New Venture: A New Model for Clean Energy Innovation

The clean energy sector has been plagued by challenges and setbacks. Yet, some success stories are just beginning to emerge. Using two case studies and a number of other examples, the author identifies four core elements that have underpinned many of the most successful emerging clean energy enterprises: (1) close partnerships with large industrial companies; (2) the ability to integrate (actually or synthetically) across the value chain; (3) global focus; and (4) a drive toward cost‐competitive economics without subsidies. The fact that most of these elements were also critical to the success of the wave of innovation spurred by the biotechnology revolution during the past three decades is cause for optimism about the potential for clean energy to develop similarly successful innovation models.     

Minimum Wage Myths

This paper casts doubt on the positive effects so often claimed for the recently-introduced national minimum wage by its many supporters. It attacks the notion of the minimum wage as a 'free lunch', arguing that its effects are often either negative or simply unknown. Those worst affected by its introduction are those the Minimum Wage most aims to help – the lowest income group.     

Leveraging Family‐Based Brand Identity to Enhance Firm Competitiveness and Performance in Family Businesses*

Drawing on the family‐embeddedness perspective on entrepreneurship and the resource‐based‐view of the firm, we investigate how the promotion of family‐based brand identity influences competitive orientation (customer versus product) and firm performance in family businesses. Applying structural equation modeling to survey data collected from leaders of 218 family businesses, we demonstrate that developing a family‐based brand identity positively contributes to firm performance (growth and profitability) indirectly, via a customer‐centric orientation. In contrast, attempts to leverage family‐based brand identity via a product‐centric orientation do not impact firm performance. Our results suggest that family‐based brand identity enhances the family business' ability to persuade customers to make purchasing decisions based on the perceived attributes of the seller. As a result, we contribute to the discussions centered on how to optimize the intricate synergy between family and business.     

Sri Lanka: Food aid as a resource transfer

Sri Lanka is used as a case study to consider: the significance of food aid in the long run as a resource transfer; the extent to which food transfers have substituted for or been additional to commercial imports; the significance of donor programming for recipient country food policy. The article finds evidence that food aid has represented an important resource but is now of diminished significance; it has largely provided balance-of-payments support rather than additional cereals imports; but unresponsive programming by donors seriously reduced the effectiveness of food aid as a transfer and food security mechanism.     

The Brandt report and international food problems

The political role that food has played in the Afghanistan and Iran crises, as well as in the UK's relations with its EEC partners has focused more attention on international food questions than at any time since the pre-war campaign for tariff reform. International food problems involve issues broader and more complex than finding ways of combating widespread hunger: showing concern and contributing some resources to solving someone e/se's problem. This increased awareness of the political and economic as well as humanitarian aspects of the food problem should enable us to recognise the need to give particular attention to proposals such as those made by the Brandt Commission¹ on world hunger and international food questions.     

Beyond Adoption Intention: Online Communities and Member Motivation to Contribute Longitudinally

As online communities become increasingly relevant to business, it is critical to understand how to support contributors' motivation to contribute content longitudinally. In this article, we draw on existing literature on motivation and technology characteristics to conceptualize a model of longitudinal content contribution. We view longitudinal content contribution as a recursive process of interaction between contributors, other participants, and the IT artifacts of online communities. Our study has several important theoretical contributions: first, our study argues that different types of motivation exist and we need to understand how to support contributors' autonomous motivation; second, our study adds the time dimension to content contribution; third, our study clarifies the path from content contribution to motivation; forth, our study helps explain why some rewards can be detrimental to contributors' motivation. Future studies are needed to extend our model and test the propositions from our model.     

Is Your Banker Leaking Your Personal Information? The Roles of Ethics and Individual-Level Cultural Characteristics in Predicting Organizational Computer Abuse

Computer abuse (CA) by employees is a critical concern for managers. Misuse of an organization’s information assets leads to costly damage to an organization’s reputation, decreases in sales, and impositions of fines. We use this opportunity to introduce and expand the theoretic framework proffered by Thong and Yap (1998) to better understand the factors that lead individuals to commit CA in organizations. The study uses a survey of 449 respondents from the banking, financial, and insurance industries. Our results indicate that individuals who adhere to a formalist ethical perspective are significantly less likely to engage in CA activities than those following a utilitarian ethical framework. In addition, the results provide evidence that employees with individualistic natures are linked to increased CA incidents, whereas collectivist tendencies are associated with decreases in CA behaviors. Our results also show that collectivism acts as a strong moderator that further decreases the relationships between formalism and CA, and utilitarianism and CA. Finally, we offer detailed suggestions on how organizations and researchers can leverage our findings to decrease CA occurrences.