Economic and Business Review (EBR)
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Development and Validation of Ethical Blindness Scale
No full textRecent models of ethical decision making have underlined the influence of unconscious processes of unethical behavior, and ethical blindness has been identified as a construct that deepens the understanding of unintentional unethical behavior. However, to date, no empirically tested measure of ethical blindness exists. Consequently, we have explored and developed a tool for measuring ethical blindness, which is presented in this paper. Based on qualitative data from interviews with individuals employed in different industries and a literature review, we developed a multidimensional measure of ethical blindness. The measure was tested and validated in several consecutive steps on three quantitative data sets. Exploratory factor analysis generated three factors (rationalization, routine, and ambiguity) comprising 12 items of ethical blindness. Confirmatory factor analysis verified that the three-factor structure had an acceptable fit. The dimensions displayed good internal reliability. Preliminary evidence of construct and discriminant validity was also provided. The paper discusses the practical implications and future research
The Impact of FDI and Financial Depth on EU Regional Growth: Income and Spatial Heterogeneity
No full textBackground and objective: The paper explores the impact of foreign direct investment and financial development on regional growth at the EU regional level for 2005–2017. Both FDI and financial development are important determinants of the regions’ growth, but not for all EU regions homogeneously. Some EU regions seem to benefit more than others, depending on certain characteristics, which implies that FDI attraction policies need to bear in mind not only country specificities, but also regional specificities, hence confirming the need for developing FDI attraction policies at the subnational level: financial development, capacity building, and Investment Promotion Agencies are key, for example.
Methods: The methodology used in the paper relies on a beta-convergence model and on fixed effects estimation. In addition, a GMM difference model accounts for endogeneity.
Results: Our empirical findings indicate that, in less wealthy (and more peripheral) regions compared to wealthy regions, FDI productivity spillovers are more significant. In other words, in less wealthy regions, the imitation effect prevails over the competition effect.
Conclusions: FDI and financial development are important determinants of regional growth, especially for less developed and peripheral regions.
Contribution/value: Financial development is shown to be a crucial determinant for economic growth at the regional level, especially for peripheral regions, which raises essential policy implications, especially for the sake of economic disparities in the EU NUTS 2 regions. In other words, local access to finance, especially to bank credit, plays a crucial role for regional growth, despite the continuous integration of financial markets. Also, there is an income and geographic heterogeneity when it comes to estimating FDI spillovers; therefore, the impact of FDI on growth is not always homogeneous across territories, which challenges the idea of simple “bright” or “dark” sides to the effects of FDI
Internationalization and Foreign Direct Divestment Flows in Central and Eastern European Economies
No full textKnowledge Hiding in Organizations: Meta-Analysis 10 Years Later
No full textA decade since the seminal paper on knowledge hiding in organizations (Connelly et al., 2012) emerged, this research area has witnessed rapid evolution, resulting in a fragmentation of the field and conceptual proliferation. Given the increasing interest in knowledge hiding, this study complements a set of recently published (systematic) literature reviews and proposes an organizing framework (nomological network) for antecedents and consequences of knowledge hiding, and tests it using meta-analytic procedures. Based on an effect analysis drawn from 131 studies and 147 samples, comprising 47,348 participants, the relationships between knowledge hiding and different antecedent and consequence categories are examined. The results generally support expected relationships across the vast majority of categories of knowledge-hiding antecedents, including job characteristics, leadership, attitudes and motivations, working context, personality, and individual differences. Knowledge hiding is related to outcomes, including creativity, task performance, incivility, deviance, and deterioration of workplace behavior. We also provide comprehensive empirical evidence to support the conceptual claim that knowledge hiding is not correlated with knowledge sharing. We have also tested mediations of the most salient antecedents of knowledge hiding. Through our meta-analytic review, we hope to solidify and redirect the trajectory of the growing and maturing knowledge-hiding domain after its first decade of existence
Economic Model of Unipolar World Order: Divestment in Central and Eastern European Countries
No full textResearch relevance: Investment processes are not free from the influence of the political situation and relations between states. The Central and Eastern European countries (CEE) take part in a liberal segment of the global financial system and have a comparatively peripheral position as latecomers to the EU. Due to this fact their economic model is the most consistent with the principles of the liberal world order.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess and interpret the investment/divestment process in Central and Eastern European countries and comparable financial systems in the political economy and geopolitical framework to consider the divestment process as a phenomenon connected to the world-order evolution, industrial and financial globalization.
