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To what extent are personal trust, mutual interests, and third parties important in enforcing agreements to trade? How do firms combine these to form transactional-governance structures? This article answers these questions in a whole-economy, cross-country setting that considers a full spectrum of transactional-governance strategies. The data collection requires a new survey question answerable in any context. The question is applied in six South American countries using representative samples, with the resultant survey weights facilitating a whole-economy analysis. Without imposing an a priori model, latent class analysis estimates meaningful governance structures. Bilateralism is always used. Law is never used alone. Bilateralism and formal institutions are rarely substitutes. Within country, inter-regional variation in governance is greater than inter-country variation. The usefulness of the data is shown by testing one element of Williamson's discriminating-alignment agenda: greater uncertainty in the transactional environment increases the involvement of third parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interdependence is an observable fact of social and economic life. However, while the term is used frequently, it is sometimes conflated with related terms like dependence, and scholars debate whether interdependence should be increased or decreased, for example, between trading nations. From an Austrian perspective, interdependence is a central characteristic of economics, enabling such phenomena as the division of labor. In this paper, we use multiple theoretical lenses, particularly drawing on insights from Austrian economics, to clarify and contextualize what is meant by interdependence. We first seek to establish a precise understanding of what it means for two agents to be interdependent, and then identify in what circumstances interdependence can be a desirable or undesirable system trait. We find that interdependence itself is a neutral concept, neither inherently good or bad. While interdependence is a trait of some successful systems, it can also introduce vulnerabilities. More specifically, depending on the nature of the goal attainment between interdependent agents, interdependence can either enable cooperation and mutual benefit, or it can result in misaligned incentives and promote the propagation of disruptions. A richer understanding of interdependence will be of benefit to economists and social scientists engaged in both descriptive and proscriptive research endeavors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of judicial protection of intellectual property rights on firms' independent innovation. Using a staggered difference-in-differences model with panel data from Chinese manufacturing listed businesses (2014–2021) and the successive establishment of intellectual property courts in Chinese prefectural-level cities as a quasi-natural experiment, we find that establishing intellectual property courts in China encourages businesses to accumulate more technology-based intangible assets. Mechanism analysis suggests that judicial intellectual property protection enhances enterprises' independent innovation capacity by establishing a conducive institutional framework. This stimulating effect is particularly significant for industry-leading companies with technological supremacy. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that judicial intellectual property protection increases the generation of patents and trade secrets, with a more pronounced effect on firms receiving higher government research and development subsidies and better tax incentives. This study offers valuable insights for policymakers to encourage corporate independent innovation.

In this article, we propose a new approach to estimating health-care demand. The aim of this paper is to determine the production costs of health care from the demand function of care. To do this, we used an approach based on structural equations where consumption and demand are estimated to capture the dynamics of health costs within a self-managed public hospital. Following this approach, based on the equilibrium between supply and demand of health care, we used the social and professional characteristics of beneficiary to estimate the demand function, which will approximate the cost of health care. The results showed that the demand for care is largely dependent on economic, demographic, and perception factors. Also, the back testing and corroboration tests of the predictions affirm that the functions developed will allow a better cost forecast for the hospital unit, able to propose a budgetary and partial cost approach in the future. Some limitations can be mentioned in connection with the accessibility to accounting data and also the ignorance of time dimension or dynamic evolution of cost demand.

