B2B relationship calculus: quantifying resource effects in service-dominant logic

Increasingly, knowledgeable business-to-business (B2B) customers and evolving customer needs are leading to seismic shifts in vendor–client interactions. Across industries, sellers are changing their business models from a simple goods orientation to a hybrid goods–services model, placing greater emphasis on delivering complete customer solutions. In such an environment, companies must find ways to prioritize investments in resource development. The service-dominant (S-D) logic framework offers significant insights into this challenge; however, these effects have not been tested quantitatively. This study addresses that gap, examining the influence of various seller resources on buyer satisfaction. An empirical analysis of buying organizations that purchased and implemented business intelligence systems finds that “augmented” operant resources that the buyers ascribe to the software’s sellers—resources that go above and beyond expectations—are the most significant predictors of both successful technology assimilation and overall customer relationship quality. In particular, an augmented operant resource reflecting a seller’s ability to see value creation opportunities from the buyer’s perspective (value mindset) has up to three times the effect on relationship satisfaction as “core” operant resources such as product-specific expertise or basic interpersonal service skills. These results can help sellers prioritize resource investments.     

Non-financial hurdles for human capital accumulation: landownership in Korea under Japanese rule

This study examined the relationship between land inequality and human capital accumulation in the Korean colonial period by using a panel data set from 1934 to 1942. Evidence of the adverse relationship between land inequality and the accumulation of human capital has thus far only been presented by using data from Western countries and from countries that achieved industrialization not under colonial occupation but by their own economic interest. The presented findings thus contribute to the body of knowledge on this topic and confirm the generalizability of the Galor model by analyzing the unique Korean context under Japanese rule in the early twentieth century. It is the first study to present evidence that inequality in landownership had an adverse effect on the level of public education in the Korean colonial period (i.e., it is a non-financial hurdle for human capital accumulation). By using a fixed effects model and a fixed effects two-stage least squares model with an instrumental variable estimation, this study exploits variation in inequality in land concentration across regions in Korea, accounting for the unobserved heterogeneity across these regions. Overall, this analysis establishes a highly significant adverse effect of land inequality on education in the Korean colonial period.     

Transatlantic wage gaps and the migration decision: Europe–Canada in the 1920s

As has been seen in other contexts, workers in similar occupations earned much higher wages in Canada than Europe during the 1920s. This observation and related aspects of immigration are addressed with a life-cycle model of the migration decision. The characteristics of immigrants from five European countries: Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden, are explored in a way that sheds light not just on those population flows but on the process of immigration generally. We draw on passenger manifests from immigrant ships for information on the individual migrants. Simulations, based partly on the these manifests, reveal that the costs of migration, borrowing constraints, concern for status, and country-specific taste preferences account for key immigrant characteristics, and help explain the large wage differentials that persisted despite Canada’s relatively open immigration policy.     

Experiential and involvement effects on the Korean wine tourist's decision-making process

This study's core purpose is to understand the behavioural intention (BI) of wine tourists using the Extended Model of Goal-directed Behaviour (EMGB). Specifically, the Model of Goal-directed Behaviour (MGB), an advanced version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), is extended to EMGB by incorporating experience and involvement towards wine tourism to better understand wine tourists' intention to participate in a tour. The sample was 211 Korean wine tourists. Results revealed that two constructs related to wine tourism, namely, experience of a wine tour and wine tourism involvement, formed positive and significant relationships with attitude towards participating in such a tour. Attitude, subjective norm, and positive anticipated emotion influenced tourists' desire to participate in a wine tour, which, in turn, influenced their BI. Contrary to expectations, the frequency of past behaviour does not have a significant effect on desire and BI, and perceived behavioural control has no significant effects on BI.     

Economics at the FTC: Deceptive Claims,Market Definition,and Patent Assertion Entities

In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposed common carriage regulation—so-called Title II requirements—on previously unregulated broadband Internet service providers. The regime shift was premised on the FCC’s findings that such rules had demonstrably yielded economic gains. This paper evaluates the FCC’s empirical arguments and finds them uncompelling. Adjustments for inflation or general economic trends eliminate the effects cited by the FCC. Moreover, contrary to the Commission’s assessment, mobile services and broadband markets have shown notable growth in response to deregulatory events that reduce Title II requirements.     

