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Geographies of discontent: Public service deprivation and the rise of the far right in Italy
Full text linkElectoral support for far-right parties is often linked to geographies of discontent. We argue that public service deprivation, defined as reduced access to public services, plays an important role in explaining these patterns. By exploiting an Italian reform that reduced access to public services in municipalities with fewer than 5,000 residents, we show that far-right support in national elections increased in municipalities affected by the reform compared to unaffected ones. We use geo-coded individual-level survey data and party rhetoric data to explore the mechanisms underlying this result. Our findings suggest that concerns about immigration are exacerbated by the reform, and that far-right parties increasingly linked public services to immigration in their rhetoric after the reform. These demand and supply dynamics help us understand how public service deprivation shapes geographic patterns in far-right support.yesPublishe
More Than Knowledge: Consumer Financial Capability and Saving Behavior
Full text linkThis paper explores the association between financial capability, defined broadly through different constituents, and households' savings behavior. Using a survey conducted to a sample of 1501 consumers, the results, correcting for endogeneity, indicate that in order to explain savings behavior: (i) knowledge about investment products (funds, stocks, bonds, etc.) is more important than knowledge about concepts of an economic-financial nature (simple and compound interest rate, inflation, and diversification); (2) self-confidence in financial knowledge is more relevant than actual financial knowledge; (3) budgeting skills are strongly relevant; and (4) some of the elements proposed by the Theory of Planned Behavior, in particular control or self-efficacy, are valid predictors of savings behavior. In sum, a broad conception of financial capability, beyond financial knowledge, is needed to understand savings behavior. Our study has implications for policy decision makers, consumers, and educational and financial institutions and sheds light on future lines of research.YesPublishe
Learning and interpreting asymmetry-labeled DAGs: a case study on COVID-19 fear
Full text linkBayesian networks are widely used to learn and reason about the dependence structure of discrete variables. However, they can only formally encode symmetric conditional independence, which is often too strict to hold in practice. Asymmetry-labeled DAGs have been recently proposed to extend the class of Bayesian networks by relaxing the symmetric assumption of independence and denoting the dependence between the variables of interest. Here, we introduce novel structural learning algorithms for this class of models, which, whilst efficient, allow for a straightforward interpretation of the underlying dependence structure. A comprehensive computational study highlights the efficiency of the algorithms. A real-world data application using data from the Fear of COVID-19 Scale collected in Italy showcases their use in practice.yesPublishe
The Law As a Conversation Among Equals - A Skeptical View
Full text linkIn the context of the discussion about strengthening democratic regimes while facing the problems of constitutional and democratic erosion, Roberto Gargarella has offered a new regulatory ideal called "The Law As a Conversation Among Equals" to guide the discussion. He suggests placing our efforts of democratic recovery in new, more experimental forms of political participation, such as citizens' assemblies. This essay argues that Gargarella's valuable prescription for the problem may become self-defeating. If the main focus is not on helping the infrastructure of representative democratic regimes recover or heal, the focus on new experimental forms of political participation can even deepen the harm that the political systems are suffering. This is not to say that these new forms of political participation should always be avoided. As I will show, they should be used to complement and not replace representative institutions. I suggest a more modest, narrow, and cautious way to implement those participatory mechanisms. If the infrastructure of democracy is to be recovered, we should not avoid discussing issues such as the functioning of political parties, how fourth-branch institutions can impose limits and slow down processes of erosion while offering opportunities for democratic forces to regroup, and the way citizens access information and participate in the flawed marketplace of ideas.yesPublishe
A scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision-making: Large-scale replication and extension
