Spotlight on new research publications in February

How can algorithms help diagnose infections and save lives? And why exactly do we love luxury? Read about these and many other topics in our overview of new research from CBS.

01/31/2020

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Photocredit: Wikimedia Commons: "Visual Research: Scientific Facilities" by Robotconscience, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Are you a journalist, researcher or simply interested in academic articles on business and culture?

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The following is a rough list. If you need more information, please contact the researcher.

The academic articles have been peer-reviewed, which means they have been judged by other researchers within the same area.

This month, one of the publications is about how algorithms by means of large databases can diagnose infections and help doctors save lives. You can also read about why we love luxurious experiences and how they affect us and much more in this month’s peer-reviewed research.

THE FOLLOWING IS THIS MONTH’S PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH – ENJOY YOUR READING:

Find the abstracts under each heading.
 

Economics with Market Liquidity Risk
ABSTRACT: For markets to work efficiently, buyers and sellers must be able to transact easily. People must have access to a marketplace such as a supermarket or a stock exchange with adequate liquidity. Further, people must have confidence that such a well-functioning marketplace will also exist in the future. Market liquidity risk is the risk that the market will function poorly in the future, handcuffing the “invisible hand” through which markets produce allocative efficiency. We discuss the effects of market liquidity risk on asset pricing, investment management, corporate finance, banking, financial crises, macroeconomics, monetary policy, fiscal policy, and other economic areas.

Journal: Critical Finance Review
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Lasse Heje Pedersen

Managerial Biases and Debt Contract Design: The Case of Syndicated Loans
ABSTRACT: We examine whether managerial overconfidence impacts the use of performance-pricing provisions in loan contracts (performance-sensitive debt [PSD]). Managers with biased views may issue PSD because they consider this form of debt to be mispriced. Our evidence shows that overconfident managers are more likely to issue rate-increasing PSD than regular debt. They choose PSD with steeper performance-pricing schedules than those chosen by rational managers. We reject the possibility that overconfident managers have (persistent) positive private information and use PSD for signaling. Finally, firms seem to benefit less from using PSD ex post if they are managed by overconfident rather than rational managers.

Journal: Management Science
Published: January 2020
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Contact CBS researcher: Daniel Streitz

Social Immune Mechanisms: Luhmann and Potentialization Technologies.
ABSTRACT: Contemporary discourses of management are full of encouragements to ‘expect the unexpected’ and to celebrate ‘the future of the future’. Many new public managerial technologies of change – such as steering labs, future games, and managerial performance arts – promise the co-creative ‘potentialization’ of employees, citizens and organizations. This paper approaches such potentialization technologies as immune mechanisms which serve to protect the social system from itself. From a perspective inspired by autopoietic systems theory, potentialization technologies provide autoimmunity by problematizing institutional structures and providing ‘anti-structural’ space-times to facilitate transformation. There is a price to pay for this immune function, however, since these immune mechanisms cannot discriminate between productive and unproductive structures. By dissolving the certainty of the expectations that underlie the connectivity of diverse organizational operations, they risk harming the welfare systems that host them.

Journal: Theory, Culture and Society
Published: September 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen

Combining Private and Public Resources: Captive Power Plants and Electricity Sector Development in Bangladesh.
ABSTRACT: Developing economies need to efficiently utilize both public and private resources to develop their energy sectors. The opportunity cost of failing to do so is high. This article uses a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) approach to assess the integration of the Captive Power Plants (CPPs) in the power sector of Bangladesh. We find that if Bangladesh shut down the CPPs, the long-run industrial output and GDP would fall by 1.5% and 1.2%, respectively. The Impulse Response Functions (IRFs) show that the Bangladesh economy would be more vulnerable to oil price shocks without CPPs. In order to minimize distortion in the energy markets, the government could instead consider alternative reforms such as promoting the use of efficient production technologies or the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources.

Journal: Emerging Markets Finance & Trade
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Manuel Llorca, Tooraj Jamasb

Leadership and Job Satisfaction: Addressing Endogeneity With Panel Data From a Field Experiment.
ABSTRACT: The interaction between leaders and employees plays a key role in determining organizational outcomes and performance. Although the human resources management literature posits positive effects of leadership behaviors on employee job satisfaction, the causal path between the two is unclear due to potential endogeneity issues inherent in this relationship. To address the issue, we first provide theoretical explanations about why and how transformational and transactional leadership behaviors would enhance employee job satisfaction. Second, we test the relationship between leadership behaviors and employee job satisfaction using panel data from a year-long randomized field experiment that engaged leaders and employees from hundreds of public and private organizations in Denmark. Primary findings suggest that although leadership training does not have direct effects on changes in employee job satisfaction, leadership-training-induced changes in leadership behaviors (transformational leadership and verbal rewards) are positively related to changes in job satisfaction.

Journal: Review of Public Personnel Administration.
Published: April 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Niels Westergård-Nielsen

History-informed Strategy Research: The Promise of History and Historical Research Methods in Advancing Strategy Scholarship.
ABSTRACT: Research Summary: The last decade has witnessed an increasing interest in the use of history and historical research methods in strategy research. We discuss how and why history and historical research methods can enrich theoretical explanations of strategy phenomena. In addition, we introduce the notions of “history-informed strategy research,” distinguishing between the dimensions of “history to theory” and “history in theory” and discussing various under-utilized methods that may further work on history-informed strategy research. We then discuss how contemporary research contributes to history-informed research within the strategy field, examine key methodological and empirical challenges associated with such research, and develop an agenda for future research. Managerial Summary: Firms are increasingly making use of their historical past as they reflect on their identities and how these can be used strategically. At the same time, strategy researchers are paying increasing to the use of historical research methods, as well as to how firms use history strategically. We take stock on the role of history in strategy research, outline the key strategic issues that can be informed by a historical way of doing research, discuss the available historical methods, and offer suggestions for future research in the history/strategy intersection.

