Search results

Behavioral Finance ist ein Teilgebiet aus dem wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Forschungsfeld Behavioral Economics. Es vereint Elemente aus dem Bereich der Verhaltenspsychologie, welche die menschliche Entscheidungsfindung untersucht, mit der klassischen Kapitalmarkttheorie, um die Preis- bzw. Renditeentwicklung an den Kapitalmärkten zu erklären. Der Ansatz versucht, empirisch beobachtbare Anomalien zu erklären, die gegen die Validität der Effizienzmarkthypothese der klassischen Kapitalmarkttheorie sprechen. Der neue Erklärungsansatz "Behavioral Finance" durchleuchtet die Verhaltensmuster von Marktakteuren unter einem empirischen Blickwinkel. Dieser neue verhaltenswissenschaftliche Ansatz erhebt den Anspruch, das Geschehen auf Finanzmärkten mithilfe möglichst realitätsnaher Verhaltensannahmen zu beschreiben. Im Gegensatz zur bislang angenommenen Effizienzmarkthypothese aus der klassischen Finanztheorie erklärt die Behavioral Finance die Preisbildung auf den Kapitalmärkten nicht ausschließlich über ökonomische Faktoren wie Zahlungsströme und Zinsen, sondern über das Zusammenspiel von ökonomischen, psychologischen und soziologischen Faktoren, die im vorliegenden Aufsatz kurz dargestellt werden sollen. Die Berücksichtigung dieser zusätzlichen Einflussfaktoren im Behavioral-Finance-Ansatz führt dazu, dass Marktpreise für Finanzprodukte von den ihnen zu Grunde liegenden inneren Werten (Fundamentalwerten) über einen längeren Zeitraum abweichen können. Dies ist auch nicht verwunderlich, da bei der Bestimmung der Fundamentalwerte lediglich ökonomische Faktoren wie Zahlungsströme und Zinssätze berücksichtigt werden. Die Realität zeigt jedoch, dass auch psychologische und soziologische Faktoren eine wichtige Rolle bei der Bewertung spielen. Insofern stellt der Behavioral-Finance-Ansatz eine sinnvolle Ergänzung und Erweiterung der klassischen Kapitalmarkttheorie dar.
A main assumption of traditional financial market theory is that market participants are rational. Several studies show that investor behaviour is not always rational. In fact sometimes it is actually systematically irrational. Unlike the efficiency market hypothesis in the classical finance theory, behavioral finance does not exclusively explain the pricing of financial instruments on the basis of economic factors like payment streams and interest rates but by the interplay of economic, psychological and sociological factors which were represented in this article. The consideration of these additional factors in the behavioral finance approach is the reason that market prices of financial products can differ significantly from their fundamental values over a longer time period.
Keywords: behavioral finance als neuer erklärungsansatz für quot irrat

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an explanation for the global influences and dynamics that have led major mining companies to adopt corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies, and frame them in terms of sustainable development. Bad reputations stemming from environmental disasters and social disharmony led mining multinationals to adopt CSR policies and improve their practices. Rationalist expectations about what is driving firm responses to external pressures are a necessary, but insufficient, explanation of how and why mining companies have sought to improve their reputations. Three elements are necessary to explain firm responses, including strategic adaptation to external pressures, learning processes associated with CSR, and internalization of sustainable development norms, understood as standards of appropriate behavior.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a multidisciplinary theoretical framework for explaining the adoption of CSR policies and practices on the part of mining companies, and applies that framework to case studies of two major mining companies with global operations.FindingsAn account of learning processes and norms socialization as they relate to CSR provide a more comprehensive explanation of how and why mining companies adopt CSR policies. Incorporation of these elements provides a better explanation of why mining companies began to frame their CSR policies in terms of the global norm of sustainable development.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the theoretical understanding of how and why firms adapt to changing societal expectations about appropriate corporate behavior by integrating two sets of literatures; constructivism from international relations theory, and learning from organization theory.

