The suffering company: Consumer compassion towards companies exposed to negative events

When a company commits misconduct, it will usually suffer; for example, in the form of a short‐term decline in sales, a medium‐term loss of reputation, or a long‐term drop in its bottom line. But when a company is involved in a negative event for which it is fully responsible, for example, public customer agitations due to false expectations, some consumers might feel compassion for the company. In turn, they might aim to help the company overcome its period of suffering; for example, by making supportive recommendations. Drawing upon deservingness theory and previous findings on these issues, the authors propose a causal model suggesting antecedents of compassion and subsequent helping behaviors towards the company. A main finding is that the emergence of helping behaviors as a result of consumers’ compassion depends largely on company reputation. Self‐efficacy is a further focal construct influencing the intensity of felt compassion and helping behaviors depending on company reputation, suggesting that consumers apply emotion regulation strategies in such incidents.     

The effects of balanced and asymmetric dependence on supplier satisfaction: Identifying positive effects of dependency

Studies argue that balance in dependence is critical to supplier satisfaction in buyer-supplier relationships. We examine whether asymmetric relationships can also lead to supplier satisfaction, arguing that traditional analysis methods are unsuitable for thoroughly analyzing this issue. With polynomial regression and response surface analysis combined with dyadic data, we test the relationship between (1) balanced dependence (i.e., the buyer and supplier are equally dependent on each other) and supplier satisfaction and (2) asymmetric dependence (i.e., either the supplier or buyer is the dominant party) on supplier satisfaction. The results indicate that mutual dependence is positively related to supplier satisfaction, but surprisingly, asymmetric dependence can be related to higher levels of supplier satisfaction.     

Accountability and risk governance: a scenario-informed reflection on European regulation of GMOs

Regulating risks in the face of scientific uncertainty poses a particular challenge to policy-makers. Such problems are amplified when decisions are taken in a multi-level framework of supranational governance. The genetically modified organism (GMO) regulation in the European Union constitutes an especially salient issue of risk governance in a multi-lateral arena, as the topic is politically highly visible and decision-making is slow and contested. Furthermore, as authority is dispersed among multiple actors, European risk governance is in need of adequate mechanisms ensuring that decision-makers justify and account for their behavior. While legitimacy aspects of GMO governance have widely been examined, accountability relations within the field of GMO risk governance have hitherto only weakly been explored. Hence, this paper analyzes the question of who can be held accountable under the complex system of supranational risk governance. This paper claims that mere adherence by actors to the regulatory procedures during the decision-making process does not necessarily imply that overall accountability can be secured, resulting in ‘organized irresponsibility’. Although certain piecemeal accountability may exist, establishing overall accountability is complicated, precisely as a result of the complex system of interwoven rules.     

German bond markets and US monetary policy

Low interest rates have been a major problem for the European life insurance industry. The implementation of Solvency II certainly has forced European life insurers to improve their risk management procedures and to buy long term bonds in order to handle the interest rate risk inherent to their liabilities. As a consequence, the industry meanwhile more or less seems to be able to cope with the problem of low interest rates. However, now the US central bank has started to hike rates. The Bank of Canada meanwhile has followed its southern neighbor. The changed monetary policy environment in North America might create new challenges for asset managers in the European life insurance industry. This paper provides some additional thoughts and empirical evidence about the linkages between US monetary policy and the European bond market employing techniques of time series analysis.     

Next generation single-aisle aircraft – Requirements and technological solutions

In recent years, aircraft manufacturers have concentrated on developing new long-haul widebody aircraft, such as Airbus’s A380 and A350XWB and Boeing’s 787 and 747-8. The next challenge for manufacturers and suppliers is the development of new short- and medium-range single-aisle aircraft. This paper outlines how the challenges and quantified goals as developed by the Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in its Strategic Research Agenda would influence and contribute to the improvement of the next generation of civil transport aircraft. It continues with a discussion on possible aircraft requirements from the viewpoint of an aircraft operator. Subsequently, the most important technological elements available for the next generation single-aisle aircraft are briefly characterised. Using the Council’s objectives for CO₂ emissions and noise, as an example it can be shown that a decoupling of air traffic growth and emissions/noise can be achieved.     

Addendum to L. Lauwers and L. Van Liedekerke, “Ultraproducts and aggregation” [J. Math. Econ. 24 (3) (1995) 217–237]

This addendum fills a minor gap in the key lemma of a paper by Lauwers and Van Liedekerke [Lauwers, L., Van Liedekerke, L., 1995. J. Math. Econ. 24 (3), 217–237].     

Ownership structure and target returns

Contrary to past literature, ownership defined as “all officers and directors” of the target firm has no association with target returns. Rather, we find that inside (managerial) ownership has a positive relation with target returns, whereas active-outside (non-managing director) ownership has a negative relation with target returns. Using accounting-based versus market-based performance measures, we find that the relation between inside ownership and target returns is best explained by takeover anticipation. Using bidder and synergy returns we find that the relation between outside ownership and target returns is best explained by outsiders' willingness to share gains with the bidder. While the relations are more pronounced for non-tender deals, they also hold for tender offers when active-outside ownership is corporate rather than institutional.     

Evolutionary stability of altruism and envy in Tullock contests

This paper considers Tullock contests with altruistic and envious individuals as players. Altruism (envy) is beheld as another motivation for low (high) dissipation rates in contests. A pure population of altruists has higher payoffs than a purely envious population, but the altruist has a lower payoff if he is confronted with an envious individual. In an evolutionary approach in which the population share of the type with the higher material payoff rises, it can be shown that there is a possibility of either envy or altruism becoming extinct. Furthermore, we find an advantage of envy in such a manner that very altruistic individuals always die out, but very envious ones only do so under certain conditions. I am grateful to Alexander Haupt, two anonymous referees, and the editor for constructive comments on this paper.     

On possibilities and limitations of using self-anchoring scales in web surveys

Self-anchoring scales were first mentioned by Kilpatrick and Cantril (J Indiv Psychol 16:158–170, 1960) and Cantril (The pattern of human concerns, 1965) as rating instruments in which the end anchors are defined by the respondent himself, basing on his own assumptions, perceptions, goals and values. The uses of these scales are legion and they have shown to be very useful in reducing measurement bias in cross-cultural research (Cantril, The pattern of human concerns, 1965; Bernheim et al. J. Happiness Stud. 7:227–250, 2006). The first part of the current study investigates whether context effects can be lessened or eliminated by using self-anchoring scales. For this purpose, an experiment similar to the ones by Couper et al. (Public Opin Q 71:623–634, 2004, Public Opin Q 68:255–266, 2007), in which they manipulated images that figured in a web survey, was conducted. The hypothesis that self-anchoring scales can reduce contextual bias, is not supported by our data. The second part of the study investigates if and how self-anchoring scales affect drop-out during the filling-out of questionnaires. It is found that, compared to a regular rating scale, a larger proportion of respondents drop-out. Moreover, subjective preferences for the one or the other scale do not seem to differ.     

Judgment aggregators and Boolean algebra homomorphisms

The theory of Boolean algebras can be fruitfully applied to judgment aggregation: assuming universality, systematicity and a sufficiently rich agenda, there is a correspondence between (i) non-trivial deductively closed judgment aggregators and (ii) Boolean algebra homomorphisms defined on the power-set algebra of the electorate. Furthermore, there is a correspondence between (i) consistent complete judgment aggregators and (ii) 2-valued Boolean algebra homomorphisms defined on the power-set algebra of the electorate.