The evolution of cyber-insurance industry and market: An institutional analysis

The cyber-insurance (CI) market is at a nascent stage. This paper investigates how the contexts provided by formal and informal institutions affect the development of the CI industry. It highlights the nature, origin, and implications of CI-related institutions and provides insights into the mechanisms and forces that can lead to institutional changes. It offers an explanation as to how different institutional pillars related to CI progressively evolve and reinforce one another. Such a mechanism is likely to influence a range of demand and supply side factors and create a system that can accelerate the growth of the CI industry and market. The paper also investigates how contradictions generated by CI, the formation of dense networks and changing power dynamics can trigger regulative normative and cognitive changes. Since the current analysis of the causes and consequences of institutions and institutional change is mainly concerned with more established economic sectors, this paper is expected to provide insights into institutions surrounding to this new and rapidly evolving industry.     

Cloud Computing: Architectural and Policy Implications

Cloud computing has emerged as perhaps the hottest development in information technology. Despite all of the attention it has garnered, existing analyses focus almost exclusively on the issues surrounding data privacy without exploring cloud computing’s architectural and policy implications. This Article offers an initial exploratory analysis in that direction. It begins by introducing key cloud computing concepts, such as service oriented architectures, thin clients, and virtualization, and discusses the leading delivery models and deployment strategies being pursued by cloud computing providers. It then analyzes the economics of cloud computing in terms of reducing costs, transforming capital expenditures into operating expenditures, aggregating demand, increasing reliability, and reducing latency. It then discusses the architectural implications of cloud computing for access networking (focusing on bandwidth, reliability, quality of service, and ubiquity) and data center interconnectivity (focusing on bandwidth, reliability, security and privacy, control over routing policies, standardization, and metering and payment). It closes by offering a few observations on the impact of cloud computing on the industry structure for data centers, server-related technologies, router-based technologies, and access networks, as well as its implications for regulation.     

Big data׳s impact on privacy,security and consumer welfare

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the costs, benefits, and externalities associated with organizations׳ use of big data. Specifically, it investigates how various inherent characteristics of big data are related to privacy, security and consumer welfare. The relation between characteristics of big data and privacy, security and consumer welfare issues are examined from the standpoints of data collection, storing, sharing and accessibility. The paper also discusses how privacy, security and welfare effects of big data are likely to vary across consumers of different levels of sophistication, vulnerability and technological savviness.     

Empowering the underdog: Soft power in the development of collective institutional entrepreneurship in business markets

This paper develops a soft power model to enable non-elite institutional entrepreneurs to fundamentally reshape their field. Based on a Judo strategy framework, this model integrates previously suggested soft power tactics into a coherent set of principles. More specifically, it explains how previous soft power insights adhere to underlying principles of movement, balance and leverage. Structured according to these principles, this paper theorizes how soft power strategies can be a sufficient condition to overcome the embedded agency and mobilization problems of collective institutional entrepreneurship. The applicability is furthermore illustrated with a case of an institutional entrepreneurship initiative in the Dutch electro-technical installation industry. As such, the paper informs an undertheorized scenario of institutional entrepreneurship which we argue is more relevant for business markets than hard power approaches.     

Cloud computing and its impact on the Japanese macroeconomy–its oligopolistic market characteristics and social welfare

The cloud computing market is rapidly expanding and changing the nature of ICT across all sectors; cloud computing transforms ICT from a tool dependent upon investment and physical ownership to one that can easily make use of outside resources. On the other hand, cloud computing services are being provided not only for simple data storage, but for many purposes through several different service models, such as SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). Due to, among other factors, the nature of its network externalities, the market seems to be gradually shifting to a market with oligopolistic characteristics in which the services are provided by a limited number of big-name firms. In this paper, the impact of the shift of the cloud computing market to a market with oligopolistic characteristics on utility-based social welfare is quantitatively estimated and analyzed utilizing DSGE (Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium) model-based simulation. The main objectives of the paper, rather than to ascertain the exact change of utility-based social welfare, are (1) to determine whether there is a (realistic) shifting path of macroeconomic variables in Japan’s case, under the shift and (2) to illustrate the dynamic interaction of the macroeconomic variables. Utility-based social welfare is chosen, because for the purpose of evaluating policy measures it would be more suitable than GDP. Also, several kinds of policy measures for the sound development of the cloud computing market that the industry and government can take are discussed in a sense related to a market with oligopolistic characteristics.     

崩溃的篱笆——密码、黑客与无奈的信息安全

奇虎360主管手机安全的副总裁李涛和乌云漏洞发布平台的创始人佥0心,有着相同的癖好：从不使用信用卡、从不在网上购物、从不在手机上装任何有LBS功能的应用软件。“这个世界毫无安全可言。”这是两个多年从事信息安全工作的人的共同心声。     

Rethinking Institutions and Institutional Change in European Industrial Relations

This article traces the process of institutional change in industrial relations in Britain, France and Sweden over the last quarter‐century in order to identify the mechanisms and forms of institutional change. These three cases demonstrate a high degree of institutional plasticity, and a greater convergence in industrial relations than comparisons of national institutions have tended to suggest. These findings in turn suggest the need to rethink both the role of institutions and the nature of institutional change in comparative political economy.     