Journal: Strategic Management Journal
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Nicolai J. Foss

Occupations, Workplaces or Jobs? An Exploration of Stratification Contexts using Administrative Data.
ABSTRACT: Occupations have long been held by sociologists, from the older status attainment tradition to the more recent micro-class tradition, to be at the center of stratification writ large. Occupations are specifically argued to be central to shaping wages. Indeed, this has been understood as the comparative advantage of sociology relative to economics in understanding wage setting. However, an undercurrent has for decades existed in sociology that suggests other contexts, mainly workplaces and jobs, may be as important if not more important stratification contexts. Until recently data with the capacity to simultaneously assess all three contexts has been virtually non-existent. In this paper we use administrative data from five countries (Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, and South Korea) to assess the relative contributions of occupations, establishments, and jobs to wages. Our core finding is that there is no universal link between occupations and wages, with occupations explaining between 30 and 56 % of wage variance across country-years. As well, in all countries except Finland establishments explain more of the variance in wages than do occupations. Jobs and establishment figure prominently in the social organization of wages, and must be included in theoretical models and whenever possible in empirical analyses of social stratification.

Journal: Research in Social Stratification and Mobility
Published: November 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Lasse Folke Henriksen

Managing Open Innovation: A Project-level Perspective.
ABSTRACT: Open innovation has become a mainstream phenomenon in the current business landscape. However, despite the fact that innovation projects generally have different attributes (e.g., complexity and uncertainty), most studies on open innovation have only considered firm-level characteristics (e.g., firm size and firm openness) to determine how to manage open innovation successfully. Project-level studies on open innovation management are still scant—There are only a few conceptual and qualitative articles on the topic, and there is a lack of quantitative insights. Based on a survey designed to collect detailed data from 201 innovation projects undertaken by American firms, this article provides a quantitative cross-project analysis of how two, key innovation project attributes (i.e., complexity and uncertainty) are related to five factors for successful open innovation management: 1) openness level, 2) external partner choice, 3) open innovation mechanism choice, 4) collaboration process formalization, and 5) internal firm practices. This exploratory study contributes to the open innovation literature by highlighting the importance of microfoundations (i.e., innovation project attributes) in successful open innovation management. This article concludes by suggesting a number of relevant project-level future research opportunities in the field of open innovation management, and some methodological recommendations on how to address such opportunities.

Journal: IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
Published: November 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Stefan Markovic

Marketing Integration Decisions, Intermediate Goals and Market Expansion in Horizontal Acquisitions: How Marketing Fit Moderates the Relationships on Intermediate Goals.
ABSTRACT: Despite their enormous importance for value creation, marketing topics are broadly ignored in merger and acquisitions (M&A) research. Even though the internal aspects of M&A processes receive much research attention, marketing-related integration decisions play an important role in customer retention and market expansion. In this paper, we develop a model that integrates core marketing integration decisions, intermediate goals and market expansion by considering the contingency of marketing fit. The theoretical framework was tested empirically through a sample of 82 horizontal acquisitions made by acquirers from German-speaking countries. Our results show that there are no universally pertinent integration decisions; rather, there are important trade-offs that, when aggregated, may explain the insignificant results achieved by commonly accepted success factors. Furthermore, intermediate goals mediate the relationship between integration decisions and market expansion. Implications for management research and practice are also discussed.

Journal: British Journal of Management
Published: May 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Borislav Uzelac

Are Excise Taxes on Beverages Fully Passed through to Prices? The Danish Evidence.
ABSTRACT: This paper studies tax shifting of excise taxes on alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages in Denmark. We use a unique data set collected by Statistics Denmark focusing on six episodes of tax changes: three tax cuts and three tax hikes. We find that excise taxes on beer and soda are overshifted but those on liquor are undershifted. We also find that the pass-through is inversely related to the size of the tax change and that there are asymmetric effects of tax changes on soda. Finally, the tax pass-through on beer and soda is an increasing function of the distance to the German border.

Journal: Finanzarchiv
Published: 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Niels Lynggård Hansen

Is Door-to-Door Canvassing Effective in Europe? Evidence from a Meta-study across Six European Countries
ABSTRACT: A vast amount of experimental evidence suggests that get-out-the-vote encouragements delivered through door-to-door canvassing have large effects on turnout. Most of the existing studies have been conducted in the United States, and are inspiring European mobilization campaigns. This article explores the empirical question of whether the American findings are applicable to Europe. It combines existing European studies and presents two new Danish studies to show that the pooled point estimate of the effect is substantially smaller in Europe than in the United States, and finds no effects in the two Danish experiments. The article discusses why the effects seem to be different in Europe compared to the United States, and stresses the need for further experiments in Europe as there is still considerable uncertainty regarding the European effects. While one possible explanation is that differences in turnout rates explain the differences in effect sizes, the empirical analysis finds no strong relationship between turnout and effect sizes in either Europe or the United States

Journal: British Journal of Political Science
Published: January 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Jens Olav Dahlgaard

Sparsity in Optimal Randomized Classification Trees.
ABSTRACT: Decision trees are popular Classification and Regression tools and, when small-sized, easy to interpret. Traditionally, a greedy approach has been used to build the trees, yielding a very fast training process; however, controlling sparsity (a proxy for interpretability) is challenging. In recent studies, optimal decision trees, where all decisions are optimized simultaneously, have shown a better learning performance, especially when oblique cuts are implemented. In this paper, we propose a continuous optimization approach to build sparse optimal classification trees, based on oblique cuts, with the aim of using fewer predictor variables in the cuts as well as along the whole tree. Both types of sparsity, namely local and global, are modeled by means of regularizations with polyhedral norms. The computational experience reported supports the usefulness of our methodology. In all our data sets, local and global sparsity can be improved without harming classification accuracy. Unlike greedy approaches, our ability to easily trade in some of our classification accuracy for a gain in global sparsity is shown.

