The character of demand in mature organic food markets: Great Britain and Denmark compared

We investigate the organic food market in two selected European countries, Great Britain and Denmark, identifying main differences and similarities. We focus particularly on consumer perceptions and priorities, labelling schemes, and sales channels as a basis for assessing market stability and prospects for future growth. We employ a unique set of household panel data that includes information on stated values and concerns as well as registered purchasing behaviour. Most organic food on both markets is produced and processed by large-scale industrialised units and distributed through mainstream sales channels, consumer confidence being sustained at present by organic labelling schemes that appear to function well. However, a parallel market, based on the supply of goods through various direct sales channels to heavy users, prevails. We find that organic food purchase decisions are primarily motivated by ‘private good’ attributes such as freshness, taste and health benefits, attributes that may be perceived as being compatible with modern production and sales structure. Mature markets for organic foods nevertheless appear to be vulnerable to consumer dissatisfaction, particularly among heavy users of organic food products.     

Best Article Award: Valencia

Atlantic Economic Journal -     

The Circular Economy and Institutional Economics: Compatibility and Complementarity

The notion of a circular economy (CE) developed out of the work of Kenneth Boulding and others concerned about Earth’s limited resources and its capacity for regeneration. The concept has recently become the heart of an economic perspective influencing governments, companies, and researchers. Core topics examined by those researchers include resource use, economic value, and systems thinking. The CE literature and the tradition of institutional economics (IE) have important elements of compatibility and complementarity which we examine in this article. There are also opportunities for collaboration between CE and IE.     

The Facts and the Values of the Lucas Critique

In his influential 1976 paper, ‘Econometric Policy Evaluation: A Critique,’ Robert E. Lucas, Jr. presented the policy non-invariance argument, also known as the Lucas critique (LC). Drawing on the work of Putnam and Walsh, this paper discusses how the LC, like all works of scientific inquiry, contains values entangled with scientific facts, and argues that the Lucas critique devalued and revalued the highest values in macroeconomic science, a process known as ‘transvaluation.’ Most importantly, the LC worked to operationalize a shift in values that undermined belief in economists’ ability and responsibility to make meaningful interventions in the economy. Employing the language and concepts of continental philosophy, this paper discusses the meaning and effect of the LC on the values embedded in contemporary macroeconomic science.     

Coopetition as a Potential Strategy for Corporate Sustainability

The paper is among the first to consider coopetition strategy in the context of corporate level sustainability. Through examination of literature and an example of an actual coopetitive agreement in wine industry logistics, consideration is given to the potential benefits of and problems with sustainability‐based coopetition strategies. The research, based on publicly available information, leads to suggestions for future study into specific theoretical, methodological and pragmatic aspects of sustainability‐related coopetition strategies. At a theoretical level, research into the dynamics of coopetition strategies and relationships between win–win and trade‐offs within economic, environmental and social performance settings is suggested. As the field of study continues to emerge, a broader set of exploratory case studies involving collaborative engagement and participation of practitioners is needed. Attention is also drawn to a broad range of settings available for further research into the design and implementation of sustainability‐related coopetitive strategies exploring advantages for corporations and society. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Comparing supply‐side specifications in models of global agriculture and the food system

This article compares the theoretical and functional specification of production in partial equilibrium (PE) and computable general equilibrium (CGE) models of the global agricultural and food system included in the AgMIP model comparison study. The two model families differ in their scope—partial versus economy‐wide—and in how they represent technology and the behavior of supply and demand in markets. The CGE models are “deep” structural models in that they explicitly solve the maximization problem of consumers and producers, assuming utility maximization and profit maximization with production/cost functions that include all factor inputs. The PE models divide into two groups on the supply side: (1) “shallow” structural models, which essentially specify area/yield supply functions with no explicit maximization behavior, and (2) “deep” structural models that provide a detailed activity‐analysis specification of technology and explicit optimizing behavior by producers. While the models vary in their specifications of technology, both within and between the PE and CGE families, we consider two stylized theoretical models to compare the behavior of crop yields and supply functions in CGE models with their behavior in shallow structural PE models. We find that the theoretical responsiveness of supply to changes in prices can be similar, depending on parameter choices that define the behavior of implicit supply functions over the domain of applicability defined by the common scenarios used in the AgMIP comparisons. In practice, however, the applied models are more complex and differ in their empirical sensitivity to variations in specification—comparability of results given parameter choices is an empirical question. To illustrate the issues, sensitivity analysis is done with one global CGE model, MAGNET, to indicate how the results vary with different specification of technical change, and how they compare with the results from PE models.     

