The greening dutchman: Philips' process of green flagging to drive sustainable innovations

Sustainability innovation research often focuses on the interrelation and the interaction of influencing factors and actors while neglecting the importance of firm internal initiatives. Based on a longitudinal case study of the Dutch company Royal Philips Electronics, we develop the concept of ‘green flagging’ as a groundbreaking corporate sustainability innovation strategy. This paper describes how Philips uses this approach in its Green Flagship Program (GFP). Philips' GFP is particularly interesting since it sets specific targets across all its business units, thus driving the integration of sustainability innovation into its core business. This study suggests that the impact of sustainability innovations can be improved by focusing on sustainability as an explicit goal as well as processes and projects instead of merely concentrating on content and structure. We discuss the possibilities and limitations of these findings for theory and research on sustainability innovation strategies. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Predictors of safety behaviour among emergency responders on the highways

Safety behaviour is one of the main determinants of job-related accidents. Few studies have focused on safety behaviour of emergency responders. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the impact of psychosocial predictors on safety behaviour, taking into consideration a sample of Italian emergency responders operating on the highways (N?=?203). Results showed that adherence to safety procedures, reporting accident risk and use of individual protection devices were predicted by risk perception and safety climate. The attitude of priorities of rescue operations vs. safety predicted reporting accident risk. The conceptual and practical implications that emerged are discussed.     

Interview with Jean‐Philippe Courtois,CEO, Microsoft EMEA

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services, and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. One of the most successful corporations in the world by any standard of measurement, Microsoft EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) is highly committed to a vast and particularly varied region, with more than 12,000 employees and over 60 local offices delivering products and services in 139 countries across the region. Gabriele Suder interviewed Jean‐Philippe Courtois, CEO of Microsoft EMEA and senior vice president in the Microsoft Corporation, about the company's case at the European Commission, and about the significance of the European business environment to international operations. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The New Deal for Young People Five Years On*

The New Deal for Young People is the major welfare‐to‐work programme in the UK. It is a mandatory multistage policy targeted at 18‐ to 24‐year‐old unemployed people. This paper investigates the long‐term effectiveness of the programme in terms of enhancing the (re‐)employment probability of participating men. It exploits the eligibility rule to identify a suitable counterfactual relying upon a simple regression discontinuity design. The combination of job‐search assistance, training, wage subsidies and job experience enhances employability by about 4.6 per cent and this effect lasts over different cohorts.     

Monetary policy regimes: Implications for the yield curve and bond pricing

We develop a multivariate dynamic term structure model, which takes into account the nonlinear (time-varying) relation between interest rates and the state of the economy. In contrast to the classical term structure literature, in which nonlinearities are captured by increasing the number of latent state variables or by latent regime shifts, in our no-arbitrage framework the regimes are governed by thresholds and are directly linked to economic fundamentals. Specifically, starting from a simple monetary policy model for the short rate, we introduce a parsimonious and tractable model for the yield curve, which takes into account the possibility of regime shifts in the behavior of the Federal Reserve. In our empirical analysis, we show the merit of our approach three dimensions: interpretable bond dynamics, accurate short end yield curve pricing, and yield curve implications.     

Exploring the role of internationalization knowledge in fostering strategic renewal: A dynamic capabilities perspective

Internationalization knowledge (IK) is important to successfully enter and develop competitive strategies abroad. Yet, how IK is advanced and improved across the multinational enterprise (MNE), and how this contributes to the MNE’s strategic renewal is less understood. This analysis is based on an in-depth case study of Microsoft International to explore how IK is advanced, improved, and integrated across the enterprise. Our findings suggest that IK plays a critical role in fostering strategic renewal of an MNE. More specifically, sensing, seizing, and transforming capabilities jointly provide the necessary basis that enable IK to facilitate strategic renewal. We contribute to the literature by (1) explicating three categories of IK and their hierarchical relationship; (2) reveal how three distinct capabilities required by MNEs capture and integrate the three categories of IK across the enterprise; and, (3) offering that strategic renewal is triggered by routines based on the development and integration of IK.     

Short‐ and Long‐Run Policy Evaluation: Support for Grassland‐Based Milk Production in Switzerland

Following the abolition of the milk quota in 2008, farmers in Switzerland strongly increased the use of concentrate feed in milk production. Against this background, the Swiss government introduced the voluntary grassland‐based milk and meat (GMF) programme in 2014, which combines economic incentives with feeding restrictions to reduce the reliance on concentrate feed and increase the use of grass feed. We analyse the economic and ecological impacts of the GMF programme at the farm and at the sector level in the short‐ and long‐run. We use a difference‐in‐differences approach (ex‐post) and an agent‐based simulation model SWISSland (ex‐ante) to construct counterfactual states to evaluate the programme's impacts. We find that the GMF programme reduces the use of concentrate feed and increases the use of grass feed in Swiss milk production. Whereas the programme has a positive effect on economic indicators such as the farm income, we find no effect on ecological indicators such as the N surplus. Our analysis suggests that feeding restrictions on concentrate feed are not enough to achieve a reduction in the N surplus. Additional feeding restrictions on grassland are necessary. Furthermore, the GMF programme has a dampening effect on sectoral milk supply, and leads to a higher milk price.