| 1. |
- Ljungbo, Kjell, 1962-
(författare)
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Language as a Leading Light to Business Cultural Insight : A Study on Expatriates' Intercultural Communication in Central and Eastern Europe
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Language competence is decisively important in international business and could increase efficacy, efficiency, sales and profits. Language is an underresearched area in business studies though language constitutes management and the managers building structures, processes, cultures and personalities being the most vital working tool to get things done and make them understandable. Since 1970 Swedish companies lose market shares globally and in Europe. In an era requiring better foreign language skills there is a declining trend among young Swedish business people and students in other languages than English. The aim of this study is to investigate and analyse the role of language in intercultural business communication between Swedish expatriates and locals in Serbia, The Czech Republic, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria and indirectly also Russia and Poland. To understand the business culture in these countries the author has learned the local language in these seven countries taking 3687 private language lessons. This improves the researcher’s understanding of the culture and its people giving directness and depth in communication, independence and receptivity. This ethnographically inspired hermeneutic study holds semi-structured interviews with expatriates. Better language skills among expatriates – particularly in the local language - could make them more self-dependent and win contracts and it strengthens closeness to customers, relationship and trust, strategic view and ability and also operational effectiveness and efficiency enabling their companies to gain market shares. Using Weber’s ideal types the cultural significance structures emerge featuring the cultures in these countries showing that expatriates have to strengthen the ability of the locals in the areas of trust, responsibility and initiative, independent thinking, holistic view, win-win thinking and reduce fear while the expatriates’ own abilities in these areas are strengthened if they speak the local language. Language strategies permitting the expatriate to be more communicatively and linguistically self-dependent are having a common company language, using multilingualism or having the expatriate speak or learn to speak the local language where the advantages, disadvantages and characteristics of these and other aspects of the role of language are given in ideal types.
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| 2. |
- Lindh, Kristina, 1964-
(författare)
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Reciprocal Engagement : A grounded theory of an interactive process of actions to establish, maintain, and develop an enterprise
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Reciprocal engagement is a theory of a basic social process that addresses how an organization establishes, maintains, and develops its enterprise by focusing on strengthening its relationships with other actors. It rests on the rationale that one’s relationships are foremost dependent on how well one manages to engage others. If one’s own engagement is demonstrated to others, it stimulates them to respond with actions of engagement in return. When they do respond in such a manner, it expresses an appreciation of a relationship and a will to contribute to maintaining it. The process of reciprocal engagement consists of two categories of actions, i.e. convincing manifestation and caring embrace, each of which has three dimensions of actions. The dimensions of convincing manifestation are framing, meriting, and avowing and of caring embrace they are friending, enriching, and opportunizing. Together these actions imply that to influence others’ willingness to act engaged, an actor such as an organization needs to mediate trustworthy messages that demonstrate and assure them of its identity and intentions. It also needs to treat and include them in a way that they can relate to as having a meaning of personal and/or social value to them. As the theory can be seen as conceptualizing marketing related behaviors, its practical and theoretical contribution is that of a model of thinking that argues that marketing should be viewed as a relationship developing process of interactive communicative actions with rhetorical and creative features. The research that led to the discovery of the theory aimed its attention at an art museum and its interaction with various external actors in its surrounding environment. In order to discover the main pattern of behaviors that take place in interactions as a consequence of the museum’s main area of concerns, the classical grounded theory method was used. It is an empirical reflective method that has an inductive and conceptual approach to research.
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| 3. |
- Radón, Anita, 1980-
(författare)
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The Rise of Luxury Brands Online : A study of how a sense of luxury brand is created in an online environment
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Luxury brands have only recently tapped into the online market in an attempt to increase revenues and expand their businesses. This leap onto the online world has resulted in several new challenges, including the luxury brand paradox. The luxury brand paradox concerns the inherent difficulty for luxury brands to increase sales and expand their customer base while simultaneously maintaining an aura of mystery and exclusivity. The openness and accessibility of the Internet are believed to pose an extra challenging environment for luxury brands. This research explores how a sense of luxury brand is created in an online environment. Using methodology comprised of different online methods to comprehend what is taking place online, this study primarily concentrates on visual imagery and online communication. The online world of luxury brands is conceptualized into three distinct categories: brand websites, counterfeit websites and community websites. Using these three categories, the thesis demonstrates what role they each play in the creation of a sense of luxury brand. From this analysis, four themes emerge on the sense of a luxury brand (luxury history, authenticity, community and paradox). The concept of an online fair is used to illustrate the environment of luxury brands on the Internet. The online fair consists of a confluence of people involved in it as well as the various activities they perform. In addition, the fairground where the people participate and the activities that take place are described. In conclusion, this thesis proposes a move from the identity-image construct toward a view of handling and co-creation of sense of brand.
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| 4. |
- Mueller, Andreas, 1979-
(författare)
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Business Cycles, Unemployment and Job Search : Essays in Macroeconomics and Labor Economics
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four essays. The first essay, "Separations, Sorting and Cyclical Unemployment", establishes a new fact about the compositional changes in the pool of unemployed over the U.S. business cycle and evaluates a number of theories that can potentially explain it. Using longitudinal micro-data from the Current Population Survey 1979-2008, it documents that in recessions the pool of unemployed shifts towards workers with high wages in their previous job. The essay also shows that a search-matching model with endogenous separations and worker heterogeneity in terms of ability has difficulty in explaining these patterns, but an extension of the model with credit-constraint shocks does much better in accounting for the new fact. The second essay, "The Lot of the Unemployed: A Time Use Perspective", provides new evidence on the time use of employed and unemployed individuals in 14 countries. It devotes particular attention to characterizing and modeling job search intensity, measured by the amount of time devoted to searching for a new job. Job search intensity varies considerably across countries, and is higher in countries that have higher wage dispersion. The third essay, "Job Search and Unemployment Insurance: New Evidence from Time Use Data", examines the relationship between Unemployment Insurance and job search intensity. Among the major findings are that, across the U.S. states, job search is inversely related to the generosity of unemployment benefits and that job search intensity for those eligible for Unemployment Insurance increases prior to benefit exhaustion. The fourth essay, "On-the-Job Search and Wage Dispersion: New Evidence from Time Use Data", finds that on-the-job search effort, modeled as time allocated to job search activities, is decreasing in the wage of the current job. The evidence presented is consistent with models where similar workers face wage dispersion and invest time in order to find better paying jobs.
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| 5. |
- Caldara, Dario, 1982-
(författare)
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Essays on Empirical Macroeconomics
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four essays in empirical macroeconomics. What Are the Effects of Fiscal Policy Shocks? A VAR-Based Comparative Analysis The literature using structural vector autoregressions (SVARs) to assess the effects of fiscal policy shocks strongly disagrees on the qualitative and quantitative response of key macroeconomic variables. We find that controlling for differences in specification of the reduced-form model, all identification approaches used in the literature yield similar results regarding the effects of government spending shocks, but diverging results regarding the effects of tax shocks. The Analytics of SVARs. A Unified Framework to Measure Fiscal Multipliers Does fiscal policy stimulate output? SVARs have been used to address this question, but no stylized facts have emerged. I show that different priors about the output elasticities of tax revenue and government expenditures implied by the identification schemes generate a large dispersion in the estimates of tax and spending multipliers. I estimate fiscal multipliers consistent with prior distributions of the elasticities computed by a variety of empirical strategies. I document that in the U.S. spending multipliers are larger than the tax multipliers. Computing DSGE Models with Recursive Preferences and Stochastic Volatility This paper compares solution methods for computing the equilibrium of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models with recursive preferences and stochastic volatility. The main finding is that a third-order perturbation is competitive in terms of accuracy with Chebyshev polynomials and value function iteration, while being an order of magnitude faster to run. Business Cycle Accounting and Misspecified DSGE Models This paper investigates how insights from the literature on business cycle accounting can be used to trace out the implications of missing channels in a baseline estimated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model used for forecast and policy analysis.
