Pub Date : 2023-01-01Epub Date: 2022-12-13DOI: 10.1007/s11573-022-01123-7
Konstantin Flassak, Julia Haag, Christian Hofmann, Christopher Lechner, Nina Schwaiger, Rafael Zacherl
The Covid-19 pandemic and the corresponding shift toward working from home (WFH) amplifies control problems within organizations and poses severe challenges for management control as employees' tasks are difficult to observe under WFH conditions. We examine the association between WFH and action controls. Based on a survey among employees in a large international corporation, we find that under WFH conditions the organization more intensively uses standardization and planning participation. We also examine the association between WFH and employee outcomes. The findings suggest that WFH is associated with more time employees spend in meetings and a higher job focus. Overall, the study adds to the literature by exploring the association between WFH and the use of management controls in organizations.
{"title":"Working from home and management controls.","authors":"Konstantin Flassak, Julia Haag, Christian Hofmann, Christopher Lechner, Nina Schwaiger, Rafael Zacherl","doi":"10.1007/s11573-022-01123-7","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11573-022-01123-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Covid-19 pandemic and the corresponding shift toward working from home (WFH) amplifies control problems within organizations and poses severe challenges for management control as employees' tasks are difficult to observe under WFH conditions. We examine the association between WFH and action controls. Based on a survey among employees in a large international corporation, we find that under WFH conditions the organization more intensively uses standardization and planning participation. We also examine the association between WFH and employee outcomes. The findings suggest that WFH is associated with more time employees spend in meetings and a higher job focus. Overall, the study adds to the literature by exploring the association between WFH and the use of management controls in organizations.</p>","PeriodicalId":94069,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9745686/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74194503","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01Epub Date: 2022-11-24DOI: 10.1007/s11573-022-01124-6
Christian Kagerl, Julia Starzetz
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, more firms than ever before have enabled their employees to work from home. Based on a representative firm survey in Germany, surveying 2.000 firms per month throughout the course of the pandemic (October 2020 until June 2022), this paper provides suggestive evidence concerning the effects of working from home (WFH) at different points in time during the pandemic and discusses implications for the future of work. We assess the potential of WFH in Germany to be 25-30% of private-sector employees. On the firm side, we find that higher WFH use is positively related to business success during the crisis, with increased employee productivity and employees working more hours when remote being possible mechanisms. Larger firms in particular are open towards expanding their WFH offerings in the future. During the pandemic, firms have experienced that WFH has worked well in many respects (e.g., productivity of employees, quality of work performed) and, for the future, they are willing to facilitate WFH in order to give their employees more flexibility, and to be considered an attractive employer. However, working on site brings advantages (e.g., communication, cooperation and onboarding of new employees) firms will not want to sacrifice, pointing towards a hybrid model of work.
{"title":"Working from home for good? Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and what this means for the future of work.","authors":"Christian Kagerl, Julia Starzetz","doi":"10.1007/s11573-022-01124-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11573-022-01124-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, more firms than ever before have enabled their employees to work from home. Based on a representative firm survey in Germany, surveying 2.000 firms per month throughout the course of the pandemic (October 2020 until June 2022), this paper provides suggestive evidence concerning the effects of working from home (WFH) at different points in time during the pandemic and discusses implications for the future of work. We assess the potential of WFH in Germany to be 25-30% of private-sector employees. On the firm side, we find that higher WFH use is positively related to business success during the crisis, with increased employee productivity and employees working more hours when remote being possible mechanisms. Larger firms in particular are open towards expanding their WFH offerings in the future. During the pandemic, firms have experienced that WFH has worked well in many respects (e.g., productivity of employees, quality of work performed) and, for the future, they are willing to facilitate WFH in order to give their employees more flexibility, and to be considered an attractive employer. However, working on site brings advantages (e.g., communication, cooperation and onboarding of new employees) firms will not want to sacrifice, pointing towards a hybrid model of work.</p>","PeriodicalId":94069,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9686242/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85678138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01Epub Date: 2022-07-14DOI: 10.1007/s11573-022-01106-8
Bernhard Hirsch, Fabienne-Sophie Schäfer, Aleksander Aristovnik, Polonca Kovač, Dejan Ravšelj
This paper analyses the impact of the use of digital communication tools in administrative procedures on the effectiveness of local administrative authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic. It considers COVID-19-driven changes in the legal competence of the institutional unit and administrative authorities' orientation to good governance as mediators of this relationship. By applying partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to survey data (N = 610) from five central European countries, we show that the accelerated use of digitalized communication tools driven by the COVID-19 situation has a positive effect on the effectiveness of local administrative authorities. Our data also indicate that the new laws, instructions and good governance driven by the COVID-19 situation - based on mostly convergent administrative traditions and European trends - partially mediate the relationship between the use of digital communication tools and administrative effectiveness. These findings do not significantly differ between participating countries and bureaucratic traditions. Consequently, the COVID-19 crisis proved to be a joint facilitator of responsive public governance that remained compliant with the rule of law, regardless of whether the national administrative systems were traditionally more legalistically or managerially oriented.