We use survey data on Italian small- and medium-sized enterprises collected during the COVID-19 pandemic to explore the relationship between the adoption of work from home (WFH) practices and organizational performance. In so doing, we investigate several dimensions of organizational performance, including measures of labor productivity and workers' concentration and motivation, the level of absenteeism, the organization of work through management by objectives (MBO), and the presence of coordination and communication costs. We obtain several results. First, we find a significantly enhanced capability of firms that adopted WFH during the pandemic to sustain the overall organizational performance, particularly when such a work practice is used intensively. Less deteriorated labor productivity and workers' concentration and motivation, decreased absenteeism, and a substantial rise in the adoption of MBO practices seem to be important aspects behind the detected benefits related to WFH. Third, when WFH is used at medium levels of intensity, it is associated with augmented coordination and communication costs, which nonetheless do not appear to overcome the benefits associated with WFH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research contains evidence of rent sharing in intercollegiate athletic programs from revenues generated by football and men's basketball and regulations restricting compensation to athletes. Title IX mandates equal opportunities for male and female college athletes, clearly impacting athletic department budgets. These factors create a rich environment for analyzing athletic spending decisions. We analyze spending on women's sports for about 120 NCAA public FBS athletic departments. Results from instrumental variables models that account for the endogeneity of the rent proxy variable, head football coach salary, indicate the presence of rent sharing from football-generated rents to spending on women's sports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study under which circumstances firms choose to install boards and their roles in a historical setting in which neither boards nor their duties are mandated by law. Boards arise in firms with large, heterogeneous shareholder bases. We propose that an important role of boards is to mediate between heterogeneous shareholders with divergent interests. Voting restrictions are common and ensure that boards are representative and not captured by large blockholders. Boards are given significant powers to both mediate and monitor management, and these roles are intrinsically linked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A duty of loyalty prohibits fiduciaries from appropriating business opportunities from their companies. Starting in 2000, Delaware, followed by several other states, allowed boards to waive their duty. We show that public firms covered by waiver laws invest less in R&D, produce fewer and less valuable patents, and exhibit abnormally high inventor departures. Remaining innovation activities contribute less to firm value, a fact confirmed by the market reaction when firms reveal their curtailed internal growth opportunities by announcing acquisitions. Consistent with the laws' intent to provide contracting flexibility to emerging firms, we find evidence of positive impacts for small firms. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine how the investment and financing of innovation are affected by the contractual allocation of intellectual property rights using a Federal Circuit ruling that strengthened firms' property rights to employee patents. I find that treatment firms' total debt-to-assets ratio and R&D spending increase by 18% and 9%, respectively, as the residual control over patents increases firms' incentives to innovate. These effects are more pronounced when ex ante holdup exposure is high. Furthermore, I find a positive marginal effect of asset complementarity as it limits the decline in employee incentives. Consistently, I show that firms' ex post asset complementarity improves. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to understand the social capital inherent in agents and the role of social and economic trust in transactions between beef cattle producers and slaughtering cooperatives in the specialty beef production system in Paraná state, Brazil. This qualitative research involved 31 semi-structured interviews with beef cattle producers, cooperatives, and key agents. Results revealed that social capital, comprising networks and informal norms, favors the condition of trust, enabling the construction of a hybrid governance structure under a complex institutional environment. Social and economic trust between agents facilitates transactions, reduces behavioral and market uncertainties, enables ex-post adaptations, and consequently, reduces monitoring costs and transaction costs. Trust based on social aspects, i.e., social trust, was more relevant for the construction of arrangements, while trust based on economic aspects, i.e., economic trust, had a greater impact on the continuity of arrangements. This reveals that looking at only one of them is not enough to understand contractual arrangements. Thus, this study highlights that unfolding the concept of trust and investigating whether it comes from an economic or social basis is important to understand the complexity of such arrangements, which may influence specialty beef production system design and coordination efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this study is to investigate the specific aspects of psychological resilience among ARFF professionals. Utilizing a qualitative approach and collecting data from 11 ARFF professionals using semi-structured interviews, this study delves into an exploration of factors that contribute to psychological resilience among Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting (ARFF) personnel stationed at State Airports, a group operating under emergency circumstances within the aviation industry. The investigation reveals three overarching themes: micro-level personal factors, meso-level organizational factors, and macro-level environmental/societal factors. Key findings reveal that micro-level personal factors, including personality traits and individual coping mechanisms, significantly influence ARFF professionals' psychological resilience. Encompassing leadership