Journal: European Journal of Operational Research
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Dolores Romero Morales

The Counter-performativity of Calculative Practices: Mobilising Rankings of Intellectual Capital.
ABSTRACT: This article investigates accounting as a counter-performative practice. For two years and nine months, we followed State Corporation, which participated in a ranking exercise using the Intellectual Asset Health Check launched by the Australian Federal Government in 2010. We find that sceptical employees seized the opportunity made possible by the ranking system to air alternative strategies. Rather than working in a predictable or performative manner, the ranking system was taken out of the hands of management and used against them. The study contributes to extant literatures by showing how accounting can become a tool to mount and sustain resistance. The ranking system, and the ideology it represented, became counter-productive because it produced effects that were ‘counter’ or contrary to its own intent and ideals.

Journal: Critical Perspectives on Accounting
Published: September 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Jan Mouritsen

Cybersemiotic Systemic and Semiotical Based Transdisciplinarity
ABSTRACT: A transdisciplinary theory of cognition and communication based on the process self-organizing and autopoietic system theory of Niklas Luhmann integrated with a triadic semiotic paradigm of experience and interpretation with phenomenological and hermeneutical aspects of C.S. Peirce, goes beyond info-computationalism in its integrating of phenomenological and hermeneutical aspects of Peircean semiotic logic with a cybernetic and autopoietic systemic emergentist process view. This makes the emergence of mind and transdisciplinary view of sciences possible.

Journal: Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science
Published: 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Søren Brier

Predicting the Occurrence of Surgical Site Infections Using Text Mining and Machine Learning
ABSTRACT: In this study we propose the use of text mining and machine learning methods to predict and detect Surgical Site Infections (SSIs) using textual descriptions of surgeries and post-operative patients' records, mined from the database of a high complexity University hospital. SSIs are among the most common adverse events experienced by hospitalized patients; preventing such events is fundamental to ensure patients' safety. Knowledge on SSI occurrence rates may also be useful in preventing future episodes. We analyzed 15,479 surgery descriptions and post-operative records testing different preprocessing strategies and the following machine learning algorithms: Linear SVC, Logistic Regression, Multinomial Naive Bayes, Nearest Centroid, Random Forest, Stochastic Gradient Descent, and Support Vector Classification (SVC). For prediction purposes, the best result was obtained using the Stochastic Gradient Descent method (79.7% ROC-AUC); for detection, Logistic Regression yielded the best performance (80.6% ROC-AUC).

Journal: PLoS ONE
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Juliana Hsuan

Politics of Collective Memory: Insight from the Nordic Historiography on the Ukrainian famine in 1932-33
ABSTRACT: The article analyses the intellectual origins of integrating the study of memory within the humanities. The author highlights the intertextuality** (de Saussure [12], J. Kristeva [29]) and socially embedded character (J. Olick, R. Joyce, D. Levy [36]) of memory studies. Inspired by a theory of securitization (B. Buzan, O. Wævel, J. de Wilde [7] and other scholars from Copenhagen school), a somewhat new term of “genocidation” is introduced by the author in order to describe a re-invention of the Ukrainian post-Soviet identity narrative. Apart from theoretical approaches to interdisciplinary studies of memory politics in the post-globalized world, the article presents an attempt to investigate the presence of the Ukrainian famine in Nordic historiography, pointing at the existing gap in academic research on this topic in the Nordic countries. A suggestion for further research is being made, conditioned upon the access to Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish archives. The article is a part of the joint project on the Soviet famine, carried out with the support from the ReNEW Excellency Hub of research at Copenhagen Business School and Bañska Bystrica University, Slovakia.

Journal: Ukrainian Peasant
Published: 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Lizaveta Dubinka-Hushcha

Idea-based and Image-based Linguacultures: Evidence from American English and Mandarin Chinese
ABSTRACT: In order to investigate whether or not cultural cognitive differences between Western and East Asian countries should be taken seriously we compared the empirical results from studies of perception and cognition involving primarily American and Chinese people to linguistic data from exactly the same areas in American English and Mandarin Chinese. What we found were systematic language parallels to the perceptual and cognitive differences found in empirical studies. Our linguistic analysis did not only reveal that the differences should be taken seriously, but also that it seems to be possible to trace them back to different perspectives involved: The Anglo-American culture has an idea-based perspective, while the Mandarin Chinese culture has an image-based perspective to what appears to be a common basis for both Americans and Chinese in all other respects. The difference in perspective is, for instance, reflected in the two very different writing systems.

Journal: International Journal of Language and Culture
Published: 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Per Durst-Andersen, Daniel Barratt

Comparison of the Marginal Hazard Model and the Sub-distribution Hazard Model for Competing Risks under an Assumed Copula
ABSTRACT: For the analysis of competing risks data, three different types of hazard functions have been considered in the literature, namely the cause-specific hazard, the sub-distribution hazard, and the marginal hazard function. Accordingly, medical researchers can fit three different types of the Cox model to estimate the effect of covariates on each of the hazard function. While the relationship between the cause-specific hazard and the sub-distribution hazard has been extensively studied, the relationship to the marginal hazard function has not yet been analyzed due to the difficulties related to non-identifiability. In this paper, we adopt an assumed copula model to deal with the model identifiability issue, making it possible to establish a relationship between the sub-distribution hazard and the marginal hazard function. We then compare the two methods of fitting the Cox model to competing risks data. We also extend our comparative analysis to clustered competing risks data that are frequently used in medical studies. To facilitate the numerical comparison, we implement the computing algorithm for marginal Cox regression with clustered competing risks data in the R joint.Cox package and check its performance via simulations. For illustration, we analyze two survival datasets from lung cancer and bladder cancer patients

Journal: Statistical Methods in Medical Research
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Ralf Wilke

Jurisdiction and Applicable Law to Contracts for the Sale of Goods and the Provision of Services including the Carriage of Goods by Sea and other Means of Transport in the European Union.
ABSTRACT: The article analyses the jurisdiction and applicable law to contracts for the sale of godos and the provision of services in the European Union. It particularly focuses on contracts that subsume different categories of contracts, such as the carriage of goods by sea, in a contract for the sale of godos and the provision of services. The European Union law and the interpretation provided by the Court of Justice of the European Union shed light into the place of performance of the contract in order to set jurisdiction for national courts. This is explained through the current legal framework and the case law in order to ascertain where and under what legal regime the claimant may start proceedings for the breach of a contractual obligation or in case of a non-contractual claim.

