Alexandre Asselineau and Gilles Grolleau
Labeling something as “impossible” can be performative and deprive businesses from promising ideas, by activating limiting mental models and self-fulfilling prophecies. Adopting…
Abstract
Purpose
Labeling something as “impossible” can be performative and deprive businesses from promising ideas, by activating limiting mental models and self-fulfilling prophecies. Adopting an “everything may be(come) possible” thinking as the default option can lead businesses to discover unexpected and valuable directions and make the world a better place. This paper aims to propose practical insights to harness the power of “impossible” thinking such as considering impossibility as a current and temporary state, adopting an unconventional mindset and redirecting the reflection on what is needed to make the idea possible. Falling in love with any impossible target is obviously not without downsides.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper discusses conceptually how adopting an impossible thinking approach can help business to discover unexpected and valuable directions.
Findings
The authors caution managers on the inappropriate use of the “impossible” label that can be performative, activate a limiting mental model, lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy and deprive businesses from promising ideas. This paper proposes ways by which the power of impossible thinking can be harnessed to make a difference.
Research limitations/implications
Discarding impossible ideas seems perfectly justified from a logical or cultural viewpoint while constituting simultaneously a bad decision from a business viewpoint. The generalization of authors’ insight must be undertaken with caution, given that harnessing the power of impossible does not mean to fall in love with any impossible idea.
Practical implications
Learning to not neglect seemingly impossible options and sometimes to reveal them can lead to sustainable competitive advantages.
Social implications
While generating a competitive advantage for the concerned companies, implementing impossible ideas can also contribute to make the world a better place.
Originality/value
The authors identify some mechanisms that can make impossible thinking beneficial and profitable for companies. These insights can help managers to nurture an environment that facilitates the emergence of pathbreaking advances.
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Gilles Grolleau, Sana El Harbi and Insaf Békir
The purpose of this paper is to expose two mechanisms by which pirated firms that market cultural goods can strategically use piracy to increase their profits.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to expose two mechanisms by which pirated firms that market cultural goods can strategically use piracy to increase their profits.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors interpret several world examples through the lens of behavioral economics to identify mechanisms that can make pirates’ initiatives profitable for the intellectual property rights holders. They also address two principal objections to “beneficial piracy”.
Findings
First, intrinsically motivated pirates can be in a better position to shape consumers’ preferences in a sense favorable to the firm profit. Second, pirates can generate strategic information that can help original producers to increase their profits.
Research limitations/implications
Fighting piracy can be perfectly justified from a legal viewpoint while constituting simultaneously a bad decision for a business viewpoint. Moreover, some pirates follow ethical rules that can lead to a symbiotic relationship with pirated businesses. Nevertheless, the generalization of our analysis must be undertaken with caution given that our arguments have been developed out of observations of particular institutional settings.
Practical implications
Distinguishing “good pirates” from “bad ones” can lead managers to reconsider the systematic disapproval of copyright infringement in favor of more nuanced approaches.
Social implications
Piracy can be useful under some circumstances for the pirated firm and even for the whole society, by increasing access to cultural goods.
Originality/value
The authors identify two mechanisms that can make piracy profitable for pirated firms. These insights can help managers to avoid a “one-size-fits-all” policy regarding piracy and to seek how to create conditions for a mutual and shared success.
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Douadia Bougherara, Gilles Grolleau and Naoufel Mzoughi
Williamson's systematic treatment of transaction costs in explaining governance structures has rarely been applied to the field of environmental economics. The aim of this chapter…
Abstract
Williamson's systematic treatment of transaction costs in explaining governance structures has rarely been applied to the field of environmental economics. The aim of this chapter is to address this oversight by analysing how transaction cost economics can help choose among environmental policy tools.
We apply the analytical framework of discrete structural alternatives – market, hybrid forms and hierarchy – to the choice of environmental policy instruments. Environmental-related transactions, which differ in their attributes, are aligned with categories of policy instruments, which differ in their cost and competence, so as to effect a discriminating – mainly transaction costs economizing – result.
