Hybrid governance and governance performance in industrial purchasing relationships

Hybrid governance arrangements (e.g. joint action, long-term contracting and vertical coordination) feature regularly as an effective response to inter-firm dependence in the literature of business-to-business relationships. However, current empirical work has paid little attention to whether such governance arrangements really do improve governance efficacy and reduce transaction costs. The present study focuses on the governance efficacy of vertical coordination in industrial business-to-business relationships. Building on transaction costs arguments, the author examines whether vertical coordination is an effective means for adapting to inter-firm dependence, realized as the substantial employment of specific assets.Empirical findings from a survey of 170 industrial supplier–buyer relationships demonstrate that when asset specificity reaches a certain level, greater vertical coordination reduces ex post transaction costs significantly. On the other hand, this efficacy pattern is modest or non-existent in relationships with low asset specificity.The research findings support the basic TCA assumption that the performance of hybrid governance arrangements is highly dependent on a situation of substantial inter-firm dependence with subsequent small-number conditions.     

A Machine Learning Analysis of the Recent Environmental and Resource Economics Literature

We use topic modeling to study research articles in environmental and resource economics journals in the period 2000–2019. Topic modeling based on machine learning allows us to identify and track latent topics in the literature over time and across journals, and further to study the role of different journals in different topics and the changing emphasis on topics in different journals. The most prevalent topics in environmental and resource economics research in this period are growth and sustainable development and theory and methodology. Topics on climate change and energy economics have emerged with the strongest upward trends. When we look at our results across journals, we see that journals have different topical profiles and that many topics mainly appear in one or a few selected journals. Further investigation reveal latent semantic structures across research themes that only the insider would be aware.

     

The Impact of Corporate Governance on IFRS Adoption Choices

We investigate the association between corporate governance strength and EU listed firms' choices with respect to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption in 2005. We measure governance strength by aggregating variables such as board independence, board functioning and audit committee effectiveness. The firms exhibit heterogeneity in both compliance and disclosure quality; some firms do not even meet the minimum disclosure requirements. Regression results show that stronger governance firms disclose more information, comply more fully and use IAS 39's carve-out provision less opportunistically. These findings are germane to accountants, managers and regulators in countries soon to adopt IFRS.     

Rahmenbedingungen, Charakteristika und Konsequenzen freiwilliger Unternehmenspublizit?t – State of the Art und neue Perspektiven der empirischen Forschung

Die freiwillige Unternehmenspublizit?t dient vor allem der Information der Investoren zum Abbau von Informationsasymmetrien und einer Minderung von Prinzipal-Agent-Konflikten. Vor diesem Hintergrund analysiert der vorliegende Beitrag Befunde zu den mit einer Ver?ffentlichung einhergehenden Kapitalmarktkonsequenzen. Dabei werden gezielt bisherige Erkenntnisse für den deutschen Kapitalmarkt berücksichtigt. Zur Systematisierung der Ergebnisse werden die Studien anhand eines aus drei Komponenten (Rahmenbedingungen, Charakteristika und Konsequenzen) bestehenden konzeptionellen Bezugsrahmens geordnet. Es zeigt sich, dass internationale Studien meist zwei oder sogar drei Komponenten der freiwilligen Publizit?t gleichzeitig berücksichtigen und so umfassendere Aussagen treffen k?nnen, w?hrend für den deutschen Kontext Nachholbedarf zu konstatieren ist. Darüber hinaus werden weitere Forschungsfelder aufgezeigt, die bis dato auch international wenig Beachtung gefunden haben, obgleich sie zunehmend an Relevanz gewinnen.     

What's in it for the customers? Successfully marketing green clothes

Most green marketing literature is strongly based on the assumption that a consumer's environmental awareness is a pre‐condition for green purchasing. While following such a ‘behaviouristic’ green marketing both scholars and companies seem to have neglected that green products are bought only if customers perceive the products as superior to competitors’ offerings. This paper argues that economic theory can give additional valuable input to green marketing. A first important step for marketing according to the economic approach is to identify how consumers perceive the products' cost and benefits. In this paper, cost and benefits are differentiated into different categories, which may help companies in finding their products' value added. In a second phase, companies can focus on stressing product advantages rather than on overcoming barriers. Using the example of green clothes this contribution shows what such a marketing strategy can look like. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Inter-firm cooperation and the problem of free riding behavior: an empirical study of voluntary retail chains

This article explores the problem of free riding behavior in voluntary retail chains. Based on agency theory and group theory, the authors analyze the antecedents to free riding behavior in voluntary retail chains and examine whether it is possible to handle the problem of free riding behavior by the use of monitoring arrangements. Hypotheses are developed and tested on a sample of 70 voluntary chains. The empirical findings show that both the size of the chain (the number of retailers being members of the chain) and the level of goal conflict within the chain are associated with free riding problems. It is also demonstrated that the implementation of monitoring arrangements is effective in lowering free riding behavior in voluntary retail chains.     

Schools and public buildings in decay: the role of political fragmentation

It is a widespread concern that schools and other public buildings are in poor conditions. A popular explanation is that maintenance is given too little priority in the budgetary process because politicians are shortsighted. In this paper we investigate this hypothesis using two novel survey data sets on school and general building conditions in Norwegian local governments. We use political fragmentation as a proxy for myopic behavior and provide strong empirical evidence that a high degree of political fragmentation is associated with poor building conditions, both for schools and for buildings in general. The finding is robust to handling of controls, outliers, and estimation method. We also provide evidence that lack of maintenance is the channel for poor building conditions.     

Market Reaction to Goodwill Impairments

This paper examines the information content of goodwill write-downs under International Accounting Standard (IAS) 36 (Impairment of Assets) and Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) No. 142. We investigate whether the informational value depends on the reliability of the news. Using a sample of 564 goodwill write-down announcements issued from 2005 to 2009, we find a negative capital market reaction to announcements of unexpected goodwill write-offs. Our results indicate that investors react more negatively when a country's level of legal protection is low and allows more management discretion. We further report that market reaction is associated with managers explaining the write-down decision and depends on the verifiability of these explanations. Investors react more negatively when an unverifiable internal explanation is given and less negatively when a verifiable external explanation is provided. We do not find significant differences between write-down announcements under SFAS 142 and IAS 36.