Aktuelle Rechtsfragen der Umweltschadensversicherung

The paper provides an overview of current legal issues with regard to the environmental damage insurance, which exists in Germany since 2007. At the center of the observation are limitations of coverage, in particular the requirement of a malfunction of the business operations, the exclusion of qualitative risk changes and the cost deduction clause. In addition, the article deals with some issues of interpretation as well as of delimitation with regard to further insurance policies. By way of introduction the basics of the German Environmental Damage Act (USchadG) and its underlying EU Directive are shown. Finally, the authors discuss the question whether the environmental damage insurance should be configured as an obligatory insurance in the future.     

Board Committees in Corporate Governance: A Cross‐Disciplinary Review and Agenda for the Future

The importance of board committees – specialized subgroups that exist to perform many of the board's most critical functions, such as setting executive compensation, identifying potential board members, and overseeing financial reporting – has grown over time due to increased legal requirements and greater complexity of the environment in which firms operate. This has resulted in a large body of work examining board committees across the accounting, finance, and management disciplines. However, this research has developed rather independently within each discipline, preventing scholars and practitioners from developing a comprehensive understanding of board committees. To address this issue, we conduct a comprehensive review of the literature that: 1) summarizes and synthesizes antecedents and outcomes associated with board committees in publicly‐traded firms in English common law countries; and 2) offers a critical analysis of existing research, providing recommendations for advancements and new directions in board committee research.     

Seatbelt use among drivers in an urban city in Nigeria: an observational study

Studies from parts of Nigeria reported low compliance with seatbelt. This study sought to establish driver seatbelt use in Enugu, Nigeria by gender, vehicle type/use and time of day. Observations were done day and night at randomly selected locations. Data were analysed with SPSS version 15. Differences in response were checked with chi-square for trend. Confidence interval was 95% and P value < 0.05 was regarded as significant. Average compliance was 37.6% for the 510 males (85%) and 90 females (15%) observed. It was 74.8% in the day and 0.3% at night. Among males, 218 (42.7%) wore seatbelt while 9 (10%) females did. For commercial drivers 159 (65.2%) complied while 68 (19.1%) private drivers did. Truck drivers had 100% compliance while sports utility vehicle drivers had the lowest (18.8%). There is poor seatbelt compliance in Enugu, Nigeria and need for educational campaigns and stricter enforcement.     

Research bias in judgement bias studies – a systematic review of valuation judgement literature

Valuation judgement bias has been a research topic for several years due to its proclaimed effect on valuation accuracy. However, little is known on the emphasis of literature on judgement bias, with regard to, for instance, research methodologies, research context and robustness of research evidence. A synthesis of available research will establish consistency in the current knowledge base on valuer judgement, identify future research opportunities and support decision-making policy by educational and regulatory stakeholders how to cope with judgement bias. This article therefore, provides a systematic review of empirical research on real estate valuer judgement over the last 30 years. Based on a number of inclusion and exclusion criteria, we have systematically analysed 32 relevant papers on valuation judgement bias. Although we find some consistency in evidence, we also find the underlying research to be biased; the methodology adopted is dominated by a quantitative approach; research context is skewed by timing and origination; and research evidence seems fragmented and needs replication. In order to obtain a deeper understanding of valuation judgement processes and thus extend the current knowledge base, we advocate more use of qualitative research methods and scholars to adopt an interpretative paradigm when studying judgement behaviour.     

Does Consumer Well‐Being Affect Hedonic Consumption?

This article presents a theoretical model that reveals how consumers’ long‐term subjective well‐being (SWB) influences their spending on hedonic products. Using the longitudinal data from a large national panel survey, the study found that consumers’ SWB influences spending on hedonic products via the mediating effects of their positive interpretation of life circumstances and broadened set of activities resulting from positive emotions. The results are explained using cognitive tuning theory and broaden‐and‐build theory and have implications for hedonic products providers in terms of who their target audience is and how demand for their products is generated.     

Trade,conflict, and political integration: Explaining the heterogeneity of regional trade agreements

Many historians argue that the main goal of European trade integration was the preservation of peace. This paper investigates whether this reasoning is relevant for the EU and other regional trade agreements (RTAs). I provide empirical evidence that customs unions and common markets (deep RTAs) do reduce the probability of war between members. Partial scope and free trade agreements (shallow RTAs) however have no effect on war probabilities. Accordingly, international insecurity has a differential impact on incentives to create RTAs. Deep RTAs are signed between countries that are involved in many interstate disputes and that have low trade costs with the rest of the world, whereas the opposite is true for shallow RTAs.     

What's in a broken promissory obligation? Developing and testing a multiple component form measure of psychological contract breach

While the literature has suggested the possibility of breach being composed of multiple facets, no previous study has investigated this possibility empirically. This study examined the factor structure of typical component forms in order to develop a multiple component form measure of breach. Two studies were conducted. In study 1 (N = 420) multi-item measures based on causal indicators representing promissory obligations were developed for the five potential component forms (delay, magnitude, type/form, inequity and reciprocal imbalance). Exploratory factor analysis showed that the five components loaded onto one higher order factor, namely psychological contract breach suggesting that breach is composed of different aspects rather than types of breach. Confirmatory factor analysis provided further evidence for the proposed model. In addition, the model achieved high construct reliability and showed good construct, convergent, discriminant and predictive validity. Study 2 data (N = 189), used to validate study 1 results, compared the multiple-component measure with an established multiple item measure of breach (rather than a single item as in study 1) and also tested for discriminant validity with an established multiple item measure of violation. Findings replicated those in study 1. The findings have important implications for considering alternative, more comprehensive and elaborate ways of assessing breach.     

COOPERATION: THE POWER OF A SINGLE WORD? SOME EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE ON WORDING AND GENDER EFFECTS IN A GAME OF CHICKEN

Framing has been widely shown to affect decision making. In this paper, we investigate experimentally whether, and to what extent, cooperative behaviour in a Game of Chicken may be impacted by a very basic change in the labelling of the strategies. Our within‐subject experimental design involves two treatments. The only difference between them is that we introduce either a socially‐oriented wording (I cooperate/I do not cooperate) or colours (red/blue) to designate strategies. The level of cooperation appears to be higher in the socially‐oriented context, but only when uncertainty as regards the type of the partner is manipulated, and especially among females.     

Consumer Purchasing in Foreign Countries: A Perceived Risk Perspective

Increases in tourism and international business mean more non-nationals will be consuming products in foreign countries. No study has yet examined their purchasing behaviour using a perceived risk framework. This article reports the results of an exploratory study of national and non-national consumers who rated loss types and risk relievers for 24 products. In general non-nationals perceived more risk in product purchase and considerably more psychosocial loss than nationals. They also rated all risk relievers as significantly more useful than nationals. For both groups brand loyalty was the most useful risk reliever while celebrity endorsement was the least useful.     

The future of nanotechnologies

Nanotechnology is the first major worldwide research initiative of the 21st century. Nanotechnologies are applied to cross industrial problems and are a general purpose technology that acts as both a basis for technology solutions or at the convergence of other enabling technologies, like biotechnologies, computational sciences, physical sciences, communication technologies, cognitive sciences, social psychology and other social sciences. Nanotechnologies are pervasive solution vectors in our economic environment. It is necessary to develop new methods to assess nanotechnologies development to better understand nanotechnology based innovation. As general purpose and enabling technologies, nanotechnologies reveal commercialization processes, from start-ups to large firms in collaboration with public sector research, and which lead to changing patterns of industrial organization which influence public policy initiatives to foster their development.