Creating an Ethical Work Context: A Pathway to Generate Social Capital in the Firm

There is a need for further research to understand how social capital in the workplace can be promoted. This article studies the generation of social capital from a comprehensive perspective that integrates ethics and general management. We propose the concept of “ethical work context” as an influential antecedent of the social capital in the firm. The ethical work context, which is aligned with the “humanizing culture” approach proposed by Melé (Journal of Business Ethics 45(1), 3–14, 2003a), allows a broader comprehension of the concrete management practices and organizational dynamics that generate organizational social capital. It is argued that social capital, understood as a by-product of the ethical work context, results both from organizational design and ongoing managerial activity. Creating an ethical work context brings ethics and social capital into the realm of the general manager; a figure that has remained absent from the social capital literature.     

Underwriter Quality and Long‐Run IPO Performance

We analyze the relationship between the quality of underwriters and the long‐run performance of initial public offerings (IPOs) in light of underwriter marketing, certification and screening, and information production. We find that higher underwriter quality (measured by the number of managing underwriters, underwriter reputation, and absolute price adjustment) predicts better long‐run performance, even when returns are value weighted. We compare underwriter quality measures and find that the effects of the number of managing underwriters and underwriter reputation are mutually complementary and are especially strong among IPOs with high uncertainty, while absolute price adjustment, which is more likely to be associated with information production than marketing or certification/screening, loses significance. Our findings are consistent with the marketing and certification and screening roles of investment banks but lend little support for the information production role of underwriters.     

Economics at the Antitrust Division 2016–2017: Healthcare,Nuclear Waste,and Agriculture

This year the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice litigated an unprecedented number of cases. Two mergers, Anthem with Cigna and Aetna with Humana, threatened to dramatically alter the face of commercial health insurance. The Anthem case raised questions of how to evaluate a claim that competition costs billions annually in potential medical cost savings. The Aetna case raised questions of how commercial insurers compete against the public programs—specifically Medicare. The Division also litigated numerous other civil matters including a proposed merger of nuclear waste disposal facilities. In that case, economists had to explore the scope and bounds of competition within a variety of regulatory regimes. And, in a merger of two new technologies that improve the efficiency of planting seeds, the emerging nature of the market led to interesting variations in the analysis. This overview of the economic issues in these particular cases is intended to provide insights into the challenges of enforcing antitrust law and the way in which economic analysis in particular is used to address those challenges.     

A conceptual model for knowledge dimensions and processes in design and technology projects

The present study sheds new light on the knowledge dimensions and processes that occur when designing new concepts and prototypes in higher education. In particular, this study aims to develop the conceptual understanding of activities and processes that help students to gain new knowledge and understanding while designing new products and services. I employed two data collection phases among undergraduate students with qualitative abductive data analyses in order to create a conceptual framework for understanding how new knowledge is created and managed in students’ social interactions. This framework also enables us to distinguish the user, business, technological and methodological knowledge dimensions that constitute the elemental perspectives for design processes. This study emphasises the need for students to use diverse methods to gain new knowledge for inventing and designing new technological solutions.     

Linking knowledge, entry timing and internationalization strategy

This paper contributes to the current internationalization theory by linking the characteristics of the firm's resource-base, its market-entry timing orientation and international growth orientation so as to shed more light on internationalization strategies. By employing multi-industry data, we find that the nature of the firm's knowledge, its entry timing orientation and international growth orientation are related to its internationalization strategy. Among other results, we find that the firm's accumulated expertise is positively related for both the international growth orientation and entry timing orientation. The international growth orientation, in turn, is related both to the path type of internationalization the firm employs as well as the geographical diversification in market entry. In other words, the results suggest that the firm's resource-base influences on both its entry timing orientation and to the internationalization strategy. These and other findings are discussed with regard to their scholarly and managerial implications.     

Cooperative strategies for the availability service of repairable aircraft components

This paper specifies cooperative strategies for the availability service of repairable aircraft components and finds out which factors contribute to the emergence of a particular cooperative strategy. The strategies ad hoc cooperation, cooperative pooling and commercial pooling were specified and compared to the alternative of acting alone, i.e. solo strategy. A simulation model based on fair assumptions of the cost structure was constructed and the cooperative strategies were tested in a game theoretic setting both from the viewpoint of total efficiency and from the perspective of each participant. Despite the explicit focus on aircraft components, the findings should be relevant to any industry using a closed-loop maintenance process with repairable spare parts.     

The labour market consequences of self-employment spells: European evidence

We examine how those re-entering paid-employment after a brief self-employment spell fare upon return using data from the European Community Household Panel. Unconditionally, those re-entering paid-employment appear to have considerably lower wages than those staying in the wage sector. This difference appears to be larger in Europe than in the US. Conditional analysis suggests, however, that the difference is more apparent than real: It seems that Europeans select negatively into (and possibly out-of) self-employment, i.e., the likelihood of entering (and exiting) entrepreneurship correlates negatively with unobserved ability and/or in-paid-employment productivity. Our analysis of non-wage outcomes indicates that the selection is mostly involuntary, and that for highly educated men, the brief self-employment spells are unemployment in disguise.     

Preventing Systemic Crises through Bank Transparency

The banking system is known to be vulnerable to self‐fulfilling crises that are caused by depositors' co-ordination failure. We show that transparency regulation may prevent certain types of systemic crisis by eliminating the possibility of coordination failure.
(J.E.L.: G21, G28) .     

Does news play an important role in the correction process of the accrual anomaly?

We examine whether the financial press plays an important role in the correction of the accruals anomaly. Using 83,016 Wall Street Journal news articles published during 1993–2006, we find that a significant fraction of abnormal returns associated with the accruals trading strategy is concentrated on news days. The clustering of returns on news announcements is consistent with the financial press revealing information valuable for the correction of accruals mispricing. Further, we find that earnings‐related news is more influential in the correction process than non‐earnings‐related news. Collectively, the results suggest that the financial press provides useful information to capital market participants.