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| 6. |
- Ferguson, Shon, 1979-
(författare)
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Essays on Trade, Technology and the Organization of Firms
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- "Endogenous Sunk Costs, Exporting and Heterogeneous Firms" Empirical evidence shows that R&D spending is highly correlated with firm productivity and highly concentrated among large firms. This paper develops a model of quality competition with heterogeneous firms that can explain these patterns. The model makes two new predictions. The first prediction is that exporters upgrade while domestic firms downgrade when trade liberalizes. The second prediction is that quality competition reduces the effect of trade liberalization along the extensive margin. "Endogenous Product Differentiation, Market Size and Trade" Recent empirical evidence suggests that average export prices are higher when firms sell in large markets. This paper offers a theoretical explanation for why we do not always see pro-competitive market size effects in the trade data for differentiated goods. The model here proposes that export prices can in fact be higher in larger countries because firms have greater incentive to differentiate their products, which increases price-cost markups. In the two-country case the model predicts that larger countries sell manufacturing goods at higher price-cost markups than smaller countries. "Institution-Driven Comparative Advantage, Complex Goods and Organizational Choice" The theory of the firm suggests that firms can respond to poor contract enforcement by vertically integrating their production process. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether firms' integration opportunities affect the way institutions determine international trade patterns. We find that vertical integration lessens the impact of a country's ability to enforce contracts on the comparative advantage of complex goods. We also find that countries with good financial institutions export disproportionately more in sectors that produce complex goods and that have a high propensity for vertical integration.
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| 7. |
- Hirvonen, Lalaina, 1974-
(författare)
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Essays in Empirical Labour Economics : Family Background, Gender and Earnings
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- All three essays in this thesis are concerned with the interrelation of family, gender and labour market outcomes. The first paper investigates family earnings mobility between parents and sons, and parents and daughters, highlighting the role of assortative mating. The results suggest that daughters are more mobile than sons. I also find that Sweden has a higher degree of mobility compared to the U.S., and that assortative mating is an important underlying channel for earnings transmission. The difference in mobility between the two countries does not inherently depend on factors affecting the marriage match. Moreover, adult economic outcomes are more dependent on family background for those at the lower end of the earnings distribution. The second study analyses the long-run effects of an increase in family size on the 1980-2005 labour market outcomes of Swedish men and women. The decision to have (more) children is dependent on current and future labour market prospects. I use the exogenous variations in the sex composition of the first two children to overcome this endogeneity problem. My findings suggest that having an additional child has a stronger negative impact on earnings than on participation. However, mothers experience a substantial but not complete long-term recovery in earnings. The third paper illustrates the difficulty in disentangling the underlying channels of intergenerational earnings persistence using a path analysis model. On closer examination, such a model has a potential shortcoming since the covariates are correlated to other unobserved factors. The results suggest that education is the most influential mechanism in the earnings transmission process, while IQ, mental ability and BMI are of secondary importance. However, education is sensitive to the inclusion of other covariates and the order in which these are entered into the equation.
