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01/05/2022

Bjarke MacCarthy

Foto: Bjarke MacCarthy
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Development of a Novel Framework for the Assessment and Improvement of Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Actions in Europe
Abstract: The greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in the European Union (EU) are mainly caused by human activity from five sectors—power, industry, transport, buildings, and agriculture. To tackle all these challenges, the EU actions and policies have been encouraging initiatives focusing on a holistic approach but these initiatives are not enough coordinated and connected to reach the much needed impact. To strengthen the important role of regions in climate actions, and stimulate wide stakeholders' engagement including citizens, a conceptual framework for enabling rapid and far-reaching climate actions through multi-sectoral regional adaptation pathways is hereby developed. The target audience for this framework is composed by regional policy makers, developers and fellow scientists. The scale of the framework emphasizes the regional function as an important meeting point and delivery arena for European and national climate strategies and objectives both at urban and rural level. The framework is based on transformative and no-regret measures, prioritizing the Key Community Systems (KCS) that most urgently need to be protected from climate impacts and risks.

Journal: Frontiers in Sustainable Cities
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Peter Bogetoft

Connectedness of Energy Markets around the World during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Abstract: This paper studies the connectedness among energy equity indices of oil-exporting and oil-importing countries around the world. For each country, we construct time-varying measures of how much shocks this country transmits to other countries and how much shocks this country receives from other countries. We analyze the network of countries and find that, on average, oil-exporting countries are mainly transmitting shocks, and oil-importing countries are mainly receiving shocks. Furthermore, we use panel data regressions to evaluate whether the connectedness among countries is influenced by economic sentiment, uncertainty, and the global COVID-19 pandemic. We find that the connectedness among countries increases significantly in periods of uncertainty, low economic sentiment, and COVID-19 problems. This implies that diversification benefits across countries are severely reduced exactly during crises, that is, during the times when diversification benefits are most important.

Journal: Energy Economics
Published: May 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Oguzhan Cepni

Tormented Selves: The Social Imaginary of the Tortured Artist and the Identity Work of Creative Workers
Abstract: This article examines identity work in the creative industries as a type of identity formation that has been underexplored in the literature on identity work to date. Based on interviews with performing artists in music and theatre, we show how creative workers feel compelled to perform negative (tortured and despondent) identity work in order to attain a positive (coherent, self-sustaining and self-affirming) sense of artistic self. We argue that the dubious link between mental illness and creativity, propagated not only by popular media and pseudo-scientific accounts but also by art history and the creative industries themselves, has served to undergird a social imaginary of the artist as a ‘tortured’ creator. This imaginary in turn provides discursive resources, behavioural cues and affective stimulation for the performance of occupationally desirable yet perilous tormented creative selves. We identify three distinct identity work strategies undertaken by creative workers, namely self-analysis, self-diagnosis and selfmedication, in which social imaginaries purporting an overlap between mental illness and creativity in artistic work play a constitutive role. Our findings contribute to the emergent interdisciplinary literature on identity work in the creative industries and the arts. Moreover, we caution that the negative forms of identity-building practiced by our interviewees, underpinned as they are by social imaginaries of the artist as anguished, dejected and agonized, may in fact be dangerously counterproductive for creative workers coping with the higher rates of depression, anxiety and substance abuse found in precarious creative professions.

Journal: Organization Studies
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Ana Alacovska, Dan Kärreman

Challenges and Opportunities of Curbing Urban Corruption and Building Professional Integrity: Experiences of Planners in South Africa and Zambia
Abstract: Urban corruption can hinder integrated planning, skew the equitable distribution of public investments, and capture urban management processes to the detriment of the public. Yet, we argue in this article, the city scale has been largely overlooked in contemporary anti-corruption research, and – by the same token – urban scholars only recently started paying attention to the role of corruption in urban development. Based on extensive quantitative and qualitative research with planning professionals in South Africa and Zambia, we firstly explore the complex dynamics of urban corruption and the challenges it poses in the respective national planning spheres. Based on this exploration, we then motivate for the need to move beyond compliance-focused understandings of corruption as the sole basis for developing strategies against city-level corruption. Finally, we outline an agenda for possible future research and action on urban integrity.

Journal: Habitat International
Published: April 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Dieter Zinnbauer

Coins for Bombs: The Predictive Ability of On-chain Transfers for Terrorist Attacks
Abstract: This study examines whether we can learn from the behavior of blockchain-based transfers to predict the financing of terrorist attacks. We exploit blockchain transaction transparency to map millions of transfers for hundreds of large on-chain service providers. The mapped dataset permits us to empirically conduct several analyses. First, we analyze abnormal transfer volume in the vicinity of large-scale highly visible terrorist attacks. We document evidence consistent with heightened activity in coin wallets belonging to unregulated exchanges and mixer services –central to laundering funds between terrorist groups and operatives on the ground. Next, we use forensic accounting techniques to follow the trails of funds associated with the Sri Lanka Easter bombing. Insights from this event corroborateour findings and aid in our construction of a blockchain-based predictive model. Finally, using machine-learning algorithms, we demonstrate that fund trails have predictive power in out-of-the sample analysis. Our study is informative to researchers, regulators, and market players, in providing methods for detecting the flow of terrorist funds on blockchain-based systems using accounting knowledge and techniques.

Journal: Journal of Accounting Research
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Bjørn N. Jørgensen

How Leaders Influence (un)Ethical Behaviors within Organizations: A Laboratory Experiment on Reporting Choices
Abstract: We use a lab experiment to examine whether and how leaders influence workers’ (un)ethical behavior through financial reporting choices. We randomly assign the role of leaders or workers to subjects, who can choose to report an outcome via automatic or self-reporting. Self-reporting allows for profitable and undetectable earnings manipulation. We vary the leaders’ ability to choose the reporting method and to punish workers. We show that workers are more likely to choose automatic reporting when their leader voluntarily does so and can assign punishment. Even workers who choose self-reporting tend to cheat less when their leader chooses automatic reporting. Nonetheless, most leaders do not opt for automatic reporting in the first place: they often choose self-reporting and punish workers who rather choose automatic reporting. Collectively, our results reveal a dual effect of leadership on ethical behaviors in organizations: workers behave more ethically if their leader makes ethical choices, but often leaders do not make ethical choices in the first place. Hence, leading by example can backfire.

