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The purpose of this paper is to inspire a different way of thinking about digitalization and organizational change by theorizing simultaneity as an alternative to the otherwise dominant root metaphor of sequence in the literature on digitalization and organizational change.

The theoretical argument is based on a reading of central contributions to the literature on digital technology and organizational change, and particularly inspired by the work positing a constitutive entanglement of technology and organization. We argue for an extension of this line of thinking with a reading of Latour’s notion tonalities. The relevance of the theoretical argument is demonstrated through an illustrative empirical example of the phenomenon digital-ready legislation.

The paper identifies sequence as a root metaphor in the organization and digital change literature. It develops a simultaneity view and illustrates its relevance through the example of digital-ready legislation, pinpointing how technological, organizational and legal elements are attuned to one another at the same time rather than in sequence.

The sequentiality view has dominated the change management research, which has travelled from research into practice. The simultaneity view has the potential to offer a new approach to planning change, with a focus on the simultaneous alignment of, e.g. legal, organizational and technological elements.

The paper offers an alternative to dominant views on digitalization and organizational change, drawing on an overlooked notion in Latour’s scholarship, namely tonalities. This has potential to qualify the entanglement thesis and develop simultaneity as a new metaphor for understanding digital change.

There is plenty of individual-level evidence, based on the estimation of Mincerian equations, showing that better-educated individuals earn more. This is usually interpreted as a proof that education raises labour productivity. Some macroeconomists, analysing cross-country time series, also support the idea that the continuous expansion of education has contributed positively to growth. Surprisingly, most economists with an interest in human capital have neglected the level of the firm to study the education-productivity-wage nexus. And the few published works considering firm-level evidence are lacking a proper strategy to cope with the endogeneity problem inherent to the estimation production and wage functions. The purpose of this paper is to aim at providing estimates of the causal effect of education on productivity and wage labour costs.

This paper taps into a rich, firm-level, Belgian panel database that contains information on productivity, labour cost and the workforce’s educational attainment to deliver estimates of the causal effect of education on productivity and wage/labour costs. Therefore, it exclusively resorts to within firm changes to deal with time-invariant heterogeneity bias. What is more, it addresses the risk of simultaneity bias (endogeneity of firms’ education-mix choices in the short run) using the structural approach suggested by Ackerberg et al. (2006), alongside more traditional system-GMM methods (Blundell and Bond, 1998) where lagged values of labour inputs are used as instruments.

Results suggest that human capital, in particular larger shares of university-educated workers inside firms, translate into significantly higher firm-level labour productivity, and that labour costs are relatively well aligned on education-driven labour productivity differences. In other words, the authors find evidence that the Mincerian relationship between education and individual wages is driven by a strong positive link between education and firm-level productivity.

Surprisingly, most economists with an interest in human capital have neglected the level of the firm to study the education-productivity-pay nexus. Other characteristics of the workforce, like gender or age have been much more investigated at the level of the firm by industrial or labour economists (Hellerstein et al., 1999; Aubert and Crépon, 2003; Hellerstein and Neumark, 2007; Vandenberghe, 2011a, b, 2012; Rigo et al., 2012; Dostie, 2011; van Ours and Stoeldraijer, 2011). At present, the small literature based on firm-level evidence provides some suggestive evidence of the link between education, productivity and pay at the level of firms. Examples are Hægeland and Klette (1999); Haltiwanger et al. (1999). Other notable papers examining a similar question are Galindo-Rueda and Haskel (2005), Prskawetz et al. (2007) and Turcotte and Whewell Rennison (2004). But, despite offering plausible and intuitive results, many of the above studies essentially rely on cross-sectional evidence and most of them do not tackle the two crucial aspects of the endogeneity problem affecting the estimation of production and wage functions (Griliches and Mairesse, 1995): first, heterogeneity bias (unobserved time-invariant determinants of firms’ productivity that may be correlated to the workforce structure) and second, simultaneity bias (endogeneity in input choice, in the short-run, that includes the workforce mix of the firm). While the authors know that labour productivity is highly heterogeneous across firms (Syverson, 2011), only Haltiwanger et al. (1999) control for firm level-unobservables using firm-fixed effects. The problem of simultaneity has also generally been overlooked. Certain short-term productivity shocks affecting the choice of labour inputs, can be anticipated by the firms and influence their employment decision and thus the workforce mix. Yet these shocks and the resulting decisions by firms’ manager are unobservable by the econometrician. Hægeland and Klette (1999) try to solve this problem by proxying productivity shocks with intermediate goods, but their methodology inspired by Levinsohn and Petrin (2003) suffers from serious identification issues due to collinearity between labour and intermediate goods (Ackerberg et al., 2006).