PurposeAcculturation theory shows how foreign actors have evolved in Japanese television commercials. If advertising mirrors culture, foreign businesses trying to advertise products in Japan need to be aware of societal changes and tailor their messages to the preferences of the local population. This paper aims to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachContent analysis explores the changing role of foreign female actors in Japanese television advertising for the years 1992 and 2002. Advertisements' setting, roles, appeals, and verbal and nonverbal communications are tested by chi‐square analysis.FindingsAds from the 2002 data set show increases in both traditional and modern themes in regards to the location of the ads, roles foreign females play, the advertising appeals, and the use of Japanese communication modalities. The findings suggest that advertisers are consciously or unconsciously incorporating cultural assimilation when ads include foreign actors.Research limitations/implicationsAcculturation theory is useful for explaining cultural shifts to develop more effective advertising messages. Differences in portrayals of foreign people in advertising reflect changes in cultural values that appear to be changing more rapidly due to global trade and communication technology innovations.Practical implicationsRecognizing shifts in cultural norms allows marketers to more effectively communicate with target audiences. Advertisers employing foreign actors may find their messages more effective if local cultural assimilation is used.Originality/valueThis paper identifies and examines changes in communication modalities to show foreign actors displaying Japanese mannerisms. The evidence suggests cultural norms evolve sometimes quickly over time. Even advertisers using a localized approach must carefully monitor changes in cultural norms to assure message effectiveness.

PurposeSuccessfully implementing and exploiting the right information technologies is critical to maintaining competitiveness in today's supply chain. However, simply adopting off‐the‐shelf technologies may not necessarily induce this competitiveness unless the organization combines these technologies with additional complimentary resources. This study draws on the logistics innovation literature, resource‐advantage theory, and the resource‐based view of the firm with the purpose of investigating performance outcomes of logistics information technology (LIT) adoption and the proposed moderating effect of a complimentary resource. The paper posits that combining LIT with positive buyer‐supplier relationships may set the stage for organizations to achieve competitive advantage.Design/methodology/approachA meta‐analysis of 48 studies that report outcomes of EDI or RFID adoption was performed. Regression was used to investigate the moderating effect of the buyer‐supplier relationship on the relationship between LIT adoption and performance outcomes.FindingsThe findings suggest that adoption of LIT promotes enhanced levels of effectiveness, efficiency, and resiliency for the adopting firm and that the quality of the buyer‐supplier relationship moderates the degree of efficiency and resiliency realized via adoption.Research limitations/implicationsThe results of this study suggest that adoption of a logistics innovation by itself may not necessarily produce a sustained competitive advantage. Instead, when combined with complimentary firm resources, the innovation may yield a sustained competitive advantage for the adopting firm.Originality/valueLogistics innovation needs greater theoretical development in the literature. This research extends a foundational logistics innovation model by incorporating relevant theory to propose and test an additional dimension of the model.

The predominant justification for most intellectual property rights is the incentive theory or utilitarian rationale. Behind this justification lies the Western idea of progress and its derivatives: liberalism, capitalism, and consumerism. After having shown that the predominant justification for intellectual property rights is the incentive theory, which rests on the idea of progress, this Article traces back the history of the idea and shows its parochialism in both time and space. The Article next shows that the progress ideology rests on assumptions that are either wrong or impossible to prove and therefore propounds that it must be abandoned, or if not, at least deeply rethought or reformed. This Article proposes the values of happiness, peace, necessity, and sustainability as an alternative basis for patents and related rights. These universal values give a legitimate and solid foundation to patents and related rights. The Article suggests ways to integrate the new justification in the substantive law, and counters the arguments against the new justification.In order to answer the question this Article addresses, it is necessary to take both a historical and philosophical perspective. As intellectual property rights are Western in origin, this Article takes a Western perspective by reviewing the two most representative Western legal systems, the European Union and the United States. The philosophical and economic history of the West is compared with that of the Muslim world and some Asian countries, namely China and Japan, because they also represent a very large part of the world.