Journal: Journal of Business Ethics
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Orsola Garofalo

Electricity Sector Reform Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Parametric Distance Function Approach
Abstract: Electricity sector reforms have transformed the structure and organization of the sector worldwide. While outcomes of reforms in developed and developing countries have been extensively examined, there is limited analysis of the reforms in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This paper analyses the performance of electricity sector reforms in 37 SSA countries between 2000 and 2017. We use a stochastic frontier analysis approach to estimate a multi-input multi-output distance function to assess the impact of reform steps and institutional features on indicators of investment and technical efficiency. Results indicate a positive correlation between reforms and installed generation capacity per capita, plant load factor, and technical network losses. The presence of an electricity law, sector regulator, vertical unbundling, and private participation in the management of assets were positively correlated with reform performance. Perceptions of non-violent institutional features such as corruption, regulatory quality and governance effectiveness do not seem to have had a significant effect, but perceptions of political stability, violence, and terrorism influenced reform outcomes. We conclude that a workable reform in SSA involves vertical unbundling with an electricity law, a regulator, and private ownership and management of assets where feasible. However, positive outcomes go hand in hand with higher technical network energy losses which indicates higher investment in the generation segment than in the network segment. Hence, emphasis should be placed on decoupling the energy losses from power generation.

Journal: Energies
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Tooraj Jamasb, Manuel Llorca

China, the American Jobs Plan, and the Impact of ‘Strategic Competition’
Abstract: Commentators were struck by the ambition of the American Jobs Plan, the US$2.6 trillion infrastructure proposals put forward by President Biden during 2021. The article considers the reasons why, despite hyper-partisanship and entrenched institutional obstacles that were to doom many of the proposals, the Biden administration put forward plans on a scale that dwarfed those of earlier reforming presidents. It argues that a large part of the answer lies in the character of framing processes and shifting perceptions of China. A policy that cannot be framed in ways deemed to be credible cannot secure traction. The US turn against Beijing and the concept of ‘strategic competition’ provided the Biden administration and Democrats with the basis for constructing a frame that legitimized their hopes of modernizing and transforming the structural character of the American economy so as to fend off the economic and strategic challenge posed by China. Although much of the Plan did not come to legislative fruition, this was a frame that the Biden White House saw as a way of building a broad coalitional bloc that could advance a progressive economic agenda.

Journal: Jadavpur Journal of International Relations
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Edward Ashbee

Healthy Eating in the Wild: An Experience-sampling Study of How Food Environments and Situational Factors Shape Out-of-home Dietary Success
Abstract: Across many parts of the world, people increasingly eat out-of-home. Simultaneously, many people strive to eat a healthier diet, but it remains unclear to what extent and how eating out helps or hinders people in achieving their dietary goals. The present study investigated how characteristics of the physical micro-environment in out-of-home food outlets (e.g., cafeterias, supermarkets, and restaurants) influence the healthiness of food choices among a sample of German adults with a goal to eat healthier. We used an experience sampling method to obtain detailed information about people's motivation for selecting a specific food outlet and the outlet's micro-environment. We further asked for people's mood, visceral state, and thoughts during their food choice and obtained evaluations of food choices reported near their occurrence and in externally valid conditions. The data was collected via a mobile app over a period of six to eleven days between November and December of 2018 in Germany with a sample of 409 participants (nobs = 6447). We find that even health-conscious people select food outlets and their respective micro-environments based on short-term goals, such as ease, taste, and speed of a consumption episode rather than long-term health outcomes. Using multiple regression, we show that micro-environments that promote healthy food, make such food more appealing and easier to select facilitate healthy food choices. We further identify some of the psychological mechanisms through which the micro-environment can affect food choices, as well as how individual characteristics moderate the relationship between specific micro-environmental factors and goal success. Taken together, our findings suggest the opportunity for, and arguably also necessity of, reshaping food environments to better facilitate healthier choices and support public health in the face of increasing out-of-home food consumption and the adverse consequences of unhealthy diets.

Journal: Social Science & Medicine
Published: April 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Jan Michael Bauer, Lucia Reisch

Nudging More Sustainable Grocery Purchases: Behavioural Innovations in a Supermarket Setting
Abstract: Increasing fruit and vegetable consumption in a shift towards more plant-based foods is considered a key component of a healthy and sustainable diet. Recent experimental work suggests that behavioural insights-based interventions in the immediate choice context may create opportunities for sustainable food-behaviour change. Among the many actors and elements of a complex food system, supermarkets are in a unique position as main gatekeepers to curate the interface between supply and demand and steer both in more sustainable directions. Sustainability-oriented retailers can use innovative behavioural tools to promote healthier and climate-friendlier foods (such as vegetables) while meeting the “triple bottom line”. A real-life supermarket trial in Denmark tested if multi-layered nudges can increase the purchase of fruit and vegetables. The intervention led to small increases in sales. These findings showcase the possibility that supermarkets, in principle, have agency and ability to nudge consumers towards more sustainable diets. To meaningfully shift consumers’ consumption patterns, supermarkets need an open sharing of best practices and the use of a sound methodology to better understand and effectively change consumer behaviour. In partnership with stakeholders, supermarkets could play a more active role in fostering a sustainable food transition by employing “nudges for good”.

Journal: Technological Forecasting and Social Change
Published: June 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Jan Michael Bauer

Markedsrisikopræmien: En diskussion af metoder og det aktuelle niveau
Abstract: Markedsrisikopræmien spiller en vigtig rolle i forbindelse med værdiansættelse af aktier, investeringsbeslutninger og vurdering af afkast og performance. Til trods herfor findes der ikke en generelt accepteret metode til fastlæggelsen af markedsrisikopræmien, og der er i forskellige sammenhænge set – nogle gange næsten ophedede – diskussioner af niveauet for markedsrisikopræmien. Denne artikel diskuterer forskellige metoder til fastlæggelse af præmien, udvalgte resultater fra anvendelsen af metoderne, og hvad det samlet siger om det aktuelle niveau.

Journal: Finans/Invest
Published: April 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Ken L. Bechmann

The Place of Greening: Comparing Civic Engagement Scenes of Urban Natures across Danish Cities
Abstract: As elsewhere in Europe, cities in Denmark have witnessed a surge in civic urban nature engagement, such as place- and practice-based initiatives (e.g., public-access community gardens, organic food collectives, and grazing associations that enhance biodiversity). While this expansion of urban green communities, as we call them, is widely noted in the literature, less attention has been paid to the comparative variability of their local civic expression. In this article, we use digital methods to map out the group styles, the spatial intergroup networks, and the cultural-political value landscapes of 130 urban green communities across the four largest cities in Denmark. To compare results, we develop the concept of “civic engagement scenes” as a way of responding to recent developments in cultural and political sociology. Overall, we show how this notion allows for interpreting civic greening groups: they are neither neighborhood-based endeavors nor hubs of social movement mobilization, but rather geographies of co-engagement that span cities while also forge new senses and practices of place.

