Moving beyond the tensions in open environmental innovation towards a holistic perspective

This paper analyses factors determining open environmental innovation (EI) and explores the possibility of embracing their tensions to achieve integrated environmental strategic goals. Building on recent literature linking open innovation and EI, the study assumes open EI strategic goals as a multidimensional construct based on the “synergistic and interwoven nature” of four identified enabling factors, that is, partners, knowledge, benefits, and motivations. A fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) based on Boolean algebra is conducted to analyse a set of 186 European companies operating in the telecommunication and information and communication technology (ICT) service industries. Making important theoretical, managerial, and policy contributions, this paper offers insights into the key factors enabling open EI and the tensional relationships within and between them. In doing so, it captures the non‐linear effects among these factors and the strategic goals related to an open EI strategy. It also suggests how the paradox theory might help in addressing the tensional dilemma of open EI strategy.     

Causality in social theory via linguistic fuzzy logic

I present a new approach to the study of causality in social theory using linguistic fuzzy logic as a framework. This approach differs from conventional analysis of causality on two fronts. First, all variables are considered to possess two degrees of freedom (or variation): a linguistic nuance value, which corresponds to what we conventionally refer to as interval or categorical value, and a linguistic truth value, which measures our confidence level in this nuance value. Second, combining this double fuzzification of variables with linguistic fuzzy logic I propose new tools for studying fuzzy causality. The linguistic fuzzy logic approach is illustrated through a re-examination of Skocpol’s (1979, States and social revolutions: a comparative analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) theory of social revolution.     

Entrepreneurial attributes of human capital and contingency factors in the culinary tourism

This article analyses fuzzy and crisp set qualitative comparative analyses (QCA) as an original method to model culinary tourism success and a number of entrepreneurial attributes of human capital and contingency factors. Human capital factors were general business training, specific training in food and drink hospitality, and previous experience as a business owner. Contingency factors were size of business (number of employees), restaurant location, and gender of the business owner. Restaurant success was measured by whether these restaurants had waiting lists.     

A review of integrated QCA and statistical analyses

Systematically combining quantitative and qualitative research approaches offers the potential for a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of social scientific phenomena. With their strong opportunities for building, qualifying, and testing social scientific theories, methodological integrations thus enable researchers to make substantive contributions that would not have been possible with one method alone. In this article we demonstrate how the integration of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and conventional statistical analysis offers researchers new opportunities for contributing to the social sciences. Whereas statistical analysis is variable-oriented and relies on correlational analysis to make comparisons across cases, QCA is based on set theory, is case oriented, and relies on Boolean algebra to make comparisons between cases. Drawing on the literature on the interdependency between theoretical contribution and methodology, we review studies that integrate QCA and statistical analysis to explain how the specific combination of these two approaches allows researchers to strengthen the theoretical contribution of their research. From our review we identify common challenges and provide solutions for integrating QCA and statistical analysis.     

Social Dysfunctions and Myths: Indicators of Social Malaise in Sweden and Other Industrialized Societies

Abstract . Sweden's sexual freedom and its Welfare State are said by the country's critics to have produced widespread social malaise characterized by loss of individual initiative, capitalist incentive and religious belief and a coincident rise in social problems. By comparative analysis of social indicators, this Investigation finds that, on the contrary, Sweden remains a capitalistic country in the forefront of progressive reform with an unmatched annual output of goods and services per capita.     

The analysis of risk perception with fuzzy means-end approach

Visitors’ risk perceptions have been found to influence the on-site behavior of tourists and their intention to return to a destination or to recommend it to others. This study discusses how the uses of a means-end approach with fuzzy conceptualization in eliciting the perception of tourism risks in a better understanding of the visitors’ perceptual orientation toward the tourism values. We provide a hierarchy value map that fuses the attribute–consequence–value (A–C–V) and fuzzy linguistics to effectively and efficiently understand vacation risks and risk characteristics. Fuzzy logic is also adopted to deal with the ill-defined nature of the tourist linguistic judgments required in the proposed means-end chain. This research findings suggest that additionally to managing the most likely risks, tourist resorts should be prepared to cope with worst case scenarios such as “Thunderstorm”, “Bus accident”, “Food poisoning” and “Cable car accident”. From an overall risk perceptive, tourists are most concerned with dominant perceptual orientation of risk delivers being “Bus accident” → “Decrease of trust in the safety management as a result of the event of damage” → “Anger”.     

