What drives environmental innovation? A meta-analysis

To clarify the drivers of environmental innovation, this study selected 50 independent samples from 49 publications to investigate the effects of four major factors—policy, market, resource capacity, and organizational characteristics—on environmental innovation using a meta-analysis, as well as demonstrating the moderating role of cultural background and industrial diversity. The results show that both environmental regulations and government subsidies positively promote environmental innovation and that cultural background and industrial diversity do play moderating roles in how environmental regulations impact environmental innovation. Furthermore, customer demand is also shown to have a positive impact on environmental innovation and is moderated by industrial diversity. However, market concentration is not shown to significantly affect environmental innovation. The results also show that knowledge sources, technological capabilities, organization's performance, and environmental management systems positively influence environmental innovation. Additionally, cultural background plays a moderating role between an organization's performance and environmental innovation, and industrial diversity can moderate technological capability and environmental innovation. Finally, the size of an organization is shown to positively affect environmental innovation and is also moderated by cultural background.     

What drives equity market non-participation?

This paper produces endogenous equity market non-participation in an economy with uninsurable labor income risk and heterogeneous skill levels. Prudence and impatience generate stationary household wealth levels that depend on income. Skill, and therefore labor income, heterogeneity leads to wealth heterogeneity, with high skill households accumulating high wealth and low skill households accumulating low wealth. A HARA class utility with subsistence consumption requirement generates decreasing RRA with respect to household wealth. Consequently, low skill households also have significantly higher local RRA. In addition low skill households have less human capital and therefore have lower diversification demand for stocks. Low wealth, high RRA and low diversification demand predicts that low skill households do not hold stocks in the face of a moderate ownership cost. In addition, the model predicts a humped lifecycle wealth accumulation pattern and a humped lifecycle stock allocation pattern. I also find that stockholders exhibit a greater aggregate willingness to supply risky capital during the expansion phase of a business cycle, despite the lower conditional equity premium.     

Public and private healthcare services: What drives the choice?

This paper has explored patients' propensity to consume private healthcare services. We based our analysis on the typical tangible and intangible (for instance, responsiveness, reliability, assurance and staff empathy) domains of the SERVQUAL and SERVPERF methods. These variables may influence patients' decision-making when they choose between the public and private sectors. We combined factor analysis (to obtain a set of latent factors related to perceived quality) and a partial proportional ordered logit model to estimate the probability that a patient would access private healthcare services. To test the main hypotheses, we used data from a stratified sample in Sardinia, a peripheral region of Italy. Findings revealed that private and public healthcare are substitutes, especially for primary/specialised services. Patients who used public healthcare frequently and had a low income were unlikely to change to private healthcare or to recommend private services. ‘Responsiveness’ and perceptions on ‘tangibles’ were key in determining the probability that a patient would choose and recommend private services. This paper offers a multifaceted framework that can be used in future research to generalise these findings, especially in insular regions that are constrained by mobility.     

What drives organic food consumption in Lebanon?

To increase the sparse knowledge about what drives organic food consumers in developing markets, Lebanese consumers' reasons and motives for buying organic food are studied in the framework of means‐end chain theory. A sample of N = 180 Lebanese consumers was interviewed in several retail outlets using a hard laddering questionnaire. The data were subjected to frequency analysis, cluster analysis, and structural equation modelling. Hierarchal value maps constructed from the laddering interviews revealed that “quality of life,” “pleasure,” and “peace of mind” are the main values driving organic food consumption in Lebanon. Frequent organic consumers displayed higher concern for their family's health and for the environment, whereas occasional organic consumers cared more about their own pleasure and were more likely to perceive organic food as a traditional and nostalgic product. Structural equation modelling revealed that “care for nature” and “care for children's health” significantly affect consumers' (self‐reported) purchasing behaviour. The found means‐end chains are a useful basis for marketing campaigns for organic food products in the Lebanese market. One focus of marketing campaigns should be raising consumers' awareness on the environmental benefits of organic production and the fact that it does not allow the use of harmful chemical products.     