quality and team dynamics, meso-level organizational factors have emerged as crucial contributors to resilience. Finally, macro-level environmental/societal factors, such as social support networks and the broader emergency preparedness context, have been identified as integral elements shaping psychological resilience. This qualitative approach, designed to capture the nuanced experiences and perceptions of ARFF professionals through a multi-level exploration of psychological resilience, extends its implications to the realms of aviation and emergency response. Micro-level considerations illuminate the significance of human resources-related decisions, such as recruitment and training, in fortifying ARFF professionals' resilience. Meso-level considerations provide evidence for the impactful role of leadership and effective safety measures in promoting resilience. Macro-level considerations underscore the importance of environmental design and spillover effects, such as family support, in shaping resilience. An understanding of the factors that contribute to psychological resilience may be directly transferable to the creation of support mechanisms and targeted interventions and may also be directly transferable to assist emergency response teams in the aviation sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the Pacific Northwest Coast Indians of North America before and during the extended era of European contact, a pervasive institution known as the potlatch governed human relations through reciprocity rather than the hierarchical state. Potlatching involved recurring intertribal feasting, gift giving, ceremonial dance, storytelling, oratory, dispute resolution, declarations of claim or right, and some measure of property destruction. The tribes referred to this network of publicly declared favors given and owed and promises made and received as their customary "potlatch law." Like law in the Western world, it was the foundation on which their economies rested. The potlatch memorialized obligations, enforced property rights, insured against risk, promoted knowledge accumulation, supplied investment capital, and served as a system of fractional reserve banking. Beyond that, it was the foundation of the tribes' unique culture. The potlatch provides fascinating insight into the nuance and power of reciprocity in ordering human relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934 led many American Indian tribes to adopt formal constitutional texts to govern life on reservations. Over the following decade, dozens of tribes ratified their constitutions in hopes that they would start a new age of tribal self-governance. Given the opportunities for constitutional design subject to constrains, we develop a theory of constitutional choice on reservations. Tribal constitutions varied substantially in content and structure. We evaluate the constitutional choices tribes made regarding four areas: membership requirements, direct democracy, restrictions placed on officials, and protection of private property. Our theory yields several hypotheses that we test against data on 117 tribal constitutions, most of which were ratified in the aftermath of the IRA. The results provide evidence for the validity of our hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study distinguishes itself from existing organizational culture studies by investigating the relatively under-studied theoretical relationship between organizational culture and employer attractiveness. To capture the holistic nature of organizational culture theory, this study adopts configurational analysis, which contrasts resourceful cultural attributes (collaborative, employee development, and fair-compensation cultures) with demanding attributes (result-oriented, overworked, and job-insecurity cultures). This study proposes three configurational propositions of employer attractiveness and employs review-based topic modeling and fuzzy-set quality comparative analysis (fsQCA) to overcome the limitations of traditional survey-based measurement and regression analysis. For the empirical analysis, this study constructs an industry-wide dataset comprising 2209 quarterly samples from 157 hotels over six years, utilizing 54,889 employee reviews posted on Glassdoor in the United States. Topic modeling analysis adopting Latent Dirichlet Allocation extracts the probabilities of six cultural attributes. Finally, the fsQCA generates three groups of 13 configurations, leading to employer attractiveness: a fully resourced culture, a resourced and low-demanding culture, and a fairly compensated overwork culture. The findings confirm the core concepts of configurational analysis in contrast to regression analysis and present novel theoretical, methodological, and practical implications.

We assemble homeowner insurance claims from 28 independently operated country subsidiaries of a multinational insurance firm. We propose a new insurance model, in which consumers can make invalid claims and firms can deny valid claims, as is common in the data. In the model, trust and honesty shape equilibrium insurance contracts, disputes, and claim payments, especially when disputes are too small for courts. We test the model by investigating claim incidence, dispute, rejection, and payment, as well as insurance costs and pricing across countries. The evidence is consistent with the centrality of trust for insurance markets, as our model predicts. Authors have furnished data/code, which are available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is theoretical and empirical. Its basic purpose is to examine the resilience of organizational startups during the post-COVID-19 pandemic. The basic research method used in the study was CAWI. The group of surveyed companies consisted of startups operating in Zachodniopomorskie, Wielkopolskie, and Lubuskie voivodeships. The survey covered 62 enterprises in 2022. The research revealed that owing to their organizational resilience the startups were able to adapt to the changes in the market. Thus, on the one hand, they were able to quickly tailor their offer to the current needs of customers, and on the other hand, they could modify the processes taking place inside the company. As a result of these measures, the startups increased their revenues, which may directly determine the future competitiveness of the surveyed companies.