Greening work–life balance: Connecting work,caring and the environment

The emerging field of green work–life balance (growing from the work–life balance and sustainability fields) largely centres its analysis around the organisational benefits of green work–life balance policies. Consequently, it often focuses on the way in which individual behaviours can reduce the environmental footprint of the organisation. This paper argues that the gendered assumptions underpinning the research mean that the nascent field of green work–life balance has failed to theorise the way in which personal, community, environmental and organisational needs interconnect. Specifically, it has failed to address the way in which ‘care’—for people and the environment—lacks recognition because of gender norms of carework. This paper proposes a theoretical framework of green work–life balance that centres both environmental and people care. This theoretical framework can be used to inform both research and practice, including the way in which unions bargain and campaign for green clauses and just transition.     

An Evaluation of the Determinants and Implications of Panel Attrition in the National Income Dynamics Survey (2008‐2010)

Panel surveys offer a valuable tool for researchers to explore the dynamics underlying individual and household behaviours. The Achilles heel of panel data is attrition. This paper examines the determinants and implications of attrition in the first two waves of South Africa's National Income Dynamics Survey. Multivariate tests in labour market and health specifications show that there is some moderate evidence of attrition bias in estimated coefficients based on the non‐attriting sample. This bias can be seen in labour market specifications, in particular for men, and for Africans, and to a much lesser degree in health specifications, in particular for small samples of Whites. Researchers should take care when using the panel data set to generalise to the overall population.     

Measurement Issues in Financial Reporting

Research on management control has emphasised the relevance of controls for knowledge integration on a project-by-project basis. This work contributes to this field by proposing a framework to explain how management control systems foster knowledge transfer between organisational units in knowledge-intensive firms. By combining network theory and knowledge network research, this study suggests that the design of management control systems should consider various forms of relationships between individuals (strong/weak, direct/indirect) that these systems activate and that are necessary to transfer various forms of knowledge (process, outcome, technology or opportunities) characterised by different levels of causal ambiguity and relatedness. An in-depth empirical analysis of a software firm and three of its projects shows that management controls may act as important mechanisms of knowledge circulation and that some principles reinforce this function. In particular, to achieve organisational knowledge transfer, enforceability of manuals and procedures, scalability of reviews and decisions, mobility induction of individuals, and multiplicity of roles and accountabilities are indicated as desirable design properties of control systems in knowledge-intensive firms.     

The effects of endowment size and strategy method on third party punishment

Numerous experiments have shown that people often engage in third-party punishment (3PP) of selfish behavior. This evidence has been used to argue that people respond to selfishness with anger, and get utility from punishing those who mistreat others. Elements of the standard 3PP experimental design, however, allow alternative explanations: it has been argued that 3PP could be motivated by envy (as selfish dictators earn high payoffs), or could be influenced by the use of the strategy method (which is known to influence second-party punishment). Here we test these alternatives by varying the third party’s endowment and the use of the strategy method, and measuring punishment. We find that while third parties do report more envy when they have lower endowments, neither manipulation significantly affects punishment. We also show that punishment is associated with ratings of anger but not of envy. Thus, our results suggest that 3PP is not an artifact of self-focused envy or use of the strategy method. Instead, our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that 3PP is motivated by anger.