Assessing risks – challenges posed by the European general product safety directive

The concept of risk appears in a prominent way in the recently revised European Directive on General Product Safety (GPSD). Risk assessment is therefore an important tool for the success of the Directive; the question is how risk assessment should be carried out in a systematic manner in order to meet the aims of the Directive. In this paper, the references in the GPSD concerning the concept of risk are reviewed and compared with reported problems in European risk assessment. Existing guidelines for risk assessment are examined in order to determine what factors determine the consistency of the outcome. This leads to recommendations for a process that could be followed in order to make risk assessment successful in the context of the GPSD. On the basis of existing guidelines for risk assessment, criteria are formulated with which methods of risk assessment should comply. A stepwise process is proposed in order to develop a common method of risk assessment that can be applied in Europe to support the GPSD. The requirements for risk management in the new GPSD are rather and lack specification, both for producers and for enforcement authorities. The Directive further refers to the need to develop non-binding guidelines in due course. Sources of different outcomes of the risk assessment process are outlined in this paper as well as possibilities to achieve a more consistent basis for decisions, more uniformity and transparency. These are essential conditions if one wishes to avoid both undue trade barriers and unsafe products on the market. A leading role for the European Commission seems necessary to make sure that the intentions of the GPSD are accomplished.     

Platform thinking for services: the case of human resources

This paper tests the utility of platform thinking, a design principle that has so far been applied to product development yet under-researched in service settings, for improving the value of services. A key principle of platform thinking is to balance the reuse of service components with the heterogeneity in user needs. Tuning services to specific user needs is valuable, but differentiating services when user needs are homogeneous may decrease service quality and increase cost. Using data from 676 human resource management services, this study finds that the service value is highest when the service provision is matched with the commonality potential of the services. The results indicate that using the wrong delivery channel decreases the service value which eventually could decrease the service value for an organization's external customers. These empirical findings demonstrate the relevance of platform thinking for service design and challenges conventional design criteria used for optimizing service delivery.     

Deregulation in Services and the Marketing Challenge

This paper contributes to the literature on international firm activities by providing the first evidence on the link between productivity and both exports and foreign direct investment (FDI) in services firms from a highly developed country. It uses unique new data from Germany, one of the leading actors in the world market for services. Statistical tests and regression analyses indicate that the productivity pecking order found in numerous studies using data for firms from manufacturing industries – where the firms with the highest productivity engage in FDI while the least productive firms serve the home market only and the productivity of exporting firms is in between – does not exist among firms from services industries. There is evidence that firms with FDI are less productive than firms that export; this finding is in line with recent empirical results reported for software firms from India.     

Reciprocal Effects of the Corporate Reputation and Store Equity of Retailers

Retailers aim to strengthen their ability to influence consumer behavior by building corporate reputation and store equity: for instance, by making promotional investments. However, little is known about the directionality of consumers’ corporate and store associations, that is, how reciprocal relationships between consumers’ perceptions of corporate reputation and store equity affect store loyalty. To illuminate this issue, we draw upon a study with a cross-sectional design and two studies with longitudinal designs. We find that retail store equity interacts with corporate reputation and is a more important driver of increased loyalty than corporate reputation. We conclude that retailers should pay attention to reciprocal effects, especially in determining the relative allocation of investments across corporate and store levels.     

IMF‐Supported Programmes: Stimulating Capital to Non‐defaulting Countries

International Monetary Fund (IMF)‐supported programmes catalyse private capital to non‐defaulting countries. We find the IMF to be effective in stimulating private capital flows to middle‐income countries that participate in a Fund programme, but do not restructure their debt. IMF‐supported programmes help non‐defaulting countries to signal their willingness to reform and repay debts, thereby catalysing private capital. This signalling role appears to be more important for Fund catalysis, than the size of IMF lending.     

Methodological Issues in the Design of Online Surveys for Measuring Unethical Work Behavior: Recommendations on the Basis of a Split-Ballot Experiment

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in unethical work behavior. Several types of survey instruments to collect information about unethical work behavior are available. Nevertheless, to date little attention has been paid to design issues of those surveys. There are, however, several important problems that may influence reliability and validity of questionnaire data on the topic, such as social desirability bias. This paper addresses two important issues in the design of online surveys on unethical work behavior: the response scale for questions regarding the frequency of certain types of unethical work behavior and the location of the background questions in an online survey. We present the results of an analysis of a double split-ballot experiment in a large sample (n = 3,386) on governmental integrity. We found that, when comparing response scales that have labels for all categories with response scales that only have anchors at the end, the latter provided answers with higher validity. The study did not provide support for the conventional practice of asking background questions at the end.     

Robust Policy in Times of Pandemic

Intereconomics - The pandemic exposes policymakers to fundamental uncertainties about future economic scenarios. While policymakers have to act forcefully to mitigate the impact on the economy,...