Mapping global sustainability report scoring: a detailed analysis of Europe and Asia

This study maps the General Reporting Initiative (GRI) relations for a set of global enterprises. Enterprise interrelationships are built using the Mutual Information (MI) of the data reported by enterprises. From the MI topology, we describe interrelationships among the enterprises using chord diagrams to represent the inter- and intra-connectivity between geographical regions and economic sectors globally, by continent and country. Detailed maps are presented for European and Asian regions/sectors, including the relationship between Europe and Asia’s top reporting countries. Our findings reinforce previous research regarding the role of Europe as a driver of sustainability and its influence worldwide. We also determined that Spain is a major player in Europe and that Northern Europe does not have the assumed leading role mentioned in related studies. Eastern Asia is, by far, the leader of the region, and the GRI maps demonstrate the preponderant role of China in the region and the minimal role of India. MI topology maps outline the behavior of the economic sectors, for all the studied regions. Furthermore, a measure that relates the inter- to intra-connections is presented to describe the internal an external relationships among regions/sectors.     

Reference points for measuring social performance: Case study of a social business venture

We present a longitudinal qualitative case study to elaborate on how a social venture forms reference points for social performance. Although organizations increasingly use various social performance targets to direct their operations, the scholarly knowledge on social performance reference points remains limited. We make use of the prior accounting literature and draw on the idea of compromising accounts to discuss how provisional and performative metrics can have a significant role in how organizations develop new ways to evaluate their social performance. Given that the social performance reference point criteria are ambiguous and the corresponding referents malleable, performative accounts are helpful as they can intervene in the organizational life by making particular things visible, providing space for interpretations, and facilitating discussion, thus creating temporary settlements and enabling opportunities for productive compromises between different organizational groups and evaluative principles. The recursive feedback loops between reference point referents, criteria and accounting artefacts help the organization to make sense of its own social performance and interpret the associated performance feedback, and thereby provide ground for organizational decisions on further action. Moreover, we discuss how imperfect accounts can be useful for social businesses in their pursuit of developing their activities and achieving social impact.     

The power of positivity? The influence of positive psychological capital language on crowdfunding performance

We extend the entrepreneurship literature to include positive psychological capital — an individual or organization's level of psychological resources consisting of hope, optimism, resilience, and confidence — as a salient signal in crowdfunding. We draw from the costless signaling literature to argue that positive psychological capital language usage enhances crowdfunding performance. We examine 1726 crowdfunding campaigns from Kickstarter, finding that entrepreneurs conveying positive psychological capital experience superior fundraising performance. Human capital moderates this relationship while social capital does not, suggesting that costly signals may, at times, enhance the influence of costless signals. Post hoc analyses suggest findings generalize across crowdfunding types, but not to IPOs.     

Confounding and collinearity in regression analysis: a cautionary tale and an alternative procedure,illustrated by studies of British voting behaviour

Quality & Quantity - Many ecological- and individual-level analyses of voting behaviour use multiple regressions with a considerable number of independent variables but few discussions of their...     