Journal: City and Community
Published: February 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Jakob Laage-Thomsen

Engaging Social Science Students in the Philosophy of Science: 10 Pieces of Advice on How to Teach a Difficult Subject
Abstract: It can be challenging to introduce the philosophy of social science (PoS) to students in the social sciences. Noting the lack of literature providing guidance to the prospective PoS teacher, this paper outlines several pieces of advice on how to engage social science undergraduates in the subject. This advice centres on showing the relevance of the PoS in academia and beyond, reducing complexity and presenting only a few contending PoS perspectives. It is also proposed to use textbooks with caution or avoiding them altogether, illustrating how PoS assumptions are embedded in contemporary social research and showing the connection between the PoS on one hand and research questions, methods, and theory on the other. Finally, the importance of showing students how they can make use of the PoS in their own work and teaching the subject in a ‘hands on’ manner is emphasized.

Journal: Journal of Critical Realism
Published: April 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Hubert Buch-Hansen

Extending Social Sustainability to Suppliers: The Role of GVC Governance Strategies and Supplier Country Institutions
Abstract: The disaggregation and geographic dispersion of global value chains (GVCs) have expanded the responsibility of international buyers from firm-level corporate social responsibility (CSR) towards social sustainability of their emerging country suppliers. We theorize, in this paper, that the effectiveness of lead firms’ GVC governance strategies for social sustainability—which can be audit-based or cooperation-based—depends on the local institutional context of the supplier. Supplier country institutions exert legal and civil society pressures for social sustainability, which shape suppliers’ attitude and receptiveness towards lead firm requests. Using unique primary data from 356 garment and footwear suppliers in 11 emerging countries, which supply to Western European or North American buyers, we show that GVC governance strategies are particularly effective for suppliers’ social sustainability implementation when there is ‘contextual fit’ with local institutional pressures for social sustainability in the supplier country. Our study identifies the boundary conditions of GVC governance modes, and demonstrates a complementary relationship between organizational arrangements and their institutional-level counterparts in the context of social sustainability.

Journal: Journal of Business Ethics
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Sarah Castaldi

Oil Price Shocks and Yield Curve Dynamics in Emerging Markets
Abstract: In a local projections framework, we study the impact of oil price shocks, based on a refined approach to disentangle oil price movements, on the dynamics of the entire yield curve in nineteen emerging economies with different positions on the oil market. Responses of the term structure factors to oil market shocks are shown to differ conditional on not only the underlying sources that drive oil price, but also based on the oil-dependence of these economies. In particular, we find that oil price risk shocks put upward pressure on the level, slope, and curvature of interest rates across the board. Supply-driven shocks in oil markets cause a rise in the level of interest rates in oil-importing economies more significantly, yet the downward impact on yield curve slope is more pronounced in oil-exporting countries. Demand-driven shocks have a significant and persistent upward impact on level factors in oil-importing countries. Furthermore, the effect of precautionary demand shocks on the curvature factor is more pronounced in oil-importing countries vis-à-vis oil-exporters. Significance, direction, and duration of our results may guide monetary policymakers in emerging countries as well as international investors in portfolio and hedging decisions.

Journal: International Review of Economics and Finance
Published: July 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Oguzhan Cepni

The Contagion Effect of COVID-19-induced Uncertainty on US Tourism Sector: Evidence from Time-varying Granger Causality Test
Abstract: This study investigates the effect of COVID-19-induced uncertainty on the overall stock market and the stock performance of the tourism and hospitality industry and its subsectors utilizing a novel time-varying robust Granger causality test. The results show that the COVID-19 pandemic–induced uncertainty has an adverse impact on the overall economy, tourism and hospitality industry, and subsectors of tourism and hospitality. However, the impact of COVID-19 pandemic–induced uncertainty is more significant in the tourism and hospitality industry and its subsectors. In particular, hotels sector has experienced the largest impact from the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by restaurants and airline sectors, respectively. Research and practical implications are discussed.

Journal: Tourism Economics
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Oguzhan Cepni

Prosumer Empowerment through Community Power Purchase Agreements: A Market Design for Swarm Grids
Abstract: In this paper, we are proposing a policy innovation for both a more sustainable and a more inclusive electrification strategy, particularly for improved energy access in the Global South: combining the extension of national grids whilst taking advantage of existing decentralized renewable energy infrastructure allowing their collective feed-in to the national grid. We are introducing community power purchase agreements as a regulatory instrument for compensating and incentivizing the actors active at the intersection of the two infrastructures (prosumer, grid operator, state utility). We use both a mixed complementarity and a linear model for analyzing the concept in a case study of Pirgacha village, Bangladesh, in which a cluster of solar home system prosumers are interconnected into a renewable energy swarm grid. We determine the energy infrastructure cost components and their split among the actors. The results demonstrate a series of co-benefits: (a) the prosumer is monetarily rewarded for the utilization of her assets and for electricity trading with no additional infrastructure investment; (b) if the state utility takes over the investment costs with the interconnection infrastructure and outsources the integrated grid operations and maintenance to the private sector, the otherwise high grid expansion costs can be saved and repurposed in other infrastructure investments; (c) the operations of the decentralized renewable energy company are no longer threatened by the grid expansion and it can become an Integrated Grid Operator.

Journal: Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy
Published: 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Alexandra Lüth, Jens Weibezahn

Competitive Lobbying in the Influence Production Process and the Use of Spatial Econometrics in Lobbying Research
Abstract: Much of the lobbying process is inherently competitive: when lobbyists with opposing goals attempt to move outcomes in their preferred direction, successful lobbying by one actor will disadvantage opposing actors. This article theorizes and quantifies the indirect form of influence that competing lobbying actors exert on each other. While existing theories of competitive lobbying have focused on legislation, we argue that all stages of the lobbying process involve competition. Our findings make two contributions to the study of lobbying influence. First, using spatial econometrics, we present the first estimates of how the success of one lobbying actor is shaped by the lobbying activities of opposing actors. Second, we study competition in three diverse empirical settings that capture three different stages of the lobbying process: (1) lobbying camps favoring opposite legislative outcomes in five European countries, (2) US lobbying firms competing over client resources, and (3) corporations competing for administrative trade barriers in 19 World Trade Organization member countries. The results reveal important insights about how interdependence among lobbyists conditions their effectiveness. Our application of spatial techniques to model interdependence between actors is useful for all scholars who want to take competitive or collaborative diffusion mechanisms into account in studies of lobbying and public policy.

Journal: Public Choice
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Benjamin Egerod

Worlds Apart: A Socio-material Exploration of mHealth in Rural Areas of Developing Countries
Abstract: Purpose:
The implementation of mobile health (mHealth) in developing countries seems to be stuck in a pattern of successive pilot studies that struggle for mainstream implementation. This study addresses the research question: what existing health-related structures, properties and practices are presented by rural areas of developing countries that might inhibit the implementation of mHealth initiatives?

