When Passion Fades: Disentangling the Temporal Dynamics of Entrepreneurial Passion for Founding

This study examines how and why entrepreneurial passion for founding changes over time. In particular, we propose that in the founding phase of a venture's lifecycle entrepreneurs’ founding identity centrality will remain stable over time. We also propose, however, that in our sample and time period studied, entrepreneurs’ intense positive feelings for founding will decrease over time. On the basis of theories of positive illusion, self‐regulation and role theory, we further hypothesize that venture idea change, change in role ambiguity and entrepreneurs’ feedback‐seeking behaviour are factors that help explain the rate of change in entrepreneurs’ intense positive feelings for founding. Using a three‐wave longitudinal research design, we find that among a sample of 112 entrepreneurs’ identity centrality does not change over time, whereas intense positive feelings for founding decrease over time. Moreover, the more entrepreneurs change their venture ideas, the weaker their decrease in intense positive feelings. Further, we show that entrepreneurs who frequently seek feedback suffer less from reduced positive feelings in response to higher increases in role ambiguity as compared to entrepreneurs who seek less feedback.     

Sign here,please! On developing countries’ market access conditions in regional trade agreements

Have regional trade agreements (RTAs) improved market access conditions for developing countries? Employing a measure expressing effective tariff margins and using disaggregated panel data for a sample of 45 developing country exporters, 60 export destinations, and the period between 1991 and 2015, it is shown that this question can generally be answered in the affirmative. Although the effect is estimated to be moderate, RTAs might thus be an important long‐run building block in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in order to increase developing countries’ participation in world trade. On closer inspection, however, for the countries included in the sample, there is considerable variation depending on the choice of integration partners and economic sectors. More specifically, market access improvements cannot be found for African economies in South–South agreements and developing countries engaging formally with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) or the Republic of Korea, while leading industrialized nations are reluctant to grant improved market access to developing countries in RTAs especially in capital‐intensive (high‐productivity) manufacturing sectors.     

The role of actual,ideal, and ought self‐congruence in the consumption of hedonic versus utilitarian brands

To emotionally attach consumers to a brand and inspire brand loyalty, marketers often target the brand personality towards the consumer's actual or ideal self. The self is not limited to its actual and ideal dimension, however, and motivation to approach a desired self may vary depending on the consumer's personality. Thus, the current research is the first to link self‐congruence to self‐discrepancy theory by incorporating the ought self into the self‐congruence framework and taking into account self‐discrepancies as potential moderators of the self‐congruence effect. Additionally, hedonic brand nature is discussed as important condition for self‐congruence and self‐discrepancies exhibiting their fullest effect. The conducted study focuses on how actual, ideal, and ought self‐congruence influence emotional brand attachment and consequently brand loyalty. For brands of primary hedonic nature, findings confirm actual and ideal self‐congruence as drivers of emotional brand attachment, which in turn increases brand loyalty, while ought self‐congruence influences brand loyalty directly. Moreover, self‐discrepancies moderate the described relations, albeit their effect is contrary to theory‐based expectations. From these findings, the authors derive important implications for business practice and future research.     

How Do Diversity of Opinion and Information Asymmetry Affect Acquirer Returns?

We examine the theoretical predictions that link acquirer returnsto diversity of opinion and information asymmetry. Theory suggeststhat acquirer abnormal returns should be negatively relatedto information asymmetry and diversity-of-opinion proxies forequity offers but not cash offers. We find that this is thecase and that, more strikingly, there is no difference in abnormalreturns between cash offers for public firms, equity offersfor public firms, and equity offers for private firms aftercontrolling for one of these proxies, idiosyncratic volatility.     

Do Unexpected Land Auction Outcomes Bring New Information to the Real Estate Market?

Land and real estate are intrinsically related but generally traded in two different markets. Vacant land, being a major “raw material” for development of real estate, is traded by developers who actively manage development risk for profit. Real estate, being a long lived final product, is traded by end-users or investors for use or investment in the secondary market. This study examines price discovery between the two markets. The key question is whether land transactions, in the form of public auctions, convey any new information to the secondary real estate market. Our results suggest unexpected land auction outcomes have both market-wide and local effects on real estate prices. However, the impacts are asymmetric. We found that lower than expected land auction prices have a significant negative market-wide and local impact on real estate prices while higher than expect land auction prices have little or no impact.     

INTEGRATING A HOUSEHOLD DEMAND SYSTEM IN THE INPUT–OUTPUT FRAMEWORK. METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS AND MODELLING IMPLICATIONS

In this paper we argue that an accurate representation of household consumption behaviour is central to the analysis and comparison of policy interventions addressing sustainable consumption. Therefore, we propose to extend an input–output model with a specific household consumption model, at the core of which is a system of equations explaining the allocation of the households' overall expenditure across different purposes, such as buying food, the consumption of fuel for heating or electricity for cooling, education of children or travelling in terms of total expenditure and relative prices. This paper shows that the integration of a specific module for household consumption in a standard input–output model is an improvement for the analysis of the policies aimed at altering consumer behaviour.