区域知识产权保护发展的空间格局及结构体系研究

以我国各省知识产权保护制度为研究对象，创新性地将探索性空间数据分析方法与社会网络分析方法相结合，基于地理邻近视角，验证了区域知识产权保护的空间相关性、空间集聚特征和空间溢出效应。同时，突破地理近邻效应的局限，解析区域知识产权保护的空间关联特征。结果表明：我国各省知识产权保护具有全局自相关性，相似地区间存在空间集聚效应，不同发展程度地区的空间关联性质不同；网络化后的区域知识产权保护各节点间联系紧密、网络结构稳定，并且可以确定核心行动者和边缘行动者角色；长三角、珠三角、环渤海等较发达地区与其它地区之间存在较多溢出关系。     

Reference points for measuring social performance: Case study of a social business venture

We present a longitudinal qualitative case study to elaborate on how a social venture forms reference points for social performance. Although organizations increasingly use various social performance targets to direct their operations, the scholarly knowledge on social performance reference points remains limited. We make use of the prior accounting literature and draw on the idea of compromising accounts to discuss how provisional and performative metrics can have a significant role in how organizations develop new ways to evaluate their social performance. Given that the social performance reference point criteria are ambiguous and the corresponding referents malleable, performative accounts are helpful as they can intervene in the organizational life by making particular things visible, providing space for interpretations, and facilitating discussion, thus creating temporary settlements and enabling opportunities for productive compromises between different organizational groups and evaluative principles. The recursive feedback loops between reference point referents, criteria and accounting artefacts help the organization to make sense of its own social performance and interpret the associated performance feedback, and thereby provide ground for organizational decisions on further action. Moreover, we discuss how imperfect accounts can be useful for social businesses in their pursuit of developing their activities and achieving social impact.     

The power of positivity? The influence of positive psychological capital language on crowdfunding performance

We extend the entrepreneurship literature to include positive psychological capital — an individual or organization's level of psychological resources consisting of hope, optimism, resilience, and confidence — as a salient signal in crowdfunding. We draw from the costless signaling literature to argue that positive psychological capital language usage enhances crowdfunding performance. We examine 1726 crowdfunding campaigns from Kickstarter, finding that entrepreneurs conveying positive psychological capital experience superior fundraising performance. Human capital moderates this relationship while social capital does not, suggesting that costly signals may, at times, enhance the influence of costless signals. Post hoc analyses suggest findings generalize across crowdfunding types, but not to IPOs.     

Nonfinancial Considerations in Eco-Innovation Decisions: The Role of Family Ownership and Reputation Concerns

Societal pressures for greater sustainability can encourage firms to target part of their innovation activities at ecological initiatives (i.e., eco-innovation). Yet, depending on their value function, firms can respond differently to such pressures and exhibit variance in their eco-innovation activities. In this paper, we investigate the idea that a firm’s ownership structure may play a significant role in determining its engagement in eco-innovation. Specifically, we propose that ownership by family blockholders increases the value attached to the company’s reputation and that this, in turn, stimulates higher levels of eco-innovation. In other words, we model the company reputation motive as a key mediator in the relationship between family ownership and firm-level eco-innovation. To account for family firm heterogeneity, we also model the moderating role of owners’ intention to pass the business on to the next family generation (transgenerational intentions) and of the extent to which these owners reside in the firm’s local community (local embeddedness). As theoretical backdrop, our study builds on institutional theory and the mixed gamble logic. To test our hypotheses, we use a large sample of German firms and nonlinear moderated mediation regression analysis. Results reveal that family ownership is positively related to the introduction of eco-innovations by firms, in part because of the stronger emphasis being placed on the company’s reputation. We find that this effect is strongest when the owning-family has transgenerational intentions. As such, this study advances our understanding of firm-level drivers of eco-innovation. In view of the prevalence of family-owned firms and the mounting importance of ecological sustainability, it is valuable to extend knowledge on the contingent and indirect effect of family ownership on eco-innovation.     

Interorganisational project dynamics: A longitudinal study of perceptual distance and client-contractor collaborative relationships

Despite the importance of good collaborative relationships in interorganisational projects, clients and contractors often develop adversarial relationships due to perceptual distance about key project issues. In this case study research, we investigated how perceptual distance emerges and changes over time, and how the collaborative relationship between client and contractor develops alongside these dynamics. In this exploration, we built upon agency theory and stewardship theory as complementary perspectives for understanding client-contractor collaborative relationships. We gathered quantitative and qualitative data in two projects, conducting three assessments in about one year. We found that perceptual distance increased and decreased over time, and that a reduction was typically associated with the collaborative relationship being characterized by stewardship rather than agency. These findings suggest that a regular assessment and evaluation of partners’ perceptions of critical project issues is warranted to timely detect and counteract perceptual distance. Moreover, partners would best adopt a stewardship orientation to reduce perceptual distance, although this may take considerable effort given the distributive nature of many pre-project negotiations.     

Technologies in caregiving: professionals’ strategies for engaging with new technology

This article explores the adoption of new technology in organisations that provide senior citizen care. Inspired by Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, we study how technology reduces complexity by identifying client needs and ensuring predictability in service delivery. However, how technologies are adopted in practice is not determined by technology since it is also structured by care-workers' continuous decision-making. Against this backdrop, we explore how technologies alter the conditions for decision-making in two settings of elderly care, and we describe how care workers seek to adapt technologies to their practical needs as well as conception of care ethics. Developing a systems theory approach, the article eschews a priori assumptions of technological constraint on care-workers’ professional autonomy, offering a more open-ended exploration of diversified strategies for coping with new technology. Our case studies show that employees develop diversified strategies for technology adoption, including both non-usage, heated resistance, excessive embrace, and creative adaption.     

Exchange Rate Pass-Through to Consumer Prices: The Increasing Role of Energy Prices

Open Economies Review - A number of researchers have found that the rate of exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) to domestic prices has declined substantially over the last few decades. We revisit...     

Coping with coopetition—Facing dilemmas in cooperation for sustainable development: The case of the Dutch smart grid industry

This paper is amongst the first to examine coopetition strategy for sustainable development at the network level. Companies who want to successfully implement complex innovative technologies that support sustainable development need to collaborate with other actors of the innovation ecosystem, including their competitors, so that they can develop standards, interoperable products, pool knowledge, and resources and bundle forces to compete against other technologies. Collaboration with competitors brings benefits, but also many risks. We investigated how firms cope with these risks when establishing an innovation ecosystem to implement a new technology in society. We conducted research in the Dutch smart grids sector and explored how these firms minimize inherent risks of coopetition. We found that system‐building actors in the Dutch smart grid field not only minimize inherent risks, but from the start of their collaboration they implement so‐called enablers to prevent these risks upfront.