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Do the 'grand' strategic context characteristics of an acquisition (e.g., business relatedness of buyer and target) determine the integration success of R&D

In a Pay What You Want (PWYW) setting companies empower their customers to fix the prices buyers voluntarily pay for a delivered product or service. The seller agrees to any price (including zero) customers are paying. For about ten years researchers empirically investigate customer reactions to and economic outcomes of this pricing method. The present paper distinguishes PWYW from other voluntary payment mechanisms and reviews 72 English-or German-speaking PWYW publications, which appeared between January 2006 and September 2016 and contain 97 independent empirical data sets. Prior PWYW research is structured with the help of a conceptual framework which incorporates payment procedure design, buyer, seller, focal sales object and market context characteristics as factors potentially influencing customer perceptions of the PWYW scheme and their behavioral reactions to PWYW offers. The review discusses both consistent key findings as well as contradictory results and derives recommendations for future empirical PWYW research efforts.

The label ‘green electricity’ is commonly used to refer to power generated from various renewable natural sources (e.g. wind). The present article develops hypotheses on the effects of eight attitudinal and perceptual characteristics of residential electricity consumers on their propensity to adopt a green electricity supplier. The hypotheses are tested empirically with data generated by means of a standardized telephone survey of 267 household electricity customers of a German regional power supplier. Questionnaire answers are augmented with information derived from the supplier's billing system on a participant's actual annual electricity consumption. Measurement and structural relationship models are obtained via Partial Least Squares analysis. Regardless of a person's level of actual power consumption in the recent past, propensity to adopt green electricity is most strongly influenced by general consumer attitudes towards environmental protection issues and social endorsement of green power use by close social contacts. In the subsample of participants with low actual electricity consumption, the propensity to purchase green energy is significantly positively affected by the weight an individual attaches to electricity prices in supplier selection decisions and the person's belief that his current electricity supplier takes over social responsibility. In contrast, in the subsample of respondents with high actual electricity consumption consumer's willingness to adopt green electricity is significantly enhanced by the degree of perceived dissimilarity among power company offerings. The identification of factors influencing the adoption of green electricity offers both practical implications for marketers of utilities and contributes to the academic knowledge base of a service domain characterized by increasing societal importance.

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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate intangible disclosure quality (IDQ) in an international sample of 29 stock-quoted telecommunications network operators (TNOs). IDQ is captured separately for annual reports and websites of TNOs using a set of seven intangible asset categories. The article also explores associations between annual report and website IDQ on the one hand and variables interpreted either as IDQ antecedents (e.g. firm size) or as IDQ performance consequences (e.g. market-to-book ratio) on the other. Design/methodology/approach -TNOs' 2003 or 2003/2004 annual reports and TNOs' websites (as of May 2005) were subjected to content analytical procedures in order to quantify sample firms' disclosure quality levels for seven categories of intangible assets derived from a framework suggested by the Deutsche Schmalenbach Gesellschaft für Betriebswirtschaft eV. Findings -Both annual report and website IDQ levels of TNOs were relatively low. Intangible disclosures were often limited to small pieces of qualitative information. Annual report and website IDQ are significantly positively interrelated. IDQ varies significantly by the home region of the TNO, with European TNOs displaying higher quality levels than their American counterparts. IDQ measures were not significantly related to TNOs' financial performance criteria. Research limitations/implications -Research limitations result from the study's single industry focus, small sample size and the limited range of variables investigated as potential IDQ antecedents/consequences. Practical implications -TNOs get insights on IDQ within their industry. Regulators/standard setting accounting institutions are encouraged to encounter industry-specific intangible characteristics by industry-focused intangible measurement rules in addition to an overall intangible reporting framework. Originality/value -This study is the first investigation that simultaneously analyzes IDQ both in a firm's annual report and on its website. Further, it is unique in its use of uni-and multivariate analytical techniques exploring IDQ antecedents/consequences and in its single industry/TNO focus.

This study examined dimensions and levels of career orientations and their correlation with work-related outcome criteria among industrial R&D professionals. Questionnaire data were obtained in 11 West German, 4 British, and 2 US R&D units of large industrial companies. Respondents were 729 West German, 2 17 British, and 124 US scientists and engineers. Managerial career orientation and professional/scientific career orientation emerged from factor and scale analyses as two independent orientation dimensions with similar meaning across the three countries and the 17 R&D organizations. Results indicated significant cross-country differences in levels of professional/scientific career orientation, but not in levels of managerial career orientation. Significant differences in levels of both orientation dimensions were detected between R&D units within countries. Distinctive characteristics of West German firms employing R&D staff with particularly strong professional/scientific or managerial career orientations are suggested. Managerial and professional/scientific career orientations were found to be differentially related to objective indicators and self-ratings of research performance. Directions for future research and managerial implications for selecting and rewarding R&D employees with different patterns of career orientations are discussed. GENERAL BACKGROUNDCareer orientations (CO) of R&D professionals in large organizations are thought to be of major importance in understanding reactions of organizational scientists

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