Emotions and dissonance in ‘ethical’ consumption choices

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of emotions and the prevalence of dissonant/incongruent choice behaviour within the context of ethical consumption. Based on 31 in-depth interviews with British consumers, the findings demonstrate that consumers consciously indulge in ‘ethical’ and ‘unethical’ behaviour (as defined by respondents themselves), often within short time frames, and that they often compensate for unethical choices by making ethical choices later on (and vice versa). The study provides evidence that positive and negative emotions are a key driver of this dissonant behaviour. Guilt is the most salient emotion, and a taxonomy of guilt in this context is derived from the data. Consumers are found to employ guilt-management strategies in order to sustain contradictory behaviour and manage cognitive dissonance. A conceptual framework is derived in order to summarise the observed role of emotions in ethical consumer choice. The paper also provides additional explanations of the manifestation of the attitude–behaviour gap.     

The virtual is reality! On physical and virtual space in software firms’ knowledge formation

ABSTRACT

To understand how knowledge is created and exchanged, it is necessary to unwrap the role played by the physical and virtual spaces. The extant research offers interesting findings when it comes to the relationships among regional, institutional and organizational characteristics, innovation and firms’ abilities to link up to global knowledge sources. A focus on the role of informal and low-cost mechanisms, both regional and global, has extended our understanding of their role in knowledge formation. However, the physical space has dominated this literature to the detriment of the virtual space. The inclusion of the virtual space, both as an interaction space and as a different and complementary dimension, makes it possible to gain new insights into knowledge formation in a digitalizing world. Based on in-depth interviews with small- and medium-sized software companies in two urban agglomerations in Norway and Sweden, this paper explores the use of physical and virtual spaces. The findings show that these spaces interact and mutually influence each other. The world is not ‘flattening’ due to ongoing digitalization; moreover, urban agglomerations are still important places in which these spaces are optimized and unified.     

Mapping uncertainty in genomics

The relatively novel and dynamic science of genomics holds many unknowns for stakeholders, and in particular for researchers and clinicians, as well as for participants and patients. At a time when many authors predict a future in which genomic medicine will be the norm, it is particularly relevant to discuss the unknowns surrounding genetics and genomics, including the notions of risk and uncertainty. This article will present a discussion regarding the uncertainty pertaining specifically to high throughput sequencing approaches, including the topic of incidental findings. This discussion will be guided by a taxonomy of uncertainty conceptualised around three areas of uncertainty: the source of uncertainty, the issues of uncertainty and the loci of uncertainty. This taxonomy can be used as a tool by all stakeholders involved in genomics to help further understand and anticipate uncertainties in genomics. Furthermore, to better contextualize this information, and also because this contribution is born out of an international project titled ‘Mind the Risk’, which addresses risk information in genetics and genomics from many different disciplinary perspectives, another aim of this article is to briefly present the basic issues pertaining to the unknowns, risks, and uncertainties of genetics as well as genomics for an audience of non-geneticists. Ultimately, the mapping out of uncertainty in genomics should allow for a better characterization of the uncertainty and consequently for a better management and communication of these uncertainties to end-users (research participants and patients).     

Organizational innovation: The challenge of measuring non-technical innovation in large-scale surveys

Although the implementation of innovative organizational concepts is considered to be highly important for a company's competitiveness, so far there has been little research on possible approaches to measure and monitor organizational innovations in large-scale surveys. Based on an item-oriented typology of organizational innovations which serves as the precondition for a common understanding, we describe and compare how organizational innovations have been measured through existing surveys in Europe. Using a large-scale survey comprising data of 1450 German manufacturing companies, we show how these different approaches lead to significantly different results regarding the organizational innovativeness of companies within one and the same sample. We derive four implications for the future measurement and monitoring of organizational innovations. Our findings contribute to the further development of an adequate methodology for an organizational innovation monitoring system.     

Weather risk management at the Olympic Winter Games

The globally celebrated Olympic Winter Games (OWG) are highly dependent on suitable snow and ice conditions to support elite-level competitions. To determine the range of weather impacts on the Games, this study examines the official Olympic post-Games reports from 1924 to 2010. Impacts include preparations for the Games, holding outdoor opening–closing ceremonies, outdoor sporting competitions, spectator comfort, transportation, and television broadcasts. The study also examines the range of historical adaptations that have developed to manage weather risks at the OWG. Three adaptation eras are identified, spanning the history of the games: emergent adaptation, technological transition, and advanced adaptation. Analysis reveals that while weather-induced impacts have always been a part of the Games, these impacts would be far greater if not for technical climatic adaptations. With the average daytime temperature of host locations steadily increasing from 0.4°C at the Games held in the 1920–1950s to 7.8°C at the Games held in the twenty-first century, it would be difficult to imagine recent host cities/regions successfully delivering the diverse Games programme exclusively on natural ice and snow. The connection between the evolving needs for weather risk management strategies by Olympic organisers and the growth of the Olympics in size and scope is also discussed.     

Knowledge networking and growth in service firms

This paper empirically assesses whether knowledge networking affects the growth of small service firms. More specifically, using a large, unbalanced panel data set for the period 1992–2009, it investigates whether participation in a knowledge network called PLATO is positively related to service firm growth. The results show that knowledge networking has a highly significant positive effect on the net asset and added value growth of service firms. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the positive effect of knowledge networking on firm growth is significantly larger for service firms than for manufacturing firms, indicating that industry drives networking success.     

The effect of local and global linkages on the innovativeness in ICT SMEs: does location-specific context matter?

Abstract

Countries differ significantly with regard to the location-specific contexts in which they are embedded. The aim of this paper is to extend the discussion on the effects of local and global innovation collaborations on the degree of novelty of innovation by considering this context. Our main question is: Does embeddedness in the developed or emerging country context affect the likelihood of benefiting from local or global linkages for innovations with higher novelty?

The paper is based on data gathered through a survey of firms in the ICT sector in an emerging economy (India) context and from two Scandinavian countries (Sweden and Norway). The findings of this study show that global linkages do indeed impact the degree of novelty of innovation. However, country context does have a moderating effect. While the effect of global linkages is highly positive on the innovativeness of Scandinavian firms, for the Indian SMEs, the linkages that give novel innovations are the regional ones.     

Effects of local fiscal policy on firm profitability

For decades, scholars and policy-makers have been interested in how fiscal policy influences entrepreneurship. Until now, research has focused on fiscal policy at the federal or regional level and used macro-economic outcome measures. Considerably less attention was given to how municipal governments can influence economic outcomes at the micro level. The present study examines the effect of municipal taxes, spending and tax compliance costs on firm profitability within the Flemish hospitality industry. This is an interesting research setting, since Flemish municipalities have far-ranging fiscal autonomy which has resulted in a proliferation of local taxes, many of which are specific to the hospitality industry. The findings reveal that local taxes have a negative impact on firm profitability, while aggregate public spending has a positive influence. The tax effect is economically relevant and exceeds the public spending impact. Finally, we find no impact of compliance costs from local taxes.