Full text linkResearch Summary: This article runs a large-scale replication of Camuffo and colleagues in 2020,involving 759 firms in four randomized control trials. The larger sample generates novel and more precise insights about the teachability and implications of a scientific approach in entrepreneurship. We observe a positive impact on idea termination and results that are consistent with a nonlinear effect on radical pivots,with treated firms running few over no or repeated pivots. We provide a theoretical interpretation of the empirical results: the scientific approach enhances entrepreneurs' efficiency in searching for viable ideas and raises their methodic doubt because,like scientists,they realize that there may be alternative scenarios from the ones that they theorize. Managerial Summary: The findings of this article,based on four randomized control trials involving 759 firms,offer new insights into how entrepreneurial practices can benefit from a scientific approach to decision-making. Key outcomes include an increase in the termination of ideas and a nuanced influence on the tendency to make strategy changes. Specifically,firms that adopted a scientific approach made a few strategic shifts,as opposed to either not changing or constantly changing their strategy. We suggest that this is due to the scientific approach helping entrepreneurs be more efficient when searching for valuable ideas,as well as being more careful in selecting those ideas. © 2024 The Authors. Strategic Management Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding support from the ICRIOS\u2014Invernizzi Center for Research in Innovation, Organization, Strategy & Entrepreneurship at Bocconi University, the Innovation Growth Lab, the Strategy Research Foundation, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of the UK Government (project 104754\u201CA Scientific Approach to SMEs Productivity\u201D) City, University of London, The Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (PRIN project prot. 2017PM7R52, CUP J44I20000220001) and the Polytechnic of Turin. This research was approved by Bocconi Research Ethics Committee with protocol references 2016\u2010III/13.696-77133\u20102 and by City Ethics Committee with reference ETH1819\u20100351. The four studies presented in this manuscript are included in the AEA RCT Registry (AEARCTR\u20100006578, AEARCTR\u20100002205, AEARCTR\u20100006579, AEARCTR\u20100003875).yesPublishe
What is the quack about? Legitimation strategies and their perceived appropriateness in the foie gras industry
Full text linkThis study contributes to the legitimacy literature by investigating the perceived appropriateness of legitimation strategies used by controversial organizations. Through a mixed-method approach comprising interviews and conjoint experiments, we shed light on how evaluators perceive the appropriateness of five legitimation strategies used by the foie gras industry in France and how evaluators' environmentalism and media skepticism influence their perceptions. Some strategies favored by the industry are perceived as inappropriate by evaluators and thus may obstruct or, worse, counter the intended goal of legitimacy enhancement. Moreover, we observe that evaluators' high environmentalism and high media skepticism affect the perceived appropriateness of the strategies, albeit not of all five. Evaluators with high media skepticism favor explanation discourses and strategies that establish a common identity of the industry. Evaluators with high environmentalism favor the use of recognizable quality standards and labels, yet they are wary of high levels of organization through structured representation of industry interests.yesPublishe
The EU Platform Work Directive. What’s new, what’s missing, what’s next?
Full text linkPolicy recommendations
The adoption of the Platform Work Directive by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union (EU) enhances the EU and national labour law systems by introducing a number of concrete advancements. They include a presumption of employment for platform workers, clearer rules on algorithmic management and data rights, stronger collective labour rights, and robust enforcement safeguards.
By granting algorithmic management and collective rights to genuinely self-employed platform workers, the Directive significantly expands the personal scope of application of labour rights. This initiative should be seen as one of the first steps towards redesigning the normative paradigms that govern labour law.
By establishing a comprehensive framework for algorithmic management and data rights at both the individual and collective levels, the Directive highlights the urgent need for a new EU instrument regulating data-driven technology in the workplace, applicable to workers across all conventional sectors.