What drives the banks' diversification decision? A dynamic nonlinear panel data approach

This paper empirically determines the drivers of functional diversification decision for 365 banks set in selected Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries over 1988–2015. For this purpose, we use a dynamic nonlinear panel data model. Our findings reveal that both market share and financial intermediation stratify the diversification decision for the whole MENA sample. Splitting the sample shows that the risk‐adjusted profitability and the loan loss provision ratio exert a major influence over the diversification indicator for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) banks, whereas the net interest margin ratio, the bank market share, and financial intermediation are the major drivers of the strategic decision for the remaining non‐GCC banks.     

It’s not how old you are but how you are old: A review on aging and consumer behavior

The paper presents a review of 128 studies on the behavior of older consumers published in the last 35 years (from 1980 to 2014) in 35 peer-reviewed journals. The purpose of the procedure is twofold: First, we aim to summarize results on age-related changes in consumer research. Second, by doing so, we evaluate the relative importance of age-related factors (chronological, biological, psychological, and social age as wells as life events and life circumstances) in research on older consumers. Results of the review show that research on older consumers is still dominated by investigations using chronological age. Influences of other aspects of the aging process, although recommended by previous research reviews and providing valuable insights, are still playing a minor role in the investigation of consumer behavior. Research with alternative age measures is still in an early, exploratory stage and future studies should include specific aspects as well as multitheoretical models of aging.     

What are the determinants of financial well-being? A Bayesian LASSO approach

The financial well-being (FWB) of individuals is a topic that is becoming increasingly important across a multitude of disciplines. In this study, we use the 2016 National Financial Well-Being Survey administered by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to assess the determinants of an individual's FWB. We identify 144 potential covariates that could explain variation in the FWB score of individuals. The statistical methodology of choice is the Bayesian LASSO, which is a covariate selection algorithm that also allows for the importance ranking of covariates. Out of the 144 potential covariates, we find that 26 have 95% credible intervals that do not contain zero. Broadly speaking, the results show that objective measures of financial competency and psychological and sociological factors contribute the bulk of the explanatory power that help explain an individual's FWB score.     

What are affecting earnings quality： A summarization

Researches on factors that affecting earnings quality are significant for regulators＇ decisions and the improving of earnings quality. After reviewing the research findings on what are affecting earnings qualities from the following 6 fields： accounting standards, firm characteristics, board and auditing committees＇ characteristics, managerial characteristics, auditing firm characteristics and other factors, the author conclude the current findings and foresee the future research focus on earnings quality.     

What drives the liquidity premium in the Chinese stock market?

This paper examines the dynamics of the liquidity premium in the Chinese stock market by adopting a multivariate decomposition approach to measure the individual contributions of various driving forces of the premium (such as firm size, idiosyncratic volatility, and market liquidity betas). By employing a wide range of liquidity measures, we show that liquidity premium is generally significant in the Chinese stock market. Furthermore, this premium is increasing in recent years starting from 2011; this observation is different from the United States market, in which the premium has declined over the years. Moreover, the multivariate decomposition approach highlights several asset pricing factors as the main driving forces of the premium. Based on the Amihud liquidity measure, the decomposition approach indicates that the size factor contributes 45–65% to the liquidity premium. However, the measure based on turnover suggests that idiosyncratic volatility accounts for at least 60% of the liquidity premium. In contrast, the global market liquidity beta does not significantly contribute to the premium. However, there is some evidence that the local market liquidity beta has become more significant in its impact on the premium during the period from 2011 to 2015. Our results imply that the findings on the liquidity premium in the Chinese stock market could be sensitive to the liquidity measure used and period of analysis.     

Organizational citizenship behaviour and employee retention: how important are turnover cognitions?

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between perceived job alternatives, intention to search, intention to leave and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), with a view to determining the extent to which these variables are related. Two surveys using separate samples (Study 1, n = 651, and Study 2, n = 226) were used. First, in both studies, perceived job alternatives provided a better account of OCB towards the organization (sportsmanship and civic virtue) than OCB towards individuals (helping and altruism). Second, the results of Studies 1 and 2 indicate that the relationships between OCB and intention to search and between OCB and intention to quit are different. The findings suggest that one part of the research model appears to be generalizable, while the other part appears to be explained by the context of employment. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

What are ‘unpopular causes’ and how can they achieve fundraising success?

• Recent efforts to grow and strengthen the culture of philanthropy in the UK have largely focused on two dimensions: the total amount of money donated and the effectiveness of philanthropic spending. This paper explores a third dimension: the destination and distribution of donations. A defining characteristic of charitable giving is that it is voluntary rather than coerced, and the resulting respect for donor autonomy makes people wary of promoting one cause above another or implying that any beneficiary group is more or less ‘worthy’ of support. However, the absence of much comment on, or significant research into, the destination of donations does not alter the fact that some groups succeed in attracting significant philanthropic funds whilst others struggle to secure many—or any—donations. This paper explores the concept of ‘unpopularity’ in the charity sector, especially in relation to its impact on fundraising. We unpack what this loaded phrase means, identify good practice by those seeking support and present case studies of charities that have overcome perceived unpopularity to achieve success in raising voluntary income. We suggest that by investing organisational resources and effort in fundraising, by framing the cause to maximise the arousal of sympathy and minimise concerns about beneficiary culpability and by avoiding the unintended negative consequences of self‐labelling as ‘unpopular’ no charity need assume it is their destiny to languish at the bottom of the fundraising league tables.

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What drives a donor? A machine learning-based approach for predicting responses of nonprofit direct marketing campaigns

Direct marketing campaigns are one of the main fundraising sources for nonprofit organizations and their effectiveness is crucial for the sustainability of the organizations. The response rate of these campaigns is the result of the complex interaction between several factors, such as the theme of the campaign, the month in which the campaign is launched, the history of past donations from the potential donor, as well as several other variables. This work, applied on relevant data gathered from the World Wide Fund for Nature Italian marketing department, undertakes different data mining approaches in order to predict future donors and non-donors, thus allowing for optimization in the target selection for future campaigns, reducing its overall costs. The main challenge of this research is the presence of thoroughly imbalanced classes, given the low percentage of responses per total items sent. Different techniques that tackle this problem have been applied. Their effectiveness in avoiding a biased classification, which is normally tilted in favor of the most populated class, will be highlighted. Finally, this work shows and compares the classification results obtained with the combination of sampling techniques and Decision Trees, ensemble methods, and Artificial Neural Networks. The testing approach follows a walk-forward validation procedure, which simulates a production environment and reveals the ability to accurately classify each future campaign.     

What drives firms' commitment to fighting corruption? Evidence from the UK

The recent leak of the FinCEN files has highlighted the widespread presence of corruption in developing and developed economies, including the UK. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the factors that drive companies to implement measures for preventing corruption in developed countries using FTSE 350 nonfinancial firms. Specifically, the research examines the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitments, board structure, and shareholding structure on adopting strategies, policies, and procedures aimed at countering corruption. Drawing upon agency, stakeholder, and legitimacy theories, our empirical evidence supports that CSR commitments and board independence positively influence firms' engagement in anticorruption measures. Conversely, institutional and managerial shareholdings are found to have a negative association with firms' efforts to combat corruption. In addition, the study shows that the effect of board characteristics became more pronounced following the enactment of the UK Bribery Act 2010, indicating risk-averse behavior. Various models, including cross-sectional and two-stage least squares (2SLS), are employed to analyze the data. Our findings have significant implications for understanding the complex relationship between CSR, corporate governance, and the ethical infrastructure of organizations. Ultimately, our results provide valuable insights for policymakers, companies, and other stakeholders in developing effective strategies, policies, and procedures to combat corruption activities.     

