Digital economy and regulatory issues. Introduction

This special issue contributes to the topical field of Internet economics. The articles focus on multi-platform competition, the changing role of telecommunications regulation, issues of net neutrality, and open source software and innovation.     

Rank friction: an ordinal approach to persistent profitability

We present an ordinal method for studying persistence in firm profitability. The method is based on the degree of stability in a ranked performance distribution over time. The method gives a numerical index of rank friction (Rf) that can be applied to any ranked data over any period of time. Rf is nonparametric and can be used to test theoretical assumptions in strategic management. We illustrate the method in an empirical study of 40 years of profit data in 12 industries. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

State–third Sector Partnerships: A short overview of key issues in the debate

Abstract

The theme of partnership with the third sector has been on the agenda of public management research for a long time now, not least in this journal. As an introduction to a special issue on this topic, the article discusses two issues crucial to further study of this phenomenon. The first on the types or categories that can be distinguished when comparing these partnerships between countries or policy fields; the second how recent public management reforms (especially of the New Public Management variety) have affected the nature of third sector organizations and their role in relation to the state.     

A low growth path in Austria: potential causes,consequences and policy options

This paper reports on an Austrian research project that deals with the question how the Austrian society could cope with long-lasting low economic growth. Various causes of low-growth that are relevant for Austria (a deteriorating balance of trade, increasing resource prices, consumer restraint of households and less immigration) have been identified, leading to an only moderate gross domestic product growth of 0.55 % per year. The resulting impact on the economy is substantial: the labour market suffers from a shortage of labour supply (due to reduced migration) and from a reduced demand for labour (due to reduced demand in consumption, investments and exports). Subsequently, less employment decreases the development of the disposable income of private households (tax rates and social security contributions held constant). Related to this, public debt is higher due to reduced tax incomes and slightly growing public expenditures. From an ecological perspective, resource consumption increases at a slower rate, however, no absolute reduction can be reached. CO₂ emissions also slightly increase. Therefore, it cannot be assumed that low growth necessarily leads to the achievement of energy and environmental policy goals. Based on these results, a policy scenario was used to analyze whether and how policy measures are able to cope with the negative consequences of persistent low growth. The results reveal that the selected measures are suitable to reduce negative economic effects: The implementation of reduced working time and an eco-social reform of levies might improve the labour market situation. The negative effects on the national budget can be diminished by a reduction of environmentally harmful subsidies. Induced behaviour changes of private households can reduce energy and resource-intensive consumption.     

Value Creation,Management Competencies,and Global Corporate Citizenship: An Ordonomic Approach to Business Ethics in the Age of Globalization

This article develops an “ordonomic” approach to business ethics in the age of globalization. Through the use of a three-tiered conceptual framework that distinguishes between the basic game of antagonistic social cooperation, the meta game of rule-setting, and the meta-meta game of rule-finding discourse, we address three questions, the answers to which we believe are crucial to fostering effective business leadership and corporate social responsibility. First, the purpose of business in society is value creation. Companies have a social mandate to organize mutually advantageous cooperation. Second, business ethics should teach the management competencies necessary to fulfill business’s societal mandate. These competencies are optimization competence in the basic game of value creation, governance competence in the meta game of (political) rule setting, and the three discourse-related skills of orientation competence, reception competence, and communication competence necessary for engaging in the meta-meta game. Third, companies can help solve global problems through global corporate citizenship if they participate as political and moral actors in rule-setting processes and rule-finding discourse aimed at laying the foundation for value creation on a global scale.     

III. Weltwirtschaft und Wirtschaft einzlner Länder und Gebiete

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Protectionism and international banking : Sectorial efficiency, competitive structure and National policy

This paper deals with barriers to trade in services. More specifically, the paper deals with competition and its absence in the provision of international intermediation services by banks. Section 2 of the paper examines the substitutability of international trade and FDI (foreign direct investment) in the services sector as a basis for international competition. It also considers the overlap between commercial policy measures and regulations governing the entry and operations of foreign affiliates. Section 3 describes the types of restrictions imposed on foreign banks and evaluates their effects. Existing practices in some countries are outlined in the fourth section. The countries are the U.S., the U.K., Switzerland, Australia, Brazil and Taiwan. Section 5 evaluates competitive conditions in offshore banking centers, and compares them with conditions in onshore markets. The last section evaluates the costs and the benefits of an ‘open’ (free-trade) banking system. Such a system will tend to improve world welfare as well as the welfare of those countries who have a comparative advantage in international banking. The results are not clear with regard to the countries who have a comparative disadvantage in banking.     

What Determines Demographic Similarity Between Incumbent CEOs and Their Successors? A CEO Informal Power Perspective

As CEOs reach the end of their tenure, they attempt to influence the decision about who will replace them in order to safeguard what they have put in place. This prompts them to favor candidates who share similar demographic profiles whom they believe will carry on where they leave off. We suggest that as CEOs are not usually given the authority to name a successor, they make use of informal power to exert their influence. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 137 CEO successions in 67 German diversified companies between 1985 and 2007 and find strong support for our theoretical reasoning that the more informal power incumbent CEOs have, the greater the demographic similarity between them and their successors. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seeking distinctiveness through divestments: CEO succession and the effect of demographic similarity on the divestment of predecessor's investments

Why do successor CEOs divest those organizational units that they divest shortly after taking office? In order to contribute to this question, we take a behavioral perspective and develop a theoretical framework that draws on pioneering work in social psychology, in particular, research on individuals' need for distinctiveness and argue that demographic similarity to their CEO predecessors may evoke negative affect as it threatens CEO successors' need for distinctiveness. Assuming that CEOs are high need for distinctiveness individuals, we argue that negative emotions associated with similarity to their CEO predecessors are likely to force CEO successors to engage in behavioral coping strategies aimed at restoring a sense of distinctiveness. In particular, we predict and empirically observe that demographic similarity increases the likelihood that in their pursuit of distinctiveness, CEO successors deliberately divest specific organizational units, namely, those that their CEO predecessors had invested in.