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Studies have repeatedly documented the cost of ruling: governing parties generally suffer electoral defeats. We approach this empirical law of political science from the perspective of another empirical law: the incumbency bonus, the fact that incumbents get more media attention than the opposition. Our claim is that the bonus constitutes an electoral liability because it reflects the critical approach of media to government power. News featuring incumbents is therefore associated with a more negative tone than news featuring the opposition. This incumbency burden in turn affects government support negatively. Empirically, we draw on an extensive news corpus covering four European countries over two decades, combined with monthly poll data. Analyses show that the incumbency burden in political news is an empirical reality, and that variations in the burden contribute substantially to predictions of government support. Finally, the negative burden effect is stronger for single‐party cabinets, but stable throughout government tenure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consequences of economic globalization on electoral outcomes have recently become a prominent topic of research. We complement the emerging literature on this topic by studying whether changes in a subnational region's trade competitiveness affect the incumbent's vote share in that region. Using a novel dataset that relates subnational trade competitiveness to election results in 29 countries over a 20‐year period, we show that this is indeed the case. We also show that this effect is most pronounced for elections where the clarity of responsibility is high. Finally, we find mixed evidence for a moderating effect of incumbents' economic ideology as a moderator. These findings also contribute to the broader economic voting literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the peak‐end rule to economic voting, finding that voters focus on peak and end economic growth when evaluating incumbents. Cross‐national data from 595 elections in 70 countries (1960–2020) shows that the average of the highest GDP growth rate during the term and the growth rate in the election year positively impacts incumbent vote share, with peak growth having a stronger effect. Instrumental variable analysis addresses endogeneity. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that less‐educated voters rely more on the peak‐end rule. The findings contribute to understanding voters' behavioral patterns and improving democratic accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates factors influencing the reelection prospects of Brazilian mayors. Analyzing a comprehensive data set spanning 5114 municipalities across four elections reveals that increases in investment and current expenditures before elections pay off at the polls. Moreover, higher average investment expenditures throughout the term enhance reelection chances. The results also indicate that when former term‐limited mayors run against the incumbent, reelection probability diminishes, particularly with higher average investment by the previous mayor. Finally, the level of literacy shapes voter attitudes towards opportunistic fiscal strategies: voters with limited literacy are inclined to reward increases in current expenditures, whereas more educated populations prefer increasing investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background: The literature on celebrity politics often asserts that celebrity politicians are good at fundraising. They are wealthy people in wealthy social networks, and this should give them a fundraising advantage compared to their noncelebrity opponents. Yet, this hypothesis has never been tested. Method: Fundraising data from 1964 to 2022 was collected from multiple sources. Results: This study finds that celebrity candidates are typically not able to out‐fundraise their opponents. Yet they perform remarkably well despite this disadvantage. Conclusions: Celebrities tend to win elections when they raise more money than their opponents, run in open‐seat contests or local elections. They tend to lose elections when they lose the fundraising battle, challenge incumbents, or seek federal offices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an industry with homogeneous goods, this note compares the standard incumbent's strategic capacity choice versus the incumbent's pre‐emptive payment (profit) transfer (PPT) strategy (i.e., pre‐entry acquisition). It is shown that via the transfer option, the incumbent holds its monopoly position "dissuading" the potential competitor entry for a range of fixed costs larger than under strategic capacity. Moreover, in that range, at least one firm is better off under PPT, while the other is indifferent between PPT and capacity choice. That is, in contestable markets, the incumbent can keep its dominant position in an easier way than standard models predict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circular economy (CE) has emerged as a sustainable alternative to the current "take, make, waste" linear approach. Although prior studies have highlighted the salience of collaborative efforts between start‐ups and incumbents, little is known about the mechanisms behind collaboration in a CE context. This study enhances our understanding of the topic by drawing on six cases of circular start‐ups (CSUs) operating in the United Kingdom's business‐to‐business market and investigating the mechanisms by which start‐ups collaborate with incumbents. Using the Context, Intervention, Mechanism, Outcome framework, the paper's findings demonstrate that CE does not necessitate high‐risk and expensive changes and show that CSUs can collaborate with incumbents in low‐risk ways by outsourcing and developing service contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does austerity influence incumbent support? Existing studies struggle with conceptualizing the evolution of austerity's impact over time, estimating a causal effect, and analysing the reactions of different voters. This study theorizes that the effect of austerity on electoral preferences is not immediate, but gradual, as voters find out about the measures' consequences via the media. It leverages a survey in the