What does ‘solidarity economy’ mean? Contours and feasibility of a theoretical and political project

The market relationships are being contested. This can be seen in the increasing number of alternative social experiments in the ‘North’ and the ‘South’ which propose to think out the present market relationships in a different way, in particular in establishing exchange value and in facilitating access to trade. These practical alternatives are supported by trends in academic circles that over the past three decades have opposed neoliberal capitalism and individualism in today's commercialised society. Calling for greater solidarity and social justice in economic relationships, in particular, partisans of social and solidarity economics (SSE), identifying with these trends, demand new forms of exchange. The objective of this article is to re‐examine these demands. What exactly do the SSE mean by ‘solidarity’ and ‘solidarity‐based economy'? We would like to trace the contours of this theoretical and political project and to assess the practicability of the proposed alternative to neoliberal capitalism.     

Trade‐related Job Loss,Wage Insurance and Externalities: An Ex Ante Efficiency Rationale for Wage Insurance

The extension of adjustment assistance to those who have suffered trade‐related job displacement is widely supported on both sides of the economics of globalisation debate. The form that such assistance should take, namely wage insurance, is also the subject of wide agreement. Nevertheless, the formal economic rationales offered for such a policy are varied, including political economy arguments, equity arguments and market failure/ex post efficiency arguments. This note proposes an ex ante efficiency‐based rationale for the provision of adjustment assistance in the specific form of wage insurance. Job displacement imposes pecuniary externalities on displaced workers, which, in a complete markets setting, induce only shifts along the ex ante Pareto‐efficient frontier. However, when markets are incomplete, pecuniary externalities become welfare‐relevant. Without the possibility of diversifying or hedging the risk of pecuniary external diseconomies of job displacement using contingent claims, welfare is reduced ex ante. Wage insurance – whether publicly underwritten, privately underwritten (as in Shiller's (2003 ) ‘livelihood insurance’), or supplied on a mixed public/private basis – completes the market for contingent claims, allowing workers to diversify or hedge the risk of trade‐related pecuniary external diseconomies. By facilitating risk sharing, wage insurance removes an impediment to ex ante Pareto efficiency. Moreover, wage insurance affects not only post‐displacement behaviour by increasing the incentive to reacquire employment quickly, but it also affects pre‐displacement consumption and investment behaviour, in particular, lowering the threshold at which workers will be willing to undertake irreversible investment in industry‐specific skills.     

Mapping the extended frontiers of escapism: binge-watching and hyperdiegetic exploration

ABSTRACT

Through a micro-ethnographic engagement with consumers’ binge-watching experiences of the web-TV series House of Cards, this videography explores what we consider to be the ‘extended frontiers’ of escapism. In contrast to passive/active classifications of escapism which risk reducing escapist fare to a textual resource which can be categorised discretely at the point of consumption, we consider ‘sustained encounters’ with escapist fare as appropriable textures characterised by ongoing and less immediately discernible processes. Drawing upon the concept of hyperdiegesis, we consider potentially ‘projective’ forms of narrative transportation in binge-watching; heterochronic breaks from normal patterns of time; and post-object behaviours. In doing so, we outline how forms of escapism traditionally considered passive may under certain conditions represent much richer and more complex enterprises than previously imagined.     

Recurrence: A Neglected Aspect of the Sraffian Critique of Marginalism

The significance of ‘reswitching’—that great symbolic issue of the Cambridge capital debates—has sometimes been denied on the ground of a low probability. This article investigates the industry‐level return, in different equilibria, of the use of one or more (or all) inputs. Such phenomena, which we call ‘recurrence’, are generically far more probable than the return of a whole economy‐level technique and can be triggered, not only by a change in the interest rate, but also by a change in relative primary input prices. Since recurrence alone, without reswitching, is damaging to standard marginalist conceptions, one should not attribute too much importance to any low ‘probability of reswitching’.     

Combining Risk and Responsibility Perspectives: First Steps

Business activity can be analyzed through a ‘risk awareness’ perspective and a ‘responsibility awareness’ perspective. However, risk and responsibility are actually interdependent. Risk-taking triggers responsibility issues and taking responsibility means risking being asked critical questions. This article suggests some first steps for combining these two perspectives conceptually. After several introductory illustrations showing how risk and responsibility issues are intertwined, the article looks separately each at risk and at responsibility. Then the argument that such perspectives could be usefully combined is elaborated further from a theoretical angle and from a practical angle, by looking at various ethical issues and by presenting paradigmatic examples of balancing or sharing risk and responsibility related to leadership, to ERM and to insurance.     

On ‘creative cities’ governance models: a comparative approach

The implementation of ‘creative cities’ projects all over the world in recent years has been characterised by a great diversity of institutional frameworks and governance mechanisms.

