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Entrepreneurship, Money, and Coordination begins with a single page introduction by the editor, Jurgen Backhaus, a well known economist now at the University of Erfurt, in which we learn that the contribution by Horst Feldmann (Hayek's theory of cultural evolution: A critique of the critiques) provided the impetus for the book's remaining six chapters, a mélange of papers by Brian J. Loasby,¹ Jurgen G. Backhaus, Christian Schubert, Alexander Ebner, Martin T. Bohl and Jens Holscher, and Walter W. Heering. Unfortunately, the papers assembled here do not cohere well and in some instances are not altogether “reader-friendly.” The papers by Bohl and Holscher (a six-page overview and econometric analysis of Hayek's theory of competing currencies) and Heering (on monetary theory) seem rather disconnected from the main theme of the book. Surprisingly, Backhaus’ “Introduction” does not provide a useful integrating overview of the book's subject matter and papers, something readers surely would have appreciated from so eminent a scholar.

Eckbo, Masulis, & Norli (2000) question previous examination of initial public offering (IPO) underperformance with the keen argument that the increase in the number of traded shares and the infusion of equity reduce two significant premia in the stock’s return, namely, liquidity risk and financial risk. The new market for high (expected) growth stock in Germany is examined for evidence of underpricing, underperformance, and liquidity improvements during the first two complete years of operation – 1998 and 1999. The initial trading period examines the offering day and also the first ten days of trading (for the investor who can not get allocation but enters the secondary market). The postissue performance study period is taken as the 5‐day period one‐year after the IPO. Using regression of four underpricing measures upon issuing firm characteristics deemed important from the extant literature, we seek to explain the degree of underpricing discovered. We find that substantial underpricing occurs and performance is high one year later, even adjusted for the German market return for the period or the firm‐specific sector performance for the same period. Trading dwindles for most stocks after the offering day. One year later, the trading of the stock is even lower. We do find that the more active the trading in the initial period, the greater the returns and trading one year after.

This paper aims to analyze how financial system turmoil affected unemployment in industrial countries during the period 1982 to 2003.

The paper uses annual data on 17 industrial countries. It employs the International Monetary Fund's financial stress index and a large number of controls.

The paper finds that, during the sample period, financial market turmoil had only moderate adverse effects on unemployment. Stress in the banking sector and stress in foreign exchange markets were particularly likely to increase unemployment, although the relevant effects were modest too. Turmoil in securities markets affected unemployment only slightly. The results are robust to variations in specification.

While previous papers only look at a small number of banking crises, this paper's sample includes crises in all major areas of the financial sector. Furthermore, whereas previous papers cover only major crises, it additionally takes both minor crises and periods of relative calm into account. Finally, this paper is the first to statistically control for the impact of all major determinants of labor market performance.

In the course of cultural evolution, certain institutions have emerged and become dominant in the Western world that have led to an unprecedented rise in prosperity and population. This paper first explains the characteristics and significance of cultural evolution. Subsequently, it explains the fundamental role of politics and the scope for political action in cultural evolution, clearing up some fairly widespread misconceptions about this question. Finally, it derives three specific guidelines from the characteristics of cultural evolution that should be followed in politics. First, the principle of individual freedom should be realized as far as possible. Second, the rule of law should be secured. Third, the scope of action of the state should be closely limited and the state should be decentrally organized. The more consistently these guidelines are followed, the better the prospects of the respective society to survive and prosper in the competitive process of cultural evolution.

During the course of European integration social policy has become an increasingly important policy area of the European Union. The paper analyses whether the EU’s social‐policy measures improve the living conditions of the socially weaker groups. All three areas of European social policy are analysed: the co‐ordination of the member states’ social security systems, the harmonisation of the working conditions and the promotion of equal opportunities, social integration and vocational training. This paper shows that the EU’s social‐policy measures have numerous disadvantages. In particular, they often are detrimental to the very people who the EU intends to protect and promote.

Existing research suggests that the competitive advantage provided by technological development depends to a large extent on the speed and coordination of the technology’s implementation, and on how adoptable the technological applications are considered. While accepting this argument, the authors consider the explanatory model to be inadequate. This study aims to contribute to the theoretical discussion by analysing institutionalised industrial relations and other organisation-level factors, which are important for workplace restructuring and societal change.

