Leveraging sponsorship with corporate social responsibility

Sponsors increasingly engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities surrounding sponsored events (e.g., the soccer World Cup and Olympic Games). This study examines how linking CSR to sponsorship affects consumer attitudes towards sponsoring brands. Schema theory suggests that consumer CSR perception and brand credibility act as serial mediators. They transfer the positive effects of a CSR-linked sponsorship strategy. These effects only occur for brands with a moderately low congruity to the sponsored event (but not for brands with a moderately high congruity to the sponsored event). Two experiments measuring (Study 1) and manipulating (Study 2) sponsor–event congruity confirm the proposed mediation mechanism for brands with a moderately low sponsor–event congruity. CSR-linked sponsorship (vs. sponsorship without CSR linkage) does not influence attitudes towards brands with a moderately high congruity to the sponsored event. The study develops theoretical and practical implications for sponsorship and CSR strategies.     

Monthly wood supply behavior of associated forest owners in Austria—Insights from the analysis of a micro-econometric panel

This paper examines the wood supply from non-industrial private forest owners in Austria. The main novelty of this study is threefold. First, the underlying dataset is based on monthly wood supply. This enables an analysis of seasonal supply behavior, which is found to be different in relation to the size of the forestland. Second, it represents an original study with a dataset from a Central European country whose forest owners are apparently much more fragmented than their Scandinavian or North American counterparts. And third, the study introduces a windfall variable that effectively corrects for a market-relevant storm event. With respect to methodology, a random effects Tobit model is applied. Additionally, a Chamberlain-like term is included in the regression to deal with a possible bias generated through the correlation of regressors and unobserved heterogeneity.     

Preparing for distant collaboration: Antecedents to potential absorptive capacity in cross-industry innovation

Cross-industry innovation entails distinctive innovation opportunities and challenges according to the knowledge heterogeneity between the collaborating firms. This heterogeneity yields increases in organizational-level cognitive distance. Whereas recent theory suggests cognitive distance is positively related to exploratory innovation, too much distance can hinder efficient knowledge absorption and results in a reduced effect on novelty value. This paper focuses on the research question of how to build potential absorptive capacity for distant collaboration beyond established industry boundaries to gain radical rather than incremental results. To address this question, we mapped a cross-industry network using survey data on 215 bilateral cross-industry collaborations between firms from a variety of industries and captured cognitive proximity (the inverse of distance) in terms of overall knowledge redundancy between firms. This approach introduces a new method to infer organizational-level cognitive distance from network analysis. Subsequently, based on results from the network analysis, we examined coordination antecedents to potential absorptive capacity for cross-industry innovation with partners at moderate and high distance applying case study analysis. Our study revealed three alternative approaches to coordination antecedents that drive a firm?s potential absorptive capacity for distant collaboration. These findings extend research on absorptive capacity to the field of cross-industry innovation.     

Payroll taxes,wages and employment: Identification through policy changes

This paper investigates the effect of changes in payroll taxes on wages and employment in Argentina. The analysis, based on administrative data, focuses on the impact of a series of major changes in payroll taxes which varied across geographical areas. This setup offers two main advantages over previous studies. First, using longitudinal data, the variation in tax rates across space and time provides a plausible source of identification of their effects on employment and wages. Second, the use of legal tax rates for each area at each point in time provides a remedy for the measurement error bias raised by the use of empirical rates constructed from observed tax and wage bills. Once this bias is accounted for, the results indicate that changes in payroll tax rates are only partially shifted onto wages, and they point to the absence of any significant effect on employment.     

(No) Limits to Anglo-American accounting? Reconstructing the history of the International Accounting Standards Committee: A review article

The development of the current International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) from the earlier International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) provides insight into many issues of international financial reporting, among them the characteristics of international accounting standards themselves. This article reviews Camfferman and Zeff’s [Camfferman, K., & Zeff, S. A. (2007). Financial reporting and global capital markets. A history of the international accounting standards committee 1973–2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press] volume on the organizational development of the IASC and contextualizes it in the broader literature of cross-border standardization in accounting. While having produced a seminal piece, the authors take a clear Anglo-American perspective. The downsides are insufficiencies regarding a simplistic understanding of experts and expertise, a neglect of the role of auditing firms, and only an imbalanced integration of different stakeholders.     

AGRICULTURAL FLOOD ALLEVIATION BENEFIT ASSESSMENT: A CASE STUDY

The cost of flooding on farm land depends on land use, on the frequency, seasonality, duration and depth of flooding, and on water quality. This paper describes a method to calculate the average annual cost of flooding and the extra benefits or costs associated with given changes in flooding regime, illustrated by means of a simplified case study which examines the agricultural benefits of reduced summer flooding on grass in an area of environmental importance. Using hydrological and agro-economic data, the method derives the cost of individual flood events occurring in any one month for a given land use, weights these according to observed seasonality of flood flows, and derives average annual costs per hectare and for the floodplain as a whole for given levels of flood risk. The method is useful for appraising river flood alleviation schemes whereby the effects of changes in flood risk, flood seasonality or land use can be assessed.