field at the time of the austerity announcement in Romania in 2010, additional survey data collected immediately after this event and comprehensive daily media coverage to show that austerity measures do not have an immediate impact on incumbent support, anticipated turnout and expressing a vote preference. Instead, there is a gradual effect that is associated with increased media attention to budgetary cuts. This natural experiment allows the estimation of the immediate causal effect of austerity on electoral intentions. Difference‐in‐differences (DID) models show that the announcement triggered a massive loss of support for the incumbent among those who had voted for the party in power only a few months before. Austerity also led to the demobilization of the governing party's supporters. There is no evidence that those most directly affected by the spending cuts are more likely to punish the incumbent party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies have documented incumbency advantage for electoral candidates. A largely unrelated strand of literature has shown that perceived competence of candidates, as inferred from their physical appearance, also predicts their electoral success. We draw upon the framework of statistical discrimination and the dual‐system theory of human cognition to understand the relationship between a political candidate's vote share, physical appearance, and incumbency status. Voters possess relatively richer information about incumbents compared to challengers. Perceived competence of candidates, as inferred from their physical appearance, is therefore expected to have a relatively weaker influence on voters' decisions to vote for incumbents. Data from Australian state elections support this prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of the incumbent state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) on the births of new private‐owned enterprises (POEs) in China is a central concern for the government and society. In this paper, we apply agglomeration theories to distinguish the linkages between SOEs and POEs. Using China's 2008 economic census, the 2007 Input‐Output Table, and the 2005 population census, we measure the formation of new POEs at the city‐industry level, and the agglomeration forces of distance proximity to inputs, outputs, labor, and technology. More explicitly, we measure the extent to which local SOEs provide relevant inputs, consume outputs, employ similar workers, and use similar technology. Our findings indicate that overall, incumbent SOEs hinder the formation of new POEs. For manufacturing, the entry of new POEs is significantly lower in places where more upstream SOEs are concentrated. For services, the entry of new POEs is significantly lower in places where more upstream and downstream SOEs are concentrated. However, the agglomeration effects from the incumbent POEs are either insignificant or significantly positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What makes some challenger parties succeed and others fail? Existing research on party‐level factors finds that it is essential for parties to close a representational gap. However, this condition cannot be sufficient. For each successful challenger, there are many others proclaiming a similar message but going unheard. Hence, we argue that, instead of only to the messages, more attention should be paid to parties' abilities to communicate their messages effectively. Using an original dataset on 74 challenger parties in five countries in a similar political and economic situation (during the post‐2008 economic crisis), we show that communication is key for electoral success. In particular, we show that challenger parties can win over voters by, on the one hand, harnessing the prominence of a well‐known personality (a locomotive) and by, on the other hand, establishing a means of contacting voters which bypasses the traditional news media and amplifies their message (like a megaphone). But this megaphone only works if it amplifies a message that fills a representational gap (here: an anti‐austerity message) – only then do parties benefit. Furthermore, we provide evidence for the widespread but unproven claim that populism helps challenger parties succeed, but this, too, depends on whether parties are able to contact voters on a large scale. By including three crucial aspects of communication (sender, channel, and message), we can explain a large share of the high variability in challenger party success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies how three sets of regional factors—knowledge, agglomeration, and openness—impact and interact differently with startups and incumbent firms in their innovative capacity building. Based on a large dataset of Chinese high‐tech firms, regression analysis shows that the speed of growing startup innovative capacity relies positively on regional knowledge stock and localization economies. In addition to regional knowledge stock, incumbent innovative capacity building benefits from urbanization economies and regional openness. Favorable regional factors, including the presence of universities and the clustering of knowledge‐intensive peers, also enable startups (but not incumbents) to leverage internal knowledge assets into their innovative capacity. The results suggest that it is not only the access to the external knowledge environment but also proactive endeavors to cross‐fertilize between internal and external knowledge that underlie the eco‐systemic nature of startup innovative capacity building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides evidence about location and colocation patterns of manufacturing entrepreneurship and spatial scope of agglomeration economies in the context of a developing country. Using microgeographic data for all Brazilian manufacturing activities and distance‐based measures, we find clear patterns of colocalization between entrants and existing establishments, and that these patterns occur mainly at short distances. For activities presenting colocalization between entrants and existing establishments, our results also indicate that a greater number of incumbent establishments in a given location positively affects the number of entrant establishments that decide to locate there, an effect