A Typology of Reverse Innovation

Reverse innovation commonly refers to an innovation initially launched in a developing country and later introduced to an advanced country. Adopting a linear innovation model with the four sequential phases of concept ideation, product development, primary target market introduction, and subsequent secondary market introduction, this study expands the espoused definition of reverse innovation beyond its market‐introduction focus with reversals in the flow of innovation in the ideation and product development phases. Recognizing that each phase can take place in different geographical locations, the paper then introduces a typology of global innovation with 16 different types of innovation flows between advanced and emerging countries, 10 of which are reverse innovation flows. The latter are further differentiated into weak and strong reverse innovation, depending on the number of innovation phases taking place in an emerging country. This analytical framework allows recasting of current research at the intersection between innovation and international business. Of the 10 reverse innovation flows, six are new and have not been covered in the literature to date. The study addresses questions of ethnocentrism and the continuity of the flow of innovation, and discusses possible extensions of the model with respect to the number of geographical categories and phases of innovation. Four research propositions highlight areas for future investigation, especially in the context of optimizing a firm's portfolio of global innovation competence and capability. The implications for management are concerned with internal and external resistance to reverse innovation. Most significantly, while greater recognition and power of innovation in formerly subordinate organizational units is inconvenient to some, the ability to leverage the potential of reverse innovation makes a firm more likely to succeed in global innovation overall.     

What is unemployment in Europe? Concepts and measurement in the European community household panel

The purpose in this article is to evaluate the consistency between two measures of unemployment in a cross-country context. We use the European Community Household Panel to identify unemployment at an individual level based as well on the ILO criteria for being classified as unemployed as on the individual respondent reporting to be unemployed. This opens a unique opportunity to compare unemployment measured in two different ways based on a cross European Union panel study covering the years 1994 to 2001. The two main questions addressed in this article are to which extent the two unemployment measures differ and whether transition rates out of unemployment depend on which concept we use. Both questions are answered in the affirmative. The overall conclusion is that it is important, especially in some of the EU countries, to include both measures of unemployment as guidelines and indicators for policy.     

Because you're worth it? Determinants of Vice Chancellor pay in the UK

Wage inequality has increased across most developed nations; this has been manifested in a wide range of organisations and sectors, with implications for well‐being and sustainability; within UK universities, this has become increasingly visible. There is increasing pressure on universities to deliver social and economic impact in an increasingly market‐driven and metric‐driven environment. In the UK context, increasing financial pressure has led to both an escalation of student fees and constrained wage growth for faculty. In contrast, most Vice Chancellors have secured substantive pay packages raising concerns that regulatory failures may be contributing to the rise. We show that Vice Chancellors use their internal power within organisations to extract a disproportionate amount of the value created by the institution. However, we encountered much diversity according to the quality of governance, highlighting the extent to which not only contextual but also internal dynamics drive wage inequality.     

Selection and network effects—Migration flows into OECD countries 1990-2000

This paper presents empirical evidence on immigration flows into the OECD countries during the period 1990-2000. Our results indicate that network effects are strong, but vary between different groups of welfare states and between countries according to the type of immigration policy being applied. Network effects seem to be less important in the Nordic countries which also seem to attract immigrants from the lowest income level source countries. We do not find clear evidence that selection effects measured by migration flows being sensitive to differences in public social expenditures have had a major influence on the observed migration patterns until now. This may partly be explained by restrictive migration policies which may have dampened the potential selection effects.     

Income Inequality and Income Mobility in the Scandinavian Countries Compared to the United States

This paper compares income inequality and income mobility in the Scandinavian countries and the United States during 1980–90. The results suggest that inequality is greater in the United States than in the Scandinavian countries and that this inequality ranking of countries remains unchanged when the accounting period of income is extended from one to eleven years. The pattern of mobility turns out to be remarkably similar, in the sense that the proportionate reduction in inequality from extending the accounting period of income is much the same. But we do find evidence of greater dispersion of first differences of relative earnings and income in the United States. Relative income changes are associated with changes in labor market and marital status in all four countries, but the magnitude of such changes are largest in the United States.     

Implementation of International Environmental Commitments in Countries in Transition

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -     

Public entrepreneurship: desiring social change,creating sociality

In this paper we want to affirm the desiring-social-change that we find in practices presently represented by theorists and policy-makers as examples of ‘social entrepreneurship’ (SE). We do this as an attempt to intensify the presence of the social and sociality in today's discourse on the entrepreneurship–society relationship. SE, as all entrepreneurship practices, operates by social and economic forces (limiting ourselves to those here), and generates social and economic outcomes (amongst others). Its second half, however, dominates the concept of SE, and our analysis seek to remedy this imbalance by focusing on the social productivity of entrepreneurship, on entrepreneurship desiring social change. We suggest ‘public entrepreneurship’ might grasp this as a more balanced concept that will also support a more precise analysis of the entrepreneurship–society relationship.     

Building new roads for entrepreneurship research to travel by: on the work of William B. Gartner

This article takes the awarding of William B. Gartner as a winner of the FSF-Nutek Award (in 2005) as a reason to engage more thoroughly with his production. From the perspective of a European School of Entrepreneurship, we focus in particular on the hermeneutic/phenomenological side of Gartner’s research output and seek to operate as inspired readers of this work as we identify its central tendencies (presence of organization theory and literary inspiration). The aim is thus to situate Gartner’s influence on the entrepreneurship research community based on the lead provided by these tendencies and from there to provide a vision of a future of entrepreneurship research. Bengt Johannisson was a member of the Prize Committee for The International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research when the prize was awarded to William B. Gartner. The prize is awarded by the Swedish Foundation for Small Business Research (FSF) and the Swedish Board of Industrial and Technical Development (NUTEK). An important aim with this prize is to attract broader attention to this research field. A precondition for choosing the winner of the award is that his/her research is a significant contribution to the theory and empirical understanding of entrepreneurship and the importance of entrepreneurship, new firm formation and small businesses in economic development. Besides the honor, the prize consists of SEK 0.5 million. It has been awarded annually since 1996. More information about the prize and previous winners is available at .     

Unemployment Shocks and Income Distribution: How did the Nordic Countries Fare during their Crises?

We study the inequality of disposable income in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden during the late 1980s and early 1990s when unemployment rose dramatically in all four countries. A standard measure of inequality — the Gini coefficient – was surprisingly stable in all countries during this period. By decomposing the Gini into income components, we test hypotheses about the reasons for this stable income distribution. Our most straightforward hypothesis, that rising unemployment benefits counteracted the impact of more unequally distributed earnings, receives only limited support. More complex mechanisms seem to have been at work.
JEL classification: D 30; D 31; J 60