1.1. Logical Necessity of the Three Dimensions as a Unit of Thought The mathematician does not look kindly on the simple question of why natural space should consist of precisely three dimensions. Instead of giving an answer he assumes a silent smile and shows us a version of space with an infinity of dimensions, as if space were some kind of toy for him to fiddle with to his heart's content.

This paper addresses three interrelated objectives. The approach is philosophical and comparative. As far as possible the Islamic arguments of the paper are derived from the Quran.

Endogeneity is a potential threat to the validity of international marketing (IM) research. The purpose of this paper is to draw the attention of IM researchers to issues of endogeneity, to provide a comprehensive overview of the sources of endogeneity, and to discuss the statistical solutions.

The authors conduct the research in two steps. In the first step, the authors review the nature and sources of endogeneity specifically in IM research. In the second step, the authors review 60 IM papers on endogeneity published in the period 1995-2014 and assess the current practice of addressing endogeneity in the IM literature.

Sample selection bias and simultaneity are prevalent sources of endogeneity in IM research. Internationalization-performance relationship and innovation-export nexus are the two most frequently adopted models subject to potential endogeneity. Simply lagging the main independent variable is statistically flawed in dealing with endogeneity despite its popularity in IM research.

First, a careful choice and application of methods are critical when addressing endogeneity. Second, the authors suggest the employment of multiple study methods to address endogeneity robustly. Third, to prevent or solve endogeneity in structural equation modeling, researchers may either collect data on independent and dependent variables from different respondents or employ a two-stage least squares approach. Finally, it is helpful to design dedicated models to prevent proactively potential endogeneity a priori.

The contribution of this study is twofold. First, it is the first in the literature to discuss the endogeneity issue specifically in IM research. In particular, the study elaborates the origins and consequences of the three most frequently confronted types of endogeneity in IM research. Second, the authors assess the four major methods of addressing endogeneity in IM research with a systematic discussion of the literature from the last two decades. The authors offer suggestions on how to minimize endogeneity in model design and empirical implementation for future IM research.

IV estimation is examined when some instruments may be invalid. This is relevant because the initial just-identifying orthogonality conditions are untestable, whereas their validity is required when testing the orthogonality of additional instruments by so-called overidentification restriction tests. Moreover, these tests have limited power when samples are small, especially when instruments are weak. Distinguishing between conditional and unconditional settings, we analyze the limiting distribution of inconsistent IV and examine normal first-order asymptotic approximations to its density in finite samples. For simple classes of models we compare these approximations with their simulated empirical counterparts over almost the full parameter space. The latter is expressed in measures for: model fit, simultaneity, instrument invalidity, and instrument weakness. Our major findings are that for the accuracy of large sample asymptotic approximations instrument weakness is much more detrimental than instrument invalidity. Also, IV estimators obtained from strong but possibly invalid instruments are usually much closer to the true parameter values than those obtained from valid but weak instruments.

Programming of festivals is more and more becoming a source from which the competitive advantages of the festivals may originate. This study aims to conceptualize the dimensionality of programming quality of festivals and empirically test it and its relationships with the satisfaction and behavioral intention levels of festival visitors.

Structured interviews were conducted with 350 visitors to a cultural festival. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was utilized in the data analysis.

The programming quality of festivals was found to consist of six dimensions, namely diversity, stakeholder balance, incrementality, simultaneity, flexibility and linkage. Meanwhile, the positive effects of festival programming quality on the satisfaction and behavioral intention levels of festival visitors are confirmed.

This study is limited for possible inexhaustiveness of the dimensions proposed and examined. Future research is needed to make the current measurement more rigorous, succinct and comprehensive.

This study can offer some valuable insights for festival planners and organizers to better design, operate and manage their festival to such an extent that the experiences of festival visitors are maximized, visitor satisfactions are enhanced, and re‐visits to future festivals facilitated.

This study makes its contribution to better understanding of festival programming quality, where artistic, emotional and technological aspects are integrated. This study aims to delineate the entirety of programming quality of festivals and its relationships to the satisfaction and behavioral intention levels of festival visitors.

This paper seeks to contribute to knowledge of the dynamics of global office markets with an assessment of the interaction of rental growth and vacancy rates across a sample of the world's leading office markets.

Econometric methods are used to estimate the relationship between rental growth and vacancy rates (taking into account the possible simultaneity between the two variables) and these equations are then used to estimate the natural vacancy rate at an individual city level and collectively for the three regions assessed (Europe, Asia Pacific and North America). An estimate is also made of the global natural vacancy rate.