that attenuates rapidly with distance (generally disappearing after 5 km). This pattern of attenuation is robust to both the inclusion of a comprehensive set of controls for observable and unobservable local characteristics and the use of instrumental variables to address remaining endogeneity concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains American religious groups' views of Nazi Germany before the U.S. entered the Second World War? Using a comparative‐historical approach, we employ a novel set of data on 25 of America's most prominent religious denominations to answer this question. We find that two factors were crucial in explaining religious elite discourse about Hitler in the U.S. in 1935: whether leaders believed in white supremacy and whether their denominations were incumbents or challengers in the American religious field. Our findings underscore the growing theoretical consensus that racial resentment is key to support for authoritarianism and call attention to religious groups' complicity in its growth, both active and passive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pay‐for‐delay patent settlements, in which the incumbent patentee pays a potential entrant to withdraw a patent challenge and stay out of the market, cost patients and taxpayers billions of dollars in higher pharmaceutical prices. We show that in markets with one incumbent and several entrants, the possibility of conditioning such settlements on litigation outcomes against other entrants results in the exclusion of all entrants from the market. When conditional contracts are infeasible, the incumbent licenses the patent or fights entry in court: the resulting competition benefiting consumers. Prohibiting all pay‐for‐delay settlements increases litigation and may harm consumers by reducing licensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent literature argues that with ever‐increasing levels of supranational constraints governments have less 'room to manoeuvre'; therefore, voters will place less weight on policy outcomes in their voting decisions. The question that remains less explored is how voters fill this accountability gap. We argue that, in this context, voters may move away from outcome‐ to input‐oriented voting. Fulfilling their promises becomes less vital for incumbents as long as they exhibit effort to overturn an unpopular policy framework. We test this argument against a survey experiment conducted in the run‐up to the September 2015 election in Greece, where we find a positive impact of the incumbent's exerted effort to challenge the status quo of austerity on vote intention for SYRIZA – the senior coalition government partner at the time – despite the failed outcome of the government's bailout negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leveraging an asset‐sharing operating model, sharing economy platforms have disrupted incumbent firms in many industries. This research draws on the asset orchestration perspective to examine incumbents' asset orchestration (i.e., operational and governance actions) as they respond to threats from the sharing economy and the effectiveness of these actions in curbing a sharing economy firm's performance. We also analyze how the sharing economy firm's competitive moves counteract incumbents' asset orchestration responses. Our longitudinal empirical analysis in the accommodation industry demonstrates that the growth of sharing economy increases incumbent hotels' asset‐based operational actions, which reduce the sharing economy's performance. Although incumbents' asset governance actions increase as the local sharing economy grows, they do not seem to hinder sharing economy's performance. This research highlights the role of asset orchestration in the competition between incumbents and the sharing economy and contributes to the operations and sharing economy literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some societies embrace innovative technologies, policies, and ideas, while others are slow to adopt, and some even resist, them? Incumbent producers are most likely to be affected by certain kinds of innovations; they also wield a disproportionate influence in the design of institutions and policies that encourage or limit their adoption. We show formally that the elite has four cardinal policy options: to appropriate the innovation for itself; to encourage its adoption; to tax, regulate, or limit the innovation; or to block it. We show that six features of an innovation determine how it is received: (i) whether it is easy to replicate; (ii) whether it complements or competes with the elite's sources of income; (iii) whether its impact is broad or narrow; (iv) whether it is location‐dependent, and (v) concealable; (vi) whether it requires large fixed costs. While other works have occasionally considered one of these factors, we show where each feature comes from, and we assess them systematically and together. We provide illustrative evidence of the relevance and generality of the model to understand the fate of a variety of innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though many scholars find that incumbent party legislators benefit from higher access to distributive resources than opposition ones, there is less attention on how resources are distributed among opposition districts. In most contexts, opposition districts cannot be fully cut off from funds and opposition legislators get credit for spending in their constituencies, which harms the ruling party. I argue that, in such situations, the incumbent party will discriminate between its own legislators and opposition ones but this discrimination will be based on opposition swing districts being punished rather than opposition strongholds. Using data on federal development funds from Pakistan and fixed‐effects estimators, I show that the difference in funds between opposition and ruling party legislators is driven by opposition swing districts while their core areas have similar access as the incumbent party's own districts. The findings further our understanding of distributive politics and have potential implications for long‐term development patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electoral dominance of "quality" candidates—political insiders with a history of holding