{"title":"The impact of Digitalized Communication on the effectiveness of Local Administrative Authorities - Findings from Central European Countries in the COVID-19 Crisis.","authors":"Bernhard Hirsch, Fabienne-Sophie Schäfer, Aleksander Aristovnik, Polonca Kovač, Dejan Ravšelj","doi":"10.1007/s11573-022-01106-8","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11573-022-01106-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper analyses the impact of the use of digital communication tools in administrative procedures on the effectiveness of local administrative authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic. It considers COVID-19-driven changes in the legal competence of the institutional unit and administrative authorities' orientation to good governance as mediators of this relationship. By applying partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to survey data (N = 610) from five central European countries, we show that the accelerated use of digitalized communication tools driven by the COVID-19 situation has a positive effect on the effectiveness of local administrative authorities. Our data also indicate that the new laws, instructions and good governance driven by the COVID-19 situation - based on mostly convergent administrative traditions and European trends - partially mediate the relationship between the use of digital communication tools and administrative effectiveness. These findings do not significantly differ between participating countries and bureaucratic traditions. Consequently, the COVID-19 crisis proved to be a joint facilitator of responsive public governance that remained compliant with the rule of law, regardless of whether the national administrative systems were traditionally more legalistically or managerially oriented.</p>","PeriodicalId":94069,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9282149/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83773186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01Epub Date: 2022-06-16DOI: 10.1007/s11573-022-01100-0
Moritz Sefried, Jan Riepe
Motivated by diverging results from the literature, we investigate whether investments in information technology (IT) help banks to assess their loan portfolio. More specifically, we focus on the consequences of accumulated expenses for data processing on banks' ability to estimate their loan loss accruals. We further test for differences when the banks' borrowers get hit by the economic trouble from the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a sample of US commercial banks before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, we find more precise estimates of loan loss accruals during these troublesome times in banks that accumulated higher data processing expenses. Surprisingly, we do not find significant differences in the precision of loan loss accruals by banks' IT investments during normal times. Our findings contribute to consolidate previously diverging results by showing that IT investments help banks following a structural break, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
{"title":"The benefits of banks' IT investments in times of trouble: evidence from loan loss accruals during the COVID-19 pandemic.","authors":"Moritz Sefried, Jan Riepe","doi":"10.1007/s11573-022-01100-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11573-022-01100-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Motivated by diverging results from the literature, we investigate whether investments in information technology (IT) help banks to assess their loan portfolio. More specifically, we focus on the consequences of accumulated expenses for data processing on banks' ability to estimate their loan loss accruals. We further test for differences when the banks' borrowers get hit by the economic trouble from the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a sample of US commercial banks before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, we find more precise estimates of loan loss accruals during these troublesome times in banks that accumulated higher data processing expenses. Surprisingly, we do not find significant differences in the precision of loan loss accruals by banks' IT investments during normal times. Our findings contribute to consolidate previously diverging results by showing that IT investments help banks following a structural break, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>","PeriodicalId":94069,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9200561/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85773522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01Epub Date: 2022-11-29DOI: 10.1007/s11573-022-01113-9
Andrea Stübner, Svenja Jarchow
This study investigates how family continuation, namely family tradition and succession intention, alter the socially responsible behavior of small and medium sized (SME) family firms. Using a unique dataset, we have conducted multiple regressions on survey data from German family SMEs and show a statistically and economically significant increase in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) alongside the planning of family succession. However, when analyzing the different facets of CSR, we have found strong variances: While succession intention goes along with an increased community, market, and supply chain engagement this is not the case for CSR directed towards employees, or the environment. Family tradition didn't correlate with a change in CSR behaviour to a relevant extent. In our theoretical embedding we employed socio-emotional wealth (SEW) theory to explain our findings. Thereby, our study fills a gap in the literature adding the perspective of SME family firms on the use of CSR in the context of family succession and also adding to the theoretical understanding of SEW.
