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The United Kingdom's European Union membership referendum, which marked the end of UK membership in the European Union, created much uncertainty amongst those British and European business practitioners who were accustomed to conducting trade with partners across The North Sea. This exogenous threat to business was subsequently compounded by another serious threat: the COVID-19 pandemic. Knowing that business-to-business (B2B) relationships are particularly important for the success of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and that exogenous threats in the business environment can threaten these relationships, the purpose of this study is to examine whether frequent contact and social exchanges between partners on a range of topics, during threatening times, are positively linked to the relationship qualities of trust, satisfaction, and commitment. Guided by an explorative, expert interview with a Danish SME owner-manager (OM) who has a great deal of experience conducting business with UK partners, a questionnaire was developed to examine two variables which seemingly play central roles with regard to supporting business relationships during threatening times: contact frequency (how often partners are in contact), and contact scope (how often B2B partners talk together about topics which are social in nature). The questionnaire was administered to 193 Danish SME owners and managers who had British business partners at the time of the BREXIT referendum and the COVID-19 pandemic. The questionnaire revealed a positive relationship between contact frequency and relationship satisfaction and commitment, as well as a positive relationship between contact scope and relationship commitment. However, no significant relationships were found between contact frequency nor contact scope, on the one hand, and the level of trust between business partners on the other. This study has underscored the usefulness of studying social exchanges, and not just information exchanges, as they are an important, relationship-strengthening aspect of B2B communication. Indeed, while the central role played by informational exchanges in building quality relationships, including trusting relationships, is well-documented, this study increases our understanding of the value of social exchanges to business relationship quality; in particular, their noteworthy link to B2B partners' willingness to go to great lengths to maintain relationships during challenging times. Our findings indicate that simply being in contact with B2B partners and speaking about topics that are not directly related to business is not, on its own, a sufficient means of establishing trusting relationships; however, it is nonetheless worthwhile to take the time to nurture personal relationships with B2B partners. Just a modest amount of contact is positively related to relationship satisfaction, as well as relationship commitment, which can be crucial when unforeseen and threatening times inevitably arise in the business environment. Besides enhancing our understanding of the value of frequent and social exchanges in terms of relationship quality, this paper also illustrates a useful means of studying social aspects of business relationships, which are notoriously difficult to study. This is accomplished via a questionnaire study in which respondents are asked to concretely reflect upon and report on the frequency and nature of their contact with specific B2B partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does social trust emerge in a country? By comparing the cases of Denmark and Germany through six historical phases, we suggest that a plausible explanation is long run political stability. In Denmark, social trust was arguably allowed to accumulate slowly over time and was probably not destroyed up till the universal welfare state of the 20th century. In Germany, however, political instability since the first German state building hampered the emergence and maintenance of social trust, which is why social trust was never allowed to grow in this country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lobbying in the EU is difficult to measure. It varies in intensity and modes of expression across different policy areas and EU countries. By looking at a specific EU policy area, this paper suggests to measure differences in the lobbying activity across EU countries by the combination of petitioning firms and Council voting in the case of anti-dumping (AD) policy. If the political position of countries in anti-dumping cases is influenced by domestic lobbying efforts, we expect that the empirical pattern of country distribution of petitioning firms in EU anti-dumping cases corresponds closely to the empirical pattern of EU country distribution in Council voting. Our results show a low petitioning intensity for anti-dumping investigations and a high voting intensity against anti-dumping measures in Northern Europe. Thus, it seems likely that domestic lobbying efforts have influenced the political position of countries in the special case of EU anti-dumping policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often observed that members have little interest in monitoring their cooperatives. One explanation is that the members are free riders, hoping that others will perform the task. Another explanation is that the weak member interest is a consequence of members having trust in the leadership. These competing explanations refer to the theory of collective action and the social capital paradigm, respectively, and may be linked to the classical Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft concepts. Hence, one