Corporate reputations in UK biotechnology: an analysis of on‐line ‘company profile’ texts

Internet technology is creating a new corporate communications framework, which is affecting communication channels, corporate audiences, message content and form, communication feedback and corporate personae. Confronted with a complex communications environment, which is characterized by many conflicting views and highly sensitive topics, biotechnology companies have to transmit a clear and powerful message to their target audiences. This study analyses the projection of corporate images in the ‘company profile’ texts published on‐line by biotechnology firms in the UK.     

Flexible pension take-up in social security

This paper studies the redistribution and welfare effects of increasing the flexibility of individual pension take-up. We use an overlapping-generations model with Beveridgean pay-as-you-go pensions and heterogeneous individuals who differ in ability and lifespan. We find that introducing flexible pension take-up can induce a Pareto improvement when the initial pension scheme contains within-cohort redistribution and induces early retirement. Such a Pareto improving reform entails the application of uniform actuarial adjustment of pension entitlements based on average lifespan. Introducing actuarial non-neutrality that stimulates later retirement further improves such a flexibility reform.     

Why should I share my knowledge? A multiple foci of commitment perspective

Knowledge‐intensive firms need to leverage their individual knowledge assets via knowledge sharing to create collective knowledge resources. This process is, however, in the control of the knowledge worker. We explore this personal and emotive quality of knowledge sharing by asking: ‘How does employee commitment impact on knowledge sharing?’ We study professional service firms operating in cross‐boundary environments and examine the impact of commitment to the organisation, profession, team and client on knowledge sharing. The article contributes directly to our understanding of the interrelationship between (a) the types and foci of commitment and (b) bidirectional knowledge sharing.     

Boards of Directors and the Adoption of a CEO Performance Evaluation Process: Agency — and Institutional — Theory Perspectives

Using both agency and institutional theories, we examined factors associated with the board's adoption of a formal process for evaluating the performance of the corporation's chief executive officer (CEO). Our sample was drawn from the hospital industry. Results show that an independent board chairperson, the level of market competition and the degree of managed care penetration were significant predictors of whether or not the board had adopted a formal CEO evaluation process. These findings imply that initiatives to improve governance effectiveness based on agency theory should take into account the institutional environment of corporate boards.     

Who is an expat-preneur? Toward a better understanding of a key talent sector supporting international entrepreneurship

The conceptualization of immigrant entrepreneurs has recently expanded to consider some of them as a sub-type of self-initiated expatriates that move across national borders to engage in entrepreneurial activities and opportunities. Known as “expat-preneurs,” and in spite of their growing numbers, this segment of the immigrant entrepreneur population has received far less attention than other types of immigrants in the international and diaspora entrepreneurship literature, and even less attention in the self-initiated expatriate field of study. In this article, we seek to address the gap in empirical studies about expat-preneurs as an important, albeit under-researched, segment of the immigrant entrepreneur and self-initiated expatriate diaspora. While we acknowledge that there may be controversy as to how our entrepreneurship lens is accepted in the international entrepreneurship domain, we see particular value in engaging with the ongoing and emerging discussion within JIEN about what international entrepreneurship can be. To advance the study of expat-preneurs from a theoretical standpoint, we demonstrate empirically that aggregating various kinds of self-initiated expatriates without first ensuring that they are demographically comparable (i.e., that there can be different types) can potentially contribute to poor construct clarity and validity about this field of research in general. More importantly, it can diminish the important role of expat-preneurs in particular within the international entrepreneurship domain, for example, by ignoring that their motivation to engage in entrepreneurial activity differs from the majority of necessity-based diaspora entrepreneurs. To illustrate our point, we surveyed self-initiated expatriates in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore and compared personal characteristics. We found differences regarding their age, position, time in current job in the host location, time as an expatriate, and time in the host location overall to suggest that not all self-initiated expatriates are the same. While we found no intergroup differences for educational level, gender, or marital status, clear distinctions emerged showing that expat-preneurs are different from company-employed self-initiated expatriates. We discuss theoretical implications arising from these findings.     

Local community participation in ecotourism and conservation issues in two nature reserves in Nicaragua

This paper explores the factors influencing community participation in ecotourism and how this affects conservation in the Nature Reserves of Mombacho Volcano and Datanlí-El Diablo in Nicaragua. Information was collected using individual structured and semi-structured interviews and focus groups, with local people, farmers and tour operators, combining quantitative and qualitative techniques. The farmers in the two communities are engaged in the protection of the reserves because of environmental concern and also because their own welfare is at stake. In different ways, the farmers and communities benefit from ecotourism, but not enough. Either they are excluded from the management system, or they lack resources to promote the sites and improve infrastructure. Community participation is to a large extent dependent on the management system, but it is not the only aspect required to make ecotourism successful. A minimum of governmental support to infrastructure and local entrepreneurship is required. In the case presented, there are direct economic benefits from ecotourism, as the records of visitors illustrate. But there are many differences between the two reserves and their communities, illustrating that ecotourism development is complex and demanding, and demonstrating that ecotourism is not a “one size fits all” approach to sustainable development.     

The Effect of National Culture on the Adoption of Innovations

Studies on the adoption of innovations by companies generally include micro-level and meso-level variables. This study adds to the literature by investigating the role of national culture (i.e. a macro-level variable) to explain differences in adoption rates across countries. In particular, we investigate the effects of the five Hofstede culture dimensions and the culture dimensions proposed by Hall on country adoption rates. Hypothesized effects were tested using a large-scale empirical study concerning the adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software by mid-size companies covering ten European countries. Results indicate that variables describing national culture have a significant influence on the country adoption rates.     

The Cost of Life Expectancy and the Implicit Social Valuation of Life

A new method of estimating the economic value of life is proposed. Using cross-country data, an equation is estimated to explain life expectancy as a function of real consumption of goods and services. The associated cost function for life expectancy in terms of the prices of specific goods and services is used to estimate the cost of a reduction in age-specific mortality rates sufficient to save the life of one person. The cost of saving a life in OECD countries is as much as 1000 times that in the poorest countries. Ethical implications are discussed.