The not so dark side of trust: Does trust increase the size of the shadow economy?

This paper reports a negative relationship between the size of the shadow economy and generalized trust, in a sample of countries, both developed and developing. That relationship is robust to controlling for a large set of economic, policy, and institutional variables, to changing the estimate of the shadow economy and the estimation period, and to controlling for endogeneity. It is independent from trust in institutions and from income inequality, and is mainly present in the sample of developing countries. Those findings suggest that the tax compliance effect of trust dominates its role as a substitute for the formal legal system.     

Tax treatment of owner occupied housing and wealth inequality

We construct a quantitative general equilibrium lifecycle model with housing tenure decisions to investigate the degree to which wealth inequality in the United States is affected by the preferential tax treatment of home-ownership. Favorable tax treatment of owner occupied housing in the form of home mortgage interest and property tax deductibility, and the untaxed nature of imputed rents, provides a financial incentive for home-ownership over renting as well as an incentive to “over-consume” housing since houses are not fungible. Since the favorable tax treatment of housing disproportionately creates tax savings for the upper quantiles of the income distribution, we quantify how it contributes to the heavily right skewed distribution of wealth in the United States using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances. We consider a revenue-neutral government response to the counter factual experiments of removing the current tax structure on housing. Our quantitative analysis shows that, in terms of distributional effects, removing all of the preferential tax treatments results in an aggregate increase in welfare. However, we do not find any reduction in inequality. We also find that while some re-allocation toward financial assets occurs, households primarily increase their consumption when imputed housing rents are taxed and the property tax deduction is removed. Thus housing tax policy may be effective at encouraging more overall saving through housing assets.     

The effectiveness of personalized marketing in online banking: A comparison between search and experience offerings

This study reports the results of personalized online promotions in a context where personalization has not been researched before – in online banking. Genuine online bank customers were shown personalized banner advertisements when they logged in to their online bank account. Three financial offerings consisting of different search and experience attributes were promoted to three groups of customers. We examined the attention, elaboration and choice measures, and compared the effectiveness of personalized banners to default banners, and the online promotions to direct-mail promotions. Despite the goal-directed routines that reflect the dominant customer behaviour in online banking, personalized banners attracted more attention than default banners. Furthermore, messages that promote fairly simple search-type offerings that are easy to apply and are linked to the context in which the promotion occurs are more effective than messages that do not fulfil these criteria. The results offer implications both for research and practice.     

Akut krank und dement

Kommunikation bei Demenz - Pflegende in Akut-Krankenh?usern sind h?ufig unzureichend auf den Umgang mit Patienten, die an Demenz erkrankt sind, vorbereitet. Was erleichtert den Umgang und wie kann Kommunikation trotz Demenz gelingen?     

Creativity in the opportunity identification process and the moderating effect of diversity of information

We employ two study designs for a more detailed examination of creativity in the opportunity identification process. We employ a correlational field study to test the hypothesis that divergent thinking affects venture growth through business idea generation. We use an experimental design to test the hypothesis that diversity of information moderates the effect of divergent thinking on business idea generation. Analyses based on 98 business owners across both study designs supported our hypotheses. Combining the findings from both designs points to boundary conditions of theories suggesting constraining information; this may weaken the indirect effect of divergent thinking on venture growth.     

Vorvertragliche Informations- und Aufklärungspflichten des Versicherers nach finnischem Recht

The essay deals with the regulation of the pre-contractual duty of the insurer to inform and advice the prospective policyholders according to the Finnish law. The regulation could possibly be used as a model for the amendment of the German Insurance Contract Law (VVG). The widely amended Finnish Insurance Contract Law (VSL) came into force on 1. 7. 1995. The regulation of the pre-contractual duties of the insurer was one of the most important amendments of the law. According to sec. 5 VSL, the insurer shall give the insurance applicant the information which is needed for the assessment of the insurance requirement and for the choice of the insurance before the insurance agreement is entered into. If the insurer or his representative has neglected to provide the policyholder with the necessary information concerning the insurance or has provided him with faulty or misleading information, sec. 9 VSL will apply. According to it, the insurance agreement is considered to be in force with the content which the policyholder had reason to infer on the basis of the information which he had received. The provisions are general clauses. The essay explains the details of the provisions through the cases which have been solved by the Finnish Complaints Boards.     

Female Managers' Ethical Decision-Making: A Multidimensional Approach

The increasing number and influence of women in society brings up several issues related to values and ethics. Looking at business ethics from the gender perspective made us ponder if it would be fruitful to analyse the feminine and masculine dimensions of decision-making style. The article follows the research tradition using the multidimensional ethics scale, and it aims at developing the scale to better include female decision-making. We came to the conclusion that, as the multidimensional ethics scale used in measuring managers' moral decision-making is derived from modern ethical theories focusing on indications of masculinities more than femininities, the scale leaves feminine decision-making dimensions invisible. Our argument is that in seeking a deeper understanding of (female) managers' moral decision-making, we must find a broader basis for the analysis and develop the scale further so that it allows different voices to be heard and different dimensions to be seen.     

Roles for managing in mobile service development nets

This paper examines the roles for managing in business nets. The roles are studied by applying an initial conceptual framework built on network management research and role theory. The study empirically grounds the framework by using the case of a new mobile service development net. The article answers the question of what are the managerial action-based roles for managing in business nets. The empirical data of the study consists of fifteen interviews and a seven-month participant observation in a net that created and piloted a new mobile service directed at the spectators of a sports team. As a result of this study, an empirically grounded typology of twelve roles for managing in nets is presented. The roles are related to the changes in the net, the service development over time, and to the interpretations of the behaviours by the other actors in the net. Moreover, the study shows how external actors to the net can influence it.