Airport competition - Regional airports losing ground to main airports

Regional airports in Norway are losing market shares to nearby main airports on flights to the national capital, Oslo, and on international travel via Oslo. Travellers are willing to spend several hours extra driving to a larger airport in order to take advantage of lower fares and more convenient airline services. Traffic leakage from regional airports is high when the service from the regional airport is indirect and fare differences are large. Public service obligation tenders (PSO) set maximum fares on the regional legs, but do not cover through travel from regional airports which involve commercial legs. Traffic leakage is particularly evident in the leisure segment. Leakage levels tend to increase as competition is intensified at main airports, but the evidence is rather mixed. Logistic curves of airport market shares have proven to be useful when comparing spatial variations in leakage levels.     

Unfolding event histories: Scaling of non-repeating events

The present paper discusses the use of Coombs' (1950, 1964) unfolding procedure applied to event history data. This procedure is appropriate when several stimuli are rated according to the individuals' preference, and yields scale values for stimuli and individuals, as well as a ‘best’ order of stimuli. We propose to consider the order of occurrence in time of non-repeatable events (such as first marriage, leaving home, and first job) as an indication of the subjects' preference for these stimuli. In that case unfolding may be applied to the analysis of event history-data. The statistical principles of unfolding analysis in general are briefly discussed. Subsequently an illustration is given, using data concerning the life course of 216 Dutch women of birth cohort 1961, concerning five events: first steady relationship, leaving home, first child, first job, and first occurrence of living together. It is shown that these events can be ordered at an underlying one-dimensional continuum on which individuals can be scaled. Furthermore, using regression analysis it is shown that the location of the subjects at this continuum correlates significantly with various explanatory variables, showing how unfolding may be used in practical applications.     

Statistical Inference under Symmetry

We explore the consequences of adjoining a symmetry group to a statistical model. Group actions are first induced on the sample space, and then on the parameter space. It is argued that the right invariant measure induced by the group on the parameter space is a natural non-informative prior for the parameters of the model. The permissible sub-parameters are introduced, i.e., the subparameters upon which group actions can be defined. Equivariant estimators are similarly defined. Orbits of the group are defined on the sample space and on the parameter space; in particular the group action is called transitive when there is only one orbit. Credibility sets and confidence sets are shown (under right invariant prior and assuming transitivity on the parameter space) to be equal when defined by permissible sub-parameters and constructed from equivariant estimators. The effect of different choices of transformation group is illustrated by examples, and properties of the orbits on the sample space and on the parameter space are discussed. It is argued that model reduction should be constrained to one or several orbits of the group. Using this and other natural criteria and concepts, among them concepts related to design of experiments under symmetry, leads to links towards chemometrical prediction methods and towards the foundation of quantum theory.     

The effectiveness of contractual and trust‐based governance in strategic alliances under behavioral and environmental uncertainty

Research summary: We examine the interplay of behavioral and environmental uncertainty in shaping the effectiveness of two key governance mechanisms used by strategic alliances: contractual and trust‐based governance. We develop and test hypotheses, using a meta‐analytic dataset encompassing over 15,000 strategic alliances across 82 independent samples. We find that contractual governance works best under low to moderate levels of behavioral uncertainty and moderate to high levels of environmental uncertainty, while it is detrimental to alliance performance when both types of uncertainty are low or high. Trust‐based governance is most effective at high levels of behavioral uncertainty and low levels of environmental uncertainty. It suffers a large loss of usefulness at high behavioral uncertainty as environmental uncertainty increases. Managerial summary: Strategic alliances allow firms to gain greater efficiency and create value. Yet, many such alliances fail because they are not able to deal with the twin challenges posed by behavioral and environmental uncertainty. Findings from our meta‐analysis imply that under conditions of high behavioral uncertainty and low‐to‐moderate levels of environmental uncertainty, the use of trust‐based governance alongside contractual governance might enhance the latter's effectiveness. The combined effectiveness of contractual and trust‐based governance under high levels of both behavioral and environmental uncertainty is not obvious. When both behavioral and environmental uncertainty are high, contractual governance hurts alliance performance while trust‐based governance does not function at its best either. Under these conditions, it might be better for firms to turn to hierarchy or vertical integration. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The inside effects of a strong external employer brand: how external perceptions can influence organizational absenteeism rates

