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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how customer relationship management (CRM) implementation affects internal capital allocation efficiency, the efficiency with which a firm allocates its capital across its business segments.

The authors use a statistical regression method to analyze a sample of 801 unique firms in the USA from COMPUSTAT and the Computer Intelligence database. This analysis examines the relation between CRM implementation and internal capital allocation efficiency and identifies the conditions under which firms benefit more from CRM implementation. They also use instrumental variables (IVs) to address endogenous concerns with a two-stage least squares (2SLS) model.

The authors find that CRM implementation is positively related to internal capital allocation efficiency. The results are robust to the 2SLS analysis with IVs. This positive relation is more pronounced for firms with effective internal control and for those operating in highly competitive markets.

The research implies that that CRM can have a significant cross-functional effect on corporate financing and budgeting. This also suggests that when chief marketing officers plan marketing initiatives and implement CRM, they should communicate to chief financial officers not only the direct effect but also the indirect strategic benefits of such initiatives to a firm.

The authors reveal a previously overlooked aspect of marketing accountability by suggesting marketing’s impact on internal capital markets. They also enrich the body of literature on CRM benefits by showing a cross-functional benefit from marketing to finance (or capital allocation).

This paper aims to investigate the drivers of foreign direct divestment (FDD), how it relates to foreign direct investment (FDI) flows and stocks and its implications for developing countries. While divestment occurs for various reasons, it can be explained by reversing the propositions implied by FDI theories.

The authors combine FDI data and FDI theories to provide theoretical explanations for FDD and what it means for developing countries. FDI stock and flow data are used to derive inferences on trends in FDD and examine the implications of FDI theories on FDD.

Changes in the modes of global production and the rise of COVID-19 have reinforced the trend of stagnant or diminishing FDI flows observed since the global financial crisis, with implications for FDD. The authors demonstrate how the various FDI theories can be used to explain FDD, except for the currency areas hypothesis. By reviewing the costs and benefits of FDI, it is concluded that shrinking FDI flows and stocks may not be as detrimental for developing economies as it is typically portrayed.

The paper uses two original approaches to measure and explain the motives for FDD. The first is a reassessment of FDI theories in a way that makes them valid theories for FDD. The second original approach is to interpret data on FDI flows and stocks to imply the trends governing FDD, which is useful, as data on foreign divestment are not available on a country or regional basis.

This study aims to investigate the impact of international diversification on the value and operating efficiency of European real estate firms.

The study is conducted using a panel fixed effects regression model to estimate the relationship of international diversification with firm value and operating efficiency. International diversification is mainly measured via the negative of the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) using property-level data. Firm value and operating efficiency are proxied by financial ratios observed annually from 2002 to 2021 at the firm level.

The results demonstrate that international diversification has a negative effect on firm value. Additionally, it lowers operating efficiency by weakening a firm's ability to generate operating earnings from its assets. By examining whether the reduction in operating efficiency is due to the rental income channel or the capital gains channel, the authors find strong statistical evidence that international diversification negatively impacts capital gains. International diversification is negatively associated with net gains from property valuations (unrealized capital gains) and net profits from property disposals (realized capital gains).

The empirical analysis is limited to Europe.

This paper extends the geographical diversification literature. While existing literature focuses on domestic diversification within the United States, this paper explores the effects of international diversification on European real estate firms. To the extent of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the impact of geographical diversification on capital gains.

The purpose of this paper is to give an updated overview over the development of employee-ownership in Italy, France, Spain including Mondragon, the UK and the US with relatively many employee-owned firms. How have the barriers for employee-ownership been overcome in these countries?

The overview is based on updated descriptions of the development of employee-ownership included in this special issue. The analysis follows the structure of overcoming five barriers: the organization problem; the problem of entry and exit of employee-owners; the startup and takeover problem; the capital- and the risk problem.

Italy, France and Spain have overcome the barriers by specific legislation for worker cooperatives, this includes rules for entry and exit of employee members. Cooperative support organizations play an important role for monitoring and managing the startup problem and for access to capital. The Mondragon model includes individual ownership elements and a group structure of cooperatives. The EOT and ESOP models are well suited for employee takeovers, financing are eased by tax advantages and they are all-employee schemes. While the EOT has no individual risks, the ESOP model has the possibility for capital gains for employees but also the risk of losing these gains.

Comprehensive and updated overview of the development in employee-ownership in the five countries to identify successful formats of employee-ownership for implementation in countries with few employee-owned firms.

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

Past research has established a relationship between the perceptions of fairness in the division of household labor and relationship satisfaction. Varying according to gender and time, this relationship has been found with differing outcomes, including relationship satisfaction, relationship happiness, divorce, and sexual frequency. Although this relationship has been well studied, little research has focused on how this relationship is moderated by relationship status. According to the Second Demographic Transition Theory (SDT), as societies become more “modern,” cohabitation will become more prevalent, eventually becoming socially and culturally equivalent to marriage. As such, it is vital to ask how cohabitation and marriage differ, or if they differ at all. Therefore, this gap is explored by asking, “How do perceptions of the division of household labor affect married and cohabitating heterosexual couples’ relationship happiness and chance of separation?” In order to answer this question, the National Survey of Families and Households (Wave III) is analyzed, with outcomes focusing on relationship happiness and chance of separation. Results indicate that when married and cohabitating individuals experience similar levels of happiness with their partner’s housework, they also experience similar levels of relationship happiness and chance of separation, with relationship status not affecting the impact happiness with partner’s housework has on these relationship outcomes. This suggests that cohabitation and marriage may continue to become more similar overall.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between prudence in risk attitudes and patience of time preference of Chinese apple growers regarding off-farm cold storage of production and marketing in non-harvest seasons. The authors also consider the effect of farmer participation in cooperative-like organizations known as Farm Bases (FBs).

