Working with concepts in the fuzzy front end: exploring the context for innovation for different types of concepts at Volvo Cars

Automotive firms are balancing the increasing needs for cost and time efficiency with the necessity of developing more innovative products to stand out on in a competitive market. The strive for efficiency has led to an increasingly structured development process with limited allowances for deviations. Previous academic work has pointed out the importance and embedded potential of the fuzzy front end, where new concepts still have the possibility to impact the new product development (NPD) process. However, most research has focused on the transfer of new technologies, while concepts based on e.g. customer or market knowledge have been more or less neglected. This paper discusses the need for alternative and contingent approaches in the front end of NPD to also consider the transfer of other types of concepts. More specifically, it addresses the need to distinguish between different types of concepts and to explore their different prerequisites in NPD. It is argued that customer- and market-based concepts experience certain difficulties due to the history and power of technology in research and development (R&D) domains in the automotive context as well as a lack of support from the existing, formal processes. In this paper, we argue that all new concepts need to be conceptualized before being introduced to the NPD process, but that does not always suffice. Concepts other than technology concepts also need a contingent package to enable an evaluation in the context of the R&D process – they need to be contextualized. This paper draws on an in-depth case study of Volvo Cars within a long-lasting collaborative research setup. It is based on an interview study with key persons in the areas of concept work and NPD, and uses an insider/outsider approach.     

Tourism and transformation: negotiating metaphors,experiencing change

The article introduces this special issue on tourism and transformation. After offering a brief review of the place and significance of ‘transformation’ in social sciences studies of tourism – from ‘impact studies’ to ethnographies of tourists and, more recently, ‘tourist media studies’ – we propose to take one step further and focus our attention on the performativity and reflexivity of ‘transformation’. Our main argument is that much may be gained analytically by considering how notions and experiences of transformation are addressed, negotiated and purposefully deployed in tourism contexts. We conclude with an outline of each of the contributions to this special issue, stressing that the collection re-opens the issue of transformation in tourism and provides new insights into how experiences-turned-metaphors and metaphors-turned-experiences influence both the travel experience and the development of theory.     

The aftermath of the subprime crisis: a clustering analysis of world banking sector

The banking sector has been on the spotlight in both academic and policy circles since the outburst of the subprime bubble. The crisis has its roots in the US, but there were spillover effects around the world. We study the behavior of the banking sector of 40 countries during the period 2007–2010, using a new clustering methodology. Our methodology combines regime switching models in the modeling of longitudinal variations with cluster analysis that identifies groups of countries with similar profiles. Our results show that although there were periods of intense contagion, the impact was uneven among sample countries. The crisis had episodic effects on some countries, while others had severe devaluations after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. Finally, a small group of banking systems has plunged into a long severe crisis.     

Customer satisfaction with socially responsible investing initiatives: The influence of perceived financial and non-financial quality

During the last decade, socially responsible investment (SRI) initiatives have grown to become a mainstream financial service in many countries. However, to date, only a few studies focus on understanding the final investor of such initiatives. This article focuses on one particularly overlooked aspect of SRI behavior; that of customer post-purchase satisfaction. A theoretical model of satisfaction with SRI-profiled mutual funds is developed and tested. The results indicate that perceived financial performance of the SRI-profiled mutual fund is the most important predictor of customer satisfaction. However, perceived environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance also had a positive impact on satisfaction for the SRI mutual fund. On the basis of these results, it is argued that although ESG quality is important to customers, marketers of SRI initiatives should primarily focus on the conventional quality attributes such as financial performance, as a good ESG record alone is unlikely to generate customer satisfaction.     

Heterogeneous trade agreements,WTO membership and international trade: an analysis using matching econometrics

This article explores the heterogeneous effects of trade agreements (TAs) and World Trade Organization (WTO) membership on the volume of international trade. We extend Baier and Bergstrand’s (2009a) application of matching econometrics by distinguishing between different types of TAs and WTO participation and account for the endogenous nature of trade policy. For a panel data set covering 1960–2005 and 187 countries, we find that the treatment effect on international trade systematically varies with the type of TA and WTO membership.     

Multiplicative noise,fast convolution and pricing

In this work we detail the application of a fast convolution algorithm to compute high-dimensional integrals in the context of multiplicative noise stochastic processes. The algorithm provides a numerical solution to the problem of characterizing conditional probability density functions at arbitrary times, and we apply it successfully to quadratic and piecewise linear diffusion processes. The ability to reproduce statistical features of financial return time series, such as thickness of the tails and scaling properties, makes these processes appealing for option pricing. Since exact analytical results are lacking, we exploit the fast convolution as a numerical method alternative to Monte Carlo simulation both in the objective and risk-neutral settings. In numerical sections we document how fast convolution outperforms Monte Carlo both in speed and efficiency terms.     

The Danish agricultural revolution in an energy perspective: a case of development with few domestic energy sources

This article examines the case of Denmark—a country which historically had next to no domestic energy resources—for which new historical energy accounts are presented for the years 1800–1913. It demonstrates that Denmark's take‐off at the end of the nineteenth century was relatively energy dependent. This is related to Denmark's well‐known agricultural transformation and development through the dairy industry, and thus the article complements the literature which argues that expensive energy hindered industrialization, by arguing that similar obstacles would have precluded other countries from a more agriculture‐based growth. The Danish cooperative creameries, which spread throughout the country over the last two decades of the nineteenth century, were dependent on coal. Although Denmark had next to no domestic coal deposits, this article demonstrates that Danish geography allowed cheap availability throughout the country through imports. On top of this it emphasizes that another important source of energy was imported feed for cows.     

Female entrepreneurial leadership factors

This article presents the foundations, current structure and trend of academic research into leadership factors in female entrepreneurship to provide scholars in the field with an overview of the followed research directions and to explore whether the same traditional patterns are reproduced in gender studies on entrepreneurship and leadership. For this purpose, a bibliometric analysis of the Web of Science database from 2000 to 2020 was used. With a performance analysis of variables (e.g. authors, publications, journals and countries), and thanks to scientific mapping, the links among these variables were studied. The results show that the trend of publications increased from 2015, but with little influence and output. The most influential and productive countries are the USA and Spain. 35% of the journals are based in the USA and 25% in England. The most influential ones deal with entrepreneurship, business, management and leadership. Although the foundational base is influenced by the author Ahl, known for calling for new research directions related to women entrepreneurs from a social construction perspective, the most influential articles continue to investigate gender with a dominant male bias. The network analysis reveals cooperation between different countries and authors with the USA dominating. The ambiguity of entrepreneurial leadership field due to the overlap of entrepreneurship and leadership disciplines reveals through the co-citation of journals different specialisation areas: business and entrepreneurship, management and psychology, organisational behaviour. This work provides researchers with an overview that encourages them to overcome the dominant male normative lens from new epistemological perspectives.

     

Profitability and size of newly established firms

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - Does size matter for new firms and do they need to be large to be profitable? From small to large firms, a wide range of arguments have...