office—is well‐established. However, research on the recent rise in successful political neophytes is less studied. Despite longstanding trends in the predominance of experienced candidates in primary elections, nearly half of all quality candidates who ran in non‐incumbent races lost to a candidate without prior electoral experience in 2018. In this article, we investigate the success of political newcomers in elections for the U.S. House of Representatives by examining a topic often overlooked in the growing literature on primaries: campaign finance. We show that, from 2016 to 2020, political newcomers saw (1) greater success in future fundraising, and (2) an increased likelihood of primary election victory when they garnered more early contributions from outside their district. This contrasts with prior elections, where early money from inside a candidate's own congressional district served as the strongest predictor of future fundraising and electoral success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do voters place their trust in tried and tested leaders when uncertainty is high or do they prefer a new slate of leaders who are arguably more competent? To study this question, we make use of hand‐collected data on 402,385 candidates who competed in open‐list local council elections (1996–2020) in Bavaria. The 2020 elections took place at the dawn of the Covid‐19 pandemic, a time of high uncertainty about the future course of events. Using local heterogeneity in Covid‐19 outbreaks and related school/daycare closures to proxy the degree of perceived uncertainty across Bavarian municipalities, we show with a difference‐in‐differences design that councilors' incumbency advantage declined more in exposed municipalities. This decrease in the incumbency advantage is limited to male and non‐university educated incumbents, resulting in shifted patterns of political selection. Overall, we conclude that voters select more competent politicians when they face uncertainty about the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using firm‐level customs data from 51 countries at different levels of development, we explore differential impacts of access to finance on incumbent and new exporters. Consistent with the literature, firms in sectors more dependent on external finance have higher exports based in financially more developed countries. This effect, however, occurs entirely through entrants, with no effect found for incumbents. The trade response of entrants works primarily through the extensive margin (number of exporters) rather than the intensive margin (average size). We further find access to external finance affects exporter entry rates while it does not affect exporter exit rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Reapportionment and the attendant process of redistricting cause instances where incumbents are faced with the decision to retire or run against a congressional colleague. We investigate two major questions surrounding the previously understudied population of dueling incumbent primaries: First, under what conditions is a dueling incumbent primary likely to manifest? Second, how are dueling incumbent primaries different from the typical primary featuring a single incumbent? Methods: We address these questions using a novel dataset aggregating descriptive congressional district information on these contests from 1962 to 2016, and separately for 2022. Results: Our findings show these contests primarily emerge via electoral retrenchment, meaning a state loses representation in reapportionment. Dueling incumbent primaries also arise from the strategic calculations of partisan line drawers. Conclusions: Not only do dueling incumbent primaries comprise a disproportionate share of incumbent defeats, but compared to single incumbent contests, primary duels feature very high redrawn constituencies, voters new to these incumbents, and this reality contributes to the high‐risk/reward nature of these rare but electorally consequential contests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the promises of the circular economy to become an attractive source of innovation, many firms have so far hesitated to pursue circular innovations. Incumbents are facing a dilemma: While circular innovations may be potentially disruptive to the current profitable linear business, standing still may be dangerous, as traditional businesses may be rendered obsolete in the current changing environment. Yet, the literature has so far provided only a few insights into how firms can approach circular innovations strategically. By using the lens of disruptive innovation, we offer a strategic analysis of circular innovation challenges and potential ways to overcome them. Based on two in‐depth cases, we show how a separate organizational structure can help to implement potentially disruptive circular innovation, but some caveats exist. In addition, this structural separation should be linked with a clear innovation strategy, and the partnerships, organizational culture, and competencies needed for implementation should also be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we formulate a mixed oligopoly model with many public firms and the consumer's cognition of the CSR activity of private firms. We show that the privatization wave will be beneficial for incumbent firms while harming consumers; more importantly, from the perspective of social welfare, consumer cognition on CSR will suppress any privatization wave, while whether the degree of "Cheap‐Talk" CSR suppresses or boosts the privatization wave depends on the degree of "Cheap‐Talk" CSR and the number of incumbent public firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of economic conditions on election outcomes is well established. This paper supplements the standard approach to economic voting by assessing government support from a highly debated perspective of European spaces: Core countries and Periphery countries (Central Eastern European and Southern countries). The paper reveals that the economic conditions perceived by voters in the future are expected to differently affect incumbent government support depending on the macroeconomic position of the country. This paper finds that, contrary to Core countries' electors, voters in periphery