Journal: Cuadernos de Derecho Transnacional
Published: 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Jonatan Echebarria Fernández

Jurisdiction and Applicable Law to Claims Related to the Payment of Contributions to the Budget of an Association of Property Owners for the Maintenance of the Communal Areas of a Building: Comment on the Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 8 May 2019, Brian Andrew Kerr v Pavlo Postnov and Natalia Postnova, C-25/18
ABSTRACT: This comment on the judgment C-25/18 analyses the characterisation of the outstanding amounts payable by the owners of an apartment to the manager of the association of owners of the building in concept of maintenance costs of communal areas. The Court of Justice of the European Union identifies the court having jurisdiction according to Article 7(1)(a) (matters related to contract) of the Brussels I Recast Regulation and the applicable law according to Articles 4(1)(b) (provision of services). However, Article 4(1)(c) (rights in rem in immovable property) of the Rome I Regulation is not applicable.

Journal: Cuadernos de Derecho Transnacional
Published: 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Jonatan Echebarria Fernández

A Dynamic Model of Embeddedness in Digital Infrastructures
ABSTRACT: Digital infrastructures result from individual yet interdependent systems evolving in relation to each other. This paper identifies three processes by which individual systems become embedded into digital infrastructures. The first is a parallel process, whereby systems become embedded independently of each other. The second is a competitive process, whereby systems compete for resources and attention and one system usually thrives while the other system loses importance. The third is a spanning process characterizing a situation of boundary-spanning between distinct parts of a digital infrastructure. The three processes, synthesized into a dynamic model of digital infrastructure embeddedness, offer clarity to the question how digital infrastructures evolve. They also provide insight into the emergence of three forms of digital infrastructures: silofied, regenerated, and unified. Reflecting an interconnection view, our research further facilitates an understanding of infrastructure inertia and its associated consequence. Criticality traps should be avoided by considering the right timing for system replacement in the light of growing embeddedness over time. Digital infrastructures are a result of individual yet interdependent systems evolving in relation to each other. In this paper, we identify three processes by which individual systems become embedded into digital infrastructures. First, there are parallel processes, in which systems become embedded independently of each other. Second, there are competitive processes, in which the embeddedness of one system increases at the expense of another. Finally, there are spanning processes, in which bridges are built between different embedded systems. The three processes, synthesized into a dynamic model of digital infrastructure embeddedness, offer much-needed conceptual clarity to the area of digital infrastructure evolution. They also provide insight into the emergence of three forms of digital infrastructures: silofied, regenerated, and unified. Reflecting an interconnection view, our research further facilitates an understanding of infrastructure inertia and its associated consequence.

Journal: Information Systems Research
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Abayomi Baiyere

Business Investment in Education in Emerging Markets since the 1960s
ABSTRACT: This article examines non-profit investments by business in education in emerging markets between the 1960s and the present day. Using a sample of 110 interviews with business leaders from a recently developed oral history database, the study shows that more than three-quarters of such leaders invested in education as a non-profit activity. The article explores three different types of motivations behind such high levels of engagement with education: values driven, context focussed, and firm focussed. The article identifies significant regional variations in terms of investment execution, structure, and impact. In South and Southeast Asia, there was a preference for long-term investment in primary and secondary education. In Africa and Latin America, some initiatives sometimes had a shorter-term connotation, but with high-profile projects in partnerships with international organisations and foreign universities. In Turkey, there was heavy focus on training and the creation of universities. The article concludes by examining the impact of this investment, comparing Chile and India especially. It discusses issues such as the paucity of financial data and the challenges of comparing different types of educational spending, which make robust conclusions hard, but does suggest that although such spending did not resolve major educational roadblocks across the emerging world, it represented a positive overall social gain.

Journal: Business History
Published: October 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Valeria Giacomin

Bureaucratic Representation and the Rejection Hypothesis: A Longitudinal Study of the European Commission's Staff Composition (1980–2013)
ABSTRACT: This article analyzes the evolution of the staff composition of the European Commission from 1980 to 2013 using the theory of representative bureaucracy. The article first demonstrates how the Commission formulates guidelines which aim at offering fair levels of representation to each member state. However, comparing recruitment targets and actual staffing figures reveals very heterogeneous staff levels. Some member states enjoy unexpectedly high levels of representation whereas others present very low levels. The latter are particularly intriguing and open the door to the formulation of a "rejection hypothesis." This hypothesis challenges one of the foundations of the theory of representative bureaucracy and leads us to suggest that the theory be enhanced in order to take into account its context of implementation in terms of consolidated or contested statehood, which in turn may explain the phenomena of rejected offers of bureaucratic representation.

Journal: Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
Published: January 2020
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Contact CBS researcher: Magali Gravier

Governmentality and Statification: Towards a Foucauldian Theory of the State
ABSTRACT: This article contributes to governmentality studies and state theory by discussing how to understand the centrality and importance of the state from a governmentality perspective. It uses Giorgio Agamben’s critique of Michel Foucault’s governmentality approach as a point of departure for re-investigating Foucault as a thinker of the state. It focuses on Foucault’s notion of the state as a process of ‘statification’ which emphasizes the state as something constantly produced and reproduced by processes and practices of government, administration and acclamation. As a result of this, the state appears as a given entity which is necessary for the multiplicity of governmental technologies and practices in modern society to function. Only by reference to the state can governmental practices be effective and legitimized. Finally, the article conceptualizes the centrality of the state through Foucault’s (preliminary) notions of the state as a ‘practico-reflexive prism’ and a ‘principle of intelligibility’.

