Drivers of entrepreneurial aspirations at the country level: the role of start-up motivations and social security

This paper investigates whether various start-up motivations and a country’s level of social security can explain the prevalence of entrepreneurial aspirations. For entrepreneurial aspirations and motivations we use country-level data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) for the year 2005. We distinguish between the necessity motive, independence motive and increase wealth motive and between aspirations in terms of innovativeness, job growth and export orientation. Our findings indicate that social security negatively affects a country’s supply of ambitious entrepreneurship. Our results also suggest that entrepreneurial aspirations in terms of job growth and export relate positively to the increase wealth motive.     

The Impact of Conviction for Anti‐Competitive Practices on Firm Valuation: A Contingency Approach

The previous research on the impact of anti‐competitive practices on firm valuation has shown conflicting results. To explain these conflicting results, we introduce three contingency factors: the amount of the fine, the degree of company involvement, and the company size. To test the impact of these factors, an event study is conducted on a sample of 305 confirmed cases in Europe between 1998 and 2007. The results show that the impact of conviction for anti‐competitive practice is greater when the relative amount of the fine is high, the company's degree of involvement is high, and the company is small. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

France: broadening precautionary expertise?

Since 1997 France has had an intensified public controversy about the commercialization of GM crops. As new protagonists have entered the debate and raised new issues with the experts, the uncertainties (related to agronomic, environmental and human health consequences) have tended to increase and the previous standards of precaution have been challenged as inadequate. Public controversy has focused on the inability of the regulatory advisors to take into account scientific studies from disciplines other than molecular biology (such as ecology), as well as the agricultural model that underlies plant biotechnology. In response, the French government has begun to open up the regulatory process in order to involve citizens, NGOs and scientists within the official expert structures. Indeed, the French committee for biovigilance was set up in 1998 to provide a wide participation of the various stakeholders. Thus the French public controversy becomes a space where plant biotechnology is subjected to a social assessment.     

On Closed Systems and the Language of Economic Discourse

This article addresses a few of the major points identified by Tony Lawson in his book Reality and Economics(Routledge 1997). Traditional economic models are profoundly closed, emanating from reasoning processes that are both deductivist and positivist by nature. Here, individuals are prescribed to behave according to mechanical, socially abstracted fashions that, in fact, belie any semblance of real human choice. Moreover, as Lawson observes, relationality in these models is strictly external, in that the natures of individuals are not affected by their participation in market activity. Under these conditions, models can be easily constructed by which markets yield unique equilibrium outcomes, whereby the constancy of the conjunctions of events yield law-like economic assertions.

Instead, Lawson embraces a critical realist perspective that posits human behavior to be both structured and internallyrelational, i.e., where interactions with others can affect the very natures of those individuals. As such, human relations can be temporally situated in the context of structured social contracts, while still embodying the organic elements from which those agents and structures can be reproduced and transformed.

From these principles, this essay explores some recent work in Keynesian and Post Keynesian thought. In addition, this critical realist framework considers some developments in New Keynesian Economics and Endogenous Growth Theory.     

Vacation homes as social indicators: Observations from Canadian census data

Analysis of answers to a question on ownership of vacation homes asked during Census Canada 1971 confirms findings from earlier analyses that were based on data drawn from drastically different sources and may be summarized thus: although social and economic status is a powerful determinant in ownership of vacation homes everywhere, in Canada the best single predictor is location. Citizens in urban places of Eastern Canada, irrespective of the size of urban place, which has no effect one way or another, have a much higher propensity to own vacation homes than those in the West. In the Province of Ontario, for which the most detailed historical record exists, census data confirm the continued existence of distributional patterns established in earlier studies: the people with the greatest likelihood of owning vacation homes have their primary residences on the Pre‐Cambrian Shield in the midst of Ontario's most highly valued recreational landscape, whereas those living on the frontier with the United States at either end of Lake Erie are least likely to own vacation homes. The reason for the very narrow range within which a great complex of towns and cities in southwestern Ontario distribute themselves, with four to six percent of the population in each owning vacation homes, remains a mystery.     

Investment barriers and premiums on closed-end country funds

We investigate the cross-sectional relation between investment barriers and premiums on closed-end country funds (CECFs) traded in U.S. markets over the period from 1995 to 2004. We find that funds investing in markets with higher indirect investment barriers as measured by market turnover and country risk have higher premiums. We also document that the relation between the country risk and CECF premium is much stronger after the stock market liberalization. Since investors prefer to invest in emerging markets with high indirect barriers through country funds, they increase the premiums of the funds targeting those countries. In addition, we find that direct investment barriers as measured by the investable weight factor do not explain the large variation in the CECF premiums.     

Green segmentation and environmental certification: insights from forest products

Firms engage in environmental marketing in order to appeal to environmentally conscious consumers. Within the context of the forest product industry, this research uses data from two studies to empirically test whether a relationship exists between demographic/psychographic characteristics and reported environmentally conscious intentions. In both studies, the results indicate that the environmental marketing of certified/ecolabeled forest products appeals to a segment of environmentally conscious consumers. This appeal occurs for both a value‐added product (furniture) and a non‐value‐added product (plywood). Thus, there is support for the argument that environmental marketing to environmentally conscious consumers can result in ‘green segmentation’. Key findings from this study suggest that those consumers reporting the strongest preferences for environmentally certified forest products were more willing to pay a premium for certified products, more likely to display environmentally conscious behavior and more likely to perceive that green consumer purchases effectively benefit the environment. These characteristics were most common among females and those familiar with the concept of environmental certification. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and EPR Environment.     

Leadership,sourcing modes and IT project management

Information technology (IT) project management has always been a major concern for firms. Researchers have demonstrated that the different characteristics of a project directly affect project management practices and have suggested that different leadership profiles are better suited to different project conditions. The aim of the proposed model is to aid in the understanding of the relationship between the type of IT project (represented by its sourcing mode) and the leadership profile adopted by a project manager. Using a case approach, we studied four successful IT projects. Our results suggest that projects using a partnership or recuperation sourcing mode require a more flexible profile of management than projects characterized by internal governance or outsourcing, which require a more control‐oriented profile of management. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.