Conflict or cooperation? Exploring the relationship between cooperative institutions and robotisation

Robotization of production challenges the status-quo in the economy, some win, while others lose out. Literature has argued that automation causes redistribution, both between capital and labour as within either category. We also know that many economies have chosen to adopt cooperative institutions to negotiate the negative by-products of such economic changes. What is, however, less clear is how such institutions influence rates of automation themselves. This article contributes to this debate by conducting a panel analysis of sectoral robotization rates and cooperative institutions in 25 OECD countries between 1993 and 2017 using an original institutional indicator. The findings suggest that aside from simply redistributing the costs and benefits of automation throughout the productive sector, cooperative institutions also meaningfully predict higher levels of robot density, showing that more institutionalized economies do not lag behind in terms of automation. What is more, these institutions also seem to co-determine the rates of robotization occurring during recessions.     

Institutional maintenance work and power preservation in business exchanges: Insights from industrial supplier workshops

This paper aims to offer new theoretical and empirical insights into power dynamics in an industrial supplier workshop setting. Theoretically, it advances an institutional perspective on supplier workshops as an important venue in managing, preserving and instituting industrial market power. Based on a detailed ethnographic analysis of an industrial workshop setting, this article investigates the institutional maintenance work of Retail Co. in preserving the power dynamics of market dominance in business exchanges and market structures. Our findings revealed three previously unreported insights into the subtle, but nonetheless pervasive power from institutional maintenance work in an industrial workshop setting. First, the institutional workshop work comprised a cultural performance; constituting socialization practice through a performance game, the power of numbers in field comprehension and an award ceremony. Second, the institutional workshop work mobilized projective agency, stipulating, directing and appealing for the instituting of distinct market rules and collective identities. Finally, the institutional workshop work increases supplier docility and utility via the regulative technologies-of-the-self to enhance business planning, operations and market decision-making practice, without necessarily being seen to be disciplinarian.     

Chinese institutions and standardization: The case of government support to domestic third generation cellular standard

There are unique and distinct institutional processes associated with the Chinese government's support of the domestically developed third generation (3G) cellular standard, TD-SCDMA. After postponing several times, China awarded three third generation cellular licenses in January 2009: a TD-SCDMA license to China Mobile, a CDMA 2000 license to China Telecom and a WCDMA license to China Unicom. The Chinese government has demonstrated a clear bias in favor of TD-SCDMA. This article examines the role of formal and informal institutions in shaping the Chinese 3G landscape. This paper makes two contributions to the literature. First, this work extends studies on institutional theory focusing on standardization to the context of China. Second, unlike most ICT research which deals with standards originated in the West, this paper's focus on developing country-originated standard provides novel and unique insights related to institutional processes.     

Solidarity's Abandonment of Worker Councils: Redefining Employee Stakeholder Rights in Post-socialist Poland

This paper examines the rejection of employee councils by Poland's trade union Solidarity. In the historical institutional analysis in the first part of this paper, Solidarity's early commitment to employee councils is traced to the evolution of ideas about economic reform that predominated in the union leadership. The impact of these dominant ideas are examined in the second half of the paper which relates Solidarity's abandonment of employee councils to broadly held beliefs about the limited rights of employee stakeholders. Together, the qualitative and quantitative analysis demonstrates how trade unions' strategies and their ideological underpinnings have shaped Poland's postwar industrial relations institutions.     

Uncovering institutional orientation as a new strategic orientation in industrial marketing

The environment of industrial markets is highly institutionalized, and research has documented different types of institutional work conducted by firms. However, the way in which individuals within organizations perceive and conduct such work is not well-understood. In this paper, we adopt the “inhabited institutions” approach to study how business-to-business managers experience the institutional work conducted by their companies as a strategic orientation. In-depth interviews with 34 managers reveal that institutional orientation is composed of three dimensions: the key institutional customers concept, institutional embeddedness, and market legitimacy. In addition, our study uncovers the relationships among these dimensions. The article concludes with the theoretical implications of the research as well as with a discussion regarding how a culture of institutional work, i.e., institutional orientation, can be instrumental in enhancing the performance of BtoB firms.     