Performance evaluation and prediction of the integrated circuit industry in China: A hybrid method

Since the “ZTE ban”, the development of the integrated circuit (IC) industry has attracted wide attention, especially in China. The performance evaluation and prediction of the IC industry is of great significance for promoting the development of this industry. In this paper, a hybrid method is proposed to study the performance of the IC industry from the perspectives of evaluation and prediction, which is unique as it evaluates the performance at past, current and future terms simultaneously. Firstly, a dynamic data envelopment analysis model is used to explore the performances of the IC industry between China and the United States from 2008 to 2017. Furthermore, in order to figure out the main sources of the inefficiency, the projection analysis is implemented based on the performance scores. Then, the grey model GM(1, 1) is employed to predicted the performance of China's IC industry from 2018 to 2022, so as to point out the progressive direction for the future development of the industry. The empirical results show that: (1) as far as performance is concerned, there is a significant gap between China and the United States in the IC industry during 2008–2017, among which the most obvious gap is occurring in “IC packaging & testing”, followed by “IC design” and “wafer fabrication”; (2) the primary cause of the low performance in China's IC industry is the redundancy of the inputs, especially in “IC packaging & testing”, and the redundancy problem of labour investment is found to be the most serious; (3) according to the predicted results, the IC industry in China will steadily increase in terms of the performance scores in general, and the performance improvement of “IC packaging & testing” is relatively obvious, while the other two categories have a slight range of growth. Finally, the policy implications of improving the performance of the IC industry are put forward.     

Globalization and the welfare state

This paper analyzes the impact of globalization on the Welfare State (WS). Some argue that globalization poses a serious threat to WS and therefore questions its sustainability. On the other hand, some others suggest that WS has to expand more as economies are integrating. After reviewing different hypothesis on the relationship between globalization and WS, we empirically examine the relationship by using 32 countries covering 1980 through 2010. According to the estimation results, there is no direct linkage between globalization and the WS. However the reaction of the WS against globalization is found to vary dramatically depending on welfare regimes. We find evidence in favor of compensation hypothesis in Social Democrat, Conservative and Mediterranean Welfare State regimes, whereas efficiency effect is in place in liberal Welfare States.     

Explicit and implicit corporate social responsibility: Differences in the approach to stakeholder engagement activities of U.S. and Japanese companies

This study uses the theoretical frameworks of institutional theory and comparative capitalism to demonstrate how cross‐cultural differences in national institutional frameworks are related to differences in the meaning and the nature of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and, as a result, how they create different incentives and opportunities for companies to engage in stakeholder management activities. More specifically, we draw upon the framework of “explicit” and “implicit” CSRs to investigate whether and how stakeholder management practices and programs differ between the United States and Japan. We first develop and validate a Stakeholder Engagement Activities (SEAs) scale, designed assess differences in the approach (explicit or implicit) that companies use to address a variety of common SEAs. Then we analyze data and present the results of surveys collected from 227 companies in the United States and Japan. We find that although the SEAs of American companies are characterized by strong “explicit CSR,” in contrast, the SEAs of Japanese companies exhibit strong “implicit CSR.” In the discussion that follows, we attribute these distinctions in the SEAs to differences in the configuration of political, economic, and market mechanisms in each country. The findings of this study contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the differences in prevailing CSR practices of American and Japanese companies than noted by previous researchers. From a practitioner's perspective, the findings of this study reveal that despite the global nature of CSR, stakeholder management practices are both interpreted and operationalized differently due to differences in national institutional frameworks.     

The role of constraints in policy analysis

The new discipline of policy analysis applies the specialized knowledge of economics, sociology, organization theory, and all the other social sciences to the task of designing and implementing viable socio-economics programs. This paper is a contribution to the methodology of policy analysis. Contrary to widely held views, social scientists can usefully participate in the making of public policy not by setting goals or giving expression to the “needs” of particular groups, but rather, by pointing out all the constraints (economic, sociological, organizational, etc.), which effectively limit the set of feasible alternatives. The theoretical explanation of these limitations is a fundamental task of applied social science. The systematic exploration of the region of feasibility should form the core of all policy analyses. This exploration can be assisted by the proposed distinction between logical, empirical and policy constraints corresponding, respectively, to impossibility theorems, empirical theories or hypotheses, and preliminary decisions or conventions. The significance of the distinction is indicated by some examples, and the different conditions of testability are noted. Some methodological problems of socio-economic planning are also examined. It is shown that the nature of a program is determined by the character of the crucial constraints rather than by the ostensible objectives. Questions of program implementation cannot be treated separately from planning and resources allocation. All the constraints, including organizational and administrative ones, must be considered in the moment of decision. An alternative which appears satisfactory in relation to a limited number of conditions may turn out to be quite bad with respect to the complete set of constraints.     

Taking advantage of social comparisons in performance appraisal: The relative percentile method

Social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) implies that it may be more efficacious for job performance raters to compare an employee to other employees rather than to use typical “absolute” rating standards. We assessed whether the incorporation of social comparisons into performance appraisals, using the relative percentile method (RPM), would predict criterion variance beyond that predicted by more traditional absolute ratings of performance. A sample (N=170) of managers involved in an assessment center was used, and the center provided criteria by which the relative criterion‐related validity of social‐comparative versus noncomparative (absolute) appraisals could be assessed. Overall, in consonance with a preponderance of earlier research, social‐comparative (RPM) performance appraisals showed incremental criterion‐related validity over traditional absolute performance appraisal methods. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

THE WELFARE STATE WE'RE IN: VIEWS FROM WESTMINSTER

The Welfare State We're In by James Bartholomew, published last year by Methuen, has had a significant impact on policy-makers and their advisers. Here, politicians representing the three major political parties give differing views of Bartholomew's analysis and the economic and social consequences of the welfare state.     