countries are keener to support the incumbent governments if the economic outputs are positive. It concludes that positive economic expectations are strongly and positively associated with incumbent government support, regardless of previous vote choice, while negative economic expectations are strongly and negatively associated with government support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do incumbents have an electoral advantage and if so, do these advantages differ across gender? In this study, I estimate the electoral advantages enjoyed by incumbents in 10 Canadian federal elections, across 3059 ridings, from 1990 to 2021. Using a regression discontinuity design, I compare men and women who have very narrowly won or lost elections on three different indicators: propensity to run again, probability of winning the next election, and vote share. I find that women incumbents are just as likely to run again in subsequent elections as men incumbents. However, women who lose an election appear to be more likely to quit politics compared to men who lose an election. I do not find clear incumbency effects for probability of winning at the next election and vote share. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are courts used to erode democracy? Using the literature on democratic backsliding and judicial politics as a theoretical framework, in this work, I show the path of how courts are captured by incumbents and then used to subvert democracy. Comparing some cases from the Latin American region, I contend that the judicial erosion of democracy unfolds in three interactive steps: incumbents (a) lead public attacks on the judiciary; (b) push judicial purges; and/or (c) pack the courts, then they use the new weakened high court to undermine democratic institutions legally and harass political opponents. Related Articles: Basabe‐Serrano, Santiago. 2012. "Presidential Power and the Judicialization of Politics as Determinants of Institutional Change in the Judiciary: The Supreme Court of Ecuador (1979‐2009)." Politics & Policy 40(2): 339–61. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2012.00348.x. Moreno, Erika, and Richard C. Witmer. 2015. "Where Capacity and Incentives Meet: Presidential Decree Authority and Property Rights in Latin America." Politics & Policy 43(3): 315–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12118. Nohlen, Dieter. 2009. "Constitutional Jurisdiction and the Consolidation of Democracy." Politics & Policy 37(1): 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2008.00159.x. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the urgency of decarbonising, the shipping sector has demonstrated a slow‐paced response to climate change challenges. Some frontrunner firms are engaged in sustainability‐oriented innovation processes. However, there is limited knowledge of how such processes emerge and contribute to societal sustainability transitions and what the role of technology is in companies' (re)orientation towards sustainable business models. This study contributes to filling these gaps through a comparative case study of the ongoing innovation process within an incumbent and a newcomer firm developing wind‐powered energy solutions for deep‐sea transportation. The study's findings bear implications for theory and practice. This paper's combination of a dynamic capabilities approach and a multi‐level perspective from sustainability transitions research is a conceptual novelty, enabling an understanding of the activities involved in the (re)orientation process towards sustainable business from a company's perspective, as well as broader societal and sustainability needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the tradition of using opposing concepts as a basis for organisational analysis, this article advances a theory‐based understanding of incumbent firms in sustainability transitions. Building on seminal transition studies, we propose innovating/defending and collaborating/competing as two useful spectra to describe organisational behaviours in transitions. Presenting the automotive industry as an explanatory case, we show results from a systematic literature review that reveal motives for diverging behaviours. Combining the spectra into a 2 × 2 matrix, we then introduce four conceptualisations to explain the observed motives and behaviours. The conceptualisations are associated with different streams of organisation theory: dynamic capabilities and the resource‐based view, resource‐dependence theory, neo‐institutional theory and theories on organisational learning and path dependence. Referring to organisational ambidexterity, value configurations and political arenas, we conclude that transitions research can reach a more multifaceted understanding by challenging the prevailing notion of the firm as a coherent actor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although digital technology offers many sustainable business model opportunities, they are not always exploited. We argue that the framing of technology is still rarely considered a cognitive antecedent of business models for sustainability, despite that it offers insightful explanations, connecting technology's sustainability potential to its business model implementations. We conduct a qualitative multicase study of virtual power plants, adopted by seven incumbent companies in the German energy sector, and explore how they frame innovative digital technology, as well as how it affects their value propositions and the energy transition. Our research reveals several value proposition differences between two company groups. The first generates a single‐focused technological frame, concentrating on economic value. The second constructs a twofold digital and sustainable technological frame, resulting in additional socioenvironmental value components. Overall, companies that create a twofold frame operate as renewable energy enablers or system supporters and contribute to the energy transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes the current transnational turn in modernist studies as entry point to probe how that plays out in the classroom in non‐Western locations that are often also the "locales" of that disciplinary shift. I propose a waylaying of the energies of dispersion and