Ecosystem Service Valuation for National Accounting: A Reply to Obst,Hein and Edens (2016)

While recent experimental frameworks for national ecosystem service accounting have shown substantial progress, in our view some crucial methodological issues remain that deserve further consideration before setting final standards. In response to the landmark work of Obst et al. (Environ Resour Econ 64:1–23, 2016. doi: 10.1007/s10640-015-9921-1), we provide arguments with regard to the suitability of particular valuation approaches. Generally, we agree that respective valuation methods need to produce values that are consistent with national accounting standards such as representing exchange values. However, we disagree with their conclusions regarding specific valuation techniques. Firstly, the circumstance that methods used for estimating shadow prices can also be used to derive consumer surplus does not justify the general exclusion of all shadow pricing methods for valuation of ecosystem services for national accounts, especially for public ecosystem services. Secondly, that preference-based methods can also be used to assess welfare changes does not imply that cost-based methods are generally better suited for ecosystem accounting. To the contrary, we see an essential need for preference information in accounting contexts. Thirdly, that accounting standards use a written-down replacement cost approach, does not mean ecosystem accounting requires to employ a replacement cost approach. To the contrary, we argue that assessing ecosystem degradation through restoration costs would be in line with writing down depreciation, but we also point to its limits.     

Consumer safety policy in the EFTA countries

In this article, the author briefly outlines the present consumer safety laws in EFTA member countries. It seems that the EFTA countries are well prepared to adapt to the future EC Directive on Product Safety. Further, the author suggests that in the future, information on product safety matters should be diffused in a West European Safety Information Exchange System.     

Applying Portfolio Change and Conditional Performance Measures: The Case of Industry Rotation via the Dynamic Investment Model

This paper applies portfolio change and conditional performance measures to assess the performance of the dynamic investment model in various industry-rotation settings spanning the 1934–1995 period. The dynamic investment model employs the empirical probability assessment approach in raw form. In addition, it incorporates three adjustments for estimation error: James–Stein, Bayes–Stein, and CAPM-based corrections. The tests are unanimous in their conclusion that the excess returns attained by the (unadjusted) historic, the Bayes–Stein, and the James–Stein estimators are (sometimes highly) statistically significant over the 1966–1995 and 1966–1981 sub-periods. This lends support to the idea that the joint empirical probability assessment approach based on the recent past, with and without Stein-based corrections for estimation error, contains information that can be profitably exploited. The relationship of these findings to the extant literature on momentum and contrarian strategies is addressed.     

National nanotechnology research prominence

A new bibliometric technique enables one to distinguish high emergence topical content. This technique can be applied to sets of research publication abstracts reflecting a given technical domain (here, nanotechnology) to score cutting edge research terms. The resulting high emergence terms warrant special consideration in setting R&D priorities. The researchers (individuals, organizations, or countries) whose publications address those emergent terms heavily deserve consideration as possible leaders in that technical domain. This paper studies nanotechnology research publications using the new emergence scoring in conjunction with established bibliometric publication and citation measures. Findings challenge U.S. superiority in cutting edge nanotechnology research. China shows strongest at addressing emergent nanotechnology topics, followed by the U.S., South Korea, India, and, surprisingly, Iran.     

Corporate Governance and Performance: The REIT Effect

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) offer a natural experiment in corporate governance due to the fact that they leave little free cash flow for management, which reduces agency problems. We exploit a unique and leading corporate governance database to test whether corporate governance matters for the performance of U.S. REITs. We document for a sample including governance ratings of more than 220 REITs that firm value is significantly related to firm-level governance for REITs with low payout ratios only. Repeating the analysis with the complete database that includes more than 5,000 companies and a control sample of firms with high corporate real estate ratios, we find a strong and significantly positive relation between our governance index and several performance variables, indicating that the partial lack of a relation between governance and performance in the real estate sector might be explained by a REIT effect.     

Social Media Influencers in Strategic Communication

ABSTRACT

In this editorial, I (1) explain why social media influencers bear relevance for strategic communication, (2) provide a brief introduction to research on social media influencers, and (3) unroll the rationale behind this Special Issue of the International Journal of Strategic Communication.     

Social Media Influencers in Strategic Communication: A Conceptual Framework for Strategic Social Media Influencer Communication

ABSTRACT

Strategic social media influencer communication has become a major topic in strategic communication. However, despite the growing relevance of this new strategic communication instrument, research has paid only limited attention to elaborating its basic concepts. In this article, we adopt a strategic communication perspective to develop a conceptual framework for strategic social media influencer communication. Particularly, we draw on research findings that identify the external resources social media influencers contribute to organization-influencer cooperation. We use these findings to systematically develop functional definitions of social media influencers and of strategic social media influencer communication. We define social media influencers as third-party actors who have established a significant number of relevant relationships with a specific quality to and influence on organizational stakeholders through content production, content distribution, interaction, and personal appearance on the social web. Subsequently, we define strategic social media communication as the purposeful use of communication by organizations or social media influencers in which social media influencers are addressed or perform activities with strategic significance to organizational goals. We then situate these definitions within the broader framework of strategic communication by discussing related concepts and by describing the strategic action field that has emerged around strategic social media influencer communication.     

The Effect of Family Involvement on Innovation Outcomes: The Moderating Role of Board Social Capital

Innovation is an essential and yet puzzling part of family firms’ strategic focus. While family firms are generally characterized as conservative regarding their research and development (R&D) activities, researchers have recently argued that family firms can still achieve innovation-based competitive advantages. Seeking to understand the link between family influence and the outcomes of innovation, we suggest that it is necessary not only to observe the depth of family involvement, but also to differentiate between technological inventions and market innovations. We further posit that the board members’ social capital constitutes an important contingency for this link. We, therefore, investigate the relationship between family involvement and two different outcomes: the number of the firm’s inventions and the market relevance of innovations. Our analysis of S&P 500 firms comprises 1.85 million patents and manual evaluations of 1774 product announcements. The results of our estimations suggest that family involvement is negatively related to the number of inventions and positively related to the market relevance of innovations. They further show that internal and external board social capital moderate the relationship between family involvement and the number of inventions. This study adds to the discussion about family firm innovation by using socioemotional wealth to explain heterogeneity in innovation patterns and revealing that relational resources derived from board social capital are crucial boundary conditions for families’ influence on technological inventions. Taken together, it works toward a more holistic view of innovation in family-influenced firms.