Journal: Theory, Culture & Society
Published: January 2020
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Contact CBS researcher: Mathias Hein Jessen

Between ‘Freedom as Autonomy’ and ‘Freedom as Potentiality’: Artistic Work in a Participatory Culture.
ABSTRACT: Contemporary cultural policy promotes the value of participatory practices, including participatory art. However, this emphasis renders cultural policy subject to the art community’s widespread and generalized suspicion that government initiatives instrumentalize artistic practices to serve purposes other than those pursued by artists themselves. This article addresses the relationship between participatory art, participatory culture and cultural policy, focusing in particular on notions of artistic autonomy. Specifically, the article uses organization theory’s discussion of freedom in work to frame art theory’s sustained, albeit differently conceptualized, preoccupation with notions of artistic autonomy in respect to the bureaucratic organization of life in modernity. Empirically, the article analyses an inspirational catalogue that promotes the use of participatory art and citizen involvement in public art projects as a way of challenging the art community’s generalized suspicion, while also suggesting that Danish arts policy is renegotiating the role of art in contemporary society by taking advantage of contemporary opportunities for seizing artistic freedom. Contemporary participatory culture, it is argued, conditions as well as promotes artistic practice, thus generating new artistic possibilities, although only to the extent that artists engage in collaboration with other organizations, including those affecting cultural policy.

Journal: Conjunctions: Transdisciplinary journal of cultural participation
Published: 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Ditte Vilstrup Holm

Firm Acquisitions by Family Firms: A Mixed Gamble Approach.
ABSTRACT: This study elucidates the mixed gamble confronting family firms when considering a related firm acquisition. The socioemotional and financial wealth trade-off associated with related firm acquisitions as well as their long-term horizon turns family firms more likely to undertake a related acquisition than non-family firms, especially when they are performing above their aspiration level. Post-merger performance pattern confirm that family firms are able to create long-term value through these acquisitions and by doing so they surpass non-family firms. These findings stand in contrast to commonly used behavioural agency predictions, but can be reconciled with theory through a mixed gambles’ lens.

Journal: Family Business Review
Published: October 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Abdul-Basit Issah

Corporate Brand Identity Co-creation in Business-to-business Contexts.
ABSTRACT: Traditionally, corporate brand identity was considered to be directed and controlled by managers. However, more recent research has begun to recognize the limits of this view, which has led to the emergence of a stakeholder-driven, dynamic perspective, in which multiple stakeholders co-create diverse corporate brand meanings. This perspective argues that while managers have influence over the essence of the corporate brand, other stakeholders imprint and share their own interpretations. To better understand the process of corporate brand identity co-creation, we used a case study method with multiple cases, involving five small and medium sized business-to-business (B2B) corporate brands. We specifically chose B2B corporate brands, because they are often built on long-term and close relationships with diverse stakeholders, serving as a solid ground for illustrating the process of co-creation. To obtain the necessary depth of insight, we conducted 37 semi-structured interviews. Our research shows that corporate brand identity co-creation in B2B contexts is an ongoing dynamic process where multiple internal and external stakeholders engage in four different but interrelated performances: communicating; internalizing; contesting; and elucidating.

Journal: Industrial Marketing Management.
Published: September 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Stefan Markovic

Sustainability Beyond Instrumentality: Towards an Immanent Ethics of Organizational Environmentalism
ABSTRACT: In research on organizational environmentalism, there has been a repeated call for ways to go beyond the business case for sustainability frame. While the business case frame assumes that developing eco-friendly solutions can benefit firms financially, this article highlights the importance of challenging established understandings of sustainability. To this end, I introduce Deleuze’s distinction between morality and ethics. Morality involves passing judgements on the basis of values. Ethics provides an immanent evaluation of the principles by which specific solutions are considered sustainable. Analysing interviews with architects, building engineers and business developers, the article shows how these actors reflect on the values that form the basis of their practice, but also try to imagine new ways of working with sustainability. In conclusion, the article suggests that an immanent ethics of organizational environmentalism can allow for the values that inform environmental efforts in organizations to be evaluated as well as alternative visions of sustainability to be created.

Journal: Journal of Business Ethics
Published: January 2020
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Contact CBS researcher: Christian Garmann Johnsen

Towards a Kierkegaardian Retreating of the Political
ABSTRACT: The first section of this paper argues that we can find in Kierkegaard an idea of equality, epitomized in the notion of “the neighbor” presented in Works of Love, which is highly relevant for, among other things, a critical engagement with today’s “identity politics.” The second section argues that Kierkegaard’s idea of equality is a religious-existential task, but also a task concerning our relationship with other human beings. The third section demonstrates how this idea of equality is evinced in the notion of “the neighbor.” The last section offers some reflections on how we might begin to rethink the political based on this idea of equality.

Journal: Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook
Published: 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Mads Peter Karlsen

Offentligt lederskab som interaktioner og relationer
ABSTRACT: Interessen for ledelse, lederskab og lederskabsteori i offentlig sektor er steget betydeligt de seneste 20 år. I artiklen argumenteres for, at den måde vi tænker om og taler om lederskab, kan have stor betydning for hvordan det kan udøves i praksis. Lederskab er en lille, men vigtig del af det at være leder, og handler dybest set om at skabe indflydelse, bevægelse og om at mobilisere mennesker. I såvel forskningslitteraturen som i mere populære tekster bliver begrebet lederskab brugt i mange forskellige betydninger. Oftest handler det dog om en enkelt person, det vil sige lederen. Ikke mindst i offentlige organisationer, som typisk tilbyder en kompleks og mangfoldig kontekst, er værdien af fokus på en enkeltperson dog begrænset. I stedet kan vi søge inspiration i den del af lederskabsforskningen, som mere fokuserer på elementer som delt lederskab og som lægger vægt på relationer og interaktioner, og som opfatter lederskab som en proces. I denne artikel gennemgår vi nogle af de centrale teoretiske retninger indenfor feltet, og illustrerer brugbarheden i at italesætte lederskab mere i termer af interaktioner og relationer, end i termer af personer.