This research delves into the intricate interplay between mood and ethical perceptions within the context of crowdsourcing online labour markets. The study employs a carefully crafted experimental design, conducted in November 2021, involving two distinct groups: the benchmark group, serving as the control, and the treatment group, subjected to mood induction through film exposure. The benchmark group is presented with a neutral placebo film, while the treatment group is treated to a comedy film. By using OLS estimation methods, the paper provides evidence of the impact of positive mood manipulation, which remarkably enhances individuals’ ethical perceptions, fosters value co-creation, and augments the quality of their relationships with the platform. The study's findings strongly indicate that the potent effect of positive mood primarily operates through the lens of the agreeableness trait. This observation sheds light on the intricate psychological mechanisms underlying mood's influence on various outcomes within the online labour market setting. Contributions to the ethical perception, mood research and online-economy literature are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the impact of an urban land titling program on firm investment in Shenzhen, China. We find that this program increased the investment rate for titling firms, but this positive effect only holds for politically connected firms. Further analysis suggests that the titling effect is more pronounced for those titling firms associated with greater expropriation risk. During program implementation, the connected titling firms increased their investment perhaps because, as observed, they experienced fewer disputes than non-connected titling firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to verify the significance of Andersen (2008) corporate risk management (CRM) framework in Asian emerging markets (AEMs) to control firm risk and improve firm performance. Design/methodology/approach: The cross-sectional analyses are performed on a sample of 4,609 firms across nine Asian emerging countries using 2SLS estimation technique. Findings: The empirical findings show that the adoption of CRM not only enhances firm performance by increasing the firm ability to capitalize on the market opportunity but also plays a significant role in reducing firm risk. The findings of this study assert that by institutionalizing risk management practices into an integrated CRM framework, the firm can reap multiple benefits by maintaining better contractual agreements and strategic partnerships with key stakeholders. Originality/value: The study shifts the focus of CRM away from Western countries toward AEMs, which has been afflicted by high risks and uncertainties. The effectiveness of CRM against firm risk is established by dividing firm risk into firm-specific risk and systematic risk. Furthermore, this study also establishes that CRM not only leads to high returns but also reduces firm operational and production costs. Overall, the study provides a compelling argument to implement CRM for improving organizational performance and managing risks in a strategic and integrated manner. The findings are also relevant to risk management practitioners, as well as to academicians interested in the broader fields of corporate finance and strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational change (OC) initiatives require effective human resource management practices (HRMPs). This review analyzes recent research on the role of HRMPs in OC, focusing on major trends and differences between Western and non-Western contexts. A Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA)-guided search using Scopus and Google Scholar identified 26 relevant studies. The key findings showed the varied and crucial roles that HRMPs play in communicating change goals, engaging employees, and collaborating with stakeholders. In particular, hard OC involving actions such as downsizing warrants responsive HRMPs. Although some practices transfer well across settings, implementing HRMPs in non-Western environments requires adaptation to local cultural and religious norms. The predominant focus on Western contexts underscores the need for more research in understudied regions, such as the Middle East and North Africa. The limitations of this review include potential biases in the source studies and the exclusion of nonindexed literature. We conclude by calling for an expanded investigation into evidence-based HRMPs and the complex dynamics between HRMPs and diverse types of OC across different organizational and national settings.

