Ambidexterity under digitalization: A tale of two decades of new media at a Swedish newspaper

The digitalization of the newspaper industry represents a significant challenge for incumbent companies to engage new technologies. Many companies in the industry have had to seek new markets through digital technologies to survive. This paper explores how one of the largest Swedish newspapers, Aftonbladet, has strategically embraced new media and new markets. We report a decade of engaged scholarship based on interviews and archival analysis that covers 20 years of strategic acts at the company. We consider this effort as a case of organizational ambidexterity under digitalization. The analysis seeks to extend theoretical understanding of the interrelationships between strategic intent and technological choice. The paper contributes to the understanding of ambidexterity under digitalization by theoretically framing it in terms of strategic acts. The research suggests that digitalization implies a more complex ambidexterity interrelationship between old and new markets and technologies. As digitalization enables the loosening of previously tight couplings, the clear theoretical distinction between old and new, and critically, the unproblematic transition, is brought into question. The paper suggests replacing the notion of an orderly shift from the old to the new with ambidexterity under digitalization as a duality of both old and new undergoing continual reconfiguration.     

IQ and Audit Quality: Do Smarter Auditors Deliver Better Audits?

This study examines the role of an individual auditor's cognitive ability in delivering high‐quality audits. Our results from analyzing archival data from Sweden show that audit partners' IQ scores obtained from psychological tests are positively associated with going‐concern audit reporting accuracy and audit fee premiums. We also find some, albeit weak, evidence that audit partners' IQ scores are negatively associated with the income‐increasing abnormal accruals of the client. These results suggest that, although audit services are standardized through various control mechanisms and audits are conducted by teams rather than by individual auditors, the cognitive ability of audit partners responsible for an audit remains important in delivering high‐quality audit services.     

Ten lessons from a quarter of a century of post-communist economic transformation

The dominant idea in the early post-communist economic transition was that an early and comprehensive radical economic reform programme was needed. This program was accompanied by a clear programme of political economy reform, which included; a clear understanding that the old system was finished, a political breakthrough, new political leaders, new economic policymakers, the swift elaboration of a reform programme, a functioning parliament, sufficient international financial support, fast implementation, public understanding, and the overruling of any need for consensus. In hindsight, all of these factors worked when they were present. Critics warned of too sharp an output fall, which did not come to pass, lagging institutional development, and neglect of social reforms. The biggest problem has become the absence of real property rights because of captured judicial systems in the post-communist countries not belonging to the European Union.     

Commitment to Sustainability in Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises: The Influence of Strategic Orientations and Management Values

Ecosystem degradation and social sustainability have become important issues in the corporate sphere during the last few decades. However, research discussing corporate social responsibility and related concepts has often focused on larger companies, sometimes neglecting the specifics of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). The main purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between two common strategic orientations, market orientation (MO) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO), in relation to sustainability commitment, sustainability practices and management values in SMEs. Questionnaire responses from 450 Swedish SMEs were analyzed, confirming the influence of MO, EO and sustainability practices on commitment to sustainability, implying that firms committed to sustainability see both market and entrepreneurial advantages of sustainability. The results also show that different parts of MO and EO differ in importance for commitment to sustainability among SMEs. Implications concern the importance for firms and policymakers to work with sustainability issues using both internal and external perspectives. © 2015 The Authors. Business Strategy and the Environment published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd     

No progressive taxation without discrimination? On the generality of the law in the classical liberal tradition

Any liberal theory that would take seriously the question of equality before the law is bound to engage with discrimination-related matters, and so long as one is a liberal one should oppose all discrimination coming from the state. This, however, may be a double-edged sword since many classical liberals have quite readily opposed progressive taxation by invoking its discriminatory nature. Some liberals will therefore conclude that one cannot establish different tax brackets, lest taxation be illiberal. This paper endeavours to refute this assumption. Progression may be compatible with the classical liberal concern for the rule of law, provided legislative discretion on tax-related matters is duly limited by the principle of generality, as well as by a certain standard of reasonable lawmaking. Through a careful distinction between four concepts of differential treatment, this paper demonstrates that progressive tax arrangements do not necessarily discriminate against the well-off, and that it can efficiently fulfill some legitimate classical liberals objectives.     

Effects of income and social awareness on consumer WTP for social product attributes

Recent developments in environmental and animal welfare issues, and the introduction of new production practices may have affected consumer attitudes and preferences toward differentiated product choice. Factors such as animal well-being, environmentally friendly production, and the use of antibiotics appear to be increasingly core consumer concerns. We link the aforementioned with Maslow's hierarchy of needs suggesting that the higher income consumers should be more altruistic in their consumptive behavior and test this by evaluating consumer preferences for these attributes in pork chops. We also test whether social consciousness of the consumers translates into choice behavior. Data was obtained by choice experiment surveys and mixed logit estimation was used to estimate consumers' willingness-to-pay for the credence attributes. Results reveal that both, higher income and socially aware consumers are on average willing to pay higher premiums for the antibiotic-free attribute, but not for other two social attributes. Also, the group of higher income consumers is highly heterogeneous in their preferences, whereas socially aware consumers tend to be more homogeneous in their preferences.     

Dis-Ag-reement: the construction and negotiation of risk in the Swedish controversy over antibacterial silver

What constitutes a potentially hazardous object is often debated. This article analyses the polemic construction and negotiation of risk in the Swedish controversy over the use of antibacterial silver in health care and consumer products. This debate engages the media, government agencies, parliament and government, non-governmental organizations and companies. Texts and websites from these actors were studied using content analysis. Antibacterial silver is construed by some actors as a risk object with harmful effects on a series of objects at risk: the environment, public health, organisms and sewage treatment. In contrast, other actors deny that antibacterial silver is a risk object, instead construing it as mitigating risk. In such a schema, antibacterial silver is conceived of as managing the risk objects of bacteria and micro-organisms, in turn managing the risk objects of infection, bad smell and washing, and in turn helping the environment and public health (objects at risk). The structure of the debate suggests two basic modes of risk communication. First, antibacterial silver is construed as a risk object, endangering a variety of objects at risk, such as organisms, public health, the environment and sewage treatment. Second, this association between antibacterial silver and objects at risk is obstructed, by denying that antibacterial silver is a risk object or by associating silver with the benefit of mitigating risk.     

Firm growth in the Swedish retail and wholesale industries

To identify the determinants of firm growth in the Swedish retail and wholesale industries during 2000–2004, we analyse a sample of 400 limited liability companies using quantile regression techniques. Firm growth was mainly found to depend upon time-invariant firm-specific effects, supporting Penrose's [1959 Penrose, E. 1959. The theory of the growth of the firm, 4, New York: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar]. The theory of the growth of the firm (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press] suggestion that internal resources such as firm culture, brand loyalty, entrepreneurial skills, and so on are important determinants of firm growth.     

Labor Taxation and FDI Decisions in the European Union

This paper uses panel data on bilateral FDI stocks in the European Union to empirically analyze the impact of labor and corporate taxations on FDI decisions. While the effect of corporate taxes on FDI is well documented, the impact of labor taxes on FDI has barely been explored. This is surprising since labor taxation may influence FDI as well; the taxation of labor affects the production cost and the ability to attract and retain productive labor, and thereby it also, ultimately, impacts the return to the investment. By employing a Heckman two-step estimation model, which controls for possible sample selection bias due to many zero bilateral observations, we find that labor taxes do influence FDI decisions.     

Gender Equality and Taxation Policies in the EU

Intereconomics - The persisting gender differences in employment rates and patterns and gender gaps in unpaid care work, employment rates, income, old age security, poverty and wealth are all...