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Markets, Contracts, and Hierarchies: How Bargaining Frictions Affect Governance
No full textWe develop an organizational governance model with a single buyer and endogenous upstream entry. Investments and control rights over assets and actions are immediately contractable; production is contractable after uncertainty resolves. We show the following: Supplier competition eliminates pre-entry bargaining frictions. To minimize postentry bargaining frictions, control rights over assets and actions are always bundled. If entry is sufficiently cheap, there is frictionless post-entry competition, sometimes due to buyer sponsorship. Otherwise, only one supplier enters. There is vertical integration if the asset’s expected profitability is highest in the buyer’s favorite use; if not, the buyer contracts with an autonomous supplier.Revised January 202
COVID-19 Impact on Household Water-Energy-Food Accessibility Concerning Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in Cities and Societies of Northern Nigeria
No full textAbstractThe recent COVID-19 pandemic has considerably impacted negatively on many aspects of human life such as access to basic necessities including water, energy and food. This article aims to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the water, energy and food accessibility in Katsina state, Nigeria. The survey involved the administration of a questionnaire to a total of 900 households out of which 66.7% representing 600 urban households and 33.3% are linked to 300 households of the rural sampled households. The null hypothesis (H0) was that there was no significant influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the water, energy and food security concerning households. A paired t-test analysed the statistical mean of the water-energy-food accessibility under two scenarios (i.e. pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 lockdown). The investigation found that the lockdown measures introduced to control the spread of COVID-19 had a significant influence on the accessibility of water, energy and food. Results revealed that admission to safely managed water provisions dropped from 30.0 to 24.6% across the scenarios. The electricity index access has also reduced from 1.9 to 1.5. Additionally, households that experience severe food insecurity have significantly increased from 4.9 to 38.6% during the pre- and post-COVID-19 lockdown, respectively. Concerning the investigated households for both the urban and rural strata, the investigation highlights the need for policy intervention to ensure that vulnerable households are not disproportionately affected during crises such as a pandemic. The findings will be useful to policymaking and will advance awareness towards achieving the sustainable development goals (SDG)
Use of advanced technologies and extensive margins of exports in manufacturing firms from 27 EU countries in 2025
No full textThe use of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, or smart devices will go hand in hand with higher productivity, higher product quality, and lower trade costs. Therefore, it can be expected to be positively related to export activities. This paper uses firm level data for manufacturing enterprises from the 27 member countries of the European Union collected in 2025 to shed further light on this issue by investigating the link between the use of advanced technologies and extensive margins of exports. Applying a new machine-learning estimator, Kernel-Regularized Least Squares (KRLS), which does not impose any restrictive assumptions for the functional form of the relation between margins of exports, use of advanced technologies, and any control variables, we find that firms which use more advanced technologies do more often export and do export to more different destinations
Agentic information systems
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Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have catalyzed the emergence of agentic information systems (IS), which exhibit autonomous behavior and advanced cognitive capabilities. Unlike traditional IS, which functioned primarily as reactive tools supporting humans, agentic IS can make decisions independently, act in unstructured environments, and even delegate tasks to humans. This paradigm shift fundamentally transforms the human-IS relationship, questioning the long-standing assumption of human agentic primacy in IS research and practice. In this article, we provide a conceptual overview of agentic IS, delineating their defining characteristics and situating them within the broader evolution of IS. We introduce key archetypes of agentic IS, explore novel patterns of delegation and interaction between humans and machines, and discuss the socio-technical implications of these developments. Furthermore, we highlight the challenges and risks associated with integrating agentic IS from an individual, organizational, and societal perspective, emphasizing the need for nuanced understanding to harness the potential while addressing emerging complexities.M21;O
Sozialstaat 2025 - was ist gesetzlich neu geregelt worden?
No full textChronologie seit 2015 in sechs Politikfeldern ê Arbeitsförderung/SGB III & Arbeitsrecht ê Grundsicherung/Sozialhilfe & Wohngeld ê Rentenversicherung & Alterssicherung ê Krankenversicherung & Gesundheitswesen ê Pflegeversicherung & Pflege ê Familie & Kinderbetreuung Verabschiedete Gesetze aus dem Jahr 2025 sind unter anderem: ê Gesetze des Rentenpakets ê Mindestlohnanpassung ê Gesetze für Strukturen gegen sexuelle Gewalt an Kindern und Jugendlichen und für ein Hilfesystem bei geschlechtsspezifischer und häuslicher Gewalt ê Gesetze zur Befugniserweiterung, Entbürokratisierung und bundeseinheitlichen Assistenzausbildung in der Pfleg
Die 3M-Perspektive auf die Mobilität: Mobilitätsvermögen, Mobitus und Mobitat (3M) als Kategorien der sozialwissenschaftlichen Mobilitätsforschung
No full textMobility, as a social science category, is usually understood as the mobility of social advancement or decline of individuals or groups in an unequal, hierarchical society. Recently, there have been increased efforts to examine the relationship between social and spatial mobility in the context of a discourse of justice. In the background, some promising efforts to conceptualize mobility in Pierre Bourdieu's categories and thus to analyze the connection between social and spatial mobility from a post-structural materialist perspective have faded. These efforts have not been crowned with resounding success: spatial mobility has neither become a prominent topic in sociology, nor has the "Bourdieu School" received a significant innovative boost from its study of mobility. This may be due to the categorical inadequacy of previous approaches. The following article aims to counter this by theoretically defining three categories that can be used to place spatial mobility within Bourdieu's praxeology and enable sociology to play a greater role in the study of spatial mobility. The introduction of the three categories of mobicity (or mobile capacity), mobitus and mobitat is intended to develop a sociological theory of mobility.Mobilität wird als sozialwissenschaftliche Kategorie meistens als Mobilität des gesellschaftlichen Auf- oder Abstiegs von Individuen oder Gruppen in einer ungleichen, hierarchischen Gesellschaft aufgefasst. Seit kurzem sind verstärkte Bemühungen zu verzeichnen, die Relation von sozialer und räumlicher Mobilität im Kontext eines Gerechtigkeitsdiskurses zu untersuchen. In den Hintergrund treten dabei einige vielversprechende Bemühungen, Mobilität in den Kategorien von Pierre Bourdieu zu fassen und damit die Verbindung von sozialer und räumlicher Mobilität poststruktural-materialistisch zu analysieren. Diese Bemühungen waren nicht von durchschlagendem Erfolg gekrönt: Weder ist räumliche Mobilität ein prominentes Thema der Soziologie geworden, noch hat die „Bourdieu-Schule“ einen bedeutenden innovativen Schub durch die Beschäftigung mit der Mobilität erhalten. Dies liegt möglicherweise an der kategorialen Unzulänglichkeit der bisherigen Ansätze. Dem möchte der folgende Beitrag mit einer theoretischen Bestimmung dreier Kategorien entgegentreten, mit denen die räumliche Mobilität sinnvoll in Bourdieus Praxeologie eingeordnet werden kann und mit denen die Soziologie bei der Erforschung räumlicher Mobilität eine größere Rolle spielt. Es geht mit der Einführung der drei Kategorien Mobilitätsvermögen, Mobitus und Mobitat um den Entwurf einer soziologischen Theorie der Mobilität
Does Performance Pay Increase the Risk of Worker Loneliness?
No full textABSTRACT
Increased wages and productivity associated with performance pay can be beneficial to both employers and employees. However, performance pay can also entail unintended consequences for workers' well‐being. This study is the first to systematically examine the association between performance pay and loneliness, a significant policy‐relevant social well‐being concern. Using representative survey data from Germany, I show that performance pay is significantly associated with increased loneliness. Correspondingly, performance pay is negatively associated with the social life satisfaction of workers. Investigating the transmission channels reveals work hours, earnings, conflict with coworkers, and conflict with the life partner as important mediators. The key findings also hold in sensible instrumental variable estimations, addressing the potential endogeneity of performance pay and in various robustness checks. Finally, implications are discussed
No need for speed?: An analysis of UK Broadband speeds from 2014 to 2024
No full textThe aim of this paper is to investigate broadband speed trends across the UK’s top and bottom-performing local authorities. The paper examines how the gap between the digital ‘hotspots’ (i.e., areas with fastest speeds) and ‘notspots’ (i.e., areas with slowest speeds) evolved in two distinct time periods: pre-pandemic (2014-2019) and post-pandemic (2020-2024). Based on the UK Office of Communications Connected Nations dataset from 2014 to 2024, the paper draws on descriptive temporal trend analysis and regression discontinuity analysis to produce three main findings on UK broadband connectivity from 2014 to 2024: • Quantification of the broadband speed trajectories. • Understanding of the digital divide between UK broadband hotspots and notspots over time before and after the Covid-19 pandemic; and • The impact of USO for broadband on performance and coverage of UK broadband infrastructure. The findings show that broadband quality in the UK improved substantially from 2014 to 2024 across all authority areas. Despite this, the digital divide widened in absolute terms i.e., the speed gap between hotspots and notspots increased almost three-fold. The findings highlight that island communities and remote rural regions in the UK need extra support beyond the universal service obligation. The paper argues that to fully understand the impact of USO for broadband policy (and other similar government interventions), the role of baseline connectivity and commercial investment priorities in long-term changes to broadband performance and coverage needs to be examined in conjunction with quantitative analysis of long-term data sets, and qualitative evidence to provide the necessary context on geographic constraints and local demand. These findings are expected to be of interest to academic researchers, communications industry stakeholders, and broadband policymakers.Revised version: January 202
Changing Networks of Power: A Theoretical Approach to the Study of Capitalized Power in Contemporary Energy Transitions
No full textThis paper presents a theoretical approach to the study of power in energy transitions that builds upon Capital as Power (CasP) theory and the critique of neoclassical growth theory. The approach integrates an understanding of capitalist power relations and a consideration of changes in societal energy capture. The approach includes two levels of social power — a deep level, in which the socio-technical conditions of power accumulation are predetermined; and a surface level, in which social dynamics of creation, sabotage, and distribution unfold. It conceptualizes the relations between differential accumulation strategies, societal energy capture rates, and socio-technical change processes. Renewable-resource-based decarbonization is historically unprecedented, in two fundamental respects. First, since it seeks to replace, not augment, the established set of socio-technical practices, inversing the historical trajectory towards higher energy density systems. Second, since these processes threaten to reconfigure power relations that have historically exhibited a coupled growth in hierarchy and energy capture. Thus, a perspective on energy transitions is needed that accounts for the mutual effects of socio-technical change and organized power, under a set of specific historical conditions: global capital and the manifestation of planetary boundaries. To fully understand the power within energy transitions, we must study them from the perspective of differential accumulation — the driving force behind capital. With this context in mind, the dynamics of organized power and socio-technical change can become comprehensible
Nonstandard work schedules and work-life balance in dual-earner households: The role of parenthood
No full textObjective: This study examines whether nonstandard work schedules (NSWS) improve or hinder work-life balance (WLB) for parents and non-parents in dual-earner households. Background: Previous research shows that NSWS can negatively affect workers' well-being. However, less is known about whether and to what extent these effects differ between parents and childless individuals. Method: Using data from the first wave of the German Family Demography Panel Study (FReDA), linear regression models are applied to assess whether the effect of NSWS on WLB is influenced by family circumstances. Results: Parenthood is generally associated with lower WLB. However, the negative association between NSWS and WLB is more pronounced among childless workers. Notably, mothers of young children (ages 0-5), as well as fathers of school-aged children (ages 6-12) working NSWS report higher WLB than their childless counterparts. Conclusion: Parents with NSWS in dual-earner households do not necessarily experience lower WLB than childless workers. In some cases, NSWS may even help parents better reconcile work and family responsibilities