The present paper explores how implementation of digital technologies (DTs) assists firms in transition economies in addressing weaknesses of the institutional environment surrounding them, in particular via establishment of collective governance systems. Based on case studies of three large-scale agroholdings operating in Ukraine, the paper aims to fill the research gaps with regard to the following: motivation of the firm to initiate DT-enabled collective governance systems; the rules these systems are based on; and the reasons behind the firm's choice of a particular governance mode – closed, shared or open – for these systems. The findings generally support the institutional theory argument that complex technology enables coordination of exchange relationships not only within but also outside firm boundaries. At that, the choice of a governance mode between closed, shared or open institutional infrastructure is likely to depend on the firm's ownership concentration, corporate transparency, availability of resources and social embeddedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to model organizational resilience structure. Based on the central insights of the scientific literature, organizational resilience is modelled as the result of an organizational capacity to bounce-back and bounce-forward. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a quantitative empirical study to support the structural perspective of organizational resilience and investigate the relationships among the dimensions to test the above hypothesis by applying confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) methods. Findings: The results confirmed three models that could be adopted to assess organizational resilience. The first model endorsed endogenous positive interrelationship among all three dimensions. The second model indicated that bounce-back dimensions, i.e. network and leadership and culture, have endogenous effects. Only the leadership and culture dimension is positively associated with a bounce-forward, i.e. change-ready and learning dimension. And the third model demonstrated that the network dimension is linked to leadership and culture, which is linked to the change ready and learning dimension. Originality/value: This study attempts to provide empirical evidence identifying the links between the bounce-back and bounce-forward stages of organizational resilience. These results contribute to the development of organizational resilience theory, confirming the conceptual statements that resilience is the ability to return to the routine and to adapt to the changing environment by overcoming dynamic events, stressing the idea of the importance of enhanced learning capacity, which allows for growth by constantly learning from oneself by gaining unique experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues for the need for the empirical analysis of how firms manage repugnance and core-stigmatization. To develop our empirical perspective, we compare the work on repugnance with the existing empirical literature in management on core-stigma and argue that core-stigmatization results from the mobilized repugnance. The core-stigmatized firm faces higher transaction costs. We demonstrate, through a case-study of the strategies of MindGeek/Pornhub in the online pornography market, how transaction costs economics can explain the choice of strategies to deal with core-stigma. Under most conditions, the increased transaction costs lead to vertical and lateral integration of the firm. In a dynamic setting, rival firms might use stigmatization to prevent the entry of a new competitor. Our second case-study on the early decades of the mail-order company Sears, Roebuck, and Company illustrates that repugnance, including racial discrimination, was mobilized by competitors to block the entry of the firm into the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of the new generation of digital technology has injected new vitality into the digital transformation (DT) and continued growth of enterprises. This paper selects data from China's A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2019 and uses transaction cost theory to empirically test the effect of enterprise digital transformation (EDT) on enterprise growth and its mechanism. Research has found that DT can significantly promote enterprise growth. The reduction of supply chain collaboration costs plays an important role as an intermediary mechanism in this process. At the same time, industry competition intensity, regional marketization level, and digital infrastructure level have played positive regulatory roles. In addition, when the enterprise's level of financing constraints is low and it is a manufacturing enterprise or state-owned enterprise, the promotion effect of EDT on enterprise growth is more significant. While expanding the research perspective and measurement methods of EDT, this paper integrates the strategic actions of EDT and the inter-enterprise collaboration costs of the supply chain into a unified theoretical framework, revealing a new theoretical mechanism for DT to promote enterprise growth. It also provides practical inspiration for relevant policy formulation and enterprise transformation and upgrading.

Encouraging employees to share their creative ideas has been widely acknowledged as a crucial factor in enhancing organizational effectiveness. This research examines whether employees' idea sharing depends on leadership behavior and how organizational identification and culture explain the variations in creative ideas sharing among employees. Building on social learning theory, this research postulates a positive relationship between responsible leadership and creative idea sharing directly and indirectly by the development of organizational identification; additionally, a conditional indirect effect was also proposed for this research data was collected from the nurses, medical support staffs, heads of departments, and administrative personnel from primary and secondary health care units in South-Punjab. Data from 387 subordinates and their respective 67 supervisors was collected and analyzed with partial least squares (PLS) for moderated mediation, direct effects, indirect effects, conditional indirect effects, and CFA. The results indicated that responsible leadership is positively and significantly related to employees' creative idea-sharing directly and indirectly through the mediation of organizational identification. Organizational culture positively moderated the relationship between responsible leadership and creative idea sharing and between responsible leadership and organizational identification. Responsible leadership was positively related to organizational identification and creative idea sharing only when the organization has a highly supportive culture and negative otherwise. The relevant sections also discuss research contributions, limitations, and future research directions.