The evolution of the internet of things industry and market in China: An interplay of institutions,demands and supply

This paper seeks to provide some explanation as to how demand-, supply- and institutions-related factors in China have affected the creation and diffusion of Internet of Things (IoT)-related products and services. Concerning demand side factors the paper demonstrates how potential market size and existing technology trajectory work in favor of IoT diffusion. As a related demand side factor the paper argues that, in terms of the technological trajectory, China has started farther from the frontier than most industrialized countries. The degree of incremental benefit from the IoT is thus higher in the country. As to the supply side factors, the article promotes an understanding of how Chinese technology companies have capitalized on a huge user base to develop IoT-based applications. It also suggests that technologies and expertise provided by foreign multinationals have also played crucial roles. Regarding formal institutions, the government's proactive policies have been a major factor in the IoT's evolution. It is also in the Chinese government's interest to develop IoT products to make censorship and surveillance more effective. Regarding informal institutions, Chinese consumers are less concerned than Westerners about being tracked and monitored, which provides a favorable condition for the adoption of IoT-enabled devices. Nonetheless, this condition is changing due to increasing abuse of consumer privacy. China and the U.S. are compared in terms of diffusion, key determinants, performance indicators and impacts of the IoT in order to understand the areas that China outperforms—and underperforms—the U.S. Some indicators are proposed to gauge the IoT-related performance and the impacts of the IoT.     

Instability and Change in Collective Bargaining: An Analysis of the Effects of Changing Institutional Structures

Previous studies on collective bargaining structures and macroeconomic performance have largely ignored the role of stable and instable institutional structures and the effects of institutional change itself. In this article we posit that institutional stability of collective bargaining is of major importance for the moderation of unit labour costs growth. This hypothesis is tested on the basis of data which cover the period 1965–2012 and includes 28 countries. The results show that institutional change impairs the capacity to moderate unit labour cost growth significantly in the subsequent years following the change. This effect also holds for changes in both decentralization and centralization of institutions.     

Strategy in emerging economies and the theory of the firm

Indigenous emerging economy (EE) firms are increasingly competing in global markets or against multinational corporations (MNCs) in their home markets. But their institutional context at the national and local levels often suffers from what has been termed “institutional weakness” which is believed to put them at a competitive disadvantage on the global playing field. Yet little is known about how EE institutional weakness at the national level translates into competitive disadvantage at the firm level. In this perspectives paper, we examine this shortcoming in the literature. We utilize three popular theories of the firm—neoclassical economics, the resource-based view, and the nexus of contracts view—to examine how EE institutional weakness at the national level affects strategic choices at the firm level. We then explain how these strategic choices affect firm boundaries, internal organization, and the nature of competitive advantage for firms in EEs.     

物流云服务下动态设施选址问题研究

基于云计算的物流云服务平台利用云中的资源,可以实现供应链上资源的优化组合,进而改变了供应链节点间的服务映射关系,真正实现节点间的"多对多"映射,从而一定程度上改变动态设施选址的模式。在物流云服务环境下研究动态选址问题,结合云服务环境下"多对多"映射关系的特性,以动态P中值选址为例,提出了一种新的基于云服务的动态选址模型,并结合具体算例,运用Cplex求解,证明在物流云服务环境下,可以明显降低选址总成本,同时增加供应链的服务柔性。     

The maintenance of macro-vocabularies in an industry: The case of the France's recorded music industry

Different studies have proved the importance of language and vocabularies in structuring shared perceptions among stakeholders within an industry. Little is known about the discursive work involved in the evolution of these vocabularies. The use of corpus linguistics provides insights in the process through which an industry stabilises itself and how incumbents engage in discursive work to maintain their interests. We explore the jolt the Internet provoked in the French recorded music industry between 1988 and 2008. We argue that one major explanation for the industry inertia is that the technology of the Internet and the new distribution channels it opened up were framed by discourses, characterized by a relatively stable vocabulary which repeated established words such as right and artistic work. The discursive work of incumbent actors supports the stabilization of this vocabulary. When new words appeared, they were incorporated into existing vocabulary. This dual process of repetition and incorporation was facilitated by the fact that many of the words central to the debate were relatively empty and ambiguous floating signifiers. This paper represents a promising avenue to better account for the place of words in the institutional work and more specifically institutional maintenance.     

When institutional logics meet: Alignment and misalignment in collaboration between academia and practitioners

This paper explains the institutional logics of academia, and of practitioners within industry and government, as well as the alignment and misalignment that occurs when these actors collaborate. This is achieved by building on the theories on alignment and misalignment and institutional logics, whilst conducting an explorative case study of a circular economy cluster from the Tampere Region of Finland. This paper offers three main contributions: First, convergence and divergence of institutional logics by industry, government, and academic actors can lead to alignment and misalignment at three levels: actor-type, relationship, and system levels. Second, partial alignment and misalignment are found to be in-between modes of alignment, which challenges the idea that alignment and misalignment are dichotomous. Instead, alignment and misalignment should be seen as the two ends of a continuum. Third, alignment and misalignment are dynamic by nature, because institutional logics change and modify during collaboration. For practice, this paper gives advice on how collaboration between academia and practitioners can be advanced to achieve alignment and avoid misalignment.