Design/methodology/approach:
This study was conducted using a socio-material approach, based on an exploratory case study in West Africa. Interviews and participant observation were used to gather data. A thematic analysis identified important social and material agencies, practices and imbrications which may limit the effectiveness of mHealth apps in the region.

Findings:
Findings show that, while urban healthcare is highly structured, best practice-led, rural healthcare relies on peer-based knowledge sharing, and community support. This has implications for the enacted materiality of mobile technologies. While urban actors see mHealth as a tool for automation and the enforcement of responsible healthcare best practice, rural actors see mHealth as a tool for greater interconnectivity and independent, decentralised care.

Research limitations/implications:
This study has two significant limitations. First, the study focussed on a region where technology-enabled guideline-driven treatment is the main mHealth concern. Second, consistent with the exploratory nature of this study, the qualitative methodology and the single-case design, the study makes no claim to statistical generalisability.

Originality/value:
To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to adopt a socio-material view that considers existing structures and practices that may influence the widespread adoption and assimilation of a new mHealth app. This helps identify contextual challenges that are limiting the potential of mHealth to improve outcomes in rural areas of developing countries.

Journal: Information Technology and People
Published: 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Rob Gleasure

Organizing Solidarity in Difference: Challenges, Achievements, and Emerging Imaginaries
Abstract: This special issue explores how solidarity in difference can be organized as a mutual relation that is based on participation on equal footing, fostering bonds of heterogeneity beyond conceptualizations of solidarity that depend on homogeneity. In this editorial and the five articles comprising this special issue, not only are the challenges to such an endeavor explored, but also the achievements in the present and emerging imaginaries of organizing solidarity beyond an exploitative understanding of difference. The perspectives this special issue brings together include re-centering the Eurocentric concepts of organizing and solidarity, solidarity in research, solidarity as affective practice as well as the political and socio-economic relations that frame them. In addition to promoting an understanding of subjectivity shaped by power relations embedded in multiple social experiences, the articles in this special issue elaborate on solidarity in difference rather than a benevolent solidarity with difference and contribute, accordingly, to an understanding of organizing solidarity that starts from principles of radical interdependence, mutual recognition, and universal participation. Without neglecting the pitfalls and obstacles to organizing solidarity, this special issue hopefully sparks new debates on and informs new practices of solidarity in difference as there cannot be one single way to achieve this.

Journal: Organization
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Lotte Holck, Sara Louise Muhr

Moving toward Autonomous Solutions: Exploring the Spatial and Temporal Dimensions of Business Ecosystems
Abstract: Incorporating smart digital technologies has been an inevitable next step in transforming manufacturing firms, evident in the emergence of digital servitization. In this paper, we examine how change toward digital servitization is unfolding in the offshore wind industry. We report on an in-depth longitudinal case study of a solution provider and other actors in an ecosystem. We contribute by drawing on activity theory to explain the development of autonomous solutions as epistemic objects. Although digital solutions suggest the compression of time and space, we find instead that spatial-temporal expansion helps us understand the development and co-evolution of business ecosystems, which we describe as being in a state of flux, akin to the movement of an amoeba. Furthermore, we explain how epistemic objects, mediated by using tools, enable the move toward autonomous solutions that create value. In so doing, we argue that ‘autonomous’ solutions are never completely autonomous in the sense that they can exist on their own as objects; they require many other mediating tools to bring them into existence and through which they evolve. Lastly, our findings provide valuable insights into how practitioners may develop advanced digital solutions in their ecosystem to expand expertise networks and foster closer collaboration.

Journal: Industrial Marketing Management
Published: May 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Thomas Frandsen, Jawwad Z. Raja, Isabelle Fabienne Neufang

What Makes a Good Citizen Online? The Emergence of Discursive Citizenship Norms in Social Media Environments
Abstract: The importance of citizenship norms—shared understandings of how citizens ought to participate in society—has been discussed at length in the past two decades, particularly in conversations around changing notions of citizenship in the digital age. Yet, most studies have gravitated between the two poles of dutiful and self-actualizing citizenship. In this study, we explore which citizenship norms people express related to their political participation in social media environments and which affordances and experiences in social media environments shape these norms. Through interviews and focus group discussions, we found that citizenship norms emerge in response to positive and negative experiences in social media environments. We found three groups of norms that are distinctive to the networked environments of social media: individual information care, discourse care, and considered contribution. These can serve as conceptual frames for understanding the normative underpinnings of discursive participation in social media environments from the perspective of ordinary citizens.

Journal: Social Media + Society
Published: January 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Louise Jørring

Predictable Financial Crises
Abstract: Using historical data on postwar financial crises around the world, we show that the combination of rapid credit and asset price growth over the prior three years, whether in the nonfinancial business or the household sector, is associated with a 40% probability of entering a financial crisis within the next three years. This compares with a roughly 7% probability in normal times, when neither credit nor asset price growth is elevated. Our evidence challenges the view that financial crises are unpredictable “bolts from the sky” and supports the Kindleberger-Minsky view that crises are the byproduct of predictable, boom-bust credit cycles. This predictability favors policies that lean against incipient credit-market booms.

Journal: The Journal of Finance
Published: April 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Jakob Ahm Sørensen

n-Player Stochastic Duel Game Model with Applied Deep Learning and Its Modern Implications
Abstract: This paper provides a conceptual foundation for stochastic duels and contains a further study of the game models based on the theory of stochastic duels. Some other combat assessment techniques are looked upon briefly; a modern outlook on the applications of the theory through video games is provided; and the possibility of usage of data generated by popular shooter-type video games is discussed. Impactful works to date are carefully chosen; a timeline of the developments in the theory of stochastic duels is provided; and a brief literature review for the same is conducted, enabling readers to have a broad outlook at the theory of stochastic duels. A new evaluation model is introduced in order to match realistic scenarios. Improvements are suggested and, additionally, a trust mechanism is introduced to identify the intent of a player in order to make the model a better fit for realistic modern problems. The concept of teaming of players is also considered in the proposed mode. A deep-learning model is developed and trained on data generated by video games to support the results of the proposed model. The proposed model is compared to previously published models in a brief comparison study. Contrary to the conventional stochastic duel game combat model, this new proposed model deals with pair-wise duels throughout the game duration. This model is explained in detail, and practical applications of it in the context of the real world are also discussed. The approach toward solving modern-day problems through the use of game theory is presented in this paper, and hence, this paper acts as a foundation for researchers looking forward to an innovation with game theory.

