Integrating online-offline interactions to explain societal challenges

Despite the wide literature on the consequences of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) use, the literature still lacks understanding about the societal consequences, positive or negative, intended or unintended. ICTs can yield the good and the bad. Consequences of technology usages on society are paradoxical. The paradoxical outcomes can be ta threat to the sustainability of society. Because interactions spread beyond the online space and its outcomes are paradoxical, societal challenges are complex problems. But not only complex problem, rather social complex problem. To harvest society, we need a better understanding of social complex problems. To do so, we adopted a multi-study dissertation model. To achieve that goal, the three studies of this doctoral work adopt a qualitative approach and a critical realist philosophy. This dissertation focuses on the societal implications of online phenomena that spillover offline. We look at a first case: The Arab Spring and aim at understanding how an online community that started on Facebook materialized in urban space, changing the political landscape (Study 2). Addressing these kind of contemporaneous events does not come without analytical challenges. Therefore, we use and extend a semiotic analytical tool to face the representational complexity of the data collected (Study 1) with a discussion of the underlying philosophical assumptions. Finally, online communities can also have social costs by providing an echo chamber to socially undesirable behaviors. We aim at offering a conceptual explanation of how these online interactions turn into offline behaviors with negative spillovers (Study 3)

Spiraling Down into Corruption: A Dynamic Analysis of the Social Identity Processes that Cause Corruption in Organizations to Grow

To date, theory and research on corruption in organizations have primarily focused on its static antecedents. This paper focuses on the spread and growth of corruption in organizations. For this purpose three downward organizational spirals are formulated: the spiral of divergent norms, the spiral of pressure, and the spiral of opportunity. Social Identity Theory is used to explain the mechanisms of each of these spirals. Our dynamic perspective contributes to a greater understanding of the development of corruption in organizations and opens up promising avenues for future research.corruption;dynamics;social identity theory;organizational factors

How does militant violence diffuse in regions? Regional conflict systems in international relations and peace and conflict studies

Regional conflict systems are characterised by their complexity of actors, causes, structural conditions and dynamics. Such complexity poses difficulties to those looking to undertake scientific analysis of the regional dynamics of violence. It is still quite unclear how militant violence diffuses in regions and under which conditions a regional conflict system can emerge. This review of existing approaches to regional conflict dynamics in international studies and peace and conflict studies focuses on how the regional conflict dynamics and the causal mechanisms behind the development of regional conflict systems are dealt with, considering process dynamics in space and time as well as in the interactions between possible causal factors. The primary gaps in existing research are identified and possible new research directions sketched out.Regional conflict systems are characterised by their complexity of actors, causes, structural conditions and dynamics. Such complexity, however, poses difficulties to those looking to undertake scientific analysis of these processes. In the present paper existing approaches to regional conflict dynamics in international studies and peace and conflict studies are reviewed. Of particular interest is the question how these approaches dealt with regional violence in areas with limited or no statehood as this is one of the striking conditions for the emergence and diffusion of regional conflict systems. Starting from this question, the main research gaps that exist in the current literature on regional conflicts will be detected. Furthermore, new research directions will be pointed out

International venture capital investors and their portfolio companies in Europe

Many companies including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Starbucks may not have existed, or may not have developed to the same level and size they have without venture capital (VC) funding. VC investments are in essence long-term, illiquid, high-risk, hands-on, privately held, minority equity investments in high-growth-potential companies initiated and managed by professional investors. While these specific characteristics explain the benefits of VC’s proximity to portfolio companies (PCs), paradoxically the fraction of non-domestic investments has been increasing significantly in the last two decades. The increasing occurrence and disadvantages of investing across borders hence raises the question of how international VC firms manage the additional difficulties and what their impact is on PCs. The focus of my dissertation lies on the differential impact of VC origin (i.e. cross-border, branch and domestic VC firms) in three main aspects of the VC investment cycle. In a first step, VC firms carefully select potential investment targets based upon the future prospects. Second, VC firms typically do not only provide financial resources but also engage in time consuming post-investment monitoring and value adding activities. Finally, in contrast to other investors, VC firms are not interested in taking permanent equity positions in their PCs. Instead, they exit their investments after a five to seven year holding period. In a first study I examine the impact of VC origin on the mutual matching decision combining preferences of both investors (i.e. supply side) and entrepreneurs (i.e. demand side). From a supply perspective, results show that cross-border VC firms have a higher probability to invest with local investors, larger investment syndicates and more experienced investors. We further demonstrate that investing through a local branch allows foreign VC firms to exhibit the same investment behaviour as domestic VC firms. These results thereby exhibit that local and more resourceful co-investors or establishing a local presence mitigate the disadvantages linked to foreign investing. From a demand perspective, findings show that less developed companies have a higher probability to match with domestic VC. Moreover, seed stage companies in which only cross-border VC firms co-invest have a higher probability to attract a local VC firm as opposed to an additional cross-border VC firm. These results display that entrepreneurs dynamically assess their companies’ resource gaps and consequently target VC investors with specific geographic origins based upon the required resources. My second study concentrates on the role of domestic and cross-border VC in PCs’ growth. Findings demonstrate that companies initially backed by domestic VC investors exhibit higher growth in the short term compared to companies backed by cross-border investors. In contrast, companies initially backed by cross-border VC investors exhibit higher growth in the medium term. Finally, companies that are initially funded by a syndicate comprising both domestic and cross-border VC investors exhibit the highest growth. Overall, this study provides a more fine-grained understanding of the role that domestic and cross-border VC investors can play as their PCs grow and thereby require different resources or capabilities over time. Finally, in a third study I analyse how cross-border, branch and domestic VC firms behave when PCs do not meet initial expectations. Results show that domestic investors have a high tendency to escalate their commitment to a failing course of action. In contrast, cross-border investors terminate their investments efficiently, even when investing through a local branch. This is explained by cross-border investors having more limited access to soft information, a lower social involvement with the project and a lower embeddedness in the local economic and social environment, which are all factors that contribute to lower escalation of commitment. Local branches of cross-border investors are further shielded from escalation of commitment through structural safeguards. Domestic investors may hence benefit from mimicking cross-border investors’ behaviour

