Mapping circular economy activities in the European Union: Patterns of implementation and their correlates in small and medium‐sized enterprises

With the European Commission looking for ways to incentivize the adoption of circular economy (CE) activities by small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the European Union (EU), further insights into the implementation of CE activities across member states are needed. We analyse a European Commission survey conducted in 2016 among approximately 11,000 firms in EU‐28 member states in order to throw light on the conditions in which SMEs engage in five specific CE activities. In contrast to previous studies arguing that CE activities are independent of each other, we present novel findings demonstrating that seven patterns of engagement in CE can be identified in which activities are systematically interdependent. Further, we show that these patterns are associated with the organizational properties of SMEs and are differentially distributed among EU member states and industrial sectors. The interdependency of activities forms a hierarchy in which waste minimization is the most likely activity to be implemented in SMEs, followed, in descending order of likelihood, by replanning of energy use, redesigning products and services, and finally using renewable energy and replanning water usage. The findings have theoretical, managerial, and policy implications for the adoption of interdependent CE activities.     

Modeling travel decisions: Urban exploration,cultural immersion,or both?

This paper investigates the characteristics of the choice between cities and culture (or aspects of both) in selecting certain travel destinations. The data consist of 28,700 individuals in 32 European countries. Bivariate probit model estimates show that those with moderately and skilled occupations, students, pensioners, women, people living in cities and regions with a high gross domestic product per capita have a higher joint probability of undertaking city and cultural trips. Furthermore, there are large differences in decisions to take a combined city and cultural trip across the countries of residence surveyed, with small western European countries exhibiting the highest probability.     

Does Women's Preference for Highbrow Leisure Begin in the Family? Comparing Leisure Participation among Brothers and Sisters

Research shows that women are more likely than men to participate in highbrow leisure activities, but we do not know whether this gap develops within the family at an early age or is the outcome of socioeconomic differences between men and women later in life. We compare highbrow leisure participation among brothers and sisters from the same family and report three findings: (1) gender differences in highbrow leisure participation are largely unrelated to family background, (2) there is little evidence that parents engage in gender-specific cultural socialization, and (3) socioeconomic position and family obligations account for less than 20% of brother-sister differences in highbrow leisure participation. Our results suggest that gender differences in highbrow leisure participation originate in factors outside the family.     

Trust in the employer: the role of high-involvement work practices and procedural justice in European organizations

Despite the central role of trust in the organizational sciences, we know little about what makes people trust the organizations they work for. This paper examines the antecedents of employees' trust in their organizations drawing on survey data from over 600 European professional workers and managers. The results revealed direct as well as indirect relationships of both human resource (HR) practices and procedural justice with trust. The relationships of both HR practices and procedural justice with trust were partially mediated by perceptions of organizational trustworthiness (in terms of perceived ability and trustworthy intentions of the organization). Justice and HR practices were also found to interact such that justice forms a stronger predictor of trust in organizations when HR practices are less developed. In addition, employees' dispositional propensity to trust explained significant variance in employee trust in their organization, even when it was controlled in our analysis. The implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed.