Vienna University of Economics and Business
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Rising between-workplace inequalities in high-income countries
Get PDFIt is well documented that earnings inequalities have risen in many high-income countries. Less clear are the linkages between rising income inequality and workplace dynamics, how within- and between-workplace inequality varies across countries, and to what extent these inequalities are moderated by national labor market institutions. In order to describe changes in the initial between- and within-firm market income distribution we analyze administrative records for 2,000,000,000+ job years nested within 50,000,000+ workplace years for 14 high-income countries in North America, Scandinavia, Continental and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. We find that countries vary a great deal in their levels and trends in earnings inequality but that the between-workplace share of wage inequality is growing in almost all countries examined and is in no country declining. We also find that earnings inequalities and the share of between-workplace inequalities are lower and grew less strongly in countries with stronger institutional employment protections and rose faster when these labor market protections weakened. Our findings suggest that firm-level restructuring and increasing wage inequalities between workplaces are more central contributors to rising income inequality than previously recognized
The use of social media in EU policy communication and implications for the emergence of a European public sphere
Get PDFCohesion policy is the European Union’s (EU) main investment policy and seeks to strengthen economic, social and territorial cohesion. While accomplishments in this regard are constantly measured, European citizens are not always aware of the policy’s impact and the role the EU plays therein. This is especially relevant as the communication of EU policies is central to the emergence of a European public sphere, an acknowledged condition for European integration. In this paper, we aim at advancing research in this regard through the analysis of cohesion policy communication on the social media channels of ten Local Managing Authorities (LMAs) responsible for managing and communicating structural funds at the local level. By building on a bottom-up construction of shared meaning structures through semi-automatic analysis techniques, we make the following three observations: first, social media communication is indicative of "horizontal Europeanization"; second, Europeanization occurs both in the form of the spontaneous amalgamation of shared discontent expressed by citizens and the institutionalization of top-down EU communication measures adopted by LMAs; and third, a cluster of topics articulated internationally and showcasing a negative attitude towards the EU funding scheme suggests that, counter-intuitively, Euroscepticism seems to facilitate the emergence of a European public sphere
The effect of horizontal pay dispersion on the effectiveness of performance-based incentives
Get PDFIn response to general calls for increased transparency in society, pay transparency
policies are growing in importance. Given that pay transparency unavoidably gives employees the
opportunity to make comparisons between themselves and others, in this study we address the
question of how these comparisons impact the incentive effects of performance contingent pay,
and consequently their performance outcomes. Specifically, we empirically examine whether
horizontal pay dispersion alters the effectiveness of performance-based pay contracts, which firms
typically use to incentivize effort. Exploiting our unique access to a large healthcare provider, we
document the moderating role of horizontal pay dispersion on the effectiveness of individual
monetary incentives at generating increased individual performance. To provide a more nuanced
understanding of the moderating effect of pay dispersion, we further examine the boundary
conditions of the proposed interaction. In particular, we examine the differential effect of overall
pay dispersion on employees that rank high versus low in the pay distribution and disaggregate
overall pay dispersion into performance-related versus performance-unrelated pay dispersion. Our
findings consistently show a positive moderating effect of pay dispersion when employees are
more likely to consider the observed pay dispersion as legitimate, and a negative moderation effect
when this is less likely the case. Our study strengthens the understanding of how individual level
incentives function in the context of a multi-person firm setting. Our results document that
individual incentives are effective, but also suggest that pay dispersion can have a significant
influence on the incentive-performance relation. These findings provide some evidence that
individuals are concerned not only with their own payout, but also with that of others, and that this
concern has a significant impact on individual’s effort provision, and consequently performance.Series: Department of Strategy and Innovation Working Paper Serie
The impact of face-to-face street fundraising on organizational reputation
Get PDFAlthough many stakeholders perceive face-to-face street fundraising as unpleasant, nonprofit managers encourage it as a way to attract donors. To understand the long-term effects of this fundraising method, we used a mixed-methods experimental design to investigate how face-to-face street fundraising affects organizational reputation and stakeholder support intentions in comparison with letter fundraising. The findings reveal that face-to-face street fundraising has a significant negative influence on the stakeholders' perceptions of an organization. Further, qualitative datashow that the negative perception originates primarily from perceived pressure, distrust, and obtrusion, which are triggered by face-to-face street fundraising. Our studythus reveals long-term reputational consequences that nonprofit organizations should consider before deciding on fundraising methods
A review of environmental impact indicators of cultural heritage buildings: A circular economy perspective
Get PDFThis paper is the first in-depth review of the state of the art of environmental impact indicators for adaptive reuse of cultural heritage (ARCH) buildings from a circular economy perspective. Buildings are a necessary component of sustainability planning because they are significant consumers of natural resources, producers of construction and demolition waste, and contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, buildings, particularly ARCH buildings, are long lasting; therefore, measuring and managing their environmental impacts is crucial to achieving the universal vision of a sustainable, low-carbon economy. The research answers the questions, "What are the environmental impact indicators used by individual ARCH building project analyses?" and "Are the most commonly used indicators reflecting Circular Economy concepts?" It synthesizes and defines current practice in the field whilst highlighting the gaps between practice and policy. Although the term "Circular Economy" is not explicitly and routinely used in the literature, related concepts such as life cycle analysis, energy consumption reduction, energy efficiency, and embodied carbon / energy are evident at the project level. Concrete and measured environmental indicators are not mainstream. However, narratives of environmental protection feature prominently in the literature, indicating an environmental motivation for repurposing cultural heritage buildings. Further, there is a gap between common indicators of circularity and the ARCH building project level indicators shown in the dataset
