Value-based methodology to analyze communication services

This paper presents a general view on the provision of communications services, and introduces a formal methodology to analyze the services. The methodology consists of three main tasks: (1) how services create value to users, (2) how users behave in real situations, and (3) how these are combined into one holistic model. As a result, we are able to analyze how different changes in the service effects on the service usage, on the value it creates for the user, and on the business of service providers. The analysis offers a rational basis for designing and optimizing communication terminals and services.     

Mutual fund expenses: Evidence on the effect of distribution channels

This paper employs a new set of variables in examining the determinants of fund expenses. The Finnish Association of Mutual Funds requires the industry to disclose new variables such as turnover and tracking error from 2002. Using this information the authors examine whether bank-managed funds are managed more actively than their non-bank competitors, which would explain their higher management fees. Equity and balanced funds distributed through bank offices charge higher expense ratios than funds distributed through independent fund management companies. The results suggest that existing customer relationship, bank cross-selling and convenience rather than operational expenses contribute to fund selection of bank mutual fund customers.     

Reassessing the Structure of Enduring Leisure Involvement

The study compared the importance of spending time in interacting with nature to other leisure activities regarding recovery from work demands. In addition, a multiple mediation model between time spent in interacting with nature and need for recovery through four mediators was tested. Employees of five organizations answered a questionnaire (N = 527). Exercise and being outdoors during free-time was evaluated as the most effective activity for recovery from work stress, and the time spent in interacting with nature was mentioned as second in importance. Time spent in exercise and being outdoors, life satisfaction, and relaxation mediated significantly the relationship between time spent in interacting with nature and need for recovery from work.     

Linking knowledge, entry timing and internationalization strategy

This paper contributes to the current internationalization theory by linking the characteristics of the firm's resource-base, its market-entry timing orientation and international growth orientation so as to shed more light on internationalization strategies. By employing multi-industry data, we find that the nature of the firm's knowledge, its entry timing orientation and international growth orientation are related to its internationalization strategy. Among other results, we find that the firm's accumulated expertise is positively related for both the international growth orientation and entry timing orientation. The international growth orientation, in turn, is related both to the path type of internationalization the firm employs as well as the geographical diversification in market entry. In other words, the results suggest that the firm's resource-base influences on both its entry timing orientation and to the internationalization strategy. These and other findings are discussed with regard to their scholarly and managerial implications.     

Entrepreneurial Orientation,Dynamic Capabilities and International Performance

In order to be able to seize the opportunities that a dynamic operating environment opens up, entrepreneurial firms have to reconfigure their existing asset base and processes. This study explores the effect of an entrepreneurial orientation and a firm's reconfiguring capabilities on international performance by using survey data from 217 manufacturing and service organizations. Our findings indicate that a firm's entrepreneurial orientation and reconfiguring capabilities have an effect on its international performance and provide empirical support for the dynamic capability view of the firm. Entrepreneurial behavior combined with organizational reconfiguring capabilities constitutes a potential source of competitive advantage.     

Holiday travel,staycations, and subjective well-being

The tourism industry thrives on the notion that holiday travel improves well-being. However, scientific evidence that holiday travel is more beneficial than spending free time at home is lacking. Using the Effort-Recovery and the Limited Resources model as theoretical basis, this study investigates whether workers behave, think, and feel differently during travel than during leisure time spent at home. In a five-week longitudinal field study, we followed 24 workers during free evenings after work, a free weekend at home, and on a free weekend of domestic travel. Within-person differences were investigated between these three occasions in behavior, cognition, and emotions. During travel, employees slept more, engaged more in physical and social activities and less in obligatory activities than during free evenings after work. Hedonic well-being was higher and ruminative thinking lower during travel than during free evenings after work. Physical distance from home and work was related to engagement in resource-providing rather than resource-consuming activities and seems to translate into mental distance from everyday worries. Differences between holiday travel and weekends at home were small. Still, the findings suggest that travel may provide feelings of remoteness in places with novel and fascinating qualities, free of chores.     

Value of knowledge—Technology strategies in different knowledge regimes

This paper introduces a knowledge-based view of the firm, which enables us to analyze how the firm should build up its technology strategies in order to capture profits from knowledge assets through knowledge creation, replication, integration and transfer. The basic idea is to shed light on the mechanisms that make it possible, first, to create value from knowledge assets, second, to protect the value created by using different protection mechanisms (such as legal means or tacitness) and, third, to share the value created between the innovator, imitators and partners (open innovation model). In our model we derive technology strategies based on different knowledge bases and their characteristics. By means of our simulation experiments we open up some black boxes behind technology strategies that are often launched only as empirical generalizations, such as Freeman’s famous technology strategy typology. Our tool can also be used as a framework when the dynamic effects of technology strategies are traced and empirically scrutinized.     

Responsible Innovation Toward Sustainable Development in Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises: a Resource Perspective

What resources do small enterprises need to develop responsible innovations that enhance sustainable development? Does lack of resources prevent innovation toward sustainability in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) or can innovations be created with scarce resources? This study investigates environmentally and socially responsible innovations of SMEs from a resource perspective, based on empirical data from 13 Nordic SMEs. The findings indicate that SMEs can create responsible innovations with very different resource combinations. The most common resource combination comprises equity, research and development cooperation, networks, industry knowledge and reputation. Except for financial capital in the form of equity, which appears a necessary condition for responsible innovation from SMEs, resource needs vary between technological and business model innovations. Creating business model innovations appears to be possible with scarce resources, at the very least with equity and social capital. Environmental technology innovations call for more abundant resource combinations. In particular industry knowledge appears to be a key resource for such innovations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Innovation and internationalization as growth strategies: The role of technological capabilities and appropriability

Firms grow either by launching new products (innovation) or by attracting new customers (internationalization) or by using a mixed strategy. An interesting question is whether innovation and internationalization activities are complementary or substitutive. The paper discusses the connections between technological capabilities, their appropriability, innovation activities, and internationalization, and derives hypotheses from the knowledge-based view of the firm. The hypotheses are empirically analyzed using survey data from 300 Finnish firms clustered as follows: (i) domestic replicators, (ii) domestic innovators, (iii) international replicators, and (iv) international innovators. The performance of the clusters is empirically analyzed, the success criteria being actual growth rate and profitability. We conclude that a profitable firm needs to have unused technological capabilities in order to exploit economies of scope through innovation. A strong appropriability regime strengthens growth. Internationalization and innovation combined is the most advisable option when domestic markets are limited.     

A simple sufficient condition for strong implementation

In an important step forward Maskin [E. Maskin, Nash equilibrium and welfare optimality, Rev. Econ. Stud. 66 (1999) 23–38] showed that two properties – monotonicity and no veto power – are together sufficient for Nash implementation. In contrast to the vast literature that followed, this characterization has two major advantages: First, it is often easy to verify, and second, it has an elegant and simple interpretation. However, there does not exist a similar condition for social choice correspondences that are implementable in strong equilibrium. All existing characterizations are either hard to verify or apply only to comprehensive preference domains. In this paper we improve the situation by giving one such condition. Moreover, using well-known examples we show that this is a practical tool.