diffusion that currently animate the modernist field to decolonize the modernist classroom through a parallel vagrancy, but one focused on recovering the local from these compelling taxonomic shifts. It is quite easy to be sucked under by the adrenaline rush of these expansions of new modernist studies that mirror modernism's own self–mythologies. To resist that, we need to be vagrants inside the classroom, to bring into it the choice pickings from our wider reading and research. Our fealty to the modernist archive and the professional competence incumbent on us notwithstanding, our ability to bring tentative new findings from our own research and readings, can potentially dynamize our teaching spaces, as also our commitment to a more decenterd approach. Ready embraces of belatedly discovered writers into the modernist corpus might make our taxonomies look suitably plural and fashionable but subsume the writers' own demonstrated recalcitrance to those taxonomies. Teaching modernism as a core course with a fixed, prescribed, syllabi comprising largely of the Anglo‐American presences such as Virginia Woolf and Joseph Conrad has in some ways released the itinerant in me. Through carefully culled examples from my own teaching of the modernist canon, I argue that a genuine opening of modernist studies within the classroom can come from a tempering of the 'professional' by itinerant interludes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We offer a new vantage to the literature on the role of infomediaries in incumbent firms' struggles to adopt discontinuous technologies: the perspective of news media. Specifically, we combine the discontinuous technology literature with studies on news media journalism to theorize that journalists cover an incumbent's new product introductions differently, depending on whether a given new product builds on a discontinuous technology or on the respective established, continuous technology. First, discontinuous‐technology‐based product introductions receive a greater volume of coverage than continuous‐technology‐based product introductions because journalists prefer covering issues that are novel, deviate from the conventional, and potentially strongly impact society. Second, the coverage of discontinuous‐technology‐based product introductions is more divergent in tenor than the coverage of continuous‐technology‐based product introductions, as journalists seek to present opposing and thus more engaging opinions. Our analyses of unique archival data from two samples of product introductions in the automotive and photography industries, respectively, support our hypotheses. We also find intriguing indications that news media coverage of new products introductions using hybrid technologies is significantly context‐dependent. Overall, our study points to so‐far undescribed, media‐related dilemmas for incumbent firms that aim to adopt discontinuous technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surveys are descriptive assessment tools. Like other assessment tools, the validity and reliability of the data obtained from surveys depend, in large part, on the rigor of the development process. Without validity evidence, data from surveys may lack meaning, leading to uncertainty as to how well the survey truly measures the intended constructs. In documenting the evidence for the validity of survey results and their intended use, it is incumbent on the survey creator to have a firm understanding of validity frameworks. Having an understanding of validity evidence and how each step in the survey development process can support the validity argument makes it easier for the researcher to develop, implement, and publish a high-quality survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the supply chain (SC) literature has discussed the influence of the political environment on global SC decisions, the role of political leaders has been overlooked. To fill this research void, we predict and show that the turnover of a country's top political leader (hereafter, "politician turnover") increases policy uncertainty in the country, which drives multinational corporations (MNCs) to adjust their SC involvement there. We also identify three politician‐related contingency factors: the market‐friendliness of the successor relative to the incumbent, the length of the successor's political career, and corruption in the turnover country. In an analysis of politician turnover events from 2003 to 2018 and the global supplier‐customer relationships of US‐incorporated MNCs, we find that politician turnover causes MNCs to reduce SC involvement (measured as the proportions of an MNC's customers, suppliers, and the transaction volume that are located in the turnover country). The negative effect of politician turnover on SC involvement is exacerbated by corruption in the turnover country, mitigated when the successor has a long political career, and exacerbated when the successor is less market‐friendly than the incumbent; the effect becomes positive when the successor is more market‐friendly than the incumbent. Highlights: The turnover of a country's top political leader (hereafter, "politician turnover") increases policy uncertainty in the country, which drives multinational corporations (MNCs) to, on average, reduce their supply chain involvement there in the turnover year.The effect of politician turnover on MNCs' supply chain involvement varies upon the successor and country characteristics: The negative effect on MNCs' supply chain involvement is more profound when the successor is less market‐friendly than the incumbent, the successor is with a short political career, or the country is highly corruptive; the effect turns to positive when successor is more market‐friendly than the incumbent.Policymakers can use these findings to form proactive and accurate estimations of the impacts of politician turnover on economics, employment, and even security in supply‐chain‐related sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political parties frequently form coalitions with each other to pursue office or policy payoffs. Contrary to a prominent argument, the distribution of rents within the coalition does not always reflect the relative sizes of the coalition members. We propose that this is at least partially