This article makes a theoretical analysis on the mechanisms that influence governments elections, likewise the collective action in decentralized networks as ways from which citizens can regulate the political decisions and, through these, also regulate economic decisions within the framework of capitalist globalization. Mechanisms on the first track are analyzed based on theory principal-agent, and on the second one, from the theory of social networks. In both cases, the difficulty lies in the effective implementation of the devices for the achievement of the proposed objectives. On these mechanisms, it is possible to identify some conditions to bring effectiveness and power to citizen political action, which are related to the new sociopolitical dynamics. ; En el artículo se hace un análisis teórico sobre los mecanismos que inciden en las elecciones de gobierno así como la acción colectiva en redes descentralizadas como vías a partir de las cuales los ciudadanos pueden regular las decisiones políticas y, por medio de estas, las decisiones económicas, en el marco de la globalización capitalista. Los mecanismos en torno a la primera vía son analizados con base en la teoría principal-agente, y los referidos a la segunda, a partir de la teoría de redes sociales. En ambos casos, la dificultad radica en la efectiva aplicación de los dispositivos para el logro de los fines propuestos. Sobre estos mecanismos es posible identificar algunas condiciones necesarias para que la acción política ciudadana adquiera efectividad y poder, las cuales están relacionadas con las nuevas dinámicas sociopolíticas.

In South Africa the patient uses both the traditional healers and biomedical personnel's services out of need for the best healing therapy to fulfil his/ her health needs. Failure of one to yield the expected results leads to the use of the other. This shunting back and forth prompted the researcher to undertake research and formulated a model demonstrating how the traditional healers can be incorporated into the National Health Care Delivery System of South Africa. The research used both qualitative and theory generating designs to attain the set objective. Firstly, a qualitative research design used semi-structured interviews to investigate the perceptions and attitudes of biomedical personnel, traditional healers, patients and policy makers, regarding the process of incorporation. A non-probable purposive voluntary sample was used, selection was done according to a set criteria. Data was analysed and the results of phase one as well as initial literature review were used to construct a conceptual framework for the model. Secondly, a theory generating design was employed using the three phases of Dickoff, James and Wiedenbach (1968:435) to formulate a model which was systematically, logically and consistently conceptualized. In evaluation of this model a predetermined criteria was used. The results showed that the constructed model demonstrated the government formulating policy to legalize traditional healing and affording the traditional healers legal authority to be official partners to the biomedical personnel and avail the quality health care services that fulfils the patients health needs using the primary health care approach.

In South Africa the patient uses both the traditional healers and biomedical personnel's services out of need for the best healing therapy to fulfil his/ her health needs. Failure of one to yield the expected results leads to the use of the other. This shunting back and forth prompted the researcher to undertake research and formulated a model demonstrating how the traditional healers can be incorporated into the National Health Care Delivery System of South Africa. The research used both qualitative and theory generating designs to attain the set objective. Firstly, a qualitative research design used semi-structured interviews to investigate the perceptions and attitudes of biomedical personnel, traditional healers, patients and policy makers, regarding the process of incorporation. A non-probable purposive voluntary sample was used, selection was done according to a set criteria. Data was analysed and the results of phase one as well as initial literature review were used to construct a conceptual framework for the model. Secondly, a theory generating design was employed using the three phases of Dickoff, James and Wiedenbach (1968:435) to formulate a model which was systematically, logically and consistently conceptualized. In evaluation of this model a predetermined criteria was used. The results showed that the constructed model demonstrated the government formulating policy to legalize traditional healing and affording the traditional healers legal authority to be official partners to the biomedical personnel and avail the quality health care services that fulfils the patients health needs using the primary health care approach.

