The complexity of the business network context and its effect on subsidiary relational (over-) embeddedness

Many studies have focused on the effects of MNC subsidiaries’ external relational embeddedness. Little attention has been given to its antecedents and especially to the potential effect that the business network context might have. We try to fill this gap and attempt to explain variation among subsidiaries’ degree of relational embeddedness. Our results show a strong and robust effect of the business network context – i.e. the network context in which the direct business relationships between the subsidiary and its partners are embedded – on the degree of relational embeddedness. However, contrary to previous literature, we find an inverted u-shaped relationship. We discuss our findings with regard to the issue of over-embeddedness and the literature on the strength of weak vs. strong ties.     

The effect of acute pain on risky and intertemporal choice

Pain is a highly salient and attention-demanding experience that motivates people to act. We investigated the effect of pain on decision making by delivering acute thermal pain to participants’ forearm while they made risky and intertemporal choices involving money. Participants (n = 107) were more risk seeking under pain than in a no-pain control condition when decisions involved gains but not when they involved equivalent losses. Pain also resulted in greater preference for immediate (smaller) over future (larger) monetary rewards. We interpret these results as a motivation to offset the aversive, pain-induced state, where monetary rewards become more appealing under pain than under no pain and when delivered sooner rather than later. Our findings add to the long-standing debate regarding the role of intuition and reflection in decision making.     

Are Interactive TV-Pioneers and Surfers Different Breeds? Broadband Demand and Asymmetric Cross-Price Effects

We consider two different qualities of broadband access, one that simply means greater access speed to Internet applications and content, and a premium version that also gives access to interactive TV services. Based on a market survey we find that potential consumers of this premium broadband access do not consider basic broadband Internet access as a substitute. The price of basic broadband does not constrain the price that may be charged for the premium broadband that allows for interactive TV services.     

Entrepreneurship as Recombinant Growth

The paper presents a model of the entrepreneur as an undertaker of new combinations of ideas. Technology is seen as a set of ideas in a metric technology space where new knowledge is created by the combination of older ideas in the spirit of Schumpeter (1934), Weitzman (1998) and Olsson (2000). Given some intuitive assumptions, we demonstrate that technological progress generated by the convex combination of ideas is constrained by five factors: First, the combinatory process eventually leads to the exhaustion of technological opportunity. Second, the cost of combining ideas increases with the technological distance between the originating ideas. Third, profits are maximized when ideas are combined that are technologically close. Fourth, the technology set is constrained by a social possibility set of socially acceptable ideas. Fifth, the boundaries implied by the ruling technological paradigm limit the scope for eternal recombinant growth.     

Managing financial constraints: undercapitalization and underwriting capacity in Spanish fire insurance

Reinsurance is a vital financial device for enhancing underwriting capacity, ceding risks, and mitigating financial distress. By supplying financial resources and services, reinsurance can facilitate growth and expansion in the insurance business. Focusing on the insurance sector in the emerging Spanish economy and using a novel dataset on fire insurance companies, this article examines the role of fire insurance in the national capital formation, the importance of reinsurance as a vehicle for expanding the country's domestic underwriting capacity, and how the import of capital impacted on the balance of payment, from the introduction of the first comprehensive legislation regarding insurance in 1908 to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936. Considering the situation of undercapitalization, the singularities of the insurance market, and the changes in regulatory schemes, we find that foreign reinsurance became a key financial vehicle for increasing underwriting capacity in Spain. We also show the struggle of an emerging market to find ways to keep the balance of current accounts and raise capital when financial infrastructure was underdeveloped. The diffusion of reinsurance networks from the core of industrial western countries towards emerging economies was one of the mechanisms for financial modernization on a global scale.     

Workers’ participation in regional economic change following establishment closure

This article analyses if and when workers affected by economic destruction in the form of establishment closures move to more productive or newly started establishments in the region, become self-employed, leave the region or become displaced. Results from multinominal probit models show that the majority of these workers face destructive employment outcomes from a Schumpeterian point of view compared to a matched sample of workers not subject to a closure. However, we do find indications of a creative destruction as a small, albeit significant, share become employed in young establishments. Different types of human capital influence the likelihood of triggering positive or negative regional outcomes. While higher education significantly decreases the risk for unemployment, high-income earners more often become engaged in creative outcomes. Firm tenure increases the likelihood of becoming employed in younger establishments. There are significant spatial differences where metropolitan regions excel as loci of creative change, whereas smaller and peripheral regions face far less creative outcomes of economic transformation.

     

Firms' use of organizational,personal, and intermediary networks to gain access to resources for internationalization

This study explores which networks are beneficial for gaining resources for firms' internationalization. Little is known about firms' use of organizational, personal, and intermediary networks to gain access to resources for internationalization. Firms are seeking resources through their organization's relationships (organizational networks) and individuals' personal contacts (personal networks). Governmental and industry actors are implementing networks to promote international growth and act as an intermediary between business actors (intermediary networks). We conduct in‐depth interviews with firms and representatives for intermediary networks complemented with a survey. The findings reveal which resources are accessed through the different networks. We find organizational networks provide considerable access to most resources (except financial resources) that are beneficial for internationalization, whereas intermediary networks provide access to reputational, human, and market resources. Personal networks primarily provide access to human resources. This study contributes to theory by giving a more fine‐grained understanding of how different types of networks give access to different resources valuable for internationalization.     

Risking Other People's Money: Experimental Evidence on the Role of Incentives and Personality Traits

Decision-makers often face incentives to increase risk-taking on behalf of others (e.g., they are offered bonus contracts and contracts based on relative performance). We conduct an experimental study of risk-taking on behalf of others using a large heterogeneous sample, and we find that people respond to such incentives without much apparent concern for stakeholders. Responses are heterogeneous and mitigated by personality traits. The findings suggest that a lack of concern for others’ risk exposure hardly requires “financial psychopaths” in order to flourish, but it is diminished by social concerns.