Journal: Public Governance Research
Published: 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Frank Meier, Magnus Larsson

Shooting stars? Uncertainty in Hiring Entrepreneurs.
ABSTRACT: Research Summary This article advances a theory to explain why a spell of entrepreneurship affects the future wages of entrepreneurs returning to the wage sector. We propose that entrepreneurship holds a low rather than a negative information value, increasing the uncertainty around a job applicant's future productivity. Employers respond to this uncertainty by discounting the offered wage. The theory predicts that uncertainty in hiring—and thus the wage penalty—is more pronounced for entrepreneurs (a) who were in the upper tail of the wage distribution before the entrepreneurial spell, (b) who exited entrepreneurship quickly, and (c) who are hired by small employers. We test and find empirical support for these predictions using a novel dataset of matched entrepreneurs and employees from Belgium. Managerial Summary We investigate the effect of past entrepreneurial experience on the future wages of entrepreneurs who go back to paid employment. We propose that former entrepreneurs receive a pay cut because employers consider them as risky hires. In line with our theory, we find that former entrepreneurs are penalized the most (a) if they were highly paid employees before becoming founders, (b) if they were entrepreneurs only for a few years, (c) and if they are hired by small employers. Our findings caution star employees from experimenting with an entrepreneurial career, as failing fast is costly. Moreover, we suggest that firms value probationary contracts to lower the risk of hiring entrepreneurs while learning about their skills.

Journal: Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal
Published: November 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Toke Reichstein

Reflections on the 2018 Decade Award: The Meaning and Dynamics of Corporate Social Responsibility.
ABSTRACT: We reflect on our 2008 article, "'Implicit' and 'Explicit' CSR: A Conceptual Framework for a Comparative Understanding of Corporate Social Responsibility," first recalling its origins. We contextualize this reflection piece with a stylized interpretation of CSR "then" (the turn of the twenty-first century) and "now" (2019). We then focus on two themes: CSR's meaning and its dynamics. Regarding the meaning of CSR, we indicate the advantages of our capacious CSR definition and elaborate on the underlying theorization of our CSR framework regarding corporations' need for legitimacy with their core stakeholders, societies they operate in, and regulators they are subject to. We propose that the configuration of these legitimacy relationships informs the nature and balance of implicit and explicit CSR. Turning to CSR dynamics, we build on research on the hybridization of implicit and explicit CSR and explore two underlying phenomena—explicitization and implicitization of CSR. We conceptualize explicitization as the process by which norms and rules associated with implicit CSR are adopted in explicit CSR policies, practices, and strategies. We conceptualize implicitization of CSR as the process by which norms and rules of business responsibility are informed by what were hitherto explicit CSR policies, practices, and strategies of corporations, and are built into general obligations of business.

Journal: Academy of Management Journal
Published: January 2020
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Contact CBS researcher: Jeremy Moon

Global Value Chain Governance: Intersections with International Business
ABSTRACT: The international business (IB) literature has always analyzed multinational enterprises (MNEs) as firms that internalize market transactions across national borders. Over the last few decades, these firms have evolved from vertically integrated organizations to network orchestrators that coordinate geographically dispersed economic activities. In other words, they are the primal actors within global value chains (GVCs). Despite the commonality of their objects of study, the incorporation of GVC research into mainstream IB remains embryonic and fragmented. This review uses the lens of the eclectic paradigm to funnel disconnected strands of the GVC governance literature from multiple disciplines into a coherent framework. Based on a systematic examination of 143 theoretical and empirical studies, we scrutinize the theory, methods and empirical evidence to promote a more structured integration of GVC governance into future IB research.

Journal: Journal of World Business
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Bo Bernhard Nielsen

Civilizing Left Populism: Towards a Theory of Plebeian Democracy.
ABSTRACT: This article discusses how to overcome the limitations of liberal democracy whilst remaining committed to a constitutional political order based on individual rights. Combining insights from Hispanophone and Anglophone scholarship, we argue that the tradition of specifically plebeian republican political thought offers resources for overcoming the perennial liberal problem that socio-economic divisions beyond the state are rendered politically invisible, leaving democracy vulnerable to oligarchic capture. Thus, we outline an institutional vision of plebeian democracy based on two insights. First, starting from a republican notion of liberty as material independence we understand social (property) rights as constitutive for the democratic body politic on a par with political-juridical rights. Second, we advocate the need for separate institutions of elite accountability as checks on oligarchy. To connect theory and praxis, we illustrate this framework through a critical affirmative analysis of the discourse of Bernie Sanders and Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias. Although both are viewed as “left populists” due to their invocations of an elite-people antagonism, they are more accurately described as plebeian democrats, who share an ideal of democracy as a civic and rights-based, republican model of government.

Journal: Constellations: An international journal of critical and democratic theory
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Andreas Møller Mulvad

The Case for Building Climate Reporting into Financial Accounting.
ABSTRACT: For mitigation efforts against climate breakdown to be effective they need to bring in the private sector in a meaningful way. Current standards for financial reporting for commercial organizations focus on the interests of capital suppliers to the exclusion of other stakeholders and civil society. These stakeholders include the suppliers of capital, trading partners, employees, regulators, tax authorities, and civil society. So far initiatives to include environmental and social costs have been additive rather than substantive. In this think piece we offer a radical proposal in the form of sustainable cost accounting (SCA). As a standard SCA would build on existing accounting principles to require commercial organizations to report on how they will manage the costs of becoming net carbon zero compliant. SCA does not include carbon pricing or the cost of offsets. It would require the commercial organization to establish the costs of the transition to carbon neutrality. Regulatory requirements, enmeshment in transnational standards, and adequate auditing would implement SCA. If SCA was mandatory and comprehensively applied it would take a significant step in bringing business onside in addressing climate breakdown.