Structure/methodology/approach: We propose to consider the evolution of foreign direct and portfolio investment, together with other macroeconomic indicators that may shed light on the recovery process, as capital outflows have occurred in five CEE countries since 1990 till nowadays. This period covers both the time before and after the 2008 crisis.
The study of the research methodology is both qualitative and quantitative. We used existing and target indicators, such as the difference between GNI and GDP, and the surplus/deficit of accumulated capital over savings, to see the broader financial context and the impact of the foreign sector on well-being through a descriptive methodology. While using the regression analysis, we found a greater impact of foreign direct investment on capital accumulation than on savings accumulation, compared to portfolio investment, although both types of investment are positively correlated with “excess” capital accumulation.
This approach allows us to make an assessment of the manifestations of the liberal model in the context of the transformation of the world order in states that are not the key beneficiaries of the world order, which include CEE.
Findings: We tested theoretical developments concerning the impact of the world-order stages on investment and divestment flows in the peripheral economies, as exemplified by the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Instrumental financial inclusiveness toward the considered peripheral economies is limited to foreign direct investment flows in 1995–2021. Portfolio investment flows have been moving towards divestment since 2008, the beginning of the destabilization of the current world-order architecture, which also had a negative impact on the cycle of “savings–capital formation,” showing the effects of subordinated financial integration spoiling the growth resources of peripheral economies.
Originality/value: We explained the essence of the economic model of unipolar world order. At its beginning the beneficiary countries of the Cold War, with high per-capita incomes and significant financial resources, brought the former socialist countries—the periphery of Europe—into the industrial globalization through foreign direct investment. Then a similar process has occurred in portfolio investment, indicating involvement of CEE in financial globalization. This financial integration has been accompanied by the systematic negative value of foreign-sector income balance, indicating a withdrawal of income from all groups of states under consideration. After the 2008–2010 global financial crisis, the highest point of the unipolar world order, the negative effects of financial globalization affected the “savings–capital formation” cycle in the peripheral Central and Eastern European economies. As a descriptive analysis of macroeconomic data revealed, the divestment is a process characteristic to the declining stage of stable world order, and it may be envisaged in the outflow of portfolio investment alongside a relatively scarce transfer of domestic savings to domestic capital formation.
The regression analysis revealed a superior impact of foreign direct investment inflows, i.e., industrial globalization, over the “excess” of capital formation in the peripheral economies in comparison to the portfolio investment flows, a financial globalization proxy indicator. It means that the divestment by outflow of FDI, although non-present for now, may have a more relevant impact on the transformation of domestic savings into capital. Therefore, the order and disorder alternation in international relations has an explication in the financial and investment process in the peripheral economic systems.
The deglobalization in its financial component had a rather negative impact on the difference between domestic capital formation and savings in CEE due to their subordinated financial integration
The Effect of Primary School Entrepreneurship Education Programs on the Evolution of Pupils’ Human Capital Assets
No full textThe formation of entrepreneurship-related human capital in primary-school entrepreneurship education programs (EEPs) is of great interest to European policymakers. European education systems have widely implemented EEPs since the Oslo Agenda for entrepreneurship education in Europe was passed in 2006. However, primary-school EEPs remain an underresearched domain of entrepreneurship education. The present article investigates the development of entrepreneurship-related human capital in EEPs for 9–14-year-olds in 22 primary schools. It uses a quasi-experimental design with repeated measures. Based on data obtained from a sample of 180 participants, the analysis finds that the whole group partly improved only one of the components of human capital. However, the given EEPs positively impact the development of certain components of entrepreneurship-related human capital when investigated through the lens of entrepreneurial family background or gender. When subset by gender, results show that girls improved some components, while boys upgraded others. Also, pupils from entrepreneurial families improved more of the measured constructs than pupils from non-entrepreneurial families. The study provides valuable insights into the evolution of human capital among early adolescents in primary-school EEPs and uses human capital theory to explain this development. It also supplies evidence of the positive effect of EEPs on individuals of specific social groupings. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed and guidelines for further research are provided
How Do Brand Communication and Brand Personality Shape Consumer Loyalty?