Population-based preference weights for the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT) for service users for Austria: Findings from a best-worst experiment
Get PDFBackground: The Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT) measures quality-of-life (QoL) outcomes of long-term care (LTC) service provision. Country-specificpreference weights are required to calculate ASCOT scores. ASCOT has been translated into German, but lacks preference weights for German-speaking countries. Objectives: This paper aims to establish Austrian preference weights for the German version of the ASCOT service user measure, using best-worst scaling (BWS). Methods: Data were collected using an online BWS-experiment from a general population sample (n=1,000) of Austrian adults. We use a scale-adjusted multinomiallogit model (S-MNL) accounting for positioning effects to estimate preference weights. Results: Austrians value the top attribute-levels in the ASCOT domains "being meaningfully occupied during the day" and "having control over daily life" most highly,whereas high needs were the least preferred in the domains "dignity" and "social participation". From a methods perspective, we found significant positioning effectsonly for "best" choices, with statements at the top of a list being picked more often than those further down in the list. Factors related to survey completion (self-assessed understanding of the tasks and survey completion time) were shown to have the greatest effect on individual choice consistency. Discussion: The paper provides Austrian preference weights for the German version of ASCOT for service users. The weights also provide insight into how Austriansvalue different LTC-QoL states. Future research may investigate how values for different LTC-QoL states differ between socioeconomic groups
Anonymous, neutral, and resolute social choice revisited
Get PDFWe revisit the incompatibility of anonymity and neutrality in singleton-valued social choice. We first analyze the irresoluteness structure these two axioms together with Pareto efficiency impose on social choice rules and deliver a method to refine irresolute rules without violating anonymity, neutrality, and efficiency. Next, we propose a weakening of neutrality called consequential neutrality that requires resolute social choice rules to assign each alternative to the same number of profiles. We explore social choice problems in which consequential neutrality resolves impossibilities that stem from the fundamental tension between anonymity, neutrality, and resoluteness.Series: Department of Strategy and Innovation Working Paper Serie
An agent-based market simulation for enriching innovation management education
Get PDFIt is not easy for students or junior managers to obtain first-hand experience in innovation and technology management. Business gaming simulations can remedy this, as they provide an opportunity to acquire practical skills. We developed such a business gaming simulation that enables teams of participants—each managing a virtual company that competes with other companies in several markets—to implement technology strategies, make resource allocation decisions, and test marketing strategies for introducing its new products. The salient feature of this simulation is its agent-based market model, which accounts for consumers’ heterogeneity and social factors like word-of-mouth communication. In this paper, we describe the elements and dynamics of the market model, outline the didactic framework, and synthesize our experiences from using the simulation in classroom settings for several years. Overall, we find that using an agent-based model as the core of a business gaming simulation can facilitate experiential learning in management, particularly in fields that involve complex social system dynamics, as is the case in the diffusion of innovations
Biased interpretation of performance feedback: The role of ceo overconfidence
Get PDFResearch summary: This study examines how managerial
biases in the form of overconfidence change the
interpretation of performance feedback and, consequently,
shape a firm's risk taking in response to it. Our
formal analysis suggests that CEO overconfidence is
associated with a lower willingness to increase firm risk
taking when facing negative performance feedback and
a higher willingness to decrease risk when facing positive
feedback. An extension of our model also shows
that, when firms are operating close to their survival
level, the effects of CEO overconfidence will reverse. We
test our predictions empirically with a sample of
847 American manufacturing firms in the years 1992 to
2014. Our results are consistent with our hypotheses and
are robust to different empirical operationalizations of
CEO overconfidence.
Managerial summary: Managers evaluate the success
of their current business strategy through feedback in
the form of their firm's current financial results relative
to their own previous performance or that of their
peers. Our results show that overconfident CEOs interpret
information about the financial situation of their
firms more optimistically than non-overconfident CEOs, which in turn causes them to exhibit a less pronounced
reaction to both positive or negative performance
feedback. It is thus crucial that managers are
clearly aware of how their interpretations and reactions
to feedback are affected by their own deeply held personal
beliefs and dispositions
Digitalization of Supply Chains: Focus on International Rail Transport in the Case of the Czech Republic
Get PDFThe digitalization of supply chains presents a complex subject for research based on different geography setups, legal policy frameworks and a focus on technology. The paper discusses potential and issues in regards to the digitalization implementation in supply chains of the future with a focus laid on rail transport as one of the transport modes in freight distribution. The authors analyze empirical data for the Czech Republic as a geographically scoped case study by analyzing interviews with business practitioners that are active in the rail transport market. The research outcomes interlink the development of the legal framework in international rail transport with the emergence of electronic transport documentation as an important practical aspect of digitalization. Finally, it raises questions related to the critical preconditions of digitalization of supply chains