Journal: Samfundsøkonomen
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Leonard Seabrooke

Crowdfunding i Danmark: Fra niche til mainstream finansiering
ABSTRACT: Crowdfunding repræsenterer en hastigt voksende finansieringskilde til en række både profit- og ikke-profitorienterede projekter, som ved hjælp af små bidrag fra et stort antal enkeltpersoner har ændret finansieringsmulighederne for en række velgørende organisationer, iværksættere og kunstnere. På baggrund af data fra otte crowdfundingplatforme med en samlet finansiering på næsten 223 mio. kr. forsøger denne artikel at kortlægge crowdfunding i Danmark. Artiklen introducerer både fænomenet crowdfunding, nogle beskrivende karakteristika samt en analyse af, hvilke faktorer der forudsiger sandsynligheden for en succesfuld kampagne. Artiklen finder, at mens crowdfunding italesættes som en demokratiserende kraft, er gevinsthaverne langtfra normalt fordelt, men i stedet koncentreret i byerne – navnlig hovedstadsområdet. Omvendt synes crowdfunding at være demokratiserende i den forstand, at kvinder har signifikant større chance for at opnå succes sammenholdt med mænd. Disse resultater giver et indblik i det fremvoksende fænomen crowdfunding i en dansk kontekst samt i, hvilke personer og områder der drager fordel heraf.

Journal: Økonomi og Politik
Published: 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Kristian Roed Nielsen

Three Decades of Tourism Scholarship: Gender, Collaboration and Research Methods
ABSTRACT: Despite ongoing problems with gender inequalities in tourism, little is known about gender differences in first and solo authorships, collaboration, and choice of research approaches. This study analyzes these academic practices using 4973 articles (11,033 authors) in three major tourism journals from 1990 to 2017. The results show evidence of gender homophilic collaboration behaviors. Gender heterogeneous co-authorships are becoming pervasive and seem to be driven by female first authors. Solo female researchers strongly associate with qualitative research. While male-only teams have the lowest likelihood of using qualitative research, the situation is more complex for gender heterogeneous teams. Practical suggestions derived from the findings for the gender equality agenda in tourism are discussed to promote more gender-diverse collaborations and female-led research.

Journal: Tourism Management
Published: June 2020
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Contact CBS researcher: Robin Nunkoo

Green Capitalism and Unjust Sustainabilities
ABSTRACT: Climate change and other global environmental challenges are pushing societies and political systems to critically reflect on the role of business as a problem and as a solution to these crises. Sustainability has become a commodity itself, to be traded, bought, sold and managed like all others. How lead firms in global value chains address sustainability issues has become a key competitive element and a source of value creation and capture – facilitating a process of ‘green capital accumulation’. In this article, I briefly examine how green capitalism is leading to new forms of inequality and provide an agenda for ‘just sustainabilities’ that can help building a social foundation for an inclusive and stable economic and productive system operating within our environmental planetary boundaries.

Journal: Samfundsøkonomen
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Stefano Ponte

The Co-performation of Financial Economics in Accounting Standard-setting: A Study of the Translation of the Expected Credit Loss Model in IFRS 9
ABSTRACT: This paper adds to the literature on the role of financial economics in accounting standard-setting by analyzing the co-performation of an economic theory – the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) – in the construction of a new approach to accounting for credit losses in financial reporting. Inspired by actor-network theory and its notions of performativity and translation, the paper draws on interview data and documents to reconstruct the process by which the devalued “incurred loss” impairment model was replaced with a more forward-looking “expected loss” approach under IFRS in response to the 2008 financial crisis. These actions comprised of a series of experiments and negotiations, including an unsuccessful effort to establish an “ideal”-type model and the failure of a joint initiative between the IASB and the FASB. Alongside extensive considerations over how to make the approach operational, the influence of the EMH regarding the relationship between loan pricing and initial expectations of credit losses is elucidated. We show how a standard-setting objective grounded in financial economics is translated through a process of approximation as it forges linkages with other matters of concern. This process sheds light on the transformations involved in finding tolerable solutions when utilizing financial economics in the setting of accounting standards.

Journal: Accounting, Organizations and Society
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Peter Skærbæk

Modeling Collaborative Intentions and Behavior in Digital Environments: The Case of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
ABSTRACT: Modern management education promotes active learning and peer interaction through group work regarding it as a critical aspect of the learning process. Given the rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) it is imperative to comprehend how collaboration can be fostered in such digital learning environments. Synthesizing theories on individual cognition and collective interaction, we advance a research model of individual and communal beliefs about collaboration as salient drivers of collaborative intentions. Analytical results indicate that attitudes toward collaboration at the outset of the course are predicted by collaborative outcome expectancy and communal support expectancy, which in turn are precipitated on participants’ perceived ability to work in groups (collaborative process efficacy) and peer influence (communal influence). Additionally, we show that collaborative intentions influence collaborative behavior and its outcomes. In particular we find that group work engagement contributes to three outcomes: a higher course retention of participants, increased production of novel ideas and finally a better learning experience. The models are validated with survey data collected from a MOOC course. Findings from our study unravel individual and communal factors affecting engagement in collaborative processes and show the impact of collaboration on learning and behavior within online learning environments.

Journal: Academy of Management Learning and Education
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Chee-Wee Tan, Liana Razmerita

Exploring Continuous Auditing Solutions and Internal Auditing: A Research Note.
ABSTRACT: Research Question: Organizations increasingly buy standardized continuous auditing solutions from vendors rather than develop their own. What opportunities lie in exploring the adoption, implementation and application of such solutions in the context of internal auditing. Motivation: Extant literature has not fully examined the implications of this development and there are several interesting unexplored research questions in this area. Idea: We develop a framework for examining continuous auditing as an information system solution and link this to internal auditing. Data: We employ existing literature as data and build on similar frameworks from ERP systems and AIS research. Findings: The findings of the paper are a series of research questions for examining this relationship as well as a proposal for using different theoretical perspectives and methodologies. Contribution: The contribution is a new perspective on continuous auditing research that could move this research area forward and link it to current developments in the field.

Journal: Journal of Accounting and Management Information Systems
Published: 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Pall Rikhardsson
 

Digitization Capability and the Digitalization of Business Models in Business-to-business Firms: Past, Present, and Future
ABSTRACT: While the use of data in business-to-business marketing is not a new phenomenon, the digitization and digitalization of business-to-business firms' business models have recently attracted a great deal of attention. With the aim of creating an overview and consolidating this stream of research, the present paper offers a brief historical overview of research on digitization and digitalization in business-to-business markets – concluding that this discussion has a long tradition and, thus, is not a new phenomenon. We develop a definition of digitization capability as a basis for discussing how a firm's digitization capability interacts with its business model to allow for data-enabled growth, i.e. its digitalization, and we highlight promising avenues for future research.