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| 8. |
- Schultz Nybacka, Pamela, 1971-
(författare)
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Bookonomy : The Consumption Practice and Value of Book Reading
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In contemporary society, book readers are increasingly being valued as consumers. Literacy and reading are often subjected to an economic logic and seen as constituting economic operations in themselves. The overall research objective is to explore whether and to what extent book reading as consumption practice belongs with traditional understandings of economy and culture, consumption and value. This entails studies on different levels: theoretical, methodological and meta-theoretical. The main thesis is that we need to envision another mode of economy related to books and reading, captured in the concept of “bookonomy”.The methodological problems connected to the empirical study of consumption practice can be dealt with constructively if we engage consumers in complementary experimental activities. Visual sessions can contribute directly by: 1.) contextualizing practices in everyday life; 2.) exhibiting visible, material aspects, etc.; 3) uncovering invisible aspects such as the art and logic of practice. Using an abductive approach to science and several types of qualitative data, the study puts consumption practice in a new light.Several logics of book reading are uncovered: distributive, encompassing, additive, geometric, accounting, erosive, and depository. These logics of practice are better understood as consummation, rather than consumption. The meta-theoretical study suggested that unlike economic theory that teaches the allocation of scarce resources to meet infinite needs, bookonomy denotes an underlying pattern of complementary logics that gather together and distribute surplus, both historically and as driver into industrial mass production and post-scarcity. Where economic theory distinguishes between value-in-use (utility), value-in-exchange (value) and value-in-money (price), bookonomic value is an epiphenomenal type of value that simultaneously draws on, takes hold of, and deals out surplus. It is a surplus-to-surplus value-in-store, with a distributive logic at heart.
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| 9. |
- Bos, Marieke, 1974-
(författare)
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Essays on Household Finance
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis consists of three self-contained essays on household finance. “Pawn Credit and the Importance of Financial Exclusion” explores the importance of access to regular credit to the demand for pawn credit. I find that the rejection of one's loan application by a regular bank increases the probability that one will take pawn credit, on average, by 9 percent, relative to individuals whose loan application has been granted. However, of all pawn credit borrowers, 73 percent do not even try to get regular bank credit first. For these borrowers, I find that 93 percent are implicitly excluded from regular bank credit at the time they decide to take pawn credit. “Should Credit Remark Be Forgotten? Evidence from a Legally Mandated Removal” (with Leonard Nakamura) analyzes what happens when Swedish law mandates the removal of credit remarks from credit reports after three years. We find that removal induces an abrupt improvement in individuals' credit scores, an improvement that is not reversed in the long run. Further, the excess loan applications caused by the boost in creditworthiness translate into significant access to new credit. We find evidence that only a minority of the individuals who received a credit remark may be inherently high risk which suggests that credit remark removal is welfare enhancing. “Accept or Reject: Do Immigrants Have Less Access to Bank Credit? Evidence from Swedish Pawnshop Customers” asks if immigrants have less access to mainstream credit than their Swedish born counterparts. I find that immigrants are six percent less likely to be accepted when applying for mainstream credit, relative to Swedish born. This holds in particular for immigrants of African descent, who are 15 percent less likely. This effect disappears for second-generation immigrants with African parents. Immigrant pawnshop borrowers that do not apply for mainstream credit before they take pawn credit are found to make well-informed decisions.
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| 10. |
- Folke, Olle, 1979-
(författare)
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Parties, Power and Patronage : Papers in Political Economy
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three empirical essays in political economics."Shades of Brown and Green: Party Effects in Proportional Election Systems" is the first paper to develop a method for estimating the causal effect of party representation in proportional election systems. This method is applied to Swedish municipalities. The results show that party representation has a large effect on immigration policy and environmental policy. Parties profiling themselves in a policy area also have the largest effects on it. There is no evidence for party representation having an effect on tax policy."Midterm Slumps in US State Elections: Coattails, Power Balancing, or Referenda?" examines midterm slumps in US state legislatures and the mechanisms that cause them. The results show that the party of the governor systematically loses legislative seats in the midterm elections. Through the use of a regression discontinuity design it can be ruled out that this is caused by a surge-and-decline type mechanism. Instead, the results suggest that the midterm slump can be attributed, in about equal shares, to the midterm elections being a referendum on gubernatorial performance and the voters using the midterms for balancing of power."Patronage and Elections in U.S. States" examines if control over patronage jobs increased a political party's probability of winning elections in US States. A patronage system is a practice where a political party, after winning an election, reward their supporters by giving them government jobs. The essay provides evidence that patronage does -- or, rather, did -- help U.S. parties in power to retain it. There is also evidence for an "entrenched" party in power for a longer time period can use patronage more effectively than a "weak" party that usually is out of power.
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