The analysis is based on a representative nation-wide work and working conditions survey (N = 4,100) from Finland, which includes a variety of themes, including practices, changes and well-being at work. Changes are understood as organisational changes, focusing on modern technologies such as robotisation and digitalisation.

The results indicate that occupational division at workplace (low-skilled vs high-skilled occupations) affects job insecurity and acceptance of technologies at work. The characteristics of workplaces, such as the employees’ participation and involvement in the development of the organisation, play a significant part in both the acceptance and the implementation and outcomes of the technological transformations in the workplace.

The research provides new and interesting insights into working life practices. Furthermore, it reveals how technology acceptance and employment perspectives relate to working conditions and lessons learned from past reforms.

The authors consider current theories such as technology acceptance model at the micro level and that way rationalise the need for this study. This study shows the importance of individual, organisational and wider contextual factors in technology acceptance.

This paper seeks to be a thought experiment. If the field of futures were invented today, it asks, what would it look like? What would be its intellectual foundations? Who would it serve and influence? And how would its ideas and insights be put into practice?

It reviews the literatures on experimental psychology and neuroscience to identify biases that affect people's ability to think about and act upon the future, studies of expertise that map the limits of professional judgment, and recent work on the nature of critical challenges of the twenty‐first century.

It argues that futurists could develop social software tools, prediction markets, and other technologies to improve the individual and collective accuracy and impact of work. Choice architectures and nudges to lengthen “the shadow of the future” of everyday choices made by ordinary people could also be used.

The paper argues for new directions in the practice of futures, to make the field better‐suited to deal with the challenges confronting an increasingly complex, chaotic, and contingent world.

The development of tools to augment professional activity, and adoption of choice architectures and nudges as media for communicating about the future, could improve futures work and its impact, but lay the foundation for other methodological innovations.

The paper contributes to the ongoing discussion about where futures should go.

This study aims to investigate the effect of the material thickness and build orientation on the mass transfer of low molecular weight substances through polyamide 12 (PA12) structures produced by laser sintering (LS).

Disc-shaped PA12 sheets having a nominal thickness ranging from 700 to 2,000 µm were built in horizontal, vertical and diagonal orientations and their permeation properties to oxygen and water vapor were measured. The structural properties of the sheets were examined by X-ray micro-computed tomography, differential scanning calorimetry and polarized light microscopy.

All the LS sheets that were investigated had water vapor and oxygen permeation coefficients that are in the range of those of PA12 produced by traditional manufacturing technologies. Despite significant differences in the porosity characteristics, the permeation properties of sheets built in different orientations were similar. The pores seem to have no measurable effect on the mass transfer rates in the sheets, and the transport processes seem to predominantly follow the rules of a regular solution-diffusion mechanism. The results showed a non-significant trend toward thickness-dependent permeation coefficients, which agrees with the observed differences in the crystal structures of the sheets.

The results are an important basis for the qualification of LS technology for direct manufacturing in applications requiring special barrier performance.

This study provides new information on mechanisms of mass transport through LS PA12 and the effect of the material thickness and build orientation. Furthermore, the results enhance understanding of the structural properties of thin polymeric sheets produced by LS.

The purpose of this paper is to critically review the existing research on the intersection between war and international business (IB) and to map out a future research agenda.

Drawing on corporate examples and extant literature within IB, political science and international relations, the paper provides an introduction to the main concepts of war, a review of the IB research on war and provides a critical future research agenda.

The review of the multiple strands of war-related research in IB generally reveals an understudied area. Among other biases, prior research has focused on inter-state wars and has relatively unexplored foreign direct investment (FDI) and non-FDI within civil wars. Furthermore, previous studies offer little attention to how IB and multinational companies contribute to the emergence and development of wars.

The paper develops an analytical and critical research agenda for future research to examine the relationship between war and IB. This includes a set of questions for each of the three major phases of war: pre-conflict, armed violence and post-conflict. To the best of my knowledge, this has not been done before in the context of IB research.