Given the broad discretion left to national legislators, it is crucial that trade unions, employers and labour advocates take advantage of the Directive’s groundwork to prevent the emergence of fragmented, burdensome and ineffective regimes during (and after) the two-year transposition period, which will start from the moment the Directive is published in the Official Journal of the EU and thus is likely to end in autumn 2026.This paper forms part of the ‘CLA’ project, which has received funding from the European Union’s Erasmus+ research and innovation programme under the Jean Monnet Actions in the field of Higher Education: Centres of Excellence grant agreement No. 101048112
Rule of law in the AI era: Addressing Accountability, and the Digital Divide
No full textThe rule of law is a dynamic and evolving concept that adapts to the changing needs and values of society. In light of the information technology revolution and the widespread use of AI applications, a fundamental question arises: how will these advancements influence the concept and application of the rule of law? The answer is twofold. Firstly, the 'black box' problem and the general lack of understanding regarding how automated decisions are reached present multiple challenges to the rule of law. This can potentially lead to decisions influenced by systemic biases without a transparent and accountable decision-making framework. Addressing these challenges requires upholding the rule of law through human involvement in automated decision-making processes and possibly enforcing an obligation for reason and explainability. However, the extent of human involvement and the need for explainability would vary based on the nature and function of the AI applications. Secondly, the unprecedented benefits derived from the use of AI applications carry the risk of exacerbating the digital divide, significantly impacting equality. Consequently, it will be argued that the rule of law necessitates both governments and private entities utilizing AI applications to implement measures aimed at preventing and narrowing the digital divides.yesUnpublishe
A robust optimization approach for placement of applications in edge computing considering latency uncertainty
No full textEdge computing brings computing and storage resources close to end-users to support new applications and services that require low network latency. It is currently used in a wide range of industries, from industrial automation and augmented reality, to smart cities and connected vehicles, where low latency, data privacy, and real-time processing are critical requirements. The latency of accessing applications in edge computing must be consistently below a threshold of a few tens of milliseconds to maintain an acceptable experience for end-users. However, the latency between users and applications can vary considerably depending on the network load and mode of wireless access. An application provider must be able to guarantee that requests are served in a timely manner by their application instances hosted in the edge despite such latency variations. This article focuses on the placement and traffic allocation problem faced by application providers in determining where to place application instances on edge nodes such that requests are served within a certain deadline. It proposes novel formulations based on robust optimization to provide optimal plans that protect against latency variations in a configurable number of network links. The robust formulations are based on two different types of polyhedral uncertainty sets that offer different levels of protection against variations in latency. Extensive simulations show that our robust models are able to keep the number of chosen edge nodes low while reducing the number of latency violations as compared to a deterministic optimization model that only considers the average latency of network links.YesPublishe
Resource reallocation across successive systemic innovations: How Rolls-Royce shaped the evolution of the turbojet, turboprop, and turbofan
Full text linkResearch Summary
Despite the importance of resource reallocation in shaping a variety of strategic outcomes, strategy scholars have paid only limited attention to the processes by which firms reallocate their resources across successive systemic innovations. To explore these processes, we conducted an in-depth historical case study on Rolls-Royce's role in three distinct systemic innovations that marked the transition from piston engines to jet engines in the civil aviation industry: the turbojet, the turboprop, and the turbofan. The analysis helps explain how and why Rolls-Royce's central role stemmed from its ability to reallocate existing non-scale free organizational and technical resources. A key finding of this study is the identification of the horizontal transfer of functional modules as a critical process, especially during the incipient phase of a systemic innovation. The analysis also highlights the role that specific organizational arrangements, particularly a firm's integrative capabilities, have in shaping the effectiveness with which resources are reallocated.
Managerial Summary
Focusing on resource reallocation is important to understand why some firms effectively reallocate their resources through successive systemic innovations while others cannot, even if they have similar resources and face the same environmental conditions. By delving into the technological aspects of aeroengine development and exploring why Rolls-Royce had the capabilities to successfully integrate key functional modules across various modular levels, we clarify the relationship between technology and organization that underlies resource reallocation—a topic that has received only scant attention in the strategy literature.The authors would like to thank the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust for their availability and support during the data collection phase and for providing the high-quality images featured in the
figures. The authors would also like to thank the editors, Catherine Maritan and Brian Wu, and
the reviewers, for their comments and suggestions that helped them greatly improve the paper.
A special thanks to Constance Helfat for her invaluable insight into the meaning of integrative
capabilities. We also thank the participants in the seminar series at the Institute for Advanced
Study in Toulouse. All errors are their own responsibility. This article was partially funded by
MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, UE Grants No. PID2022-136532NB-I00.YesPublishe