Encouraging collaboration for the provision of ecosystem services at a landscape scale—Rethinking agri-environmental payments

In this viewpoint we draw on insights from participatory agri-environmental policy making, spatial planning and collaborative approaches to environmental management. We propose steps for planning, design and implementation of agri-environmental payment schemes that will encourage collaboration and co-ordinated actions at a landscape scale to contribute more effectively to the continued provision of ecosystem services.     

HRM in dynamic environments: Exploitative,exploratory, and ambidextrous HR architectures

Abstract

The current economic crisis has brought to the fore the need for firms to deal with ambiguity and complexity. Hence, firms need a specific balance between exploration and exploitation in order to keep pace with varying and changing environmental conditions. Hitherto, there is limited research that has examined the nexus of HR architectures, ambidexterity, and environmental dynamics. In this conceptual paper we ask: How do HR architectures serve as a means of balancing exploitative and exploratory learning in different dynamic environments? We explain how exploratory, exploitative, and ambidextrous HR architectures with their embedded HRM systems on the business unit level enable organizations to meet different environmental requirements. Thus, firms in which heterogeneous demands for flexibility and for innovation co-exist need to develop internally differentiated HR architectures. In particular, we elucidate how critical the organization’s ability is to connect different HRM systems to create an ambidextrous HR architecture to find an appropriate balance between exploration and exploitation.     

Erratum zu: Die NAFTA-Verhandlungen — Wohin steuert die US-Handelspolitik?

Wirtschaftsdienst - In Heft 2/2018 muss in dem Aufsatz von Berend Diekmann, Katrin van Dyken „Die NAFTA-Verhandlungen — Wohin steuert die USHandelspolitik?“, S. 100-107, DOI:...     

Looking for a Needle in a Haystack: How to Search for Bottom‐Up Social Innovations that Solve Complex Humanitarian Problems

The worldwide increase in societal challenges is putting pressure on humanitarian organizations to develop sophisticated approaches to leverage social innovations in the humanitarian sector. Since humanitarian problems are complex problems, with the relevant knowledge being hidden, organizational search theory advocates the application of bottom‐up and theory‐guided search processes to identify the social innovations that solve these. Unfortunately, there has been no theoretical attention to understanding which approaches apply in this context. Further, established theory‐guided bottom‐up search processes, such as the lead user method, are unsuitable to the humanitarian sector, and we lack practice examples of adequate search processes. To start addressing this gap in theory and practice, procedural action research was done with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to develop a theory‐guided bottom‐up innovation search process for the real‐life humanitarian problem of recurring floods in Indonesia. It revealed that an innovation search process for this context must differ significantly concerning its objectives and the steps to be taken from the lead user method, which was used as a starting point. Further, a comparison of the technical quality and the social impacts of the identified social innovations with social innovations identified through a non‐theory‐guided bottom‐up search process (i.e., an innovation contest) suggests the superiority of this theory‐guided search process. With this conclusion and the insights derived throughout the development of the search process, this study makes important contributions to theory development in the social and open innovation literatures and delivers important recommendations for social innovation practice in the humanitarian sector.     

The Emergence of Proto-Institutions in the New Normal Business Landscape: Dialectic Institutional Work and the Dutch Drone Industry

In the current business landscape, in which technology-enabled entrepreneurship is part of the New Normal, regulatory institutional structures are in constant flux. Previous studies have framed the challenges facing entrepreneurs in mature organizational fields as avoiding the power of overbearing regulators long enough to establish the legitimacy of their ventures. In fields typified by New Normal conditions, however, regulatory frameworks for evaluating new technology-enabled ventures are often still lacking. Regulators may choose to actively reach out to entrepreneurs to arrive at a better understanding of the radical technological changes and high-frequency entrepreneurial behavioural adaptations that occur in these settings. To grasp how novel regulatory institutional structures come about in the New Normal business landscape, we conducted a processual study of the emergence of a new technology that is the Dutch remotely piloted aircraft systems (drone) industry between 2000 and 2018. Our findings show that regulatory proto-institutions result from dialectic institutional work in the form of structured interactions between entrepreneurs and regulators. Specifically, we present a process model that reveals how new regulatory structures evolve in contexts where high levels of technological and behavioural change induce systemic uncertainty, and enlarge the interdependence between entrepreneurs and regulators. We suggest that our process theory of proto-institutional emergence generalizes towards other organizational fields in which technology-enabled entrepreneurship has become the main driver of growth. Theoretically, our findings speak to the literatures on institutional work, proto-institutional emergence, and the New Normal business landscape.     

Der erste Eindruck zählt!? – Eine empirische Untersuchung von Ankereffekten bei der Vertrauensbildung in elektronischen Verhandlungen

The importance of electronic negotiations for developing and managing interdependent organizational relationships has increased significantly. Due to reduced cues in electronic negotiations interpersonal trust has become a crucial factor to overcome their limitations. Anchoring effects can set the course for trust building processes before any contact between negotiators occurred. So far, these effects have been analysed in face-to-face interactions. We could demonstrate anchoring effects in electronic interactions using internet-based negotiation simulations. We found that the participants quantified their trust level before and after the negotiation according to a priori information about their partners’ trustworthiness. Intuitive evaluations of the other’s trustworthiness seem to act as an anchor that can regulate ensuing perceptions and trust evaluations.     

Does Economics and Business Education Wash Away Moral Judgment Competence?

In view of the numerous accounting and corporate scandals associated with various forms of moral misconduct and the recent financial crisis, economics and business programs are often accused of actively contributing to the amoral decision making of their graduates. It is argued that theories and ideas taught at universities engender moral misbehavior among some managers, as these theories mainly focus on the primacy of profit-maximization and typically neglect the ethical and moral dimensions of decision making. To investigate this criticism, two overlapping effects must be disentangled: the self-selection effect and the treatment effect. Drawing on the concept of moral judgment competence, we empirically examine this question with a sample of 1773 bachelor’s and 501 master’s students. Our results reveal that there is neither a self-selection nor a treatment effect for economics and business studies. Moreover, our results indicate that—regardless of the course of studies—university education in general does not seem to foster students’ moral development.     

Household Adoption of Water-Efficient Equipment: The Role of Socio-Economic Factors,Environmental Attitudes and Policy

Using survey data of around 10,000 households from 10 OECD countries, we identify the driving factors of household adoption of water-efficient equipment by estimating Probit models of a household’s probability to invest in such equipment. The results indicate that environmental attitudes and ownership status are strong predictors of adoption of water-efficient equipment. In terms of policy, we find that households that were both metered and charged for their water individually had a much higher probability to invest in water-efficient equipment compared to households that paid a flat fee.     

Does banking consolidation worsen firms’ access to credit? Evidence from the German economy

This paper deals with the question whether the ongoing process of banking consolidation, which can be observed all over the world, worsens SMEs’ access to credit. We focus in our empirical study on SMEs in Germany, a country where SMEs are the backbone of the economy. A negative trend in the provision with bank credit may thus adversely affect growth and employment. Based on a comprehensive dataset on German firms and banks we find—contrary to public fear—that the ongoing banking consolidation in Germany does not have a significant negative impact on the financing of German firms during the observation period from 1996 to 2002.