Journal: Sensors
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Rajani Singh, Ashutosh Dhar Dwivedi

The Impact of Touchscreen Devices on Consumers' Choice Confidence and Purchase Likelihood
Abstract: As traditional computer interfaces (mouse, keyboard) are increasingly replaced by touchscreens, an interesting question that arises is how, and for whom, might this shift in interface technology affect choice processes and outcomes. Our main proposition is that consumers who gain confidence in their choices from touching products in physical contexts—that is, who are high in instrumental need-for-touch—experience an analogous boost in confidence when they make product choices using touchscreen-based devices. Four studies support our proposition and demonstrate that consumers with high instrumental need-for-touch are more confident in their choices, less likely to see risks associated with their choices, and they are more likely to make (vs. defer) purchase decisions when using touchscreens. Our studies explore the mechanism behind these effects, indicate that consumers find these effects undesirable, and show that informing consumers about our findings helps them to become less susceptible to these effects.

Journal: Marketing Letters
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Johannes Hattula

Google's Tech Philanthropy: Capitalism and Humanitarianism in the Digital Age
Abstract: Transnational tech companies have become important actors in global philanthropy. Led by tech giants such as Google, this tech philanthropy consists not just of donating funds to expert organizations and ngo s but also, importantly, in using the companies’ own expertise and products to create social impact. This philanthropy is celebrated as innovative and criticized as exploitative for its novel ways of combining capitalism with global helping. But in what way is tech philanthropy novel and to what extent does it continue the well-worn historical trajectory of humanitarianism and capitalism? In this paper, we analyze the philanthropic practices of Google focusing on the company’s current attempt to link philanthropy to the big business of artificial intelligence (ai). Based on ethnographic data collected at the “Google ai Impact Challenge Summit” in San Francisco and interviews with tech and humanitarian stakeholders, we highlight the entanglements of capitalism and humanitarianism in tech philanthropy.

Journal: Public Anthropologist
Published: 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Sofie Elbæk Henriksen, Lisa Ann Richey

Institutionally Sustaining or Abandoning Mandatory Joint Audits: The Contrasting Cases of France and Denmark
Abstract: This study draws on two longitudinal case studies of the French and Danish joint audit models to understand and compare how mandatory joint audits have emerged and evolved. In both settings, joint audits appeared in the 1930s to increase auditors’ competence and independence. After a few decades of practice, joint audits became taken for granted, but in the 1980s, conglomerated audit networks attempted to circumvent the joint audit rule, entering into conflict with local auditors. In France, the main association of auditors adopted successive regulatory measures that prevented circumventing the model, therefore avoiding its erosion. Such regulatory layering crucially reshaped the model to sustain belief in its potential whenever a particular form of joint audit failed. In Denmark, the local audit firms essentially resisted attacks against the model rhetorically, which was insufficient to prevent its erosion in the 1990s and its suppression by the law in 2005. Contrasting the two cases shows the multi-modal ways in which actors undertake institutional work and it provides timely information for regulators engaged in discussions about joint audits.

Journal: European Accounting Review
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Fatma Jemaa, Kim Klarskov Jeppesen

Using Machine Learning to Uncover the Relation between Age and Life Satisfaction
Abstract: This study applies a machine learning (ML) approach to around 400,000 observations from the German Socio-Economic Panel to assess the relation between life satisfaction and age. We show that with our ML-based approach it is possible to isolate the effect of age on life satisfaction across the lifecycle without explicitly parameterizing the complex relationship between age and other covariates—this complex relation is taken into account by a feedforward neural network. Our results show a clear U-shape relation between age and life satisfaction across the lifespan, with a minimum at around 50 years of age.

Journal: Scientific Reports
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Micha Kaiser

Europæisk boligbeskatning: Tro og fakta om et hot emne i alle lande
Abstract: Efter vores bedste viden er det første gang, der er produceret en sammenligning af den europæiske boligbeskatning. Dog har forskere i EU-regi udarbejdet en sammenligning af skatte- og finansieringsvilkårene for boligejere samt beregnede user costs under heroiske forudsætninger. Dette gælder for de fire boligformer, private lejeboliger, almene lejeboliger, andelsboliger og ejerboliger, der findes i vidt forskellig udstrækning og med ret forskellige skattevilkår. Ét formål er at vise
resultaterne for danske økonomer og andre interesserede, og et andet er at vise, om dansk bolig- og ejendomsbeskatning kan drage nyttig lære heraf.

Journal: Finans/Invest
Published: April 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Jens Lunde

The Market-shaping Potential of a Crisis
Abstract: A crisis, like the COVID-19 pandemic or a cyber attack, not only creates the necessity for crisis management in business-to-business firms aimed at addressing the immediate challenges, but also offers opportunities to shape business markets by changing exchanges, collaborations, and institutions. In order to develop a conceptual framework to capture the market-shaping potential of a crisis, we integrate insights from risk management and strategic management, and discuss their implications for market shaping. As such, this paper builds a bridge between the reactive nature of crisis management during a crisis and proactive market shaping, and offers new insights into market shaping based on an underutilized source of inspiration, namely crisis management. Based on resilience (from risk management) and responsiveness (from strategic management), we propose four market-shaping opportunities. Beyond the theoretical novelty of contributing to our understanding of market shaping based on crisis management, our framework has managerial implications for market shaping and highlights a set of interesting research questions that can guide future studies.

Journal: Industrial Marketing Management
Published: May 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Carsten Lund Pedersen, Thomas Ritter

Exploring Trade-offs between Landscape Impact, Land Use and Resource Quality for Onshore Variable Renewable Energy: An Application to Great Britain
Abstract: The ambitious Net Zero aspirations of Great Britain (GB) require massive and rapid developments of Variable Renewable Energy (VRE) technologies. GB possesses substantial resources for these technologies, but questions remain about which VRE should be exploited where. This study develops a transferable methodology to explore the trade-offs between landscape impact, land use competition and resource quality for onshore wind as well as ground- and roof-mounted photovoltaic (PV) systems for the first time across GB. These trade-offs constrain the technical and economic potentials for these technologies at the Local Authority level. Our approach combines techno-economic and geospatial analyses with crowd-sourced ‘scenicness’ data to quantify landscape aesthetics. Despite strong correlations between scenicness and planning application outcomes for onshore wind, no such relationship exists for ground-mounted PV. The innovative method for rooftop-PV assessment combines bottom-up analysis of four cities with a top-down approach at the national level. The results show large technical potentials that are strongly constrained by both landscape and land use aspects. This equates to about 1324 TWh of onshore wind, 153 TWh of rooftop PV and 1200–7093 TWh ground-mounted PV, depending on scenario. We conclude with five recommendations that focus around aligning energy and planning policies for VRE technologies across multiple scales and governance arenas

Journal: Energy
Published: July 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Ismir Mulalic

