THE REVOLUTION WITHIN: ICT AND THE SHIFTING KNOWLEDGE BASE OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST COMPANIES

This empirical article analyses the importance of information and communications technologies (ICT) in the technological diversification trend among the world's largest manufacturing firms during the 1980s and 1990s. The objective of the research is twofold: first, to emphasise the emerging differences among technologies when companies from different industries patent outside their traditional technological capabilities; secondly, to investigate whether the tendency among large companies from all industries to patent in ICT is distinctive when compared with the tendency to patent in other technologies. We find that technological diversification in large companies has clearly occurred in ICTs. Non-ICT specialist industries increasingly develop, rather than just utilise, the cluster of ICT-related technologies. We conclude that the development of corporate capabilities in the key technologies of the emerging ICT paradigm is more widespread than previously emphasised in the literature. One implication of this observation is that technological diversification and the information revolution may be related phenomena.     

To challenge the world view or to flow with it? Teaching sustainable development in business schools

This paper explores the fundamental question of what ‘responsibility’ means to different sets of world views adopted implicitly by business students. The exploration adopts the stakeholder theory and three subsets of the Friedman mentality to explain how individuals may value sustainability initiatives. Subsequently, it explores whether it is better to flow with the dominant economic‐driven world view as prescribed by the business school or to challenge it in order to cultivate business students with sustainability‐driven values. The conclusion highlights implications for business and management education, as well as the role of entrepreneurship to promote sustainability values.     

Post-Communist Borders and Territories: Conflicts,Learning and Rule-Building in Poland

In the post-Communist period, the territory — which under communism was an expression of the sovereignty of the centralized state — now carries the founding aspirations of local or regional communities which are determined to reconstitute political relations on a different basis. This is illustrated by focusing on negotiations to define cross-border (Oder-Neisse) economic privileges and on political competences in the region of Upper Silesia. An examination of these themes allows us to define the post-Communist identity as a construct of collective action, based on the reinvestment of various historical resources and on the formation of cleavages directed at redefining relations between the centre and the political periphery. Several features of the old political order have been reconstituted in this way. — Dans la période post-communiste, le territoire — qui sous le communisme était une expression de la souveraineté de l’état centralisé— supporte maintenant les aspirations fondatrices des communautés locales ou régionales qui sont résolues à reconstituer les relations politiques sur des bases différentes. Une examination des négociations pour définir des privilèges politiques à travers la frontière (Oder-Neisse) et pour les compétences politiques dans la région de Haute-Silésie illustre ceci. L’exploration de ces thèmes nous permet de définir l’identité post-communiste comme une construction de l’action collective, basée sur le réinvestissement de diverses ressources historiques et sur la formation de divisions orientées vers la redéfinition des relations entre le centre et périphérie politique. Plusieurs traits de l’ancien ordre politique ont ainsi été reconstitués.     

Productivity-Wage Gaps Among Age Groups: Does the ICT Environment Matter?

This paper disentangles the age-productivity-wage nexus by estimating productivity and wage equations with longitudinal employer-employee panel data for Belgium. Results indicate that workers above 49 years are significantly less productive than their younger colleagues. Moreover, while relative productivities across age groups are not found to differ significantly between ICT and non ICT firms, the upward sloping age-wage profile appears to be somewhat steeper in ICT firms. Yet, whatever the ICT environment, findings show that young workers are paid below and older workers above their marginal productivity. This pattern is in line with the deferred payment model developed by Lazear (J Polit Econ 87:1261–1284, 1979).     

EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE ON ENGLISH AUCTIONS: ORAL OUTCRY VERSUS CLOCK

This paper tests experimentally, in a common value setting, the equivalence between the Japanese English auction (or clock auction) and an oral outcry auction where bidders are allowed to call their own bids. We find that (i) bidding behaviour is different in each type of auction, but also that (ii) this difference in bidding behaviour does not affect significantly the auction prices. This lends some support to the equivalence between these two types of auction. The winner's curse is present: overbidding led to higher than expected prices (under Nash bidding strategies) in both types of auction. Although interesting and encouraging, the results clearly indicate that further research is necessary, particularly with a modified experimental design.     

The influence of empathy in complaint handling: Evidence of gratitudinal and transactional routes to loyalty

While most studies on complaint handling are focused on performance outcomes, analysis of the processes that reinforce relationship quality is lacking. Building on the relationship marketing theory of reciprocal behaviours, this research proposes and tests a model of the effects of empathy as a particular relationship recovery investment. Addressing for the first time the role of gratitude in a complaint-handling context, this model assumes that both gratitude and transactional satisfaction mediate the influence of empathy on consumers' trust and commitment. Data from a cross-industry survey of phone and online complaints confirmed the proposed model.     

Governance, Democracy and Poverty Reduction: Lessons Drawn from Household Surveys in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America

Public statistics face quite a challenge when it comes to measuring new dimensions of development (institutions, governance, and social and political participation). To take up this challenge, modules on Governance, Democracy and Multiple Dimensions of Poverty have been appended to household surveys by National Statistics Institutes in twelve African and Latin American developing countries. This paper presents the issues addressed and the methodological lessons learnt along with a selection of findings to illustrate this innovative approach and demonstrate its analytic potential. We investigate, for instance, the population's support for democratic principles, the respect for civil and political rights and the trust in the political class; the ‘need for the State’, particularly of the poorest; the extent of petty corruption; the reliability of expert surveys on governance; the perception of decentralization policies at local level; the level and vitality of social and political participation, etc. The conclusive appraisal made opens up prospects for the national statistical information systems in the developing countries. The measurement and tracking of this new set of objective and subjective public policy monitoring indicators would benefit from being made systematic.     

Construct validity and second-order factorial model

Three second-order factorial models are defined, using the LISREL notation, to assess the univocity of a construct. The first model assumes that the constructs are heterogeneous, the second that they are homogeneous. The third model introduces the notion of partial homogeneity between constructs. Partial homogeneity is defined in terms of a LISREL second-order factor model. In some cases, this model offers a viable alternative to the collapsing of items into a unique scale. An example is given of scales which fit the partial homogeneity model.