An entrepreneur's social capital and performance: the role of access to information in the Argentinean case

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of an entrepreneur's social capital on their access to information, and how such access improves the performance of their entrepreneurial project. Design/methodology/approach - A structural equations model (SEM) is estimated and validated from a database including information from 282 Argentinean entrepreneurs who answered a questionnaire specifically designed for this research. The analysis of this model allowed the impact of dependent latent variables on the performance of the start-up to be determined. Findings - The performance of an entrepreneurial project depends on an entrepreneur's access to finance, markets and information. S…

What are the relationships among Web 2.0, market orientation and innovativeness?

PurposeFirms are adopting Web 2.0 technologies to improve collaboration, participation and communication; however there are few empirical studies testing the impact of this adoption. The purpose of this article is to analyze if there is a linkage amongst market orientation, Web 2.0 adoption and innovativeness.Design/methodology/approachStructural equation modeling was used to test the relationships amongst the variables. A sample of 244 firms of the hospitality industry was used. The theoretical approach is based on the market orientation and innovativeness, concepts, which have been studied by various authors in the literature.FindingsA positive relationship was found between market orient…

Developing and Validating a Behavioural Model of Cyberinsurance Adoption

Business disruption from cyberattacks is a growing concern, yet cyberinsurance uptake remains low. Using an online behavioural economics experiment with 4800 participants across four EU countries, this study tests a predictive model of cyberinsurance adoption, incorporating elements of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as well as factors in relation to risk propensity and price. During the experiment, participants were given the opportunity to purchase different cybersecurity measures and cyberinsurance products before performing an online task. Participants likelihood of suffering a cyberattack was dependent upon their adoption of cybersecurity me…

Behavioural Issues in Cybersecurity

Measuring value levers: Experimental and contingent approaches

Abstract This paper compares two alternative methodologies—the experimental–behavioral approach and the contingent approach—for measuring the value that an attribute of a good (product or service) creates for potential customers. In the experimental–behavioral methodology, potential buyers make actual purchase decisions by receiving financial incentives. In the contingent approach, commonplace in marketing research and purchase decisions are hypothetical. A case–control experiment shows that both methodologies discriminate between key and less relevant attributes in purchase decisions, and provide reliable qualitative information on the value of an attribute. Contingent methodologies fail, …

The attraction effect in mid-involvement categories: An experimental economics approach

Abstract Contexts, the set of alternatives under consideration, usually influence consumer choice. One of the context effects, namely the attraction effect , spawns considerable conceptual and empirical research, consistent with the aforementioned influence in decision-making. Very recently, some authors have questioned the practical relevance and applicability of the attraction effect. As part of this debate, some authors show that most of the existent research includes important background factors at levels that do not correspond to business reality. In light of the above, this article applies the methodology of experimental economics to the analysis of the attraction effect. The methodol…

Guanxi, performance and innovation in entrepreneurial service projects

PurposeThis paper aims to analyze the role played by two dimensions of entrepreneurs' private social capital in the survival, growth and innovativeness of entrepreneurial service ventures: local size and preferential attachment degree.Design/methodology/approachData were collected by a questionnaire, the unit of investigation being the private entrepreneur in the service sector in the city of Shanghai. The questionnaire allows the authors to identify the social network of the entrepreneurs, estimate the empirical degree distribution for the entire sample, and estimate local size and preferential attachment degree.FindingsThere is empirical evidence that entrepreneurs do not create social ne…

Statistical formats to optimize evidence-based decision making: A behavioral approach

Abstract Statistical information is crucial for managerial decision making. The decision-making literature in psychology and mathematical cognition documents how different statistical formats can facilitate certain types of decisions. The present analysis is the first of its kind to assess the impact of statistical formats in the presentation of data from market research on both the optimality of market decisions and the time required to perform the decision-making process. An economic experiment provides the data for this study. The experiment presents statistical information in simple frequencies and relative frequencies using numerical and pictorial representations in the context of diff…

Modelling agricultural risk in a large scale positive mathematical programming model

International audience; Mathematical programming has been extensively used to account for risk in farmers' decision making. The recent development of the positive mathematical programming (PMP) has renewed the need to incorporate risk in a more robust and flexible way. Most of the existing PMP-risk models have been tested at farm-type level and for a very limited sample of farms. This paper presents and tests a novel methodology for modelling risk at individual farm level in a large scale model, called individual farm model for common agricultural policy analysis (IFM-CAP). Results show a clear trade-off between including and excluding the risk specification. Albeit both alternatives provid…