Ventriloquial Reflexivity: Exploring the Communicative Relationality of the ‘I’ and the ‘It’
Abstract: Can an exploration of managers’ real-time organizational talk make way for a profoundly revised theory of reflexivity? Indeed, our analysis of the reflexivity literature reveals four significant points of contestation – the subject/object distinction, temporality, representation and agency – all of which revolve around the interplay of an ‘I’ (at least one reflexive agent) and an ‘it’ (something to be reflexive about). The focus of this inquiry lies in how the ‘I’ and the ‘it’ are constituted communicatively and what generates, sustains and animates them in interaction. Such interactions are sourced from a post-experience master programme for practising managers, thus providing naturally occurring data amendable to a ventriloquial analysis. We identify and demonstrate three types of reflexive moments: conflating, bifurcating and animating. We subsequently theorize these as instances of ventriloquial reflexivity, using the terms conflating, bifurcating and animating to express the different moments in which speakers co-orient to the communicative constitution of the ‘I’ and the ‘it’. Ventriloquial reflexivity allows us to explore reflexivity as an interactional and situated accomplishment, thus further pointing to how reflexive practices can be understood and enhanced.

Journal: Human Relations
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Frank Meier

The Legitimacy of Sustainability Initiatives in Tanzania
Abstract: In this article, we examine selected sustainability initiatives from the perspective of local communities to improve our understanding of how putative participatory schemes manage legitimacy. Understanding the legitimacy dynamics of sustainability initiatives is important, as it potentially minimizes the power gaps likely to open across scales and jurisdictions. We analyze selected sustainability initiatives in southern Tanzania dealing with wildlife, forest, and coastal resources and find that they have generally struggled to manage input, process, and impact legitimacy—except for the community-based forestry initiatives. They have been more inclined towards providing training on conservation issues than facilitating alternative livelihood activities. While they are perceived as having achieved some improvements in environmental conditions, they have had minimal effects on socio-economic and livelihood outcomes. This has culminated into significant levels of community dissatisfaction with their performance, which questions their long-term viability.

Journal: The European Journal of Development Research
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Stefano Ponte

Risikopræmier før og efter skat
Abstract: I første del af denne artikel belyses et underbelyst emne vedrørende aktieafkast, nemlig betydningen af to eller flere skattesatser for størrelsen af risikopræmier efter skat og for kapitalmarkedskurven efter skat. Det sker med udgangspunkt i det simpleste skatteregime i Danmark, nemlig kapitalindkomstbeskatning efter lagerprincippet, som gælder for mange ETF´er. Det vises, at forskellige skattesatser på eksempelvis positiv og negativ kapitalindkomst resulterer i en ikke-lineær kapitalmarkedskurve. Beregningerne viser, at hældningen på kapitalmarkedskurven efter skat kan blive meget lav og endog negativ. I anden del ses på de forskellige muligheder for valg af skatteregime, som en investor med frie midler kan vælge imellem ved investering i aktier gennem finansielt mellemled (ETF underlagt aktiebeskatning efter lagerprincippet, ETF underlagt kapitalindkomstbeskatning efter lagerprincippet, og investeringsforening underlagt aktiebeskatning efter realisationsprincippet). Det påpeges, at skattesystemet har skabt et uigennemskueligt optimeringsproblem for private investorer.

Journal: Finans/Invest
Published: April 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Michael Møller, Claus Parum

Diffusing Corporate Sustainability Knowledge with Online Education: Experiences from a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Sustainable Fashion
Abstract: Purpose:
This study aims to show how a massive open online course (MOOC) can be used as an educational tool to diffuse specialised corporate sustainability research globally to a broad range of learners.

Design/methodology/approach:
This study is based on insights from the design and implementation of a sustainable fashion MOOC. The MOOC was launched in late 2019 on a global learning platform and has recently passed 40,000 enrolments (February 2022). The presentation of the MOOC draws on quantitative and qualitative data available to instructors on the global learning platform.

Findings:
Based on the data about the learners and their use of the MOOC, this study demonstrates how MOOC can be a powerful tool to diffuse sustainability research to new groups of learners, who differ significantly from the typical students at business schools and universities in the West. Moreover, the findings also demonstrate how the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the MOOC’s popularity.

Originality/value:
This study provides new empirical evidence on how sustainability research can be translated into online education material of relevance for a broad range of learners from around the world. Moreover, the study also points to the number of practical and structural challenges linked to the future mainstreaming of MOOCs and other types of online education material.

Journal: Journal of International Education in Business
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Esben Rahbek Gjerdrum Pedersen, Kirsti Reitan Andersen

Discretionary Responses in Frontline Encounters: Balancing Standardization with the Ethics of Office
Abstract: Policy reforms of public service encounters often seek to control, delegate, or eliminate discretion at the frontline. In this article, we show that rather than eclipsing discretion, the technologies meant to standardize and optimize decision making in public service delivery introduce rough categorizations and scripts for action that make new types of discretionary responses and workarounds necessary. Here, accounts of street-level discretion as grounded in self-serving coping strategies are inadequate to capture discretion-as-used in the frontline encounter. The article proposes a Weberian ethics of office approach to frontline discretion that contributes to current more appreciative perspectives on street-level discretion. Through a comparative ethnography of first encounters in three Danish public service bureaucracies, we develop a typology of office-based discretionary responses to standardization. We label the three types as adaptive handling, attentive compensation, and affective encouragement. Our study of doctors, midwives, and citizen-service bureaucrats suggests that discretionary possibilities differ in relation to organizational context and level of professional training. However, across cases the discretionary responses are indicative of the frontline practitioners’ casuistic practices of balancing professional virtues, client-orientation, and managerial demands in the quest to deliver fair and responsive services. Accordingly, securing the conditions for the exercise of discretion in frontline encounters is essential to the responsible provision of public services.

Journal: Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Kirstine Zinck Pedersen

A Sky Full of Stars: A Note on Meaning and Boredom
Abstract: Pending

Journal: International Journal of Project Management
Published: January 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Sofia Pemsel

Extreme Directional Spillovers between Investor Attention and Green Bond Markets
Abstract: This paper studies how the spillovers between investor attention and green bond performance vary across normal and extreme market conditions. Using the quantile connectedness model, we document a substantial increase in the spillovers between green bond returns and investor attention at the lower and upper tail of the distributions. These spillovers are time-varying, asymmetric, and significantly influenced by stock, oil, bond market volatility, and economic policy uncertainty. Moreover, using the time-varying robust Granger causality test, we find that the Granger-causality relationship between the attention indices and the green bond returns seems to be more pronounced after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Journal: International Review of Economics & Finance
Published: July 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Oguzhan Cepni

Direktivforslaget om global minimumsbeskatning i lyset af den fri etableringsret
Abstract: Artiklen omhandler Europa-Kommissionens nyligt fremsatte direktivforslag, der har til formål at sikre et globalt minimums- niveau for beskatning af større koncerner, som opererer i det indre marked. Ud over en kort gennemgang af direktivforsla-gets indhold, samt de underliggende OECD-baserede model-regler (OECD Pillar Two), beskæftiger artiklen sig primært med to spørgsmål: 1) Vil en vedtagelse af direktivforslaget nødvendiggøre ændringer af medlemslandenes CFC-regler? 2) Risikerer medlemslandenes direktivbaserede GloBE-regler at blive anset for at være i konflikt med den fri etableringsret, såfremt dette spørgsmål efterfølgende måtte blive forelagt EU-Domstolen? Der argumenteres i artiklen for, at svaret på begge spørgsmål må være ”nej”.

