The Relationship Between Environmentally Sustainable Income, Employment and Wages in Australia

The environment is an asset that provides essential services. Like any other asset, its services will diminish as it depreciates. The environmentally sustainable income of a nation depends on a sustained flow of these services, and can be estimated by including the environment in a macroeconomic framework, with a goal to achieve both full employment and sustainability. The relationship of national income to employment is estimated at full employment, actual employment and the employment level that is necessary to maintain sustainable income, for the Australian economy. There proved to be a widening gap between actual income and environmentally sustainable income, and between actual income and income to guarentee full employment. Wage reduction and improvement of technology are analysed as possible ways to meet the goal of an environmentally sustainable income.     

The Impact of Sovereign Credit Ratings on Corporations: A Literature Review and Research Recommendations

During the financial crisis, sovereign ratings have come under increased public scrutiny due to their strong impact on sovereign borrowing costs and hence financial stability of countries. However, their influence on corporations within and outside the respective nations has so far attracted only limited attention, although several academics have provided intriguing insights in this regard. In order to obtain a structured overview of this relatively young strand of research, this paper reviews key insights and conclusions that the extant literature offers on the role of sovereign creditworthiness for corporations. Herein, it focuses on the effects that have been observed for the corporate business environment, access to capital, and foreign investment activities. Different research issues providing fertile ground for future studies are identified.     

Upper echelons and portfolio strategies of venture capital firms

In this study we analyze how the composition of the top management team (TMT) influences the portfolio strategy choice in venture capital (VC) organizations. We develop a model of risk perception to investigate how education and experience of TMT members impact whether VC organizations invest with a focus on early stage ventures or not, specialize or diversify across industries, and invest with a broad or narrow geographic scope.Evaluation of data on TMTs and portfolio strategies of 136 European VC firms revealed that VC firms with higher proportions of TMT members with science/engineering education and entrepreneurial experience more likely invest with an early stage focus. Furthermore, TMTs with more management education diversify their portfolios more across industries. Finally, the more international experience TMT members of VC organizations have, the broader the geographic scope of investees. We discuss the implications of our findings for the VC literature.     

Beratungserfolg – eine Betrachtung des State of the Art der Ansätze zur Messung und Erklärung des Erfolges von Beratungsleistungen

This paper deals with the actual question of how to measure and to evaluate the success of consulting services. It provides an overview of existing models and concepts concerning the measurement of consulting success and discusses the applicability and limits of these concepts. We show that there are very different perspectives which can be classified according to their research interest and object of investigation. Moreover, we describe their practical implications as well as their limitations. Finally we assess the different perspectives and provide advice on possible future research.     

Understanding and breaking the rules of business: Toward a systematic four-step process

Knowing the rules of a business is a prerequisite of being successful. On the other hand, carefully and selectively breaking the rules of management is often the way to exceed the low margins of intensively competitive arenas, especially at a time when technological innovation is limited and industries are tending to consolidate. Drawing on their own practical know-how and intensive research into future business models, the authors of this article call for more dialectic in management thinking. Their “rule-breaking strategy creator” process is a combination of tested consulting and venture capital tools, and provides an entirely new approach to systematic rule-breaking and, thus, competitive advantages.     

Macroeconomics versus environmental‐macroeconomics*

When environmental macroeconomic frameworks replace standard macroeconomic frameworks differences in policy outcomes ensue. The non‐recognition of real environmental capacity constraints could explain the inability of standard frameworks to deliver on certain macroeconomic goals. Herein, environmental capital depreciation is internalised into analytic frameworks of factor utilisation, aggregate demand and aggregate supply. The analyses reveal that restricted income and wage domains alongside limited environmental capacity constrain economic performance. Hence, environmental capacity expansion and initiatives towards sustainability warrant specific attention. Illustrations are made with reference to the Australian economy and her response to the 2008–2010 global financial crisis.     

How to improve acquisition performance: The role of a dedicated M&A function,M&A learning process,and M&A capability

How to improve the performance of mergers & acquisitions (M&A) continues to be a confounding issue. We show that a dedicated M&A function is a new phenomenon that is positively related to a firm's M&A performance and M&A learning process. Moreover, we find that an M&A learning process (involving articulation, codification, sharing, and internalization) helps build up an M&A capability, which in turn is positively related to a firm's overall M&A performance. We use survey data from a sample drawn from the M&A activities of German firms to test our arguments. Ltd. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Die Gestaltung von Gründungswettbewerben

Founding competitions have recently been very popular in the German-speaking world. They are considered as being important tools to foster an entrepreneurial culture. This paper addresses three important questions: (1) How should founding competitions be structured? (2) How can founders be motivated to submit promising concepts? (3) How can the participants be supported in the subsequent founding process? We provide a number of Hypotheses that can be used as a starting point for future empirical research in this area.