Departing from the contemporary debates on ‘creative industries’ and ‘creative cities’, this article aims to discuss this diversity of regulatory mechanisms and forms of governance. Some tentative typologies of case studies and governance mechanisms are drawn in order to improve the understanding of those dynamics, to build up knowledge on suitable ‘creative cities’ governance models, and to develop ideas to support a strategy for public intervention in the Portuguese case.     

Exploring the forms of dysfunctional customer behaviour: A study of differences in servicescape and customer disaffection with service

Abstract

Although wide agreement exists between scholars and marketing practitioners concerning the prevalence of dysfunctional customer behaviour, to date empirical research into this phenomenon is lacking. This article aims to identify empirically grounded categories of dysfunctional customer behaviours and examine the extent to which customers' perceptions of physical servicescape environments, social facets of servicescape, and customer disaffection with service differ for each category. Based on a quantitative sample of 380 consumer perpetrators, cluster analysis reveals three clusters of dysfunctional customer behaviour forms labelled ‘petty norm infringements’, ‘felonious norm infringements’, and ‘belligerent norm infringements’. Subsequent variance analysis assesses the perceived differences between perceived physical servicescape, social servicescape, and customer disaffection for each identified form cluster. Specifically, the study findings reveal statistically significant differences between the forms of dysfunctional customer behaviour that are perpetrated across different service environments. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the study for theorists and practitioners.     

Hide and uncover: the use of secrets in marketing

ABSTRACT

Amidst the forceful public demand for organisational transparency, there is an ambition to explore the limits of openness. What kind of information could and should firms keep secret and under which conditions? In this paper, we explore the limits of transparency in the marketing domain and develop a conceptual model of secrecy in marketing. We describe three modes of ‘secretive’ relations: between the brand and customers who know the brand secret (insiders), between the brand and customers from whom the secret is hidden (outsiders), and between insiders and outsiders. The effects of secrecy in marketing extend along with these three modes. First, secrecy creates value for insiders by reinforcing their connection to the brand. Second, it provokes outsiders’ curiosity, especially when the secret is related to a prominent brand. Finally, secrecy establishes insiders as an aspirational reference group for outsiders.     

Teaching how to fish: lessons from information and communication technologies for international development

Abstract

Many people believe that the widespread dissemination of digital technologies automatically causes positive outcomes in political democratisation and socio-economic development. In this article, this claim is briefly examined for the supposed ‘Facebook Revolutions’ of the Arab Spring, as well as for the economic benefits of the mobile phone. Close scrutiny reveals, in fact, that technology’s impact is not necessarily positive. Instead, technology only amplifies underlying human intent and capacity; hence, positive outcomes with technology are wholly dependent on competent, well-intentioned stakeholders. The article concludes with the consequences and recommendations for those interested in applying their technical or entrepreneurial skills to subsistence communities.     

The Morality of Risk Modeling

This article applies the concept of prudence to develop the characteristics of responsible risk-modeling practices in the insurance industry. A critical evaluation of the risk-modeling process suggests that ethical judgments are emergent rather than static, vague rather than clear, particular rather than universal, and still defensible according to the discipline’s established theory, which will support a range of judgments. Thus, positive moral guides for responsible behavior are of limited practical value. Instead, by being prudent, modelers can improve their ability to deal with the ethical and technical complexity of the risk-modeling process. While the application of prudence to resolve ethical challenges in risk modeling, an issue of practical importance to managers, is a first in the literature, the practice of applying an ethical lens to issues of pragmatic importance for managers is well established in Maak and Pless (J Bus Ethics 66:99–115, 2006a; Responsible leadership, 2006b) among others.

     

Customers’ everyday understanding of ‘value’ from a second-order cybernetic perspective

ABSTRACT

Value is in the centre of service and marketing. However, what does value mean to customers? The purpose of the paper is to contribute to an understanding of value from a customers’ perspective using a second-order cybernetics approach. We found that the word ‘value’ is recursively linked to 13 different ‘meanings’ indicating a variety of understandings of the term ‘value’. Furthermore, the findings support service-dominant logic where customers integrate their own resources (skills and knowledge) in the value co-creation process. Future research has to be aware of the different meanings, which are associated with value. Marketing managers need to understand, on the one hand, that value has a different meaning to their customer and on the other hand, what value means to their specific target groups.     

Ethnomethodology and the production of history: studying ‘history-in-action’

According to Lynch, in his article Ethnomethodology and History, ethnomethodology offers a rich and valuable resource for studying the in situ production of history. In this article, we seek to lay out a research agenda for a ‘new business history’ that uses ethnomethodology to study ‘history-in-action’. Our aim is to show how an ethnomethodological history can be used to study the practical work of those tasked with ‘making history’. We discuss the value of ethnomethodology for core business history methods, including the production and use of historical archives and written records, the treatment of witness memories, (auto)-biographies and testimonies, and the production of official versions of past events from diverse historical sources of evidence. We conclude by outlining the potential of ethnomethodology as a distinct paradigm of enquiry, which marks it out from conventional social scientific approaches to the relationship between empirical evidence and theory-building, by discussing: (1) the value of studying the practical reasoning procedures used for generating and interpreting historical evidence; and (2) the value of opening up new forms of reflective practice for practitioners within the field.     

