“If It’s Easy to Read,It’s Easy to Claim”—The Effect of the Readability of Insurance Contracts on Consumer Expectations and Conflict Behaviour

In the area of financial services, lawmakers and regulators increasingly promote the use of plain language in business-to-consumer contracts. Although such efforts are undoubtedly welcomed by consumers, as they promote better comprehension, not much is known about the actual effects of improved readability on consumer attitudes and cognitive processes. Does improved readability in general contract terms have an impact on the consumer’s perception of their contractual position? Do contracts that are easier to read influence the steps or actions taken by consumers in the wake of conflict? In response to these questions, we present data from an experiment that investigates the relationship between the reading ease of general contract terms on the one hand and consumer expectations and willingness to engage in conflict on the other. Our findings suggest that readability increases the trust and confidence of the consumer in the sense that it increases their expectations of the claim. Moreover, we have found partial evidence to suggest that reading ease also increases the consumer’s willingness to engage in legal action in the case of subsequent claim denial.     

Sustainable employment: the importance of intrinsically valuable work and an age-supportive climate

The aging workforce emphasizes the importance of sustainable employment, that is the extent to which workers are able and willing to remain working now and in the future . This raises the question how organizations can design work contexts that contribute to sustainable employment. This study investigated the role of a intrinsically motivating job (intrinsic job value) and an age-supportive climate for three indicators of employees’ sustainable employment: employability, work engagement and affective commitment. The questionnaire was completed by 119 office employees (response 35%) of a Dutch public transport organization. A SEM analysis revealed that intrinsic job value was strongly and positively related with all three indicators of sustainable employment for employees of all ages. In contrast, an age-supportive climate was especially important for older employees’ work engagement and affective commitment. This study has implications for practice and for research of sustainable employment, HRM and aging.     

The Environmental Commitment of Consumer Organizations in Denmark, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Belgium

Consumer organizations have traditionally been concerned with protecting, informing, and educating the "weak" consumers. These policies were deemed necessary because of the unequal power balance and conflicts of interests between consumers and producers. Since there are also conflicts between the interests of nature on the one hand, and consumers and producers on the other, this article discusses the rationale of consumer organizations' involvement in environmental issues while considering their original objectives. More specifically, it is aimed at identifying the commitment of several European consumer organizations with respect to environmental issues during the past two decades in order to assess whether and how environmental issues are internalized in consumer policy across time.     

Modelling insurgent-incumbent dynamics: Vector autoregressions,multivariate Markov chains,and the nature of technological competition

The struggle between sail and steam is a long-standing theme in economic history. But this technological competition story has only partly tackled, since most studies have appreciated the rivalry between the two alternative modes of commercial sea carriage in the late 19th century while the early period has remained relatively under-analysed. This paper models the early dynamics between the two capital goods using a vector autoregression approach (VAR) and a Multivariate Markov Chain approach (MMC). We find evidence that the relationship was non-linear, with a strong indication of complementarities and cross-technology learning effects.