Incumbents,technological change and institutions: How the value of complementary resources varies across markets

This article examines the influence of complementary resources on the performance of incumbents after a radical technological change. In investigating this relationship, we join the technological management literature and the institution‐based view of strategy and maintain that the value of complementary resources is contingent on the institutional environment in which the firm operates. In particular, we submit that formal institutions, both economic and political, moderate the relationship between the stock of complementary assets and firm performance. We test our hypotheses in the context of the world mobile telecommunications industry (39 countries and 134 mobile service providers). Our findings reveal how these resources are more valuable for incumbents in markets where market‐supporting institutions are weaker and political stability is higher. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Tale of two narratives: assessing the sociological hypothesis of the appeal of the US dollar in Argentina

Quality & Quantity - A remarkable feature of the Argentinean economy is the widespread use of the US dollar as a measure of value, storage of value and in several high-end markets, as a medium...     

Bank-Affiliated Mutual Fund Managers' Trading Patterns of Parent Banks' Stocks: International Evidence

The authors explore factors influencing bank-affiliated funds' decisions to increase their holdings of parent banks' stocks by analyzing survey evidence from 113 fund managers from the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Spain, and Poland. The results suggest that the propensity to buy the controlling banks' equity among financial professionals at the time of the stock market meltdown was shaped rather by the individual taste for their assets as consumption goods than by external pressures by direct superiors or the parent banks' management. Additionally, this predisposition was influenced positively by the fund managers' tendency to herd and fund participants' expectations as well as managers' sensitivity to eventual losses and previous work experience in the owning banks. The major investment segment represented by the fund also seems to be important, with an increasing level of risk acting as the denominator. Overall, this study extends the understanding of behavioral factors in bank-affiliated funds' allocation decision making.     

The value of entrepreneurship by gender on regional behaviour

This paper examines how the value of entrepreneurship by gender is related to regional behaviour. Researchers have traditionally defined entrepreneurial organization as separate to gender and to economic growth. Using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) we complete a dataset of 50 countries using variables such as total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA) and opportunity-driven entrepreneurial activity (OPP). The methodology used proposes an analysis of regional convergence, comparing the evolution over time of both the rate of entrepreneurial activity and the ratios of opportunity-driven and need-driven entrepreneurial activity, distinguishing by gender. On the other hand, a regression model is proposed that explains the greater presence of female entrepreneurship. The results show that entrepreneurship by gender is an important factor to define different cluster of countries according to how men and women entrepreneurs create new economic opportunities.

     

Community banks' capital requirements and regional housing tenure

Bank capital requirements aim at reducing the likelihood of banks' failure. However, these policies may generate externalities on the overall economy. By investigating the pathways from capital requirements to housing tenure using structural equation modelling, we show that community banks' capital requirements increase the gap between the regional real estate loans-based and non-real estate loans-based housing purchase rate and act as driving factors of housing market imbalance. The drop in residential real estate loans caused by the increase in capital requirements has two opposite effects: the direct effect motivates residents to rent properties, while the indirect effect motivates residents to purchase them due to the fall in housing prices. When both effects exist in housing purchases with real estate loans, the former effect is more influential than the latter one. Our findings suggest that the impact of capital requirements on housing tenure will depend on residents' reliance on real estate loans. If a housing purchase requires real estate loans, capital requirements will have a negative impact on the housing purchase, and vice versa.     

NO CREDIT,NO GAIN: TRADE LIBERALIZATION DYNAMICS,PRODUCTION INPUTS,AND FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT

We study the role of financial development on the aggregate implications of reducing import tariffs on capital and intermediate inputs. We document empirically that financially underdeveloped economies feature a slower aggregate response following trade liberalization. To quantify these effects, we set up a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms subject to collateral constraints and estimate it using Colombian plant-level data. We find that low financial development substantially limited the gains from trade liberalization in Colombia in the early 1990s. More broadly, we find that low financial development substantially limits both the aggregate and welfare gains from tariff reductions.     

The impact of COVID-19 on consumer evaluation of authentic advertising messages

This study investigates the relationship between the COVID-19 threat and consumer evaluation of a product with authenticity appeals in advertisements. We propose that threatening situations like COVID-19 motivate consumers to lower their uncertainty and increase their preference for products with authentic advertising messages. Because individuals react differently to threatening environments according to their early-life experiences, commonly reflected in childhood socioeconomic status, we examined whether childhood socioeconomic status moderates the relationship between threat and consumer evaluation of authenticity in advertisements. First, secondary data from Google Trends provided empirical support for our predictions. In additional experimental studies, participants evaluated different target products in four studies that either manipulated (Studies 2 and 3) or measured (Studies 4 and 5) COVID-19 threat. Our results provide converging evidence that consumers positively evaluate products with authentic advertising messages under the COVID-19 threat. Consumers' motivation to lower their uncertainty underlies the effect of COVID-19 threat on their evaluation of authentic messages (Study 3). This attempt to reduce uncertainty is more likely to occur for consumers with relatively higher childhood socioeconomic status (Studies 4 and 5). These findings suggest that using authenticity appeals during a pandemic could effectively reduce consumers' perceived uncertainty and generate positive consumer evaluations.     

Development of a sustainable consumption measurement scale

Sustainable consumption has been recognized since the 1990s; however, advances in the studies have been modest and have not yielded significant breakthroughs. The urgent need to adopt sustainable consumption has been emphasized by consumers, practitioners, and researchers, but despite efforts by social and government agencies, progress in relation to adoption remains insufficient. The multivariate nature of sustainable consumption is one reason for this insufficient progress. Previously developed literature-based instruments have been univariate or limited in their dimensions and inadequate for measuring the phenomena they purport to measure. Hence, in this study, we develop a measurement scale to address this gap. The scale encompasses dimensions relevant to contemporary society and is informed by prior research and primary data. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with sustainability specialists, a nominal group technique with engaged consumers, a survey of 255 students, and a survey of 808 consumers from diverse regions of Brazil, all resulting in a heterogeneous sample. The final data analysis included an exploratory factor analysis and a confirmatory factor analysis, which resulted in a final model that comprised eight dimensions: activism, personal sacrifice, communitarianism, environmental concern, healthy food, perceived consumer effectiveness, search for information, and social concern. Of these dimensions, personal sacrifice, environmental concern, and social concern are the archetypes of the present generation. The variables of these dimensions have not been accounted for in previous scales, making our new scale more comprehensive and contributing to a better understanding of sustainable consumption. This new comprehensive scale will aid future studies in sustainable consumption, contributing to a better understanding of this construct. We expect that this scale will help improve the monitoring of the progress made in sustainable behavior and the assessment of management practices of sustainable consumption. Future studies should be carried out to validate the dimensions in different cultural contexts.     

Perceptions of the students’ learning and evaluation process in an e-learning course in Food Preservation Technology: a study case in a Food Consumption MSc

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - Food Preservation Technology is a main module within a course integrated in a Master of Science program in Food Consumption at...     

Detecting overproduction: Evidence from inventory write-down

We use inventory write-downs to differentiate opportunistic and non-opportunistic overproduction measures. We posit that non-opportunistic overproduction is positively associated with future write-downs because overproduction generally leads to excess inventory, while opportunistic overproduction (to inflate earnings) is negatively associated with write-downs because write-downs decrease earnings. We find that change-based proxies (deviations from past behaviour) are positively associated with the likelihood of future write-downs, whereas residual-based proxies (deviations from industry norms) are negatively associated with this likelihood, suggesting that the former (latter) primarily capture non-opportunistic (opportunistic) overproduction. Our study highlights the importance of using appropriate overproduction measures for each research setting.