Developing competence in retailing: strategic advantages

Since the late 1980s, the UK Government has invested significant levels of funding in the development of national competence-based qualifications in an attempt to improve skill levels and therefore international competitiveness. The paper provides an overview of the progress which has been made by the UK retailing industry and presents the implementation experiences of five major retail companies. The paper concludes with an analysis of the strategic implications.     

Commodity tail risks

In this study, we investigate the cross-section of option-implied tail risks in commodity markets. In contrast to findings from equity markets, left and right tail risks implied by option markets are both large. Commodity-specific variables exert the largest influence on tail risk, while there is no evidence of systematic commodity factors that are linked to tail risk. Additionally, we find strong links to the equity markets, but also comovements to macroeconomic factors. Left or right tail risks are largely independent of variance risk premiums. Finally, both left and right tail risks are priced in the cross-section of commodity futures returns.     

New COVID-related results for estimating the shadow economy in the global economy in 2021 and 2022

International Economics and Economic Policy - Considering the development of the shadow economy of 36 European and OECD countries over the period from 2003 to 2022 and the effect of the Coronavirus...     

German banks’ behavior in the low interest rate environment

Financial Markets and Portfolio Management - Using data from a quantitative survey of German banks at three points in time (2015, 2017 and 2019), we analyze the impact of changes in the interest...     

The Eternal Debate Over Conservatism and Prudence: A Historical Perspective on the Conceptualization of Asymmetry in Financial Accounting Theory*

The recent revisions of conceptual frameworks (CFs) by the IASB and the FASB included changes to the status of prudence/conservatism, accompanied by a broader debate about the meaning and role of asymmetry in financial accounting theory (FinAT). This paper adopts a historical perspective to identify possible sources of the current controversies by examining how the discourse on asymmetry has developed over time. For this purpose, we trace the conceptualization of asymmetry in FinAT building from the 19th century until 2018, covering contributions to the US FinAT literature and the conceptual reasoning of standard setters (and their constituents) in the United States and at the international level. We identify four distinct constructs of asymmetry (ultra-, specified, discretionary, and neutral asymmetry) developed in FinAT under the headings of “conservatism” and/or “prudence.” Our analysis reveals that the respective historical circumstances strongly influenced which notion and role of asymmetry were commonly accepted in FinAT, while the arguments underlying the debates were going in circles and were characterized by an increasing level of abstraction over time. We conclude that the controversy about asymmetry is partially due to conceptual ambiguity but also due to different assumptions about the objective of financial reporting and attributes of the preparer, which are indicative of two conflicting paradigms shaping the FinAT discourse on asymmetry. Our findings point to gaps and limitations in the deductive CFs currently employed by the IASB and FASB. Our study highlights future research potential regarding the construction of the preparer in standard setting and analyses of the ways in which deductive CFs (fail to) translate into consistent standards.     

Reviewing the intellectual structure of product modularization: Toward a common view and future research agenda

Product modularization in new product development has attracted considerable interest among scholars and practitioners from diverse fields of specialization. This has resulted in cross-disciplinary diversity in the field, diverting attention from its overall intellectual structure and hindering the development of a common view and shared concepts. Extant research lacks an integrative review, transcending a focal discipline that could identify gaps and ambiguities while making recommendations to advance the field. Considering a period of 30 years (1990–2020), we generate a data set of 2988 citing publications to which we apply a co-citation analysis. Thereby, we uncover the intellectual structure of the field and find three research perspectives that represent key knowledge bases: (1) product system, (2) production system, and (3) organizational system. Delimiting the data set into four periods, we can track developments over time, where we notice an increasing disintegration of the product system perspective, which is rooted in the discipline of engineering design. Within the two other perspectives, we document extensive dynamism in terms of publications, especially in the two most recent periods, indicating an active discussion and a potential receptivity to new trends. For these periods, we also identify an emerging cluster of fundamental publications and an increasing emphasis on the concept of system architecture. Leveraging the synthesis of these results, we forge links between neighboring disciplines and recommend avenues for further research, ideally to develop a more common view.     

Next-generation entrepreneurial identity in family business systems: The influence of role-changing events on the understanding of legacy,individual identity,and transgenerational entrepreneurship of next-generation family business principals

The paper addresses how the understanding of family business legacy, individual identity, and transgenerational entrepreneurship of next-generation principals is affected by role changing events in family business systems. The paper uses the insights of a focus group of 38 next-generation family business principals of ultrahigh-net-worth business families from 14 countries. It corroborates that parents and role models are influencing factors on the understanding and perception of family identity, values, and transgenerational entrepreneurship. Identity inflection points during moments of expected and unexpected role changes, such as family business succession, can either positively or negatively impact the appreciation of a next-generation principal regarding legacy, identity, and transgenerational entrepreneurship. Based on the results of the qualitative interviews and peer group discussions, the findings indicate how identity inflection points affect the preservation of the next-generation family business principal's identity and family identity during a moments of role changes in family businesses and are a bottleneck for transgenerational entrepreneurship.     

Entrepreneurial Ecosystems as Amplifiers of the Lean Startup Philosophy: Management Control Practices in Earliest-Stage Startups*

Entrepreneurial ecosystems play a key role in the development of startups not only by providing support—such as flexible office space and access to skilled employees, mentors, and investors—but moreover by promoting concrete ideals about “good” entrepreneurship. However, we know less about the role that ecosystems play in managerial practices of startups. In our empirical analysis of management control systems (MCSs) in earliest-stage startups, we witness a strong influence of entrepreneurial ideals—above all, the Lean Startup philosophy—on the MCSs analyzed. Building on cross-sectional field study data resulting from a comprehensive field-immersion strategy and 50 interviews with key actors in an entrepreneurial ecosystem as well as with founder-managers of startups, we consider the entrepreneurial ecosystem as a collective meso-level community that mediates between macro-level institutional pressures and micro-level practices of startups. We show how this community, through a variety of what we term amplifying mechanisms, actively deinstitutionalizes a legacy entrepreneurial philosophy epitomized by the business plan concept. At the same time, the community propagates the Lean Startup philosophy so that this alternative has become the dominant institutional philosophy in the studied ecosystem and its startups. Due to the amplifying mechanisms exerted by the meso level, startups use MCSs that play a crucial role in the rapid experimentation and learning process toward finding a scalable business model that is characteristic of the Lean Startup philosophy. We highlight that this philosophy of scientific experimentation has, to a significant degree, transformed intuitive entrepreneurial processes into a set of transactions that can be steered and accelerated by MCSs.