I argue for a conception of health as a person's ability to achieve or exercise a cluster of basic human activities. These basic activities are in turn specified through free-standing ethical reasoning about what constitutes a minimal conception of a human life with equal human dignity in the modern world. I arrive at this conception of health by closely following and modifying Lennart Nordenfelt's theory of health which presents health as the ability to achieve vital goals. Despite its strengths I transform Nordenfelt's argument in order to overcome three significant drawbacks. Nordenfelt makes vital goals relative to each community or context and significantly reflective of personal preferences. By doing so, Nordenfelt's conception of health faces problems with both socially relative concepts of health and subjectively defined wellbeing. Moreover, Nordenfelt does not ever explicitly specify a set of vital goals. The theory of health advanced here replaces Nordenfelt's (seemingly) empty set of preferences and society-relative vital goals with a human species-wide conception of basic vital goals, or 'central human capabilities and functionings'. These central human capabilities come out of the capabilities approach (CA) now familiar in political philosophy and economics, and particularly reflect the work of Martha Nussbaum. As a result, the health of an individual should be understood as the ability to achieve a basic cluster of beings and doings-or having the overarching capability, a meta-capability, to achieve a set of central or vital inter-related capabilities and functionings.

La aplicación de la filosofía de Gilles Deleuze en el ámbito arqueológico permite superar la dicotomía entre procesualismo y posprocesualismo, abriendo la puerta a un pensamiento diferente. Su teoría facilita la recepción de las ideas de las diferentes teorías de la complejidad, gracias a su carácter realista y a la priorización de la ontología sobre la epistemología. Este movimiento nos permite superar el giro simétrico y las distintas oposiciones binarias que subyacen al pensamiento arqueológico, como estructura-proceso, sujeto-objeto, verdad-valor o identidad-diferencia. A la vez, intentamos replantear algunas esferas de la disciplina arqueológica a través de una crítica de su conformación interna y externa, con lo que intentamos abrir el espectro de interpretaciones arqueológicas posibles. Abstract The paper suggests that the politically informed complex philosophy of Gilles Deleuze can enable archaeologists to overcome the dichotomy between processualism and postprocessualism, opening the door to different kinds of archaeological thinking. His philosophy facilitates the reception and translation into the social sciences of the ideas coming from complexity theory, thanks to his realist stance and his prioritization of ontological over epistemological concerns. This move allows us to overcome the 'symmetric turn' and the different dichotomies underlying current archaeological thought, such as structure-process, subject-object, identity-difference, truth-value, or self-other. Finally, the paper rethinks some areas of archaeological theory through a critique of the internal and external conformation of the discipline, aiming at opening the spectrum of available interpretative frameworks. ; Peer reviewed

This thesis focuses on the concept of International Voluntary Service in developing countries. Since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been an enormous increase in volunteers from the Western World participating in this form of Voluntary Service. What are the reasons and motivations for this enlargement? Are we on the threshold of a Global Civil Society, supported by the tremendous growth of non-governmental organizations in the last decade, paving the way for a more altruistic human coexistence and intercultural understanding? Or, is it rather self service of Western populations based on questionable generosity? What roles do state interests play in this regard and to which extent are the histories of colonialism and imperialism reflected? These are the central questions which will be investigated. At the beginning, two theories are presented dialectically: The theory of global learning and civic engagement will be explained on the one hand and the theory of a concealed concept of elitism, state interest and imperialism will be explained on the other. The central question of the thesis asks in what way these two theories apply to International Voluntary Service in Developing Countries. To assess this question, the historical pathway of International Voluntary is first explored. The second step analyzes the state-funded German International Voluntary program Weltwärts as a case study, based on official documents and an empirical survey. Finally, an analysis of the program is conducted by questioning the central theoretical categories of elitism, state interest, and imperialism, as well as civic engagement and global learning. (DIPF/author)

