Does Green Public Procurement lead to Life Cycle Costing (LCC) adoption?

Life Cycle Costing (LCC) is rarely used in public procurement and public institutions have yet to fully understand its potential value for sustainable procurement. The new European Directive on Public Procurement is, however, designed to position LCC as central to sustainable sourcing. Although previous studies have identified positive correlations between Green Public Procurement Policies (GPP) and LCC, it is still unclear how public institutions can further adopt LCC practices by leveraging their experience of green sourcing. In this study an organizational learning theoretical perspective is taken to investigate the circumstances under which public administrations’ experience of GPP – considered as a way of integrating the dimension of environmental sustainability into the sourcing process – stimulates their LCC learning and capabilities – considered as a way to include the sustainability economic dimension. The goal is to understand if the adoption of GPP can stimulate the internalisation of LCC in public tenders. A multinomial logistic regression was conducted using a sample of 120 public administrations located in different countries. The results show that experience of GPP stimulates the internalisation of LCC at a public level, but only under specific conditions. The study contributes to the Sustainable Supply Management literature, being one of the first studies in the field adopting an organizational learning theoretical lens to review the role of experience as significant opportunity to develop capabilities. It also contributes to the organizational learning theory, by confirming that experience can aid learning but only in specific environmental contexts.     

Predictors of organizational citizenship behavior in relation to environmental and health & safety issues

Abstract

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) in relation to the environment and health and safety, commonly shaped by individual and voluntary initiatives, are essential factors for a smooth and efficient organization in firms. Our research explores the factors affecting OCBs related to environmental and health and safety issues in a Multinational Enterprise (MNE) operating in the oil & gas sector. More in detail, we tested the influence of personal attitudes, self-efficacy, organizational support and social norm on OCBs related to environmental and health and safety issues. The results show that personal attitudes and self-efficacy positively influence OCBs related to environmental and health and safety issues and those factors are influenced respectively by perceived organizational support and social norm. Moreover, we found that attitudes play a full mediation between social norm and OCBs related to environmental and health and safety issues and that organizational support on organization citizenship behavior for the environment and health and safety that is partially mediated through the perceived self efficacy. Finally, the results of our investigation are contextualized in the theoretical and managerial frameworks pointing to a number of avenues for further research.     

The influence of managerial satisfaction on corporate environmental performance and reputation

Organizational studies have widely debated the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance. Some papers have dealt with managerial satisfaction and businesses' performance adopting agency theory to interpret the results. However, no studies have yet considered the relationship between the satisfaction levels of an environmental manager and corporate environmental performance. This paper thus analyses the role played by the environmental manager's satisfaction in enhancing corporate environmental performance and reputation. The paper uses data from a survey of 412 Eco Management and Audit Scheme registered organizations. The results show a positive relationship between managerial satisfaction and environmental performance, whereas no such positive relationship was found when considering eco‐innovation performance. In addition, the environmental manager's satisfaction has a positive and indirect influence on the corporate environmental reputation. These results contribute to the literature on agency theory and aim to extend the debate between job satisfaction and job performance to the sustainable business field.     

Exchange rate risk exposure and the value of European firms

This paper presents a new assessment of the exposure of European firms to exchange rate fluctuations which takes into account the potential common drivers of exchange rates and equity market conditions. Using monthly data for European firms from 1999 to 2011, we assess the impact of unexpected fluctuations in the USD, JPY, GBP and CHF against the Euro, and show that the proportion of firms subject to exchange rate risk is considerably larger when estimation accounts for potential common drivers and firm-specific factors than otherwise. Firm exposure to exchange rate risk is affected by the level of international involvement, industry, firm size and country of origin. European firms with largely domestic operations reveal the greatest vulnerability to unexpected exchange rate movements, suggesting an opportunity to improve risk management for these companies.     

Mis-measurement of inequality: a critical reflection and new insights

This article documents that the Gini index is an insufficient measure of inequality and, according to the traditional logic of interpretation, that it may lead to incorrect deductions. Since, apart from concentration, it cannot grasp other relevant features of inequality like heterogeneity and asymmetry—which, beyond its intensity, allow for considering the direction of inequality too—we suggest using the less known Zanardi index of asymmetry of the Lorenz curve as an appropriate measure of inequality. Our findings are supported with estimates from the Luxembourg Income Study Database.

     

Learning and dynamic choices under uncertainty: From weighted regret and rejoice to expected utility

This paper identifies the globally stable conditions under which an individual facing the same choice in many subsequent times learns to behave as prescribed by the expected‐utility model. The analysis moves from the relevant behavioural models suggested by psychology, by updating probability estimations and outcome preferences according to the learning models suggested by neuroscience, in a manner analogous to Bayesian updating. The search context is derived from experimental economics, whereas the learning framework is borrowed from theoretical economics. Analytical results show that the expected‐utility model explains real behaviours in the long run whenever bad events are more likely than good events.     

Uncertainty about fundamental,pessimistic and overconfident traders: a piecewise-linear maps approach

Decisions in Economics and Finance - We analyze a financial market model with heterogeneous interacting agents where fundamentalists and chartists are considered. We assume that fundamentalists are...     

Crop Insurance Valuation under Alternative Yield Distributions

Considerable disagreement exists about the most appropriate characterization of farm-level yield distributions. Yet, the economic importance of alternative yield distribution specifications on crop insurance valuation has not been well documented. The results of this study demonstrate that large differences in expected payouts from popular crop insurance products can arise solely from the parameterization chosen to represent yield distributions. The results suggest that the frequently unexamined yield distribution specification may lead to economically significant errors in crop insurance policy rating and assessment of expected payouts from policies.     

The Effect of Venture Capital Financing on the Sensitivity to Cash Flow of Firm's Investments

This work studies the effect of venture capital (VC) financing on firms' investments in a longitudinal sample of 379 Italian unlisted new‐technology‐based firms (NTBFs) observed over the 10‐year period from 1994 to 2003. We distinguish the effects of VC financing according to the type of investor: independent VC (IVC) funds and corporate VC (CVC) investors. Previous studies argue that NTBFs are the firms most likely to be financially constrained. The technology‐intensive nature of their activity and their lack of a track record increase adverse selection and moral hazard problems. Moreover, most of their assets are firm‐specific or intangible and hence cannot be pledged as collateral. In accordance with this view, we show that the investment rate of NTBFs is strongly positively correlated with their current cash flows. We also find that after receiving VC financing, NTBFs increase their investment rate independently of the type of VC investor. However, the investments of CVC‐backed firms remain sensitive to shocks in cash flows, whereas IVC‐backed firms exhibit a low and statistically not significant investment–cash flow sensitivity that we interpret as a signal of the removal of financial constraints.     

Agroindustrialization of the global agrifood economy: bridging development economics and agribusiness research

This paper examines the agroindustrialization process from two supposedly disparate views: development economics and agribusiness research. The evolution of conceptual and methodological approaches emanating from these fields is explored and general observations are made concerning farm economic interdependence, institutional and organizational change, differing scopes of interest, the causes of agroindustrialization, orientation, and the choice of microanalytic tools, terminology, and unit of analysis. Despite an impressive list of hurdles, disincentives, and disconnects, complementarities between the two fields are identified. The paper concludes by exploring the potential of bridging development economics and agribusiness research to inform the future agroindustrialization research agenda.