due to an incumbency advantage in coalitional bargaining. To evaluate this argument empirically, we construct a data set of candidates, parties, and members of the executive in Finnish local governments. We first use a regression discontinuity design to document a personal incumbency advantage in nominations to executive municipal boards. We then show that an incumbency premium is present also at the party level. Using an instrumental variable strategy that hinges on within‐party close elections between incumbents and non‐incumbents, we find that, ceteris paribus, having more re‐elected incumbents increases party's seat share in the executive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Assessment provides a brief summary of its main claims and recommendations, before critiquing it on three grounds, namely that its evidence base is weak; that its market-centric data governance framework serves the interests of existing incumbents while undermining data rights; and that it misrepresents the nature of global debates on data governance and thus undermines the actual positions taken by representatives from developing countries. With regards to the econometric data, the authors acknowledge that they rely heavily on data from high-income countries and that this 'imbalance is itself a sign of the lopsided distribution of benefits deriving from data' (p. 101) and yet they still use these data to make a series of bold and broad claims. Yet, as we have demonstrated, this Report draws disproportionately on data from high-income countries, presents a model of data governance that reflects the interests of incumbent firms and countries, and actively misrepresents the voices of developing country representatives in important debates. In particular, the Report advocates that global data firms, rather than domestic firms, should play this role arguing that 'firms from larger, more connected economies - or firms that already operate across countries - with access to larger datasets will have an advantage that only grows with time' while 'firms from low- and middle-income countries are more likely to lack both access to finance to cover the initial costs of collecting and managing their data and the analytical capabilities to derive value from them' (p. 111). [Extracted from the article]

This paper studies the electoral effects of terrorism by examining a rich panel dataset on the South Tyrolean case. A Northern and predominantly German‐speaking region of Italy, South Tyrol was the theater of a long war of attrition fought between the majority language group and the Italian state for autonomy and independence. Using detailed information on the whole record of 337 terrorist attacks occurring between 1956 and 1991, I find that (i) low‐scale terror or attacks which targeted police forces negatively affected incumbent support; (ii) high‐scale terror or attacks which targeted civilians or caused deaths were conducive of rally‐round‐the‐Italian‐flag momenta; (iii) support to terrorists sensibly drops after deadly attacks. These findings highlight the role of terror intensity and violence in driving the impact of terrorism on incumbent actors and terrorist organizations and help reconcile the coexistence of seemingly contradictory effects of terrorism documented in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze entry of a firm with a new and differentiated product into a market with two properties: An existing incumbent has a captive consumer base, and all consumers have heterogeneous tastes. The interaction between the share of captive consumers and the degree of taste heterogeneity leads to nonmonotone effects of both parameters on entry: The captive share can have an inverse‐U relation with entry profits, and higher taste heterogeneity (i.e., less product substitutability) can impede entry in the presence of captive consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do citizens punish elected politicians for corruption carried out by unelected bureaucrats? Most studies of corruption punishment focus on accusations against politicians. We argue that the direct, and therefore undeniable, experience of corruption at the hands of street‐level bureaucrats will lead citizens to punish national incumbents. We explore whether this punishment of corruption is mitigated in circumstances where voters believe that politicians have less control over bureaucrats. We combine cross‐national survey data on corruption victimization and political behavior in a sample of 60 countries from Africa and Latin America. We find a robust, negative effect of personal corruption victimization on vote intention. Surprisingly, we do not identify any significant country‐level predictors of the strength of this relationship, nor do we find evidence of systematic differences in how copartisans respond to bureaucratic corruption relative to noncopartisans. Our paper contributes to the growing literature on how interaction with street‐level bureaucrats drives political behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I argue that often propositional knowledge is acquired and retained by extensive reliance on physical and social scaffolds that create an environment or niche conducive to knowledge. It is incumbent on epistemologists to subject these aids to epistemic assessments. I show that several of the activities involved in the creation of niches within which inquiry can thrive are carried out by whole cultures. New generations benefit from inheriting these niches whilst being able to improve upon them to the advantage of their descendants. Finally, I highlight that the growth of human epistemic achievements is often due to increased outsourcing of cognitive effort and epistemic powers onto impersonal physical and social structures so that human beings can succeed more by contributing less to the solution of problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power asymmetries in the governance of value chains mean that inequalities in access to resources and share of value added are skewed against smaller players. Policies enforcing market rules and ensuring fairness are ineffective when power is deeply entrenched, necessitating different rules to address such inequalities. South Africa's Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policies