浅谈基于协议库存模式下的物资采购管理

随着“三集五大”体系建设的实施,协议库存采购模式作为国家电网公司重要的采购方式日趋成熟和规范,发挥了减少招标次数、降低采购成本、节约人工成本的优势,从而进一步加快了物资采购进度、提高了采购效率、降低了企业经营成本,提升了电网企业精益化管理水平。     

Contextual analyses with QCA-methods

Contextual analyses are essential in comparative research, as they investigate the importance of contextual conditions for causal relationships. During the last decades, an increasing number of comparative studies have also focused on how contextual conditions affect causal relationships. At the same time, new comparative methods have been developed based on set-theoretical logics. Two of the most prominent methods are csQCA and fsQCA, which are used in comparative studies with increasing frequency. However, the conventional design for contextual analysis is still based on quantitative methods and the use of interaction-factors. This article discusses why the use of interaction-factors is not suitable together with QCA-methods. Instead of the conventional design, the article presents an alternative design for contextual analyses with QCA-methods grounded on subgroup-design. Based on one recently-developed methodology comparative multilevel analysis (CMA), some guidelines for performing contextual analyses with two set-theoretical methods (csQCA and fsQCA) are presented. As illustrated with examples, the combination of CMA and QCA provides opportunities to use QCA for contextual analysis.     

The Male-Female Comparable Worth Debate: Alternative Economics Perspectives on an Issue That Cuts Across the Social Sciences

Abstract . Writers and speakers on the “comparable worth” or “pay equity” issue refer to “the economic view” but there is no such consensus. Three major paradigms exist in labor economics, the neoclassical, the “radical” or Marxian or Neomarxian, and the institutional Each differs in philosophical orientation, employs different analytical methods, and leads to different policy implications. On the issue of pay equity for women their views are contrasted; differences center on how successfully the market extends full options of choice. The analysis indicates that incremental advances in the direction of pay equity are to be expected, given present incentives in the private sector and less economic constraints in the public sector, provided women continue economic, legal, and political pressure. Surveying The Literature on the comparable worth or pay equity debate, one often encounters reference to the economic view. In reality however, three major paradigms exist in labor economics today; the prevailing neoclassical paradigm, the radical or Marxian view, and the institutional approach. While the three can be viewed as sharing common objectives (to describe, to predict, and to prescribe) they approach issues from different philosophical frameworks, employ different analytical tools, and lead to very different policy implications. Examining the pay equity issue from the perspectives of the three paradigms suggests different insights into the issue than that usually labelled the economic view.     

Symposium: Youth labour market and the “Great Recession”

The financial crisis of 2007–2008, followed by the “Great Recession” and the additional sovereign debt crisis in some peripheral countries of the Eurozone, resulted in huge and persistent effects on European youth labour markets. Theoretical and empirical investigations on this topic are still scarce compared with the importance of the topic and the consequent economic, social and policy implications. This paper consists of a very short introduction to a symposium that contributes to filling that gap. A multifaceted picture emerges with major policy implications for the three levels of government (European, national and regional/local) in order to reduce youth unemployment and the NEET phenomenon.     

Monetary policy on twitter and asset prices: Evidence from computational text analysis

In this paper, we dissect the Twitter debate about the future course of monetary policy and trace the effects of selected topics of this discourse on U.S. asset prices. We focus on the “taper tantrum” episode in 2013, a period with large revisions in expectations about future Fed policy. Based on a novel data set of 90,000 Twitter messages (“tweets”) covering the debate of Fed tapering on Twitter, we use Latent Dirichlet Allocation, a computational text analysis tool, to quantify the content of the discussion. Several estimated topic frequencies are then included in a VAR model to estimate the effects of topic shocks on asset prices. We find that the discussion about Fed policy on social media contains price-relevant information. Shocks to the discussion about the timing of the tapering, about the broader economic policy context and worrying investors are shown to lead to significant asset price changes. We also show that the effects are mostly due to changes in the term premium of yields consistent with the portfolio balance channel of unconventional monetary policy.     

The macro-financial factors behind the crisis: Global liquidity glut or global savings glut?

It has been argued that the global financial crisis 2007–2009 was intrinsically related to two largely unprecedented phenomena in the global economy: (i) exceptionally benign financial market conditions as mirrored in historically low risk premia and buoyant asset price developments as well as (ii) an unprecedented widening of external imbalances. This paper explores to what extent these global trends can be understood as a reaction to three structural shocks to the macro-financial environment of the global economy: (i) monetary shocks (“excess liquidity” hypothesis), (ii) preference shocks (“savings glut” hypothesis), and (iii) investment shocks (“investment drought” hypothesis). In order to uniquely identify these shocks in an integrated framework, we estimate structural VARs for the two main regions with widening imbalances, the United States and emerging Asia, using sign restrictions that are compatible with standard New Keynesian and Real Business Cycle models. Our results show that (US) monetary policy shocks explain the largest part of the variation in imbalances and financial market prices. We find that savings shocks and investment shocks explain less of the variation. Hence, a “liquidity glut” may have been a more important driver of real and financial imbalances in the US and emerging Asia that ultimately triggered the global financial crisis.