Regionale Vernetzung als Beitrag zum Unternehmenserfolg – Entwicklung und Management von Cluster-Initiativen

Regional networking can help companies to gain competitive advantage, provided that the network is actively coordinated and managed. For this purpose, cluster initiatives aiming at delivering potentials for success for their members arouse in many regions in previous years. Based on literature, this article analyzes the different stages of development of a cluster initiative and the specific tasks of the cluster management in these stages. Applying the relational and the resource-based view, we explain possible company’s competitive advantages resulting from cooperation. Subsequently, we distinguish each stage and describe the specific tasks of the different protagonists of a cluster. Finally, we discuss these theoretic findings of how to develop cluster initiatives and their applicability by a case study of the HESSENMETALL Cluster Initiative and derive implications for science and management.     

Reputational cheap talk with misunderstanding

We consider a cheap talk game with a sender who has a reputational concern for an ability to predict a state of the world correctly, and where receivers may misunderstand the message sent. When communication between the sender and each receiver is private, we identify an equilibrium in which the sender only discloses the least noisy information. Hence, what determines the amount of information revealed is not the absolute noise level of communication, but the extent to which the noise level may vary. The resulting threshold in transmission noise for which information is revealed may differ across receivers, but is unrelated to the quality of the information channel. When information transmission has to be public, a race to the bottom results: the cut-off level for noise of transmitted information now drops to the lowest cut-off level for any receiver in the audience.     

Quantifying the impact of economic crises on infant mortality in advanced economies

Policy makers rely on a mix of government spending and tax cuts to address the imbalances in the economy during an economic crisis, by promoting price stability and renewed economic growth. However, little discussion appears to focus explicitly on quantifying the cost of economic crises in terms of human lives, especially the lives of the most vulnerable members of society, infants. Using a statistical approach that is robust to the increases of mortality in outlying years, we quantify the effect that economic crises, periods of prolonged economic recession, have on infant mortality. Moreover, we investigate whether different levels of public spending on health across advanced industrialized democracies can mitigate the impact of crises on infant mortality. We find that economic crises are extremely costly and lead to a more than proportional increase in infant mortality in the short-run. Substantial public spending on health is required in order to limit their impact.     

Balancing centripetal and centrifugal forces in the entrepreneurial university: a study of 10 research centres in a technical university

In the recent interest for the so-called entrepreneurial university, there is a strong emphasis on academic (i.e. theoretical) knowledge to be used more effectively as a source of innovation and renewal in industry. Drawing on a theoretical framework developed by the literature theorist Mikhail Bakhtin and a study of 10 research centres in a major technical university, this paper suggests that rather than representing something radically new, the entrepreneurial university is a domain wherein traditional academic research interests and industry objectives are continuously negotiated and mutually adjusted. Seen in this view, the entrepreneurial university is what is always in a process of becoming, in flux and change, continuously under the influence of opposing and complementary goals and objectives. Therefore, the entrepreneurial university is not a solid state or an entrenched position but the effect of an attitude towards the role and purpose of the university in the so-called knowledge society.     

Common agency lobbying over coalitions and policy

This paper presents a theory of common agency lobbying in which policy-interested lobbies can first influence the choice of a proto-coalition and then influence the legislative bargaining over policy within that coalition. The equilibrium policy in the legislative bargaining stage maximizes the aggregate policy utility of the coalition members and the lobbies, but lobbying can also lead to the preservation of the status quo and lobby-induced gridlock. When the status quo does not persist, the policy outcome is largely determined by the selection of a coalition, since legislative bargaining under unanimity within the coalition leads to a coalition-efficient policy regardless of the identity of the proposer. An example is presented to identify the types of equilibria and provide a full characterization of an equilibrium.     

Matching auction with winner’s curse and imperfect financial markets

This paper explains how and why the Matching Auctions work better with Imperfect Financial Markets. We show that an efficient outsider can obtain a “good” project even if the insider has informational advantage.