Kommunikationstheorien auf dem Prüfstand

In 2016, German corporations invested 33.5 billion euros in on-the-job-trainings. Communication trainings, especially those for executives, play an important part in on-the-job-trainings and adult education. This study examines how basics of communication and media studies are used in the praxis of communication trainings. We ask which theories of interpersonal communication are being used in communication trainings for executives and for what reasons trainers choose specific theories. The answer can help us understand how executives view communication processes and which criteria make a theory praticable in the eyes of practitioners.First, we define communication trainings as part of on-the-job training and give an overview of research regarding the use of theories in trainings. Research shows that theories play an important role in communication trainings, but that the trainings lack theoretical depths and complexity. The existing research stems mostly from linguistics; the perspective of communication and media studies is missing. In addition, none of the existing studies considers criteria for a practicable theory.In a second step, the canon of theories of interpersonal communication in communication and media studies is identified via a content analysis of seven textbooks and encyclopedias. Overall, these books present 38 theories of interpersonal communication, but only eight theories are presented in three or more books. These eight theories, among them Symbolic Interactionism (Mead), the Theory of Social Systems (Luhmann) and the Four-Ears-Model (Schulz von Thun), build the canon of theories of interpersonal communication in this study.This canon is the basis for the main part of our study. Sixteen communication trainers were interviewed, using the method of qualitative expert interview. The trainers answered questions regarding their professional background, typical courses of training, their goals in trainings, the role of theories in trainings, requirements of the executives being trained and the exchange between colleagues in the occupational field.Results show that trainers use about 15 to 20% of the training time to convey theoretical basics. The Four-Ears-Model by Schulz von Thun dominates the examined trainings. Scientists regard this communication-psychological model as being rather popular scientific. Still, every interviewed trainer uses it. This finding shows that most trainers regard communicational misunderstandings as a result of the four-dimensional character of a message (Who is the sender? Why is he talking to me like that? What are the facts about? What shall I do, think, feel based on the message?). The Communication Axioms by Watzlawick are used as the second most common approach.Apart from theories of interpersonal communication, the trainers mentioned several psychological methods and approaches with therapeutic traits, like Transaction Analysis (Berne) or Active Listening (Rogers).The explorative findings suggest that the trainers chose the theories they use—especially the Four-Ears-Model and Communication Axioms—because it is easy to interlock these theories and the praxis of communication trainings, because they are comprehensible and easy to use in examples, and because they show the relativity of communication processes. Moreover, trainers use theories to explain human behavior and the sources for misunderstandings.These criteria alone do not explain the trainers’ theory choices, though. It became clear in the interviews that factors of socialization, like advanced training for the trainers, play a major role in influencing their training content. Trainers teach the theories which they themselves learned in further education programs becoming a trainer, and they barely look out for new and/or alternative theories.We recommend that communication trainers look for other theories in communication and media studies, like the Symbolic Interactionism. This theory complies with the trainers’ criteria for good theories. Communication and media scholars on the other hand should work together with educational institutions and advanced training to improve the transfer of their theories into the praxis of communication trainings.     

Can investors time their exposure to private equity?

Private equity performance, both for buyouts and venture capital, has been highly cyclical: periods of high fundraising have been followed by periods of low performance. Despite this seemingly predictable variation, we find modest gains, at best, to pursuing realistic, investable strategies that time capital commitments to private equity. This occurs, in part, because investors can only time their commitments to funds; they cannot time when commitments are called or when investments are exited. There is a high degree of time-series correlation in net cash flows even across commitment strategies that allocate capital in a very different manner over time.     

Nonfinancial Considerations in Eco-Innovation Decisions: The Role of Family Ownership and Reputation Concerns

Societal pressures for greater sustainability can encourage firms to target part of their innovation activities at ecological initiatives (i.e., eco-innovation). Yet, depending on their value function, firms can respond differently to such pressures and exhibit variance in their eco-innovation activities. In this paper, we investigate the idea that a firm’s ownership structure may play a significant role in determining its engagement in eco-innovation. Specifically, we propose that ownership by family blockholders increases the value attached to the company’s reputation and that this, in turn, stimulates higher levels of eco-innovation. In other words, we model the company reputation motive as a key mediator in the relationship between family ownership and firm-level eco-innovation. To account for family firm heterogeneity, we also model the moderating role of owners’ intention to pass the business on to the next family generation (transgenerational intentions) and of the extent to which these owners reside in the firm’s local community (local embeddedness). As theoretical backdrop, our study builds on institutional theory and the mixed gamble logic. To test our hypotheses, we use a large sample of German firms and nonlinear moderated mediation regression analysis. Results reveal that family ownership is positively related to the introduction of eco-innovations by firms, in part because of the stronger emphasis being placed on the company’s reputation. We find that this effect is strongest when the owning-family has transgenerational intentions. As such, this study advances our understanding of firm-level drivers of eco-innovation. In view of the prevalence of family-owned firms and the mounting importance of ecological sustainability, it is valuable to extend knowledge on the contingent and indirect effect of family ownership on eco-innovation.