The impact of climate on life satisfaction

We analyse the influence of climate on average life satisfaction in 79 countries using data from the World Values Survey. Climate is described in terms of ‘degree-months’ calculated as the cumulated monthly deviations from a base temperature of 65 °F (18.3 °C). Our results suggest that countries with climates characterised by a large number of degree-months enjoy significantly lower levels of life satisfaction. This finding is robust to a wide variety of model specifications. Using our results to analyse a particular climate change scenario associated with the IPCC A2 emissions scenario points to major losses for African countries, but modest gains for Northern Europe.     

Humankapital deutscher Fußballmanager

Based on the human-capital-theory we analyse the effects of managers’ characteristics on the sportive success of soccer-clubs. Relevant characteristics are a previous career as a player or trainer, an apprenticeship or academic study and the work experience as a manager. Over the last twenty years the proportion of managers with an economic education doubled. This general human capital affects success less complementarily than as a substitutive for sector- or club-specific human capital in terms of a previous career as a player. The work experience as a manager correlates positively with the teams’ league ranking. These results allow recommendations for recruiting new managers.     

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Hiring new key inventors to improve firms’ post-M&A inventive output

Although merger and acquisitions (M&As) are acknowledged as an important means to access innovative assets and know-how, firms’ inventive output often declines in the post-M&A period. Financial, managerial and organizational constraints related to the M&A event contribute to inventive output declines and inventors’ departure. Prior literature treats the acquiring firm as a passive observer of invention declines. This study argues that acquiring firms can take measures by hiring new key inventors. We show that the hiring of new key inventors in the post-M&A period can counteract invention declines in two ways. First, these newly hired inventors are associated with an increase of corporate inventive output after the M&A. Second, they are also associated with an improved inventive output of inventors already working for the acquiring firm. These results suggest that an appropriate hiring policy can counteract the declining inventive output of firms in the aftermath of M&As.     

Trade liberalization and credit constraints: Why opening up may fail to promote convergence

This paper examines credit constraints as one channel held responsible for hampering economic convergence between countries. Specifically, we extend a Melitz and Ottaviano ( 2008 ) type trade model with variable mark‐ups to allow for endogenous technology adoption. We consider a framework with two countries that potentially differ with respect to credit market development. Firms have the option to adopt a more efficient technology by paying some fixed cost that is more costly to finance for financially constrained firms. We find that technology adoption increases in both countries after trade liberalization but more so in the financially more developed country: the productivity gap widens. Simulations show that the welfare gap widens too. Opening up without sufficient access to external funding thus fails to promote convergence.     

A Stage‐Wise Approach to Exploring Performance Effects of Cycle Time Reduction

Research on reducing new product development (NPD) cycle time has shown that firms tend to adopt different cycle time reduction mechanisms for different process stages. However, the vast majority of previous studies investigating the relationship between new product performance and NPD cycle time have adopted a monolithic process perspective rather than looking at cycle time for the distinct stages of the NPD process (i.e., fuzzy front end, development, and commercialization). As a result, little is known about the specific effect of the cycle times of the different stages on new product performance or how they interact to influence new product performance. This study uses a stage‐wise approach to NPD cycle time to test the main and interacting effects of fuzzy front end, development, and commercialization cycle times on new product performance using objective data for 399 NPD projects developed following a Stage‐Gate® type of process in one firm. The results reveal that at least in this firm, new product performance only increases if all three stages of the NPD process are consistently accelerated. This finding, combined with the previous research showing that firms use different mechanisms to accelerate different stages of the process, emphasizes the need to conduct performance effect studies of NPD cycle time at the stage level rather than at the monolithic process level.     

Information in Launch Messages: Stimulating the Adoption of New High‐Tech Consumer Products

This research investigates how the adoption of new high‐tech consumer products can be stimulated by communicating product‐related information in launch messages. In an initial pilot study, the authors find that for making an adoption decision, consumers require different types of product‐related information, i.e., technical information, financial information, and personal/social information. In three experiments, the authors then examine how adoption intention and behavior is affected by communicating these information types. The first experiment shows that communicating personal/social information results in the highest adoption intention. This effect is moderated by the way in which the information is represented in the message. Adoption intention is highest when personal/social information is communicated in an abstract manner, while financial and technical information are most effective when communicated in a concrete manner. The second experiment shows that the effects hold for actual adoption behavior. In addition, visual imagination is found to mediate these effects. In the last experiment, visual imagination is directly manipulated by thematic priming and has a direct effect on adoption behavior. The results emphasize that activating the imagination in a product‐relevant situation stimulates adoption behavior.