Aligning employees through “line of sight”

Aligning employees with the firm's larger strategic goals is critical if organizations hope to manage their human capital effectively and ultimately attain strategic success. An important component of attaining and sustaining this alignment is for employees to have a “line of sight” (LOS) with their organization's strategic objectives. In this article, we illustrate how the translation of calculated firm goals into tangible results requires that employees not only understand the organization's strategy, but also accurately appreciate what actions are aligned with realizing that strategy. Using recent empirical evidence, theoretical insights, and tangible examples of exemplary firm practices, we provide thought-leaders with a comprehensive view of LOS by showing how it can be created, how it can be enhanced or stifled, and how it can be effectively managed. Further, we integrate LOS with current thinking on employee alignment to help managers more effectively benefit from understanding human capital potential.     

From fork to farm: Impacts of more sustainable diets in the EU-27 on the agricultural sector

The implications of dietary changes for the environment and for human health are well documented, but the impacts on the agricultural sector are less well researched. We fill this gap by specifying scenarios in which European consumers' diets approximate the EAT-Lancet dietary recommendations to varying degrees and estimate the effects on agricultural production, incomes and emissions using an agro-economic modelling framework. The combination of different models allows for a detailed assessment of consequences for the agricultural sector from the global through European NUTS2 level to the farm level at different time scales. Shifting European consumption towards the EAT-Lancet recommendations leads to decreasing production of animal-based products, while production of fruits and vegetables increases sharply. The results indicate that the agricultural sector could benefit from a dietary shift, though the results are mixed at country, regional and farm levels. In particular, countries and regions that are highly specialised in animal farming are likely to lose income—at least in the short run—while regions with higher shares of vegetable and fruit farms can expect income gains. In Germany, pig and poultry farms may experience losses of up to 34% of their income, whereas farms with a high share of vegetables could gain more than 30% in income. Our results have implications for the policies to assist these extensive structural adjustments in response to widespread dietary changes.     

Using social media to report financial results

The growing influence of social media on financial performance reporting creates opportunities and challenges for both executives and corporate communications teams. This Accounting Matters feature provides background on current business reporting practices (including new SEC regulations) and insights from recent research on communication of financial results. The conclusion discusses future trends and provides recommendations for executives to consider when designing, implementing, and evaluating media and investor relations communication initiatives.     

Monopolistic competition and income dispersion

We develop a model of monopolistic competition that accounts for consumers’ heterogeneity in both incomes and preferences. This model makes it possible to study the implications of income redistribution on the toughness of competition. We show how the market outcome depends on the joint distribution of consumers’ tastes and incomes and obtain a closed-form solution for a symmetric equilibrium. Competition toughness is measured by the weighted average elasticity of substitution. Income redistribution generically affects the market outcome, even when incomes are redistributed across consumers with different tastes in a way such that the overall income distribution remains the same.     

Personality characteristics and the decisions to become and stay self-employed

Based on a large, representative German household panel, we investigate to what extent the personality of individuals influences the entry decision into and the exit decision from self-employment. We reveal that some traits, such as openness to experience, extraversion, and risk tolerance affect entry, but different ones, such as agreeableness or different parameter values of risk tolerance, affect exit from self-employment. Only locus of control has a similar influence on the entry and exit decisions. The explanatory power of all observed traits among all observable variables amounts to 30 %, with risk tolerance, locus of control, and openness having the highest explanatory power.