Circular business model evolution: Stakeholder matters for a self-sufficient ecosystem

Food waste is a key issue in the circular economy. A circular ecosystem results from the contributions of various stakeholders; however, the claims and value propositions of these stakeholders can differ, hampering long-term sustainability of the ecosystem. This study analyses the case of RiCibo, a circular ecosystem based in Genoa, Italy. RiCibo collects surplus food and redistributes it to the needy in the local community. The study examines the conditions that facilitated RiCibo’s evolution from a simple project to a circular self-sufficient ecosystem characterised by a co-designed circular business model with a broad range of stakeholders. The results show that sharing people, infrastructure and knowledge, together with mutual trust among stakeholders, are the preconditions of a circular ecosystem. Long-term continuity depends on additional tools that enhance financial self-sufficiency, namely, participative governance, a co-designed circular business model, accountability, frequent engagement, local actions and the development of advocacy power.     

The information revolution,innovation diffusion and economic growth: an examination of causal links in European countries

Quality & Quantity - Over the last 5 decades, the economic landscape in Europe has been transformed rapidly due to innovation, digitisation of the economy, and emergence of new sources of...     

Inter-linkages between competition and stabilisation policies in the banking sector and stock market development in Europe

The banking sector and the stock market in Europe have been adversely impacted by a series of global financial crises over the last two decades. Major financial reforms were implemented to enhance the stability and competition within the banking sector. Measures were also implemented to create a vibrant stock market in Europe to stimulate economic growth in Europe. This study examines the interactions between stock market development, banking competition, and banking stability in European countries from 1996 to 2016. The purpose of the study is to understand the inter-linkages between these variables to ascertain the spillover impact of policy reforms in the banking sector on the stock market and vice-versa. Using a vector error-correction model, the study finds long-run and short-run inter-linkages between banking competition, banking stability, and stock market development in European countries. The study’s most robust result is that banking competition and banking stability stimulate stock market development in the long run. There is also some evidence that healthy competition in the banking sector and stock market development instils greater stability in the banking sector. The results suggest that policy measures put in place to create a vibrant stock market must include elevating banking competition and banking stability, with policymakers being cognizant that causality may be bidirectional.     

Evaluating the impact of virtualization characteristics on SaaS adoption

Software as a service (SaaS) is a service model in which the applications are accessible from various client devices through internet. Several studies report possible factors driving the adoption of SaaS but none have considered the perception of the SaaS features and the organization’s context. We propose an integrated research model that combines the process virtualization theory (PVT), the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework and the institutional theory (INT). PVT seeks to explain whether processes are suitable for migration into virtual environments via an information technology-based mechanism as SaaS. The TOE framework seeks to explain the effects of the intra-organizational factors, while INT seeks to explain the effects of the inter-organizational factors on the technology adoption. This research addresses a gap in the SaaS adoption literature by studying the internal perception of the technical features of SaaS and technology, organization, and environment perspectives. Additionally, the integration of PVT, the TOE framework, and INT contributes to the information system (IS) discipline, deepening the applicability and strengths of these theories.     

A snapshot of public finance research from immediately prior to the pandemic: IIPF 2020

As the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped public policies and government finances, it has also influenced the topics that public finance economists are researching. Because the 2020 International Institute of Public Finance Congress featured papers that were submitted prior to the start of the pandemic, the Congress allows us to reflect on the state of research prior to the pandemic’s shock to both fiscal policies and our worldview. In this article, the Editors of International Tax and Public Finance reflect on interesting papers that were presented at this internationally representative conference in public economics. The exercise provides insight on where the field of public economics was heading prior to the pandemic and will provide a yardstick to see how the field evolves in the coming years afterward.

     

Toward sustainable corporate behavior: The effect of the critical mass of female directors on environmental,social, and governance disclosure

Boards of directors have recently become more attentive to their stakeholders' concerns, providing more transparent information and adopting more sustainable business strategies. This study investigates the influence of a critical mass of women on boards on the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure score and its three components separately. Using a sample of the FTSE-MIB listed companies in the 2005–2017 period, we show that reaching a critical mass of female board members—going from one or two women to at least three—enhances the level of ESG disclosure. The results also show that the critical mass of female board members has a positive influence on every component of the ESG score, with the highest contribution of women reaching the governance score. These findings provide insights to shareholders and policymakers and suggest that a critical mass of female board members is particularly effective in improving transparency, and it can be seen as a mechanism to transit to stakeholder governance, fostering more sustainable behavior in firms.     

Tourism climate insurance: implications and prospects

This paper investigates the intentions of tourists to purchase climate insurance as part of their holiday packages. A research model, based on Bagozzi’s reformulation of attitude theory designed to examine the relationships between climate expectation-disconfirmation and the behavioral intentions of tourists in purchasing tourism climate insurance, with destination loyalty as an outcome. The model hypothesizes and tests whether expectation-disconfirmation can be resolved by insuring the product-climate. A structural equation modeling is utilized. The results reveal that the expectation-disconfirmation of tourists in relation to climate is positively associated with their intentions to purchase insurance and negatively affects loyalty.     

Unequal jobs or unequal pay?

This article draws on new data to consider whether women would benefit most from upgrading the skill levels of their jobs or from achieving equal pay for work of equal value. It looks in detail at skill, gender, and whether work is full-time or part-time, concluding that reassessment of the value of women's jobs would be of greater immediate financial benefit to women than upgrading the skill level of their jobs unless this upgrading gave them access to men's jobs at men's pay and benefit rates.     

Investigating explanatory theories on laypeople’s risk perception of personal economic collapse in a bank crisis – the Cyprus case

We investigate the explanatory power of decision, psychometric, and trust theory to describe laypeople’s risk perception of personal economic collapse in a bank crisis. The aim of this investigation is to improve the understanding of the effects of national initiatives for crisis fighting taken to prevent systemic risk. Using a stratified sample of 738 Cypriote citizens, we conducted an investigation in Cyprus in the spring of 2013 when the country was facing a bank crisis. At that point in time, the Cypriote Government had imposed capital controls to prevent a bank run. We find that decision theory variables alone have low explanatory value on laypeople’s risk perception, and that laypeople’s risk perception in this situation is affected primarily by psychometric variables. Further, confidence in one’s own bank also explains risk perception. Our findings contribute novel knowledge about risk perceptions in a financial crisis, with practical crisis management implications for regulators.