political support

We use a fractionally cointegrated vector autoregressive model to examine the relationship between Canadian political support and macroeconomic conditions. This model is well suited for the analysis because it allows multiple fractional time series and admits simple asymptotic inference for the model parameters and tests of the hypotheses of interest. In the long‐run equilibrium, we find that support for the Progressive Conservative Party was higher during periods of high interest rates and low unemployment, while support for the Liberal Party was higher during periods of low interest rates and high unemployment. We also test and reject the notion that party support is driven only by relative (to the United States) economic performance. Indeed, our findings suggest that US macroeconomic variables do not enter the long‐run equilibrium of Canadian economic voting (political opinion poll support) at all.     

Internationalization through business model innovation: In search of relevant design dimensions and elements

Internationalization through business model innovation involves the creation, or reinvention, of the business itself. This paper aims to integrate basic insight from the literature on business model innovation, internationalization of the firm, international entrepreneurship, and global marketing into a conceptual model. Our model illustrates that internationalization through business model innovation includes design dimensions, which are domestic or globalized in upstream production as well as in downstream markets. The outcome of this paper is four international business model types each with a specific resource allocation for dealing with differences across geographical locations and entry mode elements. We address the interrelation of these dimensions and elements in firms’ international activities.     

Money and economic development: A long-run perspective

This article explores the association between money and long-run economic growth in a panel of 27 countries over 200 years. It presents evidence of a complementarity between freedom and decentralisation of the monetary system in terms of their contribution to growth in GDP per capita. The significant and positive association between freedom and economic growth is found to be significantly stronger in a decentralised (market-based) than in a centralised (government-controlled) monetary system. For the average level of freedom across the 27 countries today, shifting from a centralised to a decentralised monetary system is predicted to almost double growth rates.     

From Publishers to Self-Publishing: Disruptive Effects in the Book Industry

Abstract

This paper explores the structure of the book publishing industry post digitalisation, analysing the choices of the publishers and authors. The introduction of successful e-book readers has belatedly given digitalisation the characteristics of a disruptive technology by making self-publishing a serious option for authors. This has been supported by the entry of new types of intermediaries and the strengthening of others. These changes have reduced the general requirements for an author to get a book self-published. As a result, a larger share of the surplus from the book industry is likely to go to authors, explaining the significant increase in the supply of books. The potential oversupply of books has created a new problem by increasing competition and making consumer searches more difficult. We argue that digitalisation has shifted the potential for market failure from an inadequate supply of books to asymmetric information about quality. It remains to be seen whether the market will provide appropriate intermediaries to solve the asymmetric information problem.     

The devil dwells in the tails

This paper explores firm growth rate distribution in a Gibrat’s Law context. It is novel in two respects. First, rather than limiting the analysis to a focus on the conditional mean, we investigate the entire shape of the distribution. Second, we show that differences in the firm growth rate process between large and small firms are highly circumstantial and depend on the industry dynamics. The data used include more than 9,000 Danish manufacturing, services and construction firms. We provide robust evidence indicating that firm growth studies should concentrate less on explaining means and instead focus on other parts of the firm growth rate distribution.     

Traditional Sushi for Modern Consumers: A Comparison Between Sushi Consumption Behavior in Japan and Norway

This study focused on differences between uses and users of sushi and sashimi in Norway and Japan. The study was based on a consumer survey that was completed by a representative sample of 902 participants from Norway and 897 participants from Japan. The survey included questions about food consumption frequency, ways of sourcing sushi and sashimi and situational factors related to consumption. Participants also reported their knowledge about, attitudes toward, and ambivalence related to sushi and sashimi, social acceptability of sushi and sashimi consumption, domain-specific innovativeness, and social and demographic characteristics. Differences in sushi consumption behavior between Japanese and Norwegian consumers considering the situational parameters surrounding sushi and sashimi consumption were revealed. Considerations for future research and implications on export strategy development were discussed.     

Different knowledge,different benefits: toward a productivity perspective on knowledge sharing in organizations

We develop a differentiated productivity model of knowledge sharing in organizations proposing that different types of knowledge have different benefits for task units. In a study of 182 sales teams in a management consulting company, we find that sharing codified knowledge in the form of electronic documents saved time during the task, but did not improve work quality or signal competence to clients. In contrast, sharing personal advice improved work quality and signaled competence, but did not save time. Beyond the content of the knowledge, process costs in the form of document rework and lack of advisor effort negatively affected task outcomes. These findings dispute the claim that different types of knowledge are substitutes for each other, and provide a micro‐foundation for understanding why and how a firm's knowledge capabilities translate into performance of knowledge work. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Strategic responses to frontier-based budget allocation: Implications for bureaucratic slack

This paper analyzes the effect on bureaucratic slack of letting a sponsor apply a simple frontier-model in the budgetary process. The relationship between the sponsor and the bureaus is described within a simple game theoretic framework in which the sponsor is given the option of utilizing the frontier-technology when allocating a fixed budget to the bureaus. The effect on bureaucratic slack is shown to be ambiguous. However, conditions under which the sponsor benefits from applying the frontier-model are identified. It is also shown that collusion between bureaus does not destroy the possible benefit of applying the frontier-model.