Fostering corporate sustainability in tourism management through social values within collective value co-creation processes

Collective value co-creation is not fully explored in management research. The phenomenon of social value co-creation has not been investigated in detail either, particularly regarding sustainable tourism management. In our work, we investigate the role of social values within the collective value co-creation process, as a key factor for building sustainable tourism management practices able to generate sustainable benefits to all stakeholders. The study setting is Sardex, a complementary currency community based in Sardinia (Italy). By adopting a qualitative methodology, and through face-to-face interviews, the entrepreneurs’ relationships were analysed using dialogue, trust, and reciprocity as core factors of value co-creation within the hospitality and tourism firms grouped in Sardex. Particularly, we explored whether, and to what extent, reciprocity was the salient factor in the process of value co-creation. Findings show that social values, and especially reciprocity, are the backbone of value co-creation: they foster corporate social orientation, which brings together corporate social responsibility and sustainability, and represent our contribution to enrichen theoretical and practical perspectives in this multidimensional field.     

Rent Rigidity,asymmetric information,and volatility bounds in labor markets

Two thirds of US unemployment volatility is due to fluctuations in workers' job-finding rate. In search and matching models, aggregate productivity shocks generate such fluctuations: via inputs in the matching technology, they affect the rate at which workers and firms come into contact. Quantitatively, this mechanism has been found to be negligible in a calibrated textbook model, but also more than sufficient if wages are completely rigid. We study a weaker concept of rigidity based on worker rents (wages in excess of the value of unemployment). We show that volatility is subject to an upper bound if worker rents are weakly procyclical, thus at best rigid. Quantitatively, with Rent Rigidity, the mechanism accounts for at most 20% of the variance of the job-finding rate. In light of this result we reexamine the question whether asymmetric information on gains from trade amplifies fluctuations. We analyze a series of bargaining solutions, and conclude that asymmetric information at best makes rents rigid. Our analysis provides a unifying perspective on a very lively debate.     

SIZE AND COMPOSITION OF PUBLIC SPENDING IN A NEOCLASSICAL GROWTH MODEL

This paper analyses the effect of public expenditures in a modified Solow model of capital accumulation with optimizing agents. The model identifies optimal government size and composition of public expenditures which maximize the rate of growth in the dynamics to the steady state and the long‐run level of per capita income. Different allocations of public resources lead to different growth rates in the transitional dynamics depending on their elasticities. However effects from fiscal policy are only temporary. Finally we argue that neglecting the non‐linear nature of the relationship between government spending and growth may lead empirical studies to biased results.     

Price,wage and employment response to shocks: evidence from the WDN survey

We analyse the relative intensity and character of price vs. cost and wage vs. employment firm-level adjustment to cost-push shocks in the European System of Central Banks Wage Dynamics Network (WDN) survey data set. The results document several statistically significant and theoretically sensible relationships: price increases are less likely when product market competition is more intense, and more likely when collective wage agreements or employment protection legislation constrain firm-level reactions. We discuss how changes of such structural and institutional features of firms and of their environment may underlie the evolution of macroeconomic adjustment mechanisms in Europe.     

Small-Medium Car Suppliers and Behavioural Models in Innovation

This article reports the results of an empirical study on the innovation capabilities of a sample of 25 Italian small-medium car suppliers. The aim of the paper is to highlight the capabilities, the behavioural models and the factors determining innovation: technology transfer, the role of sub-suppliers, the relationships with external research institutes and the obstacles to innovation. Inter-firm differences in the innovation process will be examined using multinomial logit analysis. The homogeneity of the sample allows the testing of some operating strategies that may contribute to more rapid technological change in mature industries such as: diversity, consolidation and co-operation.     

Competitive experimentation with private information: The survivor's curse

We study a winner-take-all R&D race between two firms that are privately informed about the arrival rate of an invention. Over time, each firm only observes whether the opponent left the race or not. The equilibrium displays a strong herding effect, that we call a ‘survivor's curse.’ Unlike in the case of symmetric information, the two firms may quit the race (nearly) simultaneously even when their costs and benefits for research differ significantly.     

A comparative study of stakeholder risk perception and risk communication in Europe: a bovine spongiform encephalopathy case study

The ‘Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) Roadmap’ was published by the European Commission on 15 July 2005. The TSE Roadmap proposes the relaxation of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) measures in the short, medium and long term. According to the Roadmap, any relaxation of BSE measures following the scientific assessment should be initiated by an open discussion with all stakeholders and supported by a strong communication strategy. This paper discusses the risk perception, risk communication and risk management of TSEs in Europe, exemplified by the TSE Roadmap. The main conclusion is that in general, BSE is no longer a ‘hot’ topic for stakeholders, but there are slight differences between countries with respect to specific measures. Another important conclusion is that the TSE Roadmap is a very effective tool for risk communication with stakeholders.     

Evaluation of national science park systems: a theoretical framework and its application to the Italian and Spanish systems

Although many authors have analysed the role and the efficiency of science parks, only a few contributions have analysed national science park systems (SPSs) as a whole. Because of the lack of data, evidence regarding the performance of science parks in a nation is very limited and there is a lack of comparisons between different systems. This paper aims to introduce a simple framework to analyse SPSs and to show its use for comparing the state of development and the main differences of two or more SPSs. Its application to the Italian and Spanish systems shows that science parks play a more important role in Spain than in Italy. The main causes of these differences are argued to be (i) the presence of a set of coherent and particular policies which favour science parks in Spain and (ii) the internal factors of the Spanish science park system, including business models of the science parks and the role of the national association.     

States as Ecologies of Political Enterprises

This paper seeks to overcome an antinomy within the theory of political economy: while market outcomes are treated as resulting from polycentric competition, political outcomes are treated as resulting from hierarchic planning. We seek to overcome this antinomy by treating political outcomes as likewise resulting from polycentric competition, taking due account of relevant institutional differences. For example, a parliamentary assembly is treated as an extra-ordinary form of investment bank that intermediates between the sponsors of enterprises and those within the citizenry who have means to support those enterprises. What results is a theory in which political programs emerge in largely bottom-up fashion through complex networks of transactions. Much of the inspiration for this paper arises from the Italian School of Public Finance, particularly Mazzola, Montemartini, Pantaleoni and de Viti de Marco.