Value co-creation among retailers and consumers: New insights into the furniture market

This paper aims to examine the applicability of a value co-creation framework that integrates the process view (customer, supplier and encounter value-creating processes), the actors’ view (the value facilitator and the value co-creator) and the role of customer knowledge in furniture retail stores using service-dominant (S-D) logic.We conducted multiple case studies to analyse retailers’ points of view and in-depth interviews to explore customers’ perspectives. Our research findings suggest that the proposed model can be effectively used to analyse value co-creation management in furniture firms, allowing researchers to identify the actions of retailers and customers and evaluate their matching. Even more importantly, this framework helps to foster value co-creation to increase the benefits for each participant during each stage of the relationship.     

Multiplicative habit formation and consumption: A note

A multiplicative form of the habit term in the utility function has some undesirable properties if the habit function is itself still additive (Wendner, 2003). A geometric form for the way the stock of habit accumulates can resolve these shortcomings.     

Segmenting the Business Traveler Based on Emotions,Satisfaction, and Behavioral Intention

As travel is part of their work, business travelers are assumed to be focused on carrying out a work‐related task, rather than feeling emotionally stimulated during their trip. Due to this belief, there is limited research on consumer emotions within this segment of the travel market. However, not only is business travel an experience and therefore it involves emotions, but many business trips have a strong leisure component and business travel decision making is often emotionally charged. This paper segments the business travel market based on emotions, satisfaction, and behavioral intention. Using a sample of 400 managers in small‐ and medium‐sized companies, the study demonstrates that the relationship between emotions and satisfaction is not unidirectional as far as business tourism is concerned. For two of the four segments, the valence of emotions translated into an opposite level of satisfaction/intention. The segments were found to differ in personal and trip‐related variables.     

Formal and informal learning in the workplace: a research review

The radical economic, social and cultural changes experienced by the labour market within recent decades have helped to highlight the central role played by the learning process in individual career development and organizational success. In such fast‐moving working contexts, skills and competencies rapidly become outdated and need to be continuously implemented and empowered as a strategic factor for global competitiveness. Traditional models of learning both inside and outside of the workplace have become unable to explain the complexity of such a process, weaving between and overlapping formal and informal components. Starting with this premise, the aim of the present paper was to analyse the role of knowledge and experience as important learning frames, which allow the acquisition and development of competencies in the workplace. A human resource development perspective was adopted, aimed at reconciling both the organizational and individual stances implied in the process. The methodology of achieving this was to review the most recent literature on workplace learning, with a special focus on its formal and informal dimensions.     

Altruism, incomplete markets, and tax reform

We compute the welfare effects of different revenue-neutral tax reforms that eliminate capital income taxation in two general equilibrium models calibrated to the U.S. economy. In our dynastic model, the reform with the largest welfare gain is the one that eliminates all income taxation and increases the consumption tax to 35%; 75% of the population alive at the time of the reform benefit from it. Individuals use intervivos transfers and bequests to redistribute the long-run benefits. In a pure life-cycle economy that lacks this redistribution technology, we find that the same reform would benefit only 9% of the population.     

The Value of Relationship Lending: Small Banks in an Era of Consolidation

Consolidation in the banking industry has caused concern about the survival of small banks. Empirical evidence, however, shows that small banks are performing better than larger banks in terms of loan growth and profitability. This paper investigates the determinants of such unexpected superior performance; in particular we posit that peculiarities of small banks, like their ability to lever on relationship lending, are good explanatory variables of their recent loan growth .     

Knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship: sectoral patterns in a sample of European high-tech firms

This paper studies the relative importance of prior knowledge and resources available to a startup at the time of its founding across technologies. Our analysis is based on a survey submitted to the founders of new innovative ventures patenting in the biotech, electronics and medical devices technologies. Our findings show that pre-entry knowledge about customers’ needs and characteristics, about the technology and about potential suppliers and competitors differentially affect the technological and market entrepreneurial choice of the surveyed firms. These results suggest the existence of patterns of entrepreneurial activities that are technology-specific.     

Disentangling the influence of internationalization on sustainability development: Evidence from the energy sector

This paper aims to deepen our understanding of the relationship between firms' internationalization and their sustainability development. We expected firms with a higher level of internationalization to exhibit better environmental management and performance. A sample of 287 publicly traded firms in the energy and energy‐related utilities sector was used to test these relationships. We focused on the energy sector, as energy production and supply have historically accounted for the lion's share of global greenhouse gas emissions. We found that firms' level of internationalization had a positive effect on their environmental management, whereas its effect on environmental performance was not found to be significant. We also tested whether these relationships change when firms' internationalization is oriented towards developing countries. Upon a closer look, the relationship was found to be significant between internationalization towards developing countries and better environmental management, thus contributing to the line of literature that does not support the pollution haven hypothesis.     

Logistics performance and export competitiveness: European experience

Logistics performance has become a decisive factor in export competitiveness. At the same time, and as a result of the continuous enlargement processes it has undergone, the European Union (EU) is a very interesting case to study how the reforms that enhance logistics performance have affected exports. Therefore, this paper aims to analyse the importance of logistics performance in regard to EU exports over the period 2005–2010 in an attempt to identify possible advances on behalf of Member States. Several gravity equations are estimated using the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) and its components as characteristic proxy variables of trade facilitation. In order to avoid the possible heterogeneity caused by sample bias, the two-stage model proposed by Heckman is used. The estimations of the gravity models using the two-stage Heckman model for all 26 EU countries have led us to conclude that logistics was more important for exporting nations than importing nations in both 2005 and 2010, reinforcing the interest in the exporter side of the paper. In reference to the components of the LPI, Competence and Tracking has acquired greater importance in recent years, in keeping with the weak domestic demand in European countries and the search for new international markets.     

Household financial vulnerability: An empirical analysis

Using survey data, we investigate household financial distress. Specifically, we propose an indicator of financial vulnerability to jointly analyse different features of household financial distress, analysing its socio-demographic and economic determinants. A total number of 3102 Italian households make up the sample.The empirical analysis highlights that for the median level of the financial vulnerability index households already exhibit some important symptoms of financial vulnerability, such as problems in getting to the end of the month or an inability to face unexpected expenses. As regards the determinants of the financial vulnerability index, three findings need to be pointed out. First, the level of debt servicing is positively related to financial vulnerability and the effect is stronger for households holding unsecured debt, i.e. consumer credit. Second, financial vulnerability also increases for impulsive individuals, who may adopt impatient, short-sighted behaviour patterns which make it difficult for them to be fully aware of the consequences of their financial and spending decisions. Third, a higher level of education helps to reduce financial fragility.