Screening: Value enhancing or diminishing?

Using an international sample of environmental and social firm-level ratings between 2007 and 2019, we form synthetic overlapping region-based equity portfolios to examine the impact of screening stringency on abnormal returns and specific risk. While previous literature analyzes this relationship in a bidimensional setting, inferences made in this study are additionally robust to regional levels of market efficiency. Our results suggest that (1) screening stringency displays an inverted curvilinear relationship with risk-adjusted returns and (2) the impact on specific risk is strictly increasing. Thus, portfolios that employ marginal and substantial screening incur the cost of responsible investing. However, moderate screening has the benefit of increasing performance without the burden of financing the least responsible corporations.     

Entrepreneurial ecosystem for cooperatives: The case of Kyrgyz agricultural cooperatives

The article discusses the development of agricultural cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan from an entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) perspective. Agricultural development priorities explain cooperatives’ importance in Kyrgyz government's policies, but cooperatives still fail at countering the challenges of the smallholder economy. Considering agricultural cooperatives as a form of rural entrepreneurship, this paper aims to contribute to the discussion of the factors that support cooperatives in developing countries adapting the EE framework to cooperative entrepreneurship. Using a content analysis method, we analysed and coded textual data from documentary and archival publications on the agricultural cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan published by the government, cooperatives and their unions and the reports of international organizations. We identify five main dimensions of the cooperative entrepreneurial ecosystem for cooperatives: (1) policy and regulatory framework; (2) education and skills; (3) market environment; (4) culture; (5) networks. We found that even if the overall structure of cooperatives’ EE can be comparable to conventional enterprises, its sub-elements significantly differ for cooperative enterprises. Despite its exploratory character and single-case research design, this article contributes to the theoretical discussion on cooperative entrepreneurial ecosystems in post-socialist developing contexts and offers a framework of analysis for cooperative development policies and practices.     

Experienced versus decision utility: large-scale comparison for income–leisure preferences*

Subjective well-being (SWB) data are increasingly used to perform welfare analysis. Interpreted as “experienced utility”, it has recently been compared to “decision utility” using small-scale experiments most often based on stated preferences. We transpose this comparison to the framework of non-experimental and large-scale data commonly used for policy analysis, focusing on the income–leisure domain where redistributive policies operate. Using the British Household Panel Survey, we suggest a “deviation” measure, which is simply the difference between actual working hours and SWB-maximizing hours. We show that about three-quarters of individuals make decisions that are not inconsistent with maximizing their SWB. We discuss the potential channels that explain the lack of optimization when deviations are significantly large. We find proxies for a number of individual and external constraints, and show that constraints alone can explain more than half of the deviations. In our context, deviations partly reflect the inability of the revealed preference approach to account for labor market rigidities, so the actual and SWB-maximizing hours should be used in a complementary manner. The suggested approach based on our deviation metric could help identify labor market frictions.     

Taxing capital and labor when both factors are imperfectly mobile internationally

International Tax and Public Finance - We revisit the standard theoretical model of tax competition to consider imperfect mobility of both capital and labor. We show that the mobility of one factor...     

Digital touch in sponsorship: Getting closer to the brand through virtual reality

Supporters are consuming more and more sporting events through digital platforms. Brands should adapt to these new consumption patterns in order to strengthen their connection with their customers. Today, researchers and practitioners can create more interactive and enjoyable experiences through virtual reality (VR) applications. Through two studies conducted on VR during sporting events, we show that mentally representing the touch experiences of players on the field reduces the psychological distance between the supporter and the player, which strengthens the supporter's attachment to the team and, through the same attachment, to the sponsor (Study 1). We also highlight that these positive effects of VR compared to real touch (using a player's jersey) is linked to the improvement of immersion, which stimulates touch imagery (Study 2). We discuss the implications of this research for theory and practice in the sports business and other sectors.     

Promoting green tourism: the future of environmental awards

Awards and labels can help consumers choose more environmentally benign tourism products and encourage more attention to the environment by producers. As in other areas, however, there is an increasing clutter of environmental awards and labels in tourism. Concerns exist about the value and appropriateness of some claims associated with these. This paper reviews and assesses environmental awards in tourism and recreation using comparative analysis. Sixteen awards relating to manufacturing, forestry, tourist attractions and tourism companies are appraised under the classifications of focus, criteria, certification system and results. Having identified the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches it is concluded that the time is ripe to rationalise awards and labels in the tourism industry and that an environmental management systems approach provides a flexible template to fulfil such a need and drive the agenda of environmental improvements in the industry. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.