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This study aims to empirically examine the impact of the price structure of two-sided markets on transaction volume and market share (MS) in the context of the Korean credit card industry. The Korean credit card market differs from those in the United States (U.S.) or Europe in terms of transaction structure (i.e. a three-party system in Korea vs a four-party system in the U.S. or Europe) and government policy. In addition to the merchant discount rate and the cardholder annual membership fee rate, the authors included and analyzed exogenous variables to eliminate any endogeneity. Based on the analysis results, the authors found that credit card usage performance (i.e. transaction volume) increases with an increase in the relative price ratio (merchant discount rate ÷ cardholder membership fee rate) paid by merchants and cardholders, provided that the total price (merchant discount rate + cardholder membership fee rate) paid by merchants and cardholders remains constant. Therefore, this study is the first to confirm that the Korean credit card market operated as the theoretical mechanism of a two-sided market during the analysis period. This effect can only be observed in specific cases such as the launch of the so-called “Chief Executive Officer(CEO)-designed card.” When a new CEO takes office in a credit card company and launches a “CEO-designed card,” there is a significant increase in not only card usage performance but MS as well owing to the price structure changes caused by expanding the benefits that customers derive from card use.

This paper examines the interaction between monetary policy and the macroeconomy using a macro-finance term structure model of Joslin, Priebsch, and Singleton (2012), in which macroeconomic risks are not assumed to be spanned by information about the shape of the yield curve. For model estimation, we apply the Kalman filter to a large number of macroeconomic time series data grouped into output, inflation, and market stress categories and extract three common factors. For the factors determining the shape of the yield curve, we use the call rate, the spread between 10-year government bond yield and the call rate, and a combination of the call rate, 2- and 10-year government bond yields as proxies for the level, slope, and curvature factors. We interpret the call rate as a proxy for both the short rate and the instrument of monetary policy. Empirical results show that the macroeconomic factors have a significant impact on the risk premium associated with monetary policy shocks. Furthermore, we find that monetary policy shocks increase the term premium, which in turn affects the factors determining the yield curve, and such effects on the shape of the yield curve feeds back into the macroeconomic factors. Taken together, empirical findings in this paper can be interpreted as evidence supporting the term premium channel (Ferman, 2011) of monetary policy transmission mechanism.

This study aims to explore how managers exercise agency in strategic investment decisions (SIDs) by drawing on their knowledgeability of the strategic context. Specifically, the authors address the role of position–practice relations and irresistible causal forces in this conduct.

The authors examine SID-making (SIDM) practices in four case organisations operating in highly competitive markets, conducting interviews with managers at various levels and analysing company documents. Drawing on strong structuration theory, the authors show how managerial decision makers draw upon their knowledge of organisational context when exercising agency in SIDs.

The authors provide insights into how SIDM behaviour, specifically agents’ conduct, is shaped by a combination of position–practice relations and the agents’ comprehension of their organisation’s context.

The authors extend the SIDM literature by surfacing the issue of how actors’ conjuncturally-specific knowledge of external structures shapes the general dispositions they draw on in exercising agency in practice.

The authors extend the SIDM literature by surfacing the issue of how actors’ conjuncturally-specific knowledge of external structures shapes the general dispositions they draw on in exercising agency in practice. Particularly, the authors contribute to this literature by identifying irresistible causal forces and illuminating why actors might not resist in SIDM processes, despite having the potential to do so.

Research involving students (N=612) at a large, research-extensive university who participated in voluntary short-term leadership programs showed an increase in leadership capacity, even when measured three months later. A popular assessment tool, the Socially Responsible Leadership Scale (SRLS), was used. Not all leadership competency scores showed significant increase after training, which may indicate that some leadership capacities may be more amenable than others to development through short-term programs. However, most competency scores displayed stronger relationships with each other after training, suggesting that training fostered a more integrated understanding of leadership. In addition, the analysis suggested the need for further study of the SRLS.

Motivated to know more about the internal means through which accountability for sustainability takes shape within organisations (in what ways and by whom), this paper aims to explore how accountability for sustainability is constructed within an organisation during a process of establishing a control system for sustainability.

This paper adopts a qualitative case study approach of a decentralised industrial group, operating mainly in Scandinavia, between 2017 and 2020. Both primary and secondary data are used (e.g. document analyses, semi-structured interviews, informal conversations and site visits) to inform the findings and analysis.

The findings reveal a multi-faceted path towards accountability for sustainability that involves several concerns and priorities at organisational and individual levels, resulting in a separate sustainability control systems within each subsidiary company. Although hierarchical structures for accountability exist, socialising accountability activities are needed to (further) mobilise sustainable accounts.

Successful sustainable control systems require employees making sense of formalised accountability instruments (e.g. policies and procedures) to establish their roles and responsibilities in organisations.

This paper proposes socialisation processes as important for driving forward sustainability solutions.

This study elaborates on the internal accountability dynamic for the construction of sustainable accounts. Its novelty is built upon the interaction of hierarchical and socialising accountability forms as necessary for establishing a control system for sustainability. It furthermore illustrates the relationship between the external and internal pathways of accountability.

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the extant research on last-mile logistics (LML) models and consider LML’s diverse roots in city logistics, home delivery and business-to-consumer distribution, and more recent developments within the e-commerce digital supply chain context. The review offers a structured approach to what is currently a disparate and fractured field in logistics.