Germany’s Energy Supply

Germany has only very limited domestic energy resources. Seventy percent of primary energy needs must be covered by imports. The markets for energy are marked by a wide diversity and a large number of providers. The oil market has been intensely competitive for decades now. Lignite and hard coal are subjected to fierce substitution competition, especially with natural gas. The natural gas and electricity markets were fully liberalized in 1998. Consumers can freely choose from a vast number of suppliers. Since the beginning of this century, however, state interference particularly in the electricity market has increased. The expansion of renewables has been promoted since the year 2000 by feed-in priority and feed-in remunerations regulated by the state. The energy transition initiated in 2011 is characterized by ambitious energy and climate policy targets. Key pillars include the conversion of electricity generation from production on the basis of conventional energy sources to a system based mainly on renewable energies combined with stringent requirements designed to enhance energy efficiency and what are probably the most ambitious climate protection targets worldwide. As regards the expansion of renewables and the phase-out of nuclear energy, Germany is keeping to its target path. By contrast, there are no signs yet that the objectives formulated in terms of the lowering of primary energy consumption and the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions will be achieved.     

Operating Strategies for Battery Storage Systems in Low-Voltage Grids to Limit the Feed-In Power of Solar Power Systems Using Fuzzy Control

Germany’s energy turnaround is leading to an increasing integration of photovoltaics (PVs) throughout its distribution grid. To ensure safe grid operation in times of high solar radiation, PV plants must either be throttled back to comply with the feed-in limitation or store a portion of their excess electricity in batteries. This paper presents a grid-optimized operating strategy for PV storage systems based on a Fuzzy Logic Controller that reduces peak feed-in and thus also PV curtailment losses. The Fuzzy Logic Controller uses data on PV power surplus and battery charge level as input variables. To obtain good results, the set of numerical parameters of the membership functions is enhanced by evolutionary programming.The energetic assessment shows that even small electrical storage capacities (<<5?kWh) reduce curtailment losses considerably when using the grid-optimized operating strategy. The economic assessment shows that, in 2016, investments in PV storage systems with large PV plants and small batteries have small (positive) Internal Rates of Return. The system efficiency of the battery storage has a small impact on the profitability of PV storage systems, whereas the cycle stability and the electricity purchase price have a large impact. Moreover, there is an economic benefit for plant operators to switch from the simple to the grid-optimized operating strategy. Solar forecast inaccuracies and variations in load and generation profiles have a negligible impact on the performance of the control algorithm.     

Energiewende: Alles eine Frage der Partizipation? Governance-Herausforderungen zwischen Zentralität und Dezentralität

The interaction of centralised and decentralised elements is not only a challenge for the technical und functional implementation of the energy transition, but also for the political and social assignment of developing adequate governance strategies for future energy systems. While “participation” is of capital importance for all governance approaches mediating centralising and decentralising trends, it is far from clear, how participation is to be realized in order to promote energy transition and avoiding pitfalls and flaws of participative decision making processes. Against the backdrop of a multi-dimensional understanding of “participation” comprising procedural, factual, legitimatory and meta-reflective functions, the paper considers the tense relations of participation and efficiency, legitimacy and professionalized expertise, thereby identifying structural challenges for participation in democratic societies. Finally, some suggestions are made, how the governance of the energy transition can be shaped in the future.     

Accounting for Negative,Zero and Positive Willingness to Pay for Landscape Change in a National Park

In contingent valuation, despite the fact that many externalities manifest themselves as costs to some and benefits to others, most studies restrict willingness to pay to being non‐negative. In this paper, we investigate the impact of allowing for negative, zero and positive preferences for prospective changes in woodland cover in two UK national parks, the Lake District and the Trossachs. An extended spike model is used to accomplish this. The policy implications of not allowing for negative values in terms of aggregate benefits are also investigated, by comparing the extended spike model with a simple spike making use of only zero and positive bids, and a model which considers positive bids only. We find that ignoring negative values over‐states the aggregate benefits of a woodland planting project by up to 44%.