Extracting business information from graphs: An eye tracking experiment

Information graphics are visualizations that convey information about data trends and distributions. Data visualization and the application of graphs is increasingly important in business decision making, for instance, in big data analysis. However, relatively little information exists about how people extract information from graphs and how the framing of the graphic design defines may ‘nudge’ and bias decision making. As a contribution to fill this gap, this study applies the methodology of experimental economics to the analysis of graph reading and processing to extract underlying information. Specifically, the study presents the results of an experiment whose baseline treatment includes…

Computational Complexity and Communication: Coordination in Two-Player Games

The main contribution of this paper is the development and application of cryptographic techniques to the design of strategic communication mechanisms. One of the main assumptions in cryptography is the limitation of the computational power available to agents. We introduce the concept of limited computational complexity, and by borrowing results from cryptography, we construct a communication protocol to establish that every correlated equilibrium of a two-person game with rational payoffs can be achieved by means of computationally restricted unmediated communication. This result provides an example in game theory where limitations of computational abilities of players are helpful in solv…

Framing Effects on Online Security Behavior

We conducted an incentivized lab experiment examining the effect of gain vs. loss-framed warning messages on online security behavior. We measured the probability of suffering a cyberattack during the experiment as the result of five specific security behaviors: choosing a safe connection, providing minimum information during the sign-up process, choosing a strong password, choosing a trusted vendor, and logging-out. A loss-framed message led to more secure behavior during the experiment. The experiment also measured the effect of trusting beliefs and cybersecurity knowledge. Trusting beliefs had a negative effect on security behavior, while cybersecurity knowledge had a positive effect.

4-Hydroxynonenal, a lipid peroxidation product, induces relaxation of human cerebral arteries.

The relaxant effect of 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE), a lipid peroxidation product, on human cerebral arteries was studied. Addition of 4-HNE to artery rings promoted no contraction, and after stimulation with prostaglandin F2α (PFG2α; 10−7-3 × 10−6 M), 100% relaxation was obtained with 3 × 10−5 M 4-HNE. Inhibition of nitric oxide formation with NG-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester hydrochloride (l-NAME; (10−4 M), as well as prostaglandin synthesis with indomethacin (3 × 10−6 M), partially prevented 4-HNE-induced relaxation, but each of these substances separately failed to inhibit complete relaxation. Addition of both inhibitors together reduced 4-HNE-induced relaxation to ≈50%, but relaxation cou…

Nudging to prevent the purchase of incompatible digital products online: An experimental study.

Ensuring safe and satisfactory online shopping activity, especially among vulnerable consumers such as elderly and less educated citizens, is part of a larger set of consumer policy objectives seeking to strengthen trust in the electronic marketplace. This article contributes to that goal by testing the effectiveness of nudges intended to prevent the purchase of 'incompatible' digital products (i.e., those which cannot be used with the devices owned by consumers or the systems they operate). We ran a computerised lab experiment (n = 626) examining three types of nudges, the effects of age and education, and interaction effects between these variables and the nudges. Results show that emotiv…

Modélisation du comportement des agriculteurs face au risque dans un modèle de programmation mathématique positive (PMP) à grande échelle

Agricultural production is characterized for being a risky business due to weather variability, market instability, plant diseases as well as climate change and political economy uncertainty. The modelling of risk at farm level is not new, however, the inclusion of risk in Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) models is particularly challenging. Most of the few existing PMP-risk approaches have been conducted at farm-type level and for a very limited and specific sample of farms. This implies that the modelling of risk and uncertainty at individual farm level and in a large scale system is still a challenging task. The aim of this paper is to formulate, estimate and test a robust methodol…

Pragmatic languages with universal grammars

Abstract This paper constructs the equilibrium for a specific code that can be seen as a “universal grammar” in a class of common interest Sender–Receiver games where players communicate through a noisy channel. We propose a Senderʼs signaling strategy which does not depend on either the game payoffs or the initial probability distribution. The Receiverʼs strategy partitions the set of possible sequences into subsets, with a single action assignment to each of them. The Senderʼs signaling strategy is a Nash equilibrium, i.e. when the Receiver responds best to the Senderʼs strategy, the Sender has no incentive to deviate. An example shows that a tie-breaking decoding is crucial for the block…

Financial literacy is not enough: The role of nudging toward adequate long-term saving behavior