No full textThe concept of brand personality plays a crucial role in brand literature as consumers tend to anthropomorphize brands by attributing human characteristics to them. The creation of a brand personality that resonates with consumers leads to greater customer satisfaction and loyalty over the long term. This study investigates the mediating potential of brand personality dimensions, specifically Competence and Sophistication, in the relationship between brand communication (both controlled and uncontrolled) as an antecedent and brand loyalty as an outcome. Using a sample of 340 users of a cosmetic brand, we employed structural equation modeling to analyze the data. Our results indicate that controlled communication significantly influences both the Competence and Sophistication dimensions of brand personality, and that there are significant indirect effects of both controlled and uncontrolled communication through reference groups on loyalty mediated by personality dimensions. These findings provide valuable insights for brand managers and marketers seeking to enhance brand loyalty by developing effective communication strategies that align with the desired brand personality dimensions
Human Resource Management Systems and Firm Innovation: A Meta-Analytic Study
No full textBuilding on the resource-based view, this paper examines the meta-analytic relationships between Human Resource Management (HRM) systems and different types of firm innovation (innovation in products or services, innovation in processes, and innovation in people and organizations) and the moderating role of sampled industries and sampled cultural clusters in these relationships. With 119 records from 57 unique papers published between 2000 and 2020, this study found that HRM systems positively contribute to innovation in products or services, innovation in processes, and innovation in people and organizations. Sampled industries and cultural clusters significantly moderate the relationships between HRM systems and innovation in products or services. These results may be biased because most empirical researchers focused on innovation in products or services instead of innovation in processes or innovation in people and organizations. Despite the dynamism of HRM systems, researchers are most like to include compensation, training, and performance appraisal while studying HRM systems and firm innovation
SMEs “Growing Smart”: The Complementarity of Intangible and Digital Investment in Small Firms and Their Contribution to Firm Performance
No full textLike large companies, small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) are turning to new digital technologies and knowledge-based capital to bolster their productivity and growth. However, data show that smaller companies lag significantly in implementing new Industry 4.0 technologies and in the intensity of their use. Lack of skills and human capital is often cited as one of the biggest barriers. This paper examines the benefits of digital technologies, intangible capital, and in particular the role of complementary investments in new technologies and intangible capital to maximize the impact on productivity growth. The analysis draws on extensive firm-level datasets combining business and employee registry data and the harmonized EU ICT usage survey for the period 2007-2020 in Slovenia. While SMEs lag behind large companies in the use of ICT on average, the use of ICT and other new technologies significantly increases the productivity of companies in the SME sector, especially when combined with the intangible investments that enhance the contribution of new technologies. Several conclusions emerge from the results, in particular the need to grow and invest intelligently, that is, to invest in intangible assets and new technologies simultaneously, even in SMEs
Intangibles and Participation in Global Value Chains in the EU: Evidence from the GLOBALINTO Input-Output Intangibles Database
No full textThe scope of this paper is to provide empirical evidence regarding intangible inputs, global value chains (GVCs) participation and their linkage with exports in the EU and the UK, utilizing data from WIOD and the newly constructed GLOBALINTO Input-Output Intangibles Database for the period 2000–2014. GVC participation metrics are calculated based on a production-based decomposition framework and include backward and forward participation indices. Intangible inputs follow a breakdown by origin into domestic and imported intangible inputs. Our empirical results suggest that GVC participation (both backward and forward) is a significant driver for exports and highlight the importance of intangibles’ origin in the exporting activities of the EU economies, especially in the case of the non-Euro Area economies