Does network board capital matter? A study of innovative performance in strategic SME networks

This article examines the effects of network board capital (i.e., human capital and relational capital) on total, radical and incremental network innovative performance. Results from a five-year longitudinal study of network boards in 53 strategic networks suggest that a network board's diversity, education level, and interlocking directorates with other such networks affect network innovative performance. The degree of board diversity and interlocking directorates primarily influence incremental innovation, whereas education level influences radical innovation. The study finds that a network board's diversity of expertise and education level are important for improving all components of innovative performance (total, radical and incremental) in smaller networks. Managerial implications of these findings are discussed.     

Privacy at Work – Ethical Criteria

New technologies and practices, such as drug testing, genetic testing, and electronic surveillance infringe upon the privacy of workers on workplaces. We argue that employees have a prima facie right to privacy, but this right can be overridden by competing moral principles that follow, explicitly or implicitly, from the contract of employment. We propose a set of criteria for when intrusions into an employee's privacy are justified. Three types of justification are specified, namely those that refer to the employer's interests, to the interests of the employee her- or himself, and to the interests of third parties such as customers and fellow workers. For each of these three types, sub-criteria are proposed that can be used to determine whether a particular infringement into an employee's privacy is morally justified or not.     

Time-consistent fiscal policy and government cash-flow

This short paper provides an interpretation and some extensions of Lucas and Stokey's results on optimal fiscal policy. The discussion relies heavily on the concept of government cash-flow, which is related but not equal to the budget surplus. Time-consistency of the optimal policy requires that a positive cash-flow is used to buy up some debt of each maturity (and contingency).     

A way of modelling investment in a multisectoral model

The paper contains an example of how to introduce heterogeneity of capital in the model framework given by Leif Johansen's so called MSG-model. Heterogeneity of capital is in terms of differences among sectors and differences among ‘vintages’ or ‘techniques’ within each sector.     

Foreign investment and spillover efficiency in an underdeveloped economy: Evidence from the Mexican manufacturing industry

In this paper we consider the question whether differences in technical efficiency of Mexican plants in part derive from spillover efficiency associated with foreign direct investment. We use labour productivity as a measure of technical efficiency, and relate this to capital intensity, labour quality and scale of production. We measure the degree of competition by different concentration indices and the final factor determining efficiency is the presence of foreign subsidiaries. If there is a positive relation between efficiency of domestic plants and the foreign participation of various industries we conclude that there is a spillover of technical efficiency. The empirical evidence from the study indicates that this is the case.     

DO DIVIDEND FLOWS AFFECT STOCK RETURNS?

We examine price impacts from dividend flows. Event‐study estimates show that stocks experience abnormal returns on the dividend distribution day. Results also show a spillover effect to non‐dividend‐paying stocks that are likely to be part of the same benchmark portfolio as the dividend‐paying stocks. Regression results indicate that the effect is dependent on the ownership share by professional investors. The temporary nature of the effect on returns is in line with the literature's demand‐driven price pressure hypothesis.     

Do ethical investors want purity or effectiveness? An exploratory study on the ethical preferences of mutual fund investors

This article relates the result of an exploratory survey aimed at better understanding the ethical preferences of individuals invested in so-called ethical or socially responsible investment (SRI) profiled mutual funds. In order to get an insight into the moral preferences of investors, a range of questions and dilemmas were formulated to determine respondents’ agreement with one of two more stringent philosophical perspectives: the moral purity and moral effectiveness perspectives. Our results indicate that investors support both perspectives but have difficulties in choosing between them in ethical dilemmas. For financial services providers, this confusion among investors represents a major challenge in setting up and managing an ethical or socially responsible investment service. In essence, providers are faced with the task of deciding which strategies and methods that should be used in the ethical investment service, even though many customers may not know which ones they prefer.     

Entrepreneurial orientation‐as‐experimentation and firm performance: The enabling role of absorptive capacity

According to the perspective of entrepreneurial orientation‐as‐experimentation, entrepreneurial orientation (EO) increases variability in innovation outcomes. Although increased variability in the innovation portfolio could increase performance, it could also lead to a decline in performance. We propose that absorptive capacity plays a role in both increasing and managing variations in innovation outcomes. Potential absorptive capacity enhances the effects of EO on variability in innovation outcomes, whereas realized absorptive capacity helps transform and exploit variability in innovation outcomes to enhance firm performance. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exploring outward FDI and the choice of destination: evidence from Swedish firm-level data

Using Swedish firm-level data on all firms and their affiliates abroad, we investigate what observable firm and country characteristics affect the size of an affiliate in a particular destination. We employ the richness of the data to investigate the importance of destination country factors in explaining firm outward FDI activities and distinguish between the factors that affect such activities in manufacturing versus services firms as well as vertical versus horizontal investments. Our results lend support to existing theories of multinational activity of manufacturing but not services firms. We also find observable differences between vertical and horizontal manufacturing firms that are not always explained by theory.