Dominant Articulations in Academic Business and Society Discourse on NGO–Business Relations: A Critical Assessment

Relations between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and companies have been the subject of a sharply increasing amount of publications in recent years within academic business journals. In this article, we critically assess this fast-developing body of literature, which we treat as forming a ‘business and society discourse’ on NGO–business relations. Drawing on discourse theory, we examine 199 academic articles in 11 business and society, international business, and management journals. Focusing on the dominant articulations on the NGO–business relationship and key signifiers they rely on, we analyze the problem-settings of articles in order to reveal the statements that are acceptable and appropriate within this field. Our threefold aim is to (1) identify dominant articulations of NGO–business relations in business and society discourse, (2) expose those articulations that are silenced or suppressed by these dominant articulations, and (3) critically assess possible power effects of these discursive dynamics in the field of discursivity. While business and society discourse on NGO–business relations overall remains open to many different articulations, we also find that those articulations that focus on NGO–business partnerships and governance initiatives tend to privilege collaborative and deliberative ways of engaging and marginalize more adversarial subject positions. We call for more recognition of the potentially constructive role that can be played by conflict.     

Improving Distribution Service Performance Through Effective Production and Logistics Integration

Current empirical research on logistics' relationships with other departments has mostly neglected the interface with production. On the basis of data from 387 manufacturing companies, we answer a recent call for research and extend the literature by examining effective working relationships and achieved integration between the production and logistics functions regarding their performance impacts and their antecedents. With respect to the former, we take a resource‐based perspective, showing that integration achieved between the production and logistics functions drives distribution service performance by serving as a pivotal capability element in the resource–capability–value chain. Within this chain, effective working relationships constitute the underlying resources and prove to be a strong driver of achieved integration. With respect to antecedents, we employ the theory of cooperation and competition and identify positive goal interdependence to substantially improve working relationships between production and logistics. Furthermore, we find this effect to be amplified via formalized performance measurement systems.     

Networks in Socially Embedded Local Food Supply: The Case of Retailer Co-operatives

This paper investigates network development in food retailing, in order to evaluate the role of retailer consumer co-operatives. Opportunity is seen to lie in niche (for example, local) markets and a social/ethical orientation. The method is single case and exploratory. Investigation shows that a co-operative can survive and add value as an alternative organizational form, when genuine social responsibility is experienced by a network consisting of the co-operative, its members, customers, suppliers and the community as a whole.     

Enterprise Mashup Systems as Platform for Situational Applications

Currently, several Enterprise 2.0 platforms are beginning to emerge. This paper introduces Enterprise Mashup technology as a means to improve IT alignment of individual work processes and changing business needs. Enterprise Mashups enable users to create customized applications to easily find and transform business information and functionalities, as well as collaboratively share pre-built Mashup applications. Therefore, the concept of Enterprise Mashups integrates Web 2.0 technologies and principles with well-established paradigms such as Enterprise Information Integration, Business Intelligence, and Business Process Management. Involved organizational key drivers, technical challenges and inhibitors are discussed to assess the potential business value and explain the emerging expansion of Mashup platforms in companies.     

The effectiveness of publicity versus advertising: a meta-analytic investigation of its moderators

This study provides an answer to the question whether and under which conditions publicity is more or less effective than advertising. Advertising refers to paid communication that identifies the message sponsor, whereas publicity is communication that secures editorial space in media for promotion purposes and does not have an identifiable sponsor. The primary advantage of advertising over publicity is the sponsor’s control over message content; its disadvantages are audience skepticism and lack of credibility. We investigate this trade-off between credibility effects and effects of recipients’ processing and evaluation of message content. Results of a meta-analytic structural equation model show that the positive credibility effect of publicity is on average about three times as strong as the information evaluation effect, supporting the overall superiority of publicity over advertising. This effect, however, is moderated by prior knowledge and only holds for products about which recipients lack prior knowledge. The effects change for known products when advertising becomes superior. The effectiveness of publicity depends on further moderating variables. In particular, academic studies tend to underestimate the true effects of publicity over advertising due to experimental manipulations. Campaigns that combine publicity and advertising weaken the effects of publicity, whereas advertorials (i.e., advertisements disguised as editorial material) are more effective, since they combine the advantages of both publicity and advertising. The results have theoretical and practical implications.     

Estimating the gravity model when zero trade flows are frequent and economically determined

ABSTRACT

Since the 1950s, we have known that the presence of zero-valued dependent variables can seriously bias econometric estimates whether the zeros are included or excluded. Yet the widely-used gravity model is frequently estimated on samples that include large fractions of zeros. An influential paper by Santos Silva and Tenreyro – based on simulations that include no economically-determined zeros – concludes that the bias problems resulting from zeros and those resulting from heteroscedasticity and nonlinearity can be solved using the Poisson Pseudo-Maximum-Likelihood (PPML) model including the zero values. This paper begins by adapting the Santos Silva and Tenreyro experimental design to include economically-determined zeros to see whether this conclusion continues to hold. With this design, it finds that alternative estimators have lower bias than PPML. Changing to a Monte Carlo design that replicates the much-higher real-world frequency of predicted values near zero restores the finding of lower bias with the PPML estimator. The results highlight the need for very careful design of Monte Carlo experiments when evaluating alternative estimators of the gravity model.     

The So-Called 2015 Migration Crisis and Euroscepticism in Border Regions: Facing Re-Bordering Trends in the Danish–German Borderlands

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the role of Euroscepticism on regional cross-border cooperation between Germany and Denmark. It demonstrates that Euroscepticism, while absent from local mainstream politicians, had already caused civic unrest in the 1997 attempts to construct a return to history Euro-region Schleswig. It resulted in a re-scaling of the Euro-Region to Region and Schleswig to “Sønderjylland/Schleswig”, omitting any reference to Europe, European identity or a commitment to a closer European union in the relevant agreements. Border controls, on the agenda in 2011 and again since 2015, have demonstrated the institutional weakness of cross-border politics when faced with determined initiatives from the national center. Furthermore, the Eurosceptic Danish People’s Party had its best results in the border precincts both at the latest European and Danish national elections. Euroscepticism, even though difficult to measure on a regional level, seems to have been an ever present underneath current despite a political rhetoric of successful cooperation and cross-border reconciliation. The Danish-German case’s development might be more distinct, but nonetheless representative for European border (and cross-border) regions. While European metropolises develop into thriving cosmopolitan post-nation state societies, this is not necessary the case at Europe’s borders, where categorization and bordering remain common social practices by the large majority of national borderlanders with only a small portion of transnational borderlanders or ‘regionauts’ getting involved in border crossing social practices on a larger scale.