A Review of Insurance and Behavioral Economics: Improving Decisions in the Most Misunderstood Industry

This book indeed goes a long way towards clearing up misconceptions about insurance both on the part of consumers and, even more importantly, insurance managers and regulators. However, in the eyes of this reviewer, the authors are too quick to jump on the bandwagon of ‘Behavorial Economics’ in their attempts to explain seeming anomalies in decisionmaking with repect to insurance. This said, the case studies included, statistics cited, and arguments proffered in this the volume make for interesting reading.     

Insurance of Techno-Organizational Ventures and Procedural Ethics: Lessons from the Deepwater Horizon Explosion

Hazardous operational consequences of unethical behavior in high-risk projects can be traced back to inadequate relationships between businesses and the insurance industry. The communication of blame, as a consequence of major industrial accidents like the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, and the relevance of this communication of blame for subsequent insurance litigation, show that the awareness of the relationship between unethical behavior resulting in irresponsible procedural action and deficient loss-prevention practices is a significant component of risk consciousness. The awareness of ethical origins of project risks could alter the methods of design and monitoring of insurance contracts for risky techno-organizational ventures.

     

From overt provider to invisible presence: discursive shifts in advertising portrayals of the father in Good Housekeeping, 1950–2010

Abstract

This article considers the link between fatherhood and masculinity and identifies some of the key discursive shifts around fatherhood based on an analysis of advertising material that appeared in Good Housekeeping magazine between 1950 and 2010. It provides a socio-historical perspective on fatherhood that reveals a discursive shift from the father as patriarchal family provider/protector to a more ambiguous and less obvious presence in the magazine advertisements. Our findings suggest that family-related advertising in women’s magazines does little to challenge the traditional models of paternal masculinity. Changes in the portrayal of fathers, when examined closely, seem to reinforce traditional gender hegemony. Yet, over time, a ‘multiplicity of possibilities’ of dominant paternal masculinities is emerging, broadening the original ‘breadwinner’ model and perhaps offering some transformative potential around how we view fathers.     

On Nudging: A Review of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health,Wealth and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

This paper reviews the case for libertarian paternalism presented by Thaler and Sunstein in Nudge. Thaler and Sunstein argue that individuals’ preferences are often incoherent, making paternalism is unavoidable; however, paternalistic interventions should ‘nudge’ individuals without restricting their choices, and should nudge them towards what they would have chosen had they not been subject to specific limitations of rationality. I argue that the latter criterion provides inadequate guidance to nudgers. It is inescapably normative, and so allows nudgers’ conceptions of well‐being to override those of nudgees. Even if nudgees’ rationality were unbounded, their revealed preferences might still be incoherent.     

Understanding the ASEAN economic community: pragmatism versus conceptualism

ABSTRACT

The ASEAN Economic Community, born in 2003 and developed over the next 12 years, aims to build a ‘single market’ whilst ‘enhancing the production base’ in ASEAN for global and regional value-chains. The paper attempts to understand the AEC via a conceptual as well as a pragmatic approach. It summarizes achievements up to 2015 and assesses the 2025 Blueprint in some detail. At times the latter reads like a Roadmap full of details but measures often remain open-ended or somewhat vague, a typical ASEAN characteristic. What ultimately matters to ASEAN is economic growth and the AEC may well serve as a handmaiden to sustained high growth.     

Strategic challenges and issues for Chinese managers and management in the global economy: conclusions

The contributions to this symposium on ‘Demystifying Chinese Management’ have attempted to tackle new strategic issues and challenges vis-à-vis the newly diversified ownership and management system which has occurred since Deng's economic reforms. It is clear that when we try to ‘make sense’ of management in the People's Republic of China, we must take into account the degree to which Chinese management has become distinctive, with an adaptation of exogenous knowledge to local circumstances and a relative degree of ‘convergence’ involving a synthesis of ‘local’, ‘glocal’ and ‘global’ forms.     

强制保险对提高市场效率的作用研究——基于对信息不准确保险市场的分析

本文以社会福利为衡量保险市场效率的标准,分析了在处于R-S均衡的保险市场中,如果有部分投保人低估自身风险,实施强制保险是否有助于保险市场效率的提高。作者首先证明了在存在逆选择现象的保险市场上,若有部分低风险投保人低估自身风险,则会使市场效率下降;然后通过比较实施强制保险前后社会福利的差异,得出结论:实施强制保险有助于社会福利的改善,从而可以提高保险市场效率。