Policy Coherence for Development: Issues in Agriculture: An Overview Paper

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The divestment-reinvestment sequence in foreign countries: The role of relational vs. transactional ownership

In this paper, we claim that ownership is a key determinant of the firms' divestment-reinvestment sequence in a foreign country. Building on the notion of ‘relational vs. transactional ownership’, we distinguish between relational-type firms (namely, family-owned and state-owned firms), and transactional-type firms (privately non-family-owned firms). We argue that relational-type firms are less likely to both divest from, and reinvest in, a given foreign country. In fact, relational owners set a lower performance threshold of intervention than transactional ones; additionally, in order to turn the tide, the former often increase resource injection when subsidiary performance falls below the threshold. Such an escalation of commitment increases sunk costs and further decreases the likelihood of divesting the subsidiary. Moreover, when a divestment occurs, the memory of high sunk costs incurred reduces the propensity to reinvest in the same host country. We test our conceptual framework on a large sample of investments, divestments and subsequent re-entries undertaken in the period 2000–2015 by 602 Italian firms. Our econometric findings corroborate our hypotheses, thus contributing to the literature on the interdependencies between divestment and reinvestment choices, and their relationships with corporate ownership

The divestment-reinvestment sequence in foreign countries: The role of relational vs. transactional ownership

In this paper, we claim that ownership is a key determinant of the firms' divestment-reinvestment sequence in a foreign country. Building on the notion of ‘relational vs. transactional ownership’, we distinguish between relational-type firms (namely, family-owned and state-owned firms), and transactional-type firms (privately non-family-owned firms). We argue that relational-type firms are less likely to both divest from, and reinvest in, a given foreign country. In fact, relational owners set a lower performance threshold of intervention than transactional ones; additionally, in order to turn the tide, the former often increase resource injection when subsidiary performance falls below the threshold. Such an escalation of commitment increases sunk costs and further decreases the likelihood of divesting the subsidiary. Moreover, when a divestment occurs, the memory of high sunk costs incurred reduces the propensity to reinvest in the same host country. We test our conceptual framework on a large sample of investments, divestments and subsequent re-entries undertaken in the period 2000–2015 by 602 Italian firms. Our econometric findings corroborate our hypotheses, thus contributing to the literature on the interdependencies between divestment and reinvestment choices, and their relationships with corporate ownership

Make Trade Not War?

This paper analyses theoretically and empirically the relationship between military conflicts and trade. We show that the conventional wisdom that trade promotes peace is only partially true even in a model where trade is economically beneficial, military conflicts reduce trade, and leaders are rational. When war can occur because of the presence of asymmetric information, the probability of escalation is lower for countries that trade more bilaterally because of the opportunity cost associated with the loss of trade gains. However, countries more open to global trade have a higher probability of war because multilateral trade openness decreases bilateral dependence to any given country and the cost of a bilateral conflict. We test our predictions on a large data set of military conflicts on the 1950-2000 period. Using different strategies to solve the endogeneity issues, including instrumental variables, we find robust evidence for the contrasting effects of bilateral and multilateral trade openness. For proximate countries, we find that trade has had a surprisingly large effect on their probability of military conflic

Commitment Problems in Conflict Resolution

Commitment problems are inherent to non-binding conflict resolution mechanisms, since an unsatisfied party can ignore the resolution and initiate conflict. We provide experimental evidence suggesting that even in the absence of binding contractual agreements individuals often avoid conflict by committing to the outcome of a conflict resolution mechanism. Commitment problems are mitigated to a greater extent for groups who opt-in to the conflict resolution mechanism, but only when opting-in is costly. Although conflict rates are higher when opting-in is costly than when it is free or exogenously imposed, commitment problems are greatly reduced amongst those groups who choose to opt-in