may expect free-rider behavior when conditions of Gesellschaft exist and trustful behavior when Gemeinschaft conditions rule. These propositions get support from five previous studies of members' readership of the annual reports of their cooperative. In large and heterogeneous memberships there is free-riding behavior, which explains the members' low interest in governing their cooperatives. To a limited extent a membership may have a subset of members who trust the leadership so they do not read the annual reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jensen C, Svendsen GT. Giving money to strangers: European welfare states and social trust Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 3-9 © 2009 The Author, Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. Why would you give money to strangers? That is the fundamental question posed by a new body of research into the relationship between social trust and willingness to accept high taxes and extensive welfare states. The literature argues that generalised trust causes and upholds universal welfare state institutions, an entirely plausible explanation of the Scandinavian social democratic welfare states. However, it cannot explain the presence of very large welfare states in Continental Europe, where the level of generalised trust is much lower than in Scandinavia. The article adds to the existing literature by arguing that the 'bumblebee' of conservative welfare states is characterised by particularistic trust and familiaristic welfare institutions, which are functional equivalents to the mechanisms found in Scandinavia. Future research into the trust-welfare state relationship should therefore focus on the trust profile of a country to understand how the welfare state provides its citizens with benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the application and extension of Mancur Olson's study of state-making to the Vikings. Sub-optimal provision of public goods; Roving banditry leading to over-plundering and zero profits for the plunderers, which makes stationary banditry profitable; Analysis on how Vikings' activities and settlements are consistent with the dynamics of the process being reflected in the variation in the number of raids and the amount of wealth extracted.

A new Green Paper from the European Commission on emissions trading foresees the setting up of a CO2 trading system within the EU for the energy sector. Because any such international environmental agreement is self-enforcing, the participants must have an economic net gain from joining the proposed system. Our contribution is therefore to follow the Green Paper proposal and investigate whether member countries and the largest industrial boilers in the electricity sector actually will receive significant net gains from CO2 trade in the European Union rather than undertaking domestic actions solely. We show, based on the PRIMES model, that a full CO2 emission trading system between Annex B countries suggests overall cost savings of the order of 40% compared with a situation with no trading at all between member states. A tradable CO2 permit scheme with comprehensive coverage of emissions within the EU could reduce the total abatement costs by 32% compared with a system with no trading. In comparison, a Community-wide system containing only the electricity and steam sector would reduce the total abatement costs by 13% only. Though a tradable CO2 permit market for the power and steam sector can provide significant gains from trading, these gains can be almost four times higher than for a trade system that includes all sectors in the EU. Thus, the electricity and steam sector is a fit target group as starting point, but in the longer run the system must be organized in a way that provides opportunities for other sectors to ‘opt in’ over time. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social capital, measured as the level of trust among people, may be regarded as a new production factor alongside the traditional ones of human and physical capital. With appropriate levels of social capital, monitoring and transaction costs can be saved and thus economic growth stimulated. Via linking social capital to rural development and comparing the cases of agricultural cooperative movements in Denmark and Poland, this paper identifies possible roots of building social capital and suggests that social capital was built through a lengthy process in both countries during the 19th century. However, the comparison of the present level of social capital indicates that the level of social capital is significantly higher in Denmark than in Poland. The paper concludes that the reason for this difference is the fact that the original accumulation of social capital in Poland was destroyed by the communist regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CO2 emission taxation has in general failed in the EU. Even a potential CO2 tax with a full refund of revenues is hardly politically feasible because the few and large capital-intensive ‘losers’ will oppose it more strongly than the numerous and small ‘winners’ who will promote it. The grandfathering of CO2 permit rights may alternatively be the politically and administratively most feasible solution for regulating CO2 in the EU for three reasons: First, no revenue needs to be redistributed. Second, the institutional structure in the EU allows that a permit market, as a non-fiscal measure, may be adopted by majority voting rather than unanimity. Third, the free-rider problem may be overcome by allocating a relatively larger amount of permits to the most reluctant EU members than their historical emission levels qualify them for. Based on the experience of the US Acid Rain Program (ARP), a suitable starting point for a potential CO2 market in the EU could be the electric utility industry as regulated by the European Environment Agency. This new model may be considered in the US as well. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US has been criticized for wanting to earn a fortune on a globalCO2 market. However, compared to the situation without trade and provided that such a market is designed so that it does not pay to cheat, a global CO2 market may provide the world with an epoch-making means of cost-effective control which can solve future global environmental problems. The economic gains from 'hot air' distributions of permits and CO2 trade make the system politically attractive to potential participants. For example, vital financial subsidies from the EU to Eastern Europe are to be expected. Itwill probably not pay to cheat if quotas are renewed periodically bythe UN. Cheating countries are then to be excluded from further profitable trade. Also, a periodical renewal of permits makes it possibleto tighten target levels in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing the issue of EU foreign policy, this article analyses one of the European institutions, the EEAS, and examines how the EEAS navigates in a European landscape characterised by a handful of main foreign policy paradigms. In particular, we ask how the EEAS has adjusted its foreign policies in the light of competing paradigms. In the first section, we explicate the key concepts including policy paradigms, worldviews and public philosophy. Having thus provided the conceptual settings, the third section examines the main foreign policy paradigms that the EEAS will need to prudently navigate. We focus on four dimensions: world order and multilateralism, security, neighbours and climate change. The dimensions are chosen simply because they are at the top of the contemporary European policy agenda. While analysing paradigm shifts, we discuss how the topic of the article relates to the model of four Europes. Finally, we briefly conclude and outline wider perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Does higher health literacy lead to higher trust in public hospitals? Existing literature suggests that this is the case since a positive association between the level of health literacy and the level of trust in physicians and the health care system has been shown. This study aims to challenge this assumption. Methods: Based on theoretical arguments from game theory and analysis of empirical data, we argue that the association is better described as an inversely u-shaped curve, suggesting that low and high levels of health literacy lead to a lower level of trust than a medium level of health literacy does. The empirical analysis is based on a study of the Danes' relationship to the overall health care system. More than 6000 Danes have been asked about their overall expectations of the health service, their concrete experiences and their attitudes to a number of change initiatives. Results: Game theory analysis show that the combined perceived cooperation and benefit effects can explain an inversely u-shaped relationship between social groups and trust in the health care system. Based on quantitative, binary regression analyses of empirical data, the lowest degree of trust is found among patients from the lowest and highest social groups, while the highest degree of trust is found in the middle group. The main driver for this result is that while patients having low health literacy perceive that the health care system is not cooperative, patients with a high level of health literacy have high expectations about the quality, which the health care system might not be able to provide. This reduces the perceived benefit from their encounter with the health care system. Conclusion: It is important that health care professionals understand that some patient groups have a higher chance of cooperation (e.g., agreeing on the choice of treatment) or defection (e.g. passing a complaint) than others. In perspective, future research should undertake further qualitative examinations of possible patient types and their demands in relation to different health care sectors, focusing specifically on the opportunities to improve the handling of different patient types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we deal with environmental management issues at the local level? Traditionally, the approach proposed from an environmental management perspective has involved various kinds of "top-down" regulatory measures, such as defining a standard that must be satisfied or a tax on pollution. Conversely, there has been less focus on the analysis of local, bottom-up approaches, as for example the effectiveness of various ways of organizing a local environmental transition process. Our focus is on analyzing of under what conditions it is possible for a "green entrepreneur" (GE) to manage a transition from brown to green energy? Theoretically, we consider four entrepreneurial skills, at least two of which must be present for the GE to succeed. In the case of the Danish island of Samsø and its rapid introduction of renewable energy, three of these skills are found to be present: profits, communication, and trustworthiness. The GE, however, failed to activate the fourth skill concerning the ability to persuade local non-green actors regarding the value of the green component. Thus, a main result is that it is crucial to convince non-green locals about the profitability of local environmental management rather than its potentially green components., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)