Journal: SR-Skat
Published: April 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Peter Koerver Schmidt

Bruce Barton and the Economic Theology of American ‘Big Business’ (1925)
Abstract: pending

Journal: Entreprises et Histoire
Published: 2015
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Contact CBS researcher: Stefan Schwarzkopf

Consultancies in Public Administration
Abstract: Public administrations increasingly rely on consultancies to acquire policy knowledge, assess stakeholder dynamics, and evaluate governance systems. In this symposium, we explore the drivers and effects of this trend. Consultants offer advisory services, articulate governance trends, provide technical and programming expertise, as well as evaluation functions. Historically consultancies were introduced to public administrations to prevent market dominance and to respond to demands for specialized professional services. This relationship morphed into an expanded global market for a wide range of consultancy services that national and international administrations purchase. We explore how consultancies and public administrations interact through a discussion of task-setting based on recognition of: (i) what party can make claims to support a public ethos, (ii) what forms of expertise are most relevant for solving the problem, and (iii) status in who can best tackle uncertainties.

Journal: Public Administration
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Leonard Seabrooke

Playful Persuasion: The Rhetorical Potential of Advergames
Abstract: The use of video games for advertising purposes is persuasive communication which directly involves the recipient in the construction of an argument. This form is becoming increasingly common, and the present article explores the phenomenon of game-based ad-vertising. We begin by discussing the increased reliance on participatory and digital rhetoric. We then proceed to examine game-based persuasion in light of rhetorical theory, and we propose an analytical model for such games which is applied to three sample games. The analytical model takes into account the degree to which the game makes a self-contained argument, the degree to which the product or service is integrated into the game, and whether the game goal and learning goal overlap. Finally, we discuss perspectives for the integration of communication studies and game studies.

Journal: Nordicom Review
Published: March 2009
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Contact CBS researcher: Sine Nørholm Just

Service Modularity in E-learning Programs: An Analysis from the Perceived Usefulness Perspective
Abstract: Purpose: This study investigates the effects of service modularity on the perceived usefulness (PU) of e-learning programs through the perceived ease of use (PEoU) and service customization.
Design/methodology/approach: Structural equation modeling was used to test four hypotheses with survey data from 517 undergraduates in Turkey.
Findings: Results show that service modularity affects the PU of e-learning programs through the PEoU. Service customization negatively moderates the effect of service modularity on the PEoU, but positively moderates the effect of the PEoU on the PU of e-learning programs.
Practical implications: This study offers insights that support the decisions of policymakers and higher education institutions on how to design appealing e-learning programs cost-effectively.
Social implications: This study reveals the determinants of the PU of e-learning, which could support the democratization of access to higher education in emerging countries where barriers to higher education are relatively greater than in developed countries.
Originality/value: The concept of service modularity is explored in the e-learning context from the students' perspective. This study shows that the standardized interfaces across course modules increase the PU of e-learning programs by improving the ease of use. It also shows, interestingly, that service customization, enabled by modularity, is not always appreciated by service consumers, because of the potential extra effort demanded in communicating their unique needs to service providers.

Journal: International Journal of Operations and Production Management
Published: 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Juliana Hsuan

The (not so) New Corporation
Abstract: Book review of: The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel (2020, documentary), directed by Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan, Grant Street Productions.

Journal: Organization
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Sverre Spoelstra

Extremely Urgent Public Procurement under Directive 2014/24/EU and the COVID-19 Pandemic
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic swept throughout the European Union swiftly and led to significant changes in how we live and operate. Some of those changes occurred in public procurement as well, with Member States struggling to react to the dissemination of the virus. The purpose of this paper is to assess what scope the EU's public procurement legal framework provides to deal with a crisis, and how the rules should be interpreted. This paper will show how the EU public procurement legal framework deals with extreme urgency situations and how it has been intentionally designed to allow Member States flexibility within very clearly defined boundaries. This means that the path to award contracts without competition on the grounds of extreme urgency is narrow due to Article 32(2)(c) of Directive 2014/24/EU1 and the case law from the CJEU. The narrowness of this path is due to the exceptional nature of procedure and the obligation for the contracting authority to discharge the tight grounds for use in full for every contract. Therefore, this paper concludes that the view exposed by the European Commission on its guidance from April 2020 that the pandemic is a single unforeseeable event amounts to an incorrect reading on how the grounds for the use of Article 32(2)(c) operate. If such interpretation was already too broad in April 2020, it certainly is no longer in line with the transition from an unfolding crisis into a new and more permanent equilibrium.

In the context of COVID-19, particularly the need for the crisis to be unforeseeable and the extreme urgency not being attributable to the contracting authority raise significant difficulties for some contracting authorities to discharge the grounds for use of the negotiated procedure without prior notice. This is particularly the case in those situations where governments centralized pandemic-related procurement.

As such, the paper concludes that existing substantive rules for extremely urgent procurement are adequate and, albeit sufficient to respond to crisis situations, that does not entail that the wholesale use of the negotiated procedure without prior notice is necessarily legal.

Journal: Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law
Published: April 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Pedro Telles

Sustainability-oriented Innovation in the Agri-food System: Current Issues and the Road Ahead
Abstract:The agri-food system features prominently in discussions about sustainable development because of its broad economic, social, and environmental impacts. To examine how the agri-food system is responding – and can respond – to the grand challenges of sustainability, we position this Special Issue (SI) within the stream of sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI) literature, and in relation to the much-cited framework provided by Adams et al. (2016). This introductory article contains an overview of the selected papers, described by using the above-mentioned framework and by highlighting the contributions that these articles bring to fill current knowledge gaps in the field. Such knowledge gaps have been identified by investigating SOI links to sustainability and circular economy concepts and by studying how SOI relates to development in the agri-food system. The contributions to this SI explore different facets of the research agenda we have laid out and covers the range of SOI proposed by Adams et al. To help the field move forward, we finally identify a few areas as the most relevant for future research.

