Information related service trade within firms: evidence from firm-level data in Germany

Review of World Economics - Multi-unit firms have productivity advantages over competitors because of their use of a non-rival asset—firm-specific knowledge—in several units. Using...     

Wird die Konjunkturkomponente der Schuldenbremse ihrer Aufgabe noch gerecht?

Wirtschaftsdienst - In der Debatte um die Schuldenbremse geht es zumeist um eine Grundgesetzänderung. Dabei ist ein wesentlicher Teil der Schuldenbremse — die Konjunkturkomponente,...     

Service Delivery Networks and Employment Relations at German Airports: Jeopardizing Industrial Peace on the Ground?

In this article, we ask how organizational restructuring towards a network form of service delivery challenges an established form of employment relations in Germany, that is labour–management collaboration. Building on a theoretical discussion of the marketization hypothesis, we develop a structuration perspective on the relationship between network restructuring and labour–management collaboration, which highlights the political economy of inter-firm networks. Empirically, we focus on two major airport authorities in Germany. Our findings show how these authorities at the core of service delivery networks face a strategic trade-off between short-term labour cost reductions and more adversarial employment relations. Apart from coinciding with a deterioration in working conditions for service workers, the handling of this trade-off depends on managers’ and worker representatives’ commitment to collaboration across the network. While unions and works councils initially continued with social partnership-type practices, the more adversarial management practices for enacting the network restructuring cause a fragmentation on the workers’ side and increase the conflict potential. We conclude that the agency of management and worker representatives in the enactment of inter-firm networks oscillates between more partnership-like and more conflictive practices, which turn the network restructuring into a political process with divergent outcomes for employment relations.     

Instrumental measurement of the cognitive and emotional background of deception

Quality & Quantity - The aim of this study is to instrumentally explore the cognitive and emotional load behind deception. According to literature, the cognitive and emotional load comprises of...     

Anhaltende Produktionslücken durch Vorleistungsengpässe

Wirtschaftsdienst - Die anhaltenden Probleme bei der Beschaffung von Vorleistungen belasten die deutsche Wirtschaft. Drei Viertel der Unternehmen berichten derzeit von Produktionsausfällen von...     

Hubristic Start-up Founders – The Neglected Bright and Inevitable Dark Manifestations of Hubristic Leadership in New Venture Creation Processes

The hubris tradition of research has been criticized for limiting its scope by associating hubris predominantly with detrimental leadership behaviours. To counteract this bias, we provide a more nuanced exploration of hubris and consider both beneficial and detrimental manifestations of hubris in start-up founders’ leadership behaviours. Our analysis, based on qualitative data from expert interviews and two case studies, indicates that, whilst hubristic start-up founders are likely to fail overall, they also excel in creating and communicating visionary scenarios, steering employees through critical situations, and extracting commitment from third parties. These under-researched ‘bright’ manifestations of hubris allow start-up founders to lead their venture towards a stage, in which their visionary power and resilience become crucial prerequisites for economic progress. Our findings extend knowledge on hubristic leadership, offer new directions for the hubris tradition of research, and open up avenues for future research with a more balanced view of hubris.     

What satisfies younger versus older employees,and why? An aging perspective on equity theory to explain interactive effects of employee age,monetary rewards,and task contributions on job satisfaction

In light of increasingly age-diverse workforces, organizations face the challenge of fostering job satisfaction among both younger and older employees. Combining equity theory with an aging perspective, we propose that due to age-related shifts in motives and goals, younger versus older employees’ job satisfaction will depend differently on monetary rewards (outcome side of equity theory), task contributions (input side of equity theory), as well as on imbalances (inequity) in the relationship between monetary rewards and task contributions. In a multisource study with 166 managers, we found that while younger employees were satisfied primarily by monetary rewards, older employees were satisfied primarily by their task contributions. Most importantly, a three-way interaction indicated that younger versus older employees react differently to two types of inequity: Being proportionally over-rewarded (i.e., receiving high monetary rewards for low task contributions) reduced older (but not of younger) employees’ job satisfaction. By contrast, under-reward inequity (i.e., receiving low monetary rewards for high task contributions) decreased younger (but not of older) employees’ job satisfaction. These age-dependent effects of job features on job satisfaction reveal important theoretical as well as practical implications.     

Exploring customer online reviews for new product development: The case of identifying reinforcers in the cosmetic industry

This study analyzes online customer reviews in order to investigate customers' preferences regarding cosmetic products. Based on the marketing firm theory, this research explores the possibility of enhancing the bilateral contingent relationships between the customer and the marketing firm within the cosmetics domain. Hence, this study applies market-search concepts by extracting customer reviews and employing text analytics to identify reinforcers and factors in cosmetic products, which customers are expecting, and their sentiments towards them. Our results suggest that some reinforcers are shared among all customers, but some vary among the different customer segments based on their age and skin tone.