Abstract This paper analyzes whether nudging has a relevant effect on financially literate individuals, even if these individuals are professionals with extensive experience of finance and pensions. The paper presents the results of a field experiment with employees of a leading life and pensions company in Spain. The results of the experiment show that financial literacy and awareness of the importance of saving are not enough for individuals to act. Even with pension plan experts, the combination of two types of instruments is necessary: rational instruments, such as financial literacy and awareness of the economic implications of retirement, and nudging, which moves individuals to action…

Understanding Actual Socio-Economic Behavior as a Source of Competitive Advantage

This chapter illustrates the potentiality of the application of experimental-behavioral methods to gain global competitive advantages based in the anticipated measurement of how consumers and citizens would behave when exposed to specific innovation actions to be implemented by an organization. To this end, the chapter presents a brief background of the experimental-behavioral economics approach as an application of the experimental-scientific paradigm to study socio-economic behavior, highlighting its main differential features (use of economic monetary incentives, non-deception, and anonymity). After a discussion of the internal and external validity of this methodology and its ethical im…

Multidimensional social capital in new ventures

This paper analyzes and provides empirical evidence on how three different dimensions of social capital (structural, relational, and resources) have a direct causal relation on the performance of financial service start-ups. To this end, a structural equation model is estimated and validated from a database, including information from 142 Argentinean entrepreneurs who answered a questionnaire specifically designed for this research. The main finding of the paper is that the main source of value of social capital for an entrepreneur is the existence of high-quality links. Moreover, the quality of the entrepreneur's links is even more important than their quantity. This conclusion has relevan…

Value creation in the international public procurement market: In search of springbok firms

Abstract Public procurement accounts for more than 10% of global GDP. Digital transformation of public procurement creates new opportunities for value creation in international markets. Identifying and analyzing the companies, especially the SMEs, that can capitalize on these opportunities is therefore an important issue for policymaking, management, and scientific research. This study linked microdata on selected bidders from the Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) e-procurement portal and the Orbis database. Based on a sample of 933 Spanish companies, the analysis provides empirical support for the cross-border size bias conjecture. The reason for this bias is the predominance of large compani…

Sugammadex, a Neuromuscular Blockade Reversal Agent, Causes Neuronal Apoptosis in Primary Cultures

Sugammadex, a γ-cyclodextrin that encapsulates selectively steroidal neuromuscular blocking agents, such as rocuronium or vecuronium, has changed the face of clinical neuromuscular pharmacology. Sugammadex allows a rapid reversal of muscle paralysis. Sugammadex appears to be safe and well tolerated. Its blood-brain barrier penetration is poor (< 3% in rats), and thus no relevant central nervous toxicity is expected. However the blood brain barrier permeability can be altered under different conditions (i.e. neurodegenerative diseases, trauma, ischemia, infections, or immature nervous system). Using MTT, confocal microscopy, caspase-3 activity, cholesterol quantification and Western-blot we …

Are social and entrepreneurial attitudes compatible?

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to analyze the compatibility between entrepreneurial and social attitudes. Specifically, it seeks to analyze whether subjects with a more developed economic entrepreneurial attitude exhibit a less social attitude.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology integrates an economic experimental approach with a standard entrepreneurial intention questionnaire to analyze the interaction between entrepreneurial and social self‐perceptions and behavior.FindingsThere is empirical evidence that experimental entrepreneurial behavior (characterized by detecting an opportunity and accepting risk to take an economic advantage from it in laboratory experiments) reduces the …

Using protection motivation theory in the design of nudges to improve online security behavior

Abstract We conducted an online experiment (n = 2024) on a representative sample of internet users in Germany, Sweden, Poland, Spain and the UK to explore the effect of notifications on security behaviour. Inspired by protection motivation theory (PMT), a coping message advised participants on how to minimize their exposure to risk and a threat appeal highlighted the potential negative consequences of not doing so. Both increased secure behavior – but the coping message significantly more so. The coping message was also as effective as both messages combined, but not so the threat appeal. Risk attitudes, age and country had a significant effect on behavior. Initiatives seeking to promote se…

Modeling Local Social Migrations: A Cellular Automata Approach

In local social migrations, agents move from their initial location looking for a better local social environment. Social migrations processes do not change the number of social agents of a given type (i.e., the empirical distribution of the population) but their spatial location. Although cellular automata seems to appear as a natural approach to model of social migrations, the evolution of the configuration through a cellular automata might induce a new configuration wherein the number of agents of each type might be actually modified. This article provides a characterization of these cellular automata rules such that for any initial empirical distribution, the evolution of the configurat…