Search results for "Positive economics"
showing 10 items of 144 documents
Preference, Rationality and Interindividual Variation: The Persisting Debate About Female Choice
2015
Contemporary research on sexual selection remains deeply influenced by the controversy between Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace about the true nature and importance of female choice. After briefly reviewing the main points of disagreement between the two famous evolutionists, I discuss some methodological issues relevant to the contemporary study of female choice. I first use some recent controversy about sexual selection in the Indian Peafowl, Pavo cristatus, to illustrate several recurring problems and shortcomings in the empirical study of female preference for male characters. I then address the empirical evidence for rationality in female choice, and discuss how the recently em…
How Do Judgmental Overconfidence and Overoptimism Shape Innovative Activity?
2013
Recent field evidence suggests a positive link between overconfidence and innovative activities. In this paper we argue that the connection between overconfidence and innovation is more complex than the previous literature suggests. In particular, we show theoretically and experimentally that different forms of overconfidence may have opposing effects on innovative activity. While overoptimism is positively associated with innovation, judgmental overconfidence is negatively linked to innovation. Our results indicate that future research is well advised to take into account that the relationship between innovation and overconfidence may crucially depend on what type of overconfidence is most…
The effects of corruption in entrepreneurial ecosystems on entrepreneurial intentions
2019
Although researchers have identified corruption as a factor capable of affecting the entrepreneurial ecosystem at the national level of analysis, scholars have reported conflicting results regarding the exact nature of the relationship between corruption and entrepreneurial intentions. This paper formulates some propositions about the complex relationship between corruption and entrepreneurship at different levels of analysis and it suggests and explores the socio-cultural consequences of such domains&rsquo
Is the Theory of Entrepreneurship Applicable to Franchising?
2010
This essay takes an entrepreneurship viewpoint toward franchising. The applicability of the general theory of entrepreneurship presented by Shane (“A general theory of entrepreneurship. The individual-opportunity nexus”. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2003) is explored in the franchising context. Shane introduced a model of the entrepreneurial process in response to the failure of prior research to provide one. According to Shane, prior research has tended to look at only part of the entrepreneurial process, with the result that no general theory of entrepreneurship has been developed. Studies that consider franchising as a form of entrepreneurship are rare, as are studies on the entrepreneurial…
No Entrepreneurship without Opportunity: The Intersection of Return Migration Research and Entrepreneurship Literature
2019
Abstract The article proposes a theoretical discussion at the crossroads of the return migration scholarship with the entrepreneurship research. Its main goal is to build an analytical framework in which entrepreneurial experiences of international return migrants are conceptualized. The fertile theoretical legacy within the study of entrepreneurship along with an idealized view of the positive effects of migration constitute essential premises for understanding the biased outputs of the empirical studies of entrepreneurship upon return to the origin country. Firstly, the article draws on the main lines of theorising opportunities within the Weberian and Schumpeterian theoretical traditions…
Women Entrepreneurship and Performance
2011
Research on gendered performance in entrepreneurship is scarce, making the resolution of this issue a relevant research field. Chapter 7 starts by describing what we understand by performance, widening the concept from a financial to an operational or even a stakeholders’ satisfaction level. Next, we present some relevant research that suggests explanations for a gendered difference in entrepreneurs’ performance, mainly in terms of the existence of horizontal segregation, differences in size and in personal attributes of entrepreneurs. The discussion about gender differences in resource possession and accessibility is then introduced as a fundamental concern in this debate, by describing ec…
Background and Introduction: How Could Anyone Be Against Entrepreneurship?
2020
The (online) gambling industry is used as an illustration of when “entrepreneurship” is at its worst, something that probably anyone could agree that there is reason to be against. It is concluded, on basis of the contributions to the book, that there are good grounds for being against the predominating entrepreneurship discourse. There also seem to be good reasons for being against at least some aspects of entrepreneurship practice, while to be arguing against all aspects of entrepreneurship in any form may need to be backed-up with the suggestion of some sort of alternative to, or at least radically improved form of entrepreneurship. The chapters of the book are, thereafter, introduced, o…
Testing for a Political Bias in Freedom House Democracy Scores: Are U.S. Friendly States Judged To Be More Democratic?
2012
Several scholars have criticized the Freedom House democracy ratings as being politically biased; do countries indeed incorrectly receive better ratings that have stronger political ties with the United States? Starting from the assumption that other indices of democracy can be used as benchmark data, different estimation strategies are employed to gauge whether differences between a number of alternative indices of democracy and the FH ratings can be explained in a systematic manner by variables that record relationships between the U.S. and the countries under investigation. Differentiating between the period before 1989 and after 1988, I obtain consistent evidence of a substantial bias i…
The overstated generational gap in online news use? A consolidated infrastructural perspective
2021
Recent research by Taneja et al. suggested that digital infrastructures diminish the generational gap in news use by counteracting preference structures. We expand on this seminal work by arguing that an infrastructural perspective requires overcoming limitations of highly aggregated web tracking data used in prior research. We analyze the individual browsing histories of two representative samples of German Internet users collected in 2012 ( N = 2970) and 2018 ( N = 2045) and find robust evidence for a smaller generational gap in online news use than commonly assumed. While short news website visits mostly demonstrated infrastructural factors, longer news use episodes were shaped more by …
Bildungsexpansion, soziale Klasse und die Wahl von Latein als Strategie der Distinktion
2021
In times of educational expansion, privileged families are looking for new strategies of distinction. Referring to Pierre Bourdieu���s theory of distinction, we argue that choosing Latin at school ��� a language that is no longer spoken and therefore has no direct value ��� is one of the strategies of privileged families to set themselves apart from less privileged families. Based on two surveys we conducted at German schools, the paper analyzes the relationship between parents��� educational background and the probability that their child will learn Latin. Results indicate that historically academic families have the strongest tendency towards learning Latin, followed by new academic famil…