The evolution of IT innovations in Swedish organizations: a Darwinian critique of ‘Lamarckian’ institutional economics

Fundamental correspondence and analogies between the evolution of technological and biological innovations call for an ‘innovation Darwinian’, ‘universal Darwinian’ or ‘memetic’ approach to understanding technology innovation. Neo-institutional, in fact pseudo-Lamarckian evolutionary economic theory, represented by North, Nelson and Winter, Freeman and others, is criticized. Pseudo-Lamarckian (“by volition”) evolution is explained and analyzed on Darwinian grounds (as intentional and artificial selection), as is Schumpeter’s definitions of creative and imitative innovation. Data from a web survey among Swedish public and private organizations in 1999 are studied. Data show that Darwinian co-evolutionary interaction between producers and users or clients provide essential conditions and stronger influence on creative IT innovations than both ‘Lamarckian’ strategies and competition.

More than meets the eye: videography and production of desire in semiocapitalism

ABSTRACT

In the light of the recent proliferation of interest in videographic methods in marketing and consumer research, we wish to make a call for thinking critically about the medium. In this article, we challenge traditional means of semiotic analysis and consider contexts outside aesthetic symbolism that take into account wider agencements of videographic inquiry. We sensitise thinking about videographic production to include a broad scope of influence beyond production and spectatorship. By positing a mode of desiring relationalities in ‘semiocapitalist’ markets, and through the illustrative example of pop-music videos, we show how videography not only produces symbols, but also has the tendency to discipline the viewer into particular subjective positions. We hope to add to the conceptual toolkit of aspiring video scholars and encourage them to be increasingly critical and reflexive about their potential impact.     

A dual theory approach to estimating risk preferences in the parimutuel betting market

This paper introduces an alternative empirical approach to estimating risk preferences in the parimutuel betting market using a dual theory model which is amended to include bettors’ misperceptions of probabilities. We replicate previous empirical results and test our alternative empirical approach using parimutuel horse race betting data. Our results suggest that while bettors are risk-averse, they are also prone to misperceiving probabilities by overweighting low probabilities and underweighting high probabilities. As an application, these results replicate the choice patterns consistent with the Allais paradox.     

Working time reduction and employment in a finite world*

We study the consequences of a working time reduction (WTR) in a growth model with efficiency wages and an essential natural resource (natural capital), and in which technical progress cannot reduce the resource content of final production to zero. We show that if natural capital is scarce enough, a WTR increases the long-term levels of the hourly wage and employment. A numerical analysis of the transitory impacts of a WTR confirms that when natural capital is scarcer, a WTR increases employment more and the hourly wage less, with a less negative initial impact on output.     

Are founding families less willing to bear risk? Evidence from the currency exposure and internationalization strategy of family firms

Although theory predicts that family firms should be less willing to bear risk than nonfamily firms, prior empirical papers have not found support for this prediction. In this paper, we focus on conditional currency risk because founding families can relatively easily influence their firms’ currency exposure. We find that family firms have relatively lower conditional currency exposure. This result holds for both descendant-led and nonfamily-led family firms. Consistent with purposeful actions of founding families, we find that exposure decreases with control-enhancing mechanisms, such as excess voting rights. The findings also support a wealth-preservation motive, evidenced by a finding that exposure declines with the number of family beneficiaries. Additional analysis suggests that family firms achieve the relatively lower risk by reducing internationalization depth and limiting exposure to riskier currencies.