Solution business models: Transformation along four continua

Using a business model perspective, we identify four continua that are of specific relevance for industrial firms transforming toward solution business models: customer embeddedness, offering integratedness, operational adaptiveness, and organizational networkedness. Using these continua, we explore the opportunities and challenges related to solution business model development in two different business logics that are of particular importance in an industrial context: ‘installed-base’ (IB) and ‘input-to-process’ (I2P). The paper draws on eight independent research projects, spanning an eleven-year period, involving a total of 52 multinational enterprises. The findings show that the nature and importance of the continua differ between the I2P and IB business logics. IB firms can almost naturally transition toward solutions, usually through increasing customer embeddedness and offering integratedness, and then by addressing issues around the other continua. For I2P firms, the changes needed are less transitional. Rather, they have to completely change their mental models and address the development needs on all continua simultaneously.     

Strategizing as networking for new ventures

Strategizing as networking has become a powerful theme particularly in the IMP tradition. This paper focuses on new ventures and how these develop through the relationships formed by them. Strategizing through network development concerns how the firm perceives its network of interconnected relationships and how it interacts with other actors in relation to these perceptions. The aim of the paper is to identify patterns in the network development of new ventures and in how their strategizing relates to this development. The paper is based on a longitudinal case study of three new ventures. The case study captures the firms' ‘stories’ of how the networks of relationships have developed since their start. Based on the case illustrations we identify three patterns of how the new ventures strategize in their networking and how they network in their strategizing. These patterns concern: (1) exploration and exploitation of similarities, (2) knowledge sharing among customers, and (3) developing relationships with mediating partners. All three rely on interaction with counterparts that provide access to external resources which is of particular importance for new ventures.     

Pricing Sovereign Credit Risk of Poland: Evidence from the CDS Market

We analyze the market assessment of sovereign credit risk using a reduced-form model to price the credit default swap (CDS) spreads, thus enabling us to derive values for the probability of default (PD) and loss given default (LGD) from the quotes of sovereign CDS contracts. We compare different specifications of the models allowing for both fixed and time-varying LGD, and we use these values to analyze the sovereign credit risk of Polish debt throughout the period of a global financial crisis. Our results suggest the presence of a low LGD and a relatively high PD during a recent financial crisis.     

The central bank as shaper and observer of events: The case of the yield spread

The yield spread has commonly been employed as a successful predictor of economic growth and recessions, although its marginal predictive power has decreased since the 1990s. Notably, the yield spread's declining power to predict US economic activity coincided with its growing power to predict US interest rate changes. In my view, these phenomena are inevitably linked and share one cause. The central bank intended to enhance both its transparency and credibility through greater information disclosure; this disclosure improved interest rate predictability but might also have crowded out useful private information formerly in the yield spread that helped predict economic activity.     

Ambient Air Pollution in China: Predicting a Turning Point

One of the most debatable questions among developmental economists and sinologists today is the question that deals with the time it would take China to reduce its current ambient air pollution levels to the levels acceptable by the World Health Organization. Some studies suggest that an increase in the standard of living would improve the environmental situation, a phenomenon that is termed the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). The objective of this study is to estimate the EKC and identify major factors leading to ambient air pollution in China during 2004–2013. We use time-series panel data in 27 provinces to estimate the variability in the levels of ambient air pollution as measured by particulate matter, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. Some policy implications are drawn.     

Remittances and the Effectiveness of Foreign Aid

We argue that donors could improve the effectiveness of foreign aid by pursuing complementary and coherent non‐aid policies. In particular, we hypothesize that aid has stronger growth effects if recipients receive more aid from donors who allow for (temporary) worker mobility and (more permanent) migration. We focus on overall remittances paid by the donor countries to proxy for worker mobility and migration. Our empirical results support the hypothesis that higher remittances paid by donor countries strengthen the growth effects of foreign aid.     

Making an effort for free – volunteers' roles in destination-based storytelling

Many destinations are dependent on volunteers. Storytelling is one of the areas to which volunteers are increasingly contributing; however, the role of volunteers has been offered only sporadic attention. The aim of this study is to provide insights into volunteer involvement by studying volunteers as destination stakeholders with focus on their roles, influence, and contribution. A cross-case analysis of three Nordic cases is undertaken. A theoretical framework is developed based on volunteer tourism, stakeholder theory, and marketing literature on storytelling. A three-phase model of the storytelling process is developed. Findings show substantial variation. Unsurprisingly, early inclusion of volunteers result in substantial influence on the storytelling concept, however, this does not guarantee volunteer involvement later on. Conversely, late inclusion of volunteers does not necessarily hinder engagement among volunteers in the execution of the stories. All cases demonstrate that developing a strong concept that can tie together the efforts of stakeholders across professional and volunteer divides is a major challenge. The results point at the importance of strategic goals coordinating storytelling activities, volunteer inclusion, and ‘use’ of volunteers' local knowledge and enthusiasm in all phases of the destination-based storytelling process planned along with strategic goals such as ‘selling place’ or ‘building community’.     

R&D investment dynamics in agglomerations under weak appropriability regimes: Evidence from Indian R&D labs

What are the dynamics of R&D investment when firms agglomerate in environments with weak intellectual property rights protection? Specifically, do foreign and domestic firms present equal opportunities for free riding by domestic firms in such environments? We examine the impact on local firms' R&D investment from knowledge spillovers originating from co‐located foreign and domestic firms within and across industries. Building on fieldwork in India, we predict free riding by local firms on nearby foreign and local firms. Furthermore, we expect local firms to free ride more from other local firms within their industry and from foreign firms across industries. Analyzing a sample of 3,475 R&D lab investment decisions during 2003–2010 in India, we find that local firms free ride from other local firms both within and across industries. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emotions,trading practices and communication in transnational itinerant trade: encounters between ‘Rucksack Russians’ and their customers in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Finland

ABSTRACT

This article examines relations between ‘Rucksack Russians’, itinerant traders from Russian Karelia, and their local customers in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century rural Finland. Finland was a part of the Russian Empire, but, according to Finnish law, itinerant trade was illegal for people without citizenship rights in the Grand Duchy. The trade was, thus, illicit, although often seen through the fingers. We study trader–customer relations through emotions, trading practices and communication, with a special focus on the consumption of women. We argue that analysing the relations from these perspectives deepens the understanding of the functions of itinerant trade for the shaping of a consumer society. For access to a consumer perspective, we use ethnographic questionnaires, a source type that historians have acknowledged only in recent decades. The questionnaires complement and nuance the predominantly negative attitudes towards itinerant trade conveyed in the newspapers, which mainly represent the viewpoints of the authorities and local merchants. Through the theoretical perspectives and through shifting focus from the consumption of the elite to that of that of the lower strata of society, the article offers a fresh take on such aspects of trader–consumer relations that previous historical research on itinerant trade has overlooked.