Journal: Technological Forecasting and Social Change
Published: June 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Kristian Roed Nielsen, Steen Vallentin

Data-driven Value Extraction and Human Well-being under EU Law
Abstract:In this article, we explore the intersection between data protection law and consumer protection law in their application to data-driven business models that monetise attention and personal data. We approach European Union law from a constitutional perspective, as in addition to economic harms some aspects of predatory business models also pose a risk for human dignity, human well-being, social welfare and democracy. From a three-tiered model of information asymmetry, it is argued that there is a need to rethink consumer protection in order to restore some sense of equity in commercial interactions online. In that vein Social welfare computing can play an important role in combating superficiality and strengthening social cohesion.

Journal: Electronic Markets
Published: April 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Jan Trzaskowski

From Values to Value: The Commensuration of Sustainability Reporting and the Crowding Out of Morality
Abstract: Drawing on extensive case study evidence, this study unpacks sustainability reporting’s evolution from a moral values–based practice toward a financialized value–based one. We argue that this transition can be seen as a commensuration project. We examine the dynamics of this process and its implications for sustainability-related outcomes. We find that increased levels of commensuration have moved sustainability reporting away from an original emphasis on morality and values to a focus on strategic value creation for the firm. We theorize this process as a “crowding out of morality” that is enabled by a rigid cognitive framing of social and environmental issues (objectification) and the monetized coordination of relevant social interactions (marketization). We outline implications of our analysis for the scholarly debates on the institutionalization of sustainability reporting and commensuration.

Journal: Organization & Environment
Published: April 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Andreas Rasche

‘Let's Eat Fukushima’: Communicating Risk and Restoring 'Safe Food' after the Fukushima Disaster (2011-2020)
Abstract: The Fukushima nuclear disaster posed food safety risks on an unprecedented scale in Japan. In its immediate aftermath, information on the scale and the extent of the contamination of the food chain was scarce. Facing an anxious public, the government was tasked with defining and ensuring food safety amidst uncertainty. Via three case studies spanning from 2011 to 2020, this article draws on risk communication theory to analyze the Japanese government’s response to food safety risks after Fukushima and its development over time. It finds that initial responses did not take the food-related risks facing consumers seriously. Instead, the response was aimed at mitigating the economic risks faced by producers. This increased both public confusion and uncertainty, and consumer avoidance. Over time, the government’s response has improved, and elements of the policy have shifted towards more inclusive and interactive practices. Still, the article finds that ten years after Fukushima, the governmental risk communication is primarily aimed at correcting and dismissing consumer concerns while expressing certain fatigue with ongoing consumer avoidance. The article shows how the goal of risk communication changes from reassuring to correcting, and finally to closure. While the risk communication’s main message remains consistent and simple – local produce is safe, eat local produce -, its target audience also differs. The article demonstrates that on top of ongoing shortcomings in terms of participation, the actual content of the government’s risk communication also fails to assist in informed decision-making. Instead, the government makes the decision for the citizen.

Journal: Japan Forum
Published: 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Tine Walravens

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Implementation Case Studies in Accounting: A Beginning to End Perspective
Abstract: Robotic Process Automation (RPA) possesses several features that may give rise to similar but also new adoption effects (both benefits and challenges) relative to other IT implementations. Our study adds to the accounting and emerging technologies literature by examining the beginning to end process through which RPA is implemented in the accounting function. We adopt an exploratory and case-centered research methodology based on a mature RPA implementation in an accounting setting. We further corroborate it with interviews with subject matter experts and compare it with another case study of an early-stage RPA implementation. We identify five themes related to RPA adoption in accounting functions: workforce, IT governance, privacy and security, system sustainability, and the measurement of RPA success. We also present key takeaways that may support effective RPA adoption in accounting. Our study provides both academics and practitioners with insights about the effects of RPA implementation.

Journal: Accounting Horizons
Published: February 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Jonas Sveistrup Søgaard

Promoting Users’ Smartphone Avoidance Intention: The Role of Health Beliefs
Abstract: Purpose
Drawing on the Health Belief Model (HBM), this study aims to investigate the roles of health beliefs (i.e. perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, health self-efficacy and cues to action) in promoting college students’ smartphone avoidance intention.

Design/methodology/approach
Empirical data were collected through a cross-sectional survey questionnaire administered to 4,670 student smartphone users at a large university located in Central China. Further, a two-step Structural Equation Modeling was conducted using AMOS 22.0 software to test the hypothesized relationships in the research model.

Findings
Analytical results indicate that (1) perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits and health self-efficacy positively influence users’ smartphone avoidance intention; (2) perceived barriers negatively influence smartphone avoidance intention, while (3) cues to action reinforce the relationships between perceived susceptibility/perceived benefits and smartphone avoidance intention, but attenuate the relationships between perceived barriers/health self-efficacy and smartphone avoidance intention.

Research limitations/implications
This study demonstrates that HBM is invaluable in explaining and promoting users’ smartphone avoidance intention, thereby extending extant literature on both HBM and smartphone avoidance.

Originality/value
Research on smartphone avoidance is still in a nascent stage. This study contributes to the field by offering a fresh theoretical lens for pursuing this line of inquiry together with robust empirical evidence.

Journal: Industrial Management & Data Systems
Published: 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Chee-Wee Tan

Leverage Knowledge Graph and GCN for Fine-grained-level Clickbait Detection
Abstract: Clickbait is the use of an enticing title as bait to deceive users to click. However, the corresponding content is often disappointing, infuriating or even deceitful. This practice has brought serious damage to our social trust, especially to online media, which is one of the most important channels for information acquisition in our daily life. Currently, clickbait is spreading on the internet and causing serious damage to society. However, research on clickbait detection has not yet been well performed. Almost all existing research treats clickbait detection as a binary classification task and only uses the title as the input. This shallow usage of information and detection technology not only suffers from low performance in real detection (e.g., it is easy to bypass) but is also difficult to use in further research (e.g., potential empirical studies). In this work, we proposed a novel clickbait detection model that incorporated a knowledge graph, a graph convolutional network and a graph attention network to conduct fine-grained-level clickbait detection. According to experiments using a real dataset, our novel proposed model outperformed classical and state-of-the-art baselines. In addition, certain explainability can also be achieved in our model through the graph attention network. Our fine-grained-level results can provide a measurement foundation for future empirical study. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to incorporate a knowledge graph and deep learning technique to detect clickbait and achieve explainability.

Journal: World Wide Web - Internet and Web Information Systems
Published: March 2022
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Contact CBS researcher: Qiqi Jiang

Sidst opdateret: Sekretariat for Ledelse og Kommunikation // 11/07/2023