Beyond environmental scarcity: Human and social capital as driving forces of bootstrapping activities

Although entrepreneurship scholars highlight bootstrapping as a key resource acquisition approach to respond to the inherent resource constraints that nascent ventures face, little is known about what causes nascent ventures to engage in bootstrapping. Theory highlights the environment as an important determinant of bootstrapping activity. Analyzing bootstrapping behavior of 298 nascent ventures, we find that beyond perceived environmental factors, individual characteristics of the nascent entrepreneurs and factors relating to the embeddedness of the entrepreneurs in the environment determine their venture's bootstrapping behavior. In a more fine-grained analysis we gain insights into how these antecedents shape the use of particular bootstrapping strategies. Findings contribute to our understanding of factors driving resource management approaches in nascent ventures.     

Tweet this,not that: A comparison between brand promotions in microblogging environments using celebrity and company-generated tweets

Despite the popularity of social media in general and Twitter specifically, little empirical research exists to assist marketers in how to successfully connect with consumers in these environments. The purpose of this study was to identify the ways in which brands can connect with consumers through Twitter and to examine how the category of Tweet impacts brand engagement. Findings reveal that whereas celebrity Tweets may be successful at capturing attention and disseminating brand information, they have minimal impact on changing brand opinions. What influence celebrities do have may be best served with unfamiliar brands rather than familiar ones – results suggest that not unlike in traditional offline media, in social media celebrities may be influential in drawing attention to unfamiliar brands. Our results also suggest that companies with established familiar brands should be cautious about paying to seed their own Tweets using Twitter's ‘Promoted by’ option, particularly if the brand is one that consumers have a neutral opinion of, as this can lower consumers' opinion of the brand. Instead, these companies should encourage consumers to follow them on Twitter as this will enable the brand to interact directly with consumers.     

Megatrends und Strukturwandel — welche Regionen werden profitieren?

Wirtschaftsdienst - Gesellschaftliche und wirtschaftliche Dynamiken führen zu einem stetigen Wandel von Wirtschaftsstrukturen. Abhängig von der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur verlaufen...     

DO HEALTH INSURERS CONTRACT THE BEST PROVIDERS? PROVIDER NETWORKS,QUALITY, AND COSTS

We provide a modeling framework to analyze selective contracting in the health‐care sector. Two health‐care providers differ in quality and costs. When buying health insurance, consumers observe neither provider quality nor costs. We derive an equilibrium where health insurers signal provider quality through their choice of provider network. Selective contracting focuses on low‐cost providers. Contracting both providers signals high quality. Market power reduces the scope for signaling, thereby leading to lower quality and inefficiency.     

The power of social mobilisation: The impact of monitoring the 2015 presidential elections in Poland

In recent years we have observed an increased engagement of citizen’s movements with elections in democratic polities. Yet our understanding of the influence that this engagement can have over elections is still rather limited. In this paper we study electoral consequences of citizens’ involvement in monitoring 2015 presidential elections in Poland. Our analysis provides strong support for arguments saying that watchdog organisations may have an important influence on electoral outcomes. Our findings suggest that in municipalities in which election observers were present the share of vote for an incumbent candidate, Bronis?aw Komorowski, was significantly lower than in municipalities where the watchdog organisation did not have its representatives. Our results are robust to several tests which allows us to argue that the effect we find should not be attributed to some unobservable factors.     

HR practices for enhancing sustainable employability: implementation,use, and outcomes

Abstract

With the aging of the workforce, organizations need to maintain or improve the sustainable employability of their workforce throughout their working life. This raises the question which HR practices increase workers’ sustainable employability at work. The aim of this study is to investigate the extent to which organizations implement HR practices for enhancing sustainable employability in terms of workers’ health, motivation, and skills and knowledge from the employer’s perspective. In total, 312 owners/directors or HR managers (response rate 13%) filled out the questionnaire. The findings showed that most organizations implemented a range of HR practices to improve the health, motivation, and skills and knowledge of their employees. Perceived effectiveness of these practices were dependent on the number of HR practices that were implemented, employees’ use of and participation in designing these practices. Implementation of HR practices was also related to higher satisfaction with the current employability of employees, and to increased productivity of the organization. Implications for practice and examples of HR practices to enhance sustainable employability are given.     

The complexity of exchange: Wheat markets,petty‐commodity producers and the emergence of commercial capital in colonial Punjab

This paper questions the orthodox Marxist view of merchant capital as “unproductive,” by highlighting the importance of traders in subsuming the countryside to the logic of capital. However, it also argues that in order to properly understand the role played by traders in agrarian change, critical Marxist scholarship on merchant capital needs to recognize the complex marketing systems in which traders and farmers operate. These markets have their own internal relations, organizational and institutional logic which in turn is tied to the specificity of the commodity. Using wheat markets in colonial Punjab as a case study, it then utilizes the framework of complex marketing systems to highlight the range of firms and farms that operated in these markets; the importance of personal relations and informal institutions of family, caste, and religion for establishing trust; and the class stratified nature of market participants. It was from within these informally organized markets that commercial capital first emerged in colonial Punjab. By creatively combining the concept of commercial capital with markets as complex systems, it hopes to provide a richer framework for the study of agrarian change in diverse contexts.