Delegation in Multi‐Establishment Firms: Evidence from I.T. Purchasing

Recent contributions to a growing theory literature have focused on the tradeoff between adaptation and coordination in determining delegation within firms. Empirical evidence, however, is limited. Using establishment‐level data on decision rights over information technology investments, I find that a high net value of adaptation is strongly associated with delegation, as are local information advantages and firm‐wide diversification; in contrast, a high net value of within‐firm coordination is correlated with centralization. Variation across establishments within firms is widespread: most firms are neither fully centralized nor fully decentralized. Delegation patterns are largely consistent with standard team‐theory predictions; however, certain findings, such as a negative correlation between delegation and firm size, call for a consideration of agency costs as well.     

The development of the management accountant's role revisited: An example from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency

This study traces the development of the management accountant (MA) role at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SIA). In 2012, the agency began a reformation by implementing the Lean management system in hopes of increasing customer trust. The results of this study show that the authority of the MA rests on decentralization and the proximity of MAs to managers, as previous research has shown, and more specifically on a definitional and a moral prerogative that may or may not be awarded to MAs enabling them to act as de facto managers. The study shows how the role of the SIA's operative level MAs changed into a helpdesk function with the role of assisting other groups to help themselves, in this case operative‐level teams that had begun performing management accounting tasks. Thus, this study bears witness not to the expansion and hybridization of existing MA roles, but to the reduction in authority and de‐hybridization of the MA role, from business partner to a pedagogical role on a consultative basis.     

Bargaining and inequity aversion: On the efficiency of the double auction

In a bargaining setting with asymmetrically informed, inequity-averse parties, a fully efficient mechanism (i.e., the double auction) exists if and only if compassion is strong. Less compassionate parties do not trade in the double auction in the limit of strong envy.     

Artistic consumption and well-being: A song of two countries

Efforts are being made to examine how the arts help people reach their full potential and contribute to subjective well-being. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between artistic consumption and consumer well-being. Specifically, consumer motives, represented as emotion regulation, and arts engagement are examined to assess the relationship between arts participation and life satisfaction. This assessment is carried out in 2 countries, the United States and Croatia. Findings from both countries indicate that emotion regulation is positively related to arts engagement. In turn, arts engagement is positively related to arts participation for consumers in both countries. Results, however, diverge for both countries with respect to the influence that artistic consumption has on global life satisfaction. For U.S. consumers, arts participation is positively related to life satisfaction; yet arts participation is not related to satisfaction for Croatian consumers. Implications for the role the arts play in contributing to consumer well-being are discussed.     

Gender differences in time preferences

This paper reports the results from a large online experiment in which we examine gender differences in time preferences. Subjects choose in different situations between receiving an immediate payment and receiving a different sum later. We find that more men than women are impatient and choose to receive the immediate payment, at least if the implicit interest rate of the “late” option is neither too high nor too low.     

Reputation Without Repeated Interaction: A Role for Public Disclosures

This paper conductsan experiment to investigate the economic effect of public disclosureswithin a multi-move adaptation of the Prisoner's Dilemma game.The game, which has multiple equilibria, is characterized by:(1) a stochastic endpoint, (2) random, repeated pairings withanonymous partners, and (3) public disclosures concerning thecurrent partner's previous strategies. In the experiment, cooperationis improved by the disclosures. In addition, subjects cooperatemore frequently when encountering a player who has tended tocooperate in the past, and less frequently when encounteringa player who has tended to defect in the past. Delayed disclosureleads to levels of cooperation only slightly less than thoseobtained with timely disclosure.     

Environmental awakening in the Swedish pulp and paper industry: pollution resistance and firm responses in the Early 20th century

The purpose of this article is to analyse in what way a conflict in the early 20th century (1904–1911) over a Swedish pulp mill's emissions into air and water impacted on the technology choices and strategies of the mill. The article also analyses what characterized the company's other responses to the complaints, in the form of counter‐arguments, as well as engagement of experts. The access to information about the deliberations at the mill's board meetings is very rare in historical studies of company behaviour in relation to the environment, and provides us with a unique opportunity to comprehend in what way business strategies were developed during the course of the conflict. Technology choices are often characterized by the search for knowledge that enables a company to employ existing but not yet developed technical potentials, rather than choices between known technical solutions. We emphasize that this is particularly evident in a case where a company is forced to alter its technology in order to solve previously unknown environmental problems. In spite of a persistent search, the mill did not find any ready‐made technological solutions to the environmental problems faced and was therefore forced to engage scientific expertise and even initiate basic scientific research. In 1911, the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court ordered the mill to undertake a number of pollution abatement investments. Interestingly – and partly in line with the so‐called Porter hypothesis – the long‐run economics of these investments turned out to be more favourable than anticipated prior to the verdict. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Patterns and determinants of entry and exit in industrial sectors in Sweden

This paper uses a unique dataset which gives a complete picture of the pattern of entry and exit in industrial sectors in Sweden during the period 1997–2001. The importance of profitability, industrial market growth, tangible capital intensity, intangible capital intensity and economies of scale for entry and exit are investigated. A fixed effects panel data model is used, and it is shown that the inclusion of unobserved industry-specific effects explains many of the inter-industrial differences in entry and exit rates. For policymakers, this implies that it is difficult to formulate an entrepreneurship policy that can be expected to be equally successful across all industries. It is also shown that investments in intangible assets is one way to compete, while economies of scale tend to deter entry rates.     

Firm survival in the German automobile industry

In this paper, methods of duration analysis are applied to investigate determinants of firm survival in the German automobile industry during the period 1886–1939. A new comprehensive data set has been assembled in order to secure data comparable to that for the US automobile industry. Our results show that the forces shaping the survival pattern of firms over the life cycle are quite similar in both countries, i.e. early entry in the life cycle and prior experience are associated with a lower risk of exit. This finding holds equally when parametric, semiparametric and nonparametric methods are applied.We thank the participants of the 10th conference of the International Schumpeter Society in Milan, June 2004, and the 31st EARIE conference in Berlin, September 2004, for helpful discussion. We also thank two anonymous referees for their comments. All remaining errors are in our responsibility.