Do demographics have an impact on country of origin effects?

The article discusses the potential impact of consumers' age, socio‐economic group, and sex on the magnitude of country of origin effects for lager and sparkling wine and presents the results of an empirical study into the subject. It is found that older consumers show stronger country of origin effects, which may be due to a generally stronger reliance of older people on broader mental categories, in order to compensate for a decrease in working memory. Socio‐economic groups AB are found to show stronger country of origin effects for sparkling wine, whereas socio‐economic groups C1C2 show stronger country of origin effects for lager. This may be related to relative differences in consumption patterns and expertise for the studied products between the two groups. Sex is not found to have any impact on the magnitude of country of origin effects in this study.     

Teaming up to Innovate: The Importance of a Joint Knowledge Base

Companies are increasingly discovering the potential of collaborating with others to create innovative products — often across industries — by combining their specializations in a unique way. A pre-condition for the success of these ventures is to build a common knowledge base, usually by duplicating selected parts of the partner’s knowledge. In this article, a case study and a quantitative study seek to elaborate on the unanswered question: Which building blocks constitute a common knowledge base?     

Reminiscences of the relief of Leiden: a total ritual event

This article examines the Third of October festivities in the city of Leiden, The Netherlands, held in commemoration of its relief from the Spanish siege in 1574. These festivities are defined as a total urban ritual event and put in a historical perspective. They include all sorts of activities such as the handing out of herring and white bread, the eating of a beef stew, reveille, choral singing, a solemn church service of thanksgiving, and the funfair and market selling a variety of wares. The meaning of the core rituals is analysed at three levels. At its most profound level, this total urban ritual event is conceived in relation to the basic value dichotomy of life and death, which is expressed in the use of space during the festivities. At the level of intergroup relations, the exchange of food is seen as an important form of gift exchange which defines the relationships. At the institutional level, the interplay of city, state and church is shown to be crucial to the understanding of the main ritual activities. The Leiden Third of October festivities, analysed as a total urban ritual event, unveil the inversion of power relations and the celebration of common social interaction. — Cet article examine les festivités du Trois Octobre dans la ville de Leiden aux Pays-Bas qui commémorent sa délivrance du siège espagnol en 1574. Ces festivités sont définies comme un événement rituel urbain total et présentées dans une perspective historique. Elles comprennent toutes sortes d’activités comme la remise de hareng et de pain blanc, le manger du ragoût de boeuf, le réveil, des choeurs, l’office solennel du jour d’action de grâce, la foire et le marché où l’on vend une variété d’articles. La signification de ces rituels centraux est analysée sur trois niveaux. Au niveau le plus profond, ce rituel urbain total est conçu par rapport a la valeur de base de la dichotomie vie-mort qui est exprimée dans l’utilisation de l’espace pendant les festivités. Au niveau des relations entre groupes, l’échange de nourriture est vu comme une forme importante de l’échange du don qui définit les relations. Au niveau institutionnel, il est démontré que l’interaction de la ville, de l’état, et de l’église est cruciale pour comprendre les activités rituelles principales. Les festivités du Trois Octobre à Leiden, analysées en tant qu’événement rituel urbain total, révèlent l’inversion des relations de pouvoir et la célébration de l’interaction sociale commune.     

Environmental evaluation of agri-environment schemes using participatory approaches: Experiences of testing the Agri-Environmental Footprint Index

The Agri-Environment Footprint Index (AFI) has been developed as a generic methodology to assess changes in the overall environmental impacts from agriculture at the farm level and to assist in the evaluation of European agri-environmental schemes (AES). The methodology is based on multi-criteria analysis (MCA) and involves stakeholder participation to provide a locally customised evaluation based on weighted environmental indicators. The methodology was subjected to a feasibility assessment in a series of case studies across the EU. The AFI approach was able to measure significant differences in environmental status between farms that participated in an AES and non-participants. Wider environmental concerns, beyond the scheme objectives, were also considered in some case studies and the benefits for identification of unintentional (and often beneficial) impacts of AESs are presented. The participatory approach to AES evaluation proved efficient in different environments and administrative contexts. The approach proved to be appropriate for environmental evaluation of complex agri-environment systems and can complement any evaluation conducted under the Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. The applicability of the AFI in routine monitoring of AES impacts and in providing feedback to improve policy design is discussed.     

Does forced migration increase regional human rights commitment? The cases of Malaysia and Thailand in ASEAN

ABSTRACT

Why do non-democratic governments commit to human rights on a regional level? We argue that the negative externalities of political repression, operationalized as large amounts of transnational refugee flows, affect states’ willingness to commit to human rights. Neighbouring governments commit to human rights to send a signal to their repressive neighbours that repression will no longer be tolerated. We use official UNCHR data, a number of other secondary sources, as well as congruence analysis and process tracing to demonstrate the relevance of the theory for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Malaysia and Thailand in particular.     

Shifting frontier dynamics in Latin America

The concepts of resource frontier and commodity frontier are often treated interchangeably. This article suggests the benefits of clarifying these concepts because frontiers remain important analytics for understanding drastic land‐use changes and other socio‐environmental transformations. Based on long‐term field research in different parts of South and Central America, we use frontier concepts as heuristic devices to analyze heterogeneous frontier situations and make broader generalizations. Our synchronic and diachronic analyses of frontier dynamics elucidate different frontier modalities and shifting frontier expansions. The concept of commoditizing resource frontier is introduced to explain recent frontier‐makings in Brazilian Amazonia and Cerrado and in the Nicaraguan Río San Juan. Although earlier frontier research took a short‐term time perspective and created conceptualizations based on a single modality of a particular period, our longitudinal analysis shows that drastic changes and complex overlappings are the hallmarks of frontier dynamics.     

Nonlinear expectations of random sets

Finance and Stochastics - Sublinear functionals of random variables are known as sublinear expectations; they are convex homogeneous functionals on infinite-dimensional linear spaces. We extend...     

Flexible Wages or Flexible Workers? A Decomposition of Wage Bill Adjustment by Dutch Firms, 2006–2013

De Economist - This paper investigates how firms adjust wages and employment in periods of adverse economic circumstances, using extensive, administrative linked employer–employee panel data...     

How CEOs protect themselves against dismissal: A social status perspective

In this study, we address the question of why some CEOs stay in office during a performance downturn while others don't. Taking a social status perspective, we argue that an individual's board network embeddedness—as reflected in the number of outside directorships—plays an important role in dismissal decisions. We predict that a high status of the CEO relative to the chairman of the board protects an underperforming CEO against dismissal, while the relative salience of board network outsiders can counter this effect. Using longitudinal data of large German corporations, we find support for our predictions. Ltd. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.