Home Bias in Primary Agricultural and Processed Food Trade: Assessing the Effects of National Degree of Uncertainty Aversion

This study investigates the effects of national degrees of uncertainty aversion (unfamiliarity avoidance) on the magnitude of bias towards domestic products rather than imports. The empirical analysis is implemented for primary agricultural and processed food products, using a panel dataset covering trade between and within OECD countries. Primary agricultural products are often blended and associated with reference prices. Conversely, processed food products exhibit higher levels of product differentiation. The empirical results confirm expectations by emphasizing the magnifying effects of uncertainty aversion on home bias in the case of processed food products but not in the case of primary agricultural products. These magnifying effects are primarily associated with processed food products destined for final household consumption. Other results reveal significant variations between different countries (based on geo‐economic and national income categories). Our results also indicate that home bias and uncertainty aversion effects on home bias have not decreased over time. The empirical results remain robust under different estimation methods.     

Forecasting revisions of German industrial production

Macroeconomic variables, such as industrial production or GDP, are regularly and sometimes substantially revised by the official statistical offices. Nevertheless, there are only few attempts in the previous literature to investigate whether it is possible to forecast these revisions systematically. In this article, it is illustrated how revisions of German industrial production can be forecasted with respect to both the direction and the level of the revision. We are the first to use a large data set for this purpose.     

Asymmetric information,imitative behaviour and communication: price formation in an experimental asset market

The paper describes experimental results from a simulated stock market with manipulation of asymmetric information and communication, including conditions intended to promote imitative behaviour and rumour. Price discovery was inefficient when the presence of insiders was disguised, compared to a homogeneous expectations baseline. When the presence of insiders was revealed observed prices became efficient with respect to bad news but not with respect to good news, possibly suggesting loss-averse behaviour. With free communication there was a decrease in both efficiency and price volatility—insider information was masked by noise. Price formation under these conditions was similar to baseline, but with weak evidence of speculative pricing. It is conjectured that other factors than informational noise may be necessary determinants of herd behaviour, but further work is indicated.     

Corporate Greening,Exchange Process Among Co-workers,and Ethics of Care: An Empirical Study on the Determinants of Pro-environmental Behaviors at Coworkers-Level

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between perceived co-worker support, commitment to colleagues, job satisfaction, intention to help others, and pro-environmental behavior with the emphasis on eco-helping, with a view to determining the extent to which peer relationships encourage employees to engage in pro-environmental behaviors at work. This paper is framed by adopting social exchange theory through the lens of ethics of care. Data from a sample of 449 employees showed that receiving support from peers triggers an exchange process that encourages eco-helping among colleagues. The implications of the findings are discussed in the light of the social exchange literature.     

Overcoming constraints of collective imagination: An inquiry into activist entrepreneuring,disruptive truth-telling and the creation of ‘possible worlds’

This article introduces ‘activist entrepreneuring’ to suggest a fresh understanding of entrepreneuring which foregrounds how constraints of imagination are removed through critical speech. Specifically, we link Michel Foucault's work on parrhesia, or courageous speech, and various literatures on (utopian) imagination to discuss ‘disruptive truth-telling’ as the generative mechanism of activist entrepreneuring whose transformative force resides in breaking free from existing limitations of collective imagination, or what we refer to as the ‘orthodox social imaginary’. We use the activist group Yes Men to develop a process model which throws into sharper relief how disruptive truth-telling is employed, on the one hand, to expose and problematize the boundaries of collective imagination, and, on the other, to create ‘possible worlds’ that prefigure ways of doing business that are consistent with broader societal interest. The three interrelated objectives of this article are: first, to make creative use of the humanities to emphasize how disruptive truth-telling actualizes possibilities for imagining future realities that seem impossible from the standpoint of dominant imagination. Second, to make the case for seeing changes of collective imagination as a genuine entrepreneurial accomplishment. And third, to identify boundary conditions that help us strengthen the explanatory power of our theorizing on disruptive truth-telling.     

Spatial dependencies and spatial drift in public transport seasonal ticket revenue data

When firms' customers are located in spatially dispersed areas, it can be difficult to manage service quality on a geographically small scale because the relative importance of service quality might vary spatially. Moreover, standard approaches discussed so far in the marketing science literature usually neglect spatial effects, such as spatial dependencies (spatial autocorrelation for example) and spatial drift (spatial non-stationarity). We propose a comprehensive approach based on spatial econometric methods that covers both issues. Based on the real company data on seasonal ticket revenue of a local public transport service company, we show that addressing such spatial effects of service data can improve management's ability to implement programs aimed at enhancing seasonal ticket revenue. In particular, the article shows how a spatial revenue response function might be specified.     

Exploring Success Factors of Virtual Communities: The Perspectives of Members and Operators

Virtual communities have been the focus of research for some time. However, although many studies have provided recommendations on how to build, extend, and manage virtual communities, few have verified the success factors they have considered essential for virtual communities. Conclusions made regarding basic preferences and distinct priorities of different stakeholders in virtual communities have not been empirically substantiated. Building on previous work on success factors of virtual communities, in this article, we present a ranking of success factors discussed in the literature based on an online survey among operators and members of virtual communities in the German speaking Internet. Consequently, we identified and analyzed incongruencies between members and operators. This research gains first empirically validated insights into success factors for establishing and managing virtual communities. We derived recommendations for operators of virtual communities on the basis of the findings, and we present an agenda for future research in the field.     

An Involvement Explanation for Nostalgia Advertising Effects

This study seeks to offer additional insights regarding why positive “nostalgia effects” in advertising may be observed, that is, why nostalgic ads tend to elicit more favorable consumer responses than do non-nostalgic ads. Using the personal relevance component of advertising involvement as a theoretical foundation, the study supports hypothesized expectations that nostalgic ads are capable of inducing greater levels of self-reflection and advertising involvement. Furthermore, hypothesized effects were shown to be more pronounced when a “personal” nostalgia-themed ad (eliciting “a yearning for a realized, lived past”) was used, as opposed to when an “historical” nostalgia-themed ad (eliciting “a yearning for a distant past, never experienced”) was used. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed and directions for future research are offered.     

Dynamics of Performance-Measurement Systems

We review the principal–agent multi-tasking literatureand discuss the relevance of this literature to the implementationof performance measurement in public organizations. Arguably,the most important lesson from the literature is that performancemeasurement may elicit dysfunctional and unintended responses,also known as gaming responses. We propose an evolutionary modelof how organizations manage performance measures when gamingis revealed over time. The model stresses the dynamic natureof the performance-measure selection process—a featurethat has been overlooked in the literature. We present evidencefrom a job training programme that is consistent with the modeland we discuss implications for the selection of performancemeasures.