Should there exist secondary markets for executive stock options?

This paper investigates the potential disadvantages of the secondary markets for executive stock options (ESOs). The benefits of such markets are evident, but they might also have negative effects for shareholders. Executives might, for example, use inside information to time their ESO selling. We investigate two personal motives of managers that can be assumed to affect their optimal selling decision, that is, managers' personal portfolio management issues and the use of inside information. We explore these motives by analyzing unique data from Finland, where there are secondary markets for ESOs. The results of the study support the traditional portfolio diversification hypothesis according to which managers tend to sell their ESOs when holding an ESO is equivalent to holding the underlying stock; that is, in such a case a manager's wealth is closely tied to the stock price of the firm. With respect to the use of inside information the results indicate that ESO selling activity is not related to future stock price behaviour, suggesting that managers do not use inside information to determine the selling time of their ESOs. These results imply that the existence of secondary markets for ESOs does not weaken the usefulness of ESOs as the management compensation, although the benefits of such markets are evident.     

How to Become Central in an Informal Social Network: An Investigation of the Antecedents to Network Centrality in an Environmental SCM Initiative

Environmental supply chain management (SCM) initiatives often evolve as informal, grassroots efforts that are driven by policy entrepreneurs at lower management levels in an organization. These individuals usually are not in positions of power or authority to convince others to support the initiative. They thus rely on central positions in informal networks to gain access to and influence over other employees to be better able to sell these initiatives. This study examines how individuals arrive at positions of centrality within the networks surrounding environmental SCM initiatives. Linking social network theory and social capital theory with findings from the organizational behavior and environmental arena, the study investigates how an individual's proactive personality and commitment profile—affective, normative, and continuance commitment—might affect network centrality through the mediating role of championing behavior. Investigating the implementation of an environmental SCM initiative at a multinational enterprise, the authors identified a 90‐actor social network surrounding the initiative. The results provide evidence that championing behavior fully mediates the relationship between commitment and network centrality and to a lesser extent between proactive personality and network centrality. These findings suggest that championing behavior can enable an actor to become more central in social networks. Further, the results indicate that in an environmental SCM context, engendering the right type of commitment is a much more important driver of championing behavior than the proactive personalities of individual actors. This finding suggests that even employees who do not have proactive personalities can champion environmental initiatives and become central within the informal networks that surround these initiatives, if they strongly desire to support the initiative and believe that the initiative will lead to positive change.     

Interaction effects of corporate hedging activities for a multi-risk exposure: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - This study analyzes the interaction effects of corporate hedging activities of electric utility firms facing a manifold risk exposure consisting of...     

Blue Beijing: estimating the effects of temporary emissions restrictions on air quality

The article uses a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity approach to estimate the effect of temporary emissions restrictions on air quality in China. While temporary emissions control is an effective strategy in response to high-pollution events, China has been using this temporary policy instrument to improve air quality during events of international exposure. We find that post-restrictions peak levels of fine particulate matter are extremely high. This finding uncovers unintended consequences of temporary polluting restrictions.     

Participating in the World Gymnaestrada: an expression and experience of community

This paper aims at providing a context-based interpretation of the conceptual notion of community based on, and grounded in, the World Gymnaestrada, the official worldwide event of Gymnastics for All. In the light of ongoing scholarly discussions about the analytical value of community, the paper seeks to identify the extent to which, and how, participating in the event shapes the development, expression and experience of a sense of belonging to a community. An ethnographic research approach was used to explore these questions, using participant observation and semi-structured interviews as key methods. Informed by Cohen’s approach to community and Turner’s notion of communitas, the findings suggest participating in the World Gymnaestrada provides a platform to experience and conceptualise a sense of belonging to a group in both a physical and social way. The particular nature of the World Gymnaestrada community entails its being simultaneously social and physical, place-bound and spread beyond boundaries. The paper concludes with a context-based interpretation of the concept. Drawing on the metaphor of hibernation, this interpretation suggests a unique form of community that is constituted and confirmed through intense social and physical encounters that keep the community’s meaning alive in the participants’ minds until they meet again in preparation for the next event. The paper not only contributes to understand the notion of community in the twenty-first century; it also provides insight into the sociocultural impacts of a largely under-researched international event, the Gymnaestrada.     

Introduction to the Berlin Meeting

NETNOMICS: Economic Research and Electronic Networking -     

On the economics of Internet peering

We discuss economic rationales behind peering decisions in the Internet. In the first part of the paper we analyze the decision about a bilateral peering agreement between two commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) who are in Cournot competition. In the second part we discuss multilateral peering between commercial ISPs and an academic research network (ARN). The latter is organized as a club of academic institutions who share the cost of their network. It is discussed whether peering threatens the existence of the ARN and under what circumstances a commercial ISP would want to use strategic pricing to win all ARN‐members as customers. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Environmental regulation of technically inefficient firms

This paper presents a model in which a technically inefficient firm is responsible for the emissions of pollutants. We derive second-best regulatory schemes (tax and quota) assuming that the firm’s technical efficiency is unknown to the regulator.