Well-being effects of self-employment: A spatial inquiry

Our paper presents an empirical analysis of entrepreneurial well-being using a large-scale longitudinal household survey from the UK that tracks almost 50,000 individuals across seven waves over the period 2009–2017, as well as a number of exploratory case studies. We contribute to the existing literature by investigating how entrepreneurial well-being varies across locations along the urban-rural continuum, and across wealthy-deprived neighbourhoods. We use a Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM) approach to compare the well-being outcomes of individuals who switch into self-employment from waged employment, and show that entrepreneurial well-being, in the form of job satisfaction, is significantly higher for those living in semi-urban locations, relative to those living in urban and rural locations. We argue that semi-urban locations provide an optimal combination of ease of doing business and quality of life. Our results also show that individuals in wealthy neighbourhoods who switch into self-employment experience higher job satisfaction than otherwise comparable individuals living in materially deprived neighbourhoods, although the latter experience greater levels of life satisfaction following the switch.     

The Relevance of Nationality and Industry for Stakeholder Salience: An Investigation Through Integrated Reports

The aim of this research is to investigate the web of business-stakeholder relationships emerging from first integrated reports. Drawn from the stakeholder salience theory, the analysis focuses on some factors that may cause specific stakeholders to be crucial for some organizations and their ability to create value over time. More precisely, findings highlight the importance of industry membership, while entities’ nationality seems not to be a differentiating element. This study contributes to the corporate disclosure literature by analyzing an emerging reporting tool, the integrated report, and demonstrating that the link between some business characteristics and stakeholder salience seems fundamental for the representation of the impact of corporate social and environmental responsibilities on the economic performance. From a practical point of view, the impact of industry membership on corporate disclosures encourages the drafting of differentiated reporting standards across sectors, in order to improve comparability, materiality, and reliability of information.     

Subsidiary-specific advantages for inter-regional expansion: The role of intermediate units

This paper explores the distinctive deployment of resources and capabilities by subsidiaries in order to develop an intermediate role within the MNC. Based on the regional management perspective, we focus on a specific intermediate role—the springboard subsidiary—that helps overcome the liability of inter-regional foreignness. Our results, which are based on a dataset covering 188 subsidiaries, show that the probability of taking on this role is contingent upon experiential knowledge about the target region, as well as a rich knowledge base derived from a wide range of activities and a broad geographical scope. Our findings also show that possession of slack resources does not necessarily mean that a subsidiary will take on this role, as such slack must be combined with experiential knowledge. This paper serves as a first step in helping MNCs plan resource allocation to handle inter-regional expansion.     

Brand equity in the professional service context: Analyzing the impact of employee role behavior and customer-employee rapport

The study examines whether factors related to customers' perception of employees' behavior in terms of customer perceived role ambiguity, role overload and customer-employee rapport influence the development of brand equity in the professional service context. 632 customers of one of the Big Four auditing companies participated in the study. The results of structural equation modeling show negative effects of role ambiguity and role overload on brand associations, perceived quality and brand loyalty, which constitute brand equity. The findings indicate a positive effect of customer-employee rapport on the enhancement of B2B brand equity. However, the negative influences of role ambiguity and role overload on customer-employee rapport transfer detrimental indirect effects on brand equity. The study contributes to an understanding of how the real interaction between service providers and customers can influence brand equity in the professional service setting.     

Teaching HRM in contemporary hospitality management: a case study drawing on HR analytics and big data analysis

In this article, we discuss how hospitality students can leverage new technology and new HRM metrics from a combination of a traditional format case study and innovative data spreadsheets. We offer a teaching case study that combines the strategic dimensions of HRM with practice-driven data analysis anchored in HR analytics and HR big data mining. We argue that this combination helps identify, develop, and promote appropriate managerial skills among students.     

Innovation Economy,Productive Public Expenditure and Economic Growth

Multidisciplinary innovation is the main engine of growth for an increasing number of economies. Innovation requires the participation of and interaction between all economic agents. It also requires public spending on education, research and infrastructures. Our main goal is to emphasize the government's role in a growing innovation economy. Developing a non‐scale, idea‐based, one‐sector growth model with complementarities and productive public expenditure, we analyse theoretically the growth effects of an increase in productive public expenditure, which we find positive in the short, medium and long run.     

Sustainability report and bank valuation: evidence from European stock markets

Applying value relevance analysis to a sample of European banks, we test the following: (i) the direct effects of the sustainability report on stock price; (ii) whether the report modifies the value relevance of financial accounting variables (indirect effects); and (iii) whether the value relevance of sustainability reports varies across countries. Results show that investors appreciate the additional and complementary disclosure provided by the sustainability report and that this disclosure produces a positive effect on stock prices. Estimates of the indirect effects demonstrate that it has a negative influence on book value per share, whereas the effect on earnings per share is not significant. Cross‐country analysis shows that the value relevance of the sustainability report varies across European countries, consistent with the hypothesis that the value relevance of the sustainability report is likely to be influenced by different institutional contexts.