Behaviour‐Based and Outcome‐Based Control Systems: A Meta‐Analytic Study

Sales control systems are instruments used by firms to improve performance and other organizational outcomes. To understand their antecedents and consequences, this paper conducts a meta‐analysis based on 104 studies. The results showed significant relationships between behaviour‐ and outcome‐based control systems and the complexity of the products, bonuses, financial performance, sales innovation, organizational support and satisfaction with supervisors. The outcomes revealed that behaviour‐based control systems were the most effective mechanism in turbulent markets and for determining financial performance. However, outcome‐based control systems were the most efficient instrument for complex products.     

The ethos of business students

Business schools are the “nurseries” of the corporate world. This article offers an empirical analysis of the business student ethos on the basis of research conducted at three Dutch universities. A theoretical framework in the tradition of virtue ethics and dubbed “moral ethology” is used to identify the values business schools convey to their students. The central research question is: What types of ethos do Dutch business students have? Forty-three undergraduate students participated in Q-methodological research, a mixed qualitative–quantitative small-sample method. Five different types of ethos were generated: Do-Good Managers, Market Managers, Searching Managers, Balancing Managers, and Radical Market Managers. Some general characteristics that apply to all the types of ethos were identified, such as the search for efficiency. It is argued that business schools should pay much more attention to the values that are endorsed in both life and business and should help students to address situations in which values are neglected.     

When will the longest expansion end?

Business Economics - What might cause the current expansion to come to an end? Without a negative shock, expansions go on and on. The economy is now enjoying even faster growth due to the tax cuts,...     

Toward a Typology of Family Firm Corporate Entrepreneurship

Family involvement in business creates idiosyncrasies in firm behavior that promote long‐term, often transgenerational, strategic logics that ostensibly align with the motivations and outcomes of corporate entrepreneurship. Interestingly, extant research provides only minimal insight into the heterogeneous nature of corporate entrepreneurship orientations pursued by family firms. To better understand this heterogeneity, we develop a typology of corporate entrepreneurship in family firms providing a reconciliatory approach to this literary diversity and suggest that the varied corporate entrepreneurship orientations of family firms are impacted by the duality of a family's distinct intention to pursue transgenerational succession and capabilities to acquire external knowledge.     

Supply chain risk analysis: a shipbuilding industry case

A lack of empirical studies on Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) is observed, especially in the industries of large projects. Therefore, this paper conducts a risk analysis on the Brazilian Shipbuilding Industry by generating an initial risk profile. A panel was conducted with executives from major shipyards, and the primary risks were identified, assessed, and evaluated. Findings corroborate the academic literature, reinforcing that companies recognise the importance of SCRM, but the concept is incipient and far from being successfully implemented in real life. Despite the fact that the shipyards identified important risks, the focus was on internal factors. Because the industry was exposed to risks from the external environment, no risk mitigation actions existed, resulting in the bankruptcy of many shipbuilders. This research is an initial step toward investigating SCRM techniques, offering academics a novel empirical approach that can serve as a systematic risk management tool for supply chain planning.     

The interplay of corporate entrepreneurship,environmental orientation,and performance in clean‐tech firms—A double‐edged sword

Clean‐tech innovations are an important driver in solving global issues such as climate change and for the sustainable development of economies around the world. Whereas a large part of the literature focuses on clean‐tech ventures, less is known on corporate entrepreneurship, that is, entrepreneurial behavior in established firms and its relation to sustainability. This paper extends the sustainable entrepreneurship debate to corporate entrepreneurship, which represents a fruitful avenue to further developing clean technologies. We focus particularly on clean‐tech firms' organizational preparedness for corporate entrepreneurship (OPCE), that is, how well a firm's structures and processes are set for entrepreneurial activities. On the basis of contingency theory, this study investigates how the level of OPCE influences the environmental and financial performance of clean‐tech firms and whether their environmental orientation affects these relationships. Building on data from 103 firms, we find support for a positive effect of OPCE on both environmental and financial performance. Both effects are stronger the higher the external environmental orientation. In contrast, the leverage of internal environmental orientation is not equally positive. Our study reveals that the effect of OPCE on financial performance diminishes for firms that are more strongly driven by an internal than an external environmental orientation.     

Immigrants’ net direct fiscal contribution: How does it change over their lifetime?

Life-cycle direct public fiscal contributions and transfers are studied using longitudinal income tax data from 1982 to 2016 and administrative files for immigrants landed in Canada from 1980 to 2016. Relative to a comparison group comprising the Canadian-born and immigrants landed before 1980, immigrants since 1980 have a lower average net direct fiscal contribution (NDFC) during their working years due to their lower taxes and social security contributions but a higher average NDFC after 65 years of age because of reduced public pension eligibility and entitlement. Immigrants who landed at younger than 19 years old have much higher direct fiscal contributions than other age-at-arrival groups and reach their peak of contributions around 10 years earlier in life than other age-at-arrival groups. Immigrants whose age at arrival is above 65 have a less negative average NDFC than other age-at-arrival groups over the above-65 life cycle. These life-cycle age𠄁at-arrival trajectories are stable for immigrants in different landing cohorts. We apply the life-cycle estimates to project the present discounted value of lifetime NDFCs for immigrants who landed in 2016. For each landing age group, refugees and family class immigrants have negative or zero average present values of life-cycle NDFCs, much below that of economic immigrants.     

The Hassle Factor as a Psychological Barrier to a Green Home

Journal of Consumer Policy - In order to reach climate goals, policymakers stimulate homeowners to invest in sustainable measures in and around their house. Unfortunately, however, the number of...