{"title":"Family oblige: the link between CSR and succession intention in small and medium family firms.","authors":"Andrea Stübner, Svenja Jarchow","doi":"10.1007/s11573-022-01113-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11573-022-01113-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study investigates how family continuation, namely family tradition and succession intention, alter the socially responsible behavior of small and medium sized (SME) family firms. Using a unique dataset, we have conducted multiple regressions on survey data from German family SMEs and show a statistically and economically significant increase in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) alongside the planning of family succession. However, when analyzing the different facets of CSR, we have found strong variances: While succession intention goes along with an increased community, market, and supply chain engagement this is not the case for CSR directed towards employees, or the environment. Family tradition didn't correlate with a change in CSR behaviour to a relevant extent. In our theoretical embedding we employed socio-emotional wealth (SEW) theory to explain our findings. Thereby, our study fills a gap in the literature adding the perspective of SME family firms on the use of CSR in the context of family succession and also adding to the theoretical understanding of SEW.</p>","PeriodicalId":94069,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9707158/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77045577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-20DOI: 10.1007/s11573-022-01130-8
Christian Lohmann, Steffen Möllenhoff, Thorsten Ohliger
{"title":"Nonlinear relationships in bankruptcy prediction and their effect on the profitability of bankruptcy prediction models","authors":"Christian Lohmann, Steffen Möllenhoff, Thorsten Ohliger","doi":"10.1007/s11573-022-01130-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-022-01130-8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":94069,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72828698","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-17DOI: 10.1007/s11573-022-01129-1
Antonia Nörthemann
{"title":"Industry-specific specialization in venture capitalists’ internationalization decisions","authors":"Antonia Nörthemann","doi":"10.1007/s11573-022-01129-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-022-01129-1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":94069,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72949816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-16DOI: 10.1007/s11573-022-01127-3
Nick Lin-Hi, Marlene Reimer, Katharina Schäfer, Johanna Böttcher
{"title":"Consumer acceptance of cultured meat: an empirical analysis of the role of organizational factors","authors":"Nick Lin-Hi, Marlene Reimer, Katharina Schäfer, Johanna Böttcher","doi":"10.1007/s11573-022-01127-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-022-01127-3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":94069,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80587878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-13DOI: 10.1007/s11573-022-01116-6
Kay Blaufus, Jakob Reineke, Ilko Trenn
{"title":"Perceived tax audit aggressiveness, tax control frameworks and tax planning: an empirical analysis","authors":"Kay Blaufus, Jakob Reineke, Ilko Trenn","doi":"10.1007/s11573-022-01116-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-022-01116-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":94069,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75000591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-08DOI: 10.1007/s11573-022-01126-4
Stefanie Weniger, Svenja Jarchow
{"title":"Between benefit and risk: how entrepreneurs evaluate corporate investors","authors":"Stefanie Weniger, Svenja Jarchow","doi":"10.1007/s11573-022-01126-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-022-01126-4","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":94069,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81591578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}