Journal: Industrial Marketing Management.
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Thomas Ritter, Carsten Lund Pedersen

Productivity Dynamics and Rural Industrialization in India
ABSTRACT: Since the late 1990s, industrialization in India has been driven by the rural organized manufacturing sector. This paper examines the effects of firms’ dynamics on rural industrialization in India, using plant-level panel data, to investigate the characteristics of rural industrialization in India in recent years. In particular, the paper focuses on productivity differences among continuing, entering, and exiting firms. The results show that both labour and total factor productivity of the organized manufacturing sector in rural areas increased during 2000–2006 and the aggregate productivity growth is supported by the productivity growth of the continuing firms, the entry of productive firms, and the exit of less-productive firms. The paper can conclude that firms’ productivity dynamics contributed to the current rural industrialization in India. JEL: O14, O47, O53.

Journal: Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Aradhna Aggarwal

Client Risk Informedness in Brokered Cloud Services: An Experimental Pricing Study.
ABSTRACT: Service brokerage in cloud computing markets aggregates cloud resources to lower the cost and risk of their services and to customize them to address different client needs. This research proposes a mechanism for pricing brokered cloud computing services that includes guaranteed computing job completion and risk-based pricing. Using a laboratory experiment with 42 participants playing the role of cloud computing clients, we compare the economic performance of the pricing mechanism under different levels of client risk informedness and job duration. The results suggest that such risk informedness plays a major role in influencing the willingness-to-pay of clients for brokered services. By investigating the heterogeneity of client risk propensity, we explain the performance differences and find an interaction effect for risk propensity and risk informedness on the willingness-to-pay of clients. Based on our findings and the related causal inferences, we discuss the implications for the pricing strategies of cloud services brokers, as well as for those of cloud services vendors.

Journal: Electronic Commerce Research and Applications
Published: 2020
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Contact CBS researcher: Robert J. Kauffman

Value Creation and Value Capture Alignment in Business Model Innovation: A Process View on Outcome-based Business Models
ABSTRACT: Industrial manufacturers are innovating their business models by shifting from selling products to selling outcome‐based services, where the provider (manufacturer) guarantees to deliver the performance outcomes of the products and services. This form of business model innovation requires a profound yet little understood shift in how value is created, delivered, and captured. To address this research gap, our study examines two successful and four unsuccessful cases of this shift. We find that effectiveness in business model innovation hinges on the three process phases that unfold in collaboration with the customers: value proposition definition, value provision design, and value‐in‐use delivery. We also find that that success is determined by the alignment of specific value creation and value capture activities in each phase: identifying value creation opportunities <> agreeing on value distribution in value proposition definition, designing the value offering <> deciding on the profit formula in the value provision design, and finally refining value creation processes <> regulating incentive structures in the value‐in‐use delivery. Our process model contributes to the literature and practice on business model innovation by providing a thorough understanding of how alignment of value creation and value capture processes is ensured, whilst paying special attention to their interdependence and the interactions between provider and customer.

Journal: Journal of Product Innovation Management
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Marin Jovanovic

Kissing Frogs: Do Psychologists and Bankers Live in Different Worlds?
ABSTRACT: Organisational psychology consultants and valuation bankers are essential to creating employee stock ownership plan companies (ESOPs). However, bankers and organisational psychology consultants see the world in different ways and in fact, paradoxically create different sorts of companies from the same companies, engendering an ontological pluralism. This pluralism suggests that social change can happen on a large scale without persuading everyone there is only one way to see or be in the world. In fact, it’s possible that ESOPs are as successful as they are because they are a sort social form that exists differently for various people, while still making line employees wealthier than they otherwise would be.

Journal: Ethnos.
Published: December 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Daniel Souleles

Moments of Luxury: A Qualitative Account of the Experiential Essence of Luxury
ABSTRACT: This study advances an unconventional perspective on the experiential essence of luxury, with the aim to uncover different types of luxury moments and shed light on their shared qualities and momentousness, independent of consumption styles or contexts. The findings of an interpretive study identify five types of luxury moments: interrupting, climactic, disrupting, ritualistic, and terminating. They differ in their temporal focus and degree of contrast to ordinary life, created through shared experiential qualities. These qualities set moments of luxury apart from other pleasurable moments, since moments of luxury are freeing, happy, perfect, scarce, caring, and exciting. The concept of luxury moments helps illuminate the essence of experiential luxury and unfolds in themes of growth and advancement, bliss and Eudaimonia, unity with the other, and awe and self-transcendence, thus adding to the understanding of the meaning of luxury in liquid times

Journal: Journal of Business Research
Published: November 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Sylvia von Wallpach, Thyra Uth Thomsen

Only the Wearer Knows Where the Shoe Pinches? Deontics and Epistemics in Discussions of Health and Well-being in Participatory Workplace Settings.
ABSTRACT: In participatory activities in the workplace, employees are invited to raise problems and suggest improvements to the management. Although it is widely acknowledged that employees rarely control decisions in these settings, little is known about the interactional resources that employees and managers draw upon when negotiating consensus about which initiatives to pursue in the future. We analyse interactions from participatory meetings in an industrial setting in relation to the topic of work shoes, showing how the participants orient to both their relative deontic rights (e.g. who can suggest and decide on initiatives) and epistemic rights (e.g. who can define a situation as problematic and assert what can be done about it). The analysis suggests that besides their low deontic status, employees’ fragile epistemic status constitutes an important but overlooked challenge to achieving improved working conditions through the participatory activities.

Journal: Discourse and Communication
Published: September 2019
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Contact CBS researcher: Christian Dyrlund Wåhlin-Jacobsen

The page was last edited by: Sekretariat for Ledelse og Kommunikation // 01/31/2020