The results suggest that estimates of natural vacancy rates vary significantly across the world but these estimates can be helpful to those seeking to understand global office markets. European markets in general have lower natural vacancy rates than those in North America. In Asia Pacific markets there is a greater variation between markets. In general developed markets have lower natural vacancy rates than developing ones. In developing markets the concept of a natural vacancy rate is one that should be applied with care, given the weakness of data and the speed with which they are undergoing structural change. When examining the differences in natural vacancy rates between markets, it is clear that fundamental supply and demand factors are key in driving those differences.

“Rule of thumb” estimates of natural vacancy rates are relatively common. However, a robust methodology for calculating natural vacancy rates is a powerful analytical tool for investors, occupiers and real estate advisors, as it enables a judgement of what supply/demand balance will trigger rental growth.

In estimating the natural vacancy rate across a sample of the world's leading office markets the paper makes an original contribution to the understanding of global office markets and in particular delivers an appreciation of how rental growth and vacancy rates interact.

The authors construct asset portfolios comprising small-sized companies and value stocks that provide with higher returns for the UK market based on a three-factor model with incorporated behavioural features. The authors were able to demonstrate that value factor model is vulnerable to behavioural patterns, especially corporate fraud. In all of the above, the authors utilised a new proportional sorting methodology against the value ranking approach, commonly employed in empirical studies. Strong evidence is observed that portfolio performance based on various syntheses of allocated assets reveals counter-intuitive results related to the BE/ME, namely, that expected returns based on size and BE/ME produce significant errors and small firms retain consistently better returns. The reason might be the unusual accounting techniques many firms follow to receive extended capital after management decisions. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors were able to demonstrate that value factor model is vulnerable to behavioural patterns, especially corporate fraud. In all of the above, authors utilised a new proportional sorting methodology against the value ranking approach, commonly employed in empirical studies. Strong evidence is observed that portfolio performance based on various syntheses of allocated assets reveals counter-intuitive results related to the BE/ME, namely, that expected returns based on size and BE/ME produce significant errors and small firms retain consistently better returns. The reason might be the unusual accounting techniques many firms follow to receive extended capital after management decisions.

Value factor model is vulnerable to behavioural patterns, especially corporate fraud. In all of the above, the authors utilised a new proportional sorting methodology against the value ranking approach, commonly employed in empirical studies. Strong evidence is observed that portfolio performance based on various syntheses of allocated assets reveals counter-intuitive results related to the BE/ME, namely, that expected returns based on size and BE/ME produce significant errors and small firms retain consistently better returns. The reason might be the unusual accounting techniques many firms follow to receive extended capital after management decisions. Overall, asset pricing models with embedded risk factors which entail either shares or dividends are logically circular behavioural simultaneities, thus invalid when tested and estimated by statistical methods as an outcome of the EMH.

In distinctive contrast to the recent literature, the authors show that the returns from a size factor model of small stocks tend to outperform big stocks especially in crisis periods. Moreover, the authors were able to demonstrate that value factor model is vulnerable to behavioural patterns, especially corporate fraud. In all of the above, the authors utilised a new proportional sorting methodology against the value ranking approach, commonly employed in empirical studies. Strong evidence is observed that portfolio performance based on various syntheses of allocated assets reveals counter-intuitive results related to the BE/ME, namely, that expected returns based on size and BE/ME produce significant errors and small firms retain consistently better returns. The reason might be the unusual accounting techniques many firms follow to receive extended capital after management decisions. Overall, asset pricing models with embedded risk factors which entail either shares or dividends are logically circular behavioural simultaneities, thus invalid when tested and estimated by statistical methods as an outcome of the EMH.

The objective of this study is to investigate the simultaneity between farm couples’ decisions on labor allocation and production efficiency. Using an unbalanced panel data set of Norwegian farm households (1989–2008), we estimate off-farm labor supply of married farm couples and farm efficiency in a three-equation system of jointly determined endogenous variables. We address the issue of latent heterogeneity between households. We solve the problem by two-stage OLS and GLS estimation where state dependence is accounted for in the reduced form equations. We compare the results against simpler model specifications where we suppress censoring of off-farm labor hours and endogeneity of regressors, respectively. In the reduced form specification, a considerably large number of parameters are statistically significant. Davidson–McKinnon test of exogeneity confirms that both operator and spouse's off-farm labor supply should be treated as endogenous in estimating farming efficiency. The parameter estimates seem robust across model specifications. Off-farm labor supply of farm operators and spouses is jointly determined. Off-farm work by farm operator and spouses positively affects farming efficiency. Farming efficiency increases with operator's age, farm size, agricultural subsidises, and share of current investment to total farm capital stock.