and competition laws target economic redress and inclusion of historically disadvantaged people in business ownership and control of economic activities. BEE criteria have been embedded in many industry charters and implementation codes, and competition law is well established and effectively implemented. Yet, the impacts of these instruments have been limited and slow, especially in sectors where a few companies dominate. This article examines the interactions between value chain dynamics and industrial fishery quota allocations, BEE policy and competition dynamics in the hake deep‐sea trawl fishery sector. It shows that, even in one of the most regulated sectors of South Africa's economy, large incumbents retain a disproportionate amount of power vis‐à‐vis smaller players. The article concludes that if rules protect incumbency, inequality will be sustained. Quota allocations, transformation and competition regulation should go hand in hand to facilitate the effective participation of black‐owned businesses as competitors in value chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines business performance and crisis‐mitigation strategies among micro, small, and medium‐sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Indonesia during the COVID‐19 pandemic. We utilise a new primary dataset based on administrative records, survey data, and follow‐up interviews with merchants using the digital application GoFood, an on‐demand cooked food delivery service. Three empirical findings emerge: first, the overall employment size of women‐owned businesses shrank more than men‐owned businesses after the onset of the pandemic; second, women were more likely than men to cut personal expenditures and use government assistance as crisis‐mitigation strategies; and third, competition increased sharply as new merchants entered the platform, with the service areas of both incumbents and entrants shrinking over time. These results have implications for policies on womenʼs entrepreneurship, the uptake of business development services, and financing programs for MSMEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is making semiconductors in Europe a good idea? With the introduction of the European Chips Act in early 2022, this is no longer an academic question. In this article we evaluate these plans in light of a wider—but remarkably one‐sided—debate on industrial policy in advanced capitalist economies. Instead of focusing on policymakers, as most students of industrial policy have done, we draw attention to two first‐order conditions that determine the chances of policy success: the existence of (proto‐)competitive incumbents, and the alignment of the policy objectives with the prevailing institutional framework. We rely on that framework to evaluate the successes and failures in European aerospace, German biotech, and French computers, before using these insights to evaluate the European Chips Act. Investing in manufacturing of mature chips is, in that light, not a good idea. We suggest, instead, that the EU should concentrate on market segments that leverage its high‐skill workplaces and world‐class research system, and in which Europe has either already developed a comparative advantage or will not find itself at an initial disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the key competitive advantages of sharing economy platforms stems from their superior IT capabilities, which enable operations that are more efficient and/or effective than the incumbent firms. However, given that many of the incumbents tend to be established market leaders or resource‐rich multi‐nationals, their general inability to acquire the appropriate digital options (ie, the IT capabilities that enable the launch of, and response to, competitive actions) to meet the challenge of the sharing economy platforms is puzzling. This study explores this phenomenon by posing the research question: How do the "forces at work" associated with the sharing economy paradigm impact the digital options of incumbent firms? Based on the case of Qiangsheng Taxi and how its IT capabilities have been affected by the emergence of ridesharing platforms, the evidence uncovered suggests that the sharing economy can influence the digital options of incumbent firms through a process of digital attrition, which may be induced by a blend of unfavorable contextual influences (ie, an unbalanced regulatory regime, evolving market preferences and the resourcing advantages of sharing economy platforms). A framework is inductively derived from the data collected that depicts digital attrition as a process of three phases: (a) deinstitutionalization, (b) technological incapacitation, and (c) competitive erosion. In doing so, our study suggests that digital attrition may culminate in IT‐induced competitive disadvantages for incumbent firms, which in turn, could exacerbate the unfavorable contextual influences to complete a vicious cycle that reinforces the negative influence of the sharing economy even further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding representation is central to politics. Numerous studies assess under which conditions politicians share citizens' ideological preferences. However, under which conditions bureaucrats share citizens' ideological preferences has not been systematically studied. Yet, bureaucratic preferences shape policy outcomes. Our paper thus studies why bureaucrats are more right or left‐wing than citizens in some countries and points of time, yet not others. We theorize that political ideologies of past incumbents shape this variation. Incumbents can select ideologically aligned bureaucrats and socialize bureaucrats into ideological preferences; moreover, prospective bureaucrats may self‐select into ideologically aligned governments. As bureaucratic tenure exceeds political tenure, this politicization has lasting effects. Survey data from 87 countries supports this argument: bureaucrats are more left‐leaning than citizens in countries with longer prior rule by economically left‐wing governments, and more right‐wing in countries with more authoritarian pasts. This suggests that incumbents continue to shape the ideological preferences of bureaucrats after leaving office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]