Technological change and the vertical organization of industries

The vertical scope of a firm, that is, which components or segments of the production processes are kept in–house and which are outsourced, is variously considered as depending on cost and/or technological conditions. Most of the literature focuses on the incentives for an individual firm facing exogenous competition and technological opportunities. In this paper we consider the problem from the perspective of the whole industry: in what respect does firm organizational behavior depend on the industry technological evolution and aggregate structure, and how does innovation and organizational behavior affect the industry structure. We build an evolutionary simulation model of an industry where competitors decide the number of internally produced components. We relate the industry average value of market outsourcing to the technological conditions prevalent in the industry. The results from the model shed light on a number of (apparently) contradictory suggestions in the economic and management literature.     

Role of Trade in Satisfying U.S. Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Demand

Increases in U.S. consumer incomes result in an increase in imports' share of U.S. consumption. Although U.S. consumers reduce the quantity demanded in response to higher import prices, the reduction is sufficiently inelastic that exporter revenue increases. U.S. Free Trade Agreements have made fresh fruits and vegetables available throughout the year and may also have broadened the U.S. marketing window for imports. Now U.S. food safety regulations favor large operations that can absorb the fixed and seasonal food safety related costs. Therefore, the brunt of the increased import competition is borne by small and medium-size producers.     

Founding large charities and community building in the Dutch Republic,c. 1600–1800

In this contribution, we study the founding of large charities for the elderly during the Dutch Republic, demonstrating their number and nature, with an emphasis on how almshouses for the elderly were intricately bound up with the concern to preserve honour. Personal honour, being tied to community honour, formed a vital part of the processes of patronage and corporatism that defined early modern Dutch society. Through almshouse foundations the religious and civic communities to which patrons and clients belonged were strengthened. Within the fragmented religious landscape of the Dutch Republic these charities played an important role in strengthening both mainstream and dissenter communities, while providing a decent old age to Dutch citizens.     

Who Controls the Controller? People Reaction to Social Control Agent's Decisions about Organizational Misconduct

Social control agents (SCAs) discipline organizations and draw the line between appropriate organizational behaviour and misconduct. While prior research focuses on the SCA-organization relationship, we theorize how a key audience (people) interacts with an SCA depending on its decisions to sanction or not organizational misconduct. Building on sociological and organizational research on social norms and their enforcement, we expect that people are more likely to agree with an SCA that sanctions a behaviour that violates rule-based as opposed to value-based norms. Violations of rule-based norms generate more agreement because such norms are less ambiguous and ascertaining when they are violated is easier to establish. As people agree more with SCA decisions to sanction rule-based violations, we expect that the propensity of people to resort to the SCA increases. We find support for our hypotheses with a survey, a series of experiments, and the analysis of complete data on complaints by UK citizens to the Advertising Standards Authority – the UK SCA on advertising – over the period 2007–10. Our paper contributes to research in organizational misconduct by showing how SCAs are both an evaluating entity and an evaluated one and by shedding light on how people co-determine what an acceptable or unacceptable behaviour is. Our paper uniquely links macro- and micro-level studies on corporate misconduct, putting centre stage that SCA's authority essentially depends on a key audience's agreement with the SCAs' underlying norms that underpin their decisions.     

Driving Smartization Through Intelligent Transport

Smart cities initiatives are developing all over the world, due to their support in favouring a better provision of services, in connection with the aim of achieving efficiency in cities management. More and more big corporations are interested in this topic to develop their businesses, as several issues are linked to these projects, like environment, water management, energy policies, education, culture, and so on. In literature these issues, known as drivers, were also related to sustainability aims which could be reached through the accomplishment of better performances within environment, economy, and society. This study synthesizes all the different drivers identified by scholars and industry players in a model, in order to use it as a framework to depict the linkages among the various smart cities projects. Since transport resulted as one of the most considered drivers in the analyzed contributions, the research questions were delineated to describe its role in the different phases of smart initiatives, and to understand if it could encourage and enable the other drivers＇ development. The multiple case study was chosen as the fittest methodological approach and it was conducted with the selection of three smart cities, one for each of the most cited platform models developed by industry players, which had started transport initiatives at least three years ago： Singapore （IBM）, Amsterdam （Accenture）, and San Francisco （Microsoft）. The analysis of the official documents set up by city departments and by the industry players showed transport as a driving force in smart cities projects which conveys a smart approach to different domains, especially energy savings, environment, and safety. The results also showed smart mobility as a pivot in stimulating investments and citizens＇ participation on different city drivers, especially as it concerns environment and services to both citizens and businesses. Smart transport initiatives, hardware and software infrastructures, technological devices, and     

Precautionary saving under many risks

This paper studies precautionary saving when many small risks are considered. We first introduce two simultaneous risks: labor income and interest rate risks. We show that, in this context, sufficient conditions for precautionary saving are weaker than in similar models. Moreover, we find that, unlike previous literature, precautionary saving can occur in the case of negative covariance between the two risks and in the case of imprudence. We then extend our analysis to a three-risk framework, where a background risk is included. We derive sufficient conditions for precautionary saving which are interpreted in the light of the previous literature.     

Strategic delegation in consumer cooperatives under mixed oligopoly

The main aim of this paper is to study the propensity of consumer cooperatives (Coops) to use incentive schemes in situations of strategic interaction with profit-maximizing firms (PMFs). Our model provides a reason why Coops are less prone than PMFs to pay variable bonuses to their managers. We show that this occurs under price competition when in equilibrium the Coop prefers to pay a flat wage to its manager relying instead on her intrinsic motivation, whereas the profit-maximizing rival adopts a variable, high-powered incentive scheme. The main rationale is that, by recruiting a manager whose preferences are aligned with the company goals (e.g., a consumer-owner), the Coop is per se highly expansionary in term of output. Therefore, the Coop does not need to rely on an externally hired manager who sets prices aggressively to expand market share and quantity. Furthermore, adopting a monetary reward based on sales and profits leads to distorted incentives with respect to the Coop’s goal, which after all is the welfare of its members.     

Marketing in SMEs: the role of entrepreneurial sensemaking

Marketing literature has emphasized the factors hampering marketing planning and strategizing in small firms, in particular resource scarcity, lack of specialized structures and competences. Recent streams of literature in entrepreneurial marketing have nonetheless shown that small firms do engage in peculiar marketing strategies and activities that do not necessarily reflect codified processes observed in large organizations. Within this line of research, the article aims at contributing to extant theory in entrepreneurial marketing placing under scrutiny the generative moments of marketing strategies in small firms. Through the integration of literature in entrepreneurial marketing and in entrepreneurship and through the analysis of four case studies, the article proposes a conceptual framework that emphasizes the centrality of entrepreneurial sensemaking in small and medium-sized enterprises?? marketing strategies. We posit that entrepreneurs are engaged in the construction of interpretive frameworks that, when explicated and made accessible to consumers and stakeholders, legitimate novel business ideas and logics. These interpretive frameworks structure the content and processes of marketing activities. Theoretically, the article aims at contributing to the debate on marketing in small businesses shedding light on the processes underlying the formation of marketing strategies. Propositions are offered to guide future empirical research based on the proposed conceptual framework.     

Joint production in teams

Consider Holmström's moral hazard in teams problem when there are n agents, each agent i has an a_i-dimensional strategy space and output is m-dimensional. We show that a compensation mechanism that satisfies budget balance, limited liability and implements an efficient allocation generically exists if and only if . Moreover, under a weak additional condition, the equilibrium implemented by this mechanism is unique in the class of pure strategy Coalition-Proof equilibria.