Vienna University of Economics and Business
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Take me on a ride: The role of environmentalist identity for carpooling
Get PDFSharing does not need to involve corporate providers but can also happen on a peer-to‐
peer (P2P) basis. P2P sharing platforms who match private providers and users are
thus dealing with two different customer segments. An example of this is carpooling,
the sharing of a car journey. Recent years have seen considerable research on why
people use sharing services. In contrast, there is little knowledge of why people may
offer a good for sharing purposes. Drawing on identity theory, this paper suggests that
users and providers of carpooling need to be addressed differently. A pilot study and
two studies, including both actual car owners and nonowners confirm that the extent
to which one identifies as an environmentalist predicts car owners' willingness to offer
carpooling, but does not affect nonowners' willingness to use carpooling services.
These findings remain robust when controlling for various potential confounds. Furthermore,
Study 2 suggests that an environmentalist identity plays an important role
for car owners' actual decision to offer a ride via an online platform. These results
suggest that marketers of P2P platforms need to pursue different strategies when
addressing potential users and providers on the same platform
A Human-centric Perspective on Digital Consenting: The Case of GAFAM
Get PDFAccording to different legal frameworks such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an end-user's consent constitutes one of the well-known legal bases for personal data processing. However, research has indicated that the majority of end-users have difficulty in understanding what they are consenting to in the digital world. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that marginalized people are confronted with even more difficulties when dealing with their own digital privacy. In this research, we use an enactivist perspective from cognitive science to develop a basic human-centric framework for digital consenting. We argue that the action of consenting is a sociocognitive action and includes cognitive, collective, and contextual aspects. Based on the developed theoretical framework, we present our qualitative evaluation of the consent-obtaining mechanisms implemented and used by the five big tech companies, i.e. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft (GAFAM). The evaluation shows that these companies have failed in their efforts to empower end-users by considering the human-centric aspects of the action of consenting. We use this approach to argue that their consent-obtaining mechanisms violate principles of fairness, accountability and transparency. We then suggest that our approach may raise doubts about the lawfulness of the obtained consent—particularly considering the basic requirements of lawful consent within the legal framework of the GDPR
Network dependence in multi-indexed data on international trade flows
Get PDFFaced with the problem that conventional multidimensional fixed effects models only focus on unobserved heterogeneity, but ignore any potential cross-sectional dependence due to network interactions, we introduce a model of trade flows between countries over time that allows for network dependence in flows, based on sociocultural connectivity structures. We show that conventional multidimensional fixed effects model specifications exhibit cross-sectional dependence between countries that should be modeled to avoid simultaneity bias. Given that the source of network interaction is unknown, we propose a panel gravity model that examines multiplenetwork interaction structures, using Bayesian model probabilities to determine those most consistent with the sample data. This is accomplished with the use of computationally efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo estimation methods that produce a Monte Carlo integration estimate of the log-marginal likelihood that can be used for model comparison. Application of the model to a panel of trade flows points to network spillover effects, suggesting the presence of network dependence and biased estimates from conventional trade flow specifications. The most important sources of network dependence were found to be membership in trade organizations, historical colonial ties, common currency, and spatial proximity of countries.Series: Working Papers in Regional Scienc
From administrator to CEO: Exploring changing representations of hierarchy and prestige in a diachronic corpus of academic management writing
Get PDFWe explore the lexical choices made by authors published in Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ), a major academic journal in business and management studies. We do so via a corpus constructed from all the articles published in ASQ from its first publication in 1956 up until the end of 2018. Specifically, our focus is on lexical items that represent social actors. Our findings suggest that, compared with earlier work, recent articles typically ascribe greater status and prestige to organizational elites. Relatively contemporary papers are also more likely to use language that obfuscates or ignores unpalatable aspects of organizational life, such as power asymmetries, hierarchy and control through identity regulation. We suggest that these changes in word choices can be understood to reflect a wider trend towards neo-liberal rhetoric – a rhetoric increasingly pervading contemporary social life more generally
Privacy CURE: Consent Comprehension Made Easy
Get PDFAlthough the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) defines several potential legal bases for personal data processing, in many cases data controllers, even when they are located outside the European Union (EU), will need to obtain consent from EU citizens for the processing of their personal data. Unfortunately, existing approaches for obtaining consent, such as pages of text followed by an agreement/disagreement mechanism, are neither specific nor informed. In order to address this challenge, we introduce our Consent reqUest useR intErface (CURE) prototype, which is based on the GDPR requirements and the interpretation of those requirements by the Article 29 Working Party (i.e., the predecessor of the European Data Protection Board). The CURE prototype provides transparency regarding personal data processing, more control via a customization, and, based on the results of our usability evaluation, improves user comprehension with respect to what data subjects actually consent to. Although the CURE prototype is based on the GDPR requirements, it could potentially be used in other jurisdictions also
Proudly Elitist and Undemocratic? The Distributed Maintenance of Contested Practices
Get PDFThis study examines the maintenance of highly institutionalized practices during periods of vehement contestation and changing external demands. Employing a cross-level longitudinal research design, we explore how the recruitment model of elite French Business Schools persisted, remaining fundamentally intact despite serious questions raised about its functional utility and social legitimacy. Comparing three periods of contestation, we document shifting coalitions of dispersed actors that were incentivized to "thematically" maintain the practices in the focal field with little formal orchestration. Our findings indicate that practices which contribute to social stratification often foster meta-routines that cajole constituencies in multiple fields to, collectively and self-interestedly, promote and regulate conservative change. We identify three meta-routines - referential comparison, generative improvisation, and distributed monitoring and policing - that introduced flexibility and encouraged "unforced" adaptations. In elaborating these meta-routines, we contribute to extant theory on the mechanisms of institutional maintenance, and shed further light on the role of complex embeddedness as a constraint on institutional processes
Swinging female labor demand – How the public sector influences gender wage gaps in Europe
Get PDFWe incorporate an economy’s sectoral structure into a standard theoretical framework to explain the influence of relative demand and supply effects on the gender wage gap.
