infonet-economy

We study the optimal accounting policy of a financially constrained firm that pledges assets to raise debt capital for financing a risky project. The accounting system provides information about the value of the collateral. Absent accounting regulation, the optimal accounting system is conditionally conservative: it recognizes an impairment loss if the asset value is below a certain...

In the context of globalization, research and practice of what is commonly referred to as “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR) have become increasingly popular. For example, anecdotal evidence shows that, in the global context, private actors such as corporations or NGOs have begun to fill regulatory gaps and contribute to the provision of global public goods (Kaul 1999, 2003;...

In this paper, we address the pre-project phase of idea generation in the product innovation process, where the effective generation of new product ideas still remains an issue of high relevance for both management scholars and practitioners. We relate Nonaka and colleagues’ four knowledge creation modes of socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization to the...

Multinational Corporations can contribute to reach the targeted poverty reduction goals – the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations. Linking the core business of a multinational with development goals can be found in the concept of Serving the Base of the Pyramid mainly pushed by C.K. Prahalad and Stuart L. Hart. In the “classic” development work, bottom up approaches,...

Mainstream theorizing in management and economics is based on the assumption that business firms focus on profits only, while it is the task of the state system to provide public goods and to regulate the economy in such a way that business activities contribute to the common good. Business firms are conceived of as private actors and governments and their state agencies are...

We discuss the ideological conflict between critics of globalization and free trade theorists who deconstruct the metanarrative of universal human rights that underlies the social agenda of the globalization critics. We point out the implications for the corporate objective function and the
social behaviour of multinational corporations. The ideological conflict has not yet...

We discuss self-serving uses of equity in international climate negotiations. Using unique data from a world-wide survey of agents involved in international climate policy, we show that the perceived support of different equity rules by countries can be explained by the ranking of their economic costs. Despite being self-serving, equity arguments may be perceived as being used for...

Higher education institutions are increasingly emulating research institutions and concentrate their financial rewards on research output (Melguizo/Strober 2007). We investigate whether faculty members strongly react to such financial rewards. We focus on monetary rewards originating from promotions. Based on economic theories we derive three hypotheses. We test them with data from...

A paradigm labels the basic assumptions about a researcher´s purpose, the character of the examined object (ontology), and the suitable methodology for examining the object. Therefore a paradigm gives the answer to the basic questions of the philosophy of science: (1) What is the purpose of research? and (2) By what means and methodologies can this purpose be achieved? Scherer...