The systematic literature review examines the interface between e-commerce and LML. Following a protocol-driven methodology, combined with a “snowballing” technique, a total of 47 articles form the basis of the review.

The literature analysis conceptualises the relationship between a broad set of contingency variables and operational characteristics of LML configuration (push-centric, pull-centric, and hybrid system) via a set of structural variables, which are captured in the form of a design framework. The authors propose four future research areas reflecting likely digital supply chain evolutions.

To circumvent subjective selection of articles for inclusion, all papers were assessed independently by two researchers and counterchecked with two independent logistics experts. Resulting classifications inform the development of future LML models.

The design framework of this study provides practitioners insights on key contingency and structural variables and their interrelationships, as well as viable configuration options within given boundary conditions. The reformulated knowledge allows these prescriptive models to inform practitioners in their design of last-mile distribution.

Improved LML performance would have positive societal impacts in terms of service and resource efficiency.

This paper provides the first comprehensive review on LML models in the modern e-commerce context. It synthesises knowledge of LML models and provides insights on current trends and future research directions.

This paper aims to present a dual-perspective framework for maintenance service delivery that should be used by manufacturing companies to structure and manage their maintenance service delivery process, using aggregated historical and real-time data to improve operational decision-making. The framework, built for continuous improvement, allows the exploitation of maintenance data to improve the knowledge of service processes and machines.

The Dual-perspective, data-based decision-making process for maintenance delivery (D3M) framework development and test followed a qualitative approach based on literature reviews and semi-structured interviews. The pool of companies interviewed was expanded from the development to the test stage to increase its applicability and present additional perspectives.

The interviews confirmed that manufacturing companies are interested in exploiting the data generated in the use phase to improve operational decision-making in maintenance service delivery. Feedback to improve the framework methods and tools was collected, as well as suggestions for the introduction of new ones according to the companies' necessities.

The paper presents a novel framework addressing the data-based decision-making process for maintenance service delivery. The D3M framework can be used by manufacturing companies to structure their maintenance service delivery process and improve their knowledge of machines and service processes.

This paper investigates the role of market structure and institutional quality in determining bank capital ratios in developing economies.

The generalised methods of moment technique is used to control for auto-correlation and endogeneity in a sample of 79 publicly listed commercial banks. The study period is between 2000 and 2016.

Results show that market structure (proxied with bank competition) as well as institutional quality (regulatory quality) lowers bank capital in the sampled banks. This suggests that banks operating in less competitive markets with good regulatory quality do not need to engage in excessive risk-taking activities that would necessitate holding increased level of capital. Furthermore, the interaction of competition and regulatory quality reinforces the main findings, suggesting the importance of the two variables in determining bank capital ratio.

Research has limitation in that the study investigated publicly listed commercial banks, the findings may not be applicable to non-listed banks.

Taking into cognisance the developing nature of the banking system in Africa, the findings from this study imply that the maintenance of an improved regulatory quality in an environment where healthy competition exists would encourage banks to hold capital ratios appropriate for their level of banking activities, that is, the banks would not engage in excessive risk-taking activities.

This is one of the first papers that examine the effect of market structure and institutional quality on bank capital ratios in developing countries that have bank-based financial systems.

I historically compare changes in institutional frameworks creating academic positions linked to temporary employment by analyzing university employment statistics in Chile, Colombia, Germany, and the USA. I find that temporary academic positions were institutionalized through the creation of previously inexistent academic categories called a contrata in Chile, de cátedra in Colombia, “junior professor” without tenure in Germany and “postdoc” in the USA; used in higher education and employment laws since 1989, 1992, 2002, and 1974, respectively. Under institutional frameworks demanding the maximization of students and research, universities have increasingly contracted academics through temporary contracts under rationales that differ between regions. In Colombia and Chile, public university leaders and owners of private universities contract such teaching positions to expand student numbers through lowering costs. In Germany and the USA, employment insecurity is mostly driven by temporary scientific positions under a main rationale of scientific expansion. The share of temporary positions has increased exponentially in Colombia and Germany in recent decades, whereas in the USA there has only been an increase since 2012. Moreover, in Chile, the share of permanent positions has decreased since 2012. The common trend is one of isomorphism of vertical academic structures sharing a pyramidal form, with a wide base of academics working under conditions of contractual insecurity. Such trends follow a rationale for maximization of student numbers as well as administration, and scientific production that is in tension with prioritizing wellbeing and improvement of academics’ working conditions. Yet, in these environments, the institution of tenure in the USA and recent Chilean regulations on accreditation represent mechanisms counteracting precarious employment.

The case of Africa is important in understanding the growth of research management as a profession. Africa has rapidly increased its research output in recent years, and its institutions are increasingly in demand as research partners. Yet research management structures have developed from a very low base, and need not be confined by past practice. Through the Southern African Research and Innovation Management Association (SARIMA), it has been represented since the origins of International Networks of Research Management Societies (INORMS). Several external donors have sought to help build research management structures on the continent, and the success (or otherwise) of these initiatives can tell us much about the potential for common research management structures globally.

This chapter does not provide a comprehensive account of progress over the past two decades, or a complete list of relevant initiatives. Rather, it reflects on whether international assistance and collaboration have made a meaningful contribution to the progress that has been made, and its strengths and limitations. It considers how far growth would have happened regardless of funder intervention, or indeed whether international partners have inhibited progress by prioritising their own norms and priorities. It asks uncomfortable questions for funders about the way in which they plan and evaluate their work.