The authors use multiple list methods and elicitation strategies to measure Chinese apple farmers' risk attitudes and time preferences. Because these farmers can either sell their apples immediately to supermarkets or intermediaries or place them in storage, the authors assess correlations between their storage decisions and their preferences regarding risk and time. The authors also differentiate risks involving gains and losses and empirically examine individual risk attitudes in different scenarios.

Marketing decisions are moderately associated with risk attitudes but not time preference. Farmers with memberships in local farmer cooperatives are likely to speculate more in cold storage. Thus, risk aversion behavioral and psychological motives affect farmers' decision-making of cold storage and intertemporal marketing activities. However, membership in cooperatives does not always result in improved income and welfare for farmers.

The research confirms that behavioral factors may strongly drive vulnerable smallholder farmers to speculate into storage even under seasonal and uncertain marketing volatility. There is the need to think deeper about the rationale of promoting cooperatives and other agricultural forms, because imposing these without careful consideration can have negative impacts.

Do risk and time preferences affect the decision of farmers to utilize storage facilities? This question is important because it is not clear if and how risk preferences affect the tradeoff between consuming today and saving for tomorrow, especially for farmers in developing countries.

Extant expatriate literature largely adopts a global north/western focus and expatriate-centric approach in investigating spousal/partners’ motives for supporting expatriation. Contrastingly, this study focuses on the lived experiences of dual-career female partners from an emerging global south economy and a patriarchal society as it relates to motives for supporting a partner’s international assignment (IA) to a developed country.

This investigation adopts a hermeneutic interpretive phenomenology research design. Twelve career-oriented female partners from an emerging global south economy (Brazil) who supported a partner’s IA to a developed country (USA) participated in this study. The data included semi-structured interviews and field notes.

The study indicates that societal constraints, gendered career experiences and career and life stage reasons influenced women’s decision to engage in career opt out and/or interruption in support of their partners' IA. Further, patriarchal long-lasting structures and ideologies shaped women’s career experiences; women perceived IAs as a means of acquiring embodied and institutionalized cosmopolitan capital for themselves and their families in order to gain a better position in a transnational/globalized world.

Although the sample size of this study is appropriate for the methodological choice adopted, future studies should include more participants and address different socioeconomic, political and cultural contexts.

This study highlights dual-career female partners' lived experiences in an emerging global south economy and a patriarchal society as it relates to motives for supporting IAs.

This Chapter examined the development of sustainable road infrastructure in Ghana including transportation roads, and laws, regulations, and frameworks. The Ministry of Transport (MoT) and the Ministry of Roads and Highways (MRH) are responsible for the development of transportation infrastructure and related services. The Department of Urban Roads (DUR) is responsible for facilitating the movement of people, goods, and services and promoting economic and social development of urban regions. The Metropolitan and Municipal Assemblies established road centres to manage, construct, and maintain city roads, the Ghana Road Fund (GRF) was established to provide funding for the maintenance of Ghana’s road network, and the Koforidua Training Centre (KTC) was established in 2007 to provide management and project implementation staff with professional development and hands-on training. The current road length is 71,418 km, including 42,045 km of feeder roads, 14,873 km of trunk roads, and 14,500 km of urban roads. The budget for preventative maintenance is expected to rise year over year. Road infrastructure development (RID) can lead to positive societal outcomes, such as financial gains, employment opportunities, social support systems, equal rights for women and men, increased productivity, and less pollution, but it can also have unintended consequences such as deteriorating air and water quality, noise and vibration, soil erosion and sedimentation, disruption of essential services, confusion between drivers and pedestrians, changes to the landscape and habitat, and eminent domain takings. Environmental and social evaluations of development projects in Ghana must comply with several laws and regulations, and there is no unified sustainability policy or guideline in place to regulate the development of highway infrastructure projects. Resettlement is expected to help those who have been displaced by development initiatives and the Environmental Protection Agency Act of 1994 provides the authority to authorize facilities, set performance standards, and ensure compliance with standards and regulations. The Forestry Policy focusses on reducing deforestation and enhancing ecological and social commitment of forest areas, while the method for managing cultural property requires investigating and cataloguing damaged objects. Sector medium-term development plan (SMTDP) provides solutions for enhanced RID access, while the strategic environmental assessment (SEA) incorporates ecological factors into the Ghana Integrated Transport Plan. The resettlement policy framework (RPF) coordinates laws, rules, and procedures to manage road infrastructure projects and establishes criteria for determining eligibility and entitlement. The Directorate of Policy and Planning of the MRH is responsible for managing road safety and the environment, while the Directorate of Monitoring and Evaluation oversees Monitoring and Evaluation of road projects. The Ghana Highway Authority’s (GHA) four-person Road Safety and Environmental Management Unit (EMU) is responsible for addressing social and environmental issues associated with the feeder roads zone. Sustainable development (SD) has not received much attention from the Ghanaian government, with state-owned institutions prioritizing economic growth over social benefits and environmental preservation. Local governments should include a sustainability framework in their strategic planning for the successful execution of sustainable projects.