Value Capture and Policy Design in a Digital Economy

Pervasive information and communication technology (ICT), intertwined with global dispersion of supply chains, is inducing a sizable structural transformation. All the articles in this special issue highlight that even though technology is the key driver, the reactions of businesses and countries to these transformations will depend on economic, political, and social arrangements within each organization and society. The competitive landscape of the ICT industry itself is likely to remain in flux. Also in other industries, both value creation and value capture are becoming increasingly complex—and remain more favorable for the developed countries than some commonly used measures suggest. According to the prevailing economic thinking, public policies should set market-friendly “rules of the game” and then stay out of the way. In the ICT domain, technical standards, spectrum allocations, and market power associated with various types of lock-ins play crucial roles calling for more active public involvement. In particular, the dynamic aspects of competition and anti-trust policies are important yet complex. While there is limited scope for sectoral or horizontal industrial policies, this special issue provides alternative avenues for considering matrix or systemic policies emphasizing education, openness, and national competitiveness.     

Zur Reform der Pflegeversicherung: Einstieg in ein nachhaltiges und wettbewerbliches System

Bundesgesundheitsminister R?sler hat für 2011 eine umfassende Pflegereform sowohl der Leistungsseite als auch der Einnahmenstruktur angekündigt. Die Autoren dieses Beitrags machen den Vorschlag, die umlagefinanzierte Pflegeversicherung um eine kapitalgedeckte S?ule zu erg?nzen.     

Does the Ethical Culture of Organisations Promote Managers’ Occupational Well-Being? Investigating Indirect Links via Ethical Strain

The present study had two major aims: first, to examine the construct validity of the Finnish 58-item Corporate Ethical Virtues scale (CEV; Kaptein in J Org Behav 29:923–947, 2008) and second, to examine whether the associations between managers’ perceptions of ethical organisational culture and their occupational well-being (emotional exhaustion and work engagement) are indirectly linked by ethical strain, i.e. the tension which arises from the difference in the ethical values of the individual and the organisation he or she works for. The sample consisted of 902 managers from different organisations, in middle and upper management levels, aged 25–68 years. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) provided support to the hypothesised eight-factor structure of the CEV scale; i.e. the scale contained the factors of clarity, congruency of supervisors, congruency of senior management, feasibility, supportability, transparency, discussability and sanctionability. In addition, it emerged from the CFAs that the high intercorrelations of these factors can be explained by the second-order factor of ethical culture. The managers’ perceptions of the ethical culture prevailing in their organisations were associated with their occupational well-being both directly (high-work engagement) and indirectly via a low level of ethical strain (low-emotional exhaustion). Thus, the findings indicated that the ethical culture of organisations plays a major role in managers’ occupational well-being.     

Leapfrogging to Sustainable Consumption? An Explorative Survey of Consumption Habits and Orientations in Southern Brazil

In current political and scientific debates on sustainable consumption, the low- and middle-income classes of emerging countries are gaining attention. One common feature of such debates is the idea that these emerging consumer classes could be motivated to “leapfrog” directly to environmentally and socially aware consumption patterns and, thereby, avoid adopting the resource-intensive consumption styles of populations in industrialized countries. To be able to adapt sustainable product development or sustainable communication strategies to the needs of low- and medium-income classes, it is necessary to know more about the basic consumption orientations, current consumption habits, and future consumption aspirations of these societal groups. In order to contribute towards filling that knowledge gap, an exploratory survey was conducted, taking the example of emerging low- and middle-income classes in a Southern Brazilian city. The survey identified five different consumer types: the Home-Centered Traditionals, the Indifferent, the Up-to-date Privileged, the Wanna-be Materialists, and the Quality of Life-Oriented Postmaterialists. The paper outlines some ideas concerning how these types can be addressed with target-group-specific products and services as well as differentiated sustainability communication strategies. We conclude, however, that “leapfrogging” of Brazilian low- and middle-income classes towards sustainable consumption is not a very likely option. There are certain consumption orientations that sustainability strategies can link to, but these trends are not likely to compensate the general tendencies towards a resource-intensive lifestyle following the model of the industrialized countries.     

Status Quo and Potential of XBRL for Business and Information Systems Engineering

The paper examines the current state of research as regards the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) by using the literature review methodology. The results show that an empirical-quantitative research design is used most of the time. The contributions vary in substance in terms of research on XBRL and research with XBRL. Research with XBRL focuses on the development of conceptual XBRL extensions. Work on XBRL considers, for example, the changes in reporting as a result of XBRL as well as the acceptance and enforcement of financial reporting standards. The results point to open issues and are relevant for research and practice.     

Small business survival and inheritance: evidence from Germany

This paper investigates whether small businesses face financial constraints that affect their survival. A model of moral hazard is developed in which financial constraints arise endogenously. The model predicts that higher private assets relax financial constraints and have a positive effect on the firm’s probability of survival. The empirical analysis confirms that the entrepreneur has a higher propensity to stay in business when she inherits capital. This effect is particularly strong for entrepreneurs who switch from self-employment into wage employment.

Is the Ethical Culture of the Organization Associated with Sickness Absence? A Multilevel Analysis in a Public Sector Organization

The main aim of the present study was to examine whether an ethical organizational culture is associated with sickness absence in a Finnish public sector organization at both the individual (within-level) and work unit (between-level) levels. The underlying assumption was that employees working for organizations that are characterized by a strong ethical organizational culture report less sickness absence. The sample consisted of 2192 employees from one public sector city organization that included 246 different work units. Ethical organizational culture was measured with the Corporate Ethical Virtues scale covering eight sub-dimensions. Sickness absence was inquired by asking the participants to report how many days they had been absent from work because of their own sickness over the past year. Multilevel structural equation modelling showed that, at the individual level, perceptions of a strong ethical organizational culture were associated with less sickness absences after controlling for the background factors. This link was not found at the work-unit level. The findings indicate that an ethical organizational culture plays a significant role in enhancing employee well-being measured as sickness absence. It seems that especially supervisor’s ethical role modeling and possibilities to discuss about ethical issues are important factors in preventing sickness absence in the organizations.     

Customer perceived value,satisfaction, and loyalty: the role of willingness to share information

This study proposes and tests an integrative model to examine the relationships among customers’ willingness to share information, satisfaction, perceived value, and loyalty in a retailing context. This study extends research on customers’ willingness to share information from trust and privacy concerns toward key outcome measures such as perceived value, customer satisfaction, and loyalty, and is thus among the first to model customers’ willingness to share information with companies in robust theoretical retailing frameworks. The proposed relationships were tested using data from two retailing contexts – groceries (N = 429) and do-it-yourself (DIY) (N = 895). Findings from the two samples suggest that both perceived value and satisfaction are significant determinants of customers’ willingness to share information with a company. Although some differences emerge in the two studies, structural modeling largely supports the hypothesized framework and positions customers’ willingness to share information as an important antecedent of their loyalty intentions and behavior. This study provides practitioners with preliminary insight into the relationship between willingness to share information and perceived value, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. This study advances retailing research, as it is one of the few empirical studies investigating the role of customers’ willingness to share information in driving loyalty and its relationship with perceived value and satisfaction in a retailing context.