Using micro data covering 30 European countries over the 2003-2013 period, we construct a unique macro panel of gender wage gaps. We demonstrate that the public sector has
causally determined half of the decrease in the gender wage gap over the period, thus acting as a ’swing demander’ for female labor. We further prove that it is exclusively
demand factors and not composition effects that are driving this result.Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Serie
Accountability by design in technology research
Get PDFWhat does research look like in practice? Aside from popular assumptions of how researchers are lonely isolated individuals sitting disconnected from the rest of the world enmeshed in thought, a considerable part of research involves working with data. Whether this data is quantitative, qualitative, gathered through experiments or involves writing code, all of this data is not just magically ‘invented’ out of thin air, but instead develops in a process of interaction with both human beings and technical systems. However only a small fragment of this process is presented to outside reviewers, the outputs and the framing often specifically designed to make a specific point. How the author got there, and which assumptions were made on the way and how these assumptions developed over time is seldom included in the final write-up. The following article argues that rather than just providing output data to be considered in research – or providing explanations for technical outcomes as is frequently proposed in computer science, accountability can only be developed by better understanding the research process. In order to do this, we suggest a series of mechanisms that can be built into existing research practices to make them more intelligible to outside reviewers and scholars. These mechanisms are designed to develop the accountability principle of the GDPR and ensure more accountable scientific research. As the GDPR recitals also explicitly references scientific research, an accountability by design approach to technology research is grounded both in the articles and recitals of the GDPR. By documenting the key elements of a narrative research story which explains not just what you believe to have discovered but also how researchers got there, it may also be possible to create better accountability mechanisms
The future of circular environmental impact indicators for cultural heritage buildings in Europe
Get PDFBackground: The European building and construction sector is extremely resource-intensive. This makes the renovation of existing buildings, including the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage buildings (ARCH), important for reducing the materials and energy intensity of the sector. Currently, Europe is embarking on a Circular Economy (CE) strategy that directly affects the environmental indicators for buildings and landscapes, including ARCH. However, there is a misalignment between macro-level European CE policy goals and micro-level renovation and management of existing buildings and ARCH. The analysis shows that macro European Union-level indicators are too narrowly defined to effectively guide the implementation of CE at the micro-project level for ARCH.
Results: This policy study develops a comprehensive ARCH Circular Environmental Impact Indicator Framework to close this gap by: (1) defining the research question; (2) identifying the causal network; and (3) selecting the best indicators. The study compares Circular Environmental Indicators for ARCH projects to current and developing European management schemes. Best practices in environmental impact assessment at the project level are highlighted for the building and construction sector in Europe.
Conclusions: The proposed new framework is a comprehensive and suitable list of explicitly circular environmental indicators for ARCH. The framework has immediate practical applications for practitioners and policymakers interested in the CE regime for buildings in Europe
“Rewarding Good Creators”: Corporate Social Media Discourse on Monetization Schemes for Content Creators
Get PDFThis discourse analytical article deals with the power relations between social media corporations and content creators in the context of monetization schemes of social media businesses, i.e., schemes that allow creators to monetize their social media content. Specifically, this study presents an analysis of discourse material pertaining to YouTube’s monetization scheme (the YouTube Partner Program [YPP]) to shed light on the broader point of how social media corporations position themselves in relation to creators who (seek to) earn money on social media. While some research on social media has focused on their potential to empower users/content creators, less optimistic scholars have addressed social media corporations generating massive profits by exploiting creators, for example, in the form of free digital labor. By comparison, there is a lack of research, especially empirical discourse analytical research, on creators’ paid digital labor and on how social media corporations conceptualize paid creators. This study redresses this gap regarding one of the oldest monetization schemes—the YPP. Using corpus linguistic tools to explore textual data from 46 YouTube sites detailing the YPP, this study homes in on references to content creators, YouTube, and how these players are connected to one another. The findings show that although the name YPP elicits the impression of cooperation on equal terms, YouTube represents itself as legislator, judge, and executive authority. This indicates that despite the ability of partnered content creators to share in the social media businesses’ profits, they do not inhabit a particularly empowered position