In this study, we invoke a social identity and job resources perspective to investigate the impact of an organization’s internal and external employer brand images on employee absenteeism. Specifically, using workforce samples of 56 Belgian companies (n = 12670) and a second independent study sample (n = 4461), we assess the relative importance of the internal employer brand image (i.e. employee perceptions) and the external employer brand image (i.e. non-employee perceptions) in predicting the absenteeism rate in these organizations. Results show that corporate absenteeism decreases as internal (employee) views and external (non-employee) views of the organization decline. Results further show that the external employer brand image may be a more important driver of absenteeism than the internal employer brand image. Such results highlight that an organization’s external image may be a strong antecedent of important internal organizational behavior outcomes.     

The Effect of Founding Family Influence on Firm Value and Corporate Governance

We examined a sample of 120 Norwegian, founding family controlled and non‐founding family controlled firms, to address two important research questions: (1) is founding family control associated with higher firm value; and (2) are there unique corporate governance conditions under which a founding family controlled firm can be more valuable? We find a positive association between founding family control and firm value for four alternative definitions of founding family control. We find that the association between founding family CEOs and firm value is stronger among younger firms, firms with smaller boards, and firms with a single class of shares. However, the impact of founding family directors on firm value is not affected by corporate governance conditions such as firm age, board independence, and number of share classes. We also find that the relation between founding family ownership and firm value is greater among older firms, firms with larger boards, and particularly when these firms have multiple classes of shares. Our results imply that founding family controlled firms are more valuable and governed differently than firms without such influence. Furthermore, our results also suggest that founding family CEOs can enhance firm performance when family influence does not create shareholder entrenchment or when their cash flow rights are more aligned with their control rights.     

International technology transfer through local business linkages: the case of Volvo Trucks and their domestic suppliers in India

Using unique firm‐level data from Volvo Trucks and their 64 manufacturing suppliers in India, this paper focuses on the significance of technology transfer from transnational corporations (TNCs) to their domestic suppliers in developing countries. Our case study shows that a relatively small number of international follow‐source suppliers have captured a dominant part of Volvo's local purchases of components, reducing the opportunities for domestic suppliers to forge business linkages with this foreign TNC. At the same time, the domestic suppliers, as well as the follow‐source suppliers, seem to improve their internal capabilities from the technological assistance given by Volvo as part of their business relationships. Even a simple assembly operation by a TNC seems to generate important linkages and technological upgrading among domestic suppliers, thus enhancing their domestic and international market positions. Volvo's technological assistance to domestic suppliers was also transferred down in the supply chain, contributing to long‐term improvements among the smaller companies that make up the lower tiers of the Indian auto‐component sector.     

Adolescents’ attitudes towards organic food: a survey of 15‐ to 16‐year old school children

Adolescents are the consumers of tomorrow; therefore policies aimed at increasing organic food consumption should address the needs of this group. To discover their attitudes towards organic food and their knowledge of the subject, a survey among almost 700 school children aged 15–16 years was conducted. Four main groups of questions were used: adolescents’ knowledge of organic food, attitudes, whether they bought organic food and the perceived influences they exerted on the buying patterns of their parents. From the survey it can be concluded that adolescents’ attitudes towards organic food are positive, but their knowledge of and their willingness to buy it are low. Campaigns aimed at encouraging the purchasing of organic food targeted at adolescents should particularly emphasize those characteristics of organic foods that they can relate to their interests and ethical preferences, for example, animal welfare and environmental considerations.