This paper assesses the impact of the current changes in international conflicts on the ethics of war. It shows how the fact that interstate wars tend to be superseded by irregular wars is both a moral and political challenge that democracies now have to face. The effects of the changes in international law on the ethics of war will also be analysed. The "Grotian" law of war, based on the theory of the just war inherited from ancient times, initially put limits to resorting to strength while considering the war death toll. The armed conflicts law, which is a specific part of the international humanitarian law, regards war as a pathology which may justify military intervention if it is motivated by humanitarian reasons. Two logics are here confronted: they correspond to two different definitions of the just war. According to the classic approach which was developed by Grotius, the war is just when it complies to a number of normative criteria, and implies a conflict waged according to set rules between states which recognise one another as lawful entities. In the new approach, the war is just if it means an intervention where human rights and democracy are under threat. The armies of democratic states gradually have to adjust to this new state of affairs. The traditional soldier's ethics, which used to be grounded in the chivalry ideal and the virtue-theory now competes with a deontology applied to the war-waging profession, according to which moral dilemmas are solved by a discourse on professional competence. Adapted from the source document.

In the immediate aftermath of his 2010 election as the newest senator from Utah, Mike Lee spoke before a crowd of enthusiastic practitioners, scholars, and students at the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention. Senator Lee focused on the role of Congress in constitutional interpretation, and he ended his remarks with the following pledge: "I will not vote for a single piece of legislation that I can't reconcile with the text and the original understanding of the U.S. Constitution." The senator's pledge highlights a remarkable fact about American constitutionalism today: Only a generation removed from the constitutional revisions of the Warren and Burger Courts, originalism has not only established itself as a respectable interpretive theory in the federal judiciary, but it has also been taken up by some members of Congress. Such a state of affairs was unthinkable decades ago when, as Judge Robert Bork characterized the conventional wisdom of the era, lawyers came to "expect that the nature of the Constitution [would] change, often quite dramatically, as the personnel of the Supreme Court change[d]." But it was precisely because of an article by then-Professor Bork that so much has changed and that Senator Lee's pledge was possible. Bork's 1971 article in the Indiana Law Journal, "Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems," is widely recognized as having launched modern originalist theory. Thus, having just passed the 40th anniversary of that landmark essay, it is appropriate that we survey how modern originalism began, how it has changed, and what challenges lie ahead. Adapted from the source document.

Artykuł analizuje koncepcję partycypacji obywatelskiej opartej na ideach demokracji deliberatywnej i komunikacyjnego budowania sfery publicznej. Wokół idei demokracji deliberatywnej koncentrują się obecnie wiodące debaty dotyczące współczesnych teorii demokracji, społeczeństwa obywatelskiego i wielokulturowości. Deliberacja jest postrzegana również jako najlepszy sposób walki z deficytem demokracji w ramach systemu politycznego Unii Europejskiej. W przeciwieństwie do teorii demokracji zorganizowanej wokół instytucji głosowania, zwolennicy deliberacji wskazują, że tylko deliberacja w sferze publicznej może służyć legitymizowanemu stanowieniu prawa. W artykule dokonano zestawienia dwóch paradygmatycznych ujęć deliberacji: dyskursowej koncepcji Jürgena Habermasa i deliberacji wynikłej z Hobbesowskiego sposobu ujmowania języka i mowy. Pozwala to uwidocznić fakt, że ze znaczenia, jakie nadaje się deliberacji, wyniknąć mogą odmienne wizje państwa i sfery publicznej. The article explores the idea of deliberative citizen's participation and the communicative building of public sphere. The idea of deliberative democracy is at the center of current debates on theories of democracy, civil society, multiculturalism. It is seen as the best way to overcome the democratic deficit in the political system of EU. In contrast to the traditional theory of democracy which emphasize voting as a central institution of democracy, the proponents of deliberative democracy argue that legitimate lawmaking can arise only from public deliberation. The article contrasts two ways of understanding deliberations: the discursive conception of Jürgen Habermas and the idea of deliberation based on the Hobbesian theory of language. The aim is to show that the vision of the state and public sphere is closely related to the concept of deliberation.