What drives managers to insource production? Evidence from a behavioural experiment

Insourcing to countermand previous outsourcing decisions is becoming a widespread practice among firms. While the underlying performance drivers for firms (e.g., lead times, responsiveness, or security of supply) are well understood, the behavioural aspects underlying managerial decision-making processes regarding insourcing remain overlooked in empirical research. We study the effects of managers' attitudes toward insourcing, their perceived behavioural control (PBC) over the respective insourcing decision, and the effect of mimetic pressure on insourcing decision intentions and behaviour, while grounding our model in the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). We test hypotheses with data gathered in a vignette-based experiment among 145 managers and apply stepwise regression analysis to find support for the positive effects of attitude and mimetic pressure on intentions to insource. Our results found no support for the effect of managers’ PBC. We find moderation effects among the internal drivers (attitude and PBC) and between internal and external drivers (attitude and mimetic pressure) on insourcing behaviour. With these findings, we provide evidence of a unique boundary condition to the TPB in the insourcing context by explaining supply chain design choices with neo-classical and behavioural theory. We emphasize important behavioural aspects in insourcing decision-making and caution supply managers in this regard.     

What are the main factors attracting visitors to wineries? A PLS multi-group comparison

This article focuses on the study of the main factors attracting visitors, not only new ones, to wineries, and also on how to keep these customers loyal. This research fills a gap in wine tourism literature, taking into account the differences between brand image and destination image as antecedents of brand equity in wine tourism destinations. The empirical analysis has been carried out with two Spanish denominations of origin, Rioja and Navarra, selected by Nielsen’s market share. Particularly, this study draws from a survey of 232 visitors who visited the wineries during the autumn of 2010. The development of a model of wine tourism destination brand equity provides empirical support in order to evaluate the influence of destination image and brand image on brand equity. Before testing the hypotheses, the measuring instrument was evaluated by means of partial least squares regression. A multi-group analysis was carried out to determine the main differences between these two denominations of origin. The paper hereby recommends the creation of alliances among wine companies and tourism industry (hotels, restaurants, active tourism companies, spa resorts, and so on) to succeed in their own businesses. Finally, limitations are outlined to encourage further research.     

Reshoring: Does home country matter?

The role of the country, either home or host, in firms' internationalization has been widely analysed in the International Business field. A large number of studies have shown that home country shapes many aspects of firms' internationalization processes such as investment decisions, location selections, and entry modes. However, these studies mainly focus on the firms' foreign expansion. Little is known about the relations between firms’ home country and reshoring processes. This paper aims to analyse whether and how reshoring projects are different across countries, thereby further exploring the underlying home country-related factors contributing to reshoring peculiarities. By using a dataset including 529 cross-industry reshoring projects developed by companies headquartered in five countries (i.e., US, Germany, UK, France, and Italy), the study shows that these projects differ in terms of industry, entry mode, firm size and motivations. Thus, reshoring turns out to be a phenomenon where each country has its own peculiarities. The research further sheds light on the possible institutional, cultural/cognitive and industry/resource-related factors underlying these specificities.This study contributes to both reshoring and international business literature by highlighting how reshoring differs across countries. It also provides policy and managerial implications, at a time when several governments are considering the economic and employment potential of this phenomenon.     

Rare shocks vs. non-linearities: What drives extreme events in the economy? Some empirical evidence

A small-scale vector autoregression (VAR) is used to shed some light on the roles of extreme shocks and non-linearities during stress events observed in the economy. The model focuses on the link between credit/financial markets and the real economy and is estimated on US quarterly data for the period 1984–2013. Extreme shocks are accounted for by assuming t-distributed reduced-form shocks. Non-linearity is allowed by the possibility of regime switch in the shock propagation mechanism. Strong evidence for fat tails in error distributions is found. Moreover, the results suggest that accounting for extreme shocks rather than explicit modeling of non-linearity contributes to the explanatory power of the model. Finally, it is shown that the accuracy of density forecasts improves if non-linearities and shock distributions with fat tails are considered.