First, we suggest defining the transaction as the trading of property rights to the use of natural resources. Second, the characteristics of the transaction are described as mainly measurement costs. Third, we determine the conditions under which a particular ‘governance structure’ that is a policy instrument is chosen.
A major contribution of our analysis is to question the relevance of many economists’ prescription in favour of incentive-based instruments. Indeed, in some plausible circumstances a command-and-control instrument may be more efficient by economizing on transaction costs.
Environmental economics has employed the seminal contribution of Ronald H. Coase (1960) intensively but has remained relatively unaffected by the contributions of perhaps his most influential follower, Oliver E. Williamson. Our chapter is a first step towards an operationalization à la Williamson of Coase's (1992, p. 778) ‘fundamental insights’ in the environmental realm.
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Sana El Harbi, Gilles Grolleau and Insaf Bekir
Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to investigate empirically whether entrepreneurship causes growth or whether growth creates a prosper environment for…
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to investigate empirically whether entrepreneurship causes growth or whether growth creates a prosper environment for entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology – We perform a co-integration analysis using an error correction model on data from 34 countries spanning 13 years to assess the causality issue between growth (proxied by GDP per capita) and entrepreneurship (proxied by self-employment). Our analysis also includes other variables deemed to influence growth.
Findings – The results from an error correction model show that self-employment Granger causes GDP per capita while the opposite direction is not statistically accepted. Moreover, these results suggest that increases in self-employment increase GDP per capita over the short-term but leads to a GDP per capita decrease at a long-term horizon.
Research limitations and implications – We use a linear model to estimate the relationship between self-employment and Growth. Consequently, a more complex model allowing for nonlinearities and additional variables might be more accurate. The empirical investigation is limited to self-employment, which is one facet of entrepreneurship, hence it will be interesting to introduce other measures of entrepreneurship. A direct implication of our study is that rather to be a sustainable economic driver, self-employment seems to resolve only a short-term problem.
Value – The chapter contributes by analyzing the relationship between self-employment and growth by using a co-integration analysis. Consequently it offers a more rigorous appreciation of the direction of causality as well as the long- vs. short-term relationships.
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Richard O. Zerbe and John B. Kirkwood
This volume brings together work by scholars from around the world dealing with law and economics policy issues. The volume contains several industrial organization articles…
Abstract
This volume brings together work by scholars from around the world dealing with law and economics policy issues. The volume contains several industrial organization articles, including two dealing with definitions of market power. The first provides a dynamic context to market power indices and the second a guide to a better profit measure.
Geeta Rana and Vikas Arya
This study sought to determine the role of green human resource management (GHRM) in fostering employees' environmental performance (ENVP). This study aims to advance knowledge…
Abstract
Purpose
This study sought to determine the role of green human resource management (GHRM) in fostering employees' environmental performance (ENVP). This study aims to advance knowledge related to the role of firms’ GHRM activities in cultivating eco-responsible behaviors among employees, considering green innovation (GI) as a mediator.
Design/methodology/approach
For this study, data of 579 respondents were collected from employees working in the manufacturing industry in India. In all, 579 employees from the manufacturing sector in India participated in the study. The proposed model was tested using SMART PLS 3.3.
Findings
The findings of this study stated that GHRM was found significantly to predict ENVP in the Indian manufacturing industry, and GI exhibited partial mediation. This study emphasizes that GHRM activities carried out by firms encourage employees to engage in innovation to develop green products and find novel green operation processes to improve firms’ ENVP.
Research limitations/implications
As this study is limited to manufacturing organizations in India, the results of this study cannot be generalized; future studies may examine the proposed model in different contexts to generalize findings.
Originality/value
This study encourages policymakers to devise laws to enable organizations to implement GHRM practices. This study contributes to the existing literature on the environmental aspects of corporate social responsibility and environmental management. This study is one of the few attempts that seek to assess the relationship between GHRM, ENVP and GI in the Indian manufacturing industry. The contribution of this paper is significant to limit GHRM literature, as it empirically investigates the association between GHRM and ENVP.