Identifying business opportunities for sustainable development: Longitudinal and experimental evidence contributing to the field of sustainable entrepreneurship

Which factors facilitate the identification of business opportunities for sustainable development? To answer this question, we develop a process model of sustainable opportunity identification. We argue that sustainable opportunity identification is a process with transitions from problem to solution identification and from solution to sustainable opportunity identification. Moreover, the transitions are facilitated by two factors—awareness of adverse consequences and entrepreneurial attitude—providing motivation and direction in the process. We tested our model in a field study (N = 107) and two experiments (N = 53 and N = 69). Our findings show that awareness of adverse consequences and entrepreneurial attitude influence the process of sustainable opportunity identification, explaining under which conditions people are more likely to identify business opportunities for sustainable development. Our study thus contributes to the field of sustainable entrepreneurship.     

Organizational characteristics explaining participation in sustainable business models in the sharing economy: Evidence from the fashion industry using conjoint analysis

Environmental and social challenges require new sustainable business models, like sharing platforms. However, sharing platforms differ widely in their contribution to a more sustainable society. Whereas idealistic sharing platforms have dominant social goals, other sharing platforms are, or became, commercial. We explore the attractiveness of the typical organizational characteristics of idealistic sharing platforms in the fashion industry context, an industry with negative environmental and social impacts. Based on a literature review and exploratory focus groups, we conduct an online survey using conjoint analysis, completed by 1,512 respondents. Our results reveal that potential users prefer clothes sharing platforms to be small, to not partner with large clothing retailers, to have the possibility to participate in decision‐making, but to not require shareholding.     

Integration of financial and management accounting systems: The mediating influence of a consistent financial language on controllership effectiveness

Two fundamental options exist for management accounting system (MAS) design: Either financial records can be used as a database for management accounting (integrated accounting system design), or the MAS can be based upon a separate system, i.e., a third set of books beside financial and tax accounting records. Since the 1990s, many German-speaking firms have changed from the second to the first option, which has instigated a highly controversial debate.Our paper contributes to this debate by empirically analyzing (1) whether the integration of financial and management accounting has a positive impact on controllership effectiveness, and (2) what causal inferences relate both variables. We use structural equation modelling for a sample of 149 dyads surveyed from German top 1500 firms. We identify no significant effect of the technical aspects of MAS integration, but a fully mediating influence of a consistent financial language on controllership effectiveness. Our results thus imply that consistency with financial reporting is an important property of MAS design from management's point of view.     

Reanalyzing Zero Returns to Education in Germany

Pischke and von Wachter (Review of Economics and Statistics 2008; 90 (3): 592–598) find zero earnings returns to compulsory schooling in the basic school track in Germany. We reanalyze their study using a different dataset. In an extension, we use additional instruments which allow estimation of heterogeneous effects for different groups of compliers. We can confirm the previous result and also find zero returns for other compliers in higher track schools. Moreover, we do not find a causal effect of schooling on cognitive skills. This is in line with a potential reason Pischke & von Wachter (2008) give for their result, namely that basic skills are learned earlier in Germany and additional years of schooling are no longer effective. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Real call options to enlarge foreign subsidiaries – The moderating effect of irreversibility on the influence of economic volatility and political instability on subsequent FDI

This paper develops a real option model to explain the decision of enlarging a new foreign subsidiary by subsequent investment. The model is tested on a panel of 1148 subsidiaries in 22 host countries. The findings complement the traditional process model of firm internationalization. Rather than abiding by an incremental pattern of investment, internationalizing firms seem to keep foreign investment strategies flexible and build up their subsidiaries contingent upon the interaction of economic volatility and irreversibility of investment. However, the moderating effect of irreversibility on the relationship between uncertainty and investment may not hold for downside risks such as political instability.     

Direct evidence of risk aversion as a source of advantageous selection in health insurance

Using the self-stated degree of risk aversion regarding health from the GSOEP we find some evidence for risk aversion being a source of advantageous selection. Risk averse men more often procure supplementary insurance for hospital visits despite needing the additional coverage less.     

OPTIMAL INTERNATIONAL DEBT AND ENDOGENOUS TIME PREFERENCE IN A DEMOGRAPHICALLY DIVIDED WORLD (*)

The international transmission of shocks in population growth and technology is examined in an interdependent two-country world economy; decisions concerning the intertemporal allocation are made by social planners with an infinite horizon and an endogenous rate of time preference. Steady state shocks in population growth are shown to be negatively transmitted to the rate of time preference. In the steady state, the optimal foreign debt is determinate and it brings about a convergence of time preference. The net creditor and debtor positions in the steady state depend on the discount rate functions, the states of technology and the rates of population growth.     

Is the Dutch consumer a true ricardian?

Summary In this paper the intertemporal optimization approach is adopted in order to estimate an empirical version of Blanchard's (1985) overlapping generations model. The observed sluggishness in consumption is incorporated into the model by recognizing both durability and habit formation as relevant determinants of total consumption. The model is estimated using quarterly data for The Netherlands from 1969:I to 1990:IV. The empirical estimates suggest that the status of the Dutch consumer as a true Ricardian is unambiguously rejected. The results furthermore suggest that this rejection is due to the existence of both liquidity constraints and finite planning horizons.Comments by Peter Broer, Jeroen Kremers, Debora Molenaar, Rick van der Ploeg, Frans Spinnewyn, Casper de Vries, Ed Westerhout and two anonymous referees are very much appreciated. Elbert Dijkgraaf has provided invaluable research assistance. We also thank participants of the OCFEB workshop and the CES seminar at the K.U. Leuven for their comments.     

DOES GNP EXAGGERATE GROWTH IN “ACTUAL” OUTPUT? THE CASE OF THE UNITED STATES

Measures of national product can be misleading because there is nonmarket production. There are also distortions due to transactional activities, which are expenditures to support transactions, not actual output consumed. For 1950–89, this study recalculates output for the United States, adjusting for transactional activities and nonmarket production. Due to relatively rapid growth in transactional activities, GNP overstates output growth in the 1950s; because there was slow expansion of transactional activities in the early 1970s, GNP understates actual output. Since